The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-29 00:00:00

their very essence brought to mind the deplorable
days of feudality, the days of the villein,
and the baron, of the serf, of the bond-
man, of the condottieri, and of the lord paramount
—a king whose word was the fiat of the law, whose
whim was death, and whose authority was that of
an irresponsible dictator. Are we exaggerating the
miseries of the European races, such as they were
before the commencement of the great struggle
which is not yet completed? Italy is our answer;
and Austria; and Bavaria ; and the German princi-
palities; and even the Liberal and Protestant Prus-
sia! If these countries were not governed until
lately by the variable will ors despot, they were most
certainly trampled under the heels of an iron oli-
garchy. Government by representation they knew
only by hearsay ; travellers babbled to them of Par-
liaments sitting in Westminster, but as far as expe-
rience was concerned, representative government
was to themselves no better than the religion of a
dancing dervish—bootless, eccentric, and visionary.
Trial by jury was unknown among their judicial
institutions; the right of petitioning was unrecog-
nized ; differences of creed were illegal, inas-
much as particular forms of worship were
prohibited ; freedom of speech was a thing
not only unknown but inconceivable, and
the liberty of the press was effectually prevented by
the establishment of a rigid censorship. All these
boons, denied until very recently to the nations before
enumerated, had been for some centuries numbered
among the social and political institutions of Eng-
gland— they were the planks, the stones, the founda-
tions, the buttresses, the arches, the pillars, the para •
pets, the architraves, and the domes, which, accumu-
lated one by one, from generation to generation, and
from century to century, had been built up into that
substantial and glorious edifice known throughout
the two hemispheres as the British Constitution.
Diametrically opposite, however, as were the nations
of continental Europe and the people of England
when contrasted with each other, the wants, the
necessities, and the aspirations of the age were the
same with both. In both might be traced the giant
strides of civilization ; in both might be discerned
the progress made in the diffusion and development of
knowledge; both possessed the printing press and
the steam• engine; both were intersected by rail ways ;
both had readers and thinkers out of number—men
who saw the lights of intelligence and the
glory of freedom, but under very different circum-
stances. England saw all these things, and enjoyed
them without restriction. Europe saw them too, but
was without the capacity of enjoying or using them.
It was quite impossible, therefore, that matters could
remain much longer in this state; the millions of
the continent must rise by an inevitable necessity. It
was their doom ; and they did rise ! They rose almost
together like one man, and the earth resounded
with the movement. It was the old story of the giant
waking from slumber, and shaking off his shackles, as
GULLIVER shook off the manacles of the Lilliputians.
Eighteen hundred and forty-seven closed, and they
were still in bondage. Eighteen hundred and forty-
eight dawned, and they were free. Prussia obtained
freedom of the press. Austria acquired a national
guard. Bohemia proclaimed its independence.
Hungary yearned for its emancipation. Poland,
in Galicia, in Lithuania, and, above all, in
the Duchy of Posen, palpitated with the hope
of regaining once more the crown and the
rank of which it had been robbed. Denmark suddenly
found itself invested with rights, of which it had
hitherto had but a feeble conception. Sicily refused
obedience to the tyrant, who so soon afterwards be-
trayed an atrocity of disposition unparalleled even
in the histories of BORGIA and TIBERIUS. The for

States of the Germanic Confederation sent their re-
presentatives to the united Parliament, convoked
within the walls of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. And,

conspicuous among all, Italy, so long subjugated by
adventurers, and ravaged by intestine contentions,

stood forth suddenly vin all the splendour of its
ancient independence, and drew the sword of libera-

tion against the soldiers of the German Cxsau. It
was because we have beheld this wonderful and
almost miraculous resurrection of the liberties of the
continent that we have regarded the late movement
with enthusiasm. We felt that without the aid of
revolution the Europeans could not by possibility have
so soon conquered the difficulties of their situation.
France has the glory of having given the signal
and the impetus to this movement. England
has the glory, through its Constitution, of
having afforded the revolutionists a model

for their political institutions. That is why
e have rejoiced at the struggle abroad; and the
reason for our equally earliest opposition to agitators
at home is discoverable in our reliance on moral
force, in our love for progressive reform, and in our
devotion to thatsame Constitution which is the palla-
dium of British Liberty.

Full and adequate protection should at all times be
accorded to the police force in the discharge of their
onerous duties. Every person guilty of a wanton
and unprovoked assault, or even of an undue inter-
rerence, by which they may be impeded in enforcing
the preservation of the public peace, should be ri-
gorously punished ; but it is at least as important that
the body should be taught that they cannot be per-
mitted to abuse the extensive powers committed to
their hands, that they must upon every occasion ex-
hibit discretion and forbearance, and that they must
be particularly guarded, in the statements they make
before magistrates, not to give exaggerated or untrue
accounts of what may have taken place,
by which the Bench may be deceived, and
deep injustice perpetrated under the guise of law.
Magistrates are notoriously too much inclined to
yield implicit credence to such statements, and in
every case of doubt to give the benefit thereof to the
constable. There cannot well be a more thankless
office than that of a person who comes forward as a
complainant against one of the privileged parties.
His acts and his motives are scrutinized with the
utmost severity, and if the slightest loophole can be
discovered he is dismissed, not only without redress,
but the magisterial censure is inflicted without the
slightest compunction, and in a manner that may
prove exceedingly injurious to his future prospects.
Too often some sympathising brother of the force,
hoping for a similar return, will fling the mantle of
his protection over the delinquent, and give such a
garbled and prejudiced version of the transaction as
to exonerate the defendant, and perhaps recriminate
on his accuser. When such cases, therefore, are
brought forward and clearly established, it is of the
etdhimabtpytohrtethaenmce that the guilty party should be
utmoste ntaughthan e
ra
egsnpint
nu
sdieh i
loi ft y h ins f ohffi
s'e n
pc
ne s
iitsi
ngnr,e aatnl yd
that what would be comparatively venial in a private
individual becomes a serious crime in a party paid
for the preservation of the peace, and every person
coming forward to denounce the offender, or inter-
fering between him and the victim of his brutality,
should receive the thanks of the communit
y-
which,
case was heard at Bow-street on Monday last, in
which, if the published report be
charged
correct magistrate appears to have strange]cory, trheeveprsreed-
decided. Mr.
s
theiprinciple on which he should have
C. THORPE, a clerk in a Chancery office, 'wa
with assaulting a police-constable (E 57) in the exe-
cution of his duty. The complainant stated that he
was clearing a mob caused by a drunken woman in
New Oxford-street, when the defendant came upon
him suddenly and pushed or struck him in the breast,
alleging that he had shamefully ill-used a boy in the
street, which he denied. This was the head and front
of the offence—there was no great violence used.
The constable did not venture to speak positively as
to the character of the assault. He was either pushed
or struck, and he certainly could not have been much
hurt thereby, or be would have more feelingly de-
tailed the particulars. The defendant at the same
time declared the reason why he had acted in this
manner. He alleged that the complainant had shame-
fully ill-used a boy, and had acted with such gross bru-
tality towards an inoffensive child that he was unable to
restrain himself—that the boy was standing quietly by
the side of the pavement, doing nothing, and causing
no obstruction, when the policeman, to his surprise
and disgust, ran up, and kicked the boy in so cowardly
and ferocious a manner that he was thrown upon the i
pavement with great violence, and almost covered with
blood from the injuries he sustained. He (the de-
fendant) had no other intention at the time than to
ascertain the name and number of the policeman, for
the information of the boy's parents." The unfortu-
nate child, the subject of this outrage, who appeared j