The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-24 00:00:00

stands amenable) is one of the most flagrant and
I diabolical acts of inhumanity and injustice that was
ever perpetrated by the worst of tyrants, in the worst
of times. Prime Minister of Hungary, during his
term of office Batthyany was distinguished by the
highest qualities of statesmanship; but, above all, by
a tenderness and moderation of temper and feeling
which sensitively shrunk from achieving even the
cherished independence of his country by the sword,
until all peaceful means of securing the issue had
been exhausted. The sentiment which prompted all
his actions was that which Schiller puts into the
mouth of a patriot Swiss on the brink of his country's
struggle with this same House of Hapsburg :
"Eh' ihr zum Schwerte greift, bedenkt es wohl!
Ihr KOnnt es friedlich mit dem Kaiser schlich ten."
Battyhany was not taken as a prisoner of war, but
kidnapped as an envoy of peace. Ten months ago,
as member of a deputation from the Diet then as-
sembled at Pesth, he voluntarily entered the tent of
Windischgratz, the bearer of a proposition for an
amicable adjustment of the national quarrel. It was
not to be expected, however, that an Austrian general
should respect a flag of truce; and Batthyany was,
accordingly, contrary to all the usages of civilized
warfare, arrested and hurried away to an Austrian
dungeon, his release from which, after about a year's
immurement, was but the prelude to his being sent
to Pesth, there to be dealt with according to the tender
mercies of Haynau. The completion of the tragedy
we know. A drum .head court-martial sentenced him
to a felon's fate; the rope, however, being cheated of
its prey, and powder and lead substituted as the in-
strument of death, in consequence of an ineffectual
attempt ;at suicide having so far disfigured the pri-
soner's person as to render inexpedient his
exposure on a public scaffold. We shall be much
surprised if the detestable policy of the Austrian
Camarilla do not precipitate a crisis in Hungary. It
is a mistake to suppose that the nation is subdued.
Externally, indeed, resistance is at an end for the pre-
sent; but the spirit that spurned the yoke still burns
in the breasts of the Hungarians. They but bide
their time. Russian physical force was never destined
to settle the question of Hungary's independence,
which is only postponed to a more convenient
season. In this respect the Hungarian question does
not differ from any of the other great national ques-
tions that have agitated Europe during the revolu-
tionary period. Outwardly things seem to have
returned to their former position, and the status quo
appears to be fairly re.established. But it is all a
vain show. Nothing has been really settled. All is
yet in ferment. The Roman question, the Sicilian
question, the Austro Italian question, the Scheswig-
Holstein question, the German question, and even the
question of a French Republic remain to be solved.
Europe still slumbers on the brink of a smouldering
volcaLo and is liable, at any moment, to be startled
by the iury of a fresh eruption.

CHOLERA.
Dr. King has addressed a further communication
:o the Earl of Carlisle, of which the following is a

copy :
My Lord,—ln my communication of the 12th
instant I recalled to your mind the hot blast which
swept over the Goodwin Sands, and felled to the
earth the strongest and healthiest men, marked with
the disease then raging as an epidemic, and known
by the name of cholera, and I narrated similar bla,stg
which had similarly marked the inhabitants of Salis-
bury and Walworth. I have now to direct your
attention to one of the great laboratories where
such blasts are generated—the Warwick-street and
Kenilworth• street sewers.

In this great laboratory, that process of decompo-
sition and collection of gas has been set up for two
long years which is daily in operation in the labora-
tory of every chemist: the means adopted by the
chemists and the Metropolitan Commission of
Sewers being the same, a trough as a digester, and
and an inverted cylinder as a receiver. The only
difference is, that in the one case the receiver is
placed perpendicularly, and in the other case hori-
zontally, to the trough—the 'Warwick-street sewer
representing the trough, the Kenilworth-street
sewer the receiver, of the Metropolitan Commission
of Sewers.

Into the great Kenilworth-street gas receiver the
three unfortunate sufferers, Attwood, Pert, and Gee,
entered about mid day, when it was warmed by the
heat of the sun, which shines all day long upon its
termination—and this day a thermometer submitted
to it indicated a temperature of 96 degrees
and fell lifeless on their faces without a struggle;
a death so instantaneous, that their hats remained
on their heads—a death so complete that even that
muscular effort was denied to these powerful men
that the new-born infant is permitted to exert to save
itself, the moment it has entered upon its new life,
from threatened asphyxia, consequent upon its lying
on its face. In this great gas receiver—the re-
ceptacle not only of the gases generated within itself
in an extraordinary degree, owing to its position with
regard to the sun's rays, but of the gases generated in
the Warwick street sewer—was eliminated and re-

tained not on!y large quantities of sulphuretted hy-
drogen gas, but the vapour of prussic acid, and I am
bold enough to say, unknown gases—gases that have,
in all probability, destroyed insidiously the unfortu-
nate men upon whom a Jury is now sitting. I say
insidiously, because the companions of Attwood, sen-
sible of his keen smell, maintain that the gas that
killed him and his two companions (Mr. Wells and
Walsh)—and modified to a degree owing to the in-
troduction of atmospheric air from the breaking down
of the crown of the receiver or bricked-up termina-
tion—was one that he knew not the smell of; gases
which I am satisfied generate colera—smell-less
gases—directly emanating from the sewage, and
immediately imparting the blue colour characteristic
of that fatal disease.

In the pent-up sewage, in a particular state of de-
composition, in the Kenilworth-street sewer, man
dies the death of blue asphyxia, in the same pent-up
sewage of Pilgrim-street, Walworth, and Lovegrove-
street, Camberwell, and Garden court, 'Windsor, man
dies the death of blue cholera. Are not the terms
blue asphyxia and blue cholera merely distinctive, and
not differential.
Of the gaseous origin of cholera I am as thoroughly

convinced as I was on the 10th of September, ihe-n

I addressed my third report to the Board of Health on
the state of Lambeth, Newington, and Camberwell
when I first broached these views, which were re-
peated in my fourth report, dated two days subse-
quently, in order to urge upon the hoard that remedy
which I considered necessary to mitigate the sufferings
of the afflicted, if not to save them from death.
It is not with the intention, however, of still
further directing your attention to these reports—
for your Lordship has informed me that you have
these reports under consideration—but of praying
you to continue ;our exertions in sanitary reform in
the direction of the sewers, notwithstanding your
separation from the Metropolitan Commission, to
whose charge the all-important subject of sewage is
delegated; exertions absolutely essential as long as
that commission refuses to recognise science, and—
neglecting to follow the example of the brewer, who
has long since abandoned the human finger, in ascer-
taining the precise time for drawing off the wort, for
the less perishable and more certain test of the ther-
mometer—still uses man to detect by smell the pre-
sence of destructive gases into the history of which
the most advanced chemistry only supplies us with a
glimmer of light.
I never beheld a more beautifully developed nasal
apparatus, and a more strongly marked illustration of
blue asphyxia—and ethnological research has long
been my favourite study—than the sufferer Attwood
presented to my view ; and but for vulgar prejudice,
deeply rooted in the poor widow of the unfortunate
man, I sliould have preserved on canvass a record of
one of the most rematl able phenomena of the epidemic,
which we hope has now passed away.
The errors which have been commmitted in the
construction of the Kenilworth street sewer, will
form the subject of a letter addressed by me to the
Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.
As long us plague, pestilence, and famine surround
me in my daily haunts, I hope your Lordship will be
;• pleased to bear with me, and allow me to subscribe
myself your Lordship's most obedient and very liable
RICHARD K.
, servant,
17, Saville row, Oct. 20, 1849.

POSTPONEMENT OF THE SECOND INSTALMENT or
TE
B HOP DUTY.—The payment of the secona instalment
of the bop duty due next month has been postponed
until October, 1850, the usual bond being required. The
payment of the first instalment of the 1848 duty cora-
menced yesterday week at Town Mailing, and has con-
tinued throughout the 'week in the different districts,
and the growers generally have paid the duty.—Maid-
stone Gazelle.

EAST SURREY REGISTRATION. The Revising
Barrister (S. C. C. Fish, Esq.) for the Eastern Division
of Surrey concluded the revision of the county lists yes-
terday morning, at the Workhou.e Committee-mom,
Bermondsey. The subjoined figures exhibit the number
of electors on the register now in force, the number of
them expunged, the claims allowed, and the number of
electors for the electoral year, 1849-50, namely :—The
number of electors on the register for 1848-49, 6,351; of
them expunged, 561; the rest of electors, 5,790; add
claims allowed, 598; the number of electors for 1849-50,
6,388; increase, 37. Of the number expunged 234 will
be on the new register, and 155r,are deceased.
RESIGNATION OF MR. SERGEANT MURPRY.—We
are authorised to state that the friends of Mr. Sergeant
Murphy have formally withdrawn that gentleman's name
from the list of candidates, as it is not their intention to
persevere in a contest, and thereby divide the Liberal
interest. This decision settles the election of Mr.
M`Carthy, and secures the triumph of national principle
and political purity; for of the chance of the Conserva-
tives we have not the shadow of a fear, as they have not
the shadow of a hope.—Cork Examiner.
An immense turnip, weighing 2711b5., and
measuring 3 feet 7 inches in circumference, was brought
to our office on Friday. It was grown by Mr. William
Robinson, of Eastham, and is called " Skirviug's Purple
Top Turnip."—Liverpool Atereurp