The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-18 00:00:00

RAIL WAY TRAVELLING ON THE

SABBATH.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sra,—The case of the Duchess of Sutherland,
as adverted to in a leading article in your journal
of yesterday, is so extraordinary, that I beg you
will allow an observation or two on the question
involved.

I am en advocate for the entire suspension of all
labour and travelling on the Sabbath, in obedience
to the Divine law, which is of perpetual and universal
obligation. I think, therefore, that the prixciple
laid down by the directors of the Scottish Central
Railway was a correct one. But, Sir, I am grieved
to see a law, so merciful and benevolent, so grossly
outraged as it has been in the case of the Duchess
of Sutherland. The " work" in which she was then
engaged was one of necessity, of mercy, yea, of
piety, and I am sure that all true friends of Sabbath
rest will, like her Grace, " weep" when they learn
that an indiscriminate and intemperate zeal has led
these parties to act in direct opposition to Him who
has said, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath
day."—Yours, Sze., CANDID US.
Oct. 16, 1848.

THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND
AND THE
PERTH RAILWAY.
The Scotch Reformers' Gazette contains the fol-
lowing remarks with reference to this disgraceful
affair, a brief account of which appeared in The Sun
of Monday
" The conduct on the part of the railway people
is altogether very bad. It is positively an outrage
on the best feelings of
sorry, in one sense, humanity. We are not
that it has happened with the
Duchess of Sutherland, because if her Grace re-
sents it, she may make h
potent effect in places indifferentercomplaint heard with
to the complaint
of others in more inferior stations of life. What-
ever she may command or
not command with these
railway directors and their precious secretary, her
hold
Grace has no small
on the ear of the Go-
vernment of the country,
who has just succeeded to Her Noble Brother,
his revered father, at whose
title and estates of
Duchess, with commendable °se
dying couch the
feeling, was anxious
to repair—her Noble Brother,
Earl of Carlisle, is a member Lord Morpeth, now
of the Cabinet, and
Chief Commissioner of her
Majesty's Woods and
Forests. If she but tells h
this very occurrence may induceer complaint to him,
the Government
to interpose and take the
managementf of these
railways into their own hands
the whole public, gentle and semPoriethe benefit of
a th.
thought the Government should have done mgwe
long
ago. How scandalous is it to say in an enlightened
country, and in this an enlightened age, that the
empty carriages, travelling at any rate with the mail
bags, shall not take on. an illustrious lady hasten-
ing to the dying bed of a beloved parent ! Our cor-
respondent states that the. Duchess was ' actually
crying;' and no wonder, at the rough shock her
gentle nature experienced under such circumstances.
The stoic secretary-may smile with derision at this ;
or, putting on the sanctified mantle of Sir Andrew
Agnew, he may pride himself in the fact that he has
denied to the Duchess that which he has denied to the
plebeian. Be-it so. But we prophesy that the tears
which have fallen down the cheeks of this angelic
woman will not have fallen in vain. They may p";
trate the heart of every sensitive man and woman
in
the empire, and conduce to a thorough ref •
ormation on
this and other kindred lines of railway, too long . un-
der the management of narrow-minded bigots. Our
Sovereign Lady the Queen travelled to Land Landon the
other Sunday morning by railway; and that fact so
vividly in our remembrance leads us to
indignant
m esue to
think that her Majesty cannot but be
Robes has
subsequently received on this line. The Duchess of
Sutherland has the blood of the Howardi in her veins.
Grieved though she be at present, we fondly hope that
her Grace will soon step forward to assist lle
gentle-
men and gentlewomen of Scotland in removing' those
barriers which stand in the way ofnecessity and
she
mercy on the Sabbath day. Thereinwill reap
laurels; and if a once celebrated Duchess of Devonshire
gained a Westminster election by saluting some of
the plebeian voters, so the unsophisticated
tears seen
to trickle down the cheeks of her descendant, the i
equally beautiful Duchess of Sutherland, at this
Perth station, may touch the hearts
of the Scottish Central Railway di of the majority
rectors, and send
the Sir Andrew Agnews to their journey's
end—a
consummation devoutly to be
wished by all but
themselves.

In the building of the ancient nations—the Hin-
duos, the Egyptians, the Persians, and ( judging from
what record we possess of their works) the Jews—
we observe, in the midst of all that which
we cal rudeness and crudity, and notwith-
standing the similarity which circumstances produced
in their systems, a boldness and originality of fancy
which causes us only to regret that their record is so im-
perfect. Be assured that they were mighty thinkers—
the wise men of that old day,—in spite of their fetishism
and astrology and omen seeking, men in real original
comprehension of pure truth beyond cur reach,—their
weaknesses the wants of opening life, cur strength the
mere experience of age,—their strength the vignur of
youth, our weakness the feebleness of dotage.—Builder.