The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-26 00:00:00

where other Brie e they would neTer have beezi.

heard of.

It is singular that just at the time of this prose-
cution Lords P/ ..I.IIERSToN and CLARENDON should
have been en jt nting imperial hospitality. They
were not of t' ae EMPEROR'S Cabine , it is true, but
they are poi itical martyrs to their too great friend-
ship for hitt ./. They had some title to a hearing on this
business, ' :or if ever a prosecution was intended to
condemn others than the victim whom law could
reach, it 'was the case now. England, as his Royal
Highness the PRINcE CONSORT would say, was on
her trial in the French police court, and by the
EMPEROIL'S orders. We had been great offenders.
We woulld not modify English ldws at the de-
mand of a foreign despot. We treated with cool
contcn-►pt the bullyings alike of French Colonels
and -French Counts of the " ante-chamber." W e
sentenced to deposition the Minister who did,, not
. tr►at them with the same contempt as -Um nation
(lid. M. MONTALEMBERT places all this before
French readers in the light in wlaich the English
'public viewed it, and he so did this as to place in
the most advantageous light our political liberties,
our constitution generally, and especially the free-
dom of the Press. In fact, with little more than
the shade requisite to set off the praise, M. MONTA-
LEMBERT praised En3lish freedom in all its forms
and developments. Th. French police court has
condemned that praise. Our liberty is guilty of
reflecting the deformities of French despotism ; and
M. MONTALEMBERT photographed the reflection.
The artist was condemned for the truthfulness of
i his picture of England. Had he shown the evils
instead of the blessings of our freedom, his article
1 vould have been reprinted at the cost of the Im-
p erial Exchequer. .

• But ~What are we to think of a prosecution, by
Ind perial order, in a police court, nominally of a
Fro nch political -writer, really quite as much of a
truti,ful illustration of the working of the English
constitution. Taking it as a whole, every English-
man Nvould be gratified with the fair account
given us by the count. He would amongst
foreigners feel that it raised him in their eyes;
he would feel, we cannot say flattered by it, but
that honourable justice had.been done hint. Lords
CLARENDON and PALMERSTON themselves, though
hit a little bar. d in it, would yet like that foreigners
should take their- notion of English politics and
politicians fi 'MU M. DE MONTALEMBERT. We
verily believu that, could anything similarly com-
mendatory of Imperial institutions.have been prose-
cuted here, vre should have no end of palaver from
the PALMERSTONIAN journals..on the danger of irri-
tating our faithful ally ; we should have been told
to look to our defences and the like. Of course
Louis NAPOLEON knows us too well not to know
that we feel honoured rather than otherwise by
the prosecutio-a and the sentence. We, so far as
we are concerned, are no way annoyed that our
vindication of the right of asylum in the person of
Dr. BERNARD should be met by a vindication of
imperial club-law in the person of M. MONTALEM-
BERT. We almost find it difficult to sympathise
with the victim. Imprisonment, to be sure, is
wearisome, but who can pity sufferings for patriot-
ism in which the sufferer must glory ? What
man would not rather have been the writer of the
splendid and high-souled article in the Corm-
spondant, though atoning for it in a prison, than
the hero of a treacherous and bloody coup d'etat,
though •placed by it on a throne ? Should the
Count be spared to come to England he may yet
see how England honours the man who has done
his dut.y

WILLIAM LEMON OLIVER was yesterday sen-
tenced to 20 years' penal servitude on three charges
to which be bad pleaded guilty, viz.—one of for-
geryund two of misappropriating securities and
other property entrusted to him by the lawful
owners. The punishment, severe as it may be
considered, is scarcely adequate to the offence.
Until within the last thirty years the forgery would
have inevitably led to an ignominious death; but
the misappropriation of the securities and property
with which he was entrusted was, if possible,
fraught with more dangerous consequences to
society, and involved a deeper amount of guilt than
even the forgery itself. There was the basest
treachery, as well as the greatest amount of moral
turpitude, displayed in the manner in which he
swindled a confiding lady out of a fortune that would
have yielded her a comfortable independence, had
she not unfortunately fallen into the hands of the
obliging Mr. OLIVER, who was so anxious to spare
her the trouble of receiving her own dividends. We
can scarcely conceive a case of greater atrocity, or
one more deserving of public execration, than that
which has consigned t person once occupying a
comparatively respectable position to the utmost
degradation. He is far inferior to a bond slave,
inasmuch as his misery dates not from his birth,
but from the time when he suffered himself to yield
to temptation, and to relinquish every principle of
honour and honesty for the sake of avoiding some
pecuniary troubles.

But, if his fate should be regarded as an example

to deter others in a similar position from crime,
the serious loss which his too•confiding client has
sustained, will, we trust, induce other persons who
have money to invest to take care that
they receive the securities for which they have
provided the means of purchase. If the lady who
entrusted OLIVER with so large a sum of money
had insisted upon receiving her stock, and deposited
it herself in a bank, there could have been no pos-
sibility of deception. It was her credulity that
enabled him to obtain a term of exemption from
the liability which he so recklessly undertook.
He was, we believe, not a sworn stockbroker. He
had given no securities for his good conduct, and
yet, simply on the faith of a plausible addressiandun -
blushing assurance in arrogating to himself a posi-

tion to which he was not entitled, he was entrusted
with the sum of £5,000 sterling, no step being
taken to ascertain that he had faithfully applied
the money, or that the securities, if originally pur-
chased, might not be misapplied at the first financial
pressure on the agent. If the community will
profit by the painful lesson, some advantage may
result therefrom. No respectable broker would
object to satisfy his client that he had
actually purchase& and would receive the stipu-
lated securities. There are none who would
not gladly get rid of the responsibility of retaining
the property of others, not intended for speedy sale,
in their hands.- Those who think their honour im-
peached, if proof be demanded, are certainly not the
class with whom we should advise a friend to entrust
his money. The higher the position, the more un-
doubted the solvency of the agent, the more ready
will ho be to satisfy his principal that everything
has been strictly correct, and that there is not the
slightest possible ground for doubt or suspicion.
A Coron-7-----

',lroner is an important public officer. He
has arduous duties to perform, and has propor-
tionate powers. He has, what the Grand Jury
ought to do on an inquest, to inquire into doubtful
matters and decide thereon. Their -verdict may
consign a man to prison until the next gaol de-
livery. It will suffice to place him on his trial
before a jury of his countrymen. 0n that he must
be arraigned, although the indictment may e