The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-08 00:00:00

4111 b,
1,171 t • 110
111 S

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, Is4s.

During an interval of exactly three weeks and
three days the capital of Austria remained in the
possession of its inhabitants. Laving discovered in
the councils of their SOVEREIGN, a treachery never
surpassed in its ruthless audacity, and scarcely ever
equalled in its deliberate atrocity, the !population of
Vienna rose in one grand outburst of unanimity, and
scared both the despot himself and his
miserable accomplices from the Palace of Scholl-
brunn. The cause of this great movement was
patent to the whole of Europe. The treachery of the
Imperial Government was not by any means con-
jectural ; it was as flagrant in character as it was
visible in its operation. After having yielded to the
necessity of the age, after having dismissed
METTERNICH, in obedience to the will of the
multitude, after having proclaimed the Free
Constitution
which had been extorted from the
N
mpinoft by the will of upwards of thirty
sixty millions of human beings, FeeprlAD and his
ae
complices ',belied the oaths which they AND
sworn
to the people in the
to
plot presence. of the GOD of Heaven—
they beganthin secret . against the newly
acquired liberty of
themselves for the gratificatione Austrians.—they perjured
purpose,
of their own despicable
vengeance, and for the
e, if possible, of effecting
a speedy and paramountp retrogression. to the
diabolical cause of Absolutism. To this end they
revival of tyranny
directed all their energies to the reo'
in the more remote provinces of the
very time when they were professinpgreiheAt the
most
liberal sentiments and the most constitutional prionst
siple4 to the Viennese, the Imperial conspirators
were beating down with the bludgeon of martial law
the young and aspiring nationality of the Hungarians ;
they were poisoning the fountain-head of the
rights and immunities of the great race of
the Magyars; they were strangling in the
grasp of RADETZKY the new-born freedom of the
Lombards and Venetians. The Viennese recognised
all these atrocious proceedings on the part of their
Government ; they appreciated the inconsistency of
the Imperial councils ; they perceived the appalling
incongruity existing between the acts and the
professions of the Administration ; they er-
g ued that the conquest of the Lombards
and the Hungarians was only preliminary to the
assassination of their own independence and the
deprivation of their own inestimable privileges; they
already detected, in fact, the appearance of a retrograde
policy as regarded themselves and the surrounding
population ; they knew that so soon as the external
divisions of the empire should be reduced to submis-
sion, that the mercenaries of AUBRIPERG, and of
RADETZKY, and of JELLACIIICII, and of WINDISH-
GRATZ, would be concentrated upon the capital,
and that under the intimidation of those im-
posing forces the new order of things would
be abolished, and the ancien regime of
despotism Ope rigorously restore 1. These things, we
repeat, were not merely conjectural—they were

written in bloody characters on the plains of Lom-
bardy, and branded on those of Hungary in the
smouldering ruins of her habitations. The whole
world witnessed the progress of Imperial treachery,
and the Viennese were neither blind to the crimi-
nality of their rulers, nor to the awful perils of their
own situation. The dignity of Italian independence
was trampled upon ; the glory of Hungarian
nationality was insulted ; the might, and the
right, and the grandeur and the sublimity
of the freedom of the German race was
outraged—and the Viennese rose like one man in the
majesty of their abhorrence and indignation. At
that great rising of the capital of Austria—that
rising, the like of which for suddenness and unanimity
has never been seen, except in Paris, and on the days
of February—the EMPEROR was aghast, even within
the strong walls of his palace of Schonbrunn. lle
fled like a criminal, and was followed by the panic-
stricken supporters of his policy. One wretched man
alone—the most guilty, because the most unscrupu-
lous of all the Imperial conspirators—was captured
by the populace, and in the agony of that
paroxysm of wrath, he was sacrificed by the
hands of the multitude. If ever human being
deserved the punishment of death it was Lazona.
That punishment he merited by his crimes against
the people ; and, in reading the details of his de-
struction, we have only reason to regret that his exe-
cution was not more judicial in its character, and less
horrible in the torments of its prolongation.
Since these occurrences, however, an extraordinary
reverse of fortune has marked the history of the
Austrian metropolis. After remaining entirely under
the direction of the National Diet, presided
over by FRANZ SMOLKA, and of the Muni-
cipal Junta called the Aula, possessing an
authority equivalent to that formerly vested in
the Commune deParis, Vienna has fallen under' bom-
bardment carried on by sixty or seventy thousand
disciplined troops, aided by the barbarian cohorts of
JELLACRICK, the Ban of Croatia, and conducted
under the generalship of Field-Marshal the Prince
WINDISCHGRATZ. In spite of the indomitable courage
of the workmen and peasantry, in defiance of the skill
of the military commander the Polish General BEM,
notwithstanding the terrible havoc cauied by the ar-
tillery of Baron RalsEr, and the order preserved
among the National Guards under the su-
preme direction of MusszignausEß, the city
was compelled to capitulate on the first of this
present November. Its walls and public
buildings were completely in the possession of
WIND ISGRA.TZ, and a number of prisoners had been
already taken and incarcerated in the dungeons of
Hetzendorf. Beyond this, the Diet is prorogued
until the 15th instant, when it is convoked, to re-
assemble at Krem, and the soldiers of the Prince
WINDISCHGRATZ have been distributed in imposing
numbers throughout the capital to keep their heels
upon the throats of the people, among the ashes and
blood with which the desolated streets are soddened.

Such is a simple narrative of the recent occur-
rences which have transpired in the metropolis of
Austria. Such, in brief, is a history of the crimes
of FERDINAIQD and of the misfortunes of his heroic
but ill-doomed people. And it is this catastrophe
which is now eliciting from the Tory press of London
shouts of such frantic and hideous exultation•! We
blush to recognise the influence exercised over the
temper and disposition of our contemporaries by the
damning fanaticism engendered by political party.
Our whole soul revolts at the spectacle which evinces
such an entire absence of all the nobler and holier
emotions inspired by the commonest senti-
ments of humanity. What is the massacre
of a noble race like the Viennese a race
whose crime is patriotism, and whose guilt is a revo-
tion if possible still more justifiable than our own
Revolution of 1688—is the butchery, we ask, of a
people burning with devotion for the cause of free-
dom and nationality, a fitting subject for these brutal
and despicable yells of rapture ? Is the triumph of
millions—and those millions zealous in their yearning
for a generous and rational constitution—an appro-
priate cause for fury and lamentation ? And is the
victory of one miserable man—and that one the
incarnation of everything base, and ruthless, and
despotic, and grinding, and unendurable a
just occasion for the cries of joy and the
language of gratulation ? For ourselves, we know
not in the records of any nation, however cursed by
calamities, or however subservient to the whims of a
despotic Monarch, we know not either among the
Shahs of Persia, or among the Maharajas of Hin-
dostan, among the Borgias of Italy, or among the
Czars of Russia, any event of such appalling atrocity
as that which has just occurred at Vienna, when the
walls of that noble city were beaten down by the can-
non, and its inhabitants cut to pieces by the swords of
the mercenary troops of the tyrant who calls himself
their legitimate SOVRILIIGN. Our fellow-coun-
trymen should note well the circumstance of
the effect produced by this unexampled act of
despotism and inhumanity upon the hearts and imagi-
nations of our Tory contemporaries. They should
bear this revolting rapture in remembrance,land cher-
ish in their recollection its only apparent inference.
Thanks be to Heaven, the crimes of the KING and
the KAISER areas certain of producing their expiation
as those of the lowliest serf in Lithuania! Austria
is now not only certain of its Liberty, but also of its
Vengeance.

The decision of the Court of Exchequer in the case
of " GOYMOUR v. BUSSILL," a portion of which was
reported in our impression of yesterday, is of deeper
importance than might be supposed on a mere casual
perusal. At first sight it appears a matter of very
little consequence to any but the parties immediately
interested whether a verdict of 201. was recorded for
the plaintiff, or whether the technical objection taken
on behalf of the defendant was successful and suffi-
cient to defeat the claim. Indeed, if any feeling was
excited it would have been one of satisfaction, that
substantial justice had prevailed, and that the de-
fendant.had been punished for making improper use
of the powers vested in him as one of her MA-
JESTY'S justices of the peace, which he had
apparently perverted, for the gratification of his own
vindictive feelings. On more mature consideration,
however, the matter will probably be regarded in a
very different point of view. There has been some-
thing very like an invasion of the functions of the
jury, and a decision was arrived at totally opposed to
that which the jary intended to return. The facts
lay in a very narrow compass. It appeared that the
plaintiff had been in the service of the defendant, and
had been discharged under circumstances that led to
subsequent litigation. This fact would appear to
indicate the existence of an unfriendly feeling
between the parties. After his discharge he had
visited the defendant's premises, and some suspicion
being excited that he did so for the purpose of taking
away some articles belonging to the defendant that
had been thrown into an adjoining sink, he was given
into custody on the charge. The accusation was
afterwards withdrawn, he was released, and the
action was brought for the imprisonment he had thus
suffered. The defence set up was that the defendant
bad acted in his magisterial capacity, and that he
was consequently entitled to a month's notice of
action' pursuant to the statute. This was
the question upon which the result of
gphretstihdeeddaetfetnhdeantrtiahla,dtoblodnathfie
twhheo cane depended, and [the Leained Judge
Jd'uerayct`e`dthinathiifi they thou
ma-
gesterial capacity, they should find a verdict for him,"
but as he was doubtful whether there
h was sufficient
evidence to go to them on that
point
that they should assess the damages
et also directed
o which the
Plaintiff would be entitled, to save the
pe
delay of a new trial, in the event of the expense
delay
th
ian d
nk-
ing differently on that point. These were the points
left to the jury, and they were clearly bound to
return
answers to each. After some delay they returned
into court, during the progress of another case, and
stated, " that they found for the plaintiff, damages
20/.," and the verdict was therefore entered in due
course. The other question, as to the bona fide was
not however asked and the jury, within a few
minutes, returned into court, stating " that there was
some mistake ; that they had only returned the sum
at which they assessed the damages in pursuance of
the direction of the Learned Judge, but that
they expected to be asked whether the defendant,
had acted bona fide in his magisterial capacity
which question they had resolved to answer in
the affirmative." Ills Lordship, however, de-
clined to interfere, and the verdict remained for