The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-01 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY. OCTOBER 1, 1850.

Sir Cruunas WOOD unquestionably possesses one
qualification for the important office he occupies in
the GOvernment of the country. No person can
listen with more profound indifference to the com-
plaints of suitors to the Exchequer, who, whether
seeking relief as a matter of right, or of expediency,
of justice, or of charity, are dealt with in a manner
that must discourage all future applications. The
summary mode in which he disposed of the numerous
representations respecting the commercial crisis, and
the wide-spread distress in August, September, and
the early part of October, 1847 ; the uablushing har-
dihood with which he met the various depute
Lions, totally denying the existence of any pressure
its the money marl:et, and tuserting that any person
of real solvency could have no difficulty in obtaining
the accommodation he required upon sufficient secu-
rity, must constitute valuable precedents for the
guidance of all future Chancellors of the Exchequer;
while his conduct and demeanour to those who apply
for fiscal relief, by the abolition or reduction of some
obnoxious impost ; the impressive manner in which
be refuses to enter into any discussion respecting the
justice or policy of a particular tax, or the hardships
which its mode of collection inflicts upon the people ;
the simple method of narrowing the question
to the pounds, shillings, and pence, which it brings to
the revenue—" a sum which," to use his own
stereotyped answer, "he is certainly not prepared to
relinquish," are beyond all praise, and must serve as
models for future imitation.

But he has recently established even a higher claim
to the a lmiration of his successors in office. He is
probably the firit English Minister of Finance who
has compromh-ed well-founded claims against the
national Exchequer for something less thin 10e in
the pound, or who suggested a local subscription
to make up the deficietcy. He has also afforded a
valuable lesson to the sufferers on the impropriety
of impatience, an I of the unreasonableness of expec-
ting that the money which bad been voted by Thalia•
ment for their use should be applied without unneces
sary delay.
The case ( f the unfortunate depositors in the Cuffe-
street Savings' Bank must be so fresh in the public
recollection that it is surely unnecessary to repeat
the circumstances, which, it was almost universally
acknowledged, gave them a claim upon the Govern-
ment for the full amount of their deposits. A Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, selected by
Sir CHARLES WOOD—liho, contrary to the usual
course, took the nomination from the gentle-
man on whose motion the Committee was
appointed—investigated the cane as well as those of
the banks of Tralee, Kirarney, and Auchterarder.
From their report it appeared that the Government
had long been aware of the condition of the Cuffe-
street Bank, that serious deficiencies had occurred in
its accounts, and yet the Comnaissionere, whose duty
it was to have immediately interfered, and to have
prevented further frauds from being perpetrated on
the people, deliberately sanctioned the continuance of
the bank, and induced the people of Dublin to lodge
their humble savings in an insolvent under-
taking. Had the affairs been wound up
in 1838, when the large deficiency was
ascertained, there would have been a dividend of
16s. 6d. in the pound, and even in 1845, when the
liabilities exceeded the assets by a much larger sum,
the loss would not have much exceeded ss. in the
pound ; but the Commissioners, fearing the run that
it might have occasioned on savings banks generally
f the erroneous opinion that there was Government
security for the deposits were removed, permitted the
bank to continue its operations until, in 1848, it
finally closed with liabilities which in round terms
amounted to 64,000/., while its assets were under
100/., it being even asserted that immediately be-
fore the final closing of the bank the managers gave
an undue preference to their own friends, by paying
in full certain parties who had not made any applica-
tion, while they refused those who had served the
usual notices.

The Committee, in referring to tiffs matter in their
report, state that " they are inclined to allow due
weight to the considerations which they believe in-
flaeLced tie Commissioners, in 1838 and 1845, in the
course which they pursued, but they cannot but feel
that as regards the depositors, who are principally of the
poor, r classes, a different course would have prevented
the loss of all their savings.' After such a state-
ment it is difficult to conceive how Parliament could
have refused to pay the full amount of the claims of
the dfpositors. Through the culpable apathy, the
crassa negligentia, of the Commissioners, they
had been betrayed, and they had therefore an
unquestionable right to be reimbursed all their losses
from the national Exchequer. Sir CHARLES WOOD,
however, adopted a
.middle course; he proposed a
vote of 30,0001. as a matter of charity, which was ,

carried by an obedient majority. The inconsistency
of this course was, however, but too palpable. If the
demand was founded on equity and justice it should
have been satisfied to the last farthing. It would be
unworthy of the British nation, which especially
prides itself on a scrupulous observance of the public
faith, to compromise a fair debt, or to take advantage
of the weakness of the claimants, to give them less
than they were fairly entitled to ; but if, on the other
hand, it were to be considered merely as a case of
charity, there could be 'no possible reason why the
sufferers at Tralee and Killarney should not have been
allowed to participate. The distress in Kerry was not
less urgent than in Dublin ; nor had the southern
depositors less claims upon the compassion of philan-
thropists than those of the metropolis. Sir CHARLES
Wool) could not extricate himself from the horns of
the dilemma on which he had permitted himself to be
tossed.
It now appear., from the correspondence which
has taken place between the Right Honourable
Baronet and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, that
no step bas yet been taken to distribute the
money voted by Parliament among the sufferers'
Sir CHARLES WOOD is " sorry to learn that any of
the depositors should have been induced to have come
from other place., at considerable inconvenience to
themselves, in the expectation of immediately receiv-
ing any part of the money." He, however, consoles
himself by thinking that " it is entirely their own
act, and one to which they have certainly not been
led by anything that he has said." Good easy man,
he suffers no inconvenience, his cheques are duly
honoured by his bankers, his official salary paid to
the day, consequently he has not unduly exerted
himself by 'endeavouring to expedite the inquiry
which he chooses to consider necessary, and which
will furnish comfortable pickings for some fortunate
protege. Oh, Sir CHARLES Woon is indeed a great
man ! Happy is the nation that is blessed with so
prudent a Minister of Finance

It would appear that the reaction against the reac-
tion has commenced in good earnest in the dominions
of the King of the Two Sicieras, and that the Cala-
brias are at this moment the seat of a civil war
which will probably be4of such a character as to make
humanity shudder ; for the Calabrians have been for
the last eighteen months, in common with the other
subjects of his Majesty KING BOMBA, experiencing
treatment more than sufficient to generate
sentiments of deadly hatred and implacable
vengeance in the bosoms of a less excitable race
than that which inhabits the ancient Magna Grecia,
once the most civilized region of the globe, but now re-
duced to semi-barbarism by the demoralizing tyranny
of the successive Kings of Naples. The Austrian
Government, it would appear, has for some time past
foreseen that the unreasoning tyranny of the Neapoli-
tan Bourbon could not but drive his people to despair,
and produce an outbreak, which, should it once get
head, would inevitably extend to all Italy ; and
as Austria is in no condition to renew the
efforts she made in 1848 and 1849, and could not
now spare a single soldier to assist the Bouanori even
in his utmost need, the Austrian Minister has of
late addressed the Neapolitan tyrant in language
of sharp reproof—has strongly recommended the ob-
servance on his part of a more constitutional, more
conciliatory, and more reasonable line of policy. The
Bourbon " adder," however, was " deaf to the voice of
the charmer," and with the characteristic stu-
pidity, obstinacy, and cruelty of his race, determined
to persevere in his system of government by terror, but,
AS the Austrian Minister foresaw, the 9:h Thermidor
of the ROBESPIERRE of legitimacy is at hand, and from
the point of all others least expected, from Calabria, will
proceed, perchance, the liberation of Italy. We pub-
lished a few days since a correspondence which
originally appeared in the Paris Evenement,
and which gave a short account of this
Calabrian outbreak, and we have anxiously
watched for further intelligence, which should
either confirm the truth or prove the falsehood
of the news given in the Evenement. We did not,
however, look fur any information on the subject
to the Neapolitan journals ; they are every one of
them in the hands of the Government; even the Tempo,
which so long preserved its independence, has been at
last forced to succumb, and is now under the sole di-
rection of PECCHENEDA, the Minister of the Police—
esither did we expect to find any account of the
Calabrian insurrection in the foreign correspondence
,f the English re-actionary journals ; it is not
their cue to know anything of the Calabrian insur-
rection until the insurgents shall be at the
gates of Naples. In an Italian journal,
however, 11 Commune Italiano, published at
Milan, under the government of the myrmidons,
of Austria, and the authority of which, therefore,
cannot be disputed, we find the accounts given by
the correspondent of the Evenement fully corrobo-
rated. It was on the 25th of August that the attack
was made by the band of Bianchi en Nicastro,
and that they entered that city to "execute," as they
said, " justice on their enemies"—and so far did their
thirst for revenge carry them that they not only shot
lown and cut down the Shirr' of the King of
NAPLES, and the Neapolitan authorities wherever
they could find them, but burned the houses
and ravagad the proparty of these their " enemies,"
and one man was observed who refused to permit
any measures to be adopted to extinguish the flames
of his own house, but who, on the contrary, adopted
every means in his power to increase the force or
the flames, b:cau-se it was situated in the
midst of the houses of the " enemies." A certain
FERDINAND° AJItLLO, an urban guard, who had
betrayed some persons to the authorities, was shot
by his nephews, who refused to permit any
others to shoot him, because:they wished to wash out
the shame of the fa nilyj " This episode," says
the writer in the Commune Italiano, " should warn
the political power, that if it does not stop short in
the course it is pursuing, and adopt more temperate
measures for the pacification of the country, greater
evils must inevitably occur. The revolution which
is now preparing in the Two Sicilies will surpass
that of '99 in France. In Nicastro there were more
than 200 of the inhabitants arrested by the
military authorities. The revolutionists have
retaliated by wholesale shootings and burp-
ings." Deeply as we regret these events, so
shocking to humanity, yet we are not surprised at
their occurrence, for the provocation given by
the King of NAPLES and his myrmidons has
been of a character beyond all endurance, and their
conduct during the last eighteen months has been one
continued series of cruelty, injustice, rapine, cowardice
and meanness. Thus is their conduct described in this
very journal, published at Milan under Austrian
rule :—" The Two Sicilies are in a state of
complete desolation. The reaction imprisons, tor-
tures, prosecutes, and pats to death, for thoughts even,
into which it scrutinizes ; it gives its own significa-
tion to the acts and gestures of every indivi-
dual citizen, descends to a system of the minutest
espionage in private domiciles, in courts of
justice, in churches, in oratories, in monasteries,
tortures in the country and in the city with a cynicism
which inspires horror, and with an impassibility
which moves the most impassible." Such is a pic-
ture not overcharged of the unbearable tyranny
under which the Two Sicilies have groaned
since the month of April of last year. Can
we be surprised that the ignorant but fiery
population of Calabria should "profit by the lesson
that has been taught them," and should endeavour to
do that which is manifestly impossible, "better the
example?"

REPAVING OF OXFORD-STREET.—ThO portion of
this immense and important thoroughfare between South
Moalton and New Bond-streets has been closed for traffic, in
order to remove the ordinary macadamized paving and re-
place it with granite blocks, as being more durable and also
more suitable to this portion of the street, which is a rapid
decline to the, so called, hollow of Oxford-street, and which
will now be assimilated with the lower portion of the
descent, which was paved in a similar ma 'tier about a year
since. The works will proceed with the dispatch requisite
in a thoroughfare of such extent, and in the meantime the
traffic is obliged to take a circuitous route to the place of des-
tination.

AN INLAND " SEA SERPENT."— Oa Friday last,
as two veteran anglers, who had seen many summers on the
banks of lake Windermere, were amusing themselves at mid.
day with their favourite sport, they espied a snake crossing
the water. Its dimensions are described as at least a yard in
length, and its girth about the thickness of a person's wrist,
and its vivid scaly hues as glittering beautifully in the sun.
They weighed anchor and gave chase, with the intention of
securing it. On their approach, however, it grinned—not
" horribly, a ghastly smile"—but so menacingly fierce, that
they thought proper to desist; and let the reptile pass. The
lake, where it was crossing, is about a mile in width.—Ulver.
stone Advertiser.

THE SUN,