The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-29 00:00:00

SUN.

without notice or ob. ervation during the quasi-econo •
mical regime of Sir J. GRAHAM, whose resumption
of office was lately solicited, and also of Lords AUCK-
LAND, Da GREY, MINTO, HADDINGTON, ELLEN•
BOROUGH, and even during the second assumption of
office by Lord AUCKLAND as First Lord of the Ad-
miralty. Surely some persons must have been re-
sponsible during that entire period for dereliction of
duty so scandalous. It would really appear as if the
superintendents of the several dockyards had sup-
posed that there was en unlimited fund on
which they could draw ad libitum ; that con-
siderations ofexpenses;were wholly beside the question;
that their only duty consisted in providing
work, without considering whether that work was
really beneficial or otherwise. We have read of per-
sons evoking evil spirits, who were compelled to keep
the attendant demon in constant occupation lest he
might turn on his ernplo3er, and rend him limb from
limb, if there was the slightest cessation of labour. It
would seem as if the superintendents and heads
of departments considered that some such ne-
cessity exi.ted, that they were bound to keep the
men in full occupation, and if that object were at-
tained, that they were relieved from every other duty;
that there was no necessity for a vigilant supervision
over their subordinates, or a cordial and friendly co-
operation among themselves. Hence the costly and
useless experiments—the unnecessary works—the ex-
travagant demand for stores—the carelessness of ex-
penditure, and the absence of any efficient check on
malversation of any kind—or of any audit of the
large pa) meats made annually for wages. The
entire system is now to be changed, and
all will be right if the new regulations can effect
the objects proposed by their Lordships.
The first five Minutes regulate the future working
strength of the dockyards, the admission of appren-
tices, the hours of labour, the mode of muster, and the
present amount of superintendence. By the first,
the number of shipwrights now employed in the
several yards are to be reduced to 3,500, and corre-
sponding reductions are to be made in the other
branches of skilled labour according to the scale now
in use for regulating the proportions between the
shipwrights and other classes of artificers. Now we
must confess that we do not quite approve of
this working at the base of the column,
this sacrificing in the first instance the hard-
working and badly paid labourers, who maintain
their families by their own honest industry. It is,
unfortunately, too much the practice, whenever the
public indignation has been strongly excited, when
an outcry has been raised against the shameless jobs
perpetrated, and the overgrown salaries paid to use-
less drones and sinecurists, to attempt to pro-
pitiate public favour by making some show
of retrenchment, and cutting off those who
have no Parliamentary influence or powerful friends
to defend their interests, and to speak out boldly and
resolutely on their behalf. The unfortunate ship-
wrights who are tl:us driven from employment, and
ruthlessly consigned with their families to poverty
and destitution, have no friends or relatives in either
branch of the Legi•+lature, no Noble or Right Hon.
Cousins to depict their probable sufferings or the ex-
treme hardship of their cases. No voices will be up-
lifted within the walls of Parliament to expatiate
on the impropriety of discharging them from
the public service, although their conduct had
been perfectly unexceptionable during the period that
they were retained in the employment of the nation.
v othing will be alleged respecting the grievance of
-arresting their well•merited hopes of promotion. It
Is only Post Captains that would have a just cause
of complaint, if their chances of obtaining " a flag"
were in any degree diminished. For their sakes, the
number of Admirals must be retained at 150, or
about one for every three vessels in com•
mission, including cutter?, sloops, ketches, brigs,
convict hulks, Sec., &c., and about ten times the
number that could bs engaged in duty on any
possible emergency. If any reduction is suggested
in that number—if the savings that could thereby be
effected are only hinted at, a hundred sympathizing
voices are heard in indignant remonstrance. The
Secretary of the Navy will own the soft impeach-
ment, and acknowledge the great hardship to de-
serving officers; and yet those officers receive good
pay, although many of them render no servi:es
therefor. We find that the first 70 on the list are
paid 14s. 61 per diem, the next 100, 12s. 6d.,
and the remaining 362, making in all 532, obtain.
10s. 6d. per day ; this, be it remembered, is wholly
distinct from the pay and allowances when in actual
commission. They are, therefore, objects of the
deepest sympathy, but no compassion is entertained
for the bard working shipwrights or the other classes
of artificers that may be engaged. They can only be
driven to the workhouse, or 'compelled to
earn a scanty and precarious subsistence in
any manner practicable. , They have no
fine feelings of ambition to sympathise with, and
therefore they may be discharged without compunc-
tion or remonstrance.

In other respects we have no fault to find with the
Minutes. They are, as we have stated, steps in the
right direction, but we trust that they may be
speedily followed by some more important reductions
in the higher branches.

Again and again we have considered it our duty
as journalists to insist upon the necessity of greater
caution in the management of the collieries. Again
and again our arguments have been enforced by some
ghastly explosion, carrying death and desolation to
many honest families, and mutilating limbs that
might otherwise have toiled on manfully until the
age of decrepitude. Another of these grievous catas-
trophes has recently started the public anew into an
appreciation of the dangers to which we have so fre-
quently and so earnestly made reference. On Wed-
nesday last, in a pit situated in a beautiful dale in
Yorkshire—known as the Darley Main Colliery, near
Barnsley—eighty persons out of one hundred and
five labourers, were suddenly destroyed by the
ignition of the inflammable atmosphere. Up to the
latest intelligence received from the neighbourhood
the result of the search among the sufferers had
proved as follows :
Number of men and boys in the pit at the time of
the explosion
Dead bodies found up to eight o'clock on WI. d-
uesday
Ditto found on Wednesday night am! Thurs-
Persons brought out alive, who have since
died
Persons found alive, and still living ... 25
Persona still missing and supposed to be dead 3
—lO3

... 103

... 5

The details of the calamity are, moreover, as is
usual up.n all such occasions, sufficiently horrify-
ing. Some were charred and distorted, same had their
bones shattered, others their flesh lacerated, others
their clothes burnt and blackened as with gunpowder,
while the majority of the unfortunate creatures who
were killed had received so many bruises and dis•
figurements as to be wholly unrecognizable by their
nearest and dearest relatives. While we are still
shuddering from the relation of these hideous suffer-
ings, while we are still conscious that the relicts and
children of the poor men who have perished while
labouring for their maintenance are yet bewailing
their misfortunes, it may not be idle to revert to the
subject so intimately connected with the catastrophe—
the origin of all these sufferings and the cause of all
these misfortunes. We mean the culpable negligence
with which the collieries are too frequently con-
ducted.

Without intending
me in our
censure all the collieries by.nanythemneaonrtsbleorninachindd id
5
the ill•arranged collieries the rule, and the well-
alcompelled to regard
counties, we are, nevertheless,
Even in those
cases where the accident can never
be positively traced
arranged collieries as the exception.
to its source, it is invariably ccnjectured by all expe-
rienefd men that it has arisen from an inoujiciency qf
rentilation, coupled with the careleos exposure of a
naked light. In the vast majority of these explosions
we may safely aver, without any dread of contradic-
tion, that the cause of the calamity has been the
simultaneous concurrence of these two dangerous
oversights. There is to fear, there can be .no fear
under ordinary circumstances that the detcnatiDn can
take place, in consequence of the striking out of
a spark from the collision of a pebble
against the nail of a heavily ironed shoe. Suoh ca-
sualties may occur in an ill-managed powder Maga-
zine when the attendant fails to slip on the flannel
slippers before his entrance, but in a coal-pit--the
mere bupposition is preposterous. Now taking this
assertion for granted—and no one we conjecture hill ,

LONbON,

have the temerity to glinsay its correctness—it is
manifest that there are no insurmountable obstacles
to the prevention of any such occurrences as this ex-
plosion at the Darley Main Colliery. For the ven-
tilation of the mine the proprietors should be held
responsible under the heaviest penalties; and the
possibility of uncovering to the subterranean
atmosphere the lights contained in the Davy lanterns
might be wholly precluded by having the " catch "
of the wire-guaze effectively padlocked. Supposing
by any improbable chance that the light should be-
come extinguished, it would surely be preferable for
the miner to grope his way from the darkness than
to hazard his own life' and those of his companions by
negligently uncloakieg the smouldering wick. Any-
thing, in short, would be better than the constant
endangerment of theikistence of a whole community
through the foolish' jyitltntion of an indolent over-
seer, or the absurd,: temerity of an ignorant
workman. Until sonwprecautions of the nature here
suggested shall have b6n taken, we shall continue to
insist upon the urgent demar d for interference on the
part of the Executive ; and shall never tire of bring-
ing the perilous position of the unfortunate colliers of
Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and the other mining
counties, under the consideration of the Home Secre-
tary. Unhappily, we are in no expectation that
there will be any dearth of opportunities. Numerous
and appalling as these explosions have been, we are
satisfied, from a deplorable experience, that the ca-
tastrophe which took place at Darley Main Col-
liery on Wednesday will be anything but the
last of the same description. Unless the Government
interferes, promptly and peremptorily, these casualties
will continue to be of perpetual recurrence. By
mulcting the owners of the pits of heavy penalties,
wherever it shall be proved that there has been a
gross insufficiency of ventilation, and by rendering
the padlock an essential accompaniment of the Davy
lantern, we may put an end at once to the possibility
of these destructive explosions. Not otherwise.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

We have received the Paris papers of Saturday and
yesterday.

Paris was on Saturday in a more agitated state
than it has been since June last. The reactionary
proceedings of the Ministers have excited a spirit of
detestation towards themselves and their measures
which is only equalled in intensity by that with
which M. GUIZOT and his Ministry were regarded
twelve months since, and we are sorry to perceive
that their sins are in some degree visited upon the
PRESIDENT of the Republic. The appointment of
M. LHERMINIER one of the most violent of the parti
pretre, to a professorship in that university, the au-
thority of which he has for years past been endeavour-
ing to destroy, has excited the just and natural indig
nation of the students against the obscurantist Minister
of Public Instruction, M. DE FALLOUX, who seems
to have taken M. DE FRAYSSINOIS as his model,
and to have accepted office solely for the pur-
pose of disorganizing the University of France.
The students assembled on Saturday at twelve
o'clock, a deputation of them presented themselves at
the entrance to the Natiorral Assembly to hand in a
protest against the nomination of M. LHERMINIER to
the chair of Legislation in the College of France.
The Questors on learning their object ordered the
gates to be closed, and the guard to turn out. One of
the officers of the Asseinbly then advanced to the de-
putation, received the protest from them, which was
afterwards presented to the Assembly by M. MARTIN
BERNARD. The deputation then returned and re-
joined their fellow-students who were awaiting their
arrival at the office of the Democratie Pacifique in the
Rue de Beaune. While these young men (about
1,000 in number) were quietly waiting in the court-
yard of the house in which the office of the Demo•
cratie Pacifique is situated, four of the Gardiens de
Paris arrived and attempted to arrest the student who
appeared to be acting as leader—his comrades rushed
forward and rescued him, and a crowd assembling,
the porter closed the gates of the house. Soldiers
soon after arrived and occupied the whole of the
street. They entered the court of the house, and
arrested twelve of the students. The remainder
formed themselves into a procession, and proceeded
to the quarter of the University, singing " A bas
lour," to the air of Des Lampions.
The Gerdes Mobiles, too, incensed at the recent
reductions made in their pay and appointments, are
by no means well affected to the present Ministry—
icdeed, they are on the verge of open insurrection.
Several of the officers of the Gerdes Mobiles were ar-
rested on Saturday by order of General CHANGAR.
MLR. Open war has at length been proclaimed be-
tween the Ministry end the Assembly, and it will be
a war a routrance. It will be in the recollection of
our readers that M. LEON FAUCHER on Friday pre-
sented a measure to the National Assembly for the
suppression of the clubs nominally, but really for the
suppression of every public meeting of every sort and
description. The law presented was in direct breach
of one of the articles of the Constitution, and the in-
tention with which it was presented was to lay a trap
for the Assembly.

The National thus exposes the fligrant attempt on
the part of the Minister to violate the law and to com-
promise the Assembly :
. ART. 8 OF THE CuNSTI- aBILL PRESENTED BY N.
TUTION. LEON FAL:WIER.
. .

" Cit!znis have a right to " Clubs are prohibited.
meet together, to assemble Will be considered as such
peaceably,and without arms, every public meeting which
to petition, to manifest their shall be held periodically,
opinions by the press or or at irregular intervals,
otherwise; the exercise of for the discussion of politi-
these rights has only for cal questions."
limit the rights or liberty'
of others, and public secu-
rity."

Thais simple comparison is sufficient to characterise the
Bill, and to show its unconstitutional character. It is
that policy a outrance which M. Guizot practised a year
back with the success and results which are known to
every one. It is the right of meeting, the violation of
which by the old Government led to the revolution of
' February, violated again by a Ministry of that revolu-
tion itself, or rather by a Ministry of the counter-revo-
lution. It is the Constitution slighted in its spirit, and in
its letter. What is the object of the Ministry, whether
with respect to the Assembly, or with respect to the repub-
lican masses, in presenting such a Bill? Let us first
speak of the Assembly. The Ministry lays a trap for it. It
thinks that it Equally attains its object, whether the As-
sembly rejects or sanctions the Bill. If it be rejected,
the Ministry hopes that the Assembly will thus render
itself suspected by a certain part of the country of
anarchical tendencies ; if on the contrary, it sanctions
the proiisions submitted to it, the Ministry hopes that
in so giving itself an example of violation, it will render
ulterior violations mere easy ; it hopes also that the As-
sembly will become unpopular with the energetic, and,
at the same time, sincere opinions which have looked on
the It• public as a bona fide Government. But the Mi-
nistry will fall into its own snare. The Assembly, which
has already passed a law to regulate the clubs, and which
may mod:ay it if necessary, will know how both to re-
cognise, and cause it to be recognised, this double prin-
ciple—respect for individual right, and punishment of
attacks made on the right of society. It will thus show
:hat it is neither anarchical nor counter-revolutionary.
As to the masses, as to those energetic and sincere opi-
nions of which we spoke just now, it would appear that
the design is, by this audacious policy, to drive them to
despair. Such, no doubt, is not the design of the Mi-
nistry; it is blinded by its false ideas, as to the normal
conditions of democratic societies, and, in virtue of these
ideas, it comes to decisions of which it does not measure
all the signification and all the importance. However
that may be, the good sense of the masses will show more
reTect for the law and the Constitution than the reac-
tionary system of the Ministry."

The bureau appointed to consider the urgency of
M. LEON FAUCHER'S proposition reported on Satur-
day against its urgency, the members of the bureau
declaring their hostility not only to the urgency of
the measure but to the details of the measure itself.
M. SENARD was the reporter. In his report, M. SE-
NARD clearly lays down that the Committee proposed
the rejection of the " urgency," because it did not ap-
prove of the principles of the Bill itself. It was not,
he said, the tutelary regulation of a right consecrated
by the Constitution that was demanded ; it was the
right itself that was contested ; for the exposé des
motifs read by the Minister o the Interior had
frxilily admitted that the whole pith of the mea-
sure was in the words " the clubs are pro-
hibited." However . much the disorders which
had resulted from the clubs might he deplored,
and however anxious the Assembly might
be to put an end to them, the Committee could not
accept a in.:asure which would have the effect of an-
nulling a right consecrated by the Corstitution. So
far the report was opposed to the principles of the
B,:. As regards the urgency of the measure, Al.
SENAR'D also declared that the explanations given by
the ,ter of the Interior did not justify its noces-
,it l‘h
y,ain
sit :Appeared that the clubs, instead of in-
creasing,rapidly diminishing. On the 28th of
jul,
decree regulating the clubs was
passed, there were yv v
thirty-seven clubs existing in
.
SeNner ttile
day there were only
eleven while at the'
eleven ; and of these five had been .
closed within the
last few days by judicia.`l decisions.
He therefore
present
should think
t
to do so
thought that there were no grounds for urgency ; buthat, on the contrary, if the .Assembly
fit ultimately to adopt the measure, it ought
a
usual forms and guarantees.
after solemnly considering the qatstion, with all the
The Assembly confirmed the decision of the Com-
mittee, and decerrnined by a majority of 76 not to