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London, England, 1847-12-11 00:00:00

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1(.. Wh;ATliEtt.—brri OFFICE, DEC. 11.
TIIERM „METER, Lowest, 50; Highest. 53 ; Noon, 49
BAROMETER, 29.82..—W1ND S. W. ; hazy.

WATER AT LONDON-FRIDGE THIS DAT.
Itrornin;.. bl minutes after 3 I Evening .. 11 minutes liter 4.

farmers—the persons affording employment by
which the labouring classes are supported—
will sustain a heavy pecuniary loss. Those
persons who formerly remained quiescent will
Inow have a powerful motive to preserve the tran-
quillity of the country ; a prompt pursuit of the
• guilty parties, in which the peasantry join with
activity and alacrity, will prove that the public
feeling in that vicinity is in a healthy state, and that
there is no occasion for any extraordinary measure
to be introduced where the people have acted in so
praiseworthy a manner. The clause by which per-
sons refusing or neglecting to join in the search and
pursuit of those who have committed, or attempted
to commit a murder, when called upon so to do by
any justice, peace-officer, or constable, are made
guilty of a misdemeanour, and subjected to two
years' imprisonment, with or without hard labour,
will likewise prove most serviceable to the cause
of peace and order, and will be found to be, pro-
bably, the most valuable provision of the Bill.
The clause which was added at the suggestion of
Mr. BAINES effects an improvement, the necessity of
which has long been recognised—indeed it is diffi-
cult to conceive any reason why it has so long been
overlooked. It will be especially useful at the pre-
sent moment, when Lord CLARENDON has declared
his intention of making all those who comfort,
shelter, and protect well-known assassins, and enable
them to escape the punishment due to their
offences, amenable to the law as accessories
after the fact. Formerly no person could be brought
to trial as an accessory (unless tried with his princi-
pal) until that principal had actually been convicted-
This defect was, however, remedied, so far as related
to accessories before the fact, by the 7 Geo. IV., c.
64, by which it was enacted that " accessories before
the fact to any felony, whether by common law, or
by statute made or to be made, shall be deemed
guilty of felony, and may be indicted for a substan-
tive felony, whether the principal shall or shall not
have been convicted, or shall or shall not be
amenable to justice, and may be punished in the same
manner as if convicted as accessories to the felony."
No change was, however, made in the law so far
as it related to accessories after the fact, and conse-
quently, if the murderer escaped from justice, no
punishment could be inflicted on those who enabled
him to do so. Mr. BAINES'S clause will obviate this
defect in the law, and make both classes of acces-
sories subject to the like regulations. This most
beneficial enactment should, however, be made per-
manently, and not as a part of an Act which will ex-
pire in less than two years.

Indebted as the people of the United Kingdom are
to the exertions of Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH, of the
Marquis of NORMANDY, of the Earl of LINCOLN, and
of Viscount MORPETH, in the furtherance of the cause
of sanitary improvement, they are in no small mea-
sure indebted to the labour of Lord DUNCAN and
Mr. ROEBUCK for the abolition of the iniquitous tax
upon windows. We are induced to couple the two
projects together, from a reason similar to that which
induced the Commissioners at Gwydyr House, to de-
clare, last year, that no sanitary measure could be
regarded as perfect which did not entirely abolish
the window-tax. Without the removal of that into-
lerable obstruction the health of the community can
never obtain anything like adequate protection, for
upon the sufficiency and excellence of ventilation
the lives of the multitude are principally de-
pendent, and ventilation can never by any possbility
be effectual with an indifferent number of windows
in our dwelling-houses. For several years past
the representatives of Bath have recognised this ne-
cessity, and have advocated with consistency and
earnestness the destruction of this paramount obstacle
to ventilation. Now that Mr. ROEBUCK has been
prevented from entering the new Parliament through
the ingratitude of his late constituents, his noble
colleague is compelled to pursue the old system of
agitation without his customary assistance. At the
meeting of the delegates of the metropolitan parishes,
which occurred yesterday in the Court-house, Mary-
lebone, Lord DUNCAN again insisted upon the re-
markable advantages which must accrue to the com-
munity by the dissipation of those imposts which are,
perhaps, the most burdensome in the whole system
of taxation.

The intelligent mind of DUPUTTREN has long since
demonstrated the intimate connexion which exists
between light and ventilation and the maintenance
of the healthy condition of the animal economy.
Without a proper supply of the light of heaven, and
of that atmosphere which is the chief source of
• nourishment to men, disease must be prevalent and
death must be of unnatural frequency. Of all
the means which the DIVINITY has employed
for the support of life in the animal and
vegetable kingdoms, not one is so universal
and perpetual in operation as the air, which is alike
respired by the lungs of the one portion of creation
and by the leaves of the other. Considering how
requisite is the purity of the atmospheric gases for
the sustentation of both human and vegetable exist-
ence, considering the continual consumption which
is taking place in its constituent portions, and that
such an accurate equilibrium is essential between
those parts as shall leave 21 per cent. of oxygen,
and 79 per cent. of nitrogen, or azote, in
connexion with one-thousandth part of carbonic
acid—it is a matter at once of amazement and ad-
miration that the atmosphere is everywhere else on the
surface of the globe, excepting in those localities in
which the ignorance of humanity has thwarted the
designs of OMNIPOTENCE, as pure as on the morning
of creation. The manner in which this has been
effected is depicted with considerable accuracy in a
pamphlet, recently published by Mr. MATIIER, of
South Sheilds, who observes that this eternv 1 puri-
fication is attributable to " the gentle airs
that undulate along earth's surface ; the winds
that blow through the atmosphere ; the storms and
hurricanes that rouse the aerial mass to its depth ;
the electric fluid that streams and flashes in it, agi-
tating its bosom and setting its clouds in motion
the different temperatures of the various climes, pro-
pelling it ever onward, seeking equilibrium and rest,
and finding everlasting motion ; the rivers, seas,
oceanic streams, and tides producing aerial currents ;
the sun's rays ; the great law of the diffusibility of
gases ; their various specific gravities, projecting some
into the higher regions, diffusing others in mid air,
and rolling along or sinking others in the ground ;
their absorption by water, aqueous vapour, clouds, or
rain; and the actions of vegetable life, forming new
and healthful combinations." Such is the recipmca-
tion of activity which would invariably lead to the
nourishment of mankind through their most subtle
organs of respiration, but for the evils which
are permitted to accumulate in the vicinity of
their homes, and the cruel dispensations of the
Legislature in imposing a serious tax upon the
daylight and the atmosphere. By the total and im-
mediate abolition of the window-tax we can alone
hope to ensure to the multitude the benefits of sani

tary improvement. Among the preliminary mea-
sures of this character, the most necessary for the
prevention of a frightful increase in the national mor-
tality are enactments having reference to the Asiatic
Cholera. The assertion made the other evening by
the Prime Minister, that the new Acts are un-

necessary because those of 1832 are still in
operation, proves to be altogether erroneous.
So far from the enactments, 2 William IV., c. 10
and 11, and 3 and 4 William IV., c. 75, being still
in force, they expired with the dissolution of the
very Parliament in which they originated. Some

additional measures are, indeed, absolutely requisite ii
the Government would take the most ordinary pre-
cautions for the mitigation of one of the most destruc-
tive scourges to which the human family is liable.
Aar
A letter from Berne of the sth says--

t o "You are
addressed a similar
Minister, M du lialserfeld, has .
tawroerat lrbeye,dxty..aedqeußaionitseide with the presen,:ende
tComte.h9 nTolitee Austrian
toth
sthe
01:di reercbtuoiri 3,;,,
Navnhciletho tihse Presidentdated
tthe
eo t 3 theoth Cuoei
rt.o nwtf.tort for
word,
13regenz. The two notes are the same word f
with this difference that the Austrian one is addressedto the Directory, and, not like that of M. de Bois le
Comte, to the President of the Diet. The notes of the
other Powers have not yet arrived at Berne. I have
learnt from a sure source that the answer proposed by
the committee, andcontains drawn up by M. Druey, deputy for
the Vaud,
the five Powers no longer exist, and some of them never
upon which the ,ediation secondly, because the principle
is founded
it places the Diet and the Sonderbun , inasmuch as
footing, is as contrary to the d on the same
Federal Constitution of
Switzerland, as to international law, and to the in-.

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