The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-03 00:00:00

1 Captain Johnson, of the compass department, attended on
board the Fisgard, flag-ship at this port,: in the afternoon of
to-day, to superintend a series of experiments which are to
be carried on with five different descriptions of binnacle
lights. The lights were to be lighted at 6 o'clock, Pat., and
continue all night. Lieutenant Robertson attended during
the first watch, Lieutenant Gore during the middle watch,
and the Second Master of the Fisgard during the third
watch. Captain Johnson remained during the evening, and
was to go on board at 5 A.M. on Sunday to see the state of
the different lights at that hour, and receive the reports of
the manner in which they continued to give light during the
latter part of the experiment. The testing of the lights will
occupy several days before the final report as to the best
binnacle light.

R
Etel.:ooßyoMu
under the
Sir,—l a
TO THE SECRETARY OF- THE BRADFORD
go of your
being likely when you receive this to be in possession of
new information which may make all I can now report
comparativaiy obsolete and unimportant. But there
may still be a certain value attaching to the past.
Whet is dear :s, that for the pre-eat you are saved.
The attempt to advance your interests by bringing back
a Protectionist Ministry and a five-sl.illinn dune on to-
reign coin, has for the present entirely failed. re
:;t one
has been left unturned to obtain it for you; but for this
time you must be resigned to going eithout. If the
wind will only bold as it now blows, the poor risen
among Sou may sulfil his promise to his danehter of a
new gown at Easter, and the rich no longer hetitato
about sending his second son to the University. ;tit as
the wind is notoriously uncertain, I would eon ieceni-
mend in metier matters a degree of caution. Do not go
on with y, or Music-hall, till you see a final end of the
project tor securing Free Trade by bringiiie, in a Pro-
tectionist Ministry. if you do, depend upon it you will
never pay for it. or pay for it out en the ae•ee is to
your creditors. And if your leading firms ore unwise
enough to continue their present speeuletieus bets re this
principal point is settled, take care that you of the
middling rigid operative classes look the clanger more
wisely in the face, and view all this as what must be
checked by bankruptcy and the Gazette, securing your
temporary gains in Savings Banks or otherwise, against
the want and misery which nothing could prevent your
friends from bringing upon your heads.
Do not believe lam malting a fictitious case. The
Member for Montrose on Friday night avowed in
his speech that his desire was tb bring in a Protectionist
Ministry. So it was for this that a hundred of us were
brought up to join in a vote intended and calculated
with that object,—a vet), good vote in its way, but not
good when interposed with a purposed design to shut up
Bradford work-shops and send their inmates to the poor-
house. I hope we all feel the extent of our obligation,
and shall be the better for the feeling another time.
There are things to be borne, and things not to be borne.
I tell 3ou plainly, that your leaders are insane. Not
with that insanity, which as it is the heaviest of
heaven's inflictions, removes responsibility and sinks-all
ideas of retribution in commiseration for the sufferer.
But with that more dangerous mainly, which is en-
gendered out of superfluity of activeness and scaetincss
of caution, leading men to desert their just spheres
of action, and display the misplaced energy which makes
a little boy put a hot poker to his Papa's ponder-flask,
by way of seeing whether gunpowder will burn. Those
who (eight to be defending you, have got other views
and other ambitions. They have discovered that they
are called to be statesmen, publicists, determiners of
nations' quarrels, setters-up tied pullers-down of Minis-
terial dynasties; and the vulgar office of keeping open a
trade in corn and cambrics is grown mean in their eyes,
unless as it may be played as a card in this their more
interesting game. If any man wants to ;put down
the Church, put up the Pope, dismantle the Navy,
reduce the Army, remove the Squadron from the
Coast of Africa, drink slave-grown Sugar, if
ho objects to a Window tax, House tax, Malt
tax, Pepsr tax, Coffee tax, Chicory tax, Income
tax, any tax, they are there to enter into partnership.
They have souls above corn, and to stop your Bradford
trade with a five-shillings duty is like the sufferings of
the frog in an air-pump when in the way of these bril-
liant operators. Or they consider it at most, as a step
backwards to be recovered with grace and vigour, in the
grand galope they are bent on exhibiting before the public
gaze. All this may be sport to them, but it is
death to you. Turn it over in the society of your
quiet Reading-Room by the Sun Bridge, and sit-
tmg there with your temperance drinks before you,
ask all steady and intelligent men of whatever grade
or standing in your industrious community, whether
while the trade Of Bradford consists in mak-
ing the goods which go abroad for foreign
corn, the one thing desirable for keeping thin
porridge from the working man's table, was
not that Free Trade should by any means within human
attainment be made to go on smoothly silently while
we had it, because every day and every hour was di-
minishing the interests in favour of stopping Bradford
trade, and increasing the interests in favour of maintain-
ing it. Ask them, whether this is not as plain to man
and boy, as that when a patient is passing through the
crisis of an illness, it is policy to encourage the rest
which is allowing his strength to collect and the causes
of danger to subside. And just at this moment it is,
that up jumps a medical practitioner, and cries
out, " No! Bring back the delirium and the
struggle; and when you have beaten them, you will
have beaten all. This is the way our school goes
about to save life." Bring back a five-shilling duty.
Stop Bradford trade, that Bradford men 'Ray have time
to attend Anti-Corn-law lectures. Rause up all the dis-
honest interests in the country, and collect them into
one general run upon the trade of Bradford. Men at
Bradford are getting fat and pursy ; you have no no:ion
how good it would be for their healths to be put on low
diet for a few years while we were fighting the Corn-
law question over again. Goad is no good, but as it is
contrasted with evil. The man is miserable who has
enough for his family to eat seven days in the week; and
here we offer to do our best to cut them down to four.
If you wish to prolong the conversation because your
hour for separation is not come, collect about the fire
such of your friends of the Working Classes as are most
anxious for the Extension of the Suffrage, and put be-
fore them the following case. Their hundred supporters
in the House of Commons are called together for one of
the annual motions on that subject. The Minister re-
plies that he has prepared a proposal for next session;
and a subordinate member of the Government goes and
intimates to the mover, that after that declaration, he
will probably not insist on pressing his motion. The
moveri s willing, but the leader who avows his desire
to introduce a Protectionist Ministry, resists, and the
motion is persisted in. There were not ten out of the
hundred misguided gentlemen (of whom I was one) who
voted on that Occasion, who would have done it if
they had known the object with which they had
been marshalled. We have been like common soldiers,
with our names on a regimental list, and then brought
out to fife upon our friends and cousins; as we did on
you, when we voted for what was intended to turn out
the Ministry that engaged to give Extension to the
Suffrage, and bring in a Protectionist one instead.
Mr. Wilberforce used to relate, that a beggar once
came to the door and asked for food. Some remnant
victual was given him, which happened to be vermicelli
soup. The poor man returned it meekly and said, " In-
deed I am very hungry, but I cannot eat broth with mag-
gots in it." Now I am precisely in that position; I cannot
eat broth with maggots in it. It may turn out that I am
all wrong, as the poor man was with his vermicelli, and
that the true way to benefit Bradford trade would be to
bring in a Protectionist Ministry and a five-shilling duty on
foreign corn. But till I "know the reason why," I will
not go along with what I believe to be insanity of one
or other of the kinds attempted to be described.
You will expect to receive some statement of what we
heard on Friday. Lord J. Russell's account of what had
taken place, was minutely accordant with what had been
stated by the public journals. He threw out an inti-
mation, that he was ready to reconsider the Anti-Papal
Bill on some points; which may be supposed to have
been directed as an invitation to Sir James
Graham. He further signified his conviction
upon reconsideration, that the majority of 14 on the Pro-
tection question, and his minority on Mr. Locke
King's motion, had net so seriously affected his posi-
tion as he had thought. And he concluded with
the information, that the Duke at Wellington had
undertaken the office of Queen's Counsel till a further
settlement. At first I thought this meant that the Duke
of Wellington was Prime Minister; but nobody else
seemed to think so. The Duke of Wellington knows a
civil position when he sees it, as well as he does a mili-
tary; so that there is not much danger in his hands. Sir
James Graham afterwards rose, and avowed his agree-
ment with Lord John Russell's Government on the
questions of Free Trade and Extension thien thueargte*
but declared the impossibility of his joining
vocation had bile:-
Papal Bill, though he admitted the pre
position of affairs
great. If it was clear that the present
of a Bill through
presents no obstacle to the
passingha appeared to b
e the
Parliament, I should agree in
_,
that the
opt 'llion of everybody I coup h upshot of all
this is to be, that the Anti-Pupal d
Pill
is to pass, and
then the present Government is to be strengthened by
•
the accession of Sir James Graham and his friends. So
to have no Protectionist Ministry after all
that you are
I beg you not to be an r •g y with
For which anybody, for
there
has been no stone left unturned which could have
favoured you with that blessing.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
AN OLD REFORMER.
London, 3d March, 1851.

___
SERIOUS FIRE IN RING WILLIAM-STREET, CITY.
—On Saturday, at a few minutes before midnight, a fire of a
very alarming nature broke out in the premises belonging to
Messrs. Hughes and Co., the army and navy outfitters, No.
76, King William-street. When discovered the flames were
raging with great violence in the warehouse, on the ground-
floor. In spite of the exertions of the firemen, they were
unable to get the mastery over the flames until the :.valuable
stock in trade was nearly destroyed, and the upper part of
the premises also severely damaged by fire. The cause of
the tire is not known. The firm, it is understood, was insured
in the Plimnix Fire Office.
NARROW ESCAPE FROM DESTRUCTION OF ly!LiltSo:9B
PANORAMA OF THE CAPE AND PORT NATAL
e escape
-b
pne-frcm de-
ne;fthe scenes
The whole exhibition had a very narreow
representation on
struction by lire in the course of t!i
room became enveloped
the light curtain on one side of the Saturday evening. During the changebt,
first would also have been
mind of one
in flame, and had it not been for
who quickly extinguished
a rush at the door, and it
1 the blaze, the chances are to
x;rania.
the last exhibition of the p
or two gentlemen near tli_eacciiteh,
A cry of fire was raised
presence of o
and many of the spectators
their fears were sufficiently allayed
was some minutes before.
• nation of the entertainment which was,
to allow of the continuation
brought to a conclusion, with great however at length
satis-
faction to all present.
TEE DODDINGHURST ATURDER.—The trial Of the
young man
Thomas Drorv, who stands charged with the
J el Denny,Rill • wilful murder of a Wi take place in the course of
this week, before Lord Campbell. The assizes will be
opened to-day. Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Hawkins are, we un-
derstand.retained to defend. The calendar for the assizes is
exceedingly heavy, there being no fewer than Live prisoners
awaiting trial for murder.