The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOEL

Philippe, and who would not ? The execrable acts
and measures of the mock Citizen King would
be calculated by contrast to make white the blackest
character. We know not whether the French people
have taken this natural view in the comparison, as the
Quarterly Review professes ; we only know that all
rational people must be driven to this same inference ;
and our readers will recollect that a fortnight or three
weeks ago, before the Quarterly print in question
was published, we alone, we believe, in the English
press, did take this view in a leading article, expressly
drawing a comparison between the characters of Louis
Philippe and Robespierre, and awarding the superior
palm of political enormity to the Citizen King. It is
now, indeed, three months ago, since, adverting to the
same subject, we took occasion to make some remarks
upon the character of Robespierre in what an Even-
ing Paper, copying them, called a defence of that
Revolutionary dictator. Perhaps, we may take upon
ourselves to say, that we stood alone in our argu-
ment. It was, however, no defence, but a short
statement of facts. But whatever it may be called—
mitigation of judgment, or defence of character—
we stated then and repeat, that we know little of the
moving causes of Robespierre's acts and measures.
From whence do we derive the common opinion
which, like that of the Quarterly Review, paints
him as the blackest of monsters ? From the suspi-
cious source of party feeling, interest, and passion.
From the writings of jobbing Tories, interested in ex-
citing rancorous feelings of hostility between the,
two nations, out of which hostility their jobs and
plunder grew. As far as France is-concerned, we have
indeed Thiers's History of the Revolution, which
describes Robespierre in the most disadvantageous
colours—a description copied into the only decent
history of France which we have. Now, who is
Thiers ? A minister of the apostate of Orleans,
who is giving an account of the man who brought
his father, (Egalite), to the block. What could
be expected from such a source ? It may well be
said, in the words of Demosthenes, that the
" Oracle Philippizes." In the failure, therefore,
of trustworthy biographical and historical guides,
what ought men of common reflection to do ? Look
at the proved facts, and judge and infer for themselves.
Now, there are unquestionable facts with regard to
Robespierre, which must give us pause before passing
a too hasty judgment on the alleged monstrosity of the
revolutionary Sylla. Though we know little of Robes-
pierre, as we have said, we know this, that he com-
menced his legislative career by a motion for the abo-
lition of negro slavery, and remained the steadiest and
most effectual supporter of that cause of humanity to
the end. We know that he refused one judgeship,
and divested himself of the functions of another, be-
cause he could not bring himself to award the punish-
ment of death. We knov, that in a competition essay
by which he gained the prize, he advocated the neces-
sity of abolishing the punishment of death ; for
which purpose he brought repeated motions forward
in the National Convention. We know that his living
sister, Camille Robespierre, attests that he was not
only a man of punctilious honour, but of remarkable
humanity in private life. We know that the whole
of the trading middle classes—the whole of the
Common Courier! of Paris—the very same class who
elect and support the Members of our metropolitan
districts—supported him to the last, which was not
likely if he was the monstrous character represented.
We know, and Thiers admits, hiS extraordinary power
in influencing and making friends—s-that several of his
friends insisted on sacrificing their lives in conjunction
with him on the 9th of Thermidor—and that his bro-
ther Augustin, a military colleague of Buonaparte who
speaks in the highest terms of him, voluntarily offered
to die with him, and did, in fact, die with him. That
he was a disinterested man is quite clear ; for even al-
though he was three times unanimously elected Presi-
dent of the French Convention—(a pretty strong
proof, we should think, of the estimation in
which he was held)—he lived in a most unostentatious
and temperate manner in lodgings which we have not
long since seen, at the Hotel Debri, Rue St. Honore.
That he was a man of high talent and convincing elo-
quence is quite clear from the results of the latter
in the Club of the Jacobins, the Parisian Com-
mon Council, and the Convention ; notwithstanding
the sneer of Thiers, at his systematic and studied imi-
tation of Rousseau, which, by the way, only proves
his tact in recognizing genuine eloquence—that of the
heart. His scientific talents cannot be arraigned ; for
the circumstance which brought him into notice was a
cause which lie gained as a barrister at Arras, in which
he defended the right of erecting electric rods against
the popular prejudice ; and stood forward as the clam-
pion of the newly-invented science of electricity by Dr.
Franklin. We have said enough for our purpose for
the present ; we shall in another article take an oppor-
tunity to refute the remaining fallacy in the Quarterly
Reviewer's article, respecting the Girondists, which
will show to what extent Robespierre was concerned in
the sanguinary collision which took place between them
and the " Mountain," and which produced the " reign
of terror."—Morning Advertiser.
The reception of Mr. O'Connell in Dublin, although
the Whig-Radical party made an attempt to give an eclat
to the scene, must have been a source of considerable mor-
tification to the agitator, and cutting rebuke to the silly
people in the towns of England and Scotland who have
been degrading themselves by running at his heels. His
procession through the streets of Dublin is described
as far more miserable even than those which a few
years ago the London Radicals used to get up in honour
of Mr. Hunt. That it was such as justified this do-
scription we have no doubt ; but to do so it must, in-
deed, have been a deplorable affair. No horsemen—
no carriages—were there ; the only assemblage, as our
correspondent informs us, consisted of a sprinkling of
the dirty and ragged rabble of the gutters. This is a
falling-off for which it is not difficult to account. The
populace is proverbially changeable in its temper,
and opinions ; but the turnings and twistings of
Mr. O'Connell are too rapid even for the mob of
Dublin to follow. They do not understand the joke
of commending and supporting this year the same men
whom they were taught last year to despise and detest.
It might have been urged, and urged truly, in vindica-
tion of the apparent change in Mr. O'Connell's senti-
ments, that it as no more, iry 'reality, than a change in
his position. Last year he. did the Whig Ministers
of the Crown were political antagonists ; at present he
bears the trophies of undisputed victory, and drags
along in abject captivity, chained to the wheels of his
triumphal chariot, his former opponents. But he did
not present Lord Melbourne, Lord John-Russell, and
the rest of his Ministerial slaves, with his chains upon
their limbs and their necks under his feet, to the
material eye, the gross corporeal sense, of the Dublin
mob, and it required this to enable them to understand
his new position and his new language. When he
next enters Dublin in triumph he will probably avoid
the risk of a similar failure, by peremptorily requiring
the personal attendance of his servants and the King's.
—Morning Post,

Thursday morning, as Captain Huntley, a gentle-
man residing in Gower-street, was driving in his gig with
his groom, along Parliament-street, the horse, having been
frightened, started off, and, falling, threw them both out.
The Captain was much hurt, but the groom escaped with
little injury.
On Tuesday last, about 10 o'clock in the evening,
a singular, and indeed serious illusion, occurred to a la-
bourer named Shaw, in the employ of John Holland,
Esq., of Carrington House, near this town. He had
drank a pot or two of beer, but was not intoxicated, at a
public-house in New Bolingbroke, and was on his return
home, when having passed the chapel, and walking along
the shrubbery of the above mentioned gentleman, he fan.;
tied that one of the trees started out of the hedge, crossed
the ditch, and to his great horror, placed itself directly be-
fore him. In vain did he cross the road, the shrub still fol-
lowed, and was, he thought, so near him, that bending
down his head, the poor fellow put forth his hands, and with
one effort endeavoured to rush through it—he fell on his
back, violently knocked down as he imagined ; he succeded
in getting up, and ran off, alarming the neighbourhood with
his shrieks. He reached the bailiff's door, in a pitiable con-
dition, speechless and trembling. So convinced, indeed,
was he of the reality of the apparition he had seen, and so
great the shock of fright he had received, that for the whole
of that night, and the greater part of the following day, he
remained in nearly a similar state ; and, although previously
never suspected of cowardice, he now affirms that nothing
on earth could tempt him to pass the place again in the
dark, no, not even if there were twenty men with him.—
Boston Herald,

LONDON SESSION3.-FRIDAY.

-----40.--..
On Thursday a case came on lefore the Recorder and
Aldermen, at the Adjourned 9Arter Sessions, which /
ex-
cited considerable interest. -
Upon the 22d of June emale child, about two years
old, was found standing- ' the parish of St. Mary, Ethel-
burga, and was not awned. A policeman took the child to
the station-hou•; of Bishopsgate without, there being no
place of protection or refuge in the former parish, and pub-

licity having been given to the circumstances, it was ex-
pected that the parents would be forthcoming. No appli-
cation, however, was made for the infant, and she was
lodged in the workhouse of St. Botolpb, Bishopsgate, the
parish officers of St. Mary Ethelburga having refused, by
the humane advice of their vestry-clerk, to have anything
to do with her, although there existed no doubt that it was
in that parish alone that she was seen. The facts hav-
ing been stated to the Lord Mayor at the Mansion
House, his Lordship and a brother Magistrate immedi-
ately made an order upon the parish authorities to main-
tain the child.

At these sessions the order was appealed against.
Mr. PAY NE appeared for the respondent, and, having
detailed the particulars of the case, said that the parish
officers of St. Mary Ethelburga, upon being applied to, in
the first instance, were willing to support the child, as they
were bound to do, but refused, upon consulting the vestry
clerk. The expense was thus thrown off the shoulders of
a parish upon which there were very few claims, and upon
those of a parish which had a superabundance of pau-
perism in it.

Mr. BODKIN, for the appeal, contended that there was
nothing to prove that the child had a claim upon the parish
of St. Ethelburga. No settlement had been proved to
have been established. In fact, the child was what was
called casual poor. She was first seen by a fruitwoman in
the street, apparently coming from Bishopsgate Without.
If she had been at once taken to the overseers of St. Mary
Ethelburga they would have been obliged to provide for
her no doubt ; but the officer took her into the parish from
which she seemed to have come, and the question was,
where she first became chargeable. He could not see how
the parish of St. Mary Ethelburga could at all be made re-
sponsible.
The RECORDER—The child ought to have been sent to
the overseers the morning after it was found, and if they
refused to take it under their protection an indictment
ought to have been tried, and that would have settled the
question. I certainly should recommend an arrangement, for
the parishes must not play at shuttlecock with the poor
infant.

Mr. BODKIN—There is no pretence for sending the child
:o us. We shall have nothing to do with it.
Mr. PAYNE—We say that where the child was dropped,
he parish is obliged to support it.
After some further observations from Counsel,

The RECORDER said that good. sense and good feeling
were certainly in favour of the order of the Lord Mayor
and his brother Magistrate, but no authorities had been
produced in support of the decision of the Magistrates.
He should, therefore, quash the order, subject to a case.
The order was then, but much against Mr. Payne's wish,
quashed, and the overseers of St. Mary's Elthelburga, will
be proceeded against by indictment. The poor child has
been christened in the workhouse of St. Mary Ethelburga.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

GUILDHALL.

Yesterday a gentleman attended to make oath to an affi.
davit of debt, to be used in the Royal Court of the island o'

Jersey.
Mr. Alderman T. WOOD said this was one of the cases
in which he could only take a declaration.
The gentleman said a simple declaration would not be ad-
mitted in a court of law. It would not think of grounding
proceedings on evidence not taken on oath. A declaration
might, after the passing of the new Act, be received in
English courts, but the King's writ did not run, nor did the
English law prevail in Jersey. The Courts there acted
upon the old Norman law, which would not recognise any
other evidence than that confirmed by oath.
Mr. Alderman T. WOOD said there was a clause in the
Act which met this particular case. After reciting that
two Acts had been passed for the easy recovery of debts in
his Majesty's colonies in America and New South Wales,
and that it was expedient to substitute a declaration for the
affidavit on oath required by the said Acts ; it went on to
enact not simply that a declaration should be substituted
for an oath as to the colonies named in the said two Acts,
but as to " any of the- territories, plantations, colonies, or
dependencies abroad, being within and part of his Majes-
ty's dominions." The circumstance that the old Norman
law prevailed in Jersey did not affect the case. The Spanish
law prevailed in Trinidad, and the French law in the
Mauritius, but they were within the operation of the clause
he had just read. So Jersey must be deemed a depen-
dency of the Crown.
The gentleman said he was apprehensive this Act would
cause him some difficulty. The authorities of Jersey would
be indisposed probably to abide by the new system.
Mr. Alderman T. WOOD said he would not be the only
person the Act would put into difficulty. By the eighth
article, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and
other corporations, were empowered to substitute a decla-
ration for an oath. This related to oaths of office ; and,
as the form of declaration was prescribed, a person, after
beginning, " I, A. 8., do solemnly and sincerely declare,
that I will faithfully perform the duties of the office of
—," must wind up with this nonsense—" and I make
this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same
to be true."

The gentlemen retired to prepare his affidavit in the
new form.

MARLBORO UGH-STREET.

Yesterday three omnibus proprietors, named Hillton,
Burton, and Blore, were summoned before the sitting
Magistrate, Mr. DYER, to answer to an information laid
by the New Police for causing an obstruction in Ox-
ford-street.

Mr. Robert Blore was the only one of the three defen-
dants who appeared.
Policeman C 27 stated that he saw three omnibuses, one
belonging to each of the defendants, following close to each
other and stopping altogether in such a manner as to form
a serious obstruction in Oxford-street. He desired the ve-
hicles to move on ; but the middle one which was con-
ducted by Mr. Blore, was the only one inclined to take
any notice of his request. Mr. Blore, though
was however unable to comply, as his omnibus was blockedb
up before and behind, by the two omnibuses of the other
defendants. Under these circumstances he thought it
best to summons all the parties, and to leave it to the Ma-
gistrates to determine the question as to who was the of-
fending party.
Mr. Blore admitted that the statement of the police-
man was true. His omnibus certainly was one of the three
vehicles which obstructed the road, but it was entirely with-
out his consent, and it occurred only in consequence of
the system which was pursued by the omnibus committee,
who had determined to run him off the road, because he re-
fused to become a member, and to pay a large sum to
them for a time. He had obtained a very fair connexion
by taking passengers considerably beyond the usual place
of stopping which: the- other omnihuses used ; but, fio
sooner was this-'diseovered,'than the minibus' committee
gave orders for their vehicles to continue their opposition
throughout the extra distance.
A Gentleman named Hudson came forward, and said
that the present case was similar in its features to the one
lately tried in the New Court, Old Bailey, in which 20
persons out of 22 indicted for a conspiracy against Aaron
Bray, had been found guilty. Mr. Blore would not join
the Committee, and consequently he had been marked for
ruin. In proof of the pertinacity of the omnibus Com-
mittee, he would only state that, notwithstanding the large
expenses, and the heavy penalties they had been subjected
to, they had, up to the present time, continued their efforts
against Mr. Bray with unabated vigour.
Mr. DYER said that it appeared clear that Mr. Blore
was the aggrieved party, and had been included in the sum-
monses through mistake. He should order fresh summonses
to be issued against the other two defendants, and allow
Blore to appear as a witness.

QUEEN- S Q U ARE:
Mary Ann Evans, a middle-aged female, was brought
up in custody, charged with illegally pledging a vast quan-
tity of valuable linen, the property of ladies who had en-
trusted her with it for the purpose of washing.
The prisoner, in her defence, pleaded distress, and the
sickness of her husband and family, but acknowledged
pledging the whole of the property.
Mr. Graham, the prosecutor, (who is a magistrate, and
sat upon the bench),trecommended the prisoner to mercy ;
and, in consequence, she was only fined in the mitigated
penalty of 51. ; in default of paying which to one month's
imprisonment.

UNION- HALL.
Yesterday, William Lake, a shopman, in the employ of
William Amor, a pawnbroker, in the Lambeth-Walk, was
brought before Mr. WEDGWOOD, charged on suspicion of
robbing
The prisoner who had great confidence reposed in him by
his employer, was sent to purchase a quantity of unredeemed
pledges from a pawnbroker named Newbey, in Drury-lane,
and for this purpose a sum of money, amounting to 501.
was entrusted to him to effect that purchase. The goods
were
selected, packed up in bundles, and placed in a cart
which
as ordered for the purpose ; but the prisoner, in-
aye
having the property conveyed at once to his em-
1v his employer.
sent the carman to a house at Newington, where he
in-
stead
prisoner) intended to have set up in business for him-
self.(psheottl Out of five large packages containing unredeemed
pledges of various descriptions, the prisoner had one of them

taken to his own residence, and upon a subsequent occa-
sion, when he was suspected of dishonest practices, a
search warrant was obtained at this office, and a portion of
the goods purchased on account of his employer were dis-
covered.

The prisoner denied the charge, and said that he had
purchased the goods found at his house on his own and not
on his master's account. He also endeavoured to show that
be received a per centage from his employer on the profits
of the sale of goods. This latter statement was made with
a view to make it appear that he was concerned with his
employer in the business in such a manner as to exempt him
from a charge of the above nature being established. He
was fully committed.
Burrage and Newcomb, the two officers who were di-
rected by the Magistrates to make inquiry into the circum-
stances respecting the communication of an anonymous
writer, addressed to Lady Grey, the wife of Sir Charles
Grey, threatening to set fire to his property, have returned
from the Oaks, near Carshalton, without being enabled to
trace the offence to any individual. The affair has created
a considerable sensation in the neighbourhood, more espe-
cially as it appears from the uniform kindness and liberality
with which every person in Sir Charles Grey's employ has
been treated, his servants and labourers feel the utmost in-
terest, and have all lent their aid to the officers in endea-
vouring to discover the person or persons who wrote the
letters containing the threats of setting fire to the property.
A strong feeling of indignation has also prevailed that such
diabolical threats should have been addressed to Lady Grey
in the absence of her husband, Sir Charles, now abroad ;
more particularly as her Ladyship, since her residence at
the Oaks, had displayed much generosity and benevolent
traits in her character, which are well known, and. estimated
in the neighbourhood, where she and her family have taken
up their abode.