The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-19 00:00:00

444'•-

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1848.

....._ _....
proved that the supposed victim died a natural death,
and that it was not occasioned by any act of violence
whatever. Innumerable instances of similar careless-

august demise on the rock of Saint Helena—who
among the petty rulers of to-day shall attempt to
stem the current of public liberty ? If the giant was

ness might be adduced. Some time since, one of the
judges called for a grand jury to explain on what
grounds they could possibly have found a true bill,
but, in consequence of their having been previously
discharged, tbey escaped the admonition and censure
which their negligence had richly merited. There
is, therefore, no adequate protection afforded
by the so-called inquiry. A true bill is, per-
haps, found, and the party, who may not have
imagined the possibility of any charge, may be
arrested, taken away from the most important
business, incarcerated until the trial, or, perhaps,
compelled to enter into heavy bail, his residence may
be invaded under colour of law, his private papers
ransacked and pryed into, a heavy expenditure ren-
dered necessary, and himself exposed to the stigma
of having been placed in the dock to answer a criminal
charge—a stigma which can, perhaps, never be
wholly removed or eradicated, however clearly his
innocence may be established, and although judge and
jury may declare that he left the court without the
slightest stain upon his character. The fact that he has
been placed in the dock, that he has been compelled
to answer to an indictment, will not be forgotten,
although the circumstances of the case and his com-
plete and thorough vindication may escape the me-
mory. We daily read of parties brought before police
magistrates, and it being urged by the attendant
officers that some time previously they had been tried
for felony, a statement which is invariably received
as evidence of the bad character of the accused, and
sufficient, if accompanied by any suspicious circum-
stances, to justify a prolonged remand, and that, al-
though it was at the same time stated that "they
had been acquitted," which, of course, is supposed by
the keen officials to have been occasioned by some
defects in the evidence, and not at all on account of
the innocence of the accused.
It is absurd to say that no injury is inflicted upon
a party by being placed upon his trial. It is be-
neath the dignity of the Crown to pay costs, and the
party by whom the law is put in motion may be a
man of straw, unable to satisfy any damages subse-
quently recovered against him in an action for mali-
cious prosecution. In fact, such a remedy is seldom
resorted to, and cannot be regarded as of any practi-
cal efficacy in restraining those persons who would
prefer unfounded charges for any sinister objects,
whether it might be to gratify malice, to extort money,
or to obtain some particular advantages, as, for instance,
to drive a party out of the way, whose presence might
prove inconvenient on a particular occasion. We have
it on the authority of the able Under-Sheriff, Mr.
DAVID WILLIAMS WIRE, " that the present system
is ainzost daily made the medium of private
malignity and revenge, or of vexation, and
that there are hundreds of persons, who
make a livelihood by preferring indictments
on false charges, getting the bills found by the grand
jury, and afterwards extorting money from the per-
sons falsely accused upon the terms of abandoning
the prosecution." We have ourselves known an in-
stance where a bill for a misdemeanour was sent for-
ward, and found against the managing clerk of an
eminent solicitor, for the mare purpose of compelling
him to be absent from a reference in which his know-
ledge of the case might frustrate the hopes of the
party preferring the indictment, who found that he
would obtain undue advantages if his opponent could
be kept out of the way; and the deep-laid scheme
was only defeated by the solicitor to whom we have
alluded discovering, by mere accident, that a warrant
was out for the apprehension of his clerk, and imme-
diately serving notice of bail, so as to have it com-
pleted before the time when those services were
required.
It is unnecessary to multiply instances of similar
conduct. A talented correspondent, whose letter
appeared in The Sun of Friday last, has mentioned
two cases of extraordinary hardship. Two persons
were convicted at the last session of the " Central
Criminal Court," and sentenced to two years' impri-
sonment for having unlawfully and maliciously con-
spired together to make a false charge of forgery
against three highly respectable gentlemen. And it
may be well to add that the sapient and careful
grand jury found the bills against those gentle-
men without even requiring the production of the
document alleged to have been forged !! ! Lord
BROUGHAM has mentioned the case of a gentleman
of large fortune who was tried for murder, because
his servant had incautiously left a rope across a road
under repair, over which an old woman, returning
from market, had fallen and had broken her neck.
The want of a public prosecutor, by whom proceed-
ings should be sanctioned before a trial could take
place, might have proved equally inconvenient to
Lord Joust RUSSELL as the finding of the bill by
the grand jury did to Mr. BLUNDELL, as it is well
known that a coroner's jury, in the county of Mayo,
who sat upon one of the unfortunate victims of the
late Irish famine, returned a verdict of "Wilful mur-
der" against his Lordship—a verdict on which he
might have been arrested even in his place in Parlia-
ment, carried over to Connaught, and detained in
Castlebar Gaol until duly delivered at the assizes
in due course of law, if any English magistrate
could be found to back the warrant of the
Connaught coroner, and on which he might be seized
without any further authority, if he had visited Ireland
in attendance on his SOVEREIGN, or for any other cause.
We take it for granted that this inquisition has been
quashed, or if not, a journey to the other side of St.
George's Channel may still be productive of conse-
quences which the Premier could scarcely imagine,
and would certainly by no means relish, but which
would very speedily lead to the introduction of a
better system, in the management of public prosecu-
tors. It has been said that the " Smithfield-market
nuisance" will never be abated until an Alderman is
tossed by an infuriated ox. SYDNEY SMITH de-
clared " that protection would never be afforded to
the public on railways until a bishop was burned to
death." We trust that we shall not be kept without a
public prosecutor until a member of the Cabinet is
placed in the dock to answer some trumpery and ridi-
culous charge, such as that to which we have just
alluded.

submerged, shall the pigmy hope to cleave asunder
the waters of civilization, as MOSES separated the
waves of the Red Sea, or as JOSHUA severed those of
the River Jordan? In a similar truthfulness it was
once written by the Prince DE METTERNICH to the
Baron VON BERSTETT—" Le Temps avance au milieu
des orages, vouloir arreter son impetuosite, ce serait un
vain effort." "The age.advances in the midst of storms,
to endeavour to arrest its impetuosity would be
a futile effort." Since that truth was first
articulated by METTERNICH DE WINNEBOURG,
that statesman, in defiance of his own reason,
has attempted to stay the impetuosity of the age, and
lo ! the power consolidated by his wisdom during half
a century has been blown to the winds of Heaven
like a handful of corn-husks, and he himself in his old
age rendered a fugitive and an exile.
Every sentence in the introduction of Mr. MAC-
GREGOR'S pamphlet enforces this acknowledged omni-
potence (in a worldly sense, of course), of liberal ideas
and of public opinion : and every successive occur-
rence on the European continent corroborates and
verifies that assertio n. Having premised this much,
the Honourable Representative of the city of
Glasgow considers, first, the " Progress of Civiliza-
tion," and secondly, the " Epochs of Civilization?,
Insisting at the outset, upon the accuracy of
that saying of HELYETIUS, " that if the hands
of man were formed like the hoofs of the horse,
he would have never attained more intelligence than
that animal," he traces the progress of civilization
from the peculiar construction of the human hand as
well as from the powers of reason and speech, from
the fabrication of what was absolutely necessary to
what was convenient, and ultimately to what was
merely luxurious, from living on wild herbs, roots,
and fruits, to subsisting on the produce of hunting
or fishing, to the attainment of the pastoral and
agricultural state, and in the end to " the discovery
of the more simple arts, manufactures, and sciences—
to the pursuits of navigation, of trade—to learning,
intelligence, and to the higher arts and sciences."
Nor is the value of the argument restricted to this
merely ingenious sequence of facts—the chief merit
of it lies in the declaration of the truth, that "there is
no greater fallacy than to confound civilization under
all governments with civil liberty." In testimony of
this fallacy, the writer observes that the ages of the
MEDICI, the BORGIAS, and of Louis XIV. were
" brilliant epochs of civilization," and yet were times
of unmitigated despotism ; that the swineherds and
hunters of Germany have been simultaneously free
and uncivilized ; that the Hurons, the Iroquois, and
the other barbarous tribes of the red Indians have
been in like manner possessed, at one and the same
time, of civil liberty and profound ignorance ; while
the luxurious and more civilized Mexicans have bowed
in ignominious obedience under the yoke of
an absolute government. So far the argument of the
pamphlet is visibly correct, but Mr. MACGREGOR goes
futher. He maintains with RAYNAL that "Lespeuples
qui ont poli tousles autres ont ete conamercans : the
nations who have civilized all the others have been
commercial." And having demonstrated the truth of
RAYNAL'S remark by the records of universal history,
he deduces from the facts already accumulated to-
gether the opinion, that the commercial character of
England and its liberal institutions are circumstances
which, combined, are the best calculated to consoli•
date the Constitution, to confirm the nationality,
and to develop still further the civilization of the
United Kingdom. As a basis upon which to
erect his arguments in favour of radical and
comprehensive reform, therefore, nothing could be
more secure and hopeful than this : at present, how-
ever, we are compelled to defer our remarks upon
the urgency of the reforms insisted upon by Mr.
MACGREGOR. At another opportunity we shall take
occasion to epitomize still further the arguments of
his remarkable and intelligent pamphlet.

On Thursday last we pointed out the injurious
results of the present system, by which every person
aggrieved or injured by the criminal acts of another,
is not only permitted, but absolutely required, to
carry on the proceedings against the accused, and
that, if be should neglect, or decline, to discharge the
duty so imposed upon him, there is, at least, a great
probability that the offender may escape the punish-
ment due to his crime. At present we trust to
chance for the vindication of the law ; and, as Lord
BROUGHAM truly remarked in his great speech on the
introduction of his Bill " to consolidate and digest
into one statute all the laws of England, as far as I
relates to indictable offences, and the punishment
thereof," " no provision whatever is made in our
system for any one criminal being brought
to trial, any one offence prosecuted, or that
may not just as well prove
"nugatory a,
effectual." Practically we leave our criminal
law to execute itself." We, however, then
merely alluded to the chances of a failure of justice,
and of the impropriety of compelling an innocent
party, who perhaps had already sustained losses
which he might be ill able to encounter, to undergo
considerable expense, annoyance, and inconvenience
in carrying on a prosecution which, in accordance
with every principle of justice and expediency, should
be conducted by a public functionary, appointed and
remunerated by the nation. Wealthy criminals are
thus enabled to evade punishment. Impunity is too
frequently afforded to crimes which strike at the
very root of society. Public offences are every day
privately compromised, and the most atrocious acts
are atoned for by pecuniary compensation to the
aggrieved parties.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday

They contain letters from M. DROUYN DE LBUYS,
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
also from M. MAUGUIN, and from M. NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE, complaining of the statements contained
in the published speech of M. LAMARTINE, which
they declared misrepresent what Tell from them in
the discussion before the Committee, and stating that
they are precluded from answering them publicly by
the resolution of the Committee that their proceedings
should be secret, a resolution of the existence of which
they say M. DB LAMARTINE was probably ignorant,
as he did not attend the earlier sittings of the Com-

mittee.
The Moniteur announces the nomination of M.
MARIE, President of the National Assembly, to the
Ministry of Justice, in the room of M. BETHMONT ;
of M. JULES BASTIDE as Minister for Foreign
Affairs, vice General BEDEAU, whose recovery from
his wound will yet be tedious ; and of M. DE VER-
NINAC, to the Ministry of Marine, in the room of
M. BASTIDE.

The candidates for the Presidentship of the Na-
tional Assembly, vacant by the appointment of M.
MARIE to the Ministry of Justice, are either M.
ARMAND;,;MARRAST Or M. GARNIER PAGES, on the
Republidan interest, and M. DuratraE or M. LA-
CROSSE, put forward by the Thiers party.

In the discussion in the Committee of Finance on
PROUDIION'S proposition for confiscating one-
third of the property of proprietors, a most important
admission was made by the chief of the Commu-
nists, on which it would be well that many in
our own country who set up as humanitarians
par excellence
_should attentively meditate. M.
PROUDIION having de\ eloped his celebrated proposi-
tion that property is theft and ought to be abolished,
was replied to by M. TRIERS, and in reply to a ques-
tion from that gentleman M. PROUDRON admitted that
the right to employment guaranteed by the Constitution
must cause the destruction of property. " Grant me
the right to employment," said M. PROUDHON, " and I
will leave you property." We are rejoiced at finding
PROUDHON thus bearing his unconscious testimony
to the eternal truth of the doctrines of political
economy ; once depart from those doctrines—once
interfere by law between the employer and the em-
ployed—once put the State in the position of em-
ployer-general of labour, and you will be driven on
inevitably to communism.
It is said that M. DORNES, editor of the National,
and one of the Members of the National Assembly,
who was wounded while heading an attack upon the
barricade on the 23d June, died on Monday from his

On a former occasion we announced the appearance
of a remarkable pamphlet, called " Sketches of the
Progress of Civilization and Public Liberty," and
written by the Honourable Representative of Glas-
gow. We then transcribed into our columns the
whole of the introductory portion of this political
brochure as well as the closing chapter, treating of
the financial condition of Great Britain, and we did so
not only because those fragments of the pamphlet
were characterised by a peculiar intelligence, but
because the reader might thereby obtain a rapid sp.
preciation of the tendency of the entire argument.
It is with very peculiar pleasure that we resume our
comments upon these seventy-two pages by the
author of the "Progress of America," since we are
solicitous to extend as much as possible a knowledge
of the beautiful theory which is there advanced by
Mr. MACGREGOR in regard to the progress of public
liberty and civilization.

wounds.
The examination of the insurgents confined in the
fort of Ivry, and who are nearly 1,100 in number,
has been concluded, and the Military Commission
will decide on their fate.
It is said that General CAVAIGNAC has given per-
mission to the proprietors of the Presse and of the
other suspended papers to resume the publication of
them in a few days.
Prince DEMIDOFF has addressed a letter to the
editor of La Presse, which has been published in the
Reforme, in which he indignantly repels the charge
made against him in La Presse, of having come to
London, and from thence remitted gold to Paris to
instigate the anarchists to the late insurrection. The
Prince says he has never, during the last eight
months, been absent from San Donato, his estate near
Florence, and that he has not been in London at all.
lie designates the attack upon his character as a foul
calumny and unqualified falsehood.
M. EMILE DE GIRARDIN has addressed the follow-
ing letter to the editor of the Constitutionnel :
" You state this morning, 'We have seen eleven
journals suppressed by an act of authority, and nobody
has thought of making it a matter of interpellation ut
the tribune.' The object of this letter is not to complain
ial e
tnpocre Presse
remarkacnh
dt hhtitahstt, been
tenaomrti
hat
parity
maintained
journals
bre
nod
aalst establishedwthheiethr i bhuabnyeee:
but solelytehne Ls
been suppressed, inasmuch as La Pi esse alone had com-
plied with the provisions of the laws referred to in the
Moniteur of the 25th of June. It was sufficient, in
order to prevent the other journals from appearing, to
apply to them the law respecting security money, and as
to La Presse, even admittiag that its articles were
impru-
dent, the Executive Government was armed against
them. The Government might have seized the paper ;
it was not necessary to suppress it. A seizure would
have been legal, the suppression was not. The law per-
mitted the seizure, but it did not permit the suppression
of a journal whichhadcomplierdeqwuiitrheda.ll
Thisthe conditions
a d
ig
tainndctgioinvewio i
nhallh tltiebehoves guaranteesthe entire press to demonstrate
in the full force of its tr"
th
u.
EMILE DE GIRARDIN."

Already we have been reminded by the lips of our
distinguished pamphleteer of those three celebrated
exclamations of the Emperor NAPOLEON—" Ce n'est
pas la Coalition qui m'a detrone, ce sont les idees
libe-
rales " I have net been dethroned by the coalition,
but by,liberal opinions." " Je ne puis pas me retablir
jai ehoque les peuples ! " " I can never re-establish
myself, for I have abused the rights of the people."
" J'ai peche contre les ideas liberales, et je mums r
I have sinned against liberal ideas, and I perish."
The mightiest conqueror the world ever saw,,
either in ancient or modern times, made
this acknowledgment as to the irresistible
supremacy of liberal ideas. HE spoke thus, of whom
the historian ALISON has written emphatically in
these words—" Equal to ALEXANDER in military
achievement, superior to JUSTINIAN in legal refor-
mation, sometimes second only to BACON in political
sagacity, he possessed at the same time the inexhaus-
tible resources of HANNIBAL, and the administrative
powers of Cir.sar !" And yet it was this extraordi-
nary mortal who confessed that he had been dethroned
by liberal ideas, that his puissance was beyond the
possibility of restoration, because he had abused the
rights of the nations, and that, in fine, he perished,
because he had sinned against the thoughts of demo-
cracy. If NAPOLEON could not withstand the tre-
mendous influence of those liberal ideas—those ideas
which have aggregated their strength and increased
their velocity almost inappreciably since his

There is, however, a still more fatal objection to
the system. Incalculable injury may be inflicted
upon innocent persons ; their future prospects in
life may be blasted ; they may be reduced from
comfort and affluence to want and penury, and in-
volved in, absolute ruin by the vindictive proceedings
of some malignant scoundrel. Any person who
pleases may prefer a bill of indictment against any
other, without the slightest notice or intimation of
such an intention. The charge is investigated by the
grand jury—if investigation it can be called—behind
the back of the accused, without any opportunity
whatsoever being afforded to him of repelling the un-
just accusation, or of explaining circumstances which
could easily be cleared up. The hasty and slovenly
manner in which grand juries too frequently dispose
of their important duties has now, unhappily, become
notorious. We have, during the past year, seen par-
ties placed upon their trial for murder, when the first
witness called, a medical practitioner, distinctly

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 19, 1848

Another of the persons implicated in the murder of
General BREA, and of his Aid-de-Camp Captain

MANGIN, has been arrested at Ivry.
A notice appears in the Moniteur explaining that
Treasury bons, not already converted into Five per
Cent. stock may be converted at any time, at the
option of the parties, but that as to such as were con-
verted under the decree of the 7th of July, the holders

must apply within one month of the promulgation of
the decree to obtain the compensation, being the dif-
ference in price between 80 and 100 francs.
M. Ducoux is said to have been named Prefect of
Police, vice M. MOTIVE CIIAUVEL.

The committee of the interior has adopted a pro-
position, made by M. BAUTIER, for the formation in
all the towns of France of committees for providing
for the poor. This proposition has been drawn up
in the shape of a decree, which we give textually :

There shall be organized in all the towns of France
committees for providing for the poorer classes. These
committees shall pgrchase by wholesale such provisions
as can be preserved, such as wine, cider, beer, and ve-
getables, and shall deal them out again by retail at the
cost prices, augmented only by enough to cover the
charges of warehousing, and the salaries of the persons
necessarily employed. The sales shall be made for
ready money. The first funds required for laying the
stocks for a month shall be advanced by the receiver of
taxes for the canton, and shall be. reimbursed by the
committee at the end of two months at latest. The Ali •
nisters of the interior and Finances are each charged
with prescribing such measures within their respective
departments as they may find necessary for attaining the
end proposed.
The theatres of Paris were opened last night for
the first time since the insurrection.

The following telegraphic dispatch has been re-
ceived by the Minister of War from the General in
command at Lyons :—" The number of arms distri-
buted or pillaged was 35,404 muskets and 1,160

musketoons. Of these there have been received back
32,854 muskets and 654 musketoons. I hope that
we shall accomplish a complete disarmament, or
nearly so."
It is said that the Duchess of BERRY is in Paris.

The Minister of Finances has presented a decree
;o-day, giving the head of the executive.power 15,000
'rants a month as frais de bureau.
The Minister of Foreign Affdirs has received from

the French Plenipotentiary at Frankfort a note, an-
nouncing that the Diet of Frankfort has the inten-
tion of withdrawing Venice from the Italian League
and attaching it to the German Confederation.
Several Members of the National Assembly intend
to address strong interpellations to M. BASTIDE on
this point.
The Constitutionnel says :—" The story related by
the Ere. Nouvelle of pistol-shots having been fired in
the Champs-Elysées at the carriage of M. L. AIURAT,
penetrating it in two places, is entirely unfounded.
It is true that, two or three days after the events of
June, the horses of M. L. Mu RAT were frightened
by a shot ; but there has not been anything dis-
covered to warrant a belief that it was fired with an
evil intent."
General CIIANGARNIER, Commander-in-Chief of
the National Guards of the Seine, has addressed the
following letter to such of the colonels as had refused,
in the name of their legion, the decorations which the
Executive power intends according to them :
" My dear Colonel,—General Cavaignac, President of
the Council, to whom I submitted the observations which,
in the name of his colleagues, the Colonel of the 4th
Legion addressed to me ou the 6th instant, persists in
thinking that it is proper to give the National Guard
the decoration which it so well merited in the days of
June. If in depriving of all recompense the National
Guards who fought for order and society we could tear
out this sad and blood•stained page from our history,
their patriotic hearts would rejoice ; but this deplorable
remembrance being unfortunately indelible, we ought
not to separate in the distribution of distinctions of
honour to the National Guard, the Guard Mobile, and
the army, so united during the combat. The President
of the Council having come to a decision which several
legions have already accepted, I have no doubt that you
will place yourselves in a position to execute his orders,
not only with the obedience which we all owe to them,
but with the readiness which I have a right to expect
from your patriotism and your conciliatory and enlight-
tened-spirit."
PARIS BOURSE, TUESDAY.

THREE O'CLOCY.—The funds and shares were exceed-
ingly heavy to-day, and the business limited. There
was no news of any kind to create the fall, but there is
a general uneasiness in consequence of the continued
stagnation of affairs. Some important capitalists are
among the sellers.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE, Jura' 18.
Dutch Rhenish, I,o—ltalian and Austrian, %—Namur
and Liege, 314 —Northern of France, s—Orleans and Bour-
deaux, 2.