The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-10 00:00:00

his influence to obtain the post of Hospodar," with
the supplementary intimation that " the electoral
struggle bids fair to be very sharp in Wallachia."
It is such an uncommonly old story, all this, that
we have come at length to be heartily sick of it.
The flavour of intelligence of this kind really palls
upon the appetite. It has become, long since—
stale, flat, and unprofitable. It is not simply
vapid—it is vapidity. It has not the ghost of a
relish about it any longer. Bucharest, Jassy, Wal-
lachia, Moldavia, Hospodars, Boyards—all these
are names that have grown to be a
nuisance bores that have expanded into
absolute abominations. We are jaded to
death with the old, old rigmarole—reasoning about
which is so tormentingly interminable, that it ob-
viously must be by necessity " reasoning in a circle"
—for we certainly never do get to the end of it.
The situation is everlastingly the same—we plod
round and round the mill-wheel of diplomacy with-
out getting any further advanced than the Green-
wich Pensioner who trudged all night without
moving an inch on his way homewards, simply by
reason of his having got the point of his wooden
leg into a plughole. Here has a commission been
sitting for months in the French capital, for the ex-
press purpose of bringing this very difficulty to an
end—and lo ! just upon the strike of what every-
body fancied must be the twelfth hour, there
comes a tormenting indication that we have actually
as yet barely commenced. " The electoral struggle
bids fair to be very sharp in Wallachia." "Prince
GHIKA was continuing to exert all his influence to
obtain the post of Hospodar"—and so on—and so
on—really the News from those particular banks
of the Danube might be stereotyped, it is
so perpetually the same, identically the
same to-day as it was yesterday. There
is such monotonous uniformity about it.
Moldo-Wallachia—like Man—" never is, but always
to be blessed." So invariably, indeed, that one
might conjecture, as poor JOE did in Bleak House,
in regard to the city graveyard, that it must posi-
tively—" have been tOtherird ! " Never was such a
political quandary—not even that old puzzling
botheration about the Bund-----nay, actually, for
that matter, not even that irritating enigma, or, as
the Yankees would call it, fix, further north
yonder, in regard to Schleswig-Holstein. In refe-
rence to those problems, we do occasionally—thanks
be to Heaven—have a lull for the time being. But
with the Danubian Principalities—never. It is
one eternal babble: about Boyards and Hospodars,
Jassy and Bucharest, Moldavia and Wallachia, from
January to June, from June to January. Prince
GHIKA, in fact, is always trying hard to be made
Hospodar. The electoral struggle in his neighbour-
hood is always bidding fair to be very sharp indeed.
We only wish it would " look' sharp—and that we
could contrive at last to learn, Yes or No, whether
Prince GHIKA'S hopes in this matter have or have
not been realised. He must surely be some human
immortal under an assumed name—Ahasuerus, or
a Rosicrucian. There he is, through all the viscissi-
tudes of events and fortune—immoveable, unchange-
able—always looking for that electoral struggle
that never comes, hoping even against hope to be
made one of these days Hospodar. His tempera-
ment must certainly be one of the most sanguine
ever vouchsafed to man—as buoyant and elastic as
even Mr. MICAWBER'S—under the vague chance
(when for how is quite another consideration) of
Something " turning up" in his favour ultimately.
All this may be a very amusing pastime to him and
to his fellow-countrymen, but to us, mere spectators
from a distance, it has long since, we repeat, come to
be simply intolerable. We are sick to death of it.
We want to hear the last of it. We want to know
that the entire question about this double princi-
pality on the banks of the Danube is settled somehow,
anyhow. We don't want everlastingly to be told
by lightning flashes all the way across Europe
' through the electric telegraph—that the electoral
struggle in Wallachia is going to begin, and that
Prince GHIKA [couldn't we get two medical certi-
ficates and lock him up somewhere ?] hopes to be
Hospodar.

Sir JOSEPH SAWLE GRAVES SAWLE, Bart., is a
name probably known as little to the majority of
our readers as it was to us till a few days ago.
Still less was the name of MARY TRELEAVEN,
widow of a worthy farmer and miller, and one of
the tenants of the Baronet with a quadruple name.
And, but for a battle in the County Court, at St.
Austell, East Cornwall, between the widow and
the Baronet, and a well-deserved victory on the
part of the widow, we should never have heard of
these now famous combatants ; and, but for the
East Cornwall polling-book, and for the want of
the Ballot, the Baronet would have fought no
battle, and the widow would not have known, as
POMPEY said of CICERO'S great feat, where she
might triumph.

Well, then, be it known to our readers, if they
know it not, that THOMAS JAMES AGAR ROBARTES,
Esq., is ono of the members for East Cornwall--
they ought to know this, for Mr. ROBARTES has
voted for the Ballot and against Church-rates, and,
therefore, is a first-rate county member. He
ought to be member for East Cornwall—no doubt
of that ; and every East Cornish patriot ought,
therefore, to use his vote and influence to return
such a member as Mr. ROBARTES—his fair influ-
ence, we mean, but many of us think that ten per
cent. off rent is not exactly fair influence. Very
powerful influeuce we may be sure, but still no
true Liberal will deny that it is of the wrong sort,
Now, the question which a Cornish jury in the
County Court had to solve was just this—whether
the Baronet of the long name did use this influence
or not ; whether he did promise the widow's hus-
band, THOMAS TRELEAVEN, ten per cent. reduction
from his rent if he and his father, JOSEPH TRE-
LEAVEN, would- vote for Mr. ROBARTES. Not, let
the reader remember, that this was a gift of
ten pounds a-year or so, pure et simple, as other
diplomatists lately phrased it. There was a pre-
vious "ought" in the matter. Mr. ROBARTES, and
we suppose, other landlords, had already taken off
ten per cent., for it was the time of " distressed agri-
culturists" in 1852 ; and the TRELEAVENS promised
that, if their landlord would do what he ought, as
other landlords did, they, the TRELEAVENS, would
do what they ought, and vote for the Liberal Mem-
ber and their landlord's candidate. And, then,
another thing, the TRELEAVENS, as distressed agri-
culturists, were minded to vote for the Protectionist
member, and they surely deserved to see their dis-
tress alleviated either by the election of a Protec-
tionist, or by the bird-in-the-hand of ten per cent.
Queecumita sint—as the baronet seems to have said
to himself—the ten per cent. they must have. Still,
the laws against bribery, meant to be evaded by
their makers, must, of course, be evaded ; the intent
of the Act of Parliament it certainly behoved a
baronet and a magistrate to carry out, and he did
carry it out, at least, so the jury thought, and sym-
pathised with the baronet in his lapses memories,
which led him to swear to some six or seven things
in the lump, nearly ill of which he recanted in
It seems thit on the very eve of the elec-
tideotil.
n
ab
e employed inOther of his tenants--a Mr.
WILLIAM THOMAS to canvas the TRELEAVENS.
The TRELEAVENS were firm. Ten per cent.
off, or two cotes would be lost to
Roan's, perlight giTeis to iuNDALL,

No abatement of terra 4co uld be procured. " Per-
haps you had better," said the agent, " send for the
two men"—" Oh," 3:ep;lied Sir JOSEPH, "I can't do
that—/ shall be brough tup for bribery." Bribery,
of course, there was »c,t the slightest objection to,
but only " being brought up for it." Like steal-
ing among the old Spartans the thing was all right
enough, the being caught was the only fault ; and
a great fault indeed., it was under the Act of Par-
liament, designed to sharpen the wits of bribers,
not to destroy 'their trade. A county Baronet
must be a much greater blockhead to be caught
bribing, than a Spar tan to.be caught stealing; he
would deserve to be brought up and made an
example of, as a witless landlord:
However, it seems, in parallelism with another
(if it be another) well-known case, when bribers
and bribed fall out, truth, at least, gets its own.
Mr. WILLIAM THOMAS was guilty of rabbit shoot-
ing, and on Mrs. TRXMEAVAN'S occupation ; the
Baronet summons the rabbit shooter ; the widow
attends and gives evidence that she invited the
rabbit killer ; the case fell through ; the magis-
trates dismissed it. This was on the 28th of May—
on the 29th the baronet distrained on Mrs. TRE-
LEAVEN'S property for £llB, of which £56 was for
rent, due only at Lady-day (and Mrs. TRELEAVEN
had always before paid her rent yearly) and £62
for arrears. Now, it was proved to the satisfaction
of the Jury and the Court that from the year after
the election the rent had always been paid with the
ten per cent. deduction. The very clerk who
kept the account was summoned by the baronet to
prove that the reduction began before the election,
and was meant for a short time only ; but the
ledger itself proved that the reduction commenced
the year after the election, that is, in 1853, and con-
tinued till the very last year. The wictSw could
justly demand £6B 18s. which, she had 'once paid,
and the costs, but she brought her action of
" excessive distress," for £5O only, because of the
present absurd limitation of the County Court juris-
diction to that amount. The evidence of the widow,
of WILLIAM THOMAS, the landlord's bribing agent'
of the clerk called by the landlord, and of the
brother of the widow, who had paid the rent for
the widow, was conclusive.

To rebut this evidence there was literally nothing
but the oath of Sir JOSEPH SAWLE GRAVES SAWLE,
Baronet and Magistrate, that " what Mr. THOMAS
had sworn_to was all false—wholly false. He had
never made the promise ; THOMAS never referred to
the bargain or promise after 1852," and so forth.
Yet on cross-examination he admitted almost every-
thing THOMAS had sworn to—others he could not
recollect—it might be so or not—he could not say
whether he had had a conversation in that room
with THOMAS about the vote or not ; nor, though
he could recollect so accurately particulars about
the election six years ago, could he recollect par-
ticulars, not convenient to his ease, about th•
distress for rent only three months since !
The Judge, in summing up, expressed his doubts
as to " the probability of a gentleman, in Sir
JOSEPH'S position—a Baronet, and an enlightened
magistiate of the county, putting himself in the
power of his tenant THOMAS to make such disclo-
sures," but he was compelled to state that in the
conflict of evidence the tenant had given his evi-
dence more clearly than the landlord. The jury ,to
a verdict for the widow, added their belief that the
baronet and magistrate, and gentleman "had made
the promise, but that his memory had failed him."

We are sure, after this lesson, that the baronet
and magistrate is an ardent friend to the Ballot, if
he were not before. Had secret voting but been
the law of the land in 1852, Sir JOSEPH'S memory
would not have been at fault about promises to
tenants, and tenants would not have adjusted votes
to rents. We should probably never have heard
or written a word about Sir JOSEPH, and the non
mi ricordo landlord would have vegetated and been
gathered to his fathers in East Cornwall, unnoticed
by the press—the metropolitan press at least. We
need not point the tale with a moral about the
Ballot. Lord J. RUSSELL and Lord BROUGHAM,
too, are very much concerned lest it should teach
the intimidated tenant to lie. We have it on the
verdict of a jury that the want of the Ballot has led
a baronet, landlord, and magistrate to swear to un-
truths through failure of landlord memory.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR IN CHELTENHAM.-
Lord and Lady Chelmsford, with the Hon. Captain Thesiger,
and the Hon. Miss Thesiger, arrived in Cheltenham on
Saturday 'last from Malvern, on a visit to Lord de Saumarez,
at Montpellier Lodge. On Tuesday he lunched at Southam,
the seat of the Right Hon. the Earl of Ellenborough, and
in a few days will, we understand, proceed to London to
take leave of his son, an officer in the Enniskillen Dragoons,
who is about to start for India.—Cheltenham Examiner.

Miss Burdett Coutts. and Lord and Lady Sinclair
are among the visitors at the favourite northern watering-
place, Blackpool.

STEAM VESSELS.—A return moved for by Mr.
Baring, M.P., gives a list of 1,785 steam vessels, of 408,702
tons, as registered in the United Kingdom on or before New
Year's-day, 1858. Full particulars of the dimensions and
power of each vessel are given.
The Manchester Guardian announces the sus-
pension of the firm of Pardee, Hoomans; and Co.,Tca-rpet
manufacturers, of Kidderminster, with liabilities reported
at £BO,OOO to £lOO,OOO. The assets, consisting of trade
buildings, plant, &c., are stated to be large.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE IRONSTONE.—There is more
ironstone now being sent out of this county than was ever
previously known, and this fact seems to indicate an im-
provement in the iron trade. Large quantities of stone are
daily being sent from the Layton Stone Works to Wales
and Staffordshire, and it seems somewhat singular that just
as the mineral treasures of Staffordshire are showing indi-
cations of exhaustion this immense tract of ironstone in
Northamptonshire is being developed. We are informed
that the finest description of pig iron is made from this ore.
CITY OF LONDON TRADESMEN'S SOCIETY.—On
Thursday
evening this society held its annual festival at
the Royal Pavilion Hotel, North Woolwich, Mr. Dearsly in
the chair. After the usual loyal toasts, Mr. Beard, in an
appropriate speech, proposed the health of the chairman,
who,
in his reply, briefly adverted to the prosperous condi-
tion of the society,- The health of the visitors was
then proposed, and responded to by Mr. Beard. The com-
pany was numerous and the dinner super-excellent, and the
vocal portion of the entertainment—supplied by Messrs.
Gower, Williams, Mackney, and Hitchfield—by no means
inferior to the general goodness of the arrangements. The
company, which was numerous, broke up at a late hour,
OBSTRUCTION ON A RAILWAY.—On the 31st ult.
two pieces of timber and an iron bar were found placed
across the rails on the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolver-
hampton line, near Evesham. They were evidently placed
there for the purpose of throwing the train off the rails.
We (Worcesterslarc Chronicle) hope the dastardly ruffians
will be caught and severely punished. We understand a
large reward is offered 'for their apprehension.
TILE LlON.—Gerard, the lion-killer, in an article
in the Journal des Masseurs, calculates that there are now
60 lions in the subdivision of Bona, in Algeria, and that
from 1856 to 1857 the number of oxen and sheep destroyed
by them was about 10,000.
GOVERNMENT EMIGRATION.—Her Majesty's
Emigration Commissioners chartered yesterday afternoon,
the 9th inst., the Daphne, 750 tons, to sail from Southamp-
ton for Sydney, New South Wales, at £l4 9s. 6d. per sta-
tute adult, to be ready for the reception of passengers on
such day as the commissioners may fix between the 18th
and 25th of October. They have also given notice of their
intention to receive orders next Thursday, the 16th inst.,
for a ship to proceed to Adelaide, South Australia, to be
ready to sail any day between the 24th and 30th of October.
THE BLUECOAT BOYS DRILLED.—A conside-
rable number of the scholars under tuition at Christ's Hos-
pital, near Newgate-street, were subjected yesterday to the
exercise of " drill" under the direction and instruction of a
celebrated Crimean non-commissioned officer, specially
selected for that purpose by his Royal Highness the Duke
of Cambridge, president of the establishment. The boys
showed great aptitude in their attempts at marching, coun-
termarching, slow, and quick step, and other military
evolutions, though it was quite evident that they were
much retarded in their evolutions by their clumsily-formed
and heavy shoes, which still bear the uncouth form of the
time of Edward VI., while the yellow petticoat and
the blue overcoat of the same period, still worn by
them, proved to be so inconvenient that they
were obliged to fasten up these out-of-date gar-
ments before they could commence their exercises. There
is no doubt, if these "drills" continue, that an undress suit
fit for the purpose must be provided, or the cut of the
present mode materially altered. Several ladies were
present with the heads of departments in the school to
witness the movements of the boys, and hundreds, peeping
through the chinks in the boards facing Giltspur-street,
were much amused while witnessing the novel but interest-
ing evolutions of the Bluecoat Boys in their new eurcigiDg
IRMA Chriat'• Hoopital, Islowgette:ltrett.