The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUELIO JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In the night between Tuesday and yes-
terday they who chose to watch, and were not dis-
couraged by the doubts of astronomers, were re-
warded with a spectacle which cannot be imagined
or forgotten. The sky was unusually clear, and,
till about an hour before midnight, it made no sign,
and the eye turned in vain to the east, as men look
at a fortress that will not give the challenge. But
when the irregular circle of stars that had been in-
dicated by former observers had well cleared the
horizon, and moved some points to the south, first
one meteor then another shot across the sky in
various regions and with various directions, but
plainly from that one/quarter. The spectator had
soon counted half-a-dozen ; then he felt sure he had
seen thirty ; then six or seven in a minute ; then
they appeared faster than we could count them.
Then there came two or three together; then not
less than a dozen of all kinds. Some shot across the
heavens, leaving long, bright, and lingering trains,
the star itself seeming to explode, and instantly dis-
appear. Some darted as quickly and as bright, but
without trains. Some struck the sight, like sparks
from a forge, everywhere at once. Some seemed to
fall, over trees or houses, bright to the last, but
with the ruddy hues of lower atmosphere. Look
where we would it was the same ; in the far west,
and throughout the entire north, there was eitligr
the bright glancing speck of light, or the long train,
or what seemed au actual ball of light, that illumi-
nated the country, and was slow to die away. As
the night advanced these meteors chased one another
across the sky, following in one another's track, or
running side by side. The heavens seemed alive with
this unwonted host. There were times when it
seemed as if a mighty wind had caught the old stars,
loosed*them from their holdings, and swept them
across the firmament. The Olympian himself might
have been supposed on his throne launching his bolts
against an offending or forgetful world. There he
was all but visible, for at that one place there were
meteors that appeared, only as spots to disappear,
or to traverse only just as much space as would
show motion. That, in fact, was the very pathway
of all this artillery, which was thus foreshortened,
like a column of soldiers, as seen by those that have
to bear the brunt. In the course of two or three
hours there must have been many thousands of thew
visitors, usually so rare. Even when the sky be-
came partially overcast, they still showed themselves
at every opening, and shone through the veil of
clouds. Few, indeed, who saw it had ever seen the
like, or could expect ever to see it. As to the
sounds commonly heard on these occasions—the
explosions, the bissings, and the rumblings—we
cannot speak, for the wind was high, and it must
be remembered that the stillness ascribed by poets
to the night has utterly left this isle, for hardly is
there a spot where it is not possible any hour of
the night to hear several mail or luggage trains.
As it seems to us, people have been a good deal
taken by surprise. The apparition has been far out
of the common range,of ideas. In old chronicles
one reads of such things, exaggerated doubtless, and
told without science or accuracy ; and travellers bring
home every now and then tales of heavenly appear-
ances likely to make a great impression upon men
at sea, or in solitudes, or among savages, or where
everything else is strange and inconceivable. The
heavens display their glory and unfold their mar-
vellous treasures much more within the tropics or
under the poles than in this temperate zone, where
earth seems to rob even heaven of its brightness.
For aught we know there is no real reason why the
wonders that have been should not be again, why
time should not have other novelties in store, like
those by which cities have been suddenly buried or
continents submerged. A cloudy sky hid the last
visit of these mysterious strangers. They were heard
of from other countries, and from our own provinces,
but an inveterate prejudice localises all such infor
mation, and what is out of sight is soon out of mind.
Then we are told this is a matter of degree, and that
there are other periodic returns of meteors, besides
occasional appearances, familiar to everybody out
much of a night. Further, it is little more than a
century since the principles of modern astronomical
science were brought to bear on this subject. All
this may naturally account for the little expectation
or little thought given to what really is a most start-
ling and most awful phenomenon. There will, how-
ever, be no more of this ignorance or indifference,

for nobody who saw well what was to be sGdil the
other night will forget his impressions should he live
to the next return. It is the spectacle we are speak-
ing of, and its suggestive character. The 11106 L mar-
vellous fact in the history and inquiry is the actual
harmlessness of these portentous appearances, and
the extremely little palpable result of any kind. A
few collections in a few small rooms contain all the
harvest of the heavens. Aerolites are so few that
temples were formerly built for their reception, and
religions founded on them. Industry has collected
the authenticated instances, and in no case does it
appear that the least damage has been done to life
or property. In the old saying, the throes of the
mountain end in one of the smallest of living things ;
but here Heaven shows itself in its sublimest
mood, armed with the most terrible weapons, and
the only results ever known have been here and
there a stone or lump of metal buried in the ground.
But science, which dispe:s so many terrors, and
proves so many appearances illushins and nothing
more, does not do so in this instance. Once in a
human generation, and thrice in a century—for
in this matter man and the material universe
seem strangely in accord—this earth has to en-
counter an immense cloud of stones revolving round
the sun, in an orbit of the same size as its own, but
in a contrary direction. This cloud of stones is be-
lieved to constitute a sort of ring, diffused over the
whole orbit, like a greathighway of rolling or flying
stones, though not in uniform density. However,
there is no escaping them, whatever they are, for
the breadth of this highway or stream is compared
to the moon's orbit, and it takes two or three suc-
cessive years, or, we should say, successive Novem-
bers, for the earth to enter and clear it. These
stones enter our atmosphere with a velocity of forty
miles a second, and destroy themselves, as it were,
by their own violence, for, when once arrested by
our grosser air, they are instantly melted and dissi-
pated in the air. That process, however, is only
possible with very small stones, estimated by grains,
for an aerolite of only a few pounds could only have
its surface affected by such a momentary operation.
Is it quite impossible that some day the earth may
have to encounter more bulky metal, more compar-
able to our mundane artillery ? Showers of stones
there have been ; and there evidently is no limit to
their size either in history or in science, for the laws
which govern the movement of every body in our
solar system apply equally to all sizes and all sub-
stances, from this earth to a grain of dust, from a
mass of metal to a vapour. Here is a shower of
missiles of unknown weight, and inconceivable velo-
city, always in motion from some unknown battery,
and every human generation has to run the gauntlet.
Will this atmosphere of ours always prove an abso-
lute protection, and turn off these bolts, as merit is
said to do the shafts of envy and detraction ? That
is a question at least to be thought of.
HERALD.—True to their vindictive purpose, the
Jamaica Committee, as at present resolved, will
indict ex-Governor Eyre at the next Old Bailey
Sessions, about the middle of the current month.
Should the grand • jury find a true bill, which we
think impossible, the indictment, it is said, will be
removed into the Court of Queen's Bench, and the
trial thus further delayed. Delay in legal proceed-
ings is generally pernicious.; in this instance, how-
ever, it is salutary, as tending to allay passions and
soften prejudices. But we agree with Our able con-
temporary, the Law Times, in thinking that the ex-
hibition about to be made is disgraceful to our juris-
prudence. Here is a public servant prosecuted by
private individuals upon a charge of the highest
felony for official misdeeds. Where is the Govern-
ment that should arraign him if he be guilty ?
Where is the Government that should undertake
his defence if it deems him innocent ? No fault,
however, can be found with the executive, which
must be ruled by the acts of Parliament as they
stand. Still, we would call attention to a circum-
stance, illustrating the same principle, which oc-
curred some years ago. A deputation, professedly
interested in a question of diplomacy, waited upon
a foreign Sovereign as representative of English
political views. immediately a bill was laid before
the House of Commons, declaring such meddlings
with the ordinary and proper functions of the state
illegal. And why not in a matter of justice? If,
says the Law Times, there were a public prosecutor,
the humiliating scene of rival advertisements and
partisan appeals on a question of life and death
would have been spared us. But this is not a full
statement of the case. We leave these processes to
be conducted by the caprice and intrigue of per-
sonal hate. Ought any man to be put upon his
deliverance to answer a capital impeachment at the
instance of a cabal calling itself a committee, with-
out being previously examined before a magis-
trate ? The commonest scoundrel in a rural dis-
trict, accused of murder, is never committed for
trial until a prima facie case of guilt has been
made out against him in presence of the local
justices. Yet, where the persons are wealthy,
or can extort subscriptions from the credit-

lous, and the individual persecuted seems of im-
portance, the formalities of preliminary examina-
tions can be dispensed with, and an indictment laid
before the supreme courts upon mere affidavits.
Now, the principal argument for the abolition of
grand juries has always been that the committing
magistrate is a grand jury in himself, as being
legally and personally qualified to determine whether
the charge against a subject of the Crown has been
so far sustained that he should be exposed to the
ignominy of a trial in the felon's dock. Suppose
the grand jury abolished. Any one might be forced
into the Central Criminal Court, and put to all the
costs of an elaborate defence, whether his witnesses
had to come from Abyssinia or the Himalayas, and
a verdict of acquittal would simply imply that he
had escaped at the expense of a few hundreds or
thousands in money, and an incalculable amount of
mental suffering. We hold all this to ,be wrong.
When a state wrong is done the state is insulted,
and the state should vindicate its own honour.
Here, however, after the Government have instituted
a solemn, elaborate, and exhausting investigation,
Mr. Eyre is exonerated from all blame beyond that
of a partial error of judgment—one of those errors,
perhaps, by which nations and empires have occa-
sionally been saved ; but a little coterie, of one
opinion in politics, interferes, pushes the state asid=e,
takes possession of the law, and insists upon putting
a man, lately the responsible administrator of
affairs in an important British colony, in peril of his
life. It is monstrous and shameful. Virtually, in
this case the Jamaica committee prosecutes, nomi-
nally the Crown does so. Is there no discretion
vested in the Crown, as represented by its law
officers, to refuse ? If not, it may be hoped that so
serious a defect in the law will not long be permitted
to deface and scandalise the statute book of the
realm. That this is a gross partisan prosecution we
have from the beginning affirmed. It is opposed to
every maxim of English justice, The law of Eng-
land, the equity of Englishmen, have usually as-
sumed a man to be innocent until he is proved guilty.
But what are the persecutors of Mr. Eyre doing ?
They have condemned him a hundred times already;
they have hanged and burned him in effigy, and
declared their eagerness to hang and burn him in
the flesh ; they have denied him the fair play which
is not refused to the most vulgar malefactor ; they
have endeavoured to pack, out of public opinion, a
jury for his conviction beforehand. But when such
malicious artifice is employed, the process defeats
its own object. The ease is taken out of the ordinary
category. We feel no compunction, for example,
in expressing our hope that a body of English gen-
tlemen composing an English grand jury will in-
dignantly dismiss the indictment, and prevent the
Jamaica Committee from displaying its factious
rancour, and blackening the witness-box of a solemn
court of justice with a flood of negro perjury specially
imported from Jamaica. The petty jury, should
the trial ever take place, will, of course, be locked
up while it drags its slow length along ; but who
doubts that the Jamaica Committee would influence
it if they could ?—for what else are they attempting
to do now—what but to prejudge the charge against
this man, whose blood they despair of taking, yet
whose life they expect to ruin? The latest mani-
festation, anticipatory of the great sensation scene
they fondly yearn for at the Old Bailey, is a docu-
ment issued by the Committee of the British and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society—a body which has
no legitimate claim to a voice in the matter at all.
There are no slaves in Jamaica, and there is no
" anti-slavery," however much there may be of
" pro-negro" as against " anti-English" principle
in the prosecution of Mr. Eyre. But the society
assumes that besides emancipating slaves its duty
is to protect those who have been emancipated al-
ready. Was G. W. Gordon ever " emancipated" ?
The committee say so, but the commission never
ascertained the fact. Of course, they reject the
evidence concerning him as false and calumniatory.
Because, however, a particular association, animated
by one idea, moved by one interest, discarding
national sympathy, despising all ideas of govern-
ment, believing in no human good out of Africa, and
pledged to execute vengeance upon a public servant
for having rescued an European community from a
negro terror, devotes itself to the endeavour, ori-
ginated by a self-elected body, styling itself a
Jamaica Committee, ought the machinery of the
law to be placed at its disposal, to be worked at its
pleasure? It will have been observed that the

people of the anti-slavery clique altogether suppress
the undoubted testimony which, produced too late
for the Royal commissioners to consider, demon-
strated the existence of a deeply-laid conspiracy of
which Gordon was the head, contriver, and centre.
These have been the tactics of the ultra-negrophi-
lists from the commencement. How did they treat
the unchallengeable statement made on behalf of
the Eyre Defence and Aid Fund ? Mr. Bright's
organ did not notice it for a week. It then garbled
two quotations from speeches ou colonial policy by

Lord -Russell and Earl Grey. It next repeated hill
of the facts to which Lieut. Edenborough is
ready
to swear, leaving out all mention of the main point,which was that Gordon, after buying the OOP
ammunition, and military stores, was, while pre-:
tending to embark them for Hayti, to hang aboutthe coast, and ultimately land them in Jamaica at a;
point near St. Thomas itself. It then entirely omitted
any reference to the letters, memoranda, and speechei
in which Gordon distinctly planned, prophesied, an
summoned the rebellion. The Committee of the
Anti-Slavery Society, which we regret to see lola'
ing itself to these discreditable manoeuvres, do like:.
wise. They ignore, in the first place, the fact that
it is disproved that Mr. Gordon, when 'arrested:
was not resident within the district proclahned
under martial law. llis house was" in the declared
territory, and he was only arrested beyond it be-
cause he had fled to escape the penalties of treason.
This was not made sufficiently clear to the
commissioners. Indeed while rendering fultjustie,e
to their impartiality and desire to elicit the truth,
we are bound to remark upon a point which seems
hitherto to hare escaped observation. Of the thou'
sand witnesses examined nine-tenths had been
prompted by the Jamaica Committee. There was
a corresponding body agitating, organising,
lecting and disbursing money, keeping an office
open, advertising for evidence, paying the expenses
for every black man, woman, or child willing to ~,
sworn. On the other hand, there were generally
the educated and independent residents, the clergit
the magistrates, the merchants, and planters, of the
island, with a few negroes who stood in fear of their
seditious compatriots. But all this the two COin'
mittees—one in aim and spirit—leave out of view'.
They call upon the Government to assume the in-
itiative in the criminal prosecution of ex-Governor
Eyre. The Government, of course, declines to be-
come an accomplice of their prejudice and spite. •
Nevertheless, it appears that the dignity of a Crown
prosecution, with or without executive sanction, can
be stamped upon the indictment. Whether this be
true or not—and the state of the law upon the sub-
ject is confessedly dubious—we once more repeat
that the spectacle of this trial, if it takes place, an?,
whatever the issue, will be scandalous, and should
suggest an immediate change in our system of ill"
risprudence so far as the rights of individuals to in'
stitute prosecutions for public and state offences are
concerned.