The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-21 00:00:00

QUEENSTOWN, WEDNESDAY 'EVENING.

The Liverpool, New York, and Philadelphia Com-
pany's steamer Edinburgh, Captain Brooks, from
New York on the 9th inst. has arrived. She
brings the United States' mails and 33 cabin and
95 steerage passengers. She landed the mail for
Ireland.

In political and commercial circles at New Or-
leans the general opinion was that President Lin-
coln's inaugural speech meant war.

In the Virginia Convention an ordinance dis-
solving the political connexion of Virginia viith the
other States of the Union had been referred.
In the Missouri State Convbntion the report of
the Committee on Federal Relations was to be pre-
sented on the 9th inst. It would declare emphati-
cally for union, and recommend the adoption of
the Crittenden Resolutions.

North Carolina had voted against the holding of
a State Convention by a majority of 1,000,
It was reported from Washington that the rein-
forcement of Fort Sumter had been decided upon,
General Scott having declared his opinion that rein-
forcements could be easily thrown in, and with little
loss of life.

All the United States'
ships now in the Pacific
and Mediterranean had been ordered home to
Northern ports.
All the troops now in Mexico and Texas had also
been recalled. . .

The Southern Commissioners would not be recog-
nised at Washington. It was stated that on their
return
to
Montgomery President Davis would de-
mandthe surrender of Port Sumter.igence bythe
The commercial intell Edinburgh
has been anticipated.

DUBLIN, WEDNESDAY MORNING.-MISS AYL-
WARD IN PRISON.--CURIOUS REVELATIONS.—To what-
ever cause it Inv be attributable, it is certain that Miss
Aylward has been treated with remarkable partiality by the
prison authorities. The Roman Catholic clergy boasted,
indeed, at the time of her committal that they would render
her detention pleasant enough, if they could not abridge it,
and they have undoubtedly kept their word. Every rule
of the prison has been broken through to secure her com-
fort ; nothing that she could desire is kept from her. Con-
sidering the history of Miss Aylward's career in the Queen's
Bench, and the atrocious case of kidnapping with which_s an
her name is associated, the leniency now shown to her I
outrage upon society. She was committed
for flagrant
Such
crime, and yet she is pampered like a mart
is to blame, can only bring the law into ri
duct on the part of the prison authorities:diZrerui.e. con-
whoever else

pOY AL ENGLISH OPERA,
COVENT-GARDEN
41 • IV
Under the Management of Miss Louisa Pyne and Mr. W.
Harrison, Sole Lessees.
THIS EVENING (21st), for the Benefit of Miss Louisa
yyne, THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. Messrs.
cord, A. St. Albyn, and Horncastle ; Miss Thirlwall and
Miss Louisa Pyne.
To conclude with the Third Act of THE BOHEMIAN
GIRL. Mr. W. Harrison, Miss L. Pyne, tc.
Conductor—Mr. Alfred Mellon. Commence at 8.

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lemee, Mr. J. B. Buckstone.
THIS EVENLNG, the performances will commence with
A. DUKE IN DIFFICULTIES. Mrs. Stirling, Miss F.
Maydon, Mrs. Wilkins, Miss Fanny Stirling, Mr. Buckstone,
Mr. Compton, Mr. Howe, to.
After which, TURNING THE TABLES.
And THE SUN AND THE WIND. By the Leolems.
Commence at 7.1

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.—
Lessee and Manager, Mr. A. Harris.
THIS EVENING, THRICE MARRIED.
After which, HAMLET. Hamlet, Mr. Fechter. Messrs,
Graham, Meadows, tltc. ; Misses Heath, Elsworthy, &C.

A DELPHI, NEW THEATRE-ROYAL.
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. Benj. Webster.
THIS EVENING, AN UGLY C
Mis USTOMER
and Messrs.
E.
J.
L. Toole, C. Selby, and Warde ; sK. Kelly, Miss
Thome.
After which, THE COLLEEN BAWN. D. &maim% D.
Fisher, Billington, Falconer, Stephenson, C. J. Smith, Romer.
Miss Agnes Robertson, Miss Woolgar, Mrs. Billington, and
ars. Chatterley.
To conclude with a new Burlesque_Extravaganza, entitled
BLUE BEARD FROM A NEW POINT OF HUE.
Messrs. J. L. Toole, P. Bedford, C. J. Smith; Miss Woolgar,
K. Kelly, Laidlaw, and B. Thorne.
DOOlll open at half past 6—Commence at 7.
Box-oflicie open from 10 till 6.
No charge for booking.
Private boxes, £2 2s. ; Family Boxes, £l.
Orchestra Stalls, 65. ; Balocmy, 4s. ; Front Circle Stalls ;
Pit Stalls, 25.; Pit, Is. 6d. ; Amphitheatre, Is ; Gallery' ,Std.
Acting Manager—Mr. Win. Smith;

CANTERBURY-HALL CONCERTS!!!
Westminster-road.
Proprietor........ C. Morton.
A Grand Selection from Verdi'a new Opera,
IL CORSARO,
(This opera has never been produced in this or any other
country, except at these Concerts), having; met with that de-
cided success which charactise4 the most pular works of
this great Master, will be performed EVERY EVENING ;
together with a Selection from LA FIGLIA DEL REGGI-
MENTO, by Donizetti,
Principal Artistes—Miss Russell, Madame Maria, Miss
Tyrrell, Mr. H. Herbert, Signor Tivoli, H. Drummond, and
C. W. Bernard. Director, Mr. F. Jonghmans.
The Comic Department comprises Messrs. E. Marshall, A.
B. Hollingsworth, J. Blanchard, F. Bell, W. H. Welland, and
the Brothers Conrad.
John Martin's Three celebrated Pictures will remain on
view a short time longer in the Fine Arts Gallery of the
Establishment.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tim DAY.—Morning, Bh. 17m.—Afternoon, 9h. 6m.
To-mounow.-Morning, 9h. 48m.—Afternoen, 10h. 36m.

THR WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, MARCY 21, 1861.
THERMOMETER, IN TNII slum.
49—highest since noon yesterday.
35—lowest this morning and &using the night.
42—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.33.
WIND—W.-North-Westerly—fresh; with fine weather,
but cold, with a flying shower of hail.
It rained very heavily last night, with a stormy wind.
The weather has been very unsettled of late, and now the
equinoctial gales are on or passing over.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1861.

The Wednesday sittings of the House of Com-
mons in the Session of 1861 are certainly acquiring
for themselves a peculiar celebrity in the way
either of notable defeats endured, or notable vic-
tories achieved by the chiefs among the Liberal
Independents. Yesterday was quite en regle after
this fashion. Again the hero of the scene was Sir
JOHN TRELAV NY. A gain there was a rapid cut-
and-thrust debate between the antagonistic forces
ranged upon the Ministerial side of the House
(particularly below the gangway), and those (con-
fronting them) on the side of the Opposition.
Again—not by any means the first or even second
time merely this session—there was a division at
the end of the debate with divers members of the
Government in the minority, and the amount of the
majority, as given in by the tellers, hailed with
ringing " cheers " from the Opposition.
The occasion yesterday was the motion for the
second reading of Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S Bill
for the better assessment of the County Rates
and the more judicious regulation of the
County Expenditure. Both intentions on the
part of the honourable baronet admirably good,
yet both of them together, by means of yes-
terday's division, unmistakeably defeated. This
division, it will be perceived at a glance, took place
not upon Sir JOHN'S motion for the second reading,
a motion seconded by that staunchest of Liberals
the hon. baronet the member for Westminster, but
upon Sir MATTHEW RIDLEY'S amendment that the
Bill should be read a second time at our Anglo-
Greek Kalends, namely, six months afterwards.
This resolute amendment being carried by 163 as
opposed to 125, or in other words, by a clear majority
of 38 in a house (including Speaker and Tellers)
numbering very nearly three hundred members—
to be precise, just 293 altogether. The principal
circumstance by the way incidentally noticeable in
this discussion and Division of yesterday afternoon
being the remarkable fact that a distinguished
member of Lord PALMERSTON'S Cabinet, no
less a person than Sir GEORGE LEWIS,
her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home
Department, spoke against and yet voted for the
Bill of Sir JOHN TRELAWNY ! With him voting,
among others, his colleague in the Cabinet, the
Right Hon. CHARLES VILLIERS, and the first law
officer of the Crown, Sir RICHARD BETHELL, her
Majesty's Attorney-General. Alluding to the ex-
traordinarily anomalous course thus pursued by
Sir GEORGE LEWIS, the humorous ex-Secretary
to the Admiralty, the now ever outspoken
Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE (ever outspoken now
that he is no longer Secretary to the
Admiralty) observed that—" The right hon.
gentleman the Secretary for the Home Depart-
ment said that that was not a case in which the
Government would interfere. But," added the
hon. gentleman, " he (Mr. OSBORNE) wanted to
know what was the case in which they would
interfere ? The Wednesdays were being com-
pletely lost to the House in consequence of the
vacillating course pursued by the Government in
reference to measures brought forward by private
members. Last Wednesday his hon. friend the
member for East Surrey was patted on the back
and kicked at the same time, and that day it was
the turn of his hod. friend the member for Tavistock
to become the victim of the seductions of the
right hon. gentlemad." Having hurled which
poisoned dart of sarcasm at the Minister of State,
Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE did not hesitate to follow
it up with another yet more keenly barbed,
and steeped in a yet deadlier irony re-
minding the House how Sir GEORGE LEWIS had,
as far beck as 1843, himself asserted that nothing
hardly could be more crude and incomplete than
our whole county rate system—" but then," said
Mr. OSBORNE, " the right hon. gentleman was only
a poor-law commissioner, whereas now he fills the
office of Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
ment!" It is difficult on refleeien not to believe that
this otherwise excellent and most
desirable Bill of
the hon. member for Tavistock tailed in a very
complexity
great measure by reason of its needless
and its readily avoidable elaboration. According to
Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S own acknowledgment yes-
actually upwards of one
terday, it contained
hundred unnecessary clauses ! The hon. baronet Can
hardly object to this very startling assertion if he
only reverts for a moment to his own admission in

the course of his remarks early yesterday after-
noon, his own distinct admission that while
the Bill contained no less than 132 clauses,
" only thirty of these clauses were impor-
tant for his purpose !" The very first clause,
as he observed, " involving, in fact, the main prin-
ciple of his measure. It proposes," he said (that
let clause), " that a financial board should be
elected on a certain day in each year by the guar-
dians of the union. Each board of guardians
should select two members of that board. One
member should be a guardian, and the other a
justice of the peace, both possessed of rateable
property in the county of the annual value of £lOO
sterling"—and so on. There, we take it, lies the
whole objection to the proposed scheme as a prac-
ticalimprovement. Had Sir J. TRELAWNY made his
project simpler it might even now have prospered as
it, or something very like it, will—must—prosper
eventually. Here—although the principle upon
which theprojected reform was based by Sir JOHN
TRELAWNY was certainly sound enough, namely,
the great and popular principle that taxation
should, both in reason and in justice, be directly
connected with representation—there was too much
of the wheel-within-wheel scheme of modification
and rearrangement. In illustration of which it will
be enough to remember that Sir JOHN'S rejected
plan was to be carried out, in a sort of roundabout
process, according to that favourite route traversed
by the habitues of the Circumlocution Office, the
old approved route of a Circumbendibus. The Board
of Guardians to elect the proposed Financial Board,
the new Financial Board to make the rates. .Et voila
tout! Behold your last bran new plan, good Farmer
Bull, for getting at some more equitable method
of county rate assessment ! Recollecting this
one damnatory flaw in the bill—while we cannot
but regret the loss of many of the various advan-
tages that must, in all human probability, have
resulted from its beneficent operation when it
should have been judiciously modified in committee
—we can hardly wonder that it should have been
summarily rejected, under the circumstances, by the
impetuous throng of county members and impul-
sive country gentlemen making up the bulk of our
heavy handed Opposition.

Sir G. C. lawn has now in hand for renewal

and amendment, that solemn farce of legislation,
the Corrupt Practices at Elections Prevention
Act We have had a little experience of its
powers, and have seen the truth of Sir W. HATTER'S
opinion that it was a dead letter from the time
of its enactment. It has often been observed
that its title needed one slight alteration—the
substitution of the word " Protection" for " Pre-

vention ;" since in practice its machinery of
powerless auditors and commissions of inquiry,
have had for their direct result either to protect
delinquents from discovery, or to protect them
from punishment when self-convicted.
Wakefield has just furnished an illustration
of the latter operation—protection from punish-
ment. First, indeed, came the case of Mr.

LEATHAM, a case so managed as actually to excite
the sympathy of the public for a confessing delin-
quent. He could be prosecuted only through his
having been refused by the Commissioners the cer-
tificate granted to all who answered truthfully—but
from that day to this, the public has never known
why he was refused the certificate. His
offence was great enough, by his own
confession, but then that confession had been made
under the undoubting belief that he was thereby
securing for himself indemnity against penal con-
sequences: We would not insinuate any want of
' partiality on the part of the Commissioners ; on the
contrary, many of the public had the impression

that because Mr. CHARLESWORTH so strangely

prevaricated that it was impossible to give him a
certificate, the Commissioners, to avoid the
appearance of partiality, refused the indem-
nity also to the other candidate, though no
fencing or prevarication appeared in his evi-
dence as reported. But Mr. LEATHAM'S case is
not unlikely, after all, to break down ; it is
certain, at least, to be " hung up" for a long time
in the Court of Error, before which it has yet to
come, and which will have to decide the question
whether the prosecution was commenced within
the time required by the Act. Thus the LEATHAM
case may be considered to have failed ; partly as
having in it an element of unfair play, which the
public do not like, and partly because justice has
moved with a faltering step, and a slow one
indeed.

And now we have the cases on the other side.
Three of them have just come off, been decided, we
cannot say, at York. And a pretty exhibition it has
been of the Preventive Act of Mr. WALPOLE and

Lord JOHN RUSSELL, who combined, so amiably,
to produce an act, which should show that the real
and well-known means for preventing corruption
of all kinds, by making it useless, was but a silly
nostrum of such weak minds as the elder MILL,
GROTE, MOLESWORTH, Col. THOMPSON, as the vi-
sionary philosopher BENTHAM, and that politician so
utterly destitute of common sense, WM. COBBETT.
Well, at York we have just seen the working .of the
ultima patio of the Prevention Act. A Royal
Commission had placed the gross bribery beyond
doubt. Jiabuimus confitentes. Some unlucky ones,
out of the many, were selected as examples of what
those who scorned the folly of the ballot box could
do "in their wisdom." We may safely affirm that
these lofty-minded legislators never had a better
chance, and never will have, of exhibiting their
powers. And a precious exhibition it is It discloses
the fact that corrupters--for the receivers of bribes, as
the less guilty, were passed over in the magnanimous
desire to fly at higher game—could be arraigned
and, by special good luck tried, but that a conviction
was not so easy a matter. One lucky sinner got
through completely, a verdict of not guilty recorded
the jury's opinion of the quality of the evidence
amongst " a bad lot all together." What they
thought of the individual himsell', law, very pro-
perly, does not ask.

Two more shared a different fate. On one
case the jury could not agree. They
enjoyed
the advantage, towards arriving at a just conclu-
sion, of being locked up all night, we presume, as
usual, without food or fire in this genial weather;
but cold and fasting could not enlighten the mind
of the one dissentient, the Hull juryman, who was
said to be a violent partizan ; he had evidence which
satisfied him that it would not do to send to prison
one of whom eleven others were confident he had
incurred that penalty. Next morning, therefore,
finding that the jury could not agree, and were not
likely to do so, Mr. Justice HILL discharged them
to their breakfast, which they doubtless enjoyed.

But the first was the great case. In that of
REGINA V. CROWTIIER one juryman could be a
martyr to bribery, to the extent of starving and
freezing for some twelve or fourteen hours ; but
he was preceded by a far nobler martyr, one who
could look unappalled on six months' imprisonment
and a fine of £5OO rather than repeat in court the
very evidence he had given before the Commis-
sioners. The formal reason, indeed, this member
of the noble company of martyrs gave was,
that he should criminate himself; he knew,
however, perfectly well that he would net,
9,nd two judges concurred that he Could

not be impeached en the evidence he gave.
No, Mr. JOSE LOUIS FERNANDEZ really offered
himself as a victim to save the Head Corruptor,
Mr. CHARLESWORTH, to whom he had acted the
part of agent. He had taken legal advice. He
answered one or two questions respecting identity
without difficulty—then began the sticking—
" Was he active in municipal and parliamentary
elections ?"—." Did he remember the election in
1859 9" These two questions the Judge with some
trouble coaxed him to answer. "Had he received
a sum of money from defendant (Mr. J. B. Charles-
worth) in 1859 ?" Not less than nine times did Judge
and prosecuting counsel press this question; answer
he would not, till at length the judge pronounced his
fate, and one which by his manner he had little
anticipated.
The question then arose—could the jury be dis-
charged without giving a verdict when once they
had been charged with the prisoner ! Some legal
doubt there seems to be, but the public voice will
commend Mr. Justice HILL for giving the benefit
of the doubt to justice, not to transparent knavery.
Had the jury given, as in the state of the
evidence they must have given, a verdict of
not guilty, the martyr to corruption would
have purged his contempt, have walked out of
prison, and he and his clique would have laughed
at a fine of £5OO, when they had given almost as
much as that for half a dozen votes—and the arch-
briber CHARLES WORTH would have been free. We
hope the discharge of the jury will prove to be
legal ; however, on this ticklish point hangs the
question, whether it will not be generally easy to
defeat, by a very little suffering, any prosecutiOn
for
_bribery.
It is impossible to conclude these remarks, how-
ever, without expressing our indignation with the
really guilty parties. Men like Lord PALMERSTON
and Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and the army of hypo-
critical Legislators who gladly obey them, are the
real authors of all these disgraceful scenes. They
it is to whom we trace all the bribery and intimi-
dation in the kingdom. It is childish to pretend
virtuous indignation with corrupt candidates and
their agents, with prevaricating and reticent wit-
nesses ; bad and wrong enough they doubtless are;
but who leads them into temptation? Who enables
the briber to bribe successfully, by enabling the
briber to prove that he has given him money's
worth for his bribe ? Who refuses even to
take a stringent declaration from the returned
member that corruption of no kind has been used
to secure his return ?—who sets himself bitterly
against the simple precaution of so taking the vote,
that none can know how it was given except the
individual himself, and those who like to take his
word ? The legislator to whom these simple ques-
tions point, is the FAGIN of all this dirty work.
The enormous cost of all these prosecutions is
incurred merely:that corruption, of the appropriate
kind, may be applied in counties and boroughs,
and yet our legislators seem as if they wished to
prevent it. It is all one tissue of almost shameless
hypocrisy.