The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-26 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26. 184$.

Among the daily journals of London, The Sun was
the first to comment upon the flagrant bigotry of the
directors and secretary of the Scottish Central Rail-
way, in impeding the journey of the daughter of the
deceased Earl of CARLISLE, on the plea of preventing
the desecration of the Sabbath. Since then our
indignation has been re-echoed by a large number of
our most influential contemporaries. The disgust
excited by the godly men of Perth and its vicinity
is not restricted to ourselves—it has provoked the
reprobation of a very numerous portion of the daily
and weekly.organs of the metropolis, as well as of the
different provincial newspapers. The miserable act
of intolerance which prevented the Duchess of
SUTHERLAND from kneeling at the death-bed of a
beloved and venerable parent—an act which
drew from our whole soul all those feelings
of scorn and abhorrence for the representation
of which we could find any adequate terms in the
language—has subsequently elicited from our brethren
of the press sympathetic expressions of astonishment
and indignation. And this, be it observed, not from
any one particular section of the press, but miscel-
laneously from the press as a body—Tory, lVbig,
Peelite, Radical, Conservative, all without the smal
lest distinction of political opinion, have coincided
with us in charging these mongers of morality and
hucksterers of virtue with the most pitiable hypo-
crisy, coupled with the grossest inhumanity. Thy
sentiment has been, identical, whether articulated
by ourselves, or derided by the facetious sar-
casms of the Morning Chronicle, or attacked with
scriptural arguments in all earnestness by the
Morning Post, or sneered at as something inex-
pressibly contemptible by the Examiner, or scorched
by the caustic irony of the Spectator. From all
quarters we have the satisfaction of hearing our
taunts responded to, until the hearts of the people
resound with cries for the suppression of this detest-
able system of cant, which is familiarly known as the
Sabbatarian movement.

One poor little weazel of a fanatic, writing to us
from Glasgow, is in a terrible fluster at what he very
felicitously calls our " outrageous exhibitions of
intolerance"—our intolerance being a stern and in-
exorable determination not to stand by in silence while
a petty gang of Scottish directors are violating
the holiest impulses of humanity and are trampling
under foot one of the divine,st dogmas that ever
emanated from the lip; of the awful FOUNDER of
Christianity ! For it was declared by the IsTaz acne
that "IT IS LAWFUL TO DO GOOD ON TAB SABBATH-
DAT." Whatever may be the views entertained
upon this subject by the wretched clique designated
under a generic title as Agnewites, there the words
are in the Book upon which they pretend to base their
morality, being nothing more nor less than the
rhyme and reason of their brutality ! And it has
yet to be proved to us that the journey of the Mistress
of the Rubes to the death-chamber in Castle Howard
was riot most exquisitely in accordance with all the
noblest principles, all the revealed truths, all the in-
stinctive prompting.; of a heart animated by the
truest sentiments of Religion. If to protest against
thn tyranny exercised over a populous nation by half-
a-dozen sanctimonious and psalm•singing directors is

intolerance, then do we eagerly enter our claim to
be classed among the most bigoted and intolerant. If
to raise the voice against a proceeding of systematic
cruelty practised under the guise of piety, and
shrouded under the nia.k of morality, is illiberal,
then do we rejoice in being placed among the very
foremost who are guilty of this illiberality. We in-
sist upon the bounden duty of the Legislature to pre-
vent the continuance of this great grievance to the
community, this odious sham of excellence, this
enormous and abominable crime against Christianity.
" Mene incepto destere victam,
Nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem ?"

The words of VIRGIL may be aptly articulated by
the Press—merely transforming the Trojans into
railway directors and Italy into Scotland. For it is
time, indeed, to inquire how long the population are
to be made the sport of the pharasaic whims of these
religious impostors, and how long the line of transit
between north and south, east and west, is to be ob-
structed by these hedge •priests and tub-philosophers.
In another column of this evening's impression will
be found an article, transcribed from the Scotsman of
last Saturday, in which the pretensions to sanctity of
the Campbells and the Barbours is: fully exposed.
But one thing more was requisite to divulge the hol-
lowness of their assumed orthodoxy, and that one thing
has been supplied by a letter inserted in the
Scotsman of yesterday, signed " A Shareholder "
in the Scottish Central Railway. Here are the par-
ticulars recounted by this shareholder, and surely
they are a conclusive testimony of the honesty and
truthfulness, as well as of the eminently evangelical
purity, of the directors and their secretary. Prior to
the opening of the Central Railway during last
March, these directors resolved that the question of
Sunday travelling should be referred to the decision
of the shareholders. For this purpose, in order to
ascertain the opinions of the shareholders, blank
proxies were issued, with a request that the proprie-
tors should write upon those blank proxies their
vote for or against the conveyance of passengers along
the line on Sundays. This was the arrangement. Now
mark the coolness with which the decision of the share-
holders was ignored ! On the 29th of February took
place the half-yearly ordinary meeting of the com-
pany. Here follow a few very significant particulars,
quoted verbatim from the official accounts :

" Alexander Campbell, Esq., of Monzie, brought
forward the motion of which notice was given at the
special meeting of the 20th ult.•—° That no work of
any kind whatever be done on the Sabbath-day on the
Scottish Central Railway.' The motion being se-
conded by Robert Barbour, Esq , of Manchester, was
put to the meeting by the chairman, and declared to
be carried.

" On the question of Sunday trains, proxies were
lodged—

Shares. Votes
For Mr. Campbell's motion . . 7,218 2,459
Against it ... ... . . 13,661 3,620

Majority against the motion 6,443 1,161
"But, these proxies were not used, no counter mo-
tion to that of Mr. Campbell being made."
But these proxies were not used, no counter-motion to
that of Mr. Campbell being made ! Well may the
astonished shareholder exclaim that on receiving
the report of the proceedings, and reading this last
sentence, he was confounded at its consummate
coolness ! " I began," says he, "to think that it
must be a quiz ; it was too good to be a mere dull

matter of fact 1" And yet, with these facts glaring
him in the face, upon the official report of the meet-
ing of the 29th of February, Mr. ROBERT D. KIM
has the effrontery to declare in his recently published
letter of " explanation," that he was precluded from
affording any assistance to her Grace the Duchess of
SUTHERLAND "BY ♦ VOTE OF THE SHAREHOLDERS I"
Really these saints have a faculty for lying quite as
intolerable and enormous as their disposition to
assume the garb and language of a very spurious
sanctity! The more the matter at issue is examined,
the more the festering ulcer of hypocrisy is probed,
the more disgustingly is it revealed to the heart and
the imagination. We are sick of it. The abomina-

tion must be got rid of. It must be done
away with at once and at every cost. Those
railways which presume to venture upon this
sacred ground of ethics and humanity must pay the
penalty by having their Acts of Parliament repealed.
The Legislature must decree as a law of the land that
trains shall run on Sundays on every line and every
branch•line of railroad in the length and breadth of
the United Kingdoms. Upon this point the people
are resolved—they are resolved, like FALSTAFF, that
they will not be sanctimonious "on compulsion"—
they are resolved that this arbitrary power for the
perpetration of evil shall be torn from the grasp of a
few miserable directors—they are resolved that
daughters shall no longer he kept from the death-beds
of their fathers, be those fathers earls or tinkers, cos-
Permongers or statesmen, to satisfy the distorted
consciences of a posse of ignorant fanatics. Of reli-
gion the people may exclaim, as NAPOLEON and
Ch ARLEMAGNE exclaimed of the iron crown of Italy,
urOD has given it to us, beware him who touches it I

The reply of the directors of the Midland Railway
Company, through their respected chairman, GEORGE
HUDSON, Esq., to the address of a number of share-
holders resident in Liverpool and its neighbourhood—
which will be found in eur advertising columns—is
well worthy of a calm and attentive perusal. The
sound practical sense and great experience of Mr.
HUDSON in railway affairs enable him to give com-
aPlete and most conclusive answers to the various
complaints that have been put forward, and which,
manifestly. emanated from the fertile brains of those
interested in depressing the value of railway stock,
that their own speculative sales of property, not in
' their actual possession at the time of making
the contracts, might be attended with the
highest degree of profit. The various doubts that
have been instilled into the public mind, the whis-
pered insinuations, found a local habitation and a
name. Some of the shareholders, " frighted
from their propriety" by the vague rumours
floating about the precincts of the Stock-
Exchange, "screwed their courage to the stick-
ing place" so far as to require certain alterations
in the management, to interfere with the discretion of
the directors by establishing certain fixed rules, of the
expediency and propriety of which they were unable
to form a sound judgment, not possessing the requisite
data to enable them to draw correct conclusions.
And not only did they frame unreasonable and pre-
posterous demands, but they opened their communi-
cation by repeating the offensive insinuation of the
"Bears," which they have made to the great
detriment of the shareholders in every com-
pany, whatever it might be, by ascribing the depre-
ciation in the value of their property to "the want
of public confidence in the integrity of the manage-
ment."

Mr. HUDSON has well and ably reproved this gra-
tuitous and most unwarranted piece of impertinence,
in a tone and spirit becoming a gentleman and a man
of honour. He demands that the parties who have
affixed their names to the document containing this
slanderous imputation should immediately "furnish the
director,: with a list of the specific charges involved
in the statement, in order that they (the directors) may
convene a special meeting of the company and have the
opportunity of refuting the accusation thus brought
against the integrity of a body of gentlemen who
feel that they stand as high in the estimation of the
public at large as the individuals who have appended
their names to this slanderous document ;" and he
adds, with caustic severity, " which comes with pe-
culiarly bad grace from a body of shareholders who,
prior
rto the appointment of the present directors,
were only receiving two-and-a-half per cent. divi-
dend, which has since been increased to six and seven

per cent."
.I.lc, afterwards tins yen; the several suggestions that
have been put forward by the misguided shareholders
who suffered themselves to become iastruntents in the
hands of their mortal enemies, who, pining for the
destruction of railway property, care little for the
ruin their unfortunate dupes nay draw upon them-
selves by listening toltheir interested councils.
These suggestions are in turn disposed of in the
most fair and straightrorward manner. We would
refer our readers to the letter itself for these re-
sponses, which can scarcely be condensed or com-
pressed. On the first point, which required the im-
mediate closing of the capital account, he shows that
it is at any time in the power of the general body of
the shareholders to pass a vote to that effect at any
half-yearly meeting, but also points out the absurdity of
saying that if a traffic of 20,0001. or 30,0001. per
annum should require an outlay of 60,0001., that