The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-09 00:00:00

Three persons, aged respectively 18 years, 23, and 24,
having slept one night in Kingston workhouse, the
next day stole three loaves, in the hope of being sent
to prison. The Chairman ordered them twentb.
one days' solitary confinement, and a private whip-
ping. Supposing they sought the shelter of the prison,
on account of its better fare, instead of the work-
house, is not 21 days' solitary imprisonment, of itself,
a commensurate punishment for stealing one loaf?
Why aggravate the sentence with the degradation of
corporal torture ? For anything that appears in the
report, the prisoners were not old offenders.
What can the magistrates expect will be .the issue ?
These men will, in all probability, leave the prison
degraded and hardened, and bent upon committing
some felony, which will send them out of the country.
It is a vulgar error to conceive that, in awarding
punishment, the law regards merely the
prevention, in future, of the like offences.
It has another, and a higher aim, at least,
it should have, viz., by the effect of the
punishment, to reform the character of the offender.
It is against human nature to suppose that men of
twenty-four years of age will be reformed by bodily
laceration.

Again, a boy aged seventeen, pleaded guilty to the
charge of stealing a Dutch cheese. He had not been
in the workhouse, like the others, above alluded to,
neither, as they, did he plead want as an excuse. His
sentence was fourteen days' solitary confinement, and
a private whipping. He therefore got a milder sen-
tence, by one week, than the others, between
one of whom and himself, the difference
only a year. To a considerate
imainda,ge was
a week's solitude in a prison is
a severe ordeal to pass through. Yet the worthies of
the Surrey Sessions weigh these matters so indiffer-
ently, that, it seems, in their judgment, as light as a
feather in the scale, and appears to be quite hap-
hazard whether the heavier offence, rebus sic stanti-
bus, receive a more lenient sentence, or vice versa.
We sicken at these legal incongruities.

The Post Ampt Gazette of Frankfort has the fol-
lowing from Berlin, dated the 29th ult. :—" Our
Minister for Foreign Affairs has just received an
energetic protest from Lord PALMERSTON against
the suppression of the republic of Cracow. M. DE
KAMPTZ has received instructions to proceed without
delay to Vienna, to regulate there the commercial
relations with reference to the incorporation of Cra-
cow with the Austrian monarchy."
According to a letter from Galicia, in the Augs-
burgh Gazette of the 2d, the last royal decree in fa-
vour of the peasantry, and by which the obligation of
forced labour is still further diminished, has diffused
much satisfaction among that class of the population.
In the same letter it is stated that the incorporation of
Cracow has inspired so much confidence as to the
future tranquillity of that town, that house property
has risen one-third in value.

Madrid papers of the Ist have arrived. They are
wholly taken up by the discussion of the late Minis-
terial crisis. This crisis is important, as showing
that the Queen of SPAIN supports with impatience
the yoke of the Afrancesado party, and that Senor
ISTURITZ and his colleagues are not in reality the
Ministers of the Queen of SPAIN, but the Ministers
of the ICING of the FRENCH, forced on the reluctant
QUEEN by the French Viceroy, Count BRESSON.
The War-office was completely destroyed by the
fire of the 29th ult. " The magnificent edifice," says
the TiemFo, " which was formerly the palace of the
'Prince of the Peace,' and has since served as the re-
sidence of most of the Secretaries of State, is, at
the present hour (December 1, three at night), but a
heap of ruins. The papers, valuable furniture, silver
articles, and coffer of the Minister of War, have be-
come a prey either to the flames or to the avidity of
those who could not reach places usually impene-
trable to the applications of misery—a sight both
mournful and shameful ! At present we cannot enter
ino further details."

According to the Clamor Publico the loss sus-
tained by the fire amounts to above 30,000 piastres.
The accounts from Portugal are to the 25th. At that
date no action bad taken place between the troops of
SALDASUSA and those of DAS ANTAS. The Marquis
of LODLE, it is said, was endeavouring to induce DAs
ANTAS to give battle without delay.
MADRID BOLSA., DEC. I.—The Three per Cents.
34f at the close, paper offered ; Four per Cents. at 21;
Five per Cents. at there is money; Debt, without
interest, 6:1; Paper Coupons 19k, there is money.