The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-09 00:00:00

,14)- titnina

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1848.

Sanitary legislation has hitherto been little better
than a political will-o'-the-wisp, decoying the popu-
lation only deeper and deeper into the quagmires of
parochial indifference, and plunging the municipal
authorities more and more resolutely into the mo-
rasses of their unwholesome monopoly. As yet Par-
lesilt has restricted itself to the utterance of eulo;
giL
upon cleanliness. It has been merely a hypo-
thetical lover of fresh
air, pure water, and efficient
drainahas winked
g
e
,
while
thlne its immediate neighbourhood it
system—like Sir
jomaintenance of a pestilential
FALsTAFF, " babbling o'
green fields" amidst till:11r and sweat of Eastcheap.
Everything has been promised and nothing has been
accomplished. Petitiontawfteriipetitton has been laid
upon the tables of the ousitsi,onaenrsd,inwlahnigleuatghee
Members have responded to the
off sympathy, the petitiohnasvtehehmPeesieevdes have only been
l in as far as they
1.;o. light most of
the official stoves in Westminsterp icussions have
wearied the patience even of that Britannicco Jon, Mr.
SPEAKER ; divisions have been counted into the
lobbies ; meetings have been convened in Lted
the
Hantonvoenrg-
square Rooms ; agitation has been excited a
vestrymen and ill-blood among the members
of cor-
porations; lecturers have expatiated upon diseasel. in all
the suburban institutions around thermaetriz
have braved, all the discomfort of peri tie st'oadned-
claio. against miasmata to the provincial
measure has been introduced alter measure; report
has been accumulated after report by the indef:r:
t
gable Commissioners of (kwydyr House; and
yet, in spite of all this, in defiance of the
4iassi &IA argumentative returns of the Registrar.

General, in contempt of disease, contagion, depravity,
and death, nothing, absolutely nothing in the way of
practical amelioration has yet been accomplished.
What has caused all this ? Something must have
done so. What is that something ? Apathy ? No.
The very efforts which we have enumerated—efforts
made simultaneously by the Legislators, by the Go-
vernment, by enterprizing individuals, and by the
people themselves, show that for a considerable time
past there has been very far from any indifference on
the matter on the part of the community. A blunder
as to the mode of proceeding ? That is impossible ;
for every imaginable mode of proceeding has been
resorted to either successively or simultaneously. In-
dolence on the part of the Administration ? Not so.
Whether under the Premiership of Sir ROBERT PEEL
or cf Lord JOHN RUSSELL, the Ministry have evinced
a peculiar degree of activity in the furtherance of the
cause of sanitary improvement. Both Lord LINCOLN
and Lord MORPETH have toiled with assiduity, to
assuage the sufferings of their fellow-men, by laying
before Parliament Bills of an elaborate and practicable
character. Has the delay of this essential innovation
originated then in the insincerity of its promoters ?
The simple enumeration of such names as NOR..
MANBY, GROSVENOR, MORPETH, LINCOLN, SOUTH
WOOD SMITH, and CHADWICK, is a sufficient
reply to this suspicion. No : the continual failure
of the efforts made in behalf of sanitary im-
provement is attributable neither to apathy, or
to blundering, or to indolence in the Cabinet, or to
the insincerity of its advocates. It is attributable to
something very different. To what then ? To an
opposition arising from a fanatical reverence to some
of our " time-honoured institutions." That is the
secret of the procrastination. Because our munici-
palities have been governed time out of mind by a
local board, the scheme of sanitary improvement
must be abandoned, crushed, mutilated, smothered—
anything but accepted. Better that disease should
decimate the land, and the corrupt influences of
domestic discomfort tend to the demoralization of the
multitude, and to the thronging of our prisons, our
hulks, and our penal settlements, than that the sacrile-
gious finger of the law should be laid on any one of our
" time-honoured institutions." Why, the veneration
of Mr. BUMBLE for the " parochial authorities" was
nothing to this. And were a similar system of wor-
-sh.p to prevail in every instance, we should be com-
pelled to groan under the infliction of all sorts of
grievances, because forsooth of their antiquity. If
antiquity, indeed, must be held paramount in every
instance, then it is advisable to re-establish a thousand
of those obsolete regulations which have been latterly
regarded as incompatible with civilization. Better
sen,l Herr DOBIILER to the stake for his apparent skill
in black-magic and demonology. Better revive the
feudal system, and all its conseauences, because of
their venerable, and therefore sacred, antiquity.
Better do anything, however outrageous, criminal,
inhuman, or unchristianlike, rather than interfere
with our " time-honoured institutions."

Speaking seriously, however, it is found that disease,
immorality, and death are co-existent to an enormous
extent with these time-honoured institutions, the
local boards exercising local power in the different
parishes and municipalities,—and therefore it is time,
we take it, for abating in some measure our admira-
tion for institutions so notoriously inefficient. We
cannot, for this reason, sympathise in the lamentations
uttered by Mr. CHARLES PEARSON yesterday evening,
that such time-honoured institutions as these should
like ricketty children be placed in " the go-cart of
centralisation." Centralisation we admit is, in the
abstract, a system calculated to prove most per-
nicious in its influences and in its operation. Yet,
notwithstanding our abhorrence of that relic of des-
potism, the system of centralisation, we would im-
measurably prefer it to the arrangements which have
hitherto sacrificed to themselves the lives of more
millions than were ever immolated in hecatombs to
Moloch or crushed under the wheels of Jug •
gernaut. Centralisation, accompanied by health,
morality, and decency, is preferable, in our estimation,
to local administration, accompanied by disease,
mortality, demoralisation, indecency, and wretched-
ness. This is the preference which has throughout
actuated us in our reiterated demand for sanitary im-
provement, and which causes us to rejoice, with all
sincerity, in •the knowledge that Lord AIORPETH'S
Bill is at last receiving the emendation or approval of
a Committee of the Lower House of Parliament.

A case was recently decided by Mr. Commissioner
PHILLIPS involving a point of practise of consider-
able importance—" In re ROBERT TALBETT." It WAS
moved that the insolvent's petition should be dis-
mi,,sed, and that the books, papers, and documents
filed with the Judge of the County Court of Notting-
ham should be returned to the insolvent, or his
attorney, he having been discharged by his detaining
creditor without having appeared before the Court,
or having obtained the benefit of the Act. The
questions that arose were—whether the jurisdiction
of the Judge of the County Court terminated with
the return of the record to the Insolvent Debtors'
Court ; and also whether that Court could dismiss a
petition when so returned without any adjudication hav-
ing taken place thereon in the local court. The Learned
Commissioner, having previously consulted with the
Chief Commissioner, decided in conformity with the
opinion he had received, " that the jurisdiction of the
Insolvent Debtors' Court was completely taken away
by the recent statute," and he consequently refused
to dismiss the petition.
It is difficult to collect the arguments used in this
case from the reports that have appeared. It seems
to have been more of the nature of a conversation
than of a case solemnly argued in a court of law.
With all respect, however, for the opinion of the
Learned Chief Commissioner, by which Mr. Com-
missioner PHILLIPS was governed, it appears
to us that the Judge of the County Court acted
very properly in not dismissing the petition, and in
returning the schedule and documents to the Insol
vent Debtors' Court. In JAGOE'S " Practice in Bank-
ruptcy and Insolvency," page 149, (a work of which
we have already had occasion to speak in the high
terms which the accuracy and ability with which it
was prepared, and the thorough knowledge of his sub-
ject manifested by the talented author, so richly de-
served,) it is laid down, " Though the insolvent may
not appear, or if appearing, refuse to execute the war-
rant of attorney, or should any circumstance occur to
prevent his regular discharge or remand, the document
n
ought to be returned to the court with a certificate
ztnaitia :—The prisoner might be
ig
areraY signed by the Judge, fully stating the facts." There
reasons why a Judge of a County Court
should not dismiss a petition under such circutn-
stances; exampli dis-
charged by the detaining{ creditor, after the provi-
sional assignee had
Thecollectedright,of a considerable portion of
the estate.
the other creditors might
thus (and also in othlerhreevspeercyia h
respects) materially affected
creditor furnishes a arge
of
a prisoner e
i n .
bbyy
hthise
ddeistnaiinisisnagl.
of suspicion, demanding
vestigation, and which alonel andsatisfactory
facie
to justify the County Court Judge sufficient
inil•efusing
a ful
,s‘,o di r
b a
ca s
to dismiss the petition, but to return it, together with
the schedule and all the documents congtenecterd
with
the case, to be dealt with by the Commissioner
whom the matter had previously been allotted. to
With regard to the jurisdiction of the Insolvent
Debtors' Court, in connexion with the County Court,
Mr. JAGOE says, at page 10 of the same able work to
which we have already alluded, " That proceedings
instituted in the Insolvent Debtors Court, after being
heard by the County Court, are returned to ba kept
amongst its records. Therefore the County Court, in
prisoner's cases, has only a transitory jurisdiction,
which ceases when the case referred to it has been
heard and adjudicated on." It therefore appears, as
we conceive, perfectly clear that the Insolvent
Debtors' Court, on the return of the schedule and
petition from the County Court, possesses en absolute
and perfect control as to its dismissal or retention,
ard generally as to all matters connected with it,
from whence it follows, in our opinion, as a natural
consequence, that the Learned Commissioner would
have been fully warranted in dismissing the insol-
vent's
p
petition in the case under notice, if there was
no other objection to such a course than that founded
want
been nd
t ofeej" is diucctedo notice th
i on;
o n the
h Ivegenerealplyresas to entctabsee
mthus n r
tfaunl ltyas
wbecauseeli
to theit is u
public
the highest degree
members of the legal profession
between the Insolvent Debtors that the practice
County Courts stiould clCourt and the several
early understood, and that
. .

attention should be especially directed to those
vexate questions on which doubts and differences
still exist, with a view to their speedy and satisfactory
arrangement.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

NA7e have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The question as to the appointment of the Inter-
mediate Government continues to occupy the atten-
tion of the French people. Had M. LEDRU ROLLIN
conducted himself with ordinary decency, there can
be no doubt but that the members of the Provisional
Government would have been unanimously re-ap-
pointed as members of the Intermediate Government.
M. LEDRU ROLLIN, by his own " open and advised
speaking and writing," and by the overt acts of his
commissaries, has so disgusted every lover of liberty in
France, that the great majority of the Members of
the Assembly are all but pledged to their constituents
to deprive him and his agents of their power to do
mischief with the least possible delay. Against this
deprivation the fine, chivalrous, honourable
feelings of LAMARTINE revolts. He has de-
fended the cause of liberty against LEDRU ROLLIN
and his " Tory mob" most successfully—he has every-
where by the force of moral courage beaten the men
of violence, but he will not inflict upon their chief
the open and public shame of a dismissal, and there-
fore, in opposition to his friends, he stands out for
the re-appointment of all the members of the Pro-
visional Government. LEDRU ROLLIN himself is, as
might have been expected, furious. The Reforme of
yesterday thus threatens vengeance :
" The prattling press (it says) is making a great noise
about questions of a President, of Ministers, and of a
commission of Government. We are accustomed to all
these chronicles. Formerly Guizot and Duchatel were
quoted; to-day the bourgeois amuse themselves in dis-
cussing Ledru Rollin or Lsmartine. As regards us, we
remember the barricades of February, and it signifies
little to us what calculations may be made, or what mis
chievous ostracism may be preached. We are certain
that the Constituante (Assembly) will nut choose to
drown the acclamations of the people, and that after rife
examination it will bow before the men who nobly and
valiantly did the service of the revolution. But if the
Con.stituante, the daughter of the election, disown the
Revolution, her mother, we shall let the delegates pass—
but we shall give notice to the people. Und,r the
Monarchy we fulfilled that duty; we shall do it,,anader
•
the Republic."

The Democratie Pacifique makes an appeal ad
misericordiam on behalf of M. LEDRU ROLLIN, and
implores the Assembly to re-elect him, because " LA-
MA.RTINE and LEDRU ROLLIN balance each other, and
both are necessary to a general conciliation."
The Illessager of Saturday says—

" A meeting of a great number of representatives took
place to-day in one of the bureaux of the Chamber, for
the purpose of settling the list of Members who are to
form the commission of the executive power up to the
moment at which the new constitution shall be pro-
claimed. The names of M. Lamartine, M. Arago, and
M. Marie obtained the assent of all those who are of
opinion that the commission ought to consist of only
three Members. The Deputies who desired five Mem-
bers proposed to add the names of M. Bethmont and M.
Marrast. The names of M. Garnier Pages, M. Fiocon,
M. Louis Blanc, M. Ledru Rollin, and N. Albert were
generally set aside."

The Patrie of Sunday says—
" There was a very numerous meeting to-day of the
representatives of the people in the Salle des Con•
f6i-ences, to discuss the question of candidates for the
Executive Committee of Government. An important
pinion, via., the Extreme Left, met in the 17th bu-
reau. MM. Etienne Arago, Barbia, Emmanuel
Arago, Frichon, Tranchant, Caussidiere, Flocon, Louis
Wane, Albert, and Ledru Rollin were present. It was
proposed at this meeting that the Executive Committee
should consist of all the members of the Provisional
Government, and to support a proposition for a Com-
mittee charged to draw up a project of constitution
totally unconnected with the members of the Provisional
Government, who, it was proposed, should remain in
power until after the vote of the constitution. M.
Lamartine, it was said, will propose to his friends to
support this proposition. In another meeting of eighty
deputies, it was proposed, and unanimously carried, to
form an Executive Committee of MM. Lamartine, Ledru
Rollin, Arago, Marie, Bethmont, and Marrast. At the
same meeting it was proposed and carried that coin
mittee of representatives, of whom the members of the
executive power should form a part, should be ap-
pointed to draw up a constitution.' At a third meeting
the majority was inclined to support the plain of select-
ing by a simple vote by ballot."
Save the small fraction of ultras who met in the
17th bureau, the rejection of LEDItt Itowx, Louis
BLANC, and FLocoN, has been unanimous.
The Siècle publishes a communication from a

Member of the National Assembly, which says that,
in order to get over the difficulty, two combinations
present themselves
The first, which will be proposed it is said, by M.
Martin, of Strasbourg, consists in creating a committee,
or intermediate council of Government, of which the
members will be limited in their power to the deciding,
under their responsibility, of political questions, and to
the nomination of Secretaries and under-Secretaries of
State to direct the several ministerial departments. This
committee will be composed of three or five members.
There will be, in fact, two Governments, of which the
one will be a superfmtation—that of the directors, and
that of the Ministers. Another plan, which will be
strongly supported, is this—that the Assembly should
name directly, and by ballot, as many Ministers as there
are ministerial departments, taking them, in as far as
prudence will permit, from among the present members
of the Provisional Government, and giving M. Dupont
(de l'Eure) the office of President of the Council. This
plan is on the supposition that the Assembly is itself the
Government, and has only occasion far Ministers. It
is also proposed that hereafter the Assembly should ap-
point a committee of Government of thirty-six mem-
bers, to be divided into as many sections as there are
ministries, to consider what reforms are practicable, and
to examine the accounts of the Ministers."

The accounts from the provinces are favourable.
Tranquillity has been restored at Limoges, the
Provisional Government having dismissed the„Commis-
sary PARROT.
The members of the Provisional Government
quitted their official residences on Saturday.
The sth of May being the anniversary of the
death of Napoleon, a grand funeral service was cele-
brated in the Church of the Invalides. Several mem-
bers of the Imperial family were present, namely,
Jerome Bonaparte, and his two children ; Napoleon
Bonaparte, Deputy for Corsica; and Princess Ma-
thilda Demidoff; Joachim Murat, Deputy to the
National Assembly ; and Pierre Bonaparte, son
of Lucien, and Deputy of Corsica. Among the others
present were—Marshal Molitor, Governor of the
Invalides ; General Petit, Deputy- Governor ; Generals
Fabvier, Gourgard Friaut, Montholon,
Chatry-
Lafosse, &c.
The Duguesclin, 90-gun ship, was launched with
complete success, at Rochefort, on the 3d instant.
The steam corvette Colbert, of 320-horse power, was
launched at Cherbourg, on the sth, without any
accident.

The Aroniteur publishes a number of diplomatic and
consular appointments. M. Benoist Champy was
nominated Minister of the Republic in Hanover ; M.
Ferdinand Dervieu, attaché to the London Legation ;
M. Hersant, Consul at Dublin ; M. Blancheton,
Consul at the Cape of Good Hope ; M. Cesar Famin,
Chancellor of the French Legation in London; M.
Hauser, Vice-Consul at Rabat, in Morocco ; M. Bel-
langer, Vice. Consul at Massourah, in Egypt, &c.
In the sitting of the National Assembly on Mon-
day, the question as to the appointment of the Inter-
mediate Government had not been determined at the
hour at which the post left. The following is a
report of the proceedings up to the hour of post :--

feet, so
The President took the chair at half past one.
arrangements.nedGitnoatrebnraarlbetter.
the tribune ror
somewhats
ci_e
at,
s e h changedaichair
having
be e
been
abtruorudgahyt,
ftohrewtribune andut
thirtyP r e-
, Saturday, from
efthe indisposition)
as to enable the representatives sitting at the
far
rTlisehition
revolution
anitePages, Minister of Finance, ascended
had country.pable Ileof declared
mathematicalra yt
savede the cournetl
conclude his statement (left unfinished on
demon-
stration that thea
pursued i vferotmo thatlbb bankruptcy.
et
nh
It was
if system of the late Govern-
ment,plunge the for a few years ,
country i must
deavoured to effectyConsiderablerreductioons,
e n utter ruin. He had
particu-
larlyn-
with a view to relieveonsiderable reductions,
heavy burdens which pressed
d the poorer classes of the
Deputy hero recapitulated the
en them. The Honourable
bad brought forward (luring kefirnuraeprettcecinyat.l
thedifferent plans which he
de-
claring that they were called for by last two months,
crisis. After dwelling for some tim
tehe necessities of the
on
concluded by declaring that whoever these points, he
succeeded him
would find the finances in a better position than he had
received them.
M. Arago, Minister of War and of Marine ad interim'
then read his report on the state of the army,
said that the first thing that attracted the attentionli
of the Provisional Government, after the revolution of
February, was the necessity of providing for the
safety of the country. In consequence, a council
of defence had been appointed, and four armies of
observation formed for the Alps, the North,. the
The .Honourable Minister
Rhine, and the Appenines.
then entered at great length into the composition of
the various branches of the service, and the measures
taken to remedy the wants which were there perceptible.
Not lees than 110,000 muskets had been distrtbuted 1