The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-28 00:00:00

to the credit of the clergy if they were the only persons
in the community who returned imperfect information.
Their Lordships then adjourned.
In the House of Commons, after the transaction of
some preliminary business,
Lord JOCELYN moved for a Committee to inquire nto
the existing steam communications between England and
India, and to consider the subject of steam communica-
tion having for its object a line or lines connecting Eng-
land, India, and Australia.
Lord NAAS moved an amendment, which proposed to
reverse the order of subjects of the Committee's inqui-
ries; they should begin, he thought, with steam com-
munication between India, England, and Australia, which
should be reported upon in the first instance.
After a lengthened conversation, the motion, with the
addition of the word " China," at the suggestion of the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and of the words
" New Zealand," at the suggestion of Mr. AGLIONBY,
was agreed to.
Mr. ANDERSON then called the attention of the House
to the differential duties levied on British ships in the
ports of Spain, and moved a resolution to impose coun-
tervailing differential duties on Spanish ships in the ports
of the British empire.
In the course of the discussion which followed Mr.
LABOUCHERE and Lord PALMERSTON assured the House
that the subject had attracted the attention of the Go-
vernment, and that negotiations were pending with Spain
at the present moment. _ _ _

Mr. ANDERSON then proposed to withdraw his motion;
this, however was objected to by Mr. G. BANRES, and
on a division the motion was negatived by 98 to 53.
Lord JOrIN RUSSELL then moved for leave to bring
in a Bill for the better administration of justice in
the Court of Chancery. The Noble Lord entered into
lengthened details as to the state of business in the
Court of Chancery, and as to the various plans which
had been suggested for the improvement of the Court.
The Bill which he was about to introduce proposed that
there should be a court, to be called the Supreme Court
of Chancery, or the Lord Chancellor's Court, in which
should sit the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls,
and one of the judges in the courts of law, to be SUM-
awned from time to time; that any two of them should
have the power of bearing causes, and that, in the ab-
sence of the Lord Chancellor, the other two judges
should have the same power. The salary of the Lord
Chancellor it was proposed to fix at 10,000/., leaving
the retired allowance the same as now—namely, 5,0001.
It was further proposed to vest the ecclesiastical pa-
tronage now administered by the Lord Chancellor in
the Crown, to be exercised by the First Minister, taking
the pleasure of the Crown.
,After a few observations from Mr. STUART. Mr.
ROUNDELL PALMER, Mr. S. WORTLEY, and Mr. HEAD-
LAM, :all of whom disapproved of the plan, leave was
given to bring in the Bill.
On the report upon the appointment of a Vice-Chan-
cellor Bill, .

Sir H. WILLOUGHBY objected to the amount of the
retiring pension, and moved that it be reduced to 3,0001.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL opposed the motion, on
the ground that, if the retiring allowance was reduced,
either the salary must be increased, or the public would
lose the services of the most efficient persona.

Upon a division the motion was negatived by 49 to 32.
The House adjourned, after some farther business, at
Two o'clock.

England has long, and justly, prided herself on
the protection indiscriminately afforded by her insti-
tutions to political refugees of all classes and denomi-
nations. Under the shelter of her laws have exiles
from various countries of Christendom found that
repose and safety which they have the more ear-
nestly yearned to enjoy in proportion to the ferocity
with which they have been pursued elsewhere upon
the four continents. Perfidious as Albion is reputed
to be in France, very many thousands of the children
of the latter have discovered on her shores a haven of
refuge when hunted to the death by their own Govern-
ment—and this almost uninterruptedly from the
commencement of the first and most ter-
rible of Revolutions. Other nations, in like
manner, have experienced the advantages of
a flight to the British islands when driven beyond
the seas by the hatred of their triumphant antagonists.
Insomuch so has this generosity on the part of Eng-
land been displayed, that shortly after the events of
1848, when the Democratic chieftains of Europe were
compelled to escape the dungeon and the scaffold by
having recourse to voluntary banishment, the streets
of London presented a spectacle such as can scarcely
ever have been witnessed in any other metropolis, in
any age, or in either hemisphere. The Spaniard and
the German, the Dane and the Italian, the French -
man and the Hungarian, jostled each other in the
crowd, made up for the most part of the peace-
ful inhabitants of the United Kingdom, on
whose hearths they were all welcomed alike,
without distinction of race, of creed, or of politics..
Notwithstanding which no evil whatever has re-
sulted to the community. The masses are as loyal
as they were previously. The law is as universally
obeyed. The country is still in as complete a state
of tranquillity and subordination as before the arrival
amongst us of these unfortunate foreigners.
Notwithstanding these incontestable facts, there are,
nevertheless, people amongst us so timorous as to
dread from the reception of these refugees all descrip-
tions of calamitous consequences. There are indivi-
duals so ungenerous as to desire the closing of our
ports against these unlucky outcasts of the Continent,
rather than run the hazard always incurred by acts
of distinguished magnanimity. Now-a•days conduct
like this scarcely admits of credibility. It appears
barely possible that arguments of this species can be
advanced at a time when our national hospitality to
the victims of Revolution has grown into a habit,
and when the experience of more than half a cen-
tury has shown that its indulgence has proved
in no way injurious to the Constitution. Yet
—incredible and impossible though it may seem—such
is actually the case, a remonstrance to that effect
having last evening been addressed to the members of
her MAJESTY'S Government.

An individual named LYNDHURST yesterday brought
the subject in question under the consideration of
the House of Lords, and in the course of
his remarks took occasion to allude, among
others, to " a person named KLAPKA !" The miserable
sneer expressed in the manner of that reference may
be regarded as a sufficient index to the gist of the
whole speech delivered by the Noble and Learned
ex Chancellor. It betrayed a rather pitiable
feeling of malevolence towards those who have
escaped to our shores from the perils of un-
successful revolution. The purport, indeed, of the
Noble and Learned Lord's observations was that
Ministers should prevail upon Parliament to pass the
Alien Act once more into a law, and with its assist-
ance to expel from the United Kingdom, one after
the other, the objects of the faintest suspicion,
in many instances doubtless the subjects of the grossest
calumny. Hence his derisive allusion to M. LEDKU
ROLLIN and his contemptuous reference to " a person
named KLArKA"—as if the name of the heroic de-
fender of Comorn was not long since " familiar as a
household word " throughout the length and breadth
of Christendom

Nothing, we insist, can possible justify the course
of proceeding required from the Cabinet but the
most glaring and imperative necessity. Danger of a
distinct and definite kind must be visible, in order to
empower her MAJESTY'S Government to appear be-
fore the Legislature with a demand of this particu-
lar description. Happily, as will be perceived from the
debate of last evening, such was the view taken of
the matter by the Noble Earl the Colonial Secretary.
According to his explicit language the extraordinary
powers, once demanded from Parliament to be con-
ferred for a while on the Administration, could never,
excepting in case of danger, be " properly granted
or properly exercised." No danger threatens at the
present moment, and consequently no necessity
exists for the revival of the Act relating
to extradition. But Lord LYNDHURST objects
to this indifference on the part of the Legisla-
ture and the Administration, that the refugees now
sojourning in our country are plotting against the
political tranquillity of other lands, with the Govern-
ments of which we are at present on terms of friend-
ship. Why, if Ministers acted at all upon infor-
mation of this character, they would have
long since driven from the United Kingdom fo-
reigners not merely democratic in their ideas, like
those enumerated last evening by Lord LYNDHURST,
bat identified with principles aristocratic, despotic, and
oligarchic. II MAzztria is to be hunted out of England,
then also must a similar course be pursued in regard
terrible
ripe people
to METTERNICH. If KLAPKA is to be spurned from
e d
our thresholds, then JOINVILLE must be subjected to
equally contumelious treatment. If we are to hurl
from
Eusepinubthlicanism, the
person of SAFFI the representative of
lied
then likewise we must pro-
ceed in a similar fashion towards such men as
BRUNSWICK, in the opinion of m
le the re-
of the yet more the yet
tnsoy be ter eo
nitde
:not
iifoe
nda
Is M. LEDRU R
Led Despvoe tissm.
engdueralloyurtolawths:t
dethroned Dom
fmuurtshterbe
shelter
denied
"
MIGUEL, who has never employed (like other refugees)
his partisans •
unjustifiable means to arouse to activity,
and who has never, like M TA —EDRIT RoLLIN
, repaid

the generosity of the country whose institutions have
screened him from persecution, by writing a work
against it filled from the Preface to the Finis with
nonsensical slanders and drivelling ingratitude. But
no—Lord LYNDHURST'S sympathies go with the up-
holders of arbitrary power, be they in office or in
exile ; his antipathies are restricted to the aspirants
for democracy, and to those patriotic champions who
have bared the brand in vindication of their
beloved but outraged nationality. Hence it is
he asks her MAJESTY'S Government to take
proceedings, not against the occupants of Claremont,
but against a soldier of the Magyars and a member
of the Provisional Government. Because CABRERA
has fought like a dauntless and heroic captain, as he
is, in the name of his liege Lord, the KING, in the
sacred cause which he regards as
" The Glory of old Arragon
And the Pride of old Castilla,"

the ex-Chancellor would leave him unprotected in his
exile. But because KLAPKA. has fought under the
tri-coloured banner of the Hungarians, and in defence
of no other bauble but the crown of Good St.
STEPHEN, the Noble and Learned Lord would have
him summarily dismissed from amongst us, branded
as an outcast perilous to the peace of Europe.
Against such unworthy proceedings on the part of
England we raise our voice in the language at once
of warning and supplication. Let not one of
the brightest and noblest privileges afforded
us by our Constitution be filched from us in
obedience to the petty fears and pettier
spite of those who are hungering at all times for the
triumph of the principles of Absolutism. Should
the recipients of our national bounty in the way
of protection, prove ungrateful to England for her
magnanimous behaviour, let their punishment be the
bitterest of all the stings, of their own consciences, and
the scorn of every good man and true. Above all things,
let us guard to ourselves intact what to us as a people
is the most precious of our prerogatives, that of ex-
tending the shield of our Constitution over the fallen
Gladiators in the arena of Civilization.

A terrible argument has recently been afforded of
the necessity for some legislative interference in re-
gard to the labour of national education. Knowledge
is so often, in obedience to the dictum of the philoso-
pher, identified with power in the abstract, that many
individuals lose sight of the fact that that power is
as calculated to be productive of evil as of good, un-
less trained betimes in a satisfactory direction under
proper guidance. One of our wisest, as well as most
melodious poets, has embalmed this very homely and
obvious truth in the amber of his versification ; the
exceeding veracity of the couplet, as much as the ex-
traordinary appositeness of the metaphor, having ren-
dered it almost a proverbial favourite—

" 'Tie education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined."

Had the inclination been invariably in the desirable
direction, in the direction of morality, and the
governance of the passions, and natural ethics, and
inspired religion, the criminal laws of the country
might have been seldom forced into application, and
the responsibility of carrying out the labours of social
improvement might have been entrusted less to the
hangman and more to the pedagogue. It is the recog-
nition of this which has induced so many
men of sound judgment and practical in-
telligence to be borne away by a generous
enthusiasm to the advocacy of the veriest chimeras.
It is to the force of these incontrovertible deductions
that the rapid spread of so many illusions in regard to
the perfectibility of human nature is attributable. The
dreamers of the dreams of philanthropy have been
induced to speculate upon the possibility of bringing
about these long-wished•for changes in the tempe-
rament of the population, until they have fancied
themselves already within reach of a golden age of
happiness. Hence the benevolent associations for the
advance of the Peace Movement, and for the imme-
diate abolition of Capital Punishment—the pro-
moters of those beneficent, but as yet most visionary,
projects, losing sight of all the necessities for prepa-
ration, and betraying an anxiety to grasp the effects
at once, without promoting the cause from which
those effects can alone be rationally expected to
emanate. The effects—happiness, tranquillity, sobriety,
innocence among all classes. The cause—a well-
directed education, an education of a national cha-
racter, and one developed, moreover, under the vigo-
rous co-operation of the Government.
Until this benignant project has be en realized, it
will be in vain to anticipate the amelioration of
miseries so long afflicting the entire community.
Useless, and worse than useless, will be model prisons
where the felon is induced to look upon his crimes as
the purchase money of his comforts, and where a
more tender solicitude is evinced for the criminal
violator of the law than is ever shown in the alms-
house to the innocent victim of poverty. Vain, too,
will be the daydreams indulged in by the more san-
guine, the wished-for destruction of the gallows, the
hulks, and the penitentiary. Hitherto it has been
insisted upon, to no purpose whatever, that society
has been labouring all along in an erroneous system,
endeavouring to force the evilly-disposed back from
the commission of iniquity by threatening them
with certain and appalling punishments—instead
of striving to turn them to habits of virtue
and to harmless lives of industry by the as-
sistance of a timely and attractive system of in-
struction. Until now we have perversely waited,
until the heart has become hardened by habitual
vice, and the mind darkened by protracted im-
punity, before we have endeavoured to inculcate
the truths of knowledge, the principles of morality,
or the dogmas of religion. Instead of diffusing these
notions among the multitude at a period of life when
all its powers are exquisitely plastic and impression-
able, we have tarried until the natures of the viciously-
inclined have been warped into a state of unconquer-
able distortion. Then it is we have insanely employed
the racks and thumbicrevvs of our corrective ma-
chinery, and not unfrequently have we found the
objects of our experiments break down altogether
under the treatment. The instances of insanity recorded
among the results of our newly-contrived prison dis-
cipline constitute of-themselves a sufficient attestation
of this, and an attestation it must be acknowledged ofa
truly startling and horrible description. Sooth to
say, we have heretofore commenced at the end and
not at the beginning ; we have been blindly working
our way back in defiance of all warning, and in oppo-
sition to all the dictates of common sense—
and hence the numberless obstructions en-
countered, and the impediments which are
still perpetually starting up to retard our
_progress. So it must necessarily continue to be,
until such time as we resolve to rid ourselves of a
preposterous predilection for our hobbies, and consent
to bow to the authority of reason, and to obey the
energetic injunctions of experience.
The execution on Tuesday morning of the two
great criminal, DRORY and CHESHAM, yields a terrible
illustration of the evil consequences of knowledge
without morality, of learning acquired by itself, with-
out being counterpoised by religious principles.
Both these atrocious murderers were to a certain
extent educated, and each of them had derived from
education only a frightful facility in carrying out
their diabolical schemes of iniquity. Both were
members of a respectable class and each was with-
out any really powerful inducement to commit the
grievous crime of assassination. The young farmer,
reputed among his neighbours to be amiable in dis-
position, and conscientious in his mode of life,
was yet at heart monster enough to destroy the
object of his affections in cold blood, and in the
midst of the scenes of their betrothal, having first
nerved himself for the perpetration of the murder by
studying an account descriptive of the Oriental
stranglers. The wife of the villager, moving in a
circle of home influences, surrounded by two of the
most powerful inducements to virtue—honest toil,
and a crowd of prattling children—was yet at heart
fiend enough to practise the diabolical art of poisoning
as a profession, to slay in this covert and dastardly
fashion, not by one and by two, but by wholesale,
to destroy the lives of her own offspring and of those
of her neighbours,' and to cap the climax of her in-
famies by slowly undermining the existence of her
husband, having to this end acquired adroitness in
her work of covert assassination, not only from a long
experience, but from acting upon hints contained in
the medical evidence given on the occasion of her
former trial on suspicion. Remember, these things
are not the ghastly tales handed down to us by a
remote tradition. They are hideous deeds of
yesterday : done in the midst of us in