The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-09 00:00:00

'u

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1848.

Sanitary legislation----
has hitherto been little better
than a political will-o'-the-wisp, decoying the popu-
lation only deeper and deeper into the quagmires of
parochial indifference, and plunging the municipal
authorities more and more resolutely into the mo-
rasses of their unwholesome monopoly. As yet Par-
liament has r estricted itself to the utterance of eulo-
vitas upon cleanliness.. It has been merely a hypo-
theticaglel,ovwerbdolfefr.esh. air, pure. water, and efficient
drainage, whale
then its
.immediate neighbourhood it
has winked
system—like Sir
jomaintenance of a pestilential
FALSTAFF, " babbling o'
green fields" amidst the roar and sweat of Eastcheap.
Everything has been promised and nothing has been
after accomplished. Petition aftetitton has been laid
upon the tables of the twolf uses, and, while the
petitioners in language
Members have responded to the
Pe
of sympathy, the petitions themse
been
useful in as f: it as they have helped a
pt have
o.
ilig only been
of
Britannic. Jon,ns
SPEAKER ; di visions have been counted into l‘tihre.
lobbies ; meeti.cigs have been convened in the Ilanover-
square Rooms. ; agitation has been excited among
vestrymen an 3 ill-blood among the members
of
cor-
porations ; lecturers have expatiatedupon disease in all
the suburban institutions around the metropolis, anda
have braved] ally the discomfort of peripaticians; to de-
claim against miasmata to the provincial populace •
measure has been introduced after measure; report
has been accumulated after report by the indefati-
gable Commissioners of Gwydyr House; and
yet, in spite of all this, in defiance of the
dismal and argi kmentative returns of the Registrar.

General, in contempt of disease, contagion, depravity,
and death, nothing, absolutely nothing in the way of
practical amelioration has yet been accomplished.
What has caused all this ? Something must have
done so. What is that something? Apathy ? No.
The very efforts which we have enumerated—efforts
made simultaneously by the Legislators, by the Go-
vernment, by enterprizing individuals, and by the
people themselves, show that for a considerable time
past there has been very far from any indifference on
the matter on the part of the community. A blunder
as to the mode of proceeding ? That is impossible ;
for every imaginable mode of proceeding has been
resorted to either successively or simultaneously. In-
dolence on the part of the Administration ? Not so.
Whether under the Premiership of Sir ROBERT PEEL
or cf Lord JOHN RUSSELL, the Ministry have evinced
a peculiar degree of activity in the furtherance of the
cause of sanitary improvement. Both Lord LINCOLN
and Lord MORPETH have toiled with assiduity, to
assuage the sufferings of their fellow-men, by laying
before Parliament Bills of an elaborate and practicable
character. Has the delay of this essential innovation
originated then in the insincerity of its promoters ?
The simple enumeration of such names as Non.-
MANBY, GROSVENOR, MORPETH, LINCOLN, SOUTH-
WOOD SMITH, and CHADWICK, is a sufficient
reply to this suspicion. No : the continual failure
of the efforts made in behalf of sanitary im-
provement is attributable neither to apathy, or
to blundering, or to indolence in the Cabinet, or to
the insincerity of its advocates. It is attributable to
something very different. To what then ? To an
opposition arising from a fanatical reverence to some
of our " time-honoured institutions." That is the
secret of the procrastination. Because our munici-
palities have been governed time out of mind by a
local board, the scheme of sanitary improvement
must be abandoned, crushed, mutilated, smothered—
anything but accepted. Better that disease should
decimate the land, and the corrupt influences of
ourt
settlements,
domestic discomfort tend to the demoralization of the
t ho
af
no
that
tptrhi se ons, our
hul multitude,k , and and
penal othe
sacrile-
gious finger of the law should be laid on any one of our
" time-honoured institutions." Why, the veneration
of Mr. BUMBLE for
the "parochial authorities" was
nothing to this. And were a similar system of wor-
ship to prevail in every instance,
we should be com-
pelled to groan under the infliction of all sorts of
grievances, because forsooth of their antiquity. If
antiquity, indeed, must be held paramount in every
instance, then it is advisable to re-establish a thousand
of those obsolete regulations which have been latterly
regarded as incompatible with civilization. Better
send Herr DOBHLER to the stake for his apparent skill
in black-magic and demonology. Better revive the
feudal system, and all its consequences, because of
their venerable, and therefore sacred, antiquity.
Better do anything, however outrageous, criminal,
inhuman, or unchristianlike, rather than interfere
with our "time-honoured institutions."

Speaking seriously, however, it is found that disease,
immorality, and death are co-existent to an enormous
extent with these time-honoured institutions, the
local boards exercising local power in the different
parishes and municipalities,—and therefore it is time,
we take it, for abating in some measure our admira-
tion for institutions so notoriously inefficient. We
cannot,:for this reason, sympathise in the lamentations
uttered by Mr. CHARLES PEARSON yesterday evening,
that such time-honoured institutions as these should
like ricketty children be placed in " the go-cart of
centralisation." Centralisation we admit is, in the
abstract, a system calculated to prove most per-
nicious in its influences and in its operation. Yet,
notwithstanding our abhorrence of that relic of des-
potism, the system of centralisation, we ,would im-
measurably prefer it to the arrangements which have
hitherto sacrificed to themselves the lives of more
millions than were ever immolated in hecatombs to
Moloch or crushed under the wheels of Jug •
gernaut. Centralisation, accompanied by health,
morality, and decency, is preferav,-,
. . accompanied by disease,
mortality, demoralisation, indecency, and wretched-
ness. This is the preference which has throughout
actuated us in our reiterated demand for sanitary im-
provement, and which causes us to rejoice, with all
sincerity, in the knowledge that Lord MORPETH'S
Bill is at last receiving the emendation or approval of
a Committee of the Lower House of Parliament.

A case was recently decided by Mr. Commissioner
PEILLirs involving a point of practiee of consider-
able importance—" In re ROBERT TALBETT." It was
moved that the insolvent's petition should be dis-
missed, and that the books, papers, and documents
filed with the Judge of the County Court of Notting-
ham should be returned to the insolvent, or his
attorney, he having been discharged by his detaining
creditor without having appeared before the Court,
or having obtained the benefit of the Act. The
questions that arose were—whether the jurisdiction
of the Judge of the County Court terminated with
the return of the record to the Insolvent Debtors'
Court ; and also whether that Court could dismiss a
petition when so returned without any adjudication hav-
ing taken place thereon in the local court. The Learned
Commissioner, having previously consulted with the
Chief Commissioner, decided in conformity with the
opinion he had received, " that the jurisdiction of the
Insolvent Debtors' Court was completely taken away
by the recent statute," and he consequently refused
to dismiss the petition.
It is difficult to collect the arguments used in this
case from the reports that have appeared. It seems
to hare been more of the nature of a conversation
than of a case solemnly argued in a court of law.
With all respect, however, for the opinion of the
Learned Chief Commissioner, by which Mr. Com-
missioner PHILLIPS was governed, it appears
to us that the Judge of the County Court acted
very properly in not dismissing the petition, and in
returning the schedule and documents to the Insol
rent Debtors' Court. In JAGOE'S " Practice in Bank-
ruptcy and Insolvency," page 149, (a work of which
we have already had occasion to speak in the high
terms which the accuracy and ability with which it
was prepared, and the thorough knowledge of his sub-
ject manifested by the talented author, so richly de-
served,) it is laid down, " Though the insolvent may
not appear, or if appearing, refuse to execute the war-
rant of attorney, or should any circumstance occur to
prevent his regular discharge or remand, the document
ought to be returned to the court with a certificate
signedare
by the Judge, fully stating the facts." There
many reasons why a Judge of a County Court
should not dismiss
l:.
a petition under such circum-
necgtecdditor
stances ; exempli gnu'
- re—The prisoner might be dis-
charged by the detai , after the provi-
sional assignee had collected considerable portion of
the estate. The rights
of
th
thus (and also in other respects) obther creditors might
by the dismissal. The very dischargee materially affected
by his detaining creditor furnishesa prima of
a prisoneri
of suspicion, demanding a full and r
satisfactory facie case
vestigation, and which alone would be
suffici in-
to justify the County Court Judge in ent
refusing
to dismiss the petition, but to return it, together
with
the schedule and all the documents connected -
the case, to be dealt with by the Commissioner to
whom the matter had previously been allotted.
With regard to the jurisdiction of the Insolvent
Debtors' Court, in connexion with the County Court,
Mr. JAGOE says; at page 10 of the same able work to
which we have already alluded, "That proceedings
instituted in the Insolvent Debtors' Court, after being
heard by the County Court, are returned to b 3 kept
amongst its records. Therefore the County Court, in
a jurisdiction
prisoner's cases, has only transitory jurisdictio
which ceases when the case referred to it has been
heard and adjudicated on." It therefore appears, as
we conceive, perfectly clear that the Insolvent
Debtors' Court, on the return of the schedule and
petition from the County Court, possesses an absolute
and perfect control as to its dismissal or retention,
and generally as to all matters connected with it,
from whence it follows, in our opinion, as a natural
consequence, that the Learned Commissioner would
have
been fully warranted in dismissing the insol-
vent's petition in the case under notice, if there was
no other objection to such a course than that founded
on the want of jurisdiction.
We have been induced
to notice the present case
thus fully because it is in
important as well to the
public the highest degree
members of the legal profes generally as to the
between the Insolvent Debtorssin,
'oCourt that the practice
and the several
County Courts should be clearly understood, and that

attention should be especially directed to those
vexater questiones on which doubts and differences
still exist, with a view to their speedy and satisfactory
arrangement.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The question as to the appointment of the Inter-
mediate Government continues to occupy the atten-
' tion of the French people. Had M. LEDRU ROLLIN
conducted himself with ordinary decency, there can
be no doubt but that the members of the Provisional
Government would have been unanimously re-ap-
pointed as members of the Intermediate Government.
M. LEDRU ROLLIN, by his own " open and advised
speaking and writing," and by the overt acts of his
commissaries, has so disgusted every lover of liberty in
France, that the great majority of the Members of
the Assembly are all but pledged to their constituents
to deprive him and his agents of their power to do
mischief with the least possible delay. Against this
deprivation the fine, chivalrous, honourable
feelings of LABIARTINE revolts. He has de-
fended the cause of liberty against LEDRU ROLLIN
and his " Tory mob" most successfully—he has every-
where by the force of moral courage beaten the men
of violence, but he will not inflict upon their chief
the open and public shame of a dismissal, and there-
fore, in opposition to his friends, he stands out for
the re-appointment of all the members of the Pro-
visional Government. LEDRU ROLLIN himself is, as
might have been expected, furious. The Reforme of
yesterday thus threatens vengeance :
" The prattling press (it says) is making a great noise
about questions of a President, of Ministers, and of a
commission of Government. We are accustomed to all
these chronicles. Formerly Guizot and Duchatel were
quoted; to-day the bourgeois amuse themselves in dis-
cussing Ledru Rollin or Lamartine. As regards us, we
remember the barricades of February, and it signifies
little to us what calculations may be made, or what mis-
chievous ostracism may be preached. We are certain
that the Constituante (Assembly) will not choose to
drown the acclamations of the people, and that after rife
examination it will bow before the men who nobly and
valiantly did the service of the revolution. But it the
Constituante, the daughter of the election, disown the
Revolution, her mother, we shall let the delegates pass—
but we shall give notice to the people. Under the
Monarchy we fulfilled4hat duty; we shall do it under
the Republic."
The Democratic Pacifique makes an appeal ad
misericordiarn on behalf of M. LEDRU ROLLIN, and
implores the Assembly to re-elect him, because " LA-
MARTINE and LEDRU RoLLui balance each other, and
both are necessary to a general conciliation."
The illessager of Saturday says—
" A meeting of a great number of representatives took
place to-day in one of the bureaux of the Chamber, for
the purpose of settling the list of Members who are to
form the commission of the executive power up to the
moment at which the new constitution shall be pro-
claimed. The names of M. Lamartine, M. Arago, and
M. Marie obtained the assent of all those who are of
opinion that the commission ought to consist of only
three Members. The Deputies who desired five Mem-
bers proposed to add the names of M. Bethmont and M.
Merrast. The names of M. Gander Pages, M. Flocon,
M. Louis Blanc, M. Ledru Rollin, and M. Albert were
generally set aside."
The Patric of Sunday says—
" There was a very numerous meeting to-day of the
representatives of the people in the Salle des Con-
14rences, to discuss the question of candidates for the
Executive Committee of Government. An important
portion, vis., the Extreme Left, met in the 17th bu-
reau. MM. Etienne Arago, Barbls, Emmanuel
Arago, Frichon, Trenchant, Caussidiere, Flocon, Louis
Blanc, Albert, and Ledru Rollin were present. It was
proposed at this meeting that the Executive Committee
should consist of all the members of the Provisional
Government, and to support a proposition for a Com-
mittee charged to draw up a project of constitution
totally unconnected with the members of the Provisional
Government, who, it was proposed, should remain in
power until after the vote of the constitution. M.
Lamartine, it was said, will propose to his friends to
support this proposition. In another meeting of eighty
deputies, it was proposed, and unanimously carried, to
form an Executive Committee of MM. Lamartine, Ledru
Rollin, Arago, Marie, Bethasont, and Marrast. At the
same meeting it was proposed and carried that ' a com-
mittee of representatives, of whom the members of the
execatirc po.'or should foam a ,nan, should be ap-
pointed to draw up a constitution. At a third meeting
the majority was inclined to support the plain of select-
ing by a simple vote by ballot."
Save the small fraction of ultras who met in the
17th bureau, the rejection of LEDRU Romast, Louts
I3Lesic, and FLocos, has been unanimous.
The SiZele publishes a communication from a
Member of the National Assembly, which says that,
in order to get over the difficulty, two combinations
present themselves :
" The first, which will be proposed it is said, by M.
Martin, of Strasbourg, consists in creating a committee,
or intermediate council of Government, of which the
members will be limited in their power to the deciding,
under their responsibility, of political questions, and to
the nomination of Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of
State to direct the several ministerial departments. This
committee will be composed of three or five members.
There will be, in fact, two Governments, of which the
one will be a superfcetation—that of the directors, and
that of the Ministers. Another plan, which will be
strongly supported, is this—that the Assembly should
name directly,,and by ballot, as many Ministers as there
are ministerial departments, taking them, in as far as
prudence will permit, from among the present members
of the Provisional Government, and giving M. Dupont
(de l'Eure) the office of President of the Council. This
plan is on the supposition that the Assembly is itself the
Government, and has only occasion for Ministers. It
is also proposed that hereafter the Assembly should ap-
point a committee of Government of thirty-six mem-
bers, to be divided into as many sections as there are
ministries, to consider what reforms are practicable, and
to examine the accounts of the Ministers."
The accounts from the provinces are favourable.
Tranquillity has been restored at Limoges, the
Provisional Government having dismissed the,Commis-
sary PARROT.

The members of the Provisional Government
quitted their official residences on Saturday.
The sth of May being the anniversary of the
death of Napoleon, a grand funeral service was cele-
brated in the Church of the Invalides. Several mem-
bers of the Imperial family were present, namely,
Jerome Bonaparte, and his two children; Napoleon
Bonaparte, Deputy for Corsica; and Princess Ma-
thilda Dernidoff ; Joachim Murat, Deputy to the
National Assembly ; and Pierre Bonaparte, son
of Lucien, and Deputy of Corsica. Among the others
Present were—Marshal Molitor, Governor of the
Invalides ; General Petit, Deputy• Governor ; Generals
Fabvier, Gourgard Friant, Montholon, Chatry-
Lafosse, &c.

The Duguesclin, 90-gun ship, was launched with
complete success, at Rocbefort, on the 3d instant.
The steam corvette Colbert, of 320-horse power, was
launched at Cherbourg, on the sth, without any
accident.

The Moniteur publishes a number of diplomatic and
consular appointments. M. Benoist Champy was
nominated Minister of the Republic in Hanover; M.
Ferdinand Dervieu, attache to the London Legation ;
M. Hersant, Consul at Dublin ; M. Blancheton,
Consul at the Cape of Good Hope ; M. Cesar Famin,
Chancellor of the French Legation in London ; M.
Hauser, Vice-Consul at Rabat, in Morocco ; M.Bel-
langer, Vice-Consul at Massourah, in Egypt, &c.
In the sitting of the National Assembly on Mon-
day, the question as to the appointment of the Inter-
mediate Government had not been determined at the
hour at which the post left. The following is a
as9idalenewt'shacth
report of the proceedings up to the hour of post :
The President took the chair at half past one.
farTehneditnotehrenaarlbi?atrtrearn.gements of the Hall have been
theMt.ribGunarnotieorth
changedaichair
having
been
abtruorudgahyt,
ftohrewtribune o andut
thirtyP re-
feet, so as to enable the representatives sitting at the
Position of the country.
revolution had tconcludeg.es his MinisterstatementFinance,(left
on
d
It was quite
saved the
He declared that the recent
relative to the financial
Saturday, from
eaepahltehe
ocfounmtraythfermomattebarkruptcy
demon-
stration that the
pursuedeountr forsyatem of the late Govern-
. a few years longer must
tter ruin. He I:ad en.
dpmeleuannvtgOeuriefdtheto effectycoinnsidierahble reductions, particu-
larlyh ea vywith
rd
eativsiewwhietho
prreelsiseevtie
othett, poorer classes of the
Deputy here recapitulated the differente" The Honourable
plans which he
had brought forward curing the last
two months, de-
claring that they were called for by the
crisis. After dwelling for some time onnecessities of the these points, he
concluded by declaring that whoever sue
would find the finances in a better position succeeded him
than he had
received them.
M. Arago, Minister of War and of Marine ad interim,
then read his report on the state of the army. He
said that the first thing that attracted the attention
of the Provisional Government, after the revolution of
February, was the necessity of providing for the
safety of
' the country. In consequence, a council
of defence had been appointed, and four armies of
observation formed for the Alps, the North, the
Rhine, and the Appenines. The Honourable Minister
then entered at great length into the composition of
the various branches of the service, and the measures
taken to remedy the wants which were there perceptible.
Not less than 180,000 muskets had been distributed