The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-27 00:00:00

to the venality and corruption recently dis-
closed to be so rife, and requiring, indeed,
such vigorous extirpation. The representative
system, if you will, is on its trial, so far as
relates to the necessity of its modification.
Hence the clamour for Reform, which has been the
bone of contention among Parties session after ses-
sion, during the chief part now of the 10 years last
past ; and the scrambling for and wrangling over
which has in reality led to so many abrupt changes of
Administration. That the Constitution would sur-
vive this imaginary trial, however, Lord BROUGHAM
yesterday declared that he for one entertained no
doubt whatever ; and this simply he appears to
have added, because he had every reliance upon the
corruption itself being completely extirpated.
The learned Lord's own device, for its
extirpation, we know. It is simple enough,
in all conscience, and certainly upon the
♦ery face of it wonderfully well calculated to
prove eminently effectual. Our facetious Punch,
if we mistake not, through the cunning pencil of
TENNIEL, illustrated the poignant reference made
upon a former and a very recent occasion by Lord
BROUGHAM, to his own triumphant demonstration
of the absolute efficacy of the plan hinted at—
namely, when, as the Old Reformer, he rendered
participation in the Slave-trade Felony ! Let but
that trenchant scalpel be applied to this long fes-
tering gangrene in our representative system—and
we shall have less chance in future of hearing any-
one talking about the Constitution being upon its
trial—be he a Royal Highness or an ex-Chancellor.
Extending his glance, however, beyond the
ocean borders of our own land, Lord BROUGHAM
yesterday referred, as was indeed but natural in
this momentous crisis in the affairs of Europe,
to the actual situation and future prospects of the
Italian people in their struggle for independence.
Whatever might have been the occult motives for
the war, whatever may have been the secret signi-
ficance of the " idea" in which it originated, that is
on the part of France, or rather of her imperial
ruler, NAPOLEON 111., the noble and learned lord
expresses his conviction that even so far " a certain
amount of good has come out of it "—a very great
step having, according to his view, been made through
the late campaign towards the political emancipa-
tion of the Roman Peninsula. Lord BROU&HA3I
acknowledges thereupon explicitly that his own
especial aspiration in their regard is (ia regard to
these brave Italians) " to see them under the King of
SARDINIA, as the only practicable mode of
insuring their independence." Then follows
this impressive allegory— an apologue, so to
express it, sufficiently suggestive in its way,
even though it is through the stenographic
medium of the terse telegram, that it can
alone as yet be regarded. " Alluding to France,"—
queth the telegram, echoing these thoughts of Lord
BROUGHAM in acid thrills through the tele-
graphic wire from Edinburgh to London—" he
pictured the great tempter holding out before that
nation the laurel, the emblem of warlike glory, and
expressed his hope that the French would not be
deceived by it ; and he described the tempter as
likewise offering to this country the apple, the
emblem of the fruits of the earth, and trying to

lull this country into a false security, leading it to
abandon its preparations for defence. In this last
he knew that the tempter would fail. This coun-
try, he said, did not distrust its neighbours,
but it trusted to itself. Their duty was to
be prepared by sea and land in every way
in whien an attack was possible, so as to render it
impossible not only that the attack should succeed,
but that it should be attempted. We did the best
both for our neighbour and ourselves by being com-
pletely and absolutely prepared tor whatever might
happen." Let England lay those words to heart
and weigh them well in her innermost conscience.
They are words of wisdom and prudence. They
are words dropped from the lips of of " an old man
eloquent," who—whatever another old man (not
at all eloquent) may think or feel upon these sub-
jects of vital import to
_the country and the Consti-
tution—has certainly been in no way injuriously

influenced in his patriotism or in his judg-
ment by any imperial blandishments either
at St. Cloud or the Tuileries. It may be that
these imperial blandishments possess in some
mysterious way an additional seductiveness
when lavished in the more sylvan regions of
Compiegne. Whatever the cause of it they manifestly
do act differently upon Lord BROUGHAM and Lord
PALMERSTON. The latter overweeningly courtly
and conciliatory in his manner, presents a marked
contrast to the former, who remains to the last,
through all, above all, and beyond all, heart and
soul, body and genius a right-down, uncompro-
mising, independent Englishman !

Our lengthened reports elsewhere will show at a
glance only too plainly how disastrous has been
that fearful gale of yesterday. Telegrams brought
tidings to Lloyd's before nightfall from all the out-
ports of the stranding of more than seventy
vessels, accompanied, in too many instances, with a
deplorable loss of life. The coast-railways
have been, in several places, carried
away, or so far destroyed as to interrupt
the regular course of traffic --v- as for example
along the coast-lines near Exeter and Hastings..
But, above all disastrous and deplorable, is the news
brought to us from Liverpool of the loss of the
splendid ocean steam-ship the Royal Charter, near
Bangor, in Muffa Red Wharf Bay, with the loss of
some 429 souls, out of the 450 who left Melbourne
on the 26th of August on their homeward voyage
from Australia. Eleven out of those 450 appear to
have landed at Queenstown—all the rest, passen-
gers and crew (with the exception of ten, who are
said to have been providentially saved from the
wreck) have, since the landing of those eleven
at Queenstown (according to the brief and some-
what confused accounts yet received) most
lamentably perished. The Royal Charter is
said, besides this, to have carried down with her half a
million of gold—according to one of those who,
fortunately for them, landed at Queenstown, 79,000
ounces. As the report adds, however, " The gold
will, of course, be easily recovered, but, alas ! not
so the poor people who have perished." The gold
even to the amount of 79,000 ounces, even if en-
tirely lost, is but of trivial value, remembering those
four hundred and upwards of our fellow-creatures
who have thus died together within sight of the
old fatherland! The precise locality in which this
catastrophe occurred is described as a spot
situated two or three miles to the westward of
Puffin Island, in the Isle of Anglesea, and six
or seven miles to the north-west of Beaumaris.
The precise time of the fatal shipwreck cannot
as yet at least it appears to be accurately estimated
—the telegraph having been seriously injured, and
the railway itself, in fact, bodily washed away at
parts on the line between Chester and Birkenhead.

Altogether our impression of this evening con-
veys but a melancholy record of lives lost, ships
stranded or foundered, and property to an immense
amount irrecoverably destroyed.

Parliament was this day formally prorogued, in
the House of Lords, until the 16th of December.
Sir C. R. Rushout and the Hon. Lady Rushout
have left Fenton's Hotel for Brighton.