The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1440.

debate, just enough to form a body of quiet philo- t
sophic listeners, and take part in a philosophic 1

conversation.

The third reading of the Portsmouth Floating-
bridge Bill, which seems to have created an unusual
degree of excitement in that town, was moved, but
being opposed, was postponed till Tuesday.
A new writ was issued for Armagh, in the room
of Mr. Sergeant CURRIE, who has accepted the
office of Master in Chancery, in Ireland.
Mr. PALMER is to bring forward his motion
about China on the 28th instant.

The Earl of DARLINGTON again moved for a
new writ for Ludlow, the parties not having ac-
cepted the disgraceful compromise which was offered
on Monday evening. The Noble Earl stated
that had he been merely asked to postpone the
motion till Thursday, and been assured that
it would not be then opposed, he should have
acceded to the request, but when he asked for that
assurance the night before, he was mct by cries of
•' Go on," and he had no alternative. He thought
he was right in moving for the writ, since his
conduct was sanctioned by a majority of the House
Commons. He did not say a minority was
always in the wrong, but he insisted that a minority
ought to give way, otherwise no public business
could be transacted.

Mr. E. J. STANLEY said that the proceedings
of the House would be duly appreciated by the
country. The Hon. Gentleman explained that he
had told the Noble Lord that it was the wish of his
Noble Friend (Lord J. RUSSELL) to be present
when the motion was made ; that the writ was not
like a writ to fill a vacancy caused by death, it
was the result of a judicial inquiry ; other motions
had been cheerfully given up on account of Lord J.
RUSSELL'S absence ; in the House of Lords an
important measure had been postponed to suit a
Noble Lord, who was on a visit, and he there-
fore thought he was not asking too much, when he
asked the Noble Earl to postpone his motion.
Mr. HortsmAN quoted the evidence taken be-
fore the Committee, to show that the bribery at
Ludlow had been systematic and extensive. The
Hon. Gentleman renewed his motion for a Select
Committee to inquire into the bribery at Ludlow.
On this amendment, the House divided, and it
was lost by 216 to 180.
On the original question being put, Mr. WAR-
BURTON again moved that the further considera-
tion of it be adjourned to Thursday.
Mr. C. WooD had, the night before, voted to
postpone the debate ; but, after the decision of the
House, he 'thought further opposition improper..
He admired the privilege possessed by the mino-
rity of stopping all business, and he would not
abuse it by acting on it, except on some great and
special occasion.
Mr. HUM:E described the contest as a party
struggle, and stated that it was essential to take
that opportunity to check bribery. He quoted Sir
R. PEEL'S speeches on the Controverted Elections
Bill to prove that the Right Hon. Baronet wanted
an impartial tribunal to check bribery ; he had got
the tribunal, and here was a case of bribery, and
yet it was to be passed over. He supported Mr.
WARBURTON.

Mr. WAKLEY took the same line, and accused
the Tories of supporting bribery, which made the
SPEAKER call on him to retract, when he said the
Tories supported those who practised bribery, and
was loudly cheered. He accused them, too, of
hypocrisy, and contrasted their support of bribery at
Ludlow with their - pretended hatred of bribery and
fictitious voting in Ireland.
Lord MORPETH, though opposed to the prac-
tice of gaining an object by adjournment, was of
opinion that the adjournment of the question till
Thursday was reasonable, and he should vote for
that. It was, however, decided on a division, that
the debate should not be adjourned till Thursday
by 188 to 140.

On the question being again put, Mr. HAWES
moved the adjournment of the House.
This motion was acquiesccd in, with an under-
standing, suggested by Sir It. PEEL, that no pub-
lic business should be transacted to-morrow, and
the House adjourned.
The proceedings about the Ludlow writ is a
worthy pendant to the debates on the privilege
question. The House of Commons is more in ar-
rears with business than ever was the Court of
Chancery, and every day brings with it new cases,
which it must hear. Under such circumstances
to waste a day is folly, but to waste it

when the public attention is fixed on the House,
when it is daily falling into contempt, is no better
than madness. Under other circumstances, the
House of Commons will not take any step unless
the Leader be present, and in general his absence
has been a sufficient reason to stop public business ;
and why, therefore, it should be considered not
sufficient to stop the issue of a writ for Ludlow,
when that Leader had sent word that he has some-
thing to propose on the subject, nothing but fac-
tion can explain. The Conservatives being unable
to work the House to their purposes, are resolved
apparently to degrade and ruin it.

We always rejoice when we find a Tory journal
advocating in any shape or form the cause of the
people. It is a proof that adversity has taught the
party a little discretion. Ordinarily, the Tories
speak of the people only as the canaille, as beasts
of burden, who must be muzzled lest they eat too
much, and pegged down, like lobsters by the claws,
lest they should invade the chosen abodes of aris-
tocracy. When the Tories speak for the people,
or write respectfully or soothingly of them, it is a
sign that they are in great po:itical distress. They
want the people, and therefore they court them.
The instance we are now about to adduce of this
may be a remnant, however, of the Radical habits of
the Times, rather than the offspring of its present
Tory principles. It may be only writhing, like a
reptile continuing its vital motions, the tail going
the old way and the head a new way, after it has
been cut in halves. The Times of yesterday,
speaking as it was wont to speak when it was on
the side of the Radicals, censured Ministers se-
verely for not offering a reward for the discovery
of \lr. TEMPLEAIAN'S murderer till after the mur-
der of Lord WILLIAM RUSSELL

" It was an indecent respect of persons.' The ad-
vertisement,' it affirmed, ' of a pardon and a premium
for the discovery of Templeman's destroyer would never
have been heard of, unless the melancholy fate of a Libe-
ral Nobleman, had absolutely shamed the Government into
a tardy notice of it; and we must add, that such a gross
instance of the unequal importance which the Whigs at-
tach to the life of a poor man, compared with that of a
rich one, is highly disgraceful to the Ministry, inasmuch
as, instead of all ranks of the Queen's subjects being in-
discriminately protected by them, it obviously leads to the
inference, that if murderers will only have the tact to
confine their daggers to the middle classes, their chance
of escape, as long as this Government lasts, arc propor-
tionably hopeful."
We especially admire a Tory, who will on no
account give a poor man a vote for a legislator,
laying it down emphatically that the life of a poor
man is to be protected equally with the life of a
rich man. We approve of that doctrine, but it is
incompatible with Toryism. How can it be ex-
pected, when men are excluded from the pale of the
Conaitution—when they are held to be unworthy
of electing a Member of Parliament, that the classes
worthy of electing Members, or that the classes
notiontsc
oel
savess ei, s
worthy of being elected, or born to be part of the
Legislature, should pay the same attention to the
Toryism, as to themselves ? Man is naturally so
it
so t ao
bl class s s infinitely
saved.
saNtt'viluilhoadittci
tolillieuera:lrslyey
olihu)noeledal
inculcated
dtnli,ccoaatetle;ydeillisevnorthless, according to
superior to the man whose headt'
B But when such v‘hl'iiiitasil:loontu'ivo'tntaitolhnihat etivlsiebnesgfiltounntcliaj'e.ser.
ously inculcated in t be law-making classes, it is I

preposterous to expect from them the same regard to
others which they exhibit for themselves. We look,
therefore, on the alarm which the murder of Lord
Wm. RUSSELL has spread amongst the upper
classes, and the consequent zeal of the Govern-
ment to find out the murderer, and on the uncon-
cern with which the murder of Mr. TEMPLEMAN
was viewed, and the apathy of the Government in
his case—supposing them both to have existed to
the extent described by the Times—as matters of
course, which are no otherwise worthy of notice
than as additional indications of the true character
of the system by which the nation is governed.
The Legislature is wholly aristocratic, the Execu-
cutive Government is wholly aristocratic, and it is
quite natural that the laws should wholly be made
and administer ed for behoof of the aristocratic classes.
But while we chronicle these observations of the
Times as a proof of the increasing hypocrisy of
the Tories, who pretend to care for the life of a
single individual belonging to the classes they habi-
tually tread into the dust, and whom they starve by
thousands, we are by no means sure that the
eagerness of the Tory Journalist to censure the
Ministry, has not on this, as on other occasions,
carried him far beyond the bounds of justice. In
Mr. TEMPLEMAN'S case the verdict of the Coro-
ner's inquest, was wilful murder against GOULD ;
in Lord WILLIAM RUSSELL S case the verdict
was wilful murder against some person unknown.
In the one case the criminal was pointed out, not
in the other. By the Coroner's verdicts the Govern-
ment was not required in the one case to inter-
fere, and it was in the other. Till GouLD
was acquitted, on April 14th, the Government was
in no degree called on to offer a reward ; by that
time the excitement of the matter had cooled down,
and Government only shared the growing general
indifference. What may have happened sub-
sequently to the trial between the police and GOULD
to make it appear unnecessary to offer a reward
we know not, but the result of having offered it is
scarcely such as to make us suppose that anything
has been lost by the delay.
In all such cases the Home Office is not accus-
tomed to act unless put in motion by the friends of
the victim, or by some local or subordinate autho-
rities, and the Times should rather advert to the
different degrees of zeal amongst the connexions
of the two deceased, and to the probable different
representations of the local and subordinate autho-
rities, including the police, than to the feelings of
the Whig Ministers, as the cause of the delay in
one case, and the celerity in the other. Though
we much admire the eagerness of the Tory Times
to stand up for the equal protection of the poor
and the rich, and praise its advocacy of equal
rights and equal laws for both, which we hope it
will hereafter act on, we cannot say that its censure
of the Ministers is deserved.

One of our contemporaries speaks of the begging
letter of the Bishop of LONDON, to which we
yesterday adverted, as evidence that the Bishop is
a supporter of the voluntary system. We like not
such voluntaryism. Brandishing his spiritual
weapons, the Right Reverend Father in GoD
does not wait, calmly and humbly, for the offer-
ings of the people, but he demands them, and, to
a certain extent, fixes the amount of the Episco-
palian reward, He points out the number of
officers necessary—he indicates the pay they must
receive—and, with arms in his hands, he asks for
the sum, without which, he assures the poor
terrified people, they can have no spiritual
generals, majors, and captains. The voluntary
system of the Dissenters is quite different.
By that the message of salvation is offered to man-
kind withoutprice, and those who bear it, asking no
reward, trust to its effects on the minds of the hear-
ers—trust to its own inherent power, to induce them
to contribute all that is necessary to the preacher's
wants. The voluntary system stipulates for no
Bishoprics. It does not contemplate large endow-
ments from the improved value of land—it does not '
intimidate the weak and attempt to coerce the strong
—it does not prescribe the duty of Government,
nor make it the duty of subjects to enrich the priest-
hood. The voluntary system of the Bishop of
LONDON is the voluntary system of the begging
friars, which promises heavenly blessings for eart
gifts, or threatens spiritual evils if they be. withheld.
It is the voluntary system of the beggar in Gil
Bias, who enforces his demand for alins by leVelling
at passers by what they, in their terror, suppose to
be a musket.

Letters from Munich of the 6th inst., state that
the Palatine of Hungary read in the Chamber of
Magnates, on the Ist of May, a political amnesty
as plenary as the amnesty granted by the Emperor
of AUSTRIA to his Lombardo-Venetian subjects.
This well-timed act of clemency produced an im-
mense sensation in Hungary. The disaffected
were, as if by magic, at once reconciled to the Go-
vernment, and nothing was heard but the praises of
the Emperor.
s_

Letteis from Berlin of the sth inst. announce,
that the Archbishop of POSEN is dangerously ill at
Colburg. The Venerable Prelate had caused his
friends to be sent for to be present at his dissolution.
Letters from Batavia, published in the Dutch
papers received to-day, inform us, that the Arch-
bishop of ETCHMIADZIN, and head of all the
Armenian Churches in India, sailed from that
island on the 27th of October, on board an Eng-
lish vessel, to visit the Churches under his spiritual
jurisdiction.

Letters and Papers from Madrid of the 4th inst.
have reached us, together Kith the Reo de Aragon
of the sth. The Minister of War read in the
Cortes a despatch from General O'Donnell, stating
that he had captured the Carlist fortress of Alcala
la Selva, the only defended point between him and
Cantavieja. On the other hand, so hot were the
dissensions in Morella, that 200 men and a number
of officers forced their way out of the town, and
joined the Queen's troops under General Du-
RANDO. ESPARTERO, on hearing their report of
the state of the garrison, commanded the General
to approach and- invite the insurgents to surrender.
CABRERA, at the head of five battalions, was
near Miravet on the 3rd, endeavouring to make his
escape to Sardinia, whither he has sent before him
immense sums of money, the fruit of his sacri-
legious and public robberies. On the same day,
Colonel MITCHELL, of the Royal Artillery, ap-
pointed to succeed Colonel \VYLDE, as her Bri-
tannic Majesty's Commissioner at the Duke DE
LA VITTORIA'S head-quarters, arrived at Mon.
royo, where the Duke still continued with his
army.

The French Journals of Monday are barren of
domestic news of the slightest Political interest.
On Friday a deputation of the British Anti-Sla-
very Society had the honour of an audience of the
King to present an Address to his Majesty,
praying him to adopt active measures for the sup-
pression of the slave-trade. The King received
the deputation very graciously, and in the course
of a long familiar conversation satisfied the gentle-
men
present that he knew more of the working of
slavery in the colonies than some of themselves.
He expressed his detestation of slavery—promised
not to
s ofsight
of the prayer of the Address
—but avoided speaking decisively respecting
the
abolitionslavery
in the:French co?onies, as
the question was one which could only be regularly
decided upon by the Legislative body. The depu-
tation withdrew at the end of a long audience
greatly pleased with the humane sentiments ex-
pressed by the King, and not a little surprised to
find his mind powerfully impressed with what he
witnessed of the operations of slavery in Cuba
forty years ago.
In the Moniteur we find the following paragraph
which contains the latest news from French
Africa :

" On the night of the 27th ult. the troops of Ben
Salem of Mahiddin crossed the Haratch, but at daybreak
were met by General Restolan at the head of two bat-
talions, and were driven back over the river with some
loss. Being thus repelled from the Sahel, the A abs
marched towards the Msison Carree ; but General Res-
tolan arrived before them, and prevented more than the ex-
change of a few shots. Two country houses between Bir
Kadem and the .1:ode1 Farm, were plundered. One per-
son was killed and two wounded, and five of the French
troops were also wounded. The army amounting to about
1,600 men, retired. By the occurrences at Bir Kadem
the inhabitants have been so far alarmed as to fly to Al-
giers for refuge. Every requisite measure had been taken
for preventing a recurrence of the inroad."
The Gazette du Midi states that, emboldened
by the absence of the Marshal and the main body
of the French army, the Arabs plunder the country
to the very gates of A lgiers.
We find in the columns of the Outre Ater a
fuller account of the sei4ure of the Seriegambie by

her Britannic MAJESTY'S brig of war, Saracen, 1
on the charge of being a slaver. The only point
in it of importance is, that the seizure has been
declared legal—a verdict which we feel assured the
French Government will not dream of disturbing.
The projected railroad from Paris to Rouen, the
principal shareholders of which are English, is to
be connected with the St. Germain railroad at
Colomhes. The communications between London
and Paris, via Southampton, will be greatly ac-
celerated when this important undertaking shall be
terminated. The French Government is pleased
to see English capital thus coming to the aid of
French industry and manufactures.
The mail from Aragon had not been received at Madrid,
and the mail which left this city far Saragossa had been
stopped, the letters burnt, and the passengers taken to
Beteta, doubtless to force them to pay a ransom.
It appears that the insurgents have established a cannon
foundry at Beteta, where some pieces, it is said, Lave
already been cast.

It Is said that Balmaseda has caused six or seven
officers, accused of conspiracy against him, to be stint at
Beteta. He had inflicted the same punishment on another
cfficcr, a native of Annoa, implicated in the same affair,
and who bad disclosed the names of his accomplices.