The Sun.
London, England, 1847-08-19 00:00:00

TRE 5U1479
_LON'T)OI446._ TrIUR4SDAY

hard to attain. He had the highest examples for the
course he adopted. The veteran Commander-in-
Chief, the hero of a hundred fights, had set the pre-
cedent he was about to follow. That illustrious
Duke, who, if any man, could with impunity have
violated the usages and trusted to his well•estab-
lished reputation for protection, . felt it was
due to the service to which he belonged to
demand a hostile meeting from a brother nobleman
for intemperate language used in the heat of debate.
He was seconded by the gallant veteran who after-
wards rendered the most important services at
Sobraon, and was justly rewarded therefor by a
peerage and a pension. Had a fatal result then hap-
pened, and the law been administered with equal
strictness as in the present instance, WELLINGTON
and HARDING E might have expiated their guilt upon
a scaffold, or laboured in a penal settlement, in place
of receiving the heartfelt thanks of a grateful country.
The eminent statesman who gave the deathblow to
monopoly, and sacrificed his party for the benefit of
his country, would have been in a similar predica-
ment, while the Liberator of Ireland would have
perished by the bands of the hangman in place of
achieving the liberation of his co-religionists from
the uuj ust restrictions by which they were fettered
and oppressed. With such high sanction for the
proceeding, it is no wonder that Lieutenant
MUNRO acted in accordance with what has
been termed the laws of honour, and de-
manded reparation for the unmerited insult.
He was actuated by no vindictive feeling, but ap-
peared to be in a state of the greatest possible
anxiety and despondency, and stated to Mr. GUL-
LIVER, the surgeon whom he had induced to accom-
pany him, that he had been grossly insulted before
the servants, but that he would be satisfied with the
shadow (If an apology. This expected apology was,
however, withheld. No explanation of any kind
would be afforded by the unfortunate gentleman who
gave the insult, and stern necessity compelled the
prisoner to persevere, and the fatal result happened.
After four years' absence—after the bitter conse-
quences entailed on him by the transaction—the
loss of almost all that rendered life desirable, the
wretched survivor surrendered himself to take the
trial that awaited him, and he is now a felon,
found guilty by a jury of his country-
men of the highest crime known to the
law, and under sentence of an ignominious
death. That sentence cannot possibly be carried into
execution; if it were so, " it would (in the language
of a distinguished Contemporary) more properly de-
serve the name of murder than the offence he has un-
fortunately committed." The Learned Judge felt
justified in stating thit the sentence would not be
carried into effect. But to what extent will it be
mitigate ? That must be decided by other
parties. It is for her MAJESTY, in the
exercise of her most precious prerogative,
to decide thereon with the advice of the Chief Secre•
tary for the Home Department. The circumstances
of the case are not such as to make Lieutenant
MUNRO a fitting scapegoat, or a first victim to a de-
termination on the part of the Executive to suppress
the crime, and we believe that we speak the unani-
tnous feeling of the country in saying, that the
sufferings he has already endured are more
than sufficient for his offence, and in ex-
pressing a hope that her MAJESTY'S free
pardon may restore him to society, and that he
may be reinstated in the service to which he was an
ornament. Other laws should be enacted for the
repression of duelling ; and if it is really desired to
put it down, a severe punishment to principals and
seconds, without reference to the result, would be far
more efficacious than the present sanguinary laws
relating thereto.

Scarcely a borough or county is unrepresented in
the new Parliament. The magical number of 658,
which may be considered the symbol of our consti-
tutional liberties, as much as ABRACADABRA was ever
regarded as containing in itself the quintessence of
black magic, is very nearly completed. Those among
our Contemporaries who have enormous faith in the
Protectionist-Conservatives, and who may literally be
viewed as the organs of veneration in reference to their
obsolete principles, are already evincing the fruitful•
ness of their imaginations, by calculating the power
of their own party in the Ho .se of Commons.
lire would defy both Mr. COCKER and Major
BENIOWSKI to make anything reasonable out of
their array of numerical figures. Neither
JOSEPH HUME, nor the calculating boy, nor
BARRAGE'S calculating machine, would be able to go
through their labyrinthine sums of subtraction, and
multiplication, and division, without being plunged
into a hopeless state of confusion and bewilderment.
Instead of proceeding upon the wholesome principle
that two and two make four, they seem to

swim off into a sea of calculations with a

profound belief that seven and nine make fifty- six—
.when counting for themselves, and that five and eight
make something less than three—when counting for
their opponents. We do not, by any means, intend
to deny the ingenuity of their estimates, especially of
one published this morning in the columns of a Pro-
tectionist journal, whereby it would appear, that on
the re-assembling of Parliament, the Commons will
be divided into two equal divisions, as thus :
Conservatives .. 328
Radicals .. .. 328
So that, presuming every Member were punctilious
in his attendance, and undeviating in his adhesion to
his particular class, the pleasant result will be either
that no Speaker whatever could be elected, or, if
elected, that he would be, in virtue of his casting
vote, the House of Commons. It would be analagous
to an everlasting series of dead heats at Doncaster ;
and, in point of fact, would amount to a legisla-
tive stagnation.
Let us examine, however, thoroughly into this
preposterous and manifestly impossible calculation.
Let us discern the device by which the losing
party is endeavouring to prove itself upon an
equality with the conqueror. Surely, we may
exclaim, a shabbier trick—a trick of more ex-
travagant impudence was never before adventured
upon for the purpose of concealing for a few moments
an electioneering discomfiture. The trick is actually
this—of coupling together in one political class, in
one homogeneous mass, as it were, the very hetero-
geneous divisions of Protectionists and Peelites ! Why,
surely we are correct in asserting that Conservatism
is not more directly the reverse of Radicalism than a
Protectionist is opposed to a Peelite. If we wanted,
indeed, to illustrate anything by a political antithesis,
we could not by possibility think of a more striking
and notorious antithesis than the one afforded by the
Protectionists and the Peelites. And yet, for the
bald satisfaction of keeping up appearances a little
longer, the former proclaim, with a sort of bluster-
ing self-satisfaction, their numerical equality with
the popular candidates, and prove it (!) by
giving us the numbers in detail, in which we find
them coolly classifying themselves among the fol-
lowers of Sir ROBERT PEEL, whom they in the first
returns classed among the Radicals!
The absurdity of these assumptions of a strength
which the Protectionists are very far indeed from pos-
sessing, requires no distinct or laboured refutation.
The catalogue, published over and over again
in our own columns, and in those of
our Contemporaries, shows accurately enough
the true position and the real proportions
of the three political sections. Altogether there are
somewhere about 644 Members already returned,
and of those 644 there are 314 decided Liberals, 113
decided Peelites, and 193 decided Protectionists,
leaving a surplus of some 24 individuals, who, like
the lion. Representative of Nottingham, disdain to be
classified under either heading. The residue of places
from which returns have yet to be made are of such
a character as to leave no reasonable doubt
as to the
consequence. For example, Sudbury is disfranchised
on account of its flagrant corruption Kildare gives
promise of an even return, as the Liberal Mar-
quiss
Of KILDARE is at the head of the
poll, and the Conservative BOURKE comes im-
mediately afterwards—for Ross and Cromarty,
there is but one candidate (a Conservative),
and consequently a Conservative will be returned_
for Orkney, there are two candidates (both Liberals),
and consequently one Liberal is certain ; while in
Mayd'eounty and Kilkenny county, all the candi-
dates being Liberals, two Liberal representatives
must be elected by each of those constituencies. -
Such is actually the position of electioneering mat-
ters throughout the United Kingdom ; such is the

predominance of liberality among the enfranchised
portions of the community; and yet we are assured
by our veracious (might we not say our mendacious ?)
opponents, that they are on a par in numbers,
strength, and popularity, with ourselves ! It is satis-
factory, however, to find that they can only prove (!)
this, by deriding the liberality of such men as
GEORGE THOSIPSON and FEARG US O'CONNOR, and
by jumbling together the Peelites and the Pro-
tectionists !

A letter from Berne of the 13th says—" It was
expected in the sitting of the Diet of this day that
the Deputies of the Sonderbund would have de-
manded a collective protest to be inserted against the
decision come to the day before yesterday, with re-
spect to the warlike preparations of the League ; but
the Deputy of Lucerne merely demanded that it
should be stated in the minutes that he did not re-
cognise the decision in question, inasmuch as Lucerne
denied the right of the Diet to pass measures of the
kind. What I stated to you relative to the proceed-
ings of Mr. PEEL, the English Charge d'Affaires,
and the communication of a verbal note from Lord
PALmEasToN, is fully confirmed. The English note
is in some sort a protest against the proceedings of
Austria and France relative to Switzerland, but it is
in particular on the French Cabinet that falls the
counterblow of the friendly demonstration of the
British Minister."

A letter from Rome states that the railroad ques-
tion has been definitively settled by the Pontifical
Government. The privilege for the road from Rome
to Cabrano, by Albano, has been granted to a com-
pany which has at its head Prince ALTIERI and M.
ROSETTI, and that from Bologna to Ancona is to be
given to a company formed at the latter place.

Madrid papers of the 12th have arrived.
The QUEEN was to arrive in Madrid on the even-
ing of that day from La Granja.

On the Bth a Carlist band, consisting of 500 men,
entered the town of Franga, seized all the Govern-
ment money, and stopped the Catalonian mail ; after
which they marched off in two divisions, one towards
Torrente, the other towards Masalcorech. The Car-
list bands stop the mails wherever they have an
opportunity.
MADRID BOLSA, AUG. 12.—The Three per Cents.
were done at 26i for cash; the Five per Cents. 17i ;
and the Coupons at 15.

We have received the Paris papers of Tuesday.
The Reforme gives the following as the true ver-
sion of the story of 15,000 f. said to have been pre-
sented as a bribe to the Minister of War to secure a
contract for
,the supply of lint to the army of Al-
giers :

" There was a-talk some days ago of an adjudication
for the supply of lint to the military hospitals, and dif-
ferent versions were given of the affair. The facts, as
they really occurred, are as follow:—The firm which ob-
tained the adjudication has become bankrupt. In ex-
amining the books the assignee found the entry of a sum
of 15,000 f. as given to the Minister of War as a pot de
yin. The noise of this corruption having been spread
about, General Trezel wrote to.the commandant of the
division to examine into the fact. After having done so,
the commandant replied that the 15,0001. were placed in
the hands -of a superior functionary. But, in going
over the documents, a letter was found addressed by the
secretary of a personage not less powerful to a doctor of
the place, who had acted as intermediary in this affair.
A paragraph of this letter was conceived nearly in these
terms:—' My dear Friend,—l have received the 5001.
They are lint which comes very opportunely to the re-
lief of one of my wounds.' The secretary was examined,
and he denied that this sum had anything to do with
the adjudication of the lint. Nevertheless he appeared
no more at the Ministry, and the issue of the examina-
tion made by the Procureur-General is waited for to de-
cide on his case."

The National, after giving a resume of the charges
of corruption which have been brought against every
department of the Ministry, thus continues,—" Here
we have, then, this far-famed system drawn by itself
—demoralization is its foundation and its means of
action. After the condemnation of the former col-
league of M. GUIZOT by the Court of Peers, no one
could entertain any doubt of the truth of the
far-famed assertion of his accomplice, The Govern-
ment is in greedy and corrupt hands'—and that
nothing may be wanting to the picture the friends,
the writers, the fatniliars of the powers that be,'
come" forward to coroplete it before the -Court of
Assize. Among all these men of noble race, one
has more particularly distinguished himself as the
warmest, the most violent, the most impassioned of
.the defenders of the Cabinet. What has been the
part which in the recent trials before the Court of
Assize has been played by M. GRINIER DE CAS-
SAGNAC, the editor of the defunct Epoque 'The Pre-
sident feels it to be his duty to censure M. GRANIER
severely for his conduct in the witnesses-room.
The Attorney- General points out the most mon-
strous contradictions in his evidence—the Judge
in summing up is still more severe—' the witness
GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC offered himself to be exa-
mined before the magistrate, and he then affirmed
that he had not lent the pistols—in making that
affirmation he uttered a falsehood '—and two other
affirmations of M. GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC are
equally stigmatised as falsehoods. This same man,
thus stigmatised in the Assize Court, had been con-
demned the day before to pay a debt which he denied,
and his adversary had publicly reproached him with
being an infamous, impudent swindler. And this is
the individual who enjoyed the unlimited confidence
of MM. GUIZOT and DUCHATEL, on whom they
conferred favours to an incalculable extent, the great
defender of their policy, the only writer of any
talent employed on the journal which had been estab-
lished as the Ministerial organ, to be honoured with
the Ministerial confidence, and to trumpet forth the
praises of the ministry of the 29th of October. M.
GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC who has been so deep in
their confidence has been pointed out as the person
who offered to procure the presentation and passing
of a law for a bribe of 1,200,000 francs, and
whom the public authorities have not dared to prose-
cute. In vain is the fact proclaimed, in vain are the
time, the place, the witnesses, the circumstances, all
pointed out, M. GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC is protected
against the law in spite of public morality, because
it is above all things necessary that he should not be
tempted to add to existing scandals by revealing all
that he knows."

The Journal des Debats takes the opportunity of
the return of Baron LIONEL DE ROTHSCHILD for the
city of London, to publish a long, and an extremely
well-written article, in favour of Jewish emancipa-
tion, and expresses a hope, in which we heartily con-
cur, that the first measure carried in the new British
Parliament may be one for the complete enfranchise.
ment of the Jews, to which we would add—and of
the members of every other, sect of religionists.
The Courrier Francais says that the Prince DE
JOINVILLE is labouring under dysentery.
In the east and south of France the harvest is
over, and it will be over in a week in every part of
the kingdom. The crops are abundant everywhere.
The Three per Cents. closed on the Paris Bourse,
on Tuesday, at 76f. 70c. ; the Five per Cents., 118 f.
10c.; the
,Orleans Railroad Shares, 1,227 f. 50c. ;
Rouen, 950 f.; Havre, 597 f. 50c.; Great Northern,
527 f. 50c.; Avignon, 596 f. 25c.; Vierzon, 560 f. ;
Bordeaux, 477f.50c.; Basle, 170 f.; Paris and Stras-
burg, 392 f. 50c. ; Tours and Nantes, 370 f.; Paris
and Lyons, 395 f.; Lyons. and Avignon, 445 f. ;
Bordeaux and Cette, 465 f.; Spanish Three per
Cents., 31f.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, AcciusT 18.
Boulogne and Amiens, In—Demerara, 214—Northern
of France, 10%—Paris and Rouen, 36 ex div.

A further failure at Antwep was mentioned yes-
terday, but it is an insignificant affair, the liabilities
being small, and the party of recent standing.
.11Ir. Batty has entered into an engagement with
Signor Ricardo, the wonderful Globe Evolutionist and
great transformation Equilibrist, whbse norel and asto-
nishing performances have elicited the most powerful
marks of success in the principal Continental theatres,
and will make his first appearance at Astley's on Mon-
day next, August 23.
ADMIRALTY, AUG. 17.—AppoiNTmENTs.—Com-
mander J. H. Cockburn to study at the Royal Naval
College. Lieutenants—G. M. Smith and E. Algar to
Britomart; H. 1). Selby to study at Royal Naval College.
Naval Instructor—G. S. Bourne, to Amphitrite. Mas-
ter's Assistant—G. Nixon to Victory. Chief Engineer
--E. Casey to William and Mary. Acting Assistant-
Surgeons—E. Adams to Victory; R. J. Squire and W.
J. Hamilton to Caledonia. Naval Cadet—A. Pennell
to Fury. First-class Assistant-Engineer W. M. Jones
and Second-class Assistant-Engineer G. Keigwin to
Comet. Mr. F. d'Aguilar, Mate, promoted.
Tug POTATO CROP
of the usual amountofoNtat
.1
beliiiiisngyemaradien
from Liverpool
RoeEsLnAoNtD
h. v
ilnna cb oe
been
ns e
pqlua en nt
ec
de
and Fleetwood.
large exportations of this root are/