The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-30 00:00:00

S .714';‘. NOVEMBER 30, 1848.

I DEATH of MR. CHARLES BULLER

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—It is not often that in the daily records of
mortality which mark in these columns the ever-ebbing
tide of human life, we have to announce an event more
painful to a large circle of friends, or one more to be re•
gretted by this nation, than the death of Mr. Charles
Buller, late Member f Parliament for the borough o
Liskeard and Commissioner of the Poor-laws. Even
amidst the dark and portentous occurrences of the pre-
sent year, such a loss will be universally felt, for the
failure of the highest promise at the moment when the
steep ascent has been already climbed, and the successful
performance of manly duty has just crowned the aspira-
tions of youth, costs the world a pang beyond the death
of those who sink in the fulness of years or the maturity
of renown. Mr. Buller bad scarcely completed his 41st
year, but from an early age he had given promise of
more than ordinary abilities. At Harrow he already
showed that beneath the abundant gaiety of the boy
lay the energy of a powerful understanding, and he left
school with the highest honours. At Cambridge his
mind was directed to the studies appropriate to a poli-
tical career more than to the peculiar accomplishments
of the University; and at 23 he entered Parliament on
the eve of the Reform Bill for the borough of the West
Loci°, which belonged to his family. His party was,
however, then and for life the party of the Teople. He
voted for the Bill, lost his borough, and was subsequently
returned for Lislseat d—a seat which he retained till the
moment of his death. The earlier days of his Parlias
mentary life were those when a contest of great impor-
tance to the nation was going on amongst the supporters
and members of the Government, between the principle
of finality and that of progressive reform. The
sympathy of Mr. Buller was not warmly excited by
the character or the politics of Lord John Russell,
and he ranged himself amongst the firmest friends
and adherents of Lord Durham. The leading members
of the Whig party of that day had failed to discover
what administrative powers lay disguised beneath a wit
which every one admired, and they mistook the absence
of strong party feelings for the absence of vigorous con-
victions and steadfast principles. Lord Durham had
Tot-Died a mere justesppreciation of Mee Bulter'ne talents...
and at once appointed the young Member for Liskeard
Secretary to the Government of Canada. When that
colonial administration came to an abrupt termination,
the country learned with surprise that the masterly re-
port which bore the name of the Governor-General, and
which will be remembered as one of the ablest and most
effective State papers of this age, was the production of
Mr. Buller's pen. From that time forward Mr.
Buller's attention was directed with especial industry
to the state of the British colonies and to emigra-
tion. The most considerable experiment in indepen-
dent colonization which had been made by Englishmen
since the reign of Elizabeth was the enterprise of the New
Zealand Company, and although the result of that un-
dertaking fell far short of the hopes of its promoters, it
relaxed nothing of Mr. Buller's zeal to direct the energy,
capital, and population of these islands to their natural
outlet in the foreign dependencies of the empire. These
subjects occupied his attention during the whole period
of Sir R. Peel's Government, more than the mere contest
of party; but he had gradually obtained the ear of the
House of Commons; the playfulness of his manner had
become not the mask but the ornament of his political
talents; and the attachment universally felt for the man
had ripened into confidence in the judgment and courage
of the statesman. On the formation of the Whig Cabinet
of 146 it was generally anticipated that Mr. Buller
would be raised to office in the department for which
his knowledge of colonial subjects singularly fitted him;
and it was with surprise that the public learned his ap-
pointment to the sinecure office of Judge Advocate-
General, which afforded no opportunities for the display
of his remarkable Parliamentary talents. Mr. Buller
declined with genuine modesty the rank of Privy Coun-
cillor, which is commonly given to the Judge Advocate,
saying that he had not yet deserved it. In less than
two years, however, he voluntarily exchanged this
office, which is one of the least laborious and easy posts
in the Administration, for one burdened with great
labour, and surrounded by perils.; The Poor-law Com-
mission had sunk under public obloquy, the existence
of the New Poor-law was itself shaken; when Mr.
Buller, at the direct sacrifice of his own convenience
and of a portion of his income, consented to assume
the duties of sole Poor-law Commissioner. To speak
of success in such a position would be almost unmean-
ing; tke very nature of an office which seeks to ab-
sorb into itself the various and complicated functions
of every class of society, and to bind down the wants
and sympathies of human nature with the iron formula)
of a cold and heartless economy, precludes the possi-
bility of such a consummation: it is, nevertheless, but
due to Mr. Buller to say, that, compared with the long
triumvirate of his predecessors, his own brief reign was
one of peace and good-will; and that, guided rather by
the dictates of his own good heart than by the maxims
of the law which he was called upon to administer, he
was animated by a warm and affectionate desire to
alleviate the sufferings and improve the condition of
the poor. These subjects, however engrossing, did not
absorb his whole attention, for whilst he left no duties
of his station unperformed,the sedulously pursued the
studies and the relations which befit the largest objects
of an English statesman. In the affairs of foreign nations,
especially in those which are struggling for the establish-
ment of constitutional liberty, he took a strong and en-
lightened interest, and one of the last subjects which had I
occupied his thoughts was a comprehensive scheme for
the improvement of the condition of Ireland. These and
all the other pursuits of his amiable and accom-
plished
life have been abruptly ended. An attack of
typhus fever supervened after surgical treatment, and
after a very short illness Mr. Buller expired. It is
scarcely within our province to commemorate the
private and personal qualities of this lamented gentle.
man, and if we advert to his character in this place it is
because we esteem his death to be a public as well as a
social loss. But those only who enjoyed the charm of
his personal intercourse can describe the brilliancy of
fancy which shone in all the caprices of his wit, or the
tenderness of a nature that never allowetnhatiwit to inflict
a wound. With nothing of the cant of patriotism, and
little of the creed of party, he lived in singleness of de-
votion to the public good. His name will be remem-
bered amongst those who have been finely called
" The inheritors of unfulfilled renown;"
and if from his untimely end he leave no conspicuous
monument of his public labours, the greater is the loss
to England,: which is: deprived of, one who, like Can-
ning or Francis Horner, is enrolled among the honour-
able and the good, more even for what he was than for
what he performed.
CHRONICLE.—The sudden death of Mr. Charles
Buller, in the very prime of life, is an event which will
have affected with very deep pain public men of all
parties, and have produced a general feeling of regret.
The prominent position which he held for many years,
as an active Member of Parliament—a position which he
owed not to family connexions or party ties, but to his
own rare and original talents—had already secured for
him a very large amount of respect and consideration,
even from the most cursory observers of political affairs;
and his appointment to so important and responsible a si-
tdation as that of admistrator of the Poor-law in this
country, seemed to justify all the favourable impressions
which a long Parliamentary life had created. Still he
was one of those men whose selection for the public ser-
vice depends upon the discernment of the conductors of
government, in this country; because, although during
the greater portion of his Parliamentary life he carried
liberal opinions to almost their extreme verge, he was
not in the habit of basing his influence on appeals to
popularity with the multitude. Our notice of the life of
Mr. Charles Buller must necessarily be somewhat brief
—partly from the suddenness of his demise at so early
an age, and partly because the development of his cha-
racter rested more upon intellectual efforts, than upon
any series of political acts such as give colour and
circumstance to the lives of men more di-
rectly connected with popular movements. The
deceased gentleman was the son of Mr. Charles
Buller, a younger son of Mr. Buller, of Morval.
Mr. Charles Buller, sen., distinguished himself in the
civil service of the East India Company; the family had
great Parliamentary interest in Cornwall, and Mr.
Charles Buller, sen., represented in Parliament, for
many years, West Looe, a nomination borough, which
was swept away by the Reform Bill. The son was also
Member for West Looe, and by voting for the Reform
Bill lost his seat. But West Looe having been dis-
franchised by that measure, Mr. Charles Buller was re-
turned for Liskeard, a borough in which his family pos-
sesses considerable influence. He continued to repre-
sent the borough until his death, and we have, conse-
quently, no fluctuations of political fortune to record
in his case, such as are to be found in the public
lives of most other prominent men in the House of
Commons. Mr. Charles Buller was always relieved
from anxiety with respect to his seat in Parliament;
he was, therefore, the more at liberty to pursue his
intellectual bent, and to fix upon the public mind the
true impress of his character. In what we have said
above respecting the general tone of his political opi-
nions, we have anticipated the few details which it is
necessary to give as to his votes in Parliament.
Mr. Charles Buller was born in Calcutta, in August,
1806. He received his first education at Harrow.
From thence ho went to Trinity College, Cambridge,
where, even among the youthful Liberals of his (lay,
he was remarkable for the lengths to which he car-
ried his theories
.of liberty. Our readers need not
be told that there has existed (as there still exists,
though not in its pristine vigour) a society or club in
that University called " The Union," in wheel' the
young n
d ardent spirits of the University exercise their
a
early intellectual strength in debating various topics
that are or may be the subject of discussion in more
important places. In this sphere, too, the child is oft the
father of the man; and not a few of our leading orators
and statesmen have fleshed their maiden weapons in this
arena of memetic strife. Mr. Charles Buller was one of
the most active talkers of his day in these juvenile dis-
cussions, and even there he was remarkable for the
qualities which afterwards distinguished hire in
the House of Commons, his pioneering in the un-
attempted (or forbidden) regions of discussion, and for
his vivacity and unsparing wit. He took a bachelor's
degree, wo believe, in 1828, but we are not aware that
he aimed at or achieved higher University honours.
Perhaps, as was the case in his after life, had he more
restrained his discursive propensities and his overflowing
humour, ho might have attained a more enduring dis•

' tinetion. Mr. Charles Buller became a barrister of
Lincoln'talnn, but not till a year after he had been re•
turned to Parliament. His maiden speech was made in
1830, on Mr. Davenport's motion on the currency. It is not
necessary to enter very minutely into his Parliamentary
acts, because his reputation does not rest so much upon his
votes, or upon any specific course of political action, as upon
his peculiar talents as a speaker, and latterly as an ad-
ministrative officer. Mr. Buller was always theoreti-
cally in advance even of that liberal section of the Liberal
party to which he might be said to belong. His votes
counted as one upon each question, but his speeches
leer); worth much- more. lie was a steady opponent
of the corn laws long before those who have since
given him office " took up" that question. He was
against property qualification for Members ; in favour
of triennial Parliaments ; in favour of removing the
Bishops from the House of Lords ; and on almost
every question of that class hs was always ready
to support the Radicals, even down to questions
which were almost beneath the calibre of his mind.
But, on the other hand, he was always a steady supporter
of the Poor-law Amendment Act, and voted and spoke
in favour of national education. In 1833 he stood forward
to move an adverse amendment to the Irish Coercion Bill;
and on several other occasions, too numerous is require
mention here, he appeared far in advance of the then
opinions of the party who afterwards adopted him as an
ally ' and an administrative assistant. The first
decisive step he made on his own account in Par-
liament, which can be said to have established
him in the high opiuion of his contemporaries, was his
speech on the public records—a luminous and
brilliant effort, full-pf knowledge most lucidly conveyed,
and pregnant with valuable suggestions, which were af-
terwards adopteckmore or less in legislation. But that
speech, like almostaliVr. Charles Buller's speeches in
the House of Commis `was weakened by an unfortunate
propensity toindulgle in a habit of joking for joking's
sake; so that, for many wears, the real sterling talent of
his Parlianientary displayie::was obscured by what ap-
peared a triviality of mind not to be corrected or over-
come. Still it was impossible, even for him, to destroy
the effect from time to time produced upon his hearers by
his intellectual power, and by his inutepracticalacquain-
-tarree with the detailsaf,..sucy"ect he, touched upon.
Th
Steadily, and in spite of himsel ,e made his with
iiii j
the House ; and although the Whigs could scarcely
count upon him as a supporter during the greater portion
of his Parliamentary life, yet, when, their policy had ap-
proximated somewhat nearer to that which, in theory,
he had always advocated, the transition on his part from
a state of independence to the acceptance of office was
almost natural and inevitable. His final appointment to
the office of President of the Poor-law Board was at
once received with approbation by the public ; and
so far as he had the opportunity of developing his
aptitude for the discharge of its functions, he has re-
ceived the approbation of the public. The pressure of
business during the last session of Parliament had ex-
cluded all minor subjects, which were driven off till to-
wards the end of the session. But Mr. Charles Bullerintro-
duced a series of measures for the better administration
of the details of, that law which displayed an intimate
acquaintance with the principles which ought to regulate
that great branch of our general legislative system.
Those measures were adopted so far as the state of the
public business would allow. Mr. Charles Buller was
one of those Parliamentary speakers whose influence,
altogether irrespective of politics, was, strictly speak-
ing, legitimate. A deliberative assembly ought to be
all-sufficient to itselfs and it should not, in the persons of
the chief, exponents of opinion, take its laws from with:
out. The House of Commons is, however, too often
much more guided by the importance a Member de-
rives from his constituency than by his own in-
trinsic merit or worth. By'no means a general rule, this
tendency operates with much more force on the " Liberal"
than on the Conservative side. Mr. Charles Buller was
a living exception. Nothing was more common than to
hear the chief leaders of party on either side combatting
in debate the arguments of the Hon. Member for Lis-
keard. But Mr. Buller had a habit of analyzing every
subject that came under his notice. Even though he
might have a strong bias, still he always put the case so
clearly and stated the arguments on either side so fairly
and cogently, that it was almost impossible to avoid
meeting him either on the one side or the other. What-
ever question he might' take up, it was almost certain
that he would -present an original view of it, or, if
that were impossible, such an admirable summing up and
exposition of the whole case, that those who did not like
his arguments were staggered by the facts, while those
who accepted the facts were beguiled by his arguments.
Another characteristic of his Parliamentary speaking was
the humorous turn he constantly . gave even to the
graVest subjects. In the House of Commons, however,
his more solid merits were, known, and his trivial treat-
went of important subjects was accepted as often an
agreeable relief from the dry and hard neces-
sities of legislation. Amongst his political contem-
poraries of all parties he was deservedly a favourite.
The extremities of opinion in which he early indulged
were. considered not so much dangerous manifestations,
as the caprices and relaxations of an astute and powerful
intellect, which the mellowing influence of time would
steady and shape into more legitimate courses. Long
before he was offered office he had been looked upon as a
man pre-eminently qualified for it; and when, at last,
he shook off the occasional flippancy which had de-
tracted from the manly vigour of his intellect, and had
created a prejudice against his administrative capacity,
common consent selected him as one for whom few
situations in the State would be too onerous. His
appointment to the management of the Poor-law
Board was accepted as a proof of discernment
in those who made it ; and his premature de-
cease alone arrested the expectations of future
valuable service entertained alike by those public
men who had opportunities of knowing his worth, and
by the public, in whom his frequent displays of ability
in Parliament had insensibly induced a hope of future
service. We will add that an early love of persiflage,
and an occasionally light mode of discussing serious
questions, had led superficial observers to believe that
he was not a man of strict principle ; but an honester
man, or a man more incapable of sacrificing principle to
expediency. never lived, and the best proof is his career.
If he had been regardless of his early political faith, or
careless with whom he acted ; had he simply been con-
teat to co-operate from the commencement with either
one of the aristocratic parties in the State ; had he been
" arrogant and grasping, faithless and false," he might
long ago have secured a seat in the Cabinet. But
he was really conscientious and high minded ; if occa-
sionally he said an indiscreet thing, he never did a mean
one; and amidst all the shiftings and tremblings of the
political compass, he retained his consistency unchal-
lenged, and pointed true to the last. We must net for-
get to mention that he contributed largely at one period
to an evening newspaper; and whenever journalism was
assailed in his presence in society, never hesitated to
declare himself a member of the " press •gang," anti a
" gentleman of the press." He also wrote occasionally
for the leading reviews; and the review of Lamartine's
" History of the Girondins," in the Edinburgh Review,
was by him. Altogether, he was a very clever, very
amiable, and very valuable man, and (we repeat delibe-
rately) his loss at this particular period will be felt far
beyond the circle of his party or his friends.

CHATHAM, NOT. 27.—CORFORAL PUNISHMENT ON
A SOLDIER.—This afternoon the 17th Regiment assem-
bled in marching order, on the parade ground of the
barracks, to witness the sentence of a court-martial car-
ried out on private William Cash,-who was tried last
week for absenting himself from tattoo on the 4th inst.,
and also for escaping from an escort and striking his pay-
sergeant, and for having (when brought to the barracks
as a prisoner) struck and dangerously kicked the corporal
of the regimental guard into whose custody he was given.
The Court, of which Colonel Ellis, Royal Marines, was
president, found the prisoner guilty, and he was sen-
tenced to receive fifty lashes, and further, to be impri-
soned, with hard labour, for twelve months. The part
of the sentence of fifty lashes was commuted to twenty-
five, by the Commander .in-Chief, which were inflicted
to day. The prisoner bore the punishment with forti-
tude, and when released from the halberts was taken to
the hospital; from thence he will be removed to Fort
Clarence, the military prison. Since corporal punish-
ment has been so much avoided, the striking and abusing
non-commissioned officers is of frequent occurrence.
SEAFORD, SUSSEX. WRECK OF A SWEDISH
SCHOONER, AND Two LIVES LOST.—Early this MOM.
ing (Wednesday) during a heavy gale, a Swedish
schooner, the Lafayette, of Underwalld, from St. Übes,
laden with salt, was wrecked in Seaford Bay, and, sad
to state, two of the crew (Swedes) out of seven are
drowned. One of the unfortunate deceased, apparently
a fine young man, said to be Nicholas Nelson, was soon
after washed ashore here, and will be interred at the
parish church to-morrow. The vessel is much damaged
and has already lost one of her sides, and it is thought
the next tide will knock her to pieces. Every assistance
was rendered by the Coast-guard and others to the suf-
ferers, and invaluable aid also by the agency of " The
Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Benevolent So-
ciety," there being fortunately a branch of this excellent
association at Seaford.—From a Correspondent.
BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LoNDoNThe 12th anni-
versary meeting was held last evening at the society's
rooms, 20, Bedford-street, Strand, Gray, F.R S.
president, in the chair. From their
been
of the cod u.ncd
it appeared that 25 new members
the last anniversary, and thatthe saocieteyennoelweectoenssisteteccie
of 217 members. The distribution of the valuable Bri-
tish and foreign specimens to the members during the
present year had given the greatest satisfaction; and in-
creased exertion had been made this season to obtain
the more interesting plants which had been attended
with success; while great progress had been made in
the arrangement of the British Herbarium. The report
was unanimously adopted, after which a ballot took
place for the council for the ensuing year, when the
chairman was re-elected president, and he nominated
Mr. J. Miers, F.R.S., and Mr. E. Doubleday, F.L.S.,
vice. presidents; Mr. J. Reynolds and Mr. G. E. Dennes,
F.L.S., were severally re-elected treasurer and secretary.
LOCK JAW.—This hitherto fatal disease in animals
has recently been cured by a new operation, whereby
the animal obtains instantaneous relief. The muscles,
which were considered to be extensors, are now found to
be flexors. This important discovery was made by Mr.
Webb, of Balsham, who has been operating upon a mare
belonging.to Mr. Adeock, of Linton, which is now we%
and going to work.—Cambridge Adveitiser.