The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-27 00:00:00

emphatically, conclusively, that nobody at all is in
any way to blame throughout the' whole of this

deplorable transaction.
The decision in this extraordinary case, we must
confess at once, entirely passes our comprehension.
It certainly does appear to us wholly incompre-
hensible how any one can fail to recognise negli-
gence 'in the sale of 121bs. of arsenic, when that
sale takes place, as it is positively sworn to have
taken place at Bradford, during the course of last

October. Common sense tells us that it must have.

been, not merely negligence, but the most culpr;ble
negligence—to have a large quantity of pure
arsenic in an open cask—in an unlocked garret—
without any label whatever upon the cask contain-
ing it : and then (having prepared the way for the
catastrophe thus elaborately) to send an ignorant
apprentice boy—who had hid nothing at all to do
with drugs beyond three weeks previously—up to
this garret for twelve pounds' weight of plaster of
Paris. Another cask is in the same garret—also
uncovered, also unlocked—containing the required
daft, or terra alba, or plaster of Paris. The raw
apprentice lad of three weeks is sent up to make
his own selection of the white powder, to weigh
out 121bs. of it, to put these 121bs. into a couple of
bags, and hand them across the counter, without
any previous examination by any one competent to
decide whether the white powder happened to be
terra alba or ARSENIC. All this is clearly proved
upon oath by various witnesses to have actually
taken place, and yet the result of the judicial ex-
amination of the case is, that there was really no
negligence, that not one single individual could be
pronounced in any way blame-worthy. The judge
is reported to have distinctly said, after hearing
the evidence upon the matter, that " he really could
not see any negligence." His lordship eventually
" directed the jury to acquit the prisoner"—adding,
" How could it be said there was any negligence
here ?" and observing, furthermore, distinctly—
" He did not know what a man could do except not
keep arsenic." Obviously after this the jury had
no alternative before them—they had simply to
obey the instructions of the judge, and the report
of the trial naturally reads, therefore, with the
simple intimatisn (extremely gratifying, of course,
to Mr. HODGSON the chemist)—" The jury acquitted
the prisoner accordinglP."
This is the administration of the law of the land
as it now stands in regard to the sale of poisons.
The judge who tried the case at the York Assizes
on the 21st inst., tells the jury distinctly that as
the law stands at present there was actually no
case at all to go to them, and that the prisoner
must consequently be acquitted. Surely here is
proof clear and positive that the law as it relates to
the sale of poisons requires instant scrutiny and
complete and careful revision. It should. render
severely punishable—it should pronounce culpably
negligent, the keeping of a deadly poison like
arsenic for sale, unlabelled, in an open barrel, in a
garret accessible to an ignorant shopboy.

Mr. MONCREIFF'S sympathies evidently go rather
with the pensive muse of the late Mr. ROGERS
than with the more cheerful goddess inspiring
the verse of the late Mr. CAMPBELL. He appre-
ciates less the pleasures of Hope than the plea-
sures of Memory. His speech on Monday last

the Council Chamber at Leith must have indi-
cated this clearly enough to his constituents. It
was an harangue for the most part retrospective
in its character—the language of it being couched
partly in the tone of virtuous indignation. It

began with a panegyric on Lord PALMERSTON,
and closed with-u,repudiation of the Ballot. The
hon. gentleman is evidently not up to time. He -
ought to have lived in a past generation. We
are all of us—Conservatives as well as Radicals,
old-world Whigs and old-world Tories—we are all
of us eager to get on, to advance with the ad-
vance of knowledge, to keep pace with the
progress of social and political enlighten-
ment. And Mr. MONCREIFF is for pointing
steadily backwards. Here in the instance of the
hon. member for the Leith burghs is manifestly a
genuine specimen of a retrograde. Instead of
endeavouring hopefully and earnestly to partici-
pate, if possible, in preparing the events which are
to be recorded upon the future pages of our national
history, now lying blank before us—he is for ever
fumbling over the dogseared leaves, blotted and
scribbled over, some of them, in no very symmetrical
characters—records which we all know by heart,
and sonie of which, by the way, we are heartily
sick of. However, instead of considering things as
they actually are, he scrutinises them pathetically,
wistfully, and in almost despairing admiration, as
they have been, and as we sincerely hope they
never may be again. Thus the breaking
down at last of the family compact of the
Whigs he laments literally, in so many words, as
a national calamity. At which affecting lamenta-
tion, by the way, some of those wicked folks down
at Leith—positively laugh. Lord PALMERSTON'S
three years' Ministry he considers will henceforth
he inscribed upon the annals of the reign of Vie-
roniA, as about three of the most glorious years
in the national recollection. Founding his anti-
cipations in this way chiefly upon the treaty by
which the Palmerstonian Government brought the
Crimean war to a termination. Whereas we do
honestly believe, as we have done ever since the
conclusion of that all but disgraceful compromise,
that the terms of the treaty between the Allies and
Russia were distasteful to the British nation, and
justified the reverse of popular exultation. It was
a miserable anti-climax that abortive treaty--
after the continuous roar of those thundering guns
of the united armaments of England, and France,
and Turkey, and Sardinia before the
battlements of Sebastopol. Yet, for this paltry
compromise after the effusion of so much blood and
treasure—the ex-Premier has since then, ever
and anon been most preposterously glorified.
Remembering the panegyrics which opened the
speech at Leith, on Monday, we can hardly won-
der, in the least, at the repudiation which closed
it. The representative who can so judiciously
eulogise a Minister for the very incident in his
career which most loudly calls for reprehension,
would be, of course, the very legislator to run
counter to common sense in regard to the question
of the Ballot. According to Mr. IVIoNcREIFF liberty
and the Ballot are incompatible. Though, upon
one hand, if the opponents of the Ballot point to
France, the advocates of the Ballot can, upon the
other, surely point to the United States of America.
What is .not un-English to the Lords and Gen-
tlemen of England in their West-end Club
Houses—is consistently pronounced by logical
foes of the Ballot like the member for the
Leith burghs intensely and essentially un-English
in the humble artisan and shopkeeper in the
process of electing a representative to the Legis-
lature. Anti-Ballot secretly blackballs a candi-
date for admission to the Reform or the Carlton,
and immediately afterwards 'accosts him smiling,
and grasps his hand, as they meet outside there,
upon the Pall-mall pavement. Yet anti-Ballot
protests at the same time, as against something
mon-
strously base and despicable, against throwing the
aegis of the Ballot over the hard-working elector
who drops his vote into the urn for the nomination
of a representative in the Imperial Parliament. So