The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-28 00:00:00

Admtasinn. Is.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Testa DAY —Morning 6 min. alter 4 Evening 24
min.
after 4
To-Moazow— Morning 40 min. after 4 Evening
59 min. after 4

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, JUNE 28.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
65—highest since noon yesterday.
49—lowest this morning and during the night.
62—this day, at noon.
BAROMETER, 30'14.
WlcD N.E.—rain during the night; Afternoon, dull, cloudy
weather.

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her Royal person, but it is not the less infamous on
that account. The feeling of intense horror will not
be diminished because the offender was not armed
with a deadly weapon, or did not ape the
act of a regicide. The paltry scoundrels
who pretended to fire on her MAJESTY on former
occasions had probably no real intention of injuring
or inflicting pain on the Royal Lady. Their object
was attained by the mere semblance of the act ; their
names received the infamous notoriety which they
coveted, and they were either banished the country,
or retained in a tolerably comfortable seclusion,
without being required to earn their daily bread by
the sweat of their brows. But, in the present in-
stance, there was a deliberate determination
to insult and hurt an amiable lady—a young
mother surrounded by her children. The weapon
was not very formidable, it was but a thin walking-
cane, that could not, by any possibility endanger life,
or occasion any permanent injury, but care was
taken that the blow should take effect, that it should
give pain, and most probably mark her MAJESTY,
so that she could not appear in public for
some time. The former station in society, the
rank of a lieutenant in the 10th Hussars, once held
by the culprit, aggravate the atrocity of the outrage,
and increase the general detestation of the offender.
.

The blow crushed her MAJESTY'S bonnet, which
providentially broke its violence to a certain extent:;
it also severely hurt her forehead, but it will be gra-
tifying to the loyal inhabitants of this country to
learn that their beloved QUEEN exhibited the
same dauntless resolution and unflinching courage
for which she was so much distinguished on the
former transactions, and that she had speedily, so
far recovered from the effects of the assault as to be
enabled to attend the Royal Italian Opera in the
evening, where the rapturous and enthusiastic recep-
tion which she received must have been such as to
more than compensate fur the brutality of her
assailant.
It is at present premature to speculate on the
motives of the offender. It will speedily be
ascertained whether he was suffering under an
aberration of intellect, which rendered him really
and truly irresponsible for his actions, or whether he
was merely avenging some fancied wrong to himself
or to some friend or patron. In the former case the
wretched man would be merely an object of pity,
who should be kept in close confinement and de-
barred from any further opportunity of injuring
himself or others. In the latter, the most severe
and ignominious punishment sanctioned by the
law of the land should be unhesitatingly inflicted.
On the former point, if insanity be made a ground of
defence, the evidence should be of the clearest and
most satisfactory character. Many verdicts of ac-
quittal on the ground of insanity have been returned
during the past year which could scarcely be justi-
fied, in which, in fact, there was no particle of proof to
sustain the plea; nothing, in fact, but the mere sugges-
tion of counsel that the:man's mind must be diseasfrd,
or that he never could have contemplated so useless a
crime. Such a defence should at all times be received
with the utmost caution. It is not because there might
be a certai❑ feeling of pity for the criminal that he
should be permitted to escape from the consequences
of his guilt, or that the majesty of the law should be
permitted to remain unvindicated. But in the present
instance it would be dangerous in the extreme if the
jury should suffer themselves to be hoodwinked, or
to return a verdict on such trivial or inadequate
grounds. There can be but little sympathy enter-

tamed for such an offender, but care must be taken
to guard against a repetition of similar acts. If a
conviction be obtained, there never was a case where
the salutary provisions of the Act passed for the pro-
tection of the Royal person could be more usefully
brought into operation. Although no advocates for
" corporal punishment," generally speaking, we
must admit the effect of public flagellation on three
separate occasions would be most beneficial, and
would put an effectual stop to the freaks of parties
anxious to spring into such notoriety.

An intermediate discussion, like the one of last
evening, a discussion consisting for the most part of
the prosy twaddle of sixth-rate Members of the
Legislature, necessarily denudes of considerable in-
terest a subject of such grave importance as the one
now under the consideration of the House of Com-
mons. Any orations more deplorably bald in argu-
ment, drowsy in delivery, and shallow in sentiment,
any harangues more depressing from their enormous
stupidity, and for their jolter-headed repetition of
statements that bad been already disproved
over and over again, so as to be comprehensible
by this time to the dullest blockhead in the United
Kingdom, we cannot call to recollection, than
the majority of the speeches which were last
night delivered upon the subject of the Foreign
Policy of her MAJESTY'S Government. It is upon
such occasions as these that we can really estimate
the amount of commiseration due to the Right
Honourable Gentleman the Representative of North
Hampshire. Yesterday, for example, as Speaker of
the House, that unfortunate legislator was required
to listen to the very stale iterations of the Member
for Radnorshire, to the respectable common-places of
one of the Members for Oxford University, and to the
partizan platitudes of another, to the intemperate
vituperations of the Member for South Wilt-
shire, to the indecorous sophistries of the Member
for Southwark, and to the unmitigated nonsense of
the Noble Lord the Member for the Borough of
Stamford. Than this, scarcely anything in the way
of Parliamentary routine could be devised as a more
stupendous affliction. We sympathise most cordially
with the Right Hon. Gentleman the SPEAKER of the
House of Commons—the debate of yesterday having
been only thrice relieved from its pervading inanity
once by the brief and manly comments of Si;
HARRY VERNET, once by the refreshing influ-
ence of the equally brief observations of Mr.
SHAFT() ADAIR, and again by the admirable
and comprehensive, though condensed and sententious,
oration of the Right Honourable Baronet her Ma-
jesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home
Department.

A superficial glance at the attacks, both personal
and political, levelled against Lord PALMERSTON
during this most momentous discussion, will be suffi-
cient to show at once the venom of private animosity
and the pitiable chicane by which the assailants of
the Noble Viscount endeavour to misrepre-
sent the character of his diplomatic admi-
nistration. In illustration of the casuistry
employed by these opponents of the Foreign
Secretary, we need only direct attention to
the speeches delivered on Tuesday night by Lord
JOHN MANNERS and yesterday evening by Sir Wm-
Liam MOLESIVORTH. More shameless perversions of
the truth than may be culled from these two most
vituperative harangues we challenge any man to ad-
duce from the orations of the least fair and the least
honest disputants. That the Noble Lord the leader
of the chivalric faction of Young Eng-
landers should condescend to assail a great
statesman with mere sophistries and mis-
representations, weapons unbecoming the subject of
the debate and unbefitting the House of Parliament,
is to us matter of real surprise, notwithstanding our
knowledge of his strong political predilections. But
that the.Honourable Baronet, the pseudo- Liberal Re-
presentative of Southwark, should have the hardihood
to rise in the House of Commons, as he did last even-
ing, and attack the policy of an illustrious adminis-
trator like Lord PALMERSTON with the merest quib-
bles and the most wilful prevarications, arouses
within us feelings of the deepest astonishment, and,
we doubt not, will agitate every right-minded person
in the land with emotions of the keenest indignation.
The course pursued in this matter last night by Sir
WILLIAM :MOLESWORTH is a course which not only
reflects disgrace upon him as a Liberal representative,
but one which amounts, moreover, to an act of the
grossest political tergiversation. Let him rest
assured of this—his comtituency of Southwark will
not allow it to pass from their recollection. They
will announce to him, when next he ventures to ap-
pear before them as a candidate for their suffrages,
that they regard his conduct of last evening as
having altogether dissipated their confidence in him
as their representative. But that there was no
mistaking his identity, we should have imagined
ourselves the victim of an illusion. Sir WILLIAM
MOLESWORTH has affixed a blot to his political
escutcheon such as we fear must prove wholly in-
delible.
What we object to as a most shameful mis-
statement in the speech of Lord JOHN MANNERS is