The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS 01 YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)
We have been accused of ill-treating Sir William
Molesworth. We are sorry if we have done so ; we
made fair and long citations from his late speech. But
we did not disguise that its whole assumptions, as to our
foreign policy, appeared to us to rest on an entirely de-
lusive basis ; and as the same assumptions are repro-
duced by all the advocates of the same views, we
think it worth while to take some farther pains in shew-
ing what we deem their erroneousness. It is assumed
by all those advocates that, in the recent transac-
tions, we have been acting on the principles of the
Holy Aliance. It is assumed that the principles of
the Holy Alliance (a defunct bugbear) alone counte-
nance any interference in the affairs of other countries.
And, as the leading Powers of continental Europe were
members of this Holy Alliance, it is assumed that
every alliance with those Powers is a resuscitation of
it. Now there are old Holy Alliances, and there are
new Holy Alliances. There is the right divine of kings ;
and there is the right of aggression of conquerors. It
would be convenient for those who hold that the latter
ought to be recognised as the basis of a new public law
of Europe, if they could impose their dogma (which
has a good deal that is Mahometan in it) on all Europe
—on pain of an outcry of " Holy Alliance !" whenever
that dogma does not meet with implicit subscrip-
tion. It would thenceforward become lawful to
form covert or overt alliance with any potentate, pro-
vided only he had no regular title to his power ! Ag-
gressions against the acknowledged boundaries, and
balance of power in Europe, would become a necessary
ingredient in all future compacts. Otherwise they
would be stigmatised as Holy Alliances ; and certainly
the new ones might boldly claim exemption from that
name. Unholy Alliances, or the law of the strongest,
would then he recognised as the new law of Europe.
(From the Standard.)
The Semaphore of Marseilles contains a letter from
Alexandria, dated the Ist last, which states that the
last accounts from Syria were more favourable to the
cause of Mehemet Ali ; that the mountaineers had taken
umbrage at the departure of the Emir Bechir, the trans-
port of prisoners to Constantinople, and the removal
of the mountaineers who had declared for the Sultan to
a distance from them. The Semaphore states that the
new Emir is in command of the allied forces, and is
accompanied by Commodore Napier, who has charge
of the Royal Marines. There is, we suspect, sonic
mistake in this, as Commodore Napier had, accord-
ing_ to the last advices, resigned the direction of the
allithl forces to Sir Charles Smith. We have a high
respi,et for Cornin-idore Napier, whose services in this
campaign have added importantly to the reputation
he had elsewhere acquired ; but we cannot under-
stand why a naval man should be placed in the com-
mand of a gallant and experienced military body like
1 the corps of Royal Marines, when there are oath-
-1 cers in their own corps equally ready and willing
to lead them into action. It is thus that on
all occasions the gallantry and discipline of the distin-
guished corps is made to swell the tame of the branch
of the servie,, with which they act in concert.
At sea, the captain of the ship must of
course hold the command both of seamen
and in erines ; but ashore, when collected from
the fleet to the number of 1,500, it is a gross in-
sult to them to assume that among the many pliant
veteran officers eligible for command belonging to the
corps there is no one capable of leading their battalion
into action save a Captain of the Navy !! It would
appear from the recent arrivals from Syria, that there
is not a single field officer attached to this large
and important force, Lord pinto having decided some
time since that the field officers were incumbrances to
the corps. If be be really serious in this opinion, the
sooner he reduces them (taking care that they shall be
duly rewarded for their past services) and appoints
naval officers to perform their duties the better ; because
they will then know what they have to trust to.
(From the Courier.)
We agree with the Times that, in the recent in-
vestigation at Kensington into the circumstances con-
nected with the death of Elizabeth Friry, all the de-
tails about which have been heretofore reported in
this paper and duly commented upon, Sir Edmund
Head, the newly appointed Assistant Commissioner
for the London district, evinced a degree of feeling,
impartiality, and acuteness, the more creditable to
him, as contrasting so advantageously with the
character and one-sided mode of proceedings on
other and similar occasions of the tribe of As-
sistant Poor-law Commissioners, who, as a genus
apart, appear to consider it generally as a stringent
obligation imposed by the laws of their order to divest
themselves as much as possible of what, at head quar-
ters, might perchance be regarded as " humanity-mon-
gering:' Tne verdict of the Kensington board of
guardians, under the superintendence of Sir Edmund,
was recorded by a considerable majority in the following
terms : ‘• That the conduct of Mr. Wright the medical
officer, and Mr. Madden, the relieving officer, in
allowing a period of twenty-two hours to elapse
without seeing proper attention paid to Elizabeth
Friry, and in not haying her conveyed forthwith
'to the workhouse, is highly culpable, and that
they be reprimanded accordingly by the Chairman." As
the Times forcibly observes, " another pleasing feature
in this inquiry was the praise bestowed by the Assistant-
Commissioner, and by the whole Board, upon Catherine
Ryan, the poor woman in whose house the deceased
breathed her last, for that disinterested charity which
had elicited from the surgeon and the relieving
officer coarse abuse and brutal menaces, even in
the chamber of death." Let us hope that
praise, however grateful, will not be all the re-
compense which this compassionate Samaritan is des-
tined to receive : and if the guardians as a body have
no control over funds from which reward and indemnifi-
cation can be dispensed, that private beneficence will
come in aid, or supply the want, of official capacity, and,
so far as the Poor-law Board of Somerset House, of
official sympathy.

Loss OF A FRENCH STEAMER.—The Lloyd
Nantais announces the loss of the small coasting steam-
packet Sylphe, Captain Brodeau, in the road off Verdun.
The crew and all the passengers, amounting to twenty-
seven, were saved. The cause was purely accidental. An
anchor left in the ground without a buoy pierced her bot-
tom as she was bringing up at Verdun far the purpose of
taking in stores.
Lady Lyndhurst reached Dover from Paris on
Friday last, and on Saturday evening arrived in George-
street, Hanover-square. Lord Lyndhurst will give a
grand entertainment on Thursday next to a party of 24
Noblemen and Gentlemen, to celebrate his election as
High Steward of Cambridge.
THE TREE SNAKE —SO called from the pro-
pensity it is said to possess of darting from the branch of
a tree, where it usually lies coiled up, and fasteningon
the eye of the passer by. It is of a bright green colour,
generally between three or four feet in length, and said to
be venomous, though on one occasion I was bitten by olio
without feeling any bad effects, having, however, taken the
precaution to suck the %col:
ad.—No pier's Scenes and
Sports.
The Trustees of the Cholmondeley Charities
have given a donation of 501. to the Roy al Dispensary for
Diseases of the Ear, Dean-street, Soho-square.
The
Right Hon. Thomas Johnson, Lord Mayor, has also sub-
scribed to its funds. Since the establishment of the insti-
tution in 1816, upwards of 10,000 patients, including ar-
tizans, domestic servants, and distressed foreigners, &c.,
afflicted with deafness and otherdiseasecsaomf
btrhiedgeear,,Wheanvet
been cured or relieved.
Viscount Burghersh, on leaving
t'eotu Ar Northamptonshire, but is expected to
r
Viscountess Staglici.h continues at
inctt ob
Dual Castle, on a visit to Lord and Lady Maryborough.