The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-09 00:00:00

IRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
C EIRONICLE.—The continental progress of Mr.
Cohden could not have terminated more appropriately
r a with the banquet given in his honour in the free
of Hamburgh. Similar assemblages, in every
e entry that Mr. Cobden has visited, have vied with
each other in expressing their admiration of the
champion of free trade, and their adherence to the
cause of which he is the representative. But few or
none have been so qualified as Hamburgh, by the two-
fold experience of protectionism and of commercial
freedom, of ruin and of prosperity, to corroborate by
their own example the soundness of the principles
the spread of which upon the continent of Europe
will be henceforth imperishably associated with Mr.
Cobden's name. Few cities in the course of the last
half century have experienced such strange vicissitudes
as Hamburgh ; and none ought to be better able to
appreciate the blessings of peace, as well as of commer-
cial freedom. No place of any importance was so ut-
terly ruined by the most audacious, the most compre-
hensive, and:the most strictly enforced system ofprotec-
tion which the world has ever beheld—that of Napoleon
himself. In 1814 the population of Hamburgh was re-
duced to about 60,000 inhabitants. It is now more than
double that amount, and the recovery of the city in every
other respect has been in a still higher ratio than the
increase of its population. There is nothing surpris-
ing in all this, for the natural advantages of Ham-
burgh in its position and territorial independence are
so great, that it may be said to be almost impossible
for it to evade its destiny as the centre of a gigantic
commerce. Many a place with scarcely less remark-
able natural advantages, has seen its prosperity
throttled by the absurd legislation, or crushed by the
dead weight of the country to which it was attached.
But an individual city, allowed to legislate for itself,
and consult for its own interests, is pretty sure to find
out quickly what those interests are, and to avoid the
calamitous and too often irremediable errors which
mar the prosperity of more complex and extensive
communities. Hamburgh, at all events, has had,
within the memory of living men, experiences which
it is impossible that she should forget ; and there is,
therefore, the less likelihood that she could be induced to
listen to the seductions of the charmer of the Zoll-
verein, charm he never so wisely. It does not follow
from this that Hamburgh is, or will be, a whit less
imbued with the feelings of German nationality than
communities which suffer themselves to be com-
mercially led by the nose. Hamburgh has always
regarded herself as an integral part of Germany, and
so long as she retains a voice in the deliberations of
the Diet, she is not likely to forget whatever alle-
giance she rightly owes to the great federal com-
munity of which she is a distinguished member. Her
territorial independence, and her maritime position,
secure to her an immunity from the consequences of
the follies of the German Diet which states morel
inland cannot boast of; and it is therefore most un-
likely that she should ever seek to be more or less
a part of Germany than she is. So far from her
ties of intimacy with the rest of Germany being
lessened or impaciA-ed, they will be perpetually ac-
quiring new sength from the increased in-
tercourse which the improvements in locomo-
tion by sea and land are producing all over the
Continent, and no where more than in that
Germany, whose worst diseases and defects—klein-
etadterei and remoteness from maritime influences—
are in process of rapid cure, under the beneficent in-
fluence of railroads. The merchants of Hamburgh,
and her citizens generally, have no doubt a strong
sense of the benefits which they derive from their in-
tercourse with England. It were strange, indeed, if
the present generation could be insensible of advan-
tafees which their forefathers have known how to avail
themselves of for so many hundred years. But had
there been any possibility that the modern Ham-
burghers could be less awake to their own interests
than their predecessors in less stirring times, Napoleon
took care to give them a lesson which they can never
forget. lie saw plainly, by a glance at the map,
that Hamburgh was incurably. and indefeasibly, by
pure necessities of neighbourhood, the commercial
friend of England, and the storm of his wrath
fell heavily upon it and upon the other Hanse
towns, which, in his frenzy, he was wont to call an
English colony. Up to 1803 Hamburgh had profited
by the Revolution, and by the extension of the
French Republic. But from that time to the over-
throw of Napoleon it was a doomed city. Its wealth
was confiscated, its population scattered, and the
grass grew in its streets. Just as a man must lose
his liberty awhile, if he would learn perfectly to ap-
preciate its blessings, so has Hamburgh learned, by
bitter experience, to value liberty of commercial
action, as the keystone and safeguard of all other
liberties. The Harnburghers have likewise an abiding
faith in the principles from which their prosperity
arises, and they feel instinctively that if they have
the firmness not to join the Zollverein, the Zollverein
will be forced in the long run to come over to their
side. They endure, indeed, some petty annoyances
from the restrictions which Governments less wise
than their own impose upon the traffic of the Elbe.
But they are not the people to succumb to such paltry
persecutions. They have, as we said, a faith in their
destiny, and they are right. It is not too much to
say, that as the Elbe may be called the Thames of
Germany, so it is in the inevitable course of things
for Hamburgh to become its London. Some great
commercial capital Germany must have, and no city
can rival Hamburgh in its aptness for that office.
But it is not by retrograding to the policy of the
Zollverein, instead of setting an example to it, that
the way to this supremacy is to be prepared. It
is worthy of notice, that the geographical posi-
tion of Hamburgh, which gave Napoleon so much
uneasiness, had at a much earlier period an extraor-
Ainary influence upon the destinies of Europe. It
was in Hamburgh that the Hanseatic League first
took its rise. The history of modern commerce and
modern civilisation commenced, in fact, in the self-
same city in which the living apostle of commercial
freedom has just terminated his continental triumph.
Any one who will follow Napoleon's, in this respect,
most admirable example, and commence all historical
and political speculations on a geographical basis, will
perceive that this precedency of Hamburgh was all
but inevitable. It was, so to say, geologically anc
geographically foreordained, ever since the earth as-
sumed its present shape. There were the mouths of
the Elbe and the sVeser on one side, and of the Hum-
ber and the Thames on the other, smiling encourage-
ment at each other before ever a naked savage had
proceeded in his frail boat to ascend the waters which
he was the first to explore. We cannot regard it as a
mere accident that Mr. Cobden's continental mission
has terminated amidst such associations. May the
event be of happy omen for the spread of the doctrines
whose seeds 'he had been scattering among the me
tions, and may he live to behold the triumph of those
principles, not in the laws and habits ofEngland only,
but in those of the whole civilised world.
TIMES.— Notwithstanding the energy with which
the Legislature has gone to work for the cheapening
of law and justice, there are some instances in which
a most exorbitant price continues to be charged for
those commodities. Our police report of yesterday
furnishes a curious case of legal extravagance, which
is rare in these days of expedition, when a few hours
'and a few shillings will sometimes give a man as
much law, or, at all events, as much justice, as would
formerly have cost him many weeks and many pounds.
The practice of making heavy professional charges is,
however, not yet quite lost to the legal fraternity, by
some of whom, when an opportunity offers, the old
habit is eagerly resumed. Happily for the vestry-
clerk of St. Mary's, Newington, a dunghill was
suffered to remain on the premises of one of the
inhabitants of the parish, and the nuisance having
been nosed, steps were very properly taken to get it
removed. The neighbours had only detected a taint
in the atmosphere from the offending heap, but to
the legal adviser of the parish the accumulated
feculence was redolent of fees. A complaint was
ciebefore the magistrates, and order for the
abatement of the dunghill obtained, when the proprie-
tor of the too
to clear it aw a odorous
compound consented at once
messed the ceeey. Two trustees of the parish wit-
were they with ntrY of removal, and so delighted
the disagreeable meapssramptitude of the proprietor of
venger for the good opvassuining the office of sca-
mised he should haves s neighbours that they pro-
however, that a dunghill coathing to pay. It seeme,
rintannler, if a
expeditious and economicalnnot be disposed of in this
torney has once got scent of
parish at-
owner of the ex-nuisance receive: a short time thea bill of costs
amounting to upwards of twenty
called upon to hand over to the gpovuenrds, which he is
dians of the parish, for the expenses inr3 aria
d guar-
naturally alarmed at the amount, and declines
dis-
charge it unless he is positively compelled.
tainly does seem most astonishing that such a • epr-
m
s le
matter as an objectionable dunghill was handedi
over to the parish lawyer, when it is clear
that the beadle was perfectly competent to deal
with the business as effectually as could be desired.
Had the latter functionary been invested with power
to make a temporary colleague of the dustman, the
affair would have been disposed of in the most speedy,
economical, and satisfactory manner. Instead of this
proper course being adopted, the case !au sent in to
the office of the attorney, where the operation of
mounting up a huge bill of costs on this mere mole-
hill of a dungheap was rapidly performed. We should
like to see a copy of the document which has been
so reasonably complained of by the party to whom it
was sent in. We cannot conceive what the nature of
the items must have been to have reached the corn-
parativelylenormous sum of between twenty and thirty
pounds. We have searched in vain through the
standard authority on costs, but Dax says nothing
about dunghills. "If they cannot be legally removed
withouta monstrous outlay, after they have once in-
truded their vapours offensively under the noses of the
neighbours, they most
all to themselves. undoubtedly deserve a treatise
We find it difficult to imasine