The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-22 00:00:00

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LONDON. SA.TURDAY. NOVEMBER 22 1851

This week hha witnessed, among other things, the
consummation of the magnificent reception which
Louis liossuxu bas experienced at the hands of the
English ptople. Even now, whilst we write, he is
pur,uing his v,estward course to the great Trans-
atlantic Republic, hearing with him the aspirations
Nuu ain-ctions of the sons and dsuithters of Britain.
Never svgs hearty and sincere a hinge ever paid
before to a foreign visitor to our island, and never
did our countrymen off-r a more fitting or glorious
tribute to the sacred principle of constitutional free-
dom. KOSSIITII has rendered himself not
merely. admired and respected amongst us, but
revered and beloved. Ha has won not alone our sym-
pathies but our hearts. The very engines set in play
to damage his repute have tended to exalt the honour
of this wonderful man. In an evil hour for the Levi-
athan of the London Press did the Hungarian Dictator
set his foot on English ground. Considerable dirt
has been eaten in the precincts of Blackfriars—

" Fuit Tempus, et ingens
Gloria Tonantis."
Th assiduous torrent of eahunny, emanating thence?

THE SUN,

has served but to enhance the genuine glory of the
great Magyar, to invest with additional and en-
during lustre the purest patriot name inscribed on
the page of history since that of the immortal
WASHINGTON.

To predict the probable issue of affairs in
France would demand a mortal of peculiar
sagacity. One thing, however, we look upon
as certain, and that is, that should it come
of necessity to the arbitration 'of shot and steel, the
PRESIDENT is not the wight to shirk the conflict.
Louis NAPOLEON is by no means the man to march
off with a cotton umbrella under his arm, or to
scamper outre mer in a rusty jasey. He has more,
"pluck " in him than all the French "royalties'
since his great uncle, the EMPEROR, put together,
throwing the JOINYILLE fanfarronades into the bar-
gain. GOD forbid that the streets of Paris must
again be crimsoned with the blood of gallant men
stied by the hands of their own fellow-citizens—that
the Republic must be once again baptized in fire and
blood ; but it is impossible to shut our eyes to
the elements of combustion that at present exist
there. Whatever party may finally secure
the supremacy, we cannot deem the French such
dolts as to hold them capable of restoring to the seat
of power either branch of the threadbare BOURBONS,
after having cast forth CHARLES Dix with coups de
canon, and Louis PHILIPPE with coups de pied.
Germany has lost her best, or rather her only good
Sovereign in the person of ERNEST of Hanover. If he
was not a liberal ruler in the true acceptation of the
term, he was, at any rate respected, even to popula-
rity, in his kingdom, as " a man of his word." If he
did not extend constitutional privileges with an open
hand to the body of his subjects, he was not a sneak
in peril, and a bully in the hour of strength. He was
not a slippery traitor to his country, like the
archhumbug of Prussia or the Jesuitized
strippling of Austria, violating solemn engagements
with dishonour and disgrace to his personal and
kingly character. King ERNEST, energetic and firm
of purpose, was upright and honourable as well,
whilst the crowned creatures at Vienna and Berlin
are assiduously driving in the track of the BOURBONS
and the STUARTS. Soon may they reach the goal
Verily the day will come, and that at no distant
period, when their premeditated infamy will reap its
due reward, ay, and with compound interest, for they
have made the very name of monarchy to stink in
the nostrils of their swindled and outraged peoples.
They have gone on, doing and undoing, scheming
and stabbing, until the measure of their crimes is well
nigh full, when, by the blessing of Heaven, they will
fall in the crash of Absolutism, like their prime minis-
ter, LUCIFER, " never to rise again."
The maestro of the POPE'S brass band, the Right
Rev. PAUL CULLEN, has fulminated a ferocious de-
nunciation against Freemasonry. According to that
eminently pious personage all Roman Catholics per-
sisting in an adherence to the communion of the
Free and Accepted Order, are irrevocably consigned
to perdition. Down they go to Tartarus, aprons and
all, where the red-hot poker awaits them in reality.
It so happens that no secrets can be extracted in the
confessional anent their mysterious rites and tenets—
hinc ilia lacrymes—hence the priestly denunciations
against an innocent and benevolent fraternity, moral,
loyal, and rigidly non-political. If the Roman Catho-
lic Freemasons of Ireland quail before this absurd ana-
thema they are not the men of mettle we have known
them to be of old. Once on a time a great man in that
country—for on the whole he doubtless was a
great man—proved recreant to the Order, and to
please the priests promulgated his recantation.
What was the consequence thereof ? Why
that on his shortly afterwards contesting the repre-
sentation of the Irish capital, Masons of his own re-
ligious and political persuasion polled against him by
scores. Are the brethren now to be frighted from
their, propriety by words of " sound and fury,
signifying nothing? " We trow not. This priestly
despotism and intermeddling is utterly insufferable
at the present day. Let the pastors of every creed
receive reasonable reverence from its laity, as let
every man freely worship his CREATOR according to
his peculiar profession of faith without let or
hindrance, or the smallest curtailment of civil rights
or privileges; but to hierarchical or clerical tyranny,
in whatever section of the Christian Church it rears
its unhallowed head, be our cry ever, " Guerra al
euchilL ! " Pope, priest, or presbyter, whoever he
be that seeks to rivet the fetters of spiritual bondage
on the conscience, may free common sense and en-
lightenment send him speedily sprawling in the mire!
In this season of frost and fog, there is nothing of
peculiar liveliness worthy of notice in the metropolis.
The Aldermen and Common Council have been exer-
cising their oratorical powers in canvassing the merits
and demerits of the late LORD MAYOR. An attempt
to introduce the cab reform which we have already
advocated, viz., a sixpenny charge per mile, brought
snch annoyance on the enterpriser, that he soon found
it expedient to abandon the project, at least for the
present. Now, if a gang of unconscionable rascals are
to be permitted to levy black mail with impunity, and
fleece the public at their goodwill and pleasure, why
the public have themselves to blame; the public
expression of feeling can very easily and effectually
make itself heard through its accredited organs, if it
will but resolve on speaking out. Meantime
if the railway companies would but establish a tariff
of charges for the cabs at their respective termini, as
we suggested on a former occasion, it would go far
towards effecting the desired amelioration. The
theatrical campaign is commencing with spirit. The
Haymarket has opened under flourishing auspices,
and this evening the Princess's will unclose its
portals for the winter season. There, if anywhere,
is the Shaksperian comedy to be seen carefully, we
may say reverentially, represented. The perennial
JULLIEN regales the multitudinous visitants of Drury
with an excellent and inspiriting "concord of sweet
sounds," whilst Astley's and the Adelphi are as usual
crowded to the ceiling. In conclusion, we cannot
refrain from complimenting M. LAURENT on his good
taste and tact in refraining from vulgarising his salle
de dance by the monstrosity of a " Bloomer ball."
To such scurvy exhibitions is the handwriting on the
wall peculiarly applicable—" Decency forbids."

In the able and excellent pamphlet by Dr. WOOD,
" On the Flea of Insanity, and on the Management
of Criminal Lunatics," to which we yesterday di-
rected the attention of our readers, we find some
admirable suggestions for the classification of persons
who are at present confined as criminal lunatics.
Dr. WOOD complains, and justly complains, that
many persons who are perfectly sane are yet
detained as criminal lunatics, and adds—
" It surely reflects somewhat upon our system that
we continue to commit an error which our continental
neighbours uniformly avoid, and that we continue to
shut up the sane with the insane, as if we had no
means of distinguishing between them. We find no-
thing of this sort in the continental asylums. In
France, there is not a single sane individual in the
criminal department of Bicetre, nor, as I am in-
formed by Dr. FEBRUS, the distinguished Govern-
ment inspector of asylums and prisons, in any of the
kmatic asylums in the country ; indeed, the law of
Prance does not permit of the continued detention of
a criminal lunatic after his recovery, whatever his
offence may have been. This certainly seems to be
carrying the principle too far in the opposite direc-
tion ; and even Dr. Farina, whose experience on the
subject is second to none throughout Europe, is dis-
posod to press on the Legislature of France some
modification of the law in this respect;'
We entirely agree with Dr. WOOD, that it would
be dangerous to society to discharge in every instance
any criminal lunatic after his recovery. h cases in
which be has not been guilty of any &See% endan-
geringwe consider that he ought to be
humandischarged, but
life,inles in which the criminal lunatic
has either des'royed, or attempted to destroy, human
life, he ought never to be permitted to leave the
asylum; Dr. WOOD contents himself with proposing
that he should be always kept under some sort of
surveillance; we are inclined to go further, and
to contend that
,such a person should, in
order to ensure the public safety, be kept under
restraint in an asylum. But this circumstance only
renders it the more necessary that some proper classi-
fication of persons detained as criminal lunatics should
take place, and the convalescent should not be forced,
as they are at present, to associate with the really in-
sane, nor should the person of refined habits and edu-
cation be forced, as at present, to associate with the
coarse and brutalized murderer who, through the