The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-24 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1849.

The decision of the House of Commons on the
Navigation Laws, turns over the question to that
branch of the Legislature whose peculiar province is
to be cautious. There is a caution in doing, and there
is a caution in not doing; a man may be drowned
through refusing to commit himself to the deep, as
well as by rashly determining to swim.i.

The majority in the House of Commons is not very
strong ; so there is opportunity for the Lords to
be imprudent if they like. The military Duke, who,
as a leader of armies, has been accustomed to look
before him, is understood to have made up his
mind in favour of the measure. .The key to the
whole decision, is the probability or improbability of
a general return to protective duties. If probability
carries the day, then the mass of the hereditary legis-
lators, and others in a similar position, may have an
interest in tempting the dangers of refusing the Go-
verument's measure. If on the contrary, the
chances of this are doubtful, the same parties have a
distinct interest in removing protection from all
minor objects, the grand one being despaired of.
Nobody is deceived by the false light thrown out,
in the way of protesting that there is no intention of
retrograding, but only of_staying the further advance
of Free Trade in a direction perilous to British naval
supremacy. There may be half a dozen country
Members, who from old associations cannot get this
out of their heads, and act candidly upon theprtihne-
eiple. But the leaders of the Opposition in
House of Commons make a " darkness visible" on
this point. They may pretend in words to main-
tain it, but in sense they deny it. In the great
showoff of Protectionist eloquence on the second
reading, we had the diapason ending full, in
" Protected and Regenerated England." And last
night the tone was substantially the same. The op-
pression of industry, the misery of the working
classes, the failure of Free Trade hitherto (meaning,
it is to be supposed, the loss of all that
might be gained by shutting up railways to
nurse the post horse interest) were the reasons
advanced for the conduct of the Opposition. This is
not hailing, but laying down a retrograde march ;
and any who are misled by it, must have extraordinary
talents for being deceived.
The dangers at home are apparent enough. "Up,
Chartists, and at 'em le, will reasonably occur to his

Grace, as the fair translation of announcing that the
Anti-Liberals are to be restored. When Lord JOHN
is speaking on Kennington Common, and Mr. TUF-
NELL breaking windows at Charing-cross, there will be
a wonderful alteration in the relative position of that
extreme portion of the Liberal party, with which, as
with any other card, the best must be done that may,
but no thanks to those who shuffle the pack to turn
it out.
Abroad, the fact will probably tell still more di-
rectly. The re-apparition of the diplomatists of 1815 in
England, calls for an entirely new policy on the part of
those who have been jogging under easy sail to pre •
vent their passengers from being sea-sick. If
the bags of 2Eolus are to be opened, there must
be no complaining at any dispersion of fleets
that now sail in company, nor any wonder at col-
lisions that will arise. In fact it will be a new sera,
and " every man for himself" must be the motto of
the season. France must prepare, first or last, for a
movement on her Belgian frontier, and a march to
Paris. Her natural and necessary proceeding must
be to take time by the forelock. She must be de-
mented, or be wooing a Restoration by foreign arms, if
a Protectionist majority in the House of Lords does
not let loose the imprisoned angels now struggling
between the Saone and Rhone, and leave them to
repeat the exploits of the army of Dijon of the first
Republic. Hungary and Italy should hold out; for
France must intervene. All statesmen are bound
to calculate on men's doing what they would do
themselves. Once throw the English Conservatives
into the balance, and the scale may descend to depths
which imagination fears to follow.
Here then is meat for prudent men to chew on.
If there is a " prudence department" in the British
Government, a fine opportunity is given for history to
• jot down the evidences of its use.

In publishing the last details of an execution which
must remain for ever conspicuous in the annals of
human atrocity, we would endeavour to remove
every vestige of that morbid sympathy which is too
frequently, and in the present instance most extra-
vagantly lavished upon the memory of an assassin.
Many may doubtless be influenced by their consti
tutional sensitiveness so far as to attach some cre-
dence to the declaration of his innocence by JAMES
BLOMFIELD RUSH—a declaration which that wretched
man continued uninterruptedly to the awful moment
when he was hurried into the presence of an avenging
GOD. Impressed with a profound sense of the
very dubious and inconclusive character of any evi-
dence which is merely circumstantial, those persons
may be disposed to attach an unusual importance to
asseverations so solemn, so explicit, and so reiterated.
They may, while acknowledging that matters looked
very black in their bearing upon Rusu, still give him
the benefit of a doubt as to the mere possibility of his
not being the guilty monster he has been reputed.
They may say—After all, this man may not have been
the murderer of the Messrs. JERMY—his story about
Dick and Joe, improbable as it appears, may be cor-
rect—facts may ultimately turn up, as he himself has
declared again and again in the court of justice, in the
condemned cell, and even on the planks of the scaffold,
fixing the crime upon others, and proving him to
have been unjustly subjected to an ignominious
death. As to the suspicious circumstances brought
against him in evidence—(they may continue to
reason)—stranger things than these have been found
explicable on many previous occasions. With regard
to the lantern, for example, farmers usually require
lanterns when going over their fields at night. As to
the wig—Rusu might, as he declared, have had his
head shared during illness, and have purchased that
wig, not to use it as a disguise but as a covering.
Again, the testimony of the witnesses varied as to
the dress of the assassin—whether it was a cloak
reaching to the knees or to the ancles—whether it
was held up or allowed to fall loosely. Then it would
be a terrible, and even dangerous, precedent to hang
a man who was sworn to be under a masquerade,
which, even according to the statements furnished
by the witnesses themselves, was sufficient to con-
ceal any person's identity, the form and the features
being muffled up effectually in a flowing gar-
ment, a broad hat, a wig, and a mask ! Was
it likely either, as the accused himself suggested, that
one man would have the temerity to enter a large
house numerously inhabited to shoot one individual
after another ? Is it not more probable that there
were at the least two or three assailants ? And is it
rational to suppose that one so well acquainted with
the localities as Rum would have the madness to go
round by the servants' quarters after having fired at
JERMY the Elder, and at Mr. JERaty the
Younger ? Even now we ourselves hear these argu-
ments advanced by intelligent persons not unaccus-
tomed to scrutinize the mazes of systematic chicanery
and deception. We would at once and for ever put
an end to all these morbid reservations of judg-
ment as to the criminality of RUSH by a few
very simple comments on the facts adduced in evi-
dence against him—facts which brand his name with
an infamy, the like of which has never presented
itself even before the most dismal imagination.
Nothing was wanting in reason to fix the guilt of
the double assassination upon the occupant of Potash-
farm. First and foremost of all, there was the motive.
Secondly, there were all the collateral circumstances
showing that Rusu was absent from his dwelling at
the time when the assassinations were perpetrated.
Thirdly, there were all the contradictions and preva-
rications of his defence. Fourthly, there were those
sinister blots upon his previous history, and those
evil peculiarities in his temperament, which marked
him out as a vicious man, and consequently as a man
not incapable of committing such atrocities. As to
the motive, it was obvious ; it was more than ob-
vious, it was glaring. There were the forgeries
written by: the hand of his unfortunate paramour
at his own express instigation. Rusu had an inte•
rest contingent upon the death of the Recorder of
Norwich; and the forged documents found in the
secret closet at Potash-farm demonstrate that he had
a particular interest in the demise of Mr. JERMY be-
fore another forty-eight hours had elapsed. It was
notorious, moreover, not only to their two house-
holds but to the whole surrounding neighbourhood,
that there existed serious differences between the
murdered men and the reputed assassin. Those dif-
ferences were known to have latterly become
greater and greater, insomuch that the mutual dis-
like of Rusu and JERMY had gradually rankled
into hatred. The former had been heard more
than once to threaten vengeance against
the latter—not only in the low haunts of
depravity which, unhappily, tend to propa-
gate so much moral corruption in the metro-
polis, but in the presence of witnesses, whose
testimony might reasonably be regarded as credible.
Again, as to the collateral circumstances which we
consider to have been sufficient almost of themselves
to attest the criminality of the ruffian who was exe-
cuted on Saturday, he was away from Potash-
farm during precisely the interval required for the
perpetration of the crime and for the traversing of
the distance between that residence and Stanfield
Hall. He was away at the time the murders were
committed. He returned home later in the evening,
in an extraordinary state of agitation. He
was pale, restless, and trembling. He even
told his mistress that something dreadful
had just occurred up at the hall, and warned her, in
case any one came in the morning to make inquiries,
to say that he had been out only so long and at such
an hour. On the arrival of the policemen at day-
break, a mask, a wig, a lantern, one or two short
guns, and a cloak still damp with rain, were disco-
vered on the premises—all coinciding with the des-
cription given by those who had seen the disguised
murderer overnight. Then as to the contradictions
of the prisoner during the defence and cross-exami-
nation. His absurd and rambling story about Joe,
and Dick, and the nameless attorney, were beyond
all credence. The extravagant fable of the
clothes buried in the pig-stye, fad eaten by
the sow, was an insult to the common sense of
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were simply indicative that his object was intimida-
tion, and that the attempt at extortng a deceptive con-
fession was a signal failure. As to the odium attached
to the name and reputation of Rusn, prior to the great
catastrophe which ultimately led to the tremendous
expiation of his offences—it is a matter
of
to the whole country side, and had extended even into
the streets and wine. shops of the capital.
Knowing these things, and recognising the
preternutliral guilt of 01 AtrOciollei murderer,

the obduracy of his whole conduct up to the
time of his execution, exhibits a pheno-
Menon of atrocity such as must, we pray to Heaven,
remain for ever without a parallel. The hypocrisy
of his execrable life has been consummated by the
death of a liar, whose lie is nothing short of being
blasphemous. The hardihood of his callous and un-
flinching nature has been carried to the acme of the
most hideous impiety and of the most demoniacal
daring. After a series of deceptions which of them-
selves were sufficiently horrible, he has had the auda,
city to brave the presence of the DEITY steeped in the
crimson of crime, and yet assuming to himself the
whiteness of innocence.

Since the discovery of the last acts of villany per-
petrated by this great criminal terrible suspicions
have started from the obscurity of his past history.
In the October of 1844, his step-father, a farmer
of Felmingham, was discovered in the kitchen of
his dwelling-house, dead, with a gun 1} ing
by his side, and the whole of its contents lodged in
his skull. Although the verdict delivered by the
jury on the coroner's inquest was one of accidental
death, the entire county regarded the deceased as
having been murdered by JAMES BLOMFIELD Rusn,
at that time a farmer and auctioneer, at Wymondham.
In the August of 1848, the mother of this unnatural
miscreant was so ill as to require the attendance
night and day of a professional nurse. One night this
nurse, according to her own statement, was desired
by Russ; to go to bed, the latter remarking
that he would sit up with the invalid. The
woman had scarcely laid her head upon her
pillow when RUSH crept into the room, ap-
parently to find out whether she were asleep or awake.
Early on the following morning he informed the at-
tendant that his mother had died during the night ;
and, on the nurse entering the apartment of the de-
ceased, she found to her amazement that Rusu had
himself laid out the corpse without calling for wsist-
ance. To crown the infamies of this unexampled vil-
lain, everything betokens on his part an intention to
murder his paramour. The dagger found under his
mattress, the secret closet, and the hollow flooring, all
evince on his part a determination toremove, at the first
opportunity, the only formidable witness against him,
the only witness whose testimony could lead to his
conviction. Had he been less unnerved on the night
of the double assassination, had he found EMILY
SANDFORD sleeping on either of the occasions when
he entered her room during the darkness, it is not
improbable that he would have availed himself of
that interval to destroy her and to make away with
her remains. Happily, however, for that miserable
girl the period of punishment followed with an awful
rapidity the footsteps of this matchless murderer. He
could no longer dream of impunity. After a life in-
conceivably compounded of ferocity and hypocrisy
he encountered a death unutterably sombre, hopeless
and ignominious. He descended into the shadows of
the grave with a hideous affectation of piety, and
confronted the Majesty of the Omnipotent GOD with
the sneer of indifference and the defiance of a lie.

Now that the corpse of the murderer is rotting in
degraded obscurity, and that his memory is corrupt-
ing into an infamous oblivion, we can only look back
upon the records of his career with a shudder of
astonishment.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We hare received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The National Assembly yesterday passed the Bill
awarding compensation to the French colonists for
the abolition of slavery. The Bill allows for this
purpose six millions of francs in the Five per Cent.
Rentes, and six millions of francs in money ; one-
eighth part of the six millions of Rentes, which goes
to the colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the
island of Bourbon, is to go to the establishment of a
bank in each of these colonies. The third reading
will take place in a few days.
The Assembly has refused the demand made by
M. BONNELIER, for liberty to prosecute M. TAs-
CHEEEAU for a libel inserted in the Revue Retro-
spective.
The Moniteur announces that a telegraphic dis-
patch had been received by the Government from
Marseilles, dated the 22d instant, 10 A ax., and stat-
ing that at tl at instant the expedition for Civita
Vecchia was leaving the harbcur. When the news
reached the Bourse the funds fell one per cent. It is
generally considered that the Government has been
too hasty.
The Debats says that it has reason to believe that
there is some truth in the rumours in circulation for
some days past, of difficulties having arisen in the
course of the negotiations between Austria and
Piedmont. Austria demands an indemnity of two
hundred millions of francs for the expenses of the
war, and that the city of Alessandria should be given
up to her as a guarantee for the payment of that
money.
The PRESIDENT of the Republic reviewed the troops
stationed at Versailles on Sunday, and presented new
colours to some of the regiments.
The illoniteur publishes a notice that the Depart-
ment of Commerce has received an official notifica-
tion, dated Hamburgh, the 12'h April, that the Elbe
is blockaded ley the Danish naval forces from that
date.

The Refortne contains a diplomatic note from M.
RUSCON I, the Roman Minister of Foreign Affairs,
dated March 3, addressed to the different Powers,
for the purpose of justifying, by a reference to the
facts that have taken place, the determination of the
Roman people to establish a Republic. The writer
relies on the anathema of the POPE, followed by his
flight—the unconstitutional acts at Gaeta—the re-
fusal of the POPE to receive any message from the
Chamber of Deputies—and the country being left to
itself, as all affording justification for the formation of
a Constituent Assembly.