The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-20 00:00:00

ETHIOPIAN ST. JAMES'S THEATRE

Th! celebrated ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS, Pell, Harrington,
White, Stanwood, and (lemon, will have the honour of repeat-
ing their Thimital.de ENTERTAINMENTS, at the above Theatre,
THIS EVENES"(I (Saturday), and every Tuesday, Thursday, and
Satardiy. Doors open at Eight o'clock, and the Entertainment com-
mences at Halt-past Eight. The Programme will be varied on
each occasion. 'Their'next PAY PERFORMANCE *ill take pier
on Monday alorninx, Feb 22. • •
• —Coxes, te. ; Pit, 2a.4, Amphitheatre,. 2s.

gqiAl; AN PH ITHEATI:F:
• " -• 4"; ' PlMprtemr, Mr. W. Batty.
trnderthe-VitrAarra' of the Queen, Prince 'Albert, and other
Metakberszt theAtoyal Family.—Mr. BAT rY's Fox4lolanda meet
eielPytlNNAlingut lialf-past Six, daring the week. • •" 7 •

THIS kly 17,-N IN 4; ,1 •
Will be peribrmed THE ROYAL FOX-IIIINT; or, Lift's CourSO
of Mott and Steeds,.
Efitlfe elange of the ACZNES of the CIILCLE, by the double
Company of IgnArtlstec'

To concltule wit h the ntieeesstLl Comic EqueAtrianiratry Pantomime
on trilbd THE FOICT TIIIEVES; or, Haat:coin and Ali Italia and
Itobber's Caro. Clown, Mr. Rochez ; harlequin, Mr. W. Mar-
ver ; Pantaloon, Mr. Laffarini ; Columbine, Miss Louisa Waite.
13ox.,acti opeq 1r 111 eteVel] till five Wcioek.—Doors open nt. AIR
en 1 c ,nanci!ce et halt-past six o'clock.—Stage Manager, Mr. W.
Bmadfoot.

gr"-WCYA ,8U R EY THEATIt E.
4' , ,Ldssee,- Mrs, Frances Davidge.
THE* 'EVENING •
...knaczpli.rstaccutteitrlsed JAI'
supported4h rogrbx~ o? a by 11whole
itralith of the Company.
After which, the favouritOnallet of LA SY-II'LrE BLANCHE.
To conclude with RAYMOND AND 'AC ES.
•-•,,'Li,,,Bezwitice open-front eleven till four o'clock.

" j 6 +HEAT.R.
-"-V0147r5.; half price, 6d. ; Pit. Gcl.; Gallery, 3J. ,
• THIS. EVENING

Wlll bt' Terformel THE CASTLE' OF ST. AL3IO. 'Principal
ehar!tcters by Messrs. Hicks, Dale, Forman, Searle, Bird, Miss
Vincent, Miss PeareP, Sze.
Atter which THE VILLAGE OUTCAST. Robin Graysdale, Mr.
Betts ; iraty-,1 Mlis Vincent. •
TQ cont•lnele with.JACK BILIG. Jack Brag, Mr. Forman.

VA 151.044;12 IRISH AND ScoTcH.—Her Ma:
jesty has kraci9sly.c.cAdesceinted to sanction Thursday, the
25t14 instant, lienig stopart,foc performance at the Italian
OnexfurAtieamonetit 9f the 9lier.essed Irish and Scotch:: _Her
Itlajes4AThcat re will be lion9ured on this occasion with; the
tel... .4; ay.,. queep, ttkc Royal Consort, the Queen
wjger, aiu-I.UII, the It(hyal,Fareily. The-ether patrons are
the°, greatest personages of the kingdom, and those who Jute
Jet" .
the ~,1 ' simittee to eftry kut.this excellent object are,
and* ,ri-ot. M 4 iQUi- the.MarchiOriesos - of Aileshury..,
70
v.. i i
....ctrue; ' the Countess of, Crarendon, and the
day pfk, 04,.,,ertutk 'DOA Noble Ladies .meet every,
joint lf . 1...§.W144 X9uis at the Secretary's offices, ad •
this raile,Vef.trVipct., the business connected. with.
ilTedertaking, which reflects the greptest
honour otl tla ..; -X'
are to be dedicated, to Ifie i6''' The whole of the, riroefcds,
defrayed by the proprietosroatct,4eirtriti%3i,,jaeslltyt,sheTielexap;erne.se
INFANTICIDE s
_.;bei pg
AT
morning, at an early hour, as L men eTu.--,-YeSterday
tar Vauxhall-bridge, he
duty in the South Lambeth-road, watchnlan• was'en
square, lying in a field
saw-ba deal box, about twelve incl;le
He carried it
at the rear of the Crown and-Thistle '
illit -,7a.mite
to tilerfleftruot tavern, where he unlastenect"th
ed thy boly 'of newly-born male child.e "I
a" '113"
covir -
naked, 4d the box' was filled up with ashes.
. body
was given in charge of .4-te police. Information was
Amnia-
diately forwarded to William,Carter, E&l., the, coroner. .
FOREIGN POTATOES.—The following arrivals .of
Potatoes from abroad have taken place during the past eight
dayi:—The Edward, from Rouen, brought 80 tons weight;
the Giraffe, from Raterdarn, 10 baskets; the Rapid, front
Rouen, 45 tons
liarruago, 7 baskets el- thi'iLitt )
weigAti
_ale Ac•?Tolpr...Uo , the Holdernees,
Iror4imiela, 4otosist,h Ste se*, 4:ye from New York,
3 Ih;rtire`F ' ' risky,. 4 ov lid the Antonio,
fr° .Ve1.1% g .1-!..:.,:•-•.-‘, .7-41 -•-; .
1:-., t -*•-tf V* 4 7i-.6.'• ";•••'. -: , •----.', -?.,•,i I '
-7. i... w.. •, ...,..,-.-,_
' '...\,!,. '":-,'--_-,7-:'_--,•: • . ~ -
. •.".'„.:'-. --j
11-1.&-ii.....,_

L.../

~'~'~F

~~

Vedras. • Are our intentions towards the belligerents
in Portugal strictly neutral ? Then let neutrality be
preserved in a manner becoming the dignity and
honour of Albion. We confess our willingness to
afford protection to the young QUEEN, supposing her
Majesty to require shelter from the storms of the re-
voliution ; and yet— coupling this with an avowal of
our neutrality—we are to look on with indifference
at the perpetration of a crime towards the insurgents
of which history scarcely furnishes a parallel! Surely
this is a most questionable neutrality, a most odious and
dastardly neutrality ! SALDANHA commits a politi-
cal offence, not justified by the usages of ho-
nourable nations, and certainly not exceeded in infamy
or treachery by the most barbarous states : he for-
mally and deliberately signs a stipulation with a por-
tion of the troops of the Conde BOMFIM that they shall
be allowed to depart with all the honours of war, on
surrendering the impregnable castle of Torres
Vedras to the royalist commander; and, on the fulfil-
ment of the latter portion of that engagement, he for-
mally and deliberately acts counter to his most so-
lemn promises. Instead of receiving all the honours
of war, the officers of the duped insurgents are first
conducted to captivity in the metropolis, and are sub-
sequently sentenced to be banished to Angola, one of
those terrible settlements in Africa, which, like Sierra
Leone, has deserved the appellation of the " White
Man's Grave !" Was ever conduct more infamous
than this? The crime of SALDANHA is such as to
almost justify an armed interference and a summary
vengeance. It is a crime which can find no pallia-
tion, excepting upon the most diabolical system of
Machiavellism. When NAPOLEON BONAPARTE or-
dered the massacre of the troops at Jaffa, he was
impelled to that rigorous act by the execrable dupli-
city of those soldiers of DJEZZAR, in having broken
the solemn oaths which they had previously taken ;
by their murdering the French messenger carrying
a flag of truce, in defiance of the holiest laws of nations;
by the dearth of provisions in the desert, and the im-
possibility of granting such scoundrels their liberty
without unnecessarily risking the lives of his own men,
for the preservation of which he was responsible as
Commander-in-Chief. In the proceeding of SAL-
DANHA towards the prisoners of Torres Vedras we
find no encitements of this kind, and beyond that
we find, what there was not in the massacre of Jaffa,
a sacrifice of all honour in the non-fulfilment of de-
liberate stipulations. SALDANHA, moreover, has not
the manliness to have the prisoners of Torrer Vedras
fusiladed at once ; he kills them under a subterfuge, he
poisons them atmospherically, he sends them in a das-
tardly spirit of assassination to Angola. It is the recur-
rence of such ferocious acts as this that justified Lord
ELLENBOROUGH in saying that " greater violations of
constitutional principles and of personal liberty were
committed by these new constitutional Governments
than under the harshest despotisms that ever existed."
And it is this also which justified the Noble Earl in
intimating that the British Government should be
prepared to make a strenuous and not a merely vague
representation to the Government of Portugal. If
our ifleet is to remain at Lisbon and Oporto, our
character of neutrality must be preserved with dig-
nity by the prevention of such flagrant violations of
the laws of humanity and religion.

Since the memorable letter of Mr. N. M. Cttsrstt&s,
detailing the scenes of misery and destitution occur-
ing in the western districts of the c9unty of Cork, and
his account of the lamentable condition of the unfor-
tunate inhabitants of East Reen and the surrounding
country, a more painful narration of suffering and
wretchedness has not been presented to the public
than that which has just proceeded from the pen of
Commander J. CIIAWFURD CAFFIN, of her MA-
JESTT'S steam-sloop Scourge, under date of the
lath of February instant. The testimony of
a gentleman wholly unconnected with the country,
a British officer, visiting it in the discharge of his
duty, who merely states that of which he has had
ocular demonstration, and who confesses that he has
been impressed with the idea that the accounts and
letters daily appearing in the public journals had been
highly coloured for the purpose of attracting sym-
pathy, must he' sufficient to convince the most
sceptical of the truth of the reports of the fearful
state to which that unhappy country has been
reduced from the combined effects of pestilence ani
famine. The village of Schull, to which Commander
CArrits alludes, is situated about twelve Irish miles
to the south-west of Skibbereen, and is but a few
miles from Cape Clear, the southern point of Ireland.
It has peculiar facilities for the carrying on of a most
productive fishery, for obtaining a support for the
people, from the neighbouring ocean. It possesses a
harbour, to which supplies may be immedi-
ately introduced from the more favoured and
prosperous localities. And yet, notwithstanding
all these advantages, the inhabitants are en-
during the greatest afflictions, which it would
be scarcely possible to exaggerate. The gallant
officer states that " Three-fourths of the inhabi-
tants you meet carry the tale of woe in their
features and persons, as they are reduced to mere
skeletons—the men in particular—all their physical
powers wasted away—they have all become beggars."
And again—" Famine exists to a fearful degree
with all its horrors. Fever has sprung up conse-
quent upon the wretchedness, and swellings of limbs
and body, and diarrhoea, upon the want of nourish-
ment, are everywhere to be found."
This is the sad condition of the entire population of
the locality visited by Commander CAFFIN, during an
excursion of five or six miles, in witich there has not
a single one Of the thirty cottages or upwards visited
by him, in which the dead or dying were not to be
found. The particular cases which he details, and
for which we refer our readers to the letter of the gallant
gentleman, which appeared in The Sun of yesterday,
were not picked or selected cases, but presented as fair
specimens of the general condition. No such corrobo-
ration, however,w as required—the constantly repeated
accounts from every part of the island, from east to
west, from north to south, evidence that the state-
ment may be generalised, and that it will equally
apply to far the greater portion of the entire country,
and this notwithstanding the gigantic efforts of the
Government, notwithstanding that 600,000 able-
bodied men are obtaining daily employment on the
public works, and 3,000,000 of human beings are
thus provided for at a daily expenditure of
over 30,0001. sterling. If such is the state
of affairs, coupled with these stupendous exertions,
what might have been the case, had the Executive
hung back or refrained from sanctioning the extra-
ordinary outlay ? Surely no Christian man, no
person possessed of the ordinary feelings of humanity,
can repine at any burdens to which he may be sub-
jected for the purpose of mitigating or palliating in
any degree
.the universal affliction. It is unfortu-
nately beyond human skill completely, to remove the
distress, but the power and the finances of the
empire have been taxed to the utmost to.
alleviate it as far as possible. The Bill
for the relief of the labouring poor, which passed
through the Committee of the Commons last night,
and which will now speedily become the law of the
land, will effect much as soon as it can be brought
into active operation, and the system thoroughly or-
ganized. Objectionable as gratuitous relief may be
under ordinary circumstances, it must now be freely
resorted to and generally dispensed. The liberal
contributions that have been so generously
offered by the public will undoubtedly have
the most beneficial effect, and assist materially in
checking the progress of the famine, which can alone be
stayed in its destructive progress by the united exer-
tions of all classes in the country. When that the
most urgent and pressing difficulty is successfully en-
countered, then other measures relating to the per-
manent welfare of the nation, if judiciously intro-
duced, and fairly acted on.by all, will, we trust, pre-
vent the possibility of the recurrence cf similar evils.
The Legislature must, however, look solely to the
general benefit, and not be fettered or restrained by
any partial interests, or the selfish opposition of
any particular classes, who may fancy that their
rights or privileges may be interfered with by the
proposed enactments. The greatest good to the
greatest number is the principle that must be acted
on, and by which alone the country can be relieved
from its sufferings, and the social condition of its in-
habitants ameliorated and placed in a satisfactory
'position.

Lord Jonx RussELL,- whilst sketching 'out last
evening the prcipose.cf routine of public business,.
announCed that on Aloniday fortOght be would pro-