The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEIIBER 29, 1846.

Knowing the confusion of parties consequent upon
the military disturbances in Portugal, we are in no
degree surprised at what would otherwise excite our
astonishment, namely, the contradictory intelligence
continually arriving from that portion of the penin-
sula. Groups of insurgents are scattered over the
mountains, bands of guerillas infest the more sylvan
valleys, and regiments of the royalist troops are
quartered in the different towns and villages; beyond
this, there is a perpetual movement in the disposition
and numbers of the popular army,.. as well as in the
body of soldiery in the service of the SOTEREIGN.
Much blundering is consequently inevitable in the
information received from the theatre of this civil
war. As in, every similar outbreak, the most impos-
sible rumours are prevalent, every moment has its
particular report, and those individuals who,
from their mercantile occupations are not actually
implicated in the struggle, are alternately the
originators of some extravagant fabrication or
the credulous hearers of the equally extravagant
fabrications of their neighbours. In addition to all
these causes of uncertainty as to the information re-
ceived from Portugal, there is another—perhaps the
most important of all—the detestable bondage of the
press. When merely a single journal is permitted to-
appear by the government of a kingdom, and when
that journal is as subservient to the interests of the
degenerated Court of Lisbon as is the Diario do
Governo, it cannot he a matter of amazement that
the intelligence contained therein is of a marvellously
fragmentary and incredible character.
If we discard all the improbable and opposite asser-
tions of the different Portuguese correspondents, we
obtain the following lamentable picture of the condi-
tion of that country. Notwithstanding the numerous
and sanguinary conflicts which have already occurred
in that quarter of the. peninsula, it would appear
that matters are, if possible, farther than ever
from any settlement. In spite of the vaunted
dispersion of the " rebels " under the banners
of SA DA .134NDEIRA, the Court party are very far
indeed from being triumphant. The accounts ob-
tained as recently as the 20th ultimo are to the
effect that Bolurim had combined his forces with
those commanded by General MURINHO D'ALnu-
QUERQUE, and that, together with a detachment of the
soldiers of Das ANTAS, he had establiabed himself in
Callas. According to the same packet SALDANIIA
was hastening towards that stronghold. Oporto was
still invested by CABAL, and the question of the suc-
cess of royalists and insurgents still quivered on the
balance. A fortunate calculation of time or of num-
bers, an accidental selection of ground, or a chance
concentration of troops on either side, may bring
victory to DAs ANTAs and his, followers, or to SAL-
DANHA and his colleagues. Numerically the hostile
armies are tolerably well matched, but they have each
a number of distinct and very dissimilar advan-
tages. The, soldiers of Queen MARIA are ensured
ample rations and regular pay, they are periodically
reinforced, their leaders are guided by a council
•oncentrated in •the metropolis. •On the other hand,
the soldiers of the popular party are animated by a
contagious enthusiasm, they are recruited by the
ardent worshippers of a beneficent legislation, they
are inspired by the love of nationality, their cause is
the cause of the people, and they themselves are a
portion of .that people.

While the position of the armed belligerents in
the provinces is thus precarious and complicated, the
state of the metropolis is most embarrassing, and
most unpropitious. Commerce is in the utmost

torpor, trade is languishing, provisions are gradually
rising in price, and the bank. notes are regarded
with so much suspicion as to be at a discount of

twenty-five per cent. It is utterly impossible that
the citizens can continue much longer in this condi-
tion without some frantic effort being made by the
Portuguese to re-establish a really constitutional
monarchy, to remove their numerous political dis-
abilities, to ensure certain municipal reforms, to re-
invigorate the manufacturing and agricultural
industry of the nation, and to restore to Portugal at
least some shadow of her pristine -glory and greatness.,
It would he indecorous and ungrateful for any
maritime country like England not to regard the
prosperity and happiness of Portugal as a thing to be
peculiar!y desired—Portugal, the mistress of naviga-
tion, the Carthage of the middle ages, the promoter
of international communication, the fosterer
of modern commerce ! What Tyre did by its
purple dyes upon the borders of Palestine; what
Venice did upon the Adriatic under the rule of its
Council of Ten ; what Genoa did upon the frontiers
of Italy under the guidance of the immortal Douht,
and aided by the influence of her Golden Book, Por-
tugal- did for Western Europe, and through Western
Europe for the entire world, in the fifteenth century.
The enterprise which was germinated at that period
in the palace of Prince lIENIrr, in the harbour of
Lisbon, in the hearts of her mariners, and the marts
of her commerce, has entitled Portugal to the eternal 1

estimation of every free and prosperous people. Her
troublous position at, this moment is, in a .par-
ticular manner,worthy of 'exciting our sym-
pathy. The sufferings to which she is
new subjectul are attributable more to the
incapacity of her legislators, and to the undue inter-
ference of a foreign potentate, than to her own
mercantile sluggishness and national degeneracy.
Gifted with a fertilising climate and a generous soil,
possessing vast internal and not contemptible colonial
resources, with the experience cif the woes of
anarchy in the direction of Spain, of the feasibility of
extrication from the roost disastrous plights in the
direction of France, of the blessings consequent upon
a judicious constitution, a gradual reform, and an
indomitable industry in the direction of England—
Portugal has every means of ensuring her own pros-
perity, and of keeping pace with the advancement of
civilisation and the ,diffusion of knowledge. If ac-
companied by sagacity and confidence, her present
misery may be only the forerunner of her future
happiness, her civil commotions at this moment may
be only the phenomena of some striking 'transition in
her history, the odious rebellion of to-day may be
transformed into a glorious and commendable revo-
lution. M tRIA GLORIA has within reach the
means of investing her name with an enviable im-
mortality; her people have within reach their own
restoration to peace and greatness.

No nation has accomplished so much in favour of
the liberty of the subject as England. Her virtue in
this respect has not been confined to empty profes-
sions, all her public institutions bearing evidenCe to
the sacred value which is attached by Englishmen to
the maintenance of the blessing of liberty. In France,
highly civilised as she is, her citizens invoke, profess,
and dilate upon the 'privileges of liberty with an im-
passioned fervour far exceeding, in enthusiasm,
the spirit which would animate our own countrymen
whilst deliberating upon or ,contending for the same
object; and yet, both in the institutions of France
and the actual working of them,
_there are contained
guarantees for the subject's liberty far inferior to
those which are enjoined and enforced by the modus
operandi of the British Constitution. Still, notwith-
standing the extent to which the principle of
liberty, vital to any nation ambitious of com-
bining happiness with greatness, ie practically
enjoyed in this country, and far beyond what
has been realised by any other, the serieue infringe-
ment which is constantly being made upon this highly-
prized and popular prerogative is matter of astonish-
ment. This must, no doubt, be in a great measurY
attributed, not to any feeling of public indifference,
but to the general ignorance which frequently pre-
vails as to the vicious or defective administration of
any particular branch of our laws affecting the liberty,
of the subject. This ignorance, again, arises from
the fact, that those who, for the most part,
suffer from unjustifiable or unreasonable restraints
on their personal freedom, belong to a class who, by
reason of their poverty and their want of informa-
tion as to the means of redress, are the most exposed
to imposition and oppression.
Our system of police, in ifs operation, affords very
grave and repeated instances of the truth of the fore-
going observations. The protection secured to the
public with respect to property, liberty, and life, by a
well-regulated police force, cannot be too highly ap-
preciated. For these purposes great powers are neces-
sarily conferred upon the police authorities ; but, at the
same time, it behoves the public to be exeessively
vigilant that these powers be not abused. We have
been much struck by considering the excessive punish-
ment which, by the present system of police ad-
ministration, is entailed upon a man who happens to
get inebriated on a Saturday night, and placed in
the custody of the police. It may be that, for the
first time in his life, he has suffered himself to be so
far overcome with liquor as to have become incapable
of taking care of himself. He may be a man of good
reputation, though poor, of honest, indus-
trious, and hard working habits. He may be
married, having a wife and large family.
If such a man should be taken into custody, owing to
his being under the influence -of intoxication, on a
Friday night, he would be released by the magis-
trate early the following morning, after receiving a
proper admonition (provided it be his first delin-
quency), or paying a fine of five shillings; but if the
same individual should chance, for the same reason,
to fall into the hands of the police on a Saturday
night, he may be kept in confinement, in a narrow
and comfortless cell, till the magistrate takes his seat
on Monday morning, his incarceration having been
! extended over a period of time, varying, according to
the hour when he was taken, from 36 to 40 hours.
This is not as it should be. The remedy is simple
and obvious, and should be promptly adopted, from
a regard to the liberty of the subject, and the harsh-
ness and injustice of excessive and disproportionate
punishment. For the above and similar light offences,
the magistrate should be directed to attend his office on
the Sunday mornings. He might sit early, say from
half-past eight or nine o'clock till half.past ten, so as
not to be himself disabled from attending divine ser-
vice. If it be said that this would be breaking in
upon the Sabbath, we answ first, that many of those
who officially serve the ends of Government, which is
aldne constituted for the public advantage, have to
continue the discharge of their functions on the
seventh as well as the preceding days; and, secondly,
that the duties they would be called upon to perform,
would be all on the side of morality, benevolence,
mercy, and religion. The magistrate would have the
satisfaction and delight—for, such it ought to be es-
teemed—of releasing from a tedious and painful im-
prisonment many a poor and worthy man, who, for
the first time, perhaps, during a protracted life, had
been unguardedly led into temptation. He would
restore him to the bosom of a distressed family,
whom the discharged prisoner might be disposed to
accompany the same day to a place of worship, and
thereby afford the best evidence of his repentant
sense of the error he might have thoughtlessly com-
mitted. We hope this subject will meet with the at-
tention of the Secretary of State for the Home De-
partment, and the above, or some other equally effi-
cient system, be speedily embraced for remedying
the serious grievance to which we have adverted.

It has often been our painful duty to invite the
public attention to statements of misery and destitui-
tion, to sufferings of the most fearful character
Within the last few weeks scarcely a day has elapsed
that a paragraph headed "Death from Starvation" has
not met the eye in the columns of the public journals,
but never has it fallen to our lot to peruse a detail so
harrowing and revolting to every feeling of hu-
manity as that which has been put forward by Mr.
N.M. CUMMINS, a gentleman of respectability, a magis-
trate of the county of Cork, who, in a letter, to his
Grace the Duke of WELLINGTON, has depicted scenes
cf which he has been an eye-witness within the last
week. Truth, it is said, is stranger than fiction, and
it is indeed almost impossible to cbnceive a more
horrible exhibition of the effects of combined pestilence
and famine than that presented to our notice by this
gentleman. Lamentable accounts have from time to
time appeared of the extraordinary severity of the
distress in the western districts of the county of Cork,
and Mr. CUMMINS, who possessed some small property
in that part of the country, determined personally-to
investigate the truth of the statements as to the
appalling misery to which that locality was said to
be reduced. In pursuance of this praiseworthy ob-
ject, and it would appear also with the view of afford-
ing some relief to the sufferers, Mr. Cummnss went
to Skibbereen on the 15th instant, and visited different
parts of the surrounding country; and he cites as an
example of the state of the entire coast district what
he witnessed on one to wnland. We shall give it in
Mr. CUMMINS' own simple but forcible language. It
would• be impossible to condense or abridge, to
strengthen or add to the awful description. It is not
of a strange or distant land he is speaking, nor is he
dealing in vague generalities. The locality is fully
and accurately described, so that if he has been guilty
of any exaggeration, or has in any degree drawn on
his imagination, the statement is capable of immediate
contradiction. The scene of wretcheduess is named
South Reen, in the parish of Myrolß, and it is
situated on the eastern site of Castlehaven harbour.

MT. CUMMINS sayc—
" Being aware that I shoukl have to witness scenes of
'frightful hunger, I provided .myself with as intidi bread
as five men could carry, and on reeching'the spot I was
F,nrpriscd to find,the wretched hamlet apparently d,:srrted.
I entered-some of the hovels to ascertain the cause, and
the scenes that pre:iented themselves were such as no