The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-08 00:00:00

THE SUN,_ LONDON, TUESDAY._ EVENING, AUGUST 8, 1848.

being immediately made known to the constabulary,
and his instant capture being the inevitable result?
In fact, he virtually surrendered himself ; but, in
place of doing so witha good grace, and thereby re-
cording his submission and acknowledgment that the
rebellion had been completely crushed, he suffered
himself to be taken by the first person who
chanced to take advantage of his weakness.
There was, in all this, a total absenoe of
every selfish feeling—a self-devotion that in a
worthier cause would have been deserving of the
highest `commendation. He might have remained
concealed for many months in the mountain fastnesses
into which he had retreated. The peasantry would
never have betrayed or surrendered him who flung
himself upon their generosity, and they would have
braved all the consequences that might be incurred
for affording shelter and protection to the proscribed
traitor. But he himself shrunk from imposing so
painful an alternative upon the people. The procla-
mations which had been posted through-
out the country announced that, the; punishment
for harbouring a party charged with high treason
was death. He saw that, although the hospitality he
denianded was never refused, yet that it was given
with fear amt. trembling, that he was an object of
terror, and he resolved to endure any penalty himself
rather than bring down exemplary punishment on his
humble hosts, more particularly when he despaired
of ultimate success. This led to his descent from the
mountains, and he would most probably have at once
surrendered himself, but that he feared it might be
regarded as an attempt to obtain a mitigation of the
penalties to which he was liable—a desertion of those
involved in the same desperate enterprise with him-
self. Hence the act itself, and the manner of it—his
determinatio❑ no longer to remain concealed, and his
suffering himself to be captured rather than to sur-
render himself a prisoner.
It is said that it has been intimated that Mr.
O'Beantes trial will not take place during the present
Commission sitting in Dublin, that the only political
prisoners who will be tried on the present occasion
are those who were in custody under the Treason
Felony Act previous to the late outbreak. It may,
perhaps, be intended to try all the parties more
deeply implicated together, so soon as the
fugitives are made amenable to justice ; perhaps
the prisoners concerned in the insurrection may be
kept as hostages for the tranquillity of the country.
Whatever may be the object for postponing the trials,
we trust most sincerely that mercy may be extended
to all the misguided men implicated as participators
in the insurrection. A general feeling appears to
exist that the law may be sufficiently vindicated
without the sacrifice of human life; that the fairest
prerogative of the Crown may in this instance be
exercised, without any injury to the public in general.
There are many mitigating circumstances which
may reasonably be allowed their due weight.
Not a single one of the police, military, or of any
engaged in the cause of order, lost his life during the
entire transaction. Even the captured policeman,
who, on the day of the contest at Boulagh, was taken
prisoner, and brought before Mr. SMITH O'Brunn,
was set at liberty, without the slightest injury being
inflicted upon him. Life and property were in every
instance respected. Now, although these facts cannot
possibly justify what has taken place, they may, un-
doubtedly, be regarded as extenuating circumstances,
more especially when it is in-favorent vitce that they
are put forward, not as the ground of an acquittal,
but merely for the favourable consideration of the
Home Secretary, and the extension of clemency by
the Crown to the unresisting prisoners.

It is not, however, on grounds that we
would mainly rest the case. It is on the
moral effect which the punishment, whatever
it may be, will have on the country. The
cruelties that took place in 1798 on the part of
the authorities greatly contributed to the atrocities
perpetrated on the rebel aide. The hanging and the
flogging of parties concerned in, or suspected of,
treasonable practices led to the burning and the piking
of loyalists. Public executions led to private assas-
sination, which the ignorant and excited multitude
were taught to regard as justifiable reprisals on their
enemies. We trust that there may be no repetition
of these barbarities on either side—that the rebellion
of 1848 may not have the same sanguinary recollec-
tions attached to it that degraded every class of Irish-
men in 1798.

• Further etlbrts, we observe, are making, among the
pretenders to morality, to enforce the injunctions of
Holy Writ by Aots of Parliament, or, as it has been
happily said by one of the town -councillors of Man-
chester, to render religion an inconvenience by placing
a municipal padlock on the conscience. According to
the police authorities of Rotherhithe, a little urchin
who vends a handful of figs for the purpose of buying
a crust for his Sunday's dinner is violating the prin-
ciples of Christianity. According to a wretched
minority in the House of Commons, it is sinful to
sell a mackerel five minutes after eleven o'clock on
Sunday morning, and equally sinful to draw a pint of
malt liquor before the chimes of one o'clock on the
same afternoon have sounded. Glasgow, or at least
a very moral proportion of the corporation of that city
—the very PECYSNIFFS of Lanarkshire—wished a
few months back to signalise their orthodoxy by
putting a stop to all railway travelling on every
seventh day between their own locality and the
capital of Scotland. A kindred group of religionists
threaten to ride roughshod over the unfortunate citi-
zens of Manchester by endeavouring to close the
post-office for the space of twenty-four hours in the
course of every successive week, in that great mart,
from which the civilising influences of commerce are
in a state of perpetual irradiation. Indeed, the spu-
rious morality of these worthies extends beyond the
boundaries of Lancashire—they have an ambition to
cast a huge wet blanket of sobriety over the
whole of the United Kingdom. During the
course of last week a majority of eighteen
against twelve of the town-councillors of Manchester
decided that a memorial be presented to the Post
master-General, praying that the post-office in that
city may be henceforth closed on Sundays. But that
there is an inherent impotence in this spirit of pig-
headed fanaticism, we should certainly be roused into
a paroxysm of indignation. Fortunately, however,
the bigotry which proceeds to acts of such exag-
gerated and Quixotic piety renders itself for ever
harmless by becoming inexpressibly ridiculous.
Nevertheles4, as there are many who are doubtless
ignorant of the numerous and irrefutable arguments
by which this movement against what is erroneously
called the desecration of the Sabbath, is proved to be
preposterous—we may briefly recapitulate a few of
the -most conspicuous. Among other things therefore it
must be remembered—That the Post-office is the me-
dium through which society is illumined by the esta-
blishment of a connecting link between town and
town, between county and county, between nation
and nation, and that consequently the stoppage of
that medium of communication would throw a tem-
porary darkness and estrangement among the various
divisions of the human family, not every hundred
years, not every decade, not every lustrum, not every
year, or every fortnight, but for the space of twelve
or twenty-four hours in the course of every seven
days—fifty-two times in the passage of the twelve
calendar months! Besides which, it must not be
forgotten—That supposing the post delivery
were stopped on Sundays, people would
get their newspapers in defiance of the Government.
That twenty news-boys would, by that means, be
forced to labour on Sundays in the place of half a
dozen adult letter carriers. That other classes, such
as druggists' apprentices, are compelled to attend to
business during church service, and no statistical
calculations have yet demonstrated that druggists'
apprentices are peculiar for their licentiousness. That
great misery, inconvenience, anxiety, and possibly
sometimes even ruin and life-long wretchedness,
might result from this interruption of correspondence.
That the present system of delivery promotes the
general emotions produced by social intercourse and
visible good fellowship—emotions eminently ap-
propriate to the day dedicated by Christianity to
the service of OMNIPOTENCE. That little annoyance,
comparatively speaking, might accompany the im-
pediment in its relation to the wealthier portions of
the population, but that, at the same time, one of the
sweetest boons, and certainly one of the most inno-
cent pleasures of the poorer classes—that of cor-
responding with each other, and of preserving, in all
its original brightness, the light of friendship and love
emu
nt
the in
umaildisnat
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vtehrt
ma rekuntels
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u id theirbedai
effectually,ly and
and,

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in some instances, permanently, interrupted. For
Sunday is the only day on which a vast majority of
the labouring classes can find leisure for letter-writing,
and even for the minor occupation of letter-reading.
We must confess, however, without any mental re-
servation whatever, that we have not patience to con-
tinue the catalogue of arguments against this ridicu-
lous and extravagant sham of religion. On former
occasions we have insisted that it is impossible to
make men moral by Act of Parliament. We reiterate
that assertion ; and we maintain, that—once com-
menced—there would be no end to this legalised and
really demoralising morality. If the Legislature
were to prevent the running of railway trains, the
delivery of letters and newspapers, the selling of
mackerel, and the retailing of malt liquor on all Sun-
days, as a desecration of the Sabbath punishable by
the law, we should ultimately have penalties
inflicted on the shoe-black and the coachman, on the
scullery wench and the butler, on the kitchen-maid
who shelled the peas for the dinner table, and the
under cook who toasted the muffins for tea. The
men who agitate such outrageous questions as these
—blowing their little penny trumpets of virtue at the
street corners, after the fashion of the Pharisees—are
foremost among those who make religion contemp-
tible, and render the otherwise seductive and majestic
doctrines of Christianity ridiculous and repulsive.

f Shares not quoted; Belgian Two-and-a-Half per Cents.
I (tie fttlie,n n- per cent. ; Spanish Funds not quoted ;
Roman are ai on Saturday ; Rothschild's Receipts
have risen s per cent. Exchange on London (thirty
days 25 40 ; ditto (ninety days), 25 30. Railway
Shares for the Account, Settling of Aug. 15.—Northerns
are the same as on Saturday; Lyons have fallun If. 25c.
The others are not quoted. For Money, Havres have
fallen 7f. 50c.; Orleans, 5f.; Vierzons, Northerne, Stras-
burgs, and Lyons, 3f.75c. each. Rouens, Bales, and Nantes,
9f. 25c. each. Marseilles have risen 3f. 75e. The rest
are without any change. Vieille Montagnes are at 2,225.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE, Ana. 7.
Boulogne and Amiens, 61,4—Northern of France, 5%)—
Orleans and Bourdeaux,

I owe to my well beloved subjects this proof of solicitude.
It my hopes are realised, I shall immediately send to
Vienna my beloved brother, the Archduke Francis
Charles, in quality of my lieutenant, to replace the
Archduke John. I charge my Ministry to eommuni•
cite this letter to the Diet.
(Signed) " FERDINAND.' "
The Ministry, in consequence of this reply, sub-
mitted to the Assembly the following proposition,
which was carried :
"The High Assembly will please to decide on an ad-
dress explaining to his Majesty the urgent necessity fir
his prompt return to the capital of the empire, adding
expressly that the free action of the constbuted Assembly
is guaranteed under every circumstance."
This address was to be immediately sent to his MA.
JEsTT by a deputation of the Assembly.
In the sitting of the Ist August a proposition to
constitute Cracow a separate Government was nega-
tived by a large majority.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.