The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-20 00:00:00

THE SIJN,I LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 20, IP6I,

dealt with. But surely if any class of persons come
forward and say this or that appendage of a State
Church, or of any of our institutions, is a grievance
to us, our lawmakers are entitled to look at the pro-
posal only, not at the creed of the parties, The
foolish argument we condemn has come afresh into
use since the Duke of MARLBOROUGH'S com-
mittee ; it is, however, but an old dodge much in
vogue when the Catholic Eraaneipation and
Municipal Reform Bills were passing.

On Friday—it will be perceived from Sir
GEORGE LEWIS'S intimation in the Commons last
evening—the First Lord of the Treasury will move

that the House on its rising shall adjourn over the
Easter holidays. The funeral of her late Royal
Highness the Duchess of KENT having been offi-
cially announced to take place on Monday next,
the 25th instant, has caused the customary date

'or the commencement of the annual recess at

Easter to be thus by three or four days antidipated.
It is but a slight additional evidence of the respect-
ful sympathy of Parliament in the heavy grief of
the SOVEREIGN. And—considering the mere cir-

cumstance of the Funeral being fixed for Monday
—it was a supplementary mark of that respectful
sympathy on the part of the Legislature quite

inevitable
i under the circumstances.
After Friday, the 22d instant, consequently, the
Parliament will stand adjourned, as a matter of
course, until the close of the Easter ♦acation.
Upwards of a fortnight, in fact, no less than
seventeen clear days, will intervene this time, there-
fore,between the adjournment and the reassembling,

at Eastertide, of the Imperial Legislature. Upon the

Bth proximo, but not until then, after the rising
of the Houses on Friday, the Lords and Commons
will once more have assembled—this time perforce
in genuine earnest—for the despatch of urgent public
business. Thenceforth—after the Bth of April—
the session will have to run out in real work, and
vigorous debate, and decisive divisions, until the
announcement of the approach of autumn by that
prefatory battue of the innocents, by practice at
which members seem annually to get their hands
well in for the grouse shooting. Once the
commons shall have assembled after the lapse of
the Easter holidays, we shall at length know all
about what none of us now have any
inkling of whatever—namely, the Budget now
preparing for the nation in the recesses of
the judgment of that profound financier and rhe-
torician her MAJESTY'S Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. As yet we can only give him
our good wishes for up to this moment
we can surely see nothing more plainly than the
formidable array of his difficulties. Whether he
will adventure upon any revival of his scheme of
last year to do away with the paper duties in a
year of deficit; whether he will determine upon
grasping boldly what last session he was so very evi-
dently hankering after, namely, a shilling instead
of tenpenny income tax; whether, having in 1860
facilitated the wine-bibbers' acquisition of claret, he
will as benignantly facilitate the poor washer-
woman's acquisition of that chief of all comforts in
life to her, her consolatory " dish of tea" ; or what-
ever else in this matter of the Budget may be among
the good or evil intentions of Mr. GLADSTONE—We
shall be left now to imagine for ourselves as we
list until the Easter holidays shall have duly termi-
nated. Then, towards the close of the first fortnight
of April, we shall have, but not until then, a
prospect of hearing Mr. GLADSTONE'S new finan-
cial statement. Then, but not until then, will come
the tug of war between those opposing Greeks, her
MAJESTY'S Government and her MAJESTY'S Oppo-
sition. Parties being just now so equally balanced
that everything will really depend upon the course
pursued by the Intermediates, by such Interme-
diates, let us say, as the cluster of Irish members
or as the vigorous phalanx of the Liberal Indepen-
dents. Both of these intermediate sections,
it is certain, have been greatly irritated
by the present holders of office—the former, viz.,
that of the Irish members, by the determined cha-
racter of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S foreign policy
symbolised in the significant watch-word of " non-
intervention"—the latter, viz., that of the Liberal
Independents, by the shameless abandonment of
Parliamentary Reform by the very Coalition raised
to power for its more successful and comprehensive
achievement. Revenge, no doubt, may be so ex-
ceedingly sweet to either or to -both of these im-
portant sections of what we have, for want of any
better term, designated as the Intermediates,
that it may just possibly tempt them into
some hostile demonstration. Before that
temptation, however, can have arrived, before
tha conflict of the present session shall really have
commenced between the two great competing
parties in the House—it will be well for the
national interests, both at home and abroad, if
every man amongst those responsible Intermediates
avails himself of the calm of the coming Easter
Holidays for the deliberate and dispassionate con-
sideration, in the light of his own conscience, and
in the remembrance of his own constituents—the
consideration of what is really the course pointed out
to him, not by the mere impulses of revenge, but by
the loftier, and nobler, and purer dictates of high
principle, and of inflexible consistency.
h- I

Although Mr. DUNLOP'S motion—one very im-
portant, and even formidable, to our administrators
in its general character and tendency—failed last
evening, at the close of a singularly agitated and
profoundly interesting discussion, the object Mr.
DUNLOP had in view when bringing it before Par-
liament was virtually gained, by the mere fact
of the very debate at the close of which
the original motion was negatived. Twenty-
two long years have now elapsed since the period of
those Ministerial Doings into which Mr. DUNLOP
would now fain have had the Legislature institute
a searching though tardy investigation. The hon.
gentleman, in fact, moving for the appoint-
ment of a Select Committee of Inquiry—another of
these terrible Argus-eyed Committees of which we
have already this year gained such an
abundance ! A Select Committee deputed by
the House to search into the cause and nature
of those notorious and extraordinary discrepancies
which are observable in the Correspondence relating
to Affghanistan, presented to Parliament in 1839,
and the same identical Correspondence (only this
time enlarged and extended) presented to Parlia-
ment in 1858, that is, nineteen years afterwards.
The discrepancies brought to light upon a com-
parison of these two widely-contrasting reports of
the self same Correspondence—the one report tardily
entire, the other suspiciously abbreviated, or, as
Mr. DISRAELI hesitated not to designate that
shameless labour of elimination, absolutely, so to
speak, " castrated"---the astounding discrepancies,
we say, brought to light tip on those two versions
of the self same Correspondence ai-gsuch,beyond one
instant's doubt, as to j ustify all those wo:4s
of earnest
reprehension with which Air. DUNLOP aLKI his
supporters backed up last night's motion for this
Select Committee of Inquiry. In repelling this
motion, it will be observed that Lord PALMERSTON
insisted that the passages omitted in the version of
1839 were really immaterial in themselves. If so,
however—why, in the name of common sense,
Were they ever omitted at all ? The insincerity of

this attempt at extenuation, however, was ren-
dered apparent upon the instant by the
flagrant manner in which almost in the
same breath the noble lord evaded (as Mr. BRIGHT
pointed out immediately afterwards), distinctly
evaded the question brought last evening under
the consideration of Parliament. It was not the
policy of the war, as the member for Birmingham
put it quite plainly to the House—it was not (as
the Premier tried to lead the House to
I suppose) the policy of the war in Affghanistan that
was agitated anew by this motion ; it was simply a
question as to who, in 1839, had laid
before the House despatches—how does Mr. BRIGHT
phrase it P—garbled, false, forged, mutilated !
Again, it was hardly fair for the Premier to depre-
cate this motion as one needlessly raking up
events that occurred more than a score of
years since ! For—upon the very face of it
—the motion had reference not so much
to what took place in 1839, as to what the country
had, as recently as 1858, quite incidentally disco-
vered had then taken place, nineteen years previ-
ously. In the generality of instances, of course, it
is well enough to let byegones be byegones. But
here, as everywhere else, the rule has happily to
be proved by the exception. And it has been so
proved, we cannot but rejoice to think, in the very
instance brought last night under the consideration
of the popular branch of the Legislature. For if
Mr. DUNLOP found his motion (as he did) nega-
tived upon a division, ho at any rate contrived
with admirable effect to provoke a discussion in
itself amounting to the most complete exposure
of the wrong of which he was complaining. Twenty-
two years have sped by since that grievous wrong
was done, and yet at the end of those twenty-two
years the inevitable and inexorable brand of
NEMESIS has flashed exposure upon the falsifiers of
that Correspondence in regard to the long past war
in Affghanistan.

Those near and dear neighbours, Austria and
Russia, are now very much in the same predica-
ment. Each of them is making great political
reforms in its own proper domains, each of them
has an outlying kingdom claiming its old rights,
and claiming them through legal, and what
we might almost eall passive, action ; and
as if to make the similarity more corn-

plete, each of them feels compelled to resume
the old title of " King" of the revived nationality.
The CZAR has to become King of Poland, just as
the Sovereign of Vienna has to seek again the
title of King of Hungary. Each kingdom, too,
has outlying portions which belong to its historic
national existence, and desire to be re-united with
it. Sclavonia, Croatia, and Transylvania seek to
regain their old connection with Hungary ; and
the portions of Poland seized by Prussia and
Austria respectively, would prefer to combine
again with the much larger portion of their nation
over which the CZAR at present rules despotically.
It shows to those who can look back on the course
of events since 1815, or even 1830, a wonderful
change in the policy of these despots. Apparently
they are as absolute masters as ever of the bodies
and souls of their people, and vast armies stand
ready to obey their orders ; but the times are altered
indeed. Instead of bloody risings, easily put
down by regular soldiers, quiet legal opposition
to illegal despotism is the chosen weapon, and
it proves to be the most effectual of all. There was
much of it in Italy, though :there the military
genius of the greatest man of his day had its full
share in the vast revolution., The bloodshed has,
however, been small indeed even in Italy—it was

chiefly the right of the people maintained by them-
selves with singular self-command and order, that
forced France and Europe to acquiesce in what
they did.
In Hungary, the inhabitants have peacefully
placed the EMPEROR in the last difficulty. Fifteen
millions of people say, as one man—give us our
legal, our historical rights. The EMPEROR has
just replied that ha wishes to give Hungary all her
national rights, but will tolerate no infringement
on those of the Crown. Now the Hungarians do
not aim at the latter. The rights of the Crown
and of the people are defined by the same Prag-
matic Sanction to which he is compelled to appeal
to sustain his claim to be King of Hungary. He
cannot, therefore, put on the Hungarian crown
without being pledged to give Hungary a Palatine,
a separate Ministry and Administration, a Diet
which votes the taxes and the military levies, and
without withdrawing every German soldier from the
country. He would almost as soon part with his
heart's-blood as consent to all this, yet how he will
evade it remains to be seen. If the people will neither
rise and fight and give occasion for slaughtering
by his troops, nor yet pay taxes, nor conform to
absolute decrees—what can he do ? The Hun-
garians can afford to wait, while his ruin is ad-
vancing in Italy, and while his exchequer is being
drained of its last florin ; but he cannot wait. It
would seem as if he must become a constitutional
King of the old separate kingdom of Hungary, and
then away, all but
_inlname, goes the Austrian
_Empire of METTERNICH', PALMERSTON, and
RUSSELL.

And can it be that the omnipotent CZAR is
entering into the same difficulty in Poland ? He
seems, however, to be aware of the difficulty of
his position, and the fate of the Italian petty des-
pots, and the perplexity of the young HAFSBURG
are not quite thrown away upon him.
His letter to the Poles is indeed a rather haughty
one. He tells them he might treat their petition
as null, but he graciously ascribes it to
" impulse," and only warns them by solemn
threats of the consequences, not to make distur-
bances and then found petitions on them. He
declares himself, however, a paternal reformer,
and his deeds are conciliatory. :He will
be known among the Poles henceforth as
King of POLAND—he grants them the right of
choosing their own municipal officers—he concedes
reform of education, that is chiefly, we presume,
re-introducing the Polish language into schools—
Count ZAMOYSII, the chief resident Polish noble,
is placed at the head of the civil administration,
and thus Poland ceases to be, in form, a Russian pro-
vince, whose very language was doomed to oblitera-
tion. Phis first step of recognising nationality is, after
all, a very great one; if patiently and prudently
used, it will lead to all the rest ; and even this
generation, which witnessed what it supposed to
be the stamping out of Polish life for ever by that
brutal savage NICHOLAS, may yet see that life
revive, the separated portions seized by Prussia and
Austria rejoin the body of the nation, and possibly
may even see Poland an independent kingdom.

HER LATE ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS OF
KENT.—We are authorised to state that the funeral of her
late Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent will take place
f.t St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on Monday, the
25th inst. The funeral will he conducted with the strictest
vacy, and no tickets of admission to the chapel will be
issueu. It is understood that the Court mourning for her
late Royal
the Duchess of Kent will be for six

weeks.
A company has been propoied t)„-:;tantinople
under the name of the " Cotton Bank of Anatolia," for t
veloping the cotton cultivation in Asia Minor. It is said
to be supported by the leading merchants of Smyrna, and
to have received the patronage of the British Ambassador,
Sir H. L. Bulwer, and the co-operation of the Grand
Vizier.

GENERAL LICENSING MEETlNG.—Yesterday the
magistrates decided upon granting a spirit license to Nat
Langham, of the Cambrian Stores, Castle-street, Leicester-
square, on the condition that no prize fighting or other
nuisance should be permitted in the house. The applica-
tion of Ben Caunt for a license for his house, the Coach and
Horses, St. Martin's-lane, was refused. Last year the
magistrates refused to renew both licenses on account of

the unsatisfactory way in which both houses were con••

ducted.

RAILWAYS in AUSTRIA..-official statistics just
issued supply interesting details with regard to the earn-
ings of Austrian railways in the course of 1860.. The State
lines [in Venetia and the Tyrol, altogether 738 miles in

length, carried last year 4,378,663 passengers, and earned

£1,661,492; the lines conceded to French proprietors, ex-
tending over 799 miles, carried 2,020,200 passengers, and
earned £1,965,117 ; the Ferdinand, Theiss, Gallicia, Par-
dubitz and Reichenberg, Aussig and Toplitz, and Graz and
Kossac lines, carried, over 1,054 miles, 2,865,360 passen-
gers, and earned altogether £2,178,588; making a total of
9,264,233 passengers carried over 2,594 miles, and a nomi-
nal total receipt of £5,806,637. As, however, the receipts
of Austrian railways are derived from notes of which the
value is variable, a deduction of 30 per cent. must be made
to arrive at the mean actual receipts, reducing the amount
to £4,064,003, or about £1,567 per mile. This amount is
9.6 per Gent. below the earnings on the Prussian lines no-
ticed in the Times a fortnight since. The totals given above

do not comprise the Western line, the line from Mohacz to
Funfkirchen, from Brunn to Rositz, and from Wolfsegg to
Traunthal (the last has only a coal traffic). The receipts

of these lines, when ascertained will, of course, affect the
mileage total given above. On the Southern linen the goods

traffic amounted to 63.1 per cent. of the whole receipts ; on
the Lombardian lines it amounted to only 33 per cent.; on
the lines ceded to French proprietors it reached 75 per
cent. ; and taking the whole of the lines of which particu-
lars have been given, the moan goods traffic was 70.1 per
cent,, or 9.7 per cent. in excess of that carried on the Prus-
sian lines.

RAILWAY BRIDGE OVER THE RIIINE.—The great
railway bridge over the Rhine at Kehl being nearly com-
pleted, experiments to test its strength were made on it a
few days back. First of all, the two turning parts of the
bridge were manoeuvred and found to work admirably.
That of the French side, which weighs not less than 350
tons, was moved with the greatest facility by eight men,
then by four, and then only by two. Afterwards a train,
consisting of five locomotives and their tenders, the locomo-
tives alone weighing 175 tons, and the whole forming a

weight of nearly 31 tons per meter, passed over the line and
then remained stationary on the first part of the bridge on
the French side ; next, a locomotive and 15 waggons filled
with stones, weighing about 11 tons per meter, was driven
over, and was subsequently stationed for a time on the
middle of the bridge; in the third place, the two trains
passed over side by side, and were made to stand ondifferent
fixed parts of the structure ; next, two other trains, each
consisting of five locomotives, were also driven over the
bridge side by side, and were made to remain together some
time on the turning bridges and on other portions of the
structure ; lastly, these two trains crossed each other at
full speed. During the experiments the different parts of
the bridge scarcely yielded, proving the correctness of the
engineer's calculations and the great care with which the
bridge has been constructed.
The South-Eastern Railway Company have an-
nounced a fresh extension of their continental parcels sys-
tem, with the view of rendering the short sea route available
in a still greater degree for the largely increasing parcels
and goods traffic under the operation of the recent French
Treaty. Through rates with all parts of France have for
the first time been organised via Boulogne for parcels up to
2001 b weight. This system is in direct connexion with the
South-Eastern and the French railway companies, who will
forward the parcels by their quickest express routes, and
secure to the public the latest hour for the despatch at well
as the earliest delivery of parcels. As a large proportion of
the articles imported from France are subject to the fluctua-
tions of fashion, and are otherwise of a nature not suitable
for being kept largely in stock, an important accommoda-
tion to the trade will be afforded by this cheap, rapid, and
certain mode of transit. The parcels system of the South-
Eastern Railway now comprises through rates from the
chief towns in the United Kingdom to the principal places
in France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, &c., by all trains
in connexion with the mail boats between Dover and Calais
and Dover and Ostend, as well as by the express tidal ser-
vice via Boulogne. The new tariffjust issued by the com-
pany contains through rates fo about 500 different places on
the Continent, and approximate rates can be given to any
European destination.
THE NEW AMERICAN TARIFF.—The American
tariff is a topic much discussed among commercial men at
Newcastle. No complete copy of it, as amended by the
Senate, has come to hand, but the purport is tolerably well
understood. The chymical trade, the manufacture of alkali,
in especial, will suffer the most on the Tyne. A very large
quantity of alkali made on the Tyne has been exported to
the United States. It has been sent by steamer to London,
and thence transhipped on board regular traders for New
York. The duty to be levied on chymicala under the new
tariff will be equal to the price of the articles here, and will
be very near, if not absolutely, prohibitory. The duty on
coals heretofore has been an ad valorem one of about 25 per
cent., or about ls. Bd. per ton on ordinary gas coal. It is
in future to be a dollar per ton, which will raise the price
of the Tyne and Wear gas coal to about lls. per ton clear
of freight. This is about prohibitory. As all goods shipped
before April 15 will be charged at the old rates the freight
market for New York is showing more activity than at any
time since the misunderstanding between the North and
South ; but after that date it is feared that it will entirely
collapse. As the larger portion of the coals and goods sent
from this part of the country went out in American bottoms
the shipowners of New York and the Northern States will
be severe losers. It seems that the coal shippers of Liver-
pool will not suffer in any degree by the new tariff. The
cannel coal of Lancashire, the price of which in the Mersey
is from 10s. to 12s. per ton, has hitherto, under the old
tariff, cost 13s. to 15s. per ton, free of freight, and it will
not be any higher under the new tariff, as the specific duty
of a dollar will about balance the charge of 25 per cent.
Trade with other parts of the globe continues to improv
with the spring. The violent gale that has been blowing
from the W.N.W. since last night has done no harm here.
THE YELVERTON FAMILY.—Lady Clan morris
has addressed the following letter to the editor of the Cornish
Telegraph :—" Sir,—You have given full prominence to
this case, and you will, no doubt, allow me space to correct
some errors in your last week's paper. You there say
(quoting the Cork Southern Reporter) that the Hon. Major
Yelverton's great grandfather kept a butcher's stall in the
town of Newcastle, County Limerick, and that his grand-
father married his cook. A reference to the peerage will
show both of these statements to be erroneous. The Yel-
vertqns have occupied a good position in society from a
very distant period. In James 1., Sir Henry Yelverton
was Attorney-General, and the Earls of Sussex (represented
by the late Marchioness of Hastings) are Yelvertons.
Major Yelverton's great great grandfather was Frank Yel-
verton, Esq., of Blackwater, Cork, who married Miss
Barry, of Lord Barrymore's family. His son Barry, who
was Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, Ireland,
and Viscount Avomnore (my father) married Miss Nugent,
of the Westmeath family. His son, the second viscount,
married Miss Reed, daughter of a naval officer of East
Cam, in England, and whose sister, the widow of Sir
Thomas Bond, Bart., still survives. His son, the third
viscount (Major Yelverton's father), married Miss O'Keefe,
whose father was registrar of the Court of Chancery. The
O'Keefes are a well-known and respected family in Cork.
Mr. O'Keefe's wife was a Miss Yelverton, of Belle Isle,
and his mother also a Miss Yelverton, sister of the first
viscount. Miss Yelverton's (of Belle Isle) mother was
daughter to Sir Ulick Burke, of Glynak. For further par-
ticulars allow me to refer you to a statement in the Illus-
trated London News of the 9th inst. None of the family,
to my knowledge, ever resided in Limerick. I should not
have troubled you with these particulars did I not think
it unfair that the press should take advantage of this unfor-
tunate opportunity to circulate all sorts of ill -natured and
untrue reports.—l have the honour to be, sir, your
obedient servant, ANNA (Baroness) CLANMORRIS.-15,
Clarence-street, Penzance, March 16."
CONVICT ESTABLISHMENTS ABROAD.—The an-
nual reports from Bermuda and Gibraltar have been re-
ceived. At the close of the year 1860 there were I,oo9con-
victs at Bermuda and 563 at Gibraltar. In the course of
the year 280 had been sent from England to Bermuda, none
to Gibraltar ; but we had received back 552-327 sent home
from Bermuda to be discharged on "ticket of leave," and
from Gibraltar 17, with 208 whose sentence had expired.
As to the character of the men thus brought hack to us the
reports are not satisfactory. The chaplain at Bermuda says
that outward respect is paid by the prisoners to their re-
ligious teachers, and that:he is in hopes their labour is not
altogether fruitless ; but he adds that under the system of
association which is in force a large deduction must be made
from the beneficial results of the instruction. From Gibral-
tar the comptroller reports that he learns occasionally that
many of the men returned to England are doing well, but
that he should bo deceiving the public if he were to repre-
sent that with the masses of men committed to his charge
reformation to any great extent is progressing, and, indeed,
that with criminals in association day and night, as
these are, the hope of amendment must always be
very faint indeed. There are public works of great im-
portance at Gibraltar, he says, sufficient to employ a thou-
sand prisoners for many years to come ; but, if reformation
is expected to go hand in hand with punishment, there
must be an establishment analogous to those at Portland
and Chatham, where these combined objects can be carried
out. Discipline appears to have been, upon the whole
well maintained during the year, notwithstanding an abor
tive attempt at a strike in Gibraltar and two cases of aerlous
assault upon officers ; but men under sentence for life, o
for very long periods, become so reckless that it is very diffi
cult to manage them. It is stated that the estimated valve
of the labour of the convicts at Gibraltar exceeded the ex-
penses of the establishment. At Bermuda the majority of
the convicts are confined in bias, and the chaplain mule
grave complaints of the state of these a year ago; brit the
Governor reports that he visited them last snnaoaer when
quite unexpected, anti fomad t44t in good endirrou
in admirable arder. ;;eL 94Tesse4 41144PPl'eh"...:Lon that
the ch,iPlaha is WideT the illtil'W4l'4° of some of tlm most
gtf4l of tlio vil9atro.

L AT' E

E W S.

INSURRECTION IN BOSNIA.

VIENNA, MARCH 20.
The news from Bosnia is of an alarming cha-

racter.

The whole Herzegovina is in a state of revo-
lution, being supported by the Montenegrins.
The fighting has become general.
Several Turkish villages on the frontier have
been reduced to ashes.

NAPLES, MARCH 19.

All the Councillors are dismissed. The Council
of the Lieutenancy is dissolved. Directors will be
appointed in more direct communication with
Turin. There will be a Piedmontese Director of
Finances. This morning a grand and enthusiastic
fete was held in honour of Garibaldi. - All is tran-
quil. The Civitella a del Tronto refuses still to
I surrender.

PARIS, TUESDAY.

The debate on the Address was resumed to-day
in the Corps Legislatif.
M. Picard blamed the Government for having
granted such exorbitant powers to the Prefect of the
Seine, and demanded that the regime established
since 1848 should cease. M. Marrast, Mayor of
Paris after the revolution of February, 1848,
thought that, under the circumstances, he had the
right of exercising a real dictatorship over the
Municipal Administration. He was wrong, but he
replied to the reproaches on the subject by dying
so poor that his friends were obliged to defray the
expenses of his burial. M. Picard said he did not
desire that the Prefect of the Seine should ever be
reduced to a similar extremity. (Laughter.) He
called attention to the speculations in building
ground, and maintained that it was possible to
grant to Paris what had been granted to Warsaw
—namely, the right of electing a Municipality.
M. Devinck defended the Municipal Administra-
tion.

After sonic remarks from MM, Clary and Heron,
M. Billault defended the Municipal Administra•

tion of Lyons. He examined the question of
buildings, and stated that, in consequence of the
increase of the population, the city had been com-
pelled to build 16,000 houses. "We are," he said,
"approaching a time when rents will be lowered."
He expressed his astonishment at the insinuations
of M. Picard, and said,—" If there exist distinct
and grave facts let them be stated. Justice shall be
done. You must cease making accusations which
are not distinctly expressed, and reproaches which
are not explained."

M. Picard.—The Minister must be aware that the
press law of 1852 does not permit proof by witnesses
in matters of defamation. The Court of Control
has also testified to the irregularity of the respon-
sibility. I denounce an Administration which can
sell ground of the value of 135,000,000 f. without a
public adjudication, and without any legal contract.
An elected Municipality can alone offer guarantees.