The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-06 00:00:00

and that he never gave anything without a reference. SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
The defendant is the person who brought the letter. FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
The defendant, who has been repeatedly con victed TIMES.—The necessity for some means of com-
for a similar offence, was sent to the House of Cur municating with the engine-driver in case of any
rection for three months. accident to a railway train has at length rection

THAMES.—(THIS DAY.)
Maria Putnam, a genteel-looking, well-dressed
young woman, whose connexions are highly respect-
able, was charged with attempting to pass a counter-
f?it five shilling piece, at the shop of Mr. Francis
Willett, linen draper, No. 8, Grosvenor-place, Com-
mercial-road.

' recognised by the authorities of the-Great Western,
who have issued a circular that appeared in our paper
[ of yesterday. It is something to the credit of this
great company that it should be the first to attempt
to remedy an evil that has been lately the subject of
much complaint, and has been the cause of several
most fatal accidents. Our Monday's publication
contained a letter adding one more to the already
existing proofs of the constant danger arising from
the neglect of a precaution which we have frequently
demanded the adoption of., The express train from
York was on Thursday last placed in the most
perilous position, anti. the lives of the passengers
were exposed to the utmost risk by one of the car-
riages having got off the line while going at the
rate of more than fifty miles an hour. Fortunately
the train was so short that the engine-driver was
not too far in advance to detect the jolting, or, as
he described it, the " jumping motion;" and by
stopping the train, which consisted of only three
carriages, he prevented the incident from having
a serious or, perhaps, a fatal consequence. If the
train had been one of the ordinary length, it is al-
most certain that the engine-driver would have ex-
perienced no shock until something frightful had
occurred to arrest his attention. The carriage which
had gone off the line in the case to which we refer
was the last of only three, but it might have been the
last of a dozen or more, in which event it would per-
haps have overturned or been jolted to pieces before
any irregularity had become perceptible at so great a
distance as the engine. There was, it is true, a
guard in charge of the train, but this individual
seems to have stowed himself comfortably away
in the luggage van, and was therefore of no more
use than a trunk, a carpet-bag, or any other of the
inanimate objects among which he had placed him-
self. The guard who retired to the luggage van
might just as well hare taken the lamps from
the back of the train and placed them inside one
of the carriages, or performed any other act of dan-
gerous absurdity ; for if the use of a guard is to keep
a look-out, he i§ a piece of superfluous cargo when he
takes up a position in which he can see nothing. The
guard could not, surely, have imagined that he was
carried as a species of talisman or amulet to preserve
the passengers from harm, and that it mattered little
whether he took his seat in the place assigned to him
or crept in among the luggage, so that he accom-
panied the train on its journey. It is to be hoped
that the guard whose strange conduct we have no-
ticed is not an average specimen of his class; for if he
were, there would be little hope for the success of the
plan proposed by the Great Western ;for facilitating
communication between the carriages and the engine.
A man, to be called " a travelling carriage porter,"
is to accompany the train, and will occupy a seat on
the tender, from which he is to keep a steady and
vigilant look-out on both sides and along the top of
the carriages, so that he may at once observe if any
accident should occur, and communicate with the
engine-man. This is a step in the right direction,
but it is, we fear, a very small and inefficient one.
The public will, after all, be at the mercy of a rail-
way servant, against whose carelessness there will
be no provision ; and we hold, therefore, to the expe-
diency of some mechanical contrivance by which the
passengers may make a signal for themselves in case
of accident. It has been too often made evident
that there is less dependence to be placed on the
human than on the material agents of railway tra-
velling, for the latter have been seldom known to
fail, except through the carelessness or blundering
of the former. For our own parts, we should feel
much safer if we knew the means of making a signal
to be within our reach, than we could do if left
dependent on the vigilance and promptitude of a
man seated on the tender with instructions that he
might, or might not, thoroughly comprehend or
faithfully follow. We cannot help observing, also,
in reference to the circular put forth by the Great
Western, that the precautions just adopted applies
only to the express trains, which certainly, from their
speed, demand particular care, but which ought not
to enjoy exclusively a provision calculated to increase
the safety of railway travelling. Though the ex-
press trains carry only first-class passengers, we are
sure the Great Western directors do not wish to
draw a distinction between first-class and second
or third class lives, which are all equally pre-
cious, and ought all to participate in any arrange-
ment that can be made for their security. It must
also be objected to the plan proposed, that at night
it will be almost useless, for the utmost vigilance
would not enable the "travelling carriage porter" to
see in the dark, and thus the superiority of some
mechanical contrivance for communicating with the
engine-driver is manifest. 'We must, however, give
credit to the board of the Great Western for having
evinced a readiness to meet in some way or other the
daily increasing demand made on behalf of the public
for some provision against sudden accident when the
train is in motion. If other companies imitate the
good example that has been set, we shall, doubtless,
have the satisfaction of seeing the general adoption of
some simple and effectual contrivance by which pas-
sengers may gain the attention of the guard and of
the engine driver in cases of danger.
CHRONICLE.—To persons anxiously interested
in the industrial progress and social improvement of
Ireland nothing can be more discouraging than to see
how very little the leaders of opinion in that country
appear to have profited by the lessons of recent expe.
rience. It is truly mortifying that so much of the
schooling of adversity should have produced so small
an amount of its appropriate results as we find in the
public proceedings of the various bodies which are
there allowed to assume the functions of popular
leadership. What with her " Loyal National Repeal
Association," and her " Irish Confederation," and her
" Irish Council," and her " Irish Party" (or so much
as is left of it), the sister country certainly enjoys
the benefit of a large multitude of counsellors ; but
we are bound to deplore the absence of that which
a high authority has pronounced to be the natural
accompaniment of this description of social wealth.
We have studied from time to time, with the best
disposition to be edified and pleased, the reported
and applauded utterances of those philosophers and
patriots whom the Association, Confederation, and
Council respectively introduce to the notice of the
empire as the exponents of national thought and en-
deavour. We must Own, however, that we have
never yet had the satisfaction of thinking that any
class of Irish politicians are materially wiser than
they were twelve months ago. There are varieties of
course, both individual and collective, in the temper
of the demonstrations, by which the organized pa-
triotism of Ireland is pleased to exhibit its extreme
unfitness for the task of popular guidance. Uproar-
rious invective against generous benefactors, insolent
repudiation of just debts, and well meaning but
drowsy and ineffectual twaddle of the sentimental
sort, constitute generic diversities in the manifesta-
tions of the Irish patriot mind, which a regard to
psychological exactness obliges the critic to recog-
nise. The future historian, however, who may
perhaps content himself with looking at things
more in the mass, will be at no loss to assign certain
common characteristics of Irish popular leadership
during the year of famine and loans. He will,
we apprehend, have his attention mainly fixed on
that inveterate preference of talking to doing,
that insatiable appetite for discussions, reports, depu-
tations, and addresses, and that unconquerable
reluctance to learn the first truths of economical
science, which seem to animate one and all of those
gentlemen who meet weekly and monthly for their
ctboeunatertyia'sligstooodf
. We
theyearl
cannotB4 indulge
will
be atbhlee hopete pa t thatbi s
finger on any one useful practical thing done, or put
in the way of being done, either by the combined or
the separate exertions of these most laborious and in-
defatigable idlers. 1 Take, for instance, the demonstra-
tion with which we have have been favoured, during
the course of the last week, by the body calling itself
the "Irish Council,"—certainly not the most extra-
vagantly irrational of the trio of confederacies just
new contending for the civic crown. The Council
meet, under the presidency of a respectable Irish
nobleman, to talk over things in general, and deter-
mine what things in particular can be advantageously
selected for minuter discussion in speech and print.
After a few cursory observations by the chairman on
what would, should, or might have happened if
Ireland had had a Parliament of her own to manage
the crisis, and a cheerful hope that the Council would
be able to think of something to everybody's mutual
advantage, and an ingenious suggestion that things
might go on better if landlords would use their tenants
" kindly," and a firm protest against the policy of
letting Irish farmers sell their corn in the best market,
the business of the day begins with a discussion on
Irish manufactures. A gentleman brings up " a re-
port," we are informed, on this really most interesting
and important subject, in which the mode of making
Ireland a thriving manufacturing country is carefully
chalked out, according to the very best of the patriotic
author's ability. The grand desideratum, in the judg-
ment of the framer of this document, for realising
manufacturing success and prosperity will strike Lan-
cashire and English readers as indicating an admirable
boldness and originality of conception. Mr. Keogh,
M.P., the gentleman whom the Council has deputed
to philosophise for them on this topic, has evidently
gone deepar than most in his study of the nature and
sources of the wealth of nations. It is not improved
steam-power, nor a wiser use of water-power,
nor steadier habits of industry, nor abstinence
from illegal combination and outrage, that
Mr. Keogh reccommends to his countrymen
as the prime conditions of manufacturing pros-
perity. The gentleman has hit on a shorter cut
to industrial eminence. He makes it altogether an
affair of the heart. He would do it all by " senti-
ment." " Evoke public sentiment in favour of Irish
manufactures," and the thing is done. The only

Mr. Pelham, jun., defended the prisoner.
Mr. Willett stated that yesterday evening Mrs.
Putnam came to his shop, arid purchased a few
trifling articles, in payment of which she tendered the
five shilling piece (produced), which he discovered to
be a bad one, and he immediately told her so. She
replied, " Oh never mind," tendering another, which
also was a counterfeit one. Witness remarked this
is very strange, at which the prisoner laughed and
said, it is odd, certainly, but my husband his recently
come into some property and purchased a shop, and
I must have taken them there. Witness said he
would accompany her to her husband's residence, but
she wandered about, and at last took him into a court
and declared she did not know where she lived.
Witness immediately gave her into custody. Mr.
Willett added that it was a singular coincidence that,
about a week since, he had taken of some person un-
known another bad five shilling piece, and if his
worship would examine the three coins he would find
that they had all been cast in the same mould.
This evidence was corroborated by the prosecutor's
shopman.
Mr. Pelham, on behalf of the prisoner, said
her husband had lately come into a great deal of
money, and taken a shop, as she alleged. They had
only recently come to the neighbourhood, and she
might really have missed her way, or in the flurry
and agitation consequent on such a charge, she might
scarcely have known what she was about. He could
produce several highly respectable witnesses, who
would speak to her character.
Mr. YARDLEY observed that there were grave sus-
picions attaching to the case, which imperatively de-
manded further inquiry, and he should therefore
remand her on the charge till Tuesday, but would
take two good sureties, in the sum of 401. each, for
her appearance on that day.
The requisite bail was almost immediately put in,
and the prisoner left the court with her friends.

COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT.
(FROM OUP. OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
COWES, OCT. 5.
DEPARTURE OF THE COURT FROM THE
ISLE OF WIGHT.

The Royal Family embarked from the beach in
front of Osborne House this afternoon, under a salute
from Cowes Castle. As the horses and carriages
leave to-day and to-morrow for Windsor, it is ex-
pected that her Majesty will not return till the spring.
The long-continued drought has been very destruc-
tive to the new planted shrubs at Osborne.
NEWPORT, RYDE, VENTNOR, AND CONVES MAILS.—
On and after the 6th, the Isle of Wight mails will
leave Cowes for London at seven o'clock, P.M., instead
of at nine o'clock, as heretofore, the Cowes post
closing at six o'clock instead of eight.
Potatoes are already becoming scarce and dear.
The quality being good, the consumption has been so
great, that if the French or other foreign ports are
not opened to us, a sufficient supply will not be ob-
tained but at very high prices.
THE WASHINGTON.—The Yarborough steamer has
been lying off during the day, expecting the arrival
of the Washington Ocean steamer from New York,
but she is not yet in sight.-8 r.m.