The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-22 00:00:00

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

ROBERT TIOUDINT (ot the Palais Royal, Paris).—The sur-
prising and interesting perfzipances of ROBERT HOUDIN, having
been received with the mat enthusiastic admiration, he will con-
Untie his extraordinary SOIREES FANTA,TIQUES at the St.
James's Theatre, TO-MORROW, and every Tuesday, Thursday, and
Saturday Evening, comprising Antomates, Prestidigitation, Magic,
and original experiments, invented by Robert Iloudin. Also, Second
Yne Escamotage de Roberts Hondin, ills, and Suspension Ethereene.
Doors open at Eight, the Exhibition to commence at half-past
Eight, and terminate before Eleven.
Boxes, 4s. ; Pit, is.
Boxes and stalls, may be had at Mr. NIITC LI ELL'S Royal Li-
brary, 33, Old Bond street , and at the Box-office of the Theatre,
which is open daily from Eleven to Five.
In compliance with numerous appiinations, a DAY PERFORM-
.ANCE will be given on WEDNESDAY 3IORNING next, May 24.
Doors open at Two o'clock.

c;uI(AL SURREY THEATRE.
Under the direction of Mr. Kerschner.
Unequalled Attraction, for this Week only.
Engagement of Mdlle. Annie!, principal dancer from the Grand Opera
at Paris; Mr. Flexmore, the celebrated buffo dancer; Malls,
Louise and Adele, and a numerous Ballet Company, from her Ma-
jeety's Theatre, will appear.
THIS EVENING.
Will be performed Sbakspere's Original Tragedy THE LIFE AND
DEATH OF KING RICHARD THE THIRD, with a powerful and
effective cast.
After which a Grand Ballet, entitled THE CONTRABANDISTS,
In which Mdlle. Auriol, Mr. Flexmore, M. Duelin, Mdlls. Louise and
Adele, &c., will appear.
To conclude with Hoes original OLIVER TWIST, splendidly cast.
Manager and Treasurer, Mr. B. S. Fairbrother.

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.
Proprietor, Mr. W. Batty.
Daum Change—Brilliant Spectacle—Grand Equestrian Fete.
THIS EVENING,
Will be revived, with great splendour, M. G. Lewis's Grand Ro-
mantic Equestrian Drama of TIMOUR THE TARTAR, in which
Xr. Batty's unrival ed stud of highly.trained horses will appear.
To be followed by THE SCENES OF TILE ARENA, introducing
the British Artistes in their unrivalled performances. First appear-
ance of Mr. Batty's highly-trained Hanoverian Paltl•eys.
TO conclude,with the favourite Farce of THE SECRET,
110 S-office open from Eleven till Five.
Stage Manager, Mr. W. West.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA, COVENT- GARDEN.—The
performance at the Royal Italian Opera on Saturday
evening was honoured by the Duke and Duchess of
Beaufort and the Ladies Somerset, the Duke and Duehess
of Montrose and Lord and Lady Ernest Bruce, Viscount
Dupplin and Mr. and Lady Rose Lovell, the Duke of
Leeds, the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh, the Mar-
quis of Titchfield, the Earl of Lincoln, Earl cf Cawdor,
Earl Besborough, Earl of Eglinton, the Countess Paulet,
Viscount and Viscountess Dungarvon, Viscount Mande-
ville, Ebrington, Lady Laura Fitzroy, Viscount
and Viscoptess Guernsey, Viscount Lascelles, Lord and
Lady Carrington, Lord William Thynne, Lord Stuart
de Decies, Lord Pomfret, Lord Bateman, Lord George
Manners, Lord Elphinstone, Lady Cottenham and the
Hon. Miss Pepys, Lady Morgan, Lady Lawley, Lady
Whitehead, Lady Domvile, Lady Scott, Lady Paulet,
lAdy Ingelby, Lady Smyth and Hon. Mrs. Smyth, Lady
Joddrell, Dowager Lady Suffield, Lady Webster, Earl
Strafford, Lord Templemore, Hon. Jerrold Dillon, Hon.
Mrs. Vaughan, Hon. Mrs. Craven Berkeley, Hon. Bowes
Lyon, Hon. F. Scarlet, Hon. E. Mildmay, Hon. G.
Mulles, Hon. J. Fortescue, Hon. Mrs. Upton, Hon. Spen-
cer Couper, Hon. Gerald and Mrs. Dillon and Hon. Miss
Dillon, Hon. F. Chichester, Sir H. Webb, Sir G. Army.
tage, Sir William and Lady Medlicott, Sir George Clerk,
Sir F. Booth, Baron de Steinberg, Sir William and Lady
de Bathe, Miss de Bathe, Sir Compton Domvile, Sir
Charles Marshall, Mrs. Charles Mills and the Misses
Mills, Miss Burdett Coutts and party, Miss Byrne, Mrs.
Sebastian Smith, Mrs. Mountjoy liartyn, Major-Gene-
ral Campbell, R.A., Colonel Blane, Colonel B. Knox,
ALP., Colonel Wingfield, Major Jones, Captain Seymour,
Captain Tottenham, Captain de Bathe, Mr. D. C.'Webb,
34r. W. G. Duncan, Mr. J. Loyd Clayton, Mr. Samuel
pagers, Mr. Henry Greville, Mr. H. T. Hope, M.P.,
Mr. Burroughea, M.P., &c.
CONIFIPIATION OF MILITARY BEFORE HER MA-
-1;i
AND PRINCE ALBERT.—Yesterday morning an
impressive ceremony took place at the Waterloo Chapel,
James's. park, in the presence of her
Birdcage-walk'
Majesty, his Royal Highnesso
_ Prince Albert, his Royal
Highness the Prince Royal Prussia, his Royal High-
ness the Duke of Cambridge, and other members of the
Royal Family, the Duke of Welliegton,and;several
ge-
neral officers, who were present to witness the rite of
confirmation conferred on about 197 non-commissioned
officers and privates of the Horse Guards, the Greaadier,
Coldstream, and:Scots Fusilier Guards. The cereraotp,
was performed by the Right Rev. the Bishop of
Lon-
On. The public were not admitted.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
No communication can be attended to unless antheati-

cated by tne name and address o 4 the writer.
Rejected communications cannot be returned.

" Citizen Richard Paternoster"—Our correspondent is
too much of a plagiarist and has too little apprecia-
tion of the new Act for the Security of the Crown
and Government, to allow of the publication of his
letter. Almost every one of the articles already for-
warded has emanated from the suggestions of the late
Provisional Administration of the French Republic,
and consequently the attempt to depreciate the sagacity
of those statesmen by the writer of the communication
is as unfounded as it is gratuitous.

THE WEATHER—SUN OFFICZ, MAT 21.
TEERMOMETER, Lowest, 42 ; Highest, 60; Noon, 61.

BAROMETER, 30.30.
WIND.S.W.; occasional light showers.
MAY 22.

rIIERMOMETER, Lowest, 55; Highest, 65; Noon, 65.

BAROMETER, 30.36.—W1ND N.N.W. ; fine.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY.
Morning .. 16 min. after Evening 32 .. min. after 3

- 1,7
Wiling atm
LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 22, 1848.

Germany is yearning for the consolidation of its
disjointed kingdoms and principalities into one solid
and durable nationality. Italy is agitated with a
similar ambition. Both will require an extraordinary
amount of patience, self-sacrifice, and resolution be-
fore their aspirations can be realised. Both will have
to surmount a multitude of unforeseen difficulties
before their several confederations can be established
with any degree of permanence. Before we can
thoroughly demonstrate the existence of these obsta-
cles, and the certainty oftlieseperils to the
comment
ermans
and Italians, it will be necessary to
sepa-
rately and deliberately upon the circumstances which
have recently transpired in these two important divi-
sions of the European continent.

On. Thursday, the 18th of May, 1848, the National
Parliament of Germany assembled in a temporary
structure raised within St. Paul's Church at Frankfort.
Regarded as an isolated fact, the convocation and first
assemblage of the Imperial Senate of Allemania is an
occurrence calculated to inspire the imagination with
a thousand sanguine and seductive visions of futurity.
The shouts which greeted the solemn inauguration of
the Legislature, the pomp of the ceremonial, the pa-
triotic energy of the deputies, the first sound of the
voice of the Provisional President announcing the
formal constitution of the new Parliament, even the
blazonry of the national banners—black, red, and
gold—suspended above the chair of the Doyen d'age
and tapestrying the walls of the edifice with their
symbols of fraternization—constituted in themselves a
spectacle before which the most phlegmatic must
experience emotions of enthusiasm. Looking,
however, beyond these mere preliminaries, and
not allowing our judgment to be dazzled
by gorgeousness of circumstances or grandeur
of design, we detect under the mask of this
new Parliament ample cause for alarm and
hesitation. It must not be forgotten amidst what
peculiar events the German Senate has been convoked,
that its convocation has been preceded by the over-
throw of the ancient fabric of the country by the
convulsions of an übiquitous revolution, that the
Prussian sovereignty has been degraded in Ber-
lin, and the Austrian sovereignty paralysed
at Vienna, that an internecine war has ravaged
the face of tbe minor principalities, that agra-
rian outrages have embittered the relations be-
tween the peasantry and the princes, that anarchy
has prepared the way for a general estrangement,
and that the prestige which had hitherto
encompassed the cause of German nationality
has been destroyed by the brutal and unjustifiable
invasion of the territories of Denmark. Grievous as
all those occurrences are, they fall into absolute in-
significance as preventives to the consolidation of the
Germanic Empire when contrasted with the one
paramount obstruction—the selfish and unprincipled
ambition of the Mcnarch of the PRUSSIANS. It is
the evil ambition of King FREDERICK WILHELM
IV. which must prove the arch-difficulty of the Ger-
manic Parliament. It is that ambition which has
alone, of all the olden attributes of the house of BRAN..
DEN BURGH, survived the abasement of the memorable
19th of March. It is that ambition which neutra-
lised the sympathies of Austria and Bavaria in re-
gard to the unanimity of the Confederates ; and it is
that malign and execrable ambition which has already
plunged the cause of Germany into an abyss of
dangers by inciting her to the passage of the Eider
and the occupation of Schleswig. Were the ambitious
intentions of Prussia doubtful in regard to the pro-
vocation of this war of dismemberment, they would
be sufficiently manifest in the fact, that besides the
increase of the votes of Prussia in the national
senate by the union of Prussia Proper to the Con-
federation, its influence over the decisions of the
Federal Parliament will be very materially aug-
mented by the arrival of somewhere about sixteen
representatives from different localities in the duchies
of Holstein and Schleswig. Throughout every stage
of the federative movement of Germany the after-
thought of _FREDERICK Wu..lizesc has been percep-
tible—that afterthought being the investiture of
his own brows with an imperial diadem as
EMPEROR OF GERMANY. Every successive Occur-
rence has proved this from the first massacre of the
burghers of Berlin, on the 18th of March, by the
soldiers stationed in the court-yards of the palace.
Nor should we be disposed to decry the notion of
selecting FREDERICK WILHELM as the federal chief-
tain, but that the religious opposition of northern and
southern Germany, the disinclination of the Catholics
to be subservient to a Protestant Government, and, vice
versa of the Protestants to obey the mandates of a
Catholic ruler, would render any such selection as
that of the descendant of the Great FREDERICK a sig-
nal for civil war, and a plea for the sudden and per-
manent separation of the country. Hence it is that
we cannot but view with indignation and distrust
the ruinous pretensions of the Sovereign of Prussia,
because in those pretensions we can only recognise
the doom of the great cause of Germany.
On Saturday, the 13th of May, there appeared in
the Milan Gazette a proclamation of the Prorisiona
Government of that city, addressed to the population
of Lombardy. That proclamation was a demand for
the immediate incorporation of the States of Lom-
bardy with the kingdom of Sardinia. Here, again,
to our thinking, is a grand and possibly an insur-
mountable obstacle to the foundation of a nationality
—arising solely from the selfish ambition of one en-
terprising and audacious KING. While Verona is the
residence of no less than six Austrian Archdukes,
while Vienna is threatened with bombardment, while
NUGENT has not been driven beyond the Tagliamento,
while the German troops retain possession of Palma-
nora, and continue to nanceuvre without impediment
upon the banks of the Isonzo, while the Tyrol re-
mains open for the arrival of auxiliaries and the army
of reserve receives almost every day a considerable
augmentation—it does appear to us, to say the least
of it, to be most impolitic to damage the cause of the
war of independence by a precipitate advocacy of the
ambitious claims of CARLO ALBERTO. The fervour
of the Piedmontese soldiery may be very materially
confirmed, and in a great measure increased, by the
junction of Lombardy to the dominions of this war-
like and enterprising Monarch, but with the soldiers
of Tuscany, of Naples, and of the Papal States, it
may be altogether different. They may naturally
feel a considerable abatement of ardour on finding
that they are fighting scarcely so much for the vindi-
cation of Italian nationality as for the augmentation
of the dominions of the King of PIEDMONT.

In what we have here remarked in reference to the
position of affairs in Italy and Germany, we have
been by no means actuated by a wish to depreciate
either the conduct of CARLO ALBERTO or the charac-
ter of FREDERICK WILIIBLM. We estimate both
the one and the other to the fullest extent, and we
have repeatedly taken occasion to commend, in the
warmest terms of eulogium, the spontaneous efforts
at political amelioration which have illustrated the
eaxeer of the reigning King of rituBslA. The

tary achievements of CAaLO ALBERTO, and his cordial
co-operation with Pro NONO in the reform of the
institutions of Italy, form of themselves his noblest
and least perishable panegyric. Yet in despite of
the ability and patriotism of these distinguished
Monarchs, we are satisfied that the ambition of the
King of SARDINIA is most inimical to the cause of
Italian independence, and the ambition of the King
of PRUSSIo most destructive to the hopes of German
nationality. The hand of destiny may be guided,
however, in the one instance by the Provisional
Government of Milan, and in the other by the
Federal Parliament at Frankfort.

Public attention in the Irish metropolis appears at
present to be concentrated on the approaching trial of
Mr. MITCHEL, which will take place at Green-street
some day this week, most probably on Thursday
next. The bill of indictment was sent before the
grand jury on Saturday, and is to be taken into con-
sideration this day. As there can be but little doubt
that a " true bill" will be found in the first instance,
the great struggle :will take place before the petty
jury, and the efficiency of the new Act will then be
tested ; and it will also be seen how far an " Irish
jury" can be trusted to return a conscientious verdict
in accordance with the evidence presented before
them, and uninfluenced by any other consideration
in a political case. It would seem to be the general
impression that the result will entirely depend
upon the composition of the jury. Should
any true confederate be sworn in, it may
forbetakensuch u
granted
unqualified
u a led a
ifith atrptrhoebatieoxn of their conductarnplesetby
a
the dissentients at the late trials of Messrs. Satn
O'BRIEN and MEAGHER will be closely followed ;
and, indeed, it would be almost a gratuitous waste of
the public time to bring on the trial under such cir-
cumstances. In order to give the " prosecuted
patriot," however, the best possible chance his quon-
dam associates are using overt' exertion to deter the
Crown counsel from exercising their undoubted
privilege of setting aside any persons whose avowed
opinions might lead to a reasonable expectation that
they would come into the jury-box with prejudiced
minds and biassed feelings, so as to be unfitted to
pronounce fair and impartial judgment on the
questions that might be submitted to their
decision. The old and hacknied cry of packed
juries has therefore, been resorted to.
The Council of the Irish Confederation has issued
a notice, calling on the association to hold a special
meeting yesterday (Sunday), at three o'clock, for
the purpose of expressing the opinion of that body on
the unconstitutional and despotic practice of packing
juries, while a requisition to the Lord Mayor has
been got up, calling upon his Lordship to convene a
general meeting of the citizens of Dublin for Tues-
day next, " that they may have an opportunity of
expressing their strong condemation of the practice of
packing juries for the trial of political offences." In
both of these cases, it will be seen that it is spoken of
as an existing " practice," whereas it is perfectly
notorious that for many years back even the privilege
of setting aside jurors has been but sparingly resorted
to, and there has not been the slightest interference
with the jury panels, which are wholly prepared by
the High Sheriff or his subordinates.
However deeply to be censured any improper
tampering with the lists would be on the part of the
Government officials, we cannot see that the setting
aside of men whose sentiments were known to be
such that a verdict could scarcely be hoped for would
subject them to any well-grounded reproach ; indeed,
if they omitted to take such a precaution they would
manifestly be unworthy of the position in which they
are placed, and would suffer the administration of the
law to become paralysed in their hands. Would it
be said in England that a Crown prosecutor had
packed a jury because he had objected to
the names of any number of persons who,
however estimable in other respects, openly professed
such opinions respecting capital punishments—that
however strong the evidence and overwhelming the
case, they could not return a verdict that might have
the effect of consigning a fellow creature to an igno-
minious death upon a scaffold, believing that even
perjury itself would be better than any participation
in what they might conceive to be a legalized murder?'
The case in Ireland is perfectly analogous. The
praises that have been lavished on the dissenting
jurors sufficiently testify that those who have ex-
pressed
I would themselves be prepared to act in a similar
manner if the opportunity occurred. There should

be no violent partizans either for or agains

the prisoner. He has the power of pe-
remptorily challenging twenty jurors, and
as many more as he can assign any valid or substan-
tial ground of objection to. This will guard against
the possibility of any party who entertains a personal
hostility, or who has proved himself a warm political
opponent, from being placed on the jury. The right
will doubtless be exercised to the fullest extent,
and no person could reasonably object to the
person on trial for so doing. Neither should the
Crown prosecutors be blamed for refusing to leave
the matter in the hands of any who would not come
into court without any predetermination as to the
decision they would finally arrive at. We are con-
vinced that the Attorney-General and his coadjutors
will act in this case, as in all others in which they
have been concerned, with strict justice and impar-
tiality, and that they will adopt no unfair or under-
hand means to obtain a conviction, but we also
believe that they will act with vigour and
efficiency. and, so far as they are con-
cerned will prevent the administration of jus-
tice from being brought into disrepute, and the
majesty of the law from being slighted and despised
by reason of their neglecting to avail themselves of
the constitutional privileges with which they are en-
trusted, and which were conferred upon their prede-
cessorsin office, in order to obviate such results as
might have been expected if they suffered themselves
to be intimidated from the proper discharge of their
duties, or influenced by the clamour and outcry of the
members of " The Irish Confederation."

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