The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-21 00:00:00

THE MIRAMICHI CONFLAGRATION.

Five years ago, by some means or other, never explained,
the almost boundless forests of Miramichi took fire ; the
conflagration raging with unparalleled violence through an
extent of fifty or sixty miles of thickly wooded territory.
The floating ashes, I was assured by a respectable clergy-
man, whom I met at Newcastle (where he remained, by
a curious coincidence, to take in coals), fell in the streets
of St. John, 200 miles distant. The smoke of the burn-
ing forests was such as to reach even to Quebec, consider-
ably more distant than the former, and where the rev.
gentleman happened to be at that period. Such, indeed,
was the impenetrable denseness of these smoky clouds, as
to entirely stop, for some time, the navigation of the
St. Lawrence. You may imagine, then, what must have
been the horrors of the unhappy people situated in the
immediate vicinity of this frightful visitation. The awful
truth is, that the village of Newcastle, along with
several others, was utterly consumed, upwards of 200
persons having miserably perished by fire and suffocation.
Numbers of the wretched inhabitants were drowned in
the river, as the whole atmosphere was so darkened, and
their terror so powerfully excited, that endeavouring to
escape from their flaming village, they walked over the
pier and high banks into the stream without perceiving
it, and were swept away with the flood. Many were
burnt to death or suffocated in their houses ; and the only
mode, I understood, by which any escaped, was by follow-
ing the direction of a drum that was beaten for the purpose
of guiding the surviving inhabitants to a less dense atmos-
phere, where the stifling effect of the smoke was less de-
s'ructive of life. The landscape, as far as the eye could
reach, exhibited one dismal spectacle of the ravages of fire ;
the desolate-looking forests, for ever shorn of their verdant
beauty, and burnt as black as charcoal, looked like gi-
gantic mutes waiting the funeral of the entire province.
1 never witnessed in nature any thing so truly hideous

before. It is supposed by some that the conflagration was
occasioned by the Indians; while others attribute it to
the excessive heat of the weather, as the summer of 1825
was intensely hot throughout the whole of this region.—
Tudor's Tour in America.

The persons engaged serving tithe processes
for F. W. Mullins, Esq.,M.P., at Ballyreigh, Kerry, last
week, were driven off the lands by 200 men and women.

An immense concourse of spectators were
assembled at Woolwich and Charlton on Saturday last, to
witness the funeral of the late Commander of the Garrison,
Major-General Sir George Fisher, K.C.H. The long
and extended lines of troops, the fine bands of the Royal
Artillery and Royal Marines, and all that beautiful parade
for which a military funeral is preeminently simple and
remarkable, formed at once an interesting and impressive
scene. The coffin was drawn on a military waggon, and
ornamented with the sword and orders worn by the
deceased General. Agreeable to the regulations of the
service, three rounds of nine pieces of cannon were fired
over the grave.

A CHARGE.-It yet remains to be seen whe-
ther Judge Torrens will be dragged to the bar of the
House by Messrs. O'Connell and Littleton, for the very
admirable charge delivered by him to the Grand Jury of
the Queen's County, at the opening of the Assizes held
esterday, in Maryborough, and a report of which will be
found elsewhere. To a certain extent this charge is
"political," but it possesses that which will be construed
into a much more grievous offence by the friend and ally
of Mr. O'Connell—the Secretary for Ireland. It actually
traces the increase of crime in the county, and the unsettled
state of the country generally, to agitation ! Judge Tor-
rens is a bold man, but he is a just and honest one ; and
for his having had the moral courage to declare his senti-
ments, and pronounce his opinions, in such a place, upon
such an occasion, and under existing circumstances, he is
entitled to the gratitude and thanks of every lover of order,
and well constituted member of socie.y, throughout the
whole community.—Dublin Evening Mail.
Mr. BULWER'S NEW PRODUCTION.—"The
Pilgrims of the Rhine,' observes a contemporary, is
immeasurably supericr both to ' avereux ' and Eugene
Aram,' as a work of imagination. The poetical melan-
choly that tinges the story—the manner in which the
legendary narratives are delivered—and, above all, the ex-
quisite portrait of the dying Gertrude, taken, if we may
so say, through all the stages of her malady, may challenge
comparison with the most pathetic narratives in the
English language."
DERBYSHIRE SPRING ASSIZES.--William
Palmer Morewood, Esq., of Alfreton Park, in this county,
the new High Sheriff, after receiving his friends to break-
fast at his residence, entered this town about two o'clock
yesterday (Tuesday), attended by a very numerous com-
pany of gentlemen and tenantry. Soon afterwards the
High Sheriff and a large party dined at the King's Head
Inn, after which they proceeded on the London road to
meet the Judger, the Right Hon. Sir Nicholas Conyngham
Tindal, and the Hon. Sir Joseph Littledale (who had
slept the previous night at J. BALGUY'S, Esq., K.C.,
Lockington Hall), and escorted them into the town soon
after five, when the Commission of Assize was immediately
opened at the County Hall. At 12 o'clock the Courts
were opened, when business commenced, Lord Chief
Jus►ice Tindal presiding in the Nisi Prins Court, anti Mr.
Justice Littledale on the Criminal Side. Twelve cases
are entered on the Cause List, seven of which are special.
The Attorney-General bas one, and Sir J. Scariett two
retainers in important causes.
On Monday last the town of Lane-end was
nearly frighted from its propriety by an immense assem-
blage of persons, chi, fly of the juvenile order, parading the
streets, after the figure of a woman, which was carried in
a chair upon two poles. Upon inquiring respecting such
an unusual crowd making its appearance. which gathered
more densely as the procession advanced, I found it arose
from the circumstance of a woman having, about three
months ago, taken herself off with a married man (leaving
her husband), and returning on Monday morning last.
The populace repaired to the house, where the man, who
is a collier, resides ; and having dragged him out of the
house, pummelled him most heartily; and at night the
effigy of the frail fair one was burnt inWood'a-lane, having
bad two pounds of gunpowder placed in the stuffing,
which, on being ignited, blew up with a fearful explosion,
to the great gratification of the immense mass of spectators,
who dispersed in a most peaceable manner after the termi-
nation of this out-of-the-way method of showing their de-
testation of the shameful conduct of the woman hid taken
place.—Correspondent of the Staffordshire Mercury.
MISS EDGEWORTH'S NEW NOVEL.—

Maria Edgeworth has so long ceased to wave her magic
wand, or to let her voice be heard in the regions of fiction,
that we imagined she had destroyed her rod, like Prospero,
and obstinately determined to be silent. All at once, when
we least expected it, she has cast her spells abroad, and the
result is, that in " Helen " we are as much under her in-
fluence as ever. The Quarterly Review has called her the
most accomplished of living novelists ; in this commenda-
tion we all concur. It is one of her chief beauties, that
she commands life-blood to flow through every member of
her narrative, and diffuses her feeling and her fancy every
where. We are not aware, till we try to lay down her
volumes, that we are on charmed ground, and under the
spell of an enchantress.
tCHANGE OF CLIMATE.—M. Arago, of the
1" tench Institute, has recently published some observations
respecting the change of climate in France and elsewhere,
from which it appears to be established that in several
parts of that country the summers are colder now than
they were formerly. He proves his position by showing
that in various districts where the grapes in former
times became perfectly ripe, they do not now ripen
;sufficiently to be used
.for wine of any description.
111. Arago instances Macon, among other departments,
n 1b53 it appears that wine was made of the Muscat
grape at a village near the town of Macon itself,
and that it is now impossible to make wine of the Muscat
crape, as it does not ripen sufficiently. The vineyards of
Etappes and Beauvais were at one time celebrated—but,
according to a report made in 1530, no wine can now be
made in the whole department of La Samme, in which
those places are situated. M. Arago also instances the
same change of climate in England, as he says it
is proved by old chronicles, that at one time vines
were cultivated in the open fields throughout a
large extent of the country, and that now it requires great
care to bring grapes to proper maturity in the open air.
A. fter stating these general facts, M. Arago enters into an
inquiry into the causes of this change of climate, taking it
fir granted, as admitted, that a very marked change of
climate has taken place both in France and England.
" The caut,e," says M. Arago, "is certainly not con-
nected with the sun, a proof of which is given
in the steadiness of the temperature at Pales-
tine. Some rersons," he adds, "believe it to be caused
by an unusual extension of the ice of the Arctic Pole by
a general movement, which, after having drawn with it
these masses of ice several degrees towards the south, has
carried them towards the coast of Greenland, where they
have united. This hypothesis, he says, is supported by
the fact that, when the eastern coast of Greenland was
first discovered, towards the end of the tenth century, it
was entirely free from ice; but that still he does not
believe the hypothesis is well bonded, as there was very
hot weather after the formation of those mass:a of ice
upon the CMS of Greenland."

LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 21, 1834.

We look forward with confidence to the re-
sult of the committee on the law of libel, both
from the names on the committee, and the libe-
ral sentiments which the SOLICITOR-GENERAL
expressed on the question. One important ob-
ject he bad in view was to allow those who are
usefully carrying on the profession of writing,
printing, and publishing the utmost freedom of
discussion, but to deprive another class of the
power of covertly libelling their fellow subjects
without being responsible for their proceed-
ings. Every person of honourable feelings
must concur in the propriety of punishing
with the utmost severity unprincipled writers
who make use of the press to inflict suffer-
ing on others, sometimes out of revenge,
and sometimes from pure malignity, and
a wanton display of power. At present no dis-
tinction is made between the two parties. Ac-
cording to the present system (and the judges
take care to tell the jury so) malice is supposed
to be implied in every libel, and the writer
who has no bad motive for publication,
is . equally guilty in the eye of the law
with the most malignant libeller. A dis-
tinction, too, which the SOLICITOR-GENERAL
did not allude to, ought to be made between the
original publisher, and those who merely copy
the offensive paragraph. The editor of a
London paper, for instance, who copies news
from a provincial paper, or from foreign papers,
ought not to be subjected to the same punish-
ment as those who reside on the spot, and have
better means of information.
.A great part of

the news of the day is taken by the Editor on
the faith of others ; he cannot possibly
have personal knowledge of them, and unless it
can be shown that he has republished them
without due care, or from improper motives, it
is contrary to all rules of justice to make him
suffer. The present state of the law on this
point holds out encouragement to unprincipled
attorneys to subject the respectable part of the
press to great expense and annoyance—indeed
there is reason for believing that persons
of that stamp have instigated clients to
take advantage of the law and bring actions
against all the London newspapers in which the
obnoxious paragraph appeared, solely for the
purpose of getting costs. In order to correct
this abuse, the jurisdiction of the judge ought
to be more limited ; he should not have the
power of certifying, or be permitted to take the
question out of the hands of the jury by telling
them that the subjects of prosecution are gross
and scandalous libels. An intelligent and in-
dependent jury would resist such a summing
up, but numerous cases have lately shown how
hazardous it is for the Press to trust to such
protection. The spirit of Mr. Fox's Act
should be put beyond all doubt, and juries be
left judges of the law as well as of the fact.

Pursuant to notice given on Tuesday last,
Earl GREY will this night present a petition
from several members of the University of Cam-
bridge, expressing their wish that that Univer-
sity should be open to the admission of dissen-
ters. It gives us pleasure to find a liberal peti-
don emanating from this quarter. The time is
surely arrived when religious bigotry should be
put an end to, more especially in our seats of
learning, which are, or should be, the fosterers
of the rising talent of the age. Good conduct,
talent, and industry should ever meet with encou-
ragement at our Universities, whether these qua-
lities show themselves in churchman or dis-
senter. It is a crying injustice that aca-
demic honours and academic preferment
should be withheld from the meritorious, merely
because from conscientious motives they cannot
subscribe to the thirty-nine articles of Church-
of-Englandism. As loyal subjects, as irre-
proachable members of society in all the various
relations of husband, father, brother, and
friend, the Dissenters have ever distinguished
themselves; why then should they be put without
the pale of university patronage ? The very
scruples of conscience that keep them in the
cold shade of neglect, should tell decisively in
their favour. From time to time we shall recur
to this subject.

In consequence of Lord A LTHORP'S indis-
position, the House of Commons rose last
night at an early hour, and the greater part
of the business was postponed. No discussions
of any public interest took place.

In another part of the The Sun will be found
an ample account (which we have extracted from
the Times of this morning) of the present state
of affairs in Portugal.

The French Papers of Wednesday mention
that the great Northern Powers, as also the
minor German States, are incessantly besieging
the Swiss Federal Diet with applications to
expel all political refugees from the Cantons, to
which applications the Grand Council of Berne
has boldly replied that no foreign influence
should prevail on them to drive the unfortunate
from their country, especially when they had
thrown themselves on their hospitality. It was
reported in Paris that a vigorous Spanish Go-
vernment, at the head of which would be the
Count de TORENO, would supersede, before
long, that of M. MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA.
The discussion on the law respecting associa-
tions was still going forward in the Chamber of
Deputies.
FRENCH FUNDS.—PARIS, MARCH 19.
Five per Cents., 104 f. 95c. 90c.
Three per Cents., 78f. 75c.
National Loan, 1041: 75c.
Bank Actions, I,Boof.
Rente de Naples, 941. 75c.
Roman Five per Cents., 95►,4.
Rente d'Espagne, Five per Cents., 28.
Rente d'Espagne, Three per Cents., 41.
Royal Spanish Loan, 51.
Rente Perpet. d'Espagne, Five per Cents., (35%.
Haytian Loan, 272 f. 50c.
EXCHANGE ON LONDON.
One month, paper, 25f. 25c. ; money, 25f. 22 c•
Three months, paper, 25f. 12%c. ; money, 23f.
—('ours Authentique.

German papers state that the recent fires at
Constantinople are supposed to have been the
work of incendiaries, chiefly the Turkish regular
troops, who were dissatisfied w;th the Porte for
having attempted to reduce their pay by five
piastres monthly.

Wolf, the missionary, is gone mad. He con-
ceives that he holds interviews successively with Christ
and the Devil !—Religious fanaticism has reduced him to
a deplorable state.—. Dublin Paper.

The exportation of silver to the United States
is going oa rapidly. By the official returns for this port
from the 7th to the 13th inst. the amount was 567,850
ounces of silver coin; in the same period the quantiry
shipped for Calais, 195,554 ounces.

FRENCH TRAVELLING.--A company has
just been formed in Paris to accelerate stage-coach travel-
ling ; a much lighter vehicle has been adopted, called a
veloce, having four coupes, with three places in each, the
first to be If. 10c. the post, and the rest If., throughout
the whole line of route, including all charges, Tkey in-
!end to commence operations next month. A still lighter
vehicle is contemplated for the• Calais and Dieppe roads,
consisting only of two coupes, and places for six outside;
the former are calculated to go at the rate of the mane
poste, and to allow an hour for meals. A card of fixed
prices for refreshments, adopted by the company, will
prevent Julio Bull from suspecting imposition, which has
been too frequently the case.—Athenceum.

AN ORACLE.—During the American war,
a gentleman (a mere youth) entered the British army, and
saw some little service. In the hurry and confusion of an
engagement, he was knocked down; and a soldier setting
his foot upon bis chest in passing over him, hurt him so ex-
ceedingly, that be became senseless. Upon recovering he
found himself still stretched on the ground, and a singular
looking female stood beside him, who, as he opened his
eyes, exclaimed, in an Di-boding voice, " Ay, young man,
usark my words, that hurt will be the death of you in
your forty-second year." He immediately recognized in
this old raven one of those soothsayers who usually fol.
lowed the army, and gained a livelihood by their oracular
powers. Mr. L— certainly did mark her words,
inasmuch as, returning to England, he quitted the army,
entered the church, and, amongst other red-coat reminis-
cences, used frequently to mention—and mention but
to ridicule—the American soothsayer's prediction. Never-
theless, true it is, that he did die in his forty-second
year, and of a disease in his chest, too, although he had
never suffered from the hurt beyond the period at which
he bad received it.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT,

THIS: DAY, FRIDAY, MARCH 21.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

The SPEAKER took the chair at twenty minutes after
twelve.

Colonel EDWARDS brought in a bill for improving
roads in the counties of Montgomery, Salop, &c., which
were read a first time. _ .

.......
Mr. DUNCOAIBE moved the second reading of the
Miscall Enclosure Bill.
Alt. PRYAIE brought up the report of the committee
on the amendments to the Cambridge Gas Bill.
Mr. H. HANDLEY brought in a bill for enabling the
Leicestershire Insurance Company to sue and be sued in
the name of their chairman.—Read a first time. The
hon. member then moved for leave to bring in a bill for
regulating the duties on ships trading to and from the
port of Boston.
Mr. HALCOAIB brought up the report of the com-
mittee on the Christ Church Rectory petition.
Colonel LYGON brought up the report of the com-
mittee on the Poynz Bridge petition. The hon. member
then presented a petition from the Trustees of the Wor-
cestershire Turnpike road. Referred to the committee.
Mr. WOOD moved the second reading of the amend-
ments to the Hartlepool Railway Bill.
Lord MORPETH brought up the report of the corn.
mittee on the Colder and Hebher Navigation Petition.