The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY I?, VENING, SEPTEITBER 3, 1861

of the Question now-under consideration. Remem-
bering—that here as everywhere else there are
two sides to the Question—just as there were two
sides to the Shield, about the colour of which the
two travellers were quarrelling in the old knightly
Apologue ! And there is that wholesome old scrap
of latin that so often comes to mind at these times
—a fragment of proverbial wisdom so congenial
to our national love of fairplay that the
familiar phrase audi alteram partern has long since
come to be all but part and parcel of our own lan-
guage. There is Something to be deduced from
those very expressions of surprise uttered now by
the " outsiders," by the mere lookers-on in the
immediate neighbourhood, Something to be deduced
from it, very different indeed from what is implied
by the actual utterance. Let it be remembered then
that in spite of all the wonderful danger alluded to
by the neighbours who have watched the constant
shifting to and fro of the ballast trains in the midst
of the ordinary traffic of the North London Railway
—let it be remembered, we say, that in spite of the
peril spoken of, the accident that these
witnesses are wondering never occurred before
has never occurred before! Showing quite clearly
as we take it that casualties are guarded against by
the Company with extraordinary adroitness and
forethought, in defiance of every apparent difficulty
under ordinary circumstances. And then let it be
borne in mind again, that when the deplorable
casualty does occur at last—this fatal collision of
yesterday, over which so many home groups are
now bitterly lamenting—it occurs under the pres-
sure of unusual circumstances. How far the Com-
pany may be to blame for its having come to pass,
it is impossible at this moment, upon the very
morrow of the catastrophe, even to conjecture. But
already that much ought to be borne in mind—
before the cause of the calamity is yet
inquired into—that it took place, this fright-
ful collision resulting in the deaths of thirteen
excursionists, men, women, and children, and the
maiming of thirty or forty others in a manner
very grievous even to read of— all this took
place, we say, under the pressure of unusual cir-
cumstances. Just as in that other terrible acci-
dent which took place so very recently in the Clay-
ton tunnel on the London and Brighton Railway—
it is beyond a doubt that, among the causes of the
catastrophe was the purely accidental circumstance
of the telegraphic signal—suddenly—not working !
Accidents, of course, may happen to any one at any
time without there necessarily involving culpabi-
lity in any direction whatsoever. For example—
it is related, among the peculiarities of science,
among the ana, so to speak, of natural philosophy,
by no less an authority than Sir DAVID BREWSTER
the inventor, among other marvels, of the kaleido-
scope and the stereoscope—it is related
by this (happily) still living philosopher
that a precious stone has before now been
known to explode :from the expansion of an in-
ternal air bubble. New, upon the occasion of any
such unexpected casualty as this arising
—supposing a bystander to be blinded by the frag-
ment of an exploded ruby or emerald—it were just
simply preposterous to dream of tracing the
guilt (of having caused the accident) home
to the lapidary. ' An accident, in other
words, does not invariably and neces-
sarily involve culpability anywhere. The pro-
babilities are, of course, that, in the vast majority
of instances, it does involve culpability. And it is
for the simple put pose of finding out whether it really
does so—that whenever a fatal accident unfortu-
nately happens a stringent inquest into the circum-
stances causing the death or deaths is at once

by the old time-honoured authority of the local.
Coroner. Until the said Coroner's inauest has bc..
nem ana compieLeu—..
only unwise but unfair and ungenerous to the last
degree, to pronounce any decided opinion as to the
extent of the culpability involved in or implied
by the occurrence, nay, for that matter as to
the existence of any culpability whatever. All
we can do while the balance of justice is
still held in equilibrium, is to stand aside and
sympathise with the lamentations of the bereaved ;
trusting earnestly the while that—supposing there
is culpability anywhere discoverable—that culpa-
bility may be brought to light and duly subjected to
punishment. Above all, that so much wisdom may
be drawn from these bitter experiences that, the re-
currence of these fearful casualties may be hence-
forth effectually guarded against.

There is one fair test of the quality of Austrian
government of its numerous nationalities—How
many of them can she trust to garrison their own
fortresses or their own country? It will not do to
parallel her case with that of uncivilised and na-
turally turbulent countries yoked together by the
common link of the Crown ; probably every one of
the numerous nationalities which compose the em-
pire has been loyal at some time, was indeed ge-
nerally united by marriage or compact to the
Austrian Crown in a manner which rendered the
union a bi-lateral and willing one at the time,
Poland being the chief exception, and the HAPS-
BURGS have had merely of its nationalities the
easy task of keeping the loyal loyal.
But, most unfortunately, there is almost none
which the dynasty, with its German and Jesuit
Councillors, has not, at some period of its history,
vexed beyond all endurance. Religion has, from
the time of the thirty years' war, been one of the
chief causes of its cruel oppressions. The Haps-
burgs have been a race of the darkest•minded and
most barbarous prrsecutors on earth. Their object
was avowed. They determined to murder, torture,
burn, and banish Protestantism in every form from
Hungary, Bohemia, and their own hereditary
States ; and to too great an extent they succeeded.
The consequence has been a depth of religious
ignorance not surpassed in any European States,
and a destruction of the life of commerce and in-
dustry which renders Austria commercially, utterly
insignificant in proportion to her population. The
Hapsburgs have been bigots as well as despots,
and despots in their bigotry, till they have suc
ceeded in degrading their country to its present
divided and helpless condition. It is indeed a noble
Empire, if in noble hands. Governed by a sovereign
who enjoyed the people's freedom as the wit-
ness to the goodness of his government, it
would soon emerge, and take its place with the
other Empires of the day. For the present it lies
crushed by the incompetency of narrow-minded,
selfish, and proud German ministers, and an Em-
peror, whose mental weakness and hereditary wil-
fulness render him the suitable tool of his German
bureaucrats. They want a despot to force all the
nationalities to do homage to the bits of Germany
called the Archduchies ; and a weak representative
of a line of tyrants is the very man for them.
How the Vienna camarilla will extricate them-
selves from the position into which they have
plunged themselveo and their master, remains to
be seen. Their talk of the Crown rights is very
big, but their proof of such of them as they assert
against the position taken by the Hungarians as
miserably small. Even in the Lower House of the
Reichsrath the Government heard unwelcome de-
monstration of this from some of the deputies.
One, a Pole, Dr. SMOLKA, and another

a Bohemian, elaborately and earnestly de-
monstrated the errors of Ministers in their
dealings with Hungary. Dr. SMOLKA condemned
the system of centralisation ; and declared it, at a
heavy cost to the Empire, to be an entire failure. He
denied the charges of the Rescript against the
Hungarians, and affirmed that, left to the Govern-
ment of their constitutional authorities, order and
tranquillity would prevail. He proved that law
was on the side of the Hungarians ; and if, he
argued, the laws solemnly established under one
Monarch are to be unheeded by his successors, what
security was there for any Constitution ?

He convicted the EMPEROR out of his own mouth.
In the message to the Reiehsrath he had spoken of
the Hungarian crime of deposing the dynasty as one
by which they had forfeited all their rights—but,
passing over other and weighty considerations, he
reminded the house that in the present Emperor's
own proclamation, a short time subsequent to that
event, he declared that the declaration at Deb-reczin
was the act of a " small faction," while he praised
the loyalty of the nation ! Let then, he said, the
faction be punished, if indeed it has not had
more than ample punishment, but what justice
, can there be in punishing a whole nation for the
act of a faction. He spoke in the highest terms of the
Hungarians, and concluded by telling Ministers that
though the Chambers might vote the ministerial ad-
dress, they would not vote the sentiments of the great
majority of the EMPEROR'S subjects. What with
the minority in the Chambers, and the absence of
representatives from Hungary, Croatia, and Ve-
netia, the Reichsrath mast be pronounced a failure,
and a deserved one. The attempt was made to
erect by it a sham Constitution on the ruins of at
least one old and noble Constitution ; and to sub-
stitute paper liberties for those sterling liberties
which had stood the test of nine centuries. It
deserves to be a failure.

If Washington be now in alarm for the city itself
and for Maryland, the alarm is well deserved. The
Government at Washington has ventured on many
illegal measures; indeed, adopted them with a high
hand: It has not shrunk from setting aside the
Habeas Corpus Act, and from substituting martial
for civil law at its discretion, but it has shown the
utmost timidity and hesitation in attacking the
prime cause of all the trouble. The border States
have been the fear of the PRESIDENT. " If," said
he, when he was required to sign the Act which
confiscated the slaves as well as the other property
of rebels, "we adopt this act, we shall lose Ken-
tucky ;" and the same he might have said of all the
border States—of Maryland, obedient to force, but
ready to side with the rebels as soon as they should
cross the Potomac in sufficient strength—of Missouri,
where the Secessionists seem to be, militarily, the
strongest—and, of course, of Virginia. All the
border States were, as slave States, a source of
weakness. Even Kentucky sent regiments both
North and South.
In such a state of things we can but believe that
the policy of right would have proved successful.
Had the PRESIDENT and Congress been bold
enough to declare slavery at an end for ever in every
State which either had seceded, or had failed to
send its full measure of military support to the
Federal cause—had he taken measures to let it be
known to the slave populations of all the States
that they were now free so far as they could assert
their freedom, and that the law of the United
States would henceforth acknowledge no more
slavery, Washington would not now be threatened,
and Baltimore be looking for the arrival of a
Southern army. The South would have had
to do to watch its own servants; and
spareloktegreNitia ilarritire.'ins7 There might
nave been coupled with this two necessary
conditions, one for the negro, one for his master.
In the interests of humanity, the negro might have
been warned that the Northern army would tolerate
no murder or assassination of their old masters.
That all such retaliatory bloodshed, unless they
were first attacked by their masters, would be
severely and even capitally punished ; that freedom
only was proclaimed to them, but not a freedom to
shed blood except in self-defence.
With this should have been associated an offer to
pay for the slaves of loyal masters and districts.
The fall value of the slave could not have been
justly demanded. The masters could still have had
their service for wages, and probably really cheaper
services, while their board would cost them nothing,
and the money paid for their liberation would have
been capital out of which wages could have been
paid. The sum would have been large, but pro-
bably not more than will be spent on the war ;
and not so much, if the war be protracted; and,
the main cause of disunion would have been
removed for ever. It is highly probable that the

border states, where the slaves are least numerous,
would then at once have thrown their whole
strength heartily into the Northern cause. They
could not hope to retain their slaves in immediate
proximity to states which decreed that, as in
British territory, slavery had no existence, but that
whoever crossed their border was by the act a free-
man. Then the more southward states, even if they
held out militarily for a time, could or must, soon
become border states, for they would find their
slaves running off to, and lost in the states which
had become truly and:practically Free States ; and
thus emancipation must rapidly extend from the
Ohio and the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico.

By the last accounts it appeared by no means
certain that the South would not assume the offen-
sive. If it does it may in its turn meet with its
" Bull's Run,"—the attacking party being of course
at a disadvantage, but they also may succeed in
establishing themselves in Maryland. The plan-is
not without plausibility. If they could secure
Annapolis and Baltimore they would occupy two
principal points from which a great part of the
Northern recruits and supplies reach Washington.
They would thus embarrass their enemy by cutting
off a great part of his supplies—and throwing him
upon the inland and more western routes to the
capital. All the defences of Washington also are
now pointed southerly, and it might be compara-
tively easy to turn back upon it from Baltimore.

The very apprehension now felt at Washington
indicates the altered state of things since the battle
of Manassas ; and from all we can gather from the
various accounts, the capital would have quite
enough to do to defend itself if attacked. The
Confederates can hardly, one would think, have the
means of crossing the Potomac in sufficient force to
be safe on the Northern side, their army being
divided; but Washington is not at present defended
by more than a sufficient number of troops, while
the work of recruiting goes on very slowly. It
appears that even in Boston and New York the regi-
ments cannot make up half their number, and the
City of Washington is considered less secure on the
16th of August than it was on the 16th of April.
On the whole it would seem that the present state of
things points to but one alternative—acknowledg-
ment of secession, or Federal abolition of Slavery.
We cannot be sorry that such is the position—a cut-
to-pieces United States, or a United States cemented,
not by Slavery compromises, but by Freedom.

Lord Clyde, accompanied by Major-Gen. Eyre
and Major Alison, left London yesterday morning for

sT NEW'S.
LATE

PESTH, SEPT. 2

The Comitat of Miskolez has passed a resolution
concurring in the protest of the Comitat of Pesth
against the dissolution of the Hungarian Diet. It
is expected that similar resolutions will also be
passed by the other Comitats of Hungary.

MADRID, SEPT. 2,
The Correspondencia Autografa of to-day says:

" The Cortes will open on the 25th October. The
speech from the throne will announce constitutional
reforms, in accordance with the political views of
the Liberal Union party."

FRANCE.

PARIS, MONDAY,

The Paris Correspondent of the Times, second
edition, says several changes in the French Corps
Diplomatique, which have been talked about for
some time, are officially announced in the Moniteur.
The Marquis de Lavalette, Ambassador at Constan-
tinople, goes in the same quality to Rome to relieve
the Due de Gramont, who goes to Vienna. This
latter place is vacated by the Marquis de Moustier,
who goes to Constantinople.
It is a chasse croise of Ambassadors, which would
be in itself of little significance did it not coincide
in time with the mysterious pamphlet: No doubt
M. de Lavalette was unwilling to return a third
time to Constantinople, but the pivot man was evi-
dently M. de Grammont. While it was the object
to prove to the world that nothing was neglected to
facilitate conciliation with Rome, a man inclined
that way was the most adapted representative; but
now that, perhaps, there is an intention to prove
that nothing can be done, another man who has not
spoken so much in one sense is required.
The pamphlet was, it seems, the first shot fired in
the campaign against the temporal power. It ap-
peared on Friday, and yesterday Dentu's shop in
the Palais Royal was teeming with others,
anonymous and not anonymous, old and new ones.
The first was like the great shell, which goes
through everything, while the others are like
the splinters which it throws about after bursting,
and which complete the work of destruction. The
Pope and Rome, by a Catholic ; Papal Prisons,
by C. Paya; No more Convents, by Cayla. The
first a philosophical essay, subverting not only the
temporal power, but attacking the infallibility of
the Pope, and substituting the infallibility of the
Church for it ; the second a resume of the expe-
riences of the avocet Vincent de Tergolina, kept
four years in prison, and giving a description of
them, reminding of Mr. Gladstone's letters and the
reports of the trial of political offenders under his
deceased Majesty of Naples ; the third calling on
the Government to apply the strict law to religious
congregations, especially of the Jesuits, which are
a form of intrigue. In one word, a complete un-
bridling and letting loose. In the midst of it an
insidious appeal in the contrary direction, Allons a
Rome, by one of the writers of the Gazette de
France, finds its way, calling on the Catholics to
form committees and send volunteers to the rescue
of thelPope. Amid all this turmoil the papers are
silent as the grave.

Earl Russell arrived in Paris on Saturday ; he
proposes to leave to-day.
There is no change to be remarked in the general
trade of France. Capital appears to be abundant,
but without means of employment. Some branches
of trade are prospering. The ironmasters, for
example, cannot complain.
Among those who have suffered most severely
from the present depression in the export trade are
the operatives employed in the manufacture of
articles de Paris. The greater number of them are
only employed half time.

Accounts from Montpellier state that the present
year will be one of the meet remarkable as regards
the production of bees.

The accounts from the wine producing districts
are satisfactory. In many vineyards the vines
afford a PrOSTlenf of or. ...1.....1n5".# win buy,

AffIZZINI AND IHR WORKING CLASSES
OF ITALY.

, -
The Diritto publishes a letter addressed by Maz-
zini to the Working Men's Society of Bologna,
dated London, August 14. In this letter M. Maz-
zini says :

In you, fellow-workmen, lives the future of
Italy, if you only understand your mission—a
mission which is at once national and local,
moral,intellectual, and economical. A fatal
suggestion, imprudently adopted by some of
your societies, would limit your collective action
to economical ameliorations alone, and banish
it from the discussion of the great interests of the
common country ; as if the life of the workingman
was to be broken in pieces and reduced to a purely
material existence ; as if the possession of a power-
ful and honoured country, secure from external
aggression and loved by the people, was not the
pledge of internal wealth, the foundation of all eco-
nomical improvement, and the guarantee of its dura-
tion. The doctrine that working men should only
look after their material interests has brought about
the ruin of liberty in France, and (with the excep-
tion of three or four large cities where the Govern-
ment maintains large public works for its own pur-
poses) has diminished the material prosperity of
the working class. The economical condition of a
nation has never been more splendid than in our
republics of 500 years ago, when the trades guilds
met under their banners to take council whenever
the interests of the city required them to do so.
Rome, once become ours, after a deliberate discus-
sion in a constituent assembly, would probably found
a credit system for operative societies, and Venice,
restored to liberty, would re-open for Italian com-
merce and productions a series of new markets
amongst the great valley of the Danube and the
East of Europe. Liberty, national unity, the
emancipation of the people, material progress—all
these things are bound up together, and those who tell
working men to separate them, only desire to keep
them an inferior caste, which they may use for their
own profit. . Unite, unite from one end of the
country to the other. You have local interests, which
each of your societies should represent, whilst there
are general interests common to all those who labour,
which should also be represented. As you have local
statutes you ()fight to have a general statute. As the
first are directed by the committees of each society,
the second ought to be represented by a central
board. Urge on the work. Congresses without
statutes and fundamental laws are useless. At
your next congress you should appoint a commission
from your own body to draw up such statutes.
The " Working Men's Brotherhood" of Florence
and their laws would much facilitate the labour of
the commission. Discussed and adopted by another
congress the statutes should be worked by the cen-
tral board. The power of the labour element would
then be constituted, and the people's league founded.
Scatter these ideas, if you approve of them, amongst
the working men's associations of the towns of the
Romagna. Prepare the ground for unity. Append
your signatures to the protest in favour of Rome ;
subscribe your money, however small, to the fund
for the emancipation of Venice. As for myself, if
God spares my life, after Rome and Venice are free,
I shall devote it to the development of your inte-
rests, which are the interests of Italy. If God
should ordain otherwise, remember with affection a
man who has sincerely loved you, who expected
much from you on behalf of the country when no-
body cared for you, your emancipation, and your
future.

Believe me, your brother, G. MAZZINI.

We (Liverpool Albion) are informed that Mr.
Clay, of the Mersey Steel and Iron Works, is engaged in
the manufacture of one of his guns, of enormous size and
power. The design and destination of the gun is not allowed
to transpire, but it is supposed to be made for experimental
purposes for a foreign government, to test the resistance of
battery plates. It is said that the gun is to throw a shot of
5001b5., and that it will be ready for trial in two or three
weeks. The monster gun made at these works, and which
was lately tested again at Portsmouth, carries a shot of
2SOlbs.

INCREASE IN THE PRICE OF GAS.--The three
gas t,
companies supplying the city of London with gas have,
since the passing of the Metropolis Gas Act, determined to
raise the price of their gas. This decision was made known
to the inhabitant yesterday by the issuing of a circular,
stating that the Legislature having, after full inquiry, passed
an Act for regulating the supply of gas to the metropolis,
requiring under heavy penalties a higher standard of illu-
minating power and purity, which will necessarily involve
an increased cost of production, the companies supplying
the city will, on and after Michaelmas next, be brought
under the provisions of that Act, and that the future charge
will be at the rate of 48:6d. per 1,000 feet for the ordinary
coal gas,

V,

THE MAGAZINES.