The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-20 00:00:00

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coived, up to August 29, one widow and 12 cholera f
orphans, whose maintenance, until they are able
to provide for themselves, will cost the parish,
according to the estimate of a competent authority,
not less than 4201.; while a timely expenditure of 301.
in putting the court in a proper sanitary condition
would probably have prevented the occurrence of a single
case of cholera,. The funerals of persons who have died
of cholera in the metropolis alone have already incurred
an expenditure of not less than 50,000/."
We can easily believe this, for we have known
similar results from the more common case of epi-
demic fever, engendered and diffused by poverty,
closeness, dirt, and other removable causes. All
neglect, whether private or public, is sure to be
retaliated. A pestilence is a call upon the public to
perform a common duty ; and if that call be dis-
obeyed, we shall probably suffer a more serious
punishment than the drowsy rebukes of conscience.
Besides an increased danger of infection, we shall
have to support the wives and families of those whom
we now leave to die.
CHRONICLE.—We have much satisfaction in
learning from the postscript which Lord Brougham
has appended to the second edition of his recent letter
to Sir James Graham, that he intends, immediately
on the re-assembling of Parliament, to resume his
labours in relation to the important Bills constituting
the Criminal Law Digest ; and it will, therefore, not
be without advantage to state briefly the history of
these measures, so that the public may be in a position
to judge for themselves as to what degree of value
ought to be attached to them. No sooner had Lord
Brougham, as Chancellor in the Reform Ministry,
been entrusted with the Great Seal than he determined
to carry out the enlightened scheme of digesting the
criminal law—a scheme which for many years had
occupied his thoughts and stimulated his ambition,
and the practicability and expediency of which had
been remarkably illustrated by the signal success of
the partial Consolidation Acts which, in 1827
and 1828, had been introduced and carried by Sir
Robert Peel and Lord Lansdowne. Accordingly, in
the summer of 1833, a Commission was issued, at the
special instance of the Chancellor, by which the fol-
lowing eminent lawyers—Messrs. Starkie, Bellenden
Ksr, Amos, Wightman, and Austin—were empowered
and directed "to digest into one statute all the
statutes and enactments touching crime and the trial
and punishment thereof; to digest into one other
statute all the provisions of the common or unwritten
law touching the same ; and to inquire and report
how far it might he expedient to combine both
these statutes into one bodes of the criminal, law,
repealing all other statutory provisions. In
1836 Mr. Jardine was nominated a Commissioner
in the place of Mr. Austin; and in October,e
1i58370,
the Commission, having expired upon the
f
tihne Crown, nt trheesiessuseedverbayl hleertteprrsespeantte aj ( sty.
obediencew to these
Commis-
sioners ; and, after urging numerous arguments, and
elabo-
rate Reports were annually made by the
expreseing a decided opinion in favour of embodying
in one digest both the written and the unwritten law
respecting crimes and punishments, and in another the
written and unwritten law of procedure in respect of
indictable offences, they proceeded to frame two Bills
in accordance with these views, and to offer sug-
gestions for such partial alterations in the law as
they considered to be necessary. In 1843—having in
the interval owed their continuance in office princi-
pally to the liberal and far• sighted policy of Sir
James Graham—they presented, in their Seventh
Report, the original draft of the Digest of Crimes
and Punishments; and in the following year a Bill,
founded upon this valuable Report, was laid before
the House of Peers by Lord Brougham. Lord Lynd-
hurst, then Chancellor, highly approved of the Bill;
but as it related to a subject of very great importance,
and was, moreover, from its very nature, incapable
of being duly scrutinized and corrected by the
Legislature, the G wernment deemed it expedient
that it should be referred to another Com-
mission, for the purpose of being carefully re-
vised. A fresh Commission was consequently issued in
February, 1845, which empowered Messrs. Starkie
and Bellenden Ker to finish the Digest of Criminal
Procedure—then on the eve of completion—and
directed them, in conjunction with Sir Edward
Ryan and Messrs. Vaughan Richards and Amos, to
reconsider the subject matter and revise the language
of both Digests, and to report fully thereon. In ac-
cordance with these directions, the Learned Commis-
si proceeded to examine most minutely the Bill
of Crimes and Punishments, and the reports on
which it was founded ; and, aided as they were by
the criticisms of reviewers and by the suggestions of
many lawyers who felt an interest in the subject,
they were enabled to make many valuable altera-
tions in the structure of the Digest, and to present a
further report in 1847, in which it was embodied in
its revised form. The measure, having thus re-
ceived a very full consideration, was again brought
in by Lord Brougham during the session of 'lB4B,
and was referred to a Select Committee of the Lords.
The mode in which the Bill has since been dealt
with is thus described by Lord Brougham, in his
letter to Sir James Graham. "As chairman of that
Committee, I addressed letters," he says, " to all the
Judges of the three kingdoms, requesting the obser-
vations upon the Digest, submitting it to them, to-
gether with copies of all the Reports upon which it
had been founded. Waiting for the answers of those
learned persons, I postponed .to the next session all
further proceedings with the Bill. Again, I presented
it at the very beginning of the session just ended;
again it was referred to the same Select Committee;
and again we anxiously expected the answers of the
Judges. The session has, however, passed away with-
out any answer whatever from any of the English
Judges—though valuable suggestions have been
communicated from those of the other two
kingdoms." Whether Lord Brougham is justified
in concluding from this circumstance, " that the
Judges of England are satisfied with the Digest,
and have no suggestions to offer," is a matter
respecting which opinions may well differ; but we
are much mistaken if there can be more than one
opinion respecting the inexpediency, not to say the
impropriety, of the conduct of these eminent and
learned personages, in thus declining to assist the
House of Lords in its praiseworthy attempts to im-
prove the administration of justice. As the sworn
interpreters of the law, the Judges are obviously
capable, in a pre-eminent degree, of giving sound
advice respecting the amendment of it ; and we can-
not help feeling that in this instance they would have
best consulted their own real interest and dignity,
had they net treated with a silent disregard, which
may readily be mistaken for contempt, the expressed
wishes of the Second Estate of the realm. A minute
examination of the Digest was not asked, and could
not be expected from men whose time, during nine
months of the year, is amply occupied by judicial
duties ; but surely it was not very unrea-
sonable to imagine that those who live by
the law would willingly bestow some small
portion of their three months' leisure in form-
ing and expressing at least a general opinion on so
important a measure as the Bill of Crimes and
Punishments. Had they adopted this course, they
would assuredly have taken the most effectual steps
for securing to themselves the gratitude and respect
of their fellow-countrymen and of posterity. As it
was, they enjoyed, and we hope without alloy, the
uninterrupted idleness of a lawyer's long vacation.
No sooner had the Commissioners revised the Bill of
Crimes and Punishments, than they gave their undi-
vided and earnest attention to the Digest of Criminal
Procedure. The original draft of this Digest was
completed so long back as 1845—when it was pre-
sented by the Commissioners in connexion with
an elaborate Report; and it was also ac-
companied by the highly valuable suggestions of
nearly a hundred practical lawyers, who had been
requested to state the results of their experience re-
specting criminal procedure, and to answer categori-
cally a series of questions on the subject, which were
contained in a paper prepared and circulated by the
Commissioners. The arduous task of revising this
second Digest was brought to a close only last July ;
and the two measures, forming together a complete
code of criminal law, are now ready to be submitted
for the approval of .the Legislature. Our limits, of
course, preclude us from examining these measures in
detail ; but we can confidently assert that, from the
earliest period of the nation's history down to the
present day, no Bill has been prepared with one-tenth
part of the care which, during sixteen years, has
been unremittingly bestowed upon the Digests of the
Criminal Law.

TIMES.—The Carlisle agricultural anniversary
seems to have been a very genial affair. Its tone is
rather that of a harvest-home than a political reunion.
In all ages and countries the autumnal equinox has
been the time for such festivities, the labours of the
year being then over and mind and body equally ex-
hausted. The drama, races, and games of all sorts,
took their rise from the simple amusements of this
season. The tired husbandmen, with their wives
and their daughters, ate their new bread and drank
their new wine, and anointed themselves with new
oil ; killed the young of their flocks—the kids in
honour of Bacchus ; greased and inflated the skins,
performed various antics with them—particularly a
certain dance, which seems the original of our horn-
pipe on eggs—and vied with one another in extempore
verses and jokes of a rough description. The
Fescennine verses, as old probably as Italy itself,
were harvest•home jokes, which it took a good many
centuries to refine into the satires of Horace or
Juvenal. Thespis used to begin his season in
September, muster his corps, mount his waggon,
and
wstar o throughhis
still
ruder the
predecessors.villages
with
aThseu,cprceesssiduinng.:
deity of the occasion all over the world wad., Bacchus,
.
under one name or another. The jolly
henioyed a
large share of mortal affections, and tizgoofun and
laughter, eating and drinking,' and larking
ll
sorts, seem to have been the substance of worship,hilsngo a
was not to be trifled with, for he could and would in-
filet terrible. vengeance on his contemners. Such is
nil idea the world hay Always had of agri-
the natural

cultural meeting after harvest, and Lord Brougham
being a good scholar, as well as a man with a good
deal of nature in his composition, and a fund of human
sympathy about him, has instinctively fallen into it.
We like him all the better for doing so. Accordingly,
the ex-Chancellor, while giving some capital advice,
did not forget to be more than usually entertaining.
He discussed with suitable gravity the important
subjects of sound farming accounts, agricultural ma-
chinery worked by steam, and clod crushing; but,
over and above that living energy with which he dis-
cusses all subjects whatever, he associated
the whole with an image which it is im-
possible for the most oblivious natures to
forget. Whenever we see a farmer at his
accounts, or a patent thrashing machine, or a
clod that wants crushing, we shall think of the two
Chancellors of England in a quadrille. Ten or twelve
years since, these two celebrated men, who had long
been contesting the Woolsack inch by inch, were en-
gaged in another sort of rivalry. Lord Lyndhurst I
danced and Lord Brougham would not be beaten, so
he danced also. There was no Queen of Beauty to
award the prize, and the competitors still dispute it.
Lord Lyndhurst thought he danced the best, and
Lord Brougham was equally confident of his own
superiority. We can quite understand that. The
ideas of youth survive the physical graces and powers,
and many a man can bound and pirouette in his soul,
while his frame is racked with rheumatism, or swollen
with gout. Everybody dreams that he can fly. It
should be considered, too, that their Lordships saw
one another, but could not see themselves, or, at least,
as far as regarded themselves, were more aware of
their intentions than of their performances. Lord
Brougham still claims the victory, and leaves the
matter in the hands of an impartial posterity. One
thing, however, we are surprised at. It had
been reported that Lord Brougham danced with the
country lasses at Brougham-hall for several hours
together, and his Lordship now wishes, with one of
his customary adjurations, that the report had been
true. His oniy regret is, that he cannot realise
the rumour. Then, why does he refuse to believe it ?
If he will take our advice, he will trust the public
impression rather than his own memory, which may
have suffered a temporary obfuscation. The pleasures
of memory are happily not always dependent on fact.
The dance of the Chancellors belongs to a series of
solemnities. There is the war dance, and the death
dance; now we have the law dance. But many
grave men have danced. Socrates danced every night,
lie said, in order to go to bed with his feet warm.
Various great men of antiquity danced, and great
authorities have commended the practice. Chancel-
lors Lyndhurst and Brougham will now be added. to
the list. One of their most distinguished predeces-
sors betrays a lurking inclination that way. "Dancing
to song," says Lord Bacon, "is a thing of great state
and pleasure." Queen Elizabeth " danced high and
composedly" before the Spanish Ambassador.
A Cardinal once danced to please a Queen. There
was something rather crusty about the Romans,
and they did not dance. "Nemo saltat sobrius,"
says Cicero; but, in our humble opinion, if his
contemporaries had danced a little more, t.':iey
would have cut throats a little less, and Cicero him-
self might have obtained to a good old age. In the
interesting scene described by Lord Brougham, we
recognize some guarantee that neither of these men
will ever be dangerous to the State. Lord Brougham
was once the head of a popular* movement, and Lord
Lyndhurst has occupied a similar position in an
aristocratic combination. Plots, intriguer, ulterior
designs, unavowed associates, corruption, and every-
thing short of treason has been ascribed to both in
turn by their respective opponents. Had we no other
reason to put faith in their innocence of purpose, we
might find it in the fact of which Lord Brougham
has now left an indelible record. His Lordship has
alternately been terrible to a King, to a Government,
to a House of Lords, and to an Opposition. Now,
"he capers nimbly in a lady's chamber to the
lascivious pleasing of a lute;" and therefore is at
least safe from Gloster's temptation to be a villain.
Without claiming for Lord Brougham all the
qualities necessary for an agricultural leader, we
shall be glad to see him put a little of his spirit
into that feeble and diffident class. His Lordship is
possessed by an honourable ambition to beat every-
body and everything. He sees a rival Chancellor
dancing, and is unable to sit still. His rival is
now tied by the leg, and his Lordship cannot
refrain from informing us in a very solemn manner
that he would gladly have passed an evening dancing
with country lasses but for the indelicacy of appear-
ing to steal a march on Lord Lyndhurst. He walks
over a field, ready, as its owner imagines, for the seed
and sees it paved with intractable clods. lie is
seized with as strong a desire to pulverize them, and
render them pervious to sun, rain, and seed, as if they
were so many blockheads in some part of her
Majesty's Palace at Westminster. He sees the hob-
nailed clodhopper, the toiling plough, the ineffective
harrow, the tedious flail, and all the helpless imple-
ments of the wretched husbandman, and immediately
feels their pace too slow for his own natural gallop.
So he calls out for steam, and peoples the field and
the farmyard with a multitude of steam-engines,
puffing and blowing on fifty different errands. It
is, in fact, his own soul he puts into all the functions
of husbandry. That soul is steam. Nothing will
satisfy him but forwarding all nature by express.
The general fault of husbandry lies in the other
direction, for to one farmer of spirit and adventure
there are two who will run no risks, try no experi-
ments, tolerate no innovation, go to no extra expense,
and accept no aid from science. If his Lordship can
put a little more life into these gentlemen, he will do
them a great service.

CITY COMMISSION OF SEWERS.
Tuesday the City Commissioners held a Court of
Sewers at Guildhall; Mr. Deputy Peacock presiding.
MR. MOFFATT'S CATGUT MANUFACTORY.
With reference to a complaint against Mr. Moffatt,
of 145, Minories, for carrying on a catgut manufac-
tory, much to the annoyahce of his neighbours, a letter
was read from Mr. Alfred Brown, of 147, Minories.
Mr. Deputy WRIGHT said that Mr. Brown had in-
formed him that the offensive smell then arising from
Mr. Moffatt's premises appeared to be something like
burning hair. He (Mr. Wright) was satisfied that
the manufactory was a great nuisance, and he hoped
the Court would order another inspection to be made
when the works were in full operation.—Agreed to.
STILL-ALLEY, BISHOPSGATE-STREET.
One portion of the report of the General Purposes
Committee consisted of an elaborate defence of the
Commissioners, in answer to the charges brought
against them by Mr. Jeyne at the late vestry-meeting
of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, with respect to the sani-
tary condition of Still-alley, Bishopsgate- street.
After a lengthened discussion, Mr. Alderman
SIDNEY moved, and Mr. Deputy STEVENS seconded,
a proposition that the report be referred back to the
committee, and that they avail themselves of the
assistance of Mr. Jeyne and Mr. Hopgood.—Carried
unanimously:
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER.
Mr. SimoN (chief medical officer) produced his
report. It stated that during the past week the deaths
in the city from cholera had been 67; from diarrheas,
IS ; showing a still further decrease, and confirming
the hope expressed by him at the last meeting, that
the worst period of the epidemic was passed. So far,
however, from recommending any relaxation of pre.
ventive measures, he urged their prosecution with
increased vigour.
DISGRACEFUL STATE OF ST. °LAVE'S CHURCHYARD.
Mr. SIMON then read an affidavit made by a widow
lady residing in Monkwell street, near the General
Post-office. The deponent stated that her house
overlooked the churchyard of St. Olave's, and that on
Sunday last the gravediggers commenced their work
at six o'clock in the morning, and continued until
noon, by which time they had thrown out of the
grave four human heads in a " green state," with hair
visible, and other parts of human bodies on which the
flesh still remained.—(Hear, bear.) Mr. Simon recom-
mended that the proper legal proceedings be immedi-
ately taken against the perpetrators of the abominable
outrage.
It was finally resolved that the particulars be com-
municated to the General Board of Health, and that
the sexton of St. Olave's be summoned before the
magistrates.
Complaints were then made of the imperfect
manner in which Smithfield had been cleansed of late.
The matter was ordered to stand over for considera•
tion ; and, after the transaction of some routine
business, the Court broke up after a very prolonged
sitting.

THE LATE FIRE IN CAMBRIDGE.—The inquest
called to inquire into the origin of the late fire on the
Market Hill, Cambridge, was resumed on Tuesday even-
ing, at the town-hall. The court was, as before, densely
crowded, and several of the borough magistrates were
on the bench. Mr. C. H. Cooper, the deputy.coroner,
presided, and an immense mass of evidence was gone
into. Mr. Lodge, the occupant of the premises upon
which the fire originated, was in attendance, accompa-
nied by Mr. Hyde, his solicitor. The jury retired, and
after an absence of about half an hour returned an open
verdict, " That the fire originated on the premises lately
occupied by Mr. Lodge; but how or by what means there
is no evidence to show. We further find that the other
premises consumed were burnt by reason of their con-
tiguity to the premises of Mr. Lodge." The above hav-
ing been couched by the coroner in the language of the
law, and agreed to by the jury in that form, the jury
were discharged. A subscription has been got up and
closed, the amount having:reached a sum which will cover
the losses of the destitute sufferers.
An accident occurred on the 12th inst. on the
railroad from Hamburgh to Berlin. A fire having
broken out in the village of Lechsee, two fire-engines
were sent off from Hamburgh by the railroad. At
about two leagues from the city a waggon, in which
sloecrioomuosltyivehuarntd,
arnand offthe thfierefeanilriinesAlwl
were the engines and the firemen, got loose from the
pieces. etrhee bmroeknenwetroe