The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-23 00:00:00

it was imagined some mistake had occurred at Perth,
and the secretary was immediately communicated
with, and the sorroetingniejeciamstances which compelled
her Grace's attendance at Castle,.Hesvard. The train
was delayed for a short 'time, in °id& ~to hevh.si final
answer from the secretary; but the reply was,' XdPtlre
rules of the company could not be departed from. The
mail train started with the empty coaches, besides the
necessary mail carriage, leaving the Duchess standing
upon the platform actually crying. Nothing was left
but to post onwards. She hired a steamer and crossed
the ferry on to Edinburgh, which occupied the whole.
day. By the time her Grace reached Castle Howard the
Earl of Carlisle was no more. Her Majesty recently
travelled to London on a Sabbath morning, and that fact,
so vividly in our remembrance, leads us to presume that
her Majesty cannot fail to be indignant at the treat-
'tent her Mistress of the Robes has received at the
hands of the majority of the Scottish Central Railway
directors." So that the " Sabbath" is an unfit day
for a daughter to visit her dying father! Ah! by the
by, we perceive from the wording of the reply given
to her Grace's heart-breaking entreaties, that no excep-
tion is allowed to the rule by which the company have
forbidden themselves (for undoubtedly our Lord
never forbade them) to carry passengers on a Sunday.
Suppose, then, it had been not the Duchess, but the
Earl of Carlisle's physician, who wished to be carried
forward on that occasion, what then ? "That is no af-
fair of ours, doctor—this is the Sabbath, and therefore
the Earl must be left to die ; we can send him no medi-
cal aid on a Sunday." Now, what says our Divine Re-
deemer to all this very ancient and very damnable cant?
(Matthew, xii., 10, 11. 12.) "But he said unto them,
what man shall there be among you that shall have one
sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day will
he not lay hold on it and lift it out ? How much then
is a man better than a sheep ? Wherefore, it is lawful
to do well on the Sabbath days." Now, come forth
with your railway Christianity, most holy Scottish
Central Railway Company—come forth with your fore-
heads of brass, and if you dare, gainsay here in your
justification the very words of that Divine Teacher
on whom you are blasphemous enough to throw the
blame of your execrable, unnatural, and monstrous prin-
ciples. "It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.' But
perhaps it is not "doing well" for a daughter to visit
a dying father? Ah! that, undoubtedly, is the point on
which these men rely for their excuse. And, again, we
cannot work on the Sabbath; therefore it is lawful for
the stokers, engineers, and firemen to work the engines
and draw the carriages on that day, but unlawful for a
lady to sit in one of those carriages and to rest while
she is passively borne along. Exactly so: the prohibi-
tion against work forbids rest. The cook, for example,
may labour at the cooking of the dinner, but it is upsab•
batical to eat it. Brazen and daring hypocrisy—fit
shield for the black and brutish hearts to wheat it is due
—that we may now with truth apply to Lord Carlisle
more bitterly even than Tacitus used them of Agricola,
those mournful words:—" Paucioribus lacrymis compo-
situ.; es ; et novissima to lute, desideravere aliquid oculi
tui." Indeed the paganism and tyranny of Domitian
corebined, were preferable to such Christianity and such
humanity as those of these thorough Pharisees—these
unblushing and flsgitious hypocrites. High time, in.
deed, it were, as we have already said, to take from
these equally ridiculous and execrable impostors the ma-
nagement of what ought to be a great public convenience;
but in their hands is such a trouble, such an offence, such
a scandal, and such a stumbling-block.
CEIRONICLE.—The arrangement which we have an.
nounced to be in contemplation, for consolidating into a
single body the North- Western,GreatWestern,and South-
Western Railway Companies, is one, the importance of
which it is not easy to appreciate, without an extensive
and accurate sarvey!of the vast mad complicated interests
which such a measure involves. That the first announce-
ment of the scheme should be startling, to some minds,
is no more than might be expected; and that an outcry
of "monopoly" may be raised, by those who adopt a
hasty and superficial impression of it, is by no means im-
probable. But, if we mistake not, the plan is one which
ought to be, and which will be. regarded, by more con-
siderate minds, under a very different aspect from that
which it might have presented a year or two ago.
Within the space of the last few months, some new
lights have dawned upon the public, not only with re-
spect to the value and character of railway property, but
also as to the effect which its depreciation, if not
promptly arrested, must have upon the accommoda-
tion of those who now reap the advantages of
the system. That the shareholders will content
edly see themselves ruined for the benefit of
those who travel by their lines—that they will go on
providing the same facilities, the same frequency of
trains, the same moderate charges and high rates of
speed, while their dividends are dwindling, and their
property falling lower and lower in the market—is a
supposition which few will be so fond as to entertain.
The liberal accommodation which, in all these respects,
has hitherto been afforded to the public, has been un-
doubtedly based upon confidence in that high state of
prosperity of which, until lately, it seemed not irrational
to presume the continuance. But the tide has turned.
We do not now enter into the causes, which will furnish
matter for a future inquiry ; we only specify the fact.
The tide has turned ; and the high and buoyant confi-
dence which, two years ago, discerned in the success of
the past nothing but promises of the future, has given
place to a distrust which it seems impossible, considering
its chronic character, any longer to attribute to mere pa-
nic. The shareholders inevitably incur the first brunt of
the shock ; but it is evident that there can only be a
short interval before its effects will begin to re-act upon
the public. Already, the symptoms of contraction are
apparent; rumours (well or ill-founded) begin to be
heard, of increased fares, a reduced number of trains, and
a strict retrenchment of all those superfluities of luxury
and comfort, which have hitherto made railway travel-
ling in England the beau ideal of locomotion. It will be
very easy co grumble at directors, and to arraign the
parsimony of the reformed management. When these
measures have been carried into effect, it may be possible
to get up an agitation through the press, or even in Par-
liament, against the demands or retractations of the
companies; but perhaps it may not be quite so easy to
answer the argument with which such complaints will be
met—that the shareholder is justly entitled to a fair
return for his investment, and that hi has a right
to indemnify himself against the diminution of his
profits, by a proportionate enhancement of tee price.
Such considerations as these will not, we think, be
found irrelevant to a just estimate of the parti-
cular measure which we have now under review. If
economy of management, unity of purpose, and an immu-
nity from those disasters which unlimited competition
has hitherto produced, can be secured by amalgamation
—and it seems difficult to contend that they will not—
who may claim the right to interfere ? If the contract-
ing parties are willing to be united, who is to forbid the
banns? The objection can only be raised in the name
and on the behalf of the public ; and we hold that there
is so far an identity of interest between the holders of
railway property and the rest of the community, that
the loss of the one must :speedily operate to the preju-
dice of the other. The public are, in fact,
far less concerned in maintaining the name of
competition—which, so long as it is fur the
advantage of the parties to combine, can never
be anything but a semblance, " magni nominis urn-
bra"--than in the adoption of immediate and vigorous
measures for staying the wreck of that interest in
whose well-being and stability their own comfort and
tceommodation are deeply involved. That the arrange-
ment now contemplated is a bold and comprehensive one
is rather a presumption in its favour than the reverse,
to those who thoroughly appreciate the present critical
position of railway affairs—a predicament which affords
no promise of a useful result from any half measures,
and which is altogether beyond the reach of feeble pal-
liatives Until we are informed more specifically of the
terms and conditions of this great confederation, and of
the securities under which it is proposed to obtain for it
the sanction of Parliament, it would be rash to pro-
nounce a confident judgment upon its merits; but the
considerations which we have now suggested may be
useful in bespeaking for the project a dispassionate re-
ception, and in disarming some portion of that short-
sighted and prejudiced invective which may be raised
against it upon its first promulgation.
1-IERALD.—The events that have occurred on the
Continent of Europe during tha past eight months, and
which aro daily occurring, ought to teach the wisest
humility, and the most travelled and the best-informed
among our contemporaries the decorum of a little
modesty—and the tact even of even a temporary and
occasional silence. But the Ministerial print, true to its
pristine character, is not to be abashed or discomfited
or kept in check. Though our contemporary has any
day for th© last eight months committed the most mon-
strous blunders in reference to France— though not
three months ago he proclamed that General Cavaignao
was under the guidance of little M. Thiers, and sure to
take, within a little month, that politician into his
councils—though, day by day, and every day since,,
blunders as egregious have been perpetrated in refer-
ence to Italy, to France, and to Germany—yet not even-
the ridicule of juvenile rivals, or the laughter of the
Exchange, can stop the pen of our contemporary, or
stay him in the career of his erratic humour. If these
were the prancings and curvettings of a young steed,
full of fire, blood, and mettle, we could pardon the capers
ings of a colt, as yet imperfectly broken in. But no:
it is plain we have to deal with a heavy old pack-horse,
who fancies, notwithstanding his lumbering gait, he is
like the steed of Sir Pertinax,
"Fit for the road, the race, the course."

All ground is, equal to him. It matters not whether he
ambles on the sandy soil of Prussia—the heavy clay
lands of Austria—or the defiles of Hungary, Bohemia,
or the Rhetian Alps He is equally at home—that is to
say, equally abroad in each and all of these latitudes.
To drop metaphor—our Ministerial contemporary has in
every oracular speculation of the last eight months been
mistaken, and all his wise saws in reverence to the Eu-
ropean Continent have been airy nothings,nursed in the
" Privy Council Office" of his own brain—he best knows
why, and cares most wherefore. Most other persons of
any modesty in Europe, with the benefit of knowledge,
and with every aid and appliance to judgment, confess
themselves puzzled and amazed by the cuurse of conti-
nental events. But the self-assured and unabashed Times
alone is enabled to fathom destiny, and to reveal to Em-
perors and nations their respective fates. In the begin-
ning of last week, for instance, we were to have the
Croatian cavalry bivouacked in the Stephens-Platz at
Vienna—the horses of their officers stabled in the cathedral
—about the middle of the week the city itself was to be
bombarded—and towards the conclusion of the week a 80.

beroian Congress again was to set all to rights. But though
none of these things have come to pass just as predicted,
yet oar contemporary contentedly goes on and on
perorating day after day as though he were a true pro-
phet and Lather to a line of seers who sea deeply and
learnedly into the future. No knowledge of the country
or its history, or the diverse races of which the -Austrian
empire is composed—no study of its administrative,
,financial, or diplomatical system, is now considered in
the least necessary, it appears by Ministerial news
writers: To them it suffices to say a thing boldly, posi-