The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-30 00:00:00

AN AGED LOTHARIO.

An amorous old gentleman is the stock property
of the farce writer. He fails in real life. , On the
stage his asthmatic sobs may make whimsical
contrast to the fervent sighs of the ' favoured
lover, and it is in accordance with all prece-
dent that just before the curtain falls he with-
draws his pretensions in favour of the happier
swain, and bestows his fortune upon the youthful
pair whose course of true love he had for a moment
ruffled. But in real life an old gentleman• in
love is apt to move more disgust than laughter.
His false and ridiculous position does not gather
round him the most virtuous of mankind; and, if
the veil which covers his private life is suddenly
torn off, an ancient Lothario is likely to be found
mixed up with a somewhat doubtful set of people.
At a certain time of life a man ought, as the
French say, " to accept his position." Of course
we arc bound, in the interest of morals, to protest
against all amatory perjuries, but if a gentleman
appearing to be on the shady side of 60 should set
up as a lady-killer, the sight is not likely to be
edifying to his friends, or to obtain for him the
respectful confidence of those who are placed under
him.
The Hampshire magistrates have been engaged
in disentangling an imbroglio occasioned by , the
loves and woes of a Commanding Officer of Prince
Albert's Regiment of Light Infantry. Colonel
Horne, while taking his morning constitutional in
the neighbourhood of Winchester, had the mis-
fortune to be smitten with the charms of a lady
whom he encountered " at a stile." With mili-
tary promptitude he accosted his fair captivator,
and, after surmounting obstacles more or less im-
portant, he succeeded in establishing what the
lady afterwards termed a " slight acquaintance."
He was re warded, however, for his promptitude and
pertinacity so far as this—that the slight acquaint-
ance extended to visiting her at the house of her
stepfather, and writing her letters, wherein he says
that she is his " own darling," and he is her
" own Horne ; " and that she must " bring
her sweetest kisses " with her, for he, monopo-
list as he is, " shall want them all." What the
progress made was we are not told; perhaps the
damsel was laughing at the pretensions of her
gallant but not juvenile admirer, and was amused
to see an old gentleman " spooney." It was not
to be expected, however, that her friends would see
this matter in quite the same light. Her stepfather
was one Roe, and he seems to have been at once the
hardest and the softest of his name. Oddly enough,
he appears, from the fact of Colonel Horne coming
to his house and writing a large bespeak of kisses,
to have arrived at the conclusion that the Colonel
was trying to seduce his stepdaughter. It is just
possible that this may have been the Colonel's in-
tention, and we must allow Mr. Roe to be the
best judge of the facts ; but the course of action
he adopted after arriving at this conclusion was of
the softest possible character. If the cruel step-
father was determined to interfere with the loves
of this interesting couple, it might have been
expected that the hardness of his heart might have
communicated itself to his boots, and that he might
have kicked the enterprising veteran out of his
house. If his indignation was not equal to so
decisive an act as this, he might at least have
warned him by letter not to disport his dangerous
fascinations in the vicinity of his household ; and
he might have disclosed to him that his
unrestrictedinco.n-
intereepqtueadntabtyy
seifdekriastscescommission
tfroerae
pursued no such keeping. Roe, however,
" Miss Norgott," and was then in the stepfather's
ahne r ously
straight-
forward course. He, first of all, seems to have
been smitten with a morbid desire to know the
strength of Colonel Horne's regiment, and then
the age of that too gallant officer. For this appa-
rently very insufficient purpose he forgathered with
the privates of the regiment, and treated them
with brandy-and-water and beer. The thirsty
warriors drank his brandy-and-water and drained
his tankard, but they were not in the secret

of their Colonel's age. They could tell their
entertainer that the old gentleman had seen 33
years of active warfare, and had been knocked
about in the Caffre War, but the exact date of his
nativity was not in the regimental books. But,
to satisfy Mr. Roe, they made a guess; they put
him at the age they thought he looked, and boldly
stated his age at 62. Roehaving got this precious
piece of information, writes two anonymous letters,
one to Colonel Home and another to General
Scarlett. The letter to the Colonel complained,
not of his attention to Roe's stepdaughter, but of
his flogging his men and reducing his sergeants,
and warned him that for these causes he was likely
to be poisoned or shot. The letter to the General
Was in the same strain ; not a word about the
young lady, but all about the cat-o'-nine-tails. The
letter of Roe was caviare to the General, and we
confess we find it not quite easy to explain. It was
handed over to the Colonel, and the Colonel com-
manded that both letters should be read at the head
of the regiment; and, although he perfectly knew
who the author was, offered five pounds for the
discovery of the writer. Having thus opened the
public scandal, he proceeded to ventilate it
thoroughly by summoning Roe before the Mayor of
Winchester and a full bench of magistrates to
answer the charge of having excited the soldiers
of the regiment to commit an act of mutiny. The
only' tittle of proof in support of such a charge was,
that Roe h(td said to two soldiers over their beer
that he wondered no one had attempted the life of
the flogging Colonel. There was no excitement to
mutiny in the two letters, or, if there were, it was
caused by the Colonel ; for no one heard of
them till the Colonel read them. The Win-
chester magistrates were not of opinion that the
homicidal propensities of an English soldier are
so strong that he will rush away to kill his officer
because a stranger happens to say that he wonders
a flogging colonel is not killed. The colonel was not
more fortunate in his law than in his love ; the
stepfather was liberated, and the colonel's hapless
passion has become as public as that of Petrarch.
The most inconceivable part of this foolish affair
is the taste of Colonel Home in making the public
the confidant of his bonzzes fortunes. As to Roe,
his folly and-baseness were of that inteysity which
defies all comprehension. The whole affair is ex-
quisite in its absurdities—the irresistible old Colo-
nel, lithe and enterprising in his age, the laughing
damsel facile in flirtations, the moody father-in-law
vapouring to himself of a melodramatic revenge,
never to become a reality, and those delightfully
characteristic soldiers, ready to drink the health of
anybody who would pay for the liquor, and de-
ciding to tell the stepfather a fiction to save them-
selves the trouble of finding out the fact. It is very
amusing. but these tableaux ridicules are not con-
ducive to good discipline. Old gentlemen will have
their follies, but it is scarcely advisable to indulge
them at the head of a regiment. Colonel Horne
has earned a little season of quiet ; after 33 years'
active service a little leisure and half-pay might do
him good. So devoted an admirer of the sex mu t
have a stock of sonnets that require polishing, and
half-pay might, as a sanitary discipline, diminish
the fervency of his inconvenient pursuits.—Times.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE POLISH

REVOLUTION.

Yesterday being the 28th anniversary of the Polish Re-
volution of 1830, the Polish exiles • resident in London
attended a funeral mass, performed by the Rev. Emeritus
Podolski, at the Roman Catholic chapel, Sutton-street,
Soho-square, for the repose of those who fell in that national
struggle. In the course of the day a meeting was held at
Sussex-chambers, Duke-street, St. James's, where General
Count Zamoyski, who, finding himself in England, had
hastened to join his countrymen on this occasion, spoke as
follows :

. Gentlemen,—Since the opportunity is unexpectedly given
to me of meeting you here on this day of commemoration of
our last attempt for the recovery of our national indepen-
dence, I think I may at once enter on a question, on the
settlement of which, to a considerable amount, depends the
future condition of the civilised world : Does the present
peace between the West and the North of Europe promise
to be a lasting one ? or, shall Russia soon again set it at
defiance ? In that case, is Poland likely to be again studi-
ously kept out of the struggle ? or is there sufficient ground
for expecting that the coalesced powers of the West will
then turn at once to Poland as the best means of stopping
the aggressions of Russia on Europe ? It is superfluous to
insist on the utter insecurity of any interest placed within
the range of Russian aggression. It may answer official
necessities to show that, after such a sacrifice of lives and
moneys, the end for which it was incurred was realised by
a lasting peace ; but in reality no one believes it, whether
he derives his information from State papers or simply rests
on his private judgment and good sense. That Russia, by
the awakened watchfulness of all. Governments, is prevented
from any immediate outbreak upon Europe, or that the
suppression of serfdom in her dominions, which com-
mands the sympathy of the civilised nations, may cause her
prolonged domestic embarrassment, no one will deny. But
it is no less certain that this social reform, when accom-
plished, will double Russia's power, double her means of
conquest, and that the lust for it in her population will
only be ereased by delay, and by the remembrance4of the
humiliaron whieili she suffered from the rashness of a
vanitos sovereign, and the neglect of her traditional vile-
ness foreign intrigue. No statesman deserving the
name-ono man the least read in modern history and
geography—can doubt that another conflict is, in
in the course of time, inevitable between a new
overflow of the Northern Power and such governments of
Europe as shall either escape from its vassalage or resist the
temptations of dividing the spoil with it. A doubt can
exist only as to whether that conflict will come on a little
sooner or a little later, and as to whether it is advisable,
laudly and permanently, to acknowledge the coming danger.
or preferable to meet it by secret preparation and by a pre-
tooled confidence in the improved. disposition and policy of
Russia. To us, gentlemen, that difference matters little.
To us, who have known prolonged trials and shown some
perseverance in them, it suffices to see that the western
powers of Europe must once more draw the sword for the
sake of their own safety and independence, and that the
Government they have to encounter remains the one which
is our principal foe. But, among us, it is a frequent matter
of complaint, that the Governments of the west showed
such great indifference to our misfortunes, and evinced such
wonderful blindness, when at war with Russia, in neglect-
ing to call at once the Poles, forming a large portion: of her
dominions and of her armies, to join and unite against their
oppressor. It may be on our part a just complaint, and one
which reflects on the feelings and on the clearsightedness
of statesmen otherwise renowned. It permits us to distrust
the future decisions of men of the same nations and school ;
but they, in their turn, may inquire into .a question which
we, Poles, are called upon to answer, and which, if settled
one way or the other, draws at once the line both of our
present duties and of our future destinies. That question,
gentlemen, is not one for a Pole ; but it certainly awakens
great doubts in the minds of all who are not Poles, like
ourselves. They all doubt'whether our nation at large still
retains the memory of her past independence, so as to be
ready once more to put all at stake for its re-assertion. They
admit of discouragement among us as the consequence ofso
many and apparently vain efforts and sacri&es. They sup-
pose that, like other nations of the present age,our nation longs
for material improvement and peaceful pursuits.. The least
indication of a more humane or simply less cruel dea,lins•
on. the part of the Governments under which the Polish na-
Eon is placed ,is enough to make them eagerly inquire whether,
by consenting to her present fate, she would not best secure its
further improvement. If we show them that such a notion is
nothing but a mistake, that the change does not bear upon any
of the conditions which are the necessary safeguard of a
people's moral and material improvement ; we are sus-
pected, if not reproached, with being hot-headed, and run•
ning after dreams. If, on the contrary, we conditionally
acknowledge that it is the stern but urging duty of the best
among Poles not to reject means, if offered, and however
insufficient, by which good may be partially effected—the
acknowledgment is at once interpreted as a proof that we
despair of ever being rescued from foreign domination, and
that the time is over when it was the subject of unanimous
abhorence among Poles ; it is made to prove that the Polish
nation is extinct, and that, if not contented, it is resigned
to its fate, and, at all events, it is no more that brave, that
devoted people, ever ready for generous sacrifice, unsur-
passed in its qualities for a national war, and which, other-
wise, might on a future contingency have been associated
as a valuable ally to other nations contending for indepen-
dence and international law.

Nov, gentlemen, to overcome doubts with which we are
thus assailed, our paramount duty is to show that we are
neither extravagant and sanguine in our expectations nor
desponding' and resigned te---our present condition; that
whilst we can place no confidence in rulers whose object it
must necessarily be to deprive us, as a nation, of everything
that constitutes the very life of a community and its title to
respectamonginen, we, onthe other hand, are ever ready for
any peaceful and unrelenting effort which a change in the
conduct of our oppressors may render more attainable ; we
have to show, and to put beyond all doubt, that whilst our
countrymen in Poland have our best sympathies and wishes,
and our hearty admiration for whatever, by energy and
perseverance, they may add to the welfare o. f their fellow-
countrymen or or take off from the burdens which weigh upon
them—we, who have preferred exile never doubt their
attachment and fidelity towards any n ,tional interest. But
upon us, the exiles, devolves the task of serving those
interests which are more of a national and_ charac-
ter. In the fulfilment of that dut
homey, we feel certain of the
approbation of our countrymen at and know tha
they expect us unceasingly to recall to the nations and go-
vernments of Europe the violated rights of Poland and the
unflinching fidelity of her sons to her national indepen-
dence. c
That duty is the necessary complement of those which
our brethren in Poland are called upon to perform. What
they do at home and what we endeavour to accomplish
abroad forms but one total, and constitutes the present life
of Poland, a life which, under the will of-a merciful God,
will 'ultimately prove to have been the best, though labo-
rious, preparation for liberty and independence.
And now, to conclude, let me turn once more to the noble
country of whose never failing hospitality we presently
partake. Among its eminent qualities, let me call more
particularly your attention to its daily increasing feeling
of the high responsibilities which Great Britain's immense
power throws upon her. It has now, in the eyes of every
Briton, become a national duty to contribute to the im-
provement of the human race, and mainly to preserve jus-
tice and security among the nations of the world ; and, as
an indication of those feelings, let me quote to you what
my friend the I Duke of Argyle, who sat in her Majesty's
Cabinet during the late war, recently said in public. As
an answer to certain abstract and visionary notions of per-
petual peace and isolation from all foreign matters—as an
answer to the imputation of the late war having been en-
tered upon by Great Britain rashly and uselessly, my noble
friend appealed to his audience, and received unanimous
applause, when he stated that the feeling of the immense
majority of the British people was rather that the war
with Russia ought to have been declared sooner, than that
it had been declared too soon. I think it may safely be
added that the feeling of the same majority. on the unex-
pected termination of that war was, and is to this day,
that it had ceased not too late, but too son.
Such being the disposition of the British nation, her
Government, it cannot be doubted, will not hesitate to call
Poland to co-pporatioA Oen again. at Wax with Bustin,

provided we ourselves put it beyond all doubt that Poland
is not only ready for every effort and sacrifice, but, what is
no less essential, that it will know how to maintain its
national independence when restored to its rank among the
nations of Europe.
Col. Wiercinski, Mr. N. F. Zaba, Major C. Szulczewski,
and several other gentlemen also delivered appropriate ad-
dresses, after which the meeting separated.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.-(THLS DAY.)

COURT OF dUEEN'S BENCH.

(Sittings at Nisi Prius before Lord Campbell and is
Special Jury.)

BRUFF V. THE EASTERN COUNTIES RAILWAY COMPANY.

Plaintiff was chief engineer and superintendent of the
Eastern Union Railway Company, at a salary of £BOO
a-year, and on the amalgamation of this company with the
Eastern Counties Railway, at an additional salary of
£l,OOO per annum. Plaintiff claimed £2OO and £196, balance
of two years' salary 1855-6 : and separatim, also claimed in
addition one and a half per cent. upon the expenditure of
repairs done annually on the line at the rate of £67,600 a-.
year, and £60,000 of new works—besides extra work and
extra remuneration for work and labour done within his
scope and duty as engineer, in terms of his agreement and
appointment as engineer of the company, amounting to
about half a million of money, besides opposing bills in
Parliament.

The defendants pleaded general issues.
The Attorney-General (Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Q.C.), laid the
case before the jury in an eloquent speech of upwards of two
hours, and afterwards called witnesses to prove the case,
which will likely occupy the whole of this day.

DIVORCE COURT.
(Before the Judge Ordinary.)
MARCHMONT V. MARCHMONT.

The petitioner (Mrs. Marchmont) was for a judicial sepa-
ration ou the ground of cruelty. The pleas were a denial
of the cruelty and condonation.

THE VERDICT.

The jury, at twenty minutes to three, after an hour and
a half's deliberation, entered the Court and delivered tho
following verdict :
" We find that Mr. Marchmont was guilty of cruelty to
his wife, and also that the cruelty was not condoned."

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.
(Before Mr. Commissooner Fane.)

THE ROYAL BRITISH BANK-IN RE HUMPHREY BROWN•

To-day was appointed for the consideration of the certifi-
cate of the bankrupt, who was one of the directors of the
Royal British Bank.

Mr. Linklater said he appeared for the assignees of the
bankrupt, and for the assignees of the Royal British Bank,
and had been instructed to oppose the petition, but it had
been suggested that, considering the great number of wit-
nesses who would be called upon, the great expense which
would be incurred, and also taking into consideration the
length of time Mr. Brown had been imprisoned, that the
opposition should not be pressed, but that they should con-
sent to the bankrupt having a certificate of the third glass,
after such a suspension as the Court might think fit. Ile
(Mr. Linklater) therefore had to ask for an adjournment
that the assignees might consider the suggestion.
Mr. Bagley, for the assignees, consented, as it would be
impossible for Mr. Brown, as he was at present, to bear the
expenses he must otherwise necessarily incur.