The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY. JUNE 22, 1846.

It is with the deepest regret that we have ob-
served the extraordinary increase that has taken place
within a short time back in murderous assaults, in
the unmanly and un-English practices of having re-
course to deadly weapons on every trifling provoca-
tion. Already, within this year, two of our fellow-
creatures have expiated, by a disgraceful death on
the scaffold, the grievous offences of which they
had been guilty, and by which the victims of
their revengeful feelings were hurried into eternity
without a moment's time for preparation for the
awful change they were about to undergo. In the
first of these cases, that of the man QUENNELL, he
had been discharged from the situation he had pre-
viously held, in consequence of statements made to
his brother and employer by another man in the same
service; he forth with procured a pistol,
and in a crowded thoroughfare, in the
bright face of day, he deliberately deprived
his fellow-creature of life. Shortly afterwards an
apprentice boy, who had, or fancied he had, cause to
complain of undue severity on the part of his master,
deliberately murdered that master standing on the
threshold of his own door, whither he had gone to
give admittance to bis assassin. In each of these
cases the cause that led to the fatal results may be
traced to the facility with which; the instrument of death
may be procured and retained, the familiarity with its
use that results from a continued possession, and the
having at hand the means of giving effect to the most
bloodthirsty feelings in the very moment, or at least in
the first heat of anger, without time being permitted
to elapse sufficient for the cooling down of the pas-
sion, and the recollection of the fearful
consequences that might result from its
indulgence. Within the last few days
a trial has taken place at the Central Criminal Court
that demands the most earnest attention of parents
and others acting as the guardians of youth, and
loudly warns against the indulgence of the pernicious
wish for the possession of fire-arms. A lad, aged
sixteen years, stood at the bar, charged with
having deprived an innocent man of life—a per-
son wholly unknown to him, who was casually
passing through the street on his lawful business.
There was no evidence that the parties had ever met
before, or to induce the suspicion of any feeling of
hostility existing in the mind of the prisoner towards
the deceased. The prisoner was, therefore, not
charged with wilful murder, but with the lesser
offence of manslaughter. The law in such case is per-
fectly clear and distinct. In the words of the Learned
Judge, if a person having a deadly weapon in his
possession makes use of it in a negligent or careless
manner, and death ensues in consequence, the offence
would be manslaughter. It appeared that a few in

nutes before the fatal occurrence the prisoner had
entered into an altercation with a young woman, who
had accidentally pushed against him, and that he pro-
duced the loaded pistol, making use of threats towards
her. Two men saw him pass with the pistol in his
hand, the manner in which he carried it may
be conceived from the evidence of the witness fixru-

AWAY, who states that on seeing him the witness
stepped aside, being fearful that he might be shot.
The witness KIMBER saw the prisoner with the
pistol in his hand, and shortly afterwards heard the
report of fire-arms ; at the time there was no one
near enough to the prisoner to touch him ; it appeared
to him that the prisoner was in the act of half

cocking the pistol at the time it wen

----
off. The jury, notwithstanding this evidence, which
was not contradicted or impeached in any manner,
acquitted the prisoner, and thus practically found that
the person who had pulled out a loaded pistol, and
with it threatened a female—who walked with it in

his hand, so as to alarm a passer-by—and who cocked

it in the streets—had not acted in a negli

gent or careless manner. We are at all times

unwilling to impeach the decision of a jury;
we fully concur in the benign principle of the British
law, that it is better that one hundred guilty persons
should escape than that one single innocent parson

should be convicted, and that if a doubt be enter.
tained, the prisoner should receive the benefit of that

doubt ; but we confess that in this case we cannel

agree with the jury in the conclusion at which they
have arrived. A duty of vast importance
devolved upon them—the interest of society
demanded at their hands a verdict which
would protect the public against the repetition of such
recklessness and indiscretion ; and valuable lives here-
after may be lost—may pay the penalty of their
undue leniency. We do not in the slightest degree

question the motives of the jury, but persons filling
such responsible a situation should not permit any
feelings of pity, or idea of the consequences
to the accused, to warp their judgment, or
induce them to find a verdict contrary to the evidence.

Our readers will not have forgotten the extraor-
dinary number of public demonstrations upon the
commercial policy of Government which were simul-
taneous with the opening of the present Parliament.
Nor will they fail to recollect the gradual diminution
in the number' of these demonstrations in proportion
with the development of the discussion
in

he Lower House. The free-traders
were so assured of victory that any further
persistence in their assemblies and their petitions to
the Legislature appeared to be nothing less than a
superfluous impertinence. They recognised in the
abrupt silence of their mammoth advocate, " the
League," the glorious fact that their industry in
peaceful agitation had not proved altogether fruitless,
that those principles which had been revolving in the
popular mind during so many years of apparent
apathy had now acquired the requisite impetus,
and were rolling with an unerring celerity towards
the goal for the attainment of which they had
struggled so much, spoken so much, longed so much,
been reviled so much. Consequently this sudden
declension of anxiety, far from originating in any
sentiment of indifference about these wonderful in-
novations in our system as a mercantile people,
arose from the feeling of satisfaction with
which the inhabitants of this country per-
ceivedznarest anticipations on the eve of
all their
being realised,
public roeetinanangbtelle monopolists, on the con-
trary,frequent, because of thee:;:hulrre and more tui-
tion, and because of the rut"),
li linen of their heir
numbers of their
numbers when compared with
lation. All interest abandoned the
the toaverage popu-
-4411;
and the corporation banquet-rooms, and
even
Covent-garden
Theatre itself,; to become concen-
trated upon the deliberations and divisions of St.
Stephen's. Hence has arisen that unexampled tran-
quillity " out-of-doors" during the debate of such
unprecedented changes in some of the most fun-
damental principles of the Constitution—a tran-
quillity which has been foolishly mentioned
as a testimony rather of calamitous apathy than
of inexpressible earnestness. It is this very tran-
quillity which we regard with such peculiar gratifi-
cation both as accordant with the great spirit of this
century and as evidence of the wider spread of do-
mestic civilization, Though of anything but a
phlegmatic or atrabilious temperament, the English
multitude is proverbially loath to embroil itself in
political questions vi et armis, or by any unne-
cessary show of insubordination, to partake bodily in
the effervescence of party squabbles or legislative
cabals. JOHN Berm, though unquestionably a very
uproarious and outrageous fellowlwhen " roused," is,
nevertheless, extremely scrupulous of "taking up the
cudgels," unless he observes either the ne-
cessity or advisability of such a proceeding.
Precisely for these very cogent reasons did the