The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-09 00:00:00

IMPROVEMENTS IN WESTMINSTER,

It is expected that at an early period in the ensuing
Session a Bill will be introduced, founded on the R-port
of the Committee which was appointed last S. ssion to
inquire into the most eligihle mode of improving the
approaches to the Houses of Parliament by Westminster,
and also improving the immediate sieighltouriniod of
Buckingham Polac , which is now in a most deplorable
state, chiefly in consequence of the want of proper sewer,
age. By the plan which the Committee recommended,
and which it is probable will be carried into effect, it is
proposed to commence a broad and splendid line of street
from the Sanctory in front of the western door of West-
minster Abbey, which our readers will recollect is a large:
open space in front of the Church-yard of St. Margareee,
on which the Sossions' House is situated, and close to
which a large mews has been erected, which were origi-
nally intended fur the accornmooation of the horses and
carriages of Members attending Parliament, but which
has since been converted, we believe, into a range of
stables for private speculation. This street is intended to
be carried, by a sort of curved incline ion, so as to join
Lower Grosvenor-price, and thus into the King's-road,
forming an immediate communication with B lgrave-
square and the extensive improvements in that part of the
metropolis. Along this street, on each side, it is sue.
gested that :muses of the first class may be erected, while
the space which extends from the street itstlf to Bird-
cage Walk should be intersected by streets ant squares,
wnich, in like manner, will afford the opportunity for the
introduction of residences of persons of the highest rook,
who would thus be accommodated close to the Houses of
Parliament, to the Courts of LOW, and to the Palace it•
self; an arrangement by which al the minor streets, such
as York-street, Gardener's-lane. Smith's rents, H:rrse,
shoe-alley, the Almonty, J fferles'-buildings, Little George-
, sir et, a great number of dilapidated almshouses,
would be completely swept away. The ground woul.l be
raised, and three splendid Vistas—as it is proposed that
tse squares should be opened at both ends—would thus
he perceptible between the n-tv street and Sr. Jaines',-
park, thereby affording a free passage for the currents of
air, and securing healthful and delight ul ye atilation. The
new street will be newly three quarters of a mile in length,
and about NO feet wide. It would be impossible by
mere verbal description to give a correct notion of all the
advantages which would be thus gain rl to ihe public by
these alterations ; but those who have had occasion to
nerd the m zes of the filthy ceighloiurhoad to which we
have alluded will be best able to appreciate the vast import-
ance of the ad iption of the pion thus laid down.

The LORD CHANCELLOR arrived in town
from Cumberland yesterday afternoon, bur be will not sit
in his Cu' t until to-morrow, at one o'clock. His Lord-
ship will receive the Learned Judges, &c to breakfast on
Friday morning (the first day of Term), at his house in
Berkeley-square.
The new Lord Chamberlain to the QUEEN is
BASIL PERCY FIELDING, Earl Of DENBIGH, Viscount
FIELDING and CALLAN, B tron FIELDING 01 Newnham
Pedtlox, and Baran ST. Ltz in the Peerage of Eng-
I ind ; also Earl of DESMOND, Viscount CALLAN, and
Baron FIELDING of Lecaghe, and a Count of the flo y
Roman Empire. This Nobleman, who, it is übdersti o
iter MAJESTY has appointed 11, r Chantlierlsin in the place
of Earl HowE, was advanced to the office of Lo .1 of the
Bedchamber by his present MAJESTY. His L•xdship is
in the prime of manhood, and his Countess (r daughter of
Lord DUCIE, a Reform Peer) is a distinguished tavola' ite
with the QUEEN. The family of the Noble Earl are de-
scendants from a Count GEOFFRY of Hapsburg, who,
tinder the name of FIELDING, to•rved HENRY the Third ;
cons quently they are a branch of the reigning House
of AUSTRIA, the descendants of RODOLPH. Lord HOWE
was removed Irom the Chamberlainship in the first week
of October, 1831, since which period the functions of the
office have been discharged by the Hon. Wm. ASHLEY,
Vice-Chamberlain to the QUEEN.

Among the contemplated retrenchments by
the Government will be a reduction of the sum paid for
some of our embassies abroad. The total amount of
saving in this way will, it is said, exceed 60,0001. per
annum. The following is a summary of our diplomatic
expenditure for 1851 :—Ambassadorial service, salaries of
Ambassadors, their Secretaries, and attaches, and allow-
ance for house-rent, 139,800/. (Wlo-n the diplomatic
expenditure was separated from the civil list, it appears,
that 140,0001. was required by Government " for the
future salaries and allowances for house rent of his Al A-
J ESTY's diplomatic servants abroad.") Outfit and
equipage of Ministers at Foreign Courts, 3,530/. Extra-
ordinary disbursements of Ministers at Foreign Caurts,
18,043/. Special missions, 5,3681. Expenses of enter-
taining and conveying persons of distinction, Ambassa-
dors, &c., 2,089/. Presents to persons of distinction and
Ministers at Foreign Courts, 7,547/. Total, 176,3771.
Consular service, 79,8131. Total diplomatic expenditure
256,190/.

We call the attention of our readers to a fresh
case, detailed by a Correspondent under the signature of
"East Anglian," of the unhappy disposition of the pre.eot
Administration to bestow honours almost exclusively on
those who have most distinguished themselves in opposing
them. Only think of raising to the Magistracy in Nor-
folk, at the close of an election, an Attorney, whose claim
to distinction is the success nith which he fou4ht for the
Tories !—/Itforning Chronicle.

At a recent meeting of the Wholesale Tea-
houses of the metropolis, a committee was formed to watch
the proceedings in Parliament respecting the renewal of
the East India Company's Charter. A deputation from
this committee, head,d by Mr. GROTE, 111. P., yesterday
waited by appointment upon Lord Aurerintr, and informed
his Lordship of the views entertained by those interested
in the trade to China. Lord ALTHORP received the De-
putation politely, and expressed pleasure that such a holy
had been formed to be ready to afford inf, am4tion pre-
viously to, and during the proceedings in, Parliament.
THE TRANSFER BOOKS.—Yesterday the
Transfer Books of the several Securities which have been
closed since the commencement of last month, preparatory
to the payment of the quarterly dividends, were again
opened for the purpose of public transfers of Stork. The
dividends now due to the public are on the Three per Cent.
Consols, the Three and a Half p r Cents., the New Three
and a Half per Cents., India Stock, &c. Since the closing
of the Transfer Books, the improvement in the prices of
the above-mentioned Securities hot been as follows, the
lowest (potations being those at which the last bargains
were made previously to the shutting of the books, and the
highest being the price realized yesterday morning in the
first bargains made for public transfer. The Three per
Cent. Consols have risen from 83k to 86k, without the
dividend ; the Three and a Half per Cents. from 89. to
941; the New Three and a Halt per Cents. from 91k to
94 ; and in India Stock, for the Account, the advance,
'mice the shutting in the early part of December,
amounted to full 7 per c,nt., viz., from 203 to 210.
Mr. C. STANFIELD, the well-known scene-
painter, in a letter, addressed to a Morning Contemporary,
s.ys,—" It having been stated in one of the periodicals,
the Spectator, and copied into most of the diurnal Jour-
advantagea."
of the
thoef aktp'3.r.al
Jour-
nals, that since my election as A.asocbiarenoe
Academy, it had become incumbent on me to leave the
Theatres, and to refrain tram scene-painting, I beg InUst
distinctly and respectfully to state that no intimitom of
the kind has been made to me by the H tyal Academy,
either directly or indirectly, and that I have no intention
fwassihaoteuvefroomf
wenhircirbelf
dererilrineqsuoishinianngy

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We yesterday alluded to the petitions ad-
dressed to the Chamber of Deputies in favou-
of the Duchess of Berry, and to the animated
discussion which they were expected to excite in
that assembly. The complete report of that
discussion has now reached us, and an abridg-
ment of it will be found in another column. It
will, of course, command less attention here
than on the other side of the water, and really is
not much calculated to create a great sensation
anywhere. In the first place, the petitioners
deserve little regard either in their collective or
in their individual capacity. They are neither
respectable for talents, strong in argument, nor
powerful in numbers. Many of the petitions
are signed by single individuals, who express
only their own opinion, and their reasoning is
more calculated to provoke laughter than to jus-
tify revolt, or to excite sympathy for misfortune
One noble petitioner assures the Assembly that
the Duchess arrived in France with the most
pacific intentions,—that her object in joining
the Vendeans was to restrain their courage ra-
ther than to stimulate their disaffection,—and
that she endured all the hardships of the cam-
paign against the King's troops merely to pre-
vent the insurgents from attacking them ! An-
other sapient Royalist proposed a kind of na-
tional jury to try two questions, on the affirma-
tive of which he rested his justification of the
Duchess,—namely, Ist, whether, in coming to
demand the Crown of France for her son,
she had fulfilled only the duties of a mo-
ther; and, 2d, whether, in acting as she
had done, she had in view the happiness o!
her country ? So, by the political logic of thi,
Bourbon Royalist, the mother of the young
Duke of Bordeaux was entitled to kindle the
flames of civil war, and to make thousands of
mothers childless, that she might procure a
better fortune for her own infant son ; and if it
can be proved that she had no other motive
than her maternal feelings, all the horrors of the
civil war redound to her credit ! ! The collective
petitions are as ridiculous in their tenour
those signed by individuals, while some of them
were even so treasonable that they have been
banded over to the Minister of Justice, to in-
quire into the expediency of prosecuting their
authors. The order of the day was recommended
by the reporter of the commission on these
petitions, and after a warm debate was adopted.
The interest of the debate thus turned neither
upon the nature of the petitions themselves, nor
the character of the petitioners, nor the result
of the discussion, hut solely upon the disclosures
which were expected from the Ministry, of thr
grounds on which they had hitherto acted, and
the announcement of their future intentions
with respect to the disposal of their Royal cap-
tive. On these points two of the Ministers
spoke, and gave all the information which the
Government is now prepared to communicate.
At the time of the capture of the Duchess, wt
stated that the Government had only one of
three courses to pursue in order to escape from
the embarrassing situation in which her arrest
and imprisonment had placed them—namely,
either to try her by the existing laws, or to bring
in a law of exception to dispose of her person,
or act as they did in the time of Charles X..
two years ago, and to escort her out of the
kingdom without a law, as the agents of Loui,
Philip did herself and the rest of the Bourbons
on that occasion. The Movement party de-
manded her trial before a Court of Assizes of
the Chamber of Peers. The friends of the Mi-
nistry recommended an application to the Legis-
lature for a special law, and the Ministry them-
selves seemed to have formed no decided opinion
whether they would adopt this latter alternative,
or act on their own responsibility in detaining
her as a prisoner without any judgment either
by the tribunals or by the Chambers. The in-
conveniences of a trial either in Paris or in the
provinces.—the danger of an acquittal from re-
spect to her sex or pity for her fallen fortunes,—
the probability of renewed disturbances should
the verdict be against her,—the embarrassing
situation in which it would place the King,
either to pardon the Royal convict or to execute
the sentence,—the uncertainty of the procedure,
or the want of forms for the prosecution of a
person so near the throne,—who was originally
a foreign Princess, and who could never be said
to be a subject of Louis Philip,—and a
hundred other considerations which may occur
to the mind of every reflecting person, have pre-
vailed with the great majority of the French
public to abandon the idea or the wish of a
criminal process before either the Chamber of
Peers or a Court of Assize. Nearly an equal
array of objections exists to the introduction
of a bill of attainder, or of pains and penal-
ties, into the Chambers. The great body of
Frenchmen are naturally averse to laws of ex-
ception, and the charter particularly declares that
no legislative measure shall have a retro-active
(fleet. The only remaining course thus left
open was to retain her as a prisoner in perpetuity,
or till a convenient opportunity should occur of
sending her out of the country on a guarantee
that she should not again return to trouble its
repose, or after the passing of a law to punish
her should she again be found within its limits.
In the spring of last year the Chambers passed
an act for banishing the whole family of the
Bourbons for ever from the soil of France, but
unfortunately attached no special penalty to
their return. They were therefore no longer
to be considered as French citizens, they were
placed beyond the pale of French law and of the
law of nations,—and it would probably have
been hard to try them lor the want of an allegi-
ance which they could not show—to consider
them as traitors when they could not be sub-
jects,—or to inflict upon them penalties when
they could not enjoy privileges. But, were they
warned of the penalty of returning to France by
an act which should renew the declaration of
their banishment, no exception could be pleaded
in their favour, if found in arms against the
French Government, or exciting disturbances in
any part of the kingdom. These observations
will be found to coincide with the tenor of the
speeches delivered by the. Duke de Broglie and
the Minister of Commerce. " According to
the letter of the law of last spring," .says M. de
Broglie, "the Duchess of Berry ought immediately
on her arrest to have been re-embarked and
conveyed out of France ; according to the spirit
of that law, she ought to have beets restored to
her family, because the law contained no penal
sanction.' The Government would have acted
on this plan when she was taken in November
last, had they not learned that she was not under
the control of her family—that a life of dangers
and adventures pleased her excited imagination,
and that if sent away she would return to excite
fresh troubles or to kindle new insurrections in
the western provinces. They therefore kept her
as a prisoner on their own responsibility, till
they should consult the Legislative Chambers,