The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-18 00:00:00

PARIS and STRASBURG RAILWAY
The great enemy of war is steam ; and it is to
extend the advantages of steam and railway commu -
1 nication over the world, that we must now invest
those hundreds of millions which our ancestors pre-
ferred to lavish in war and useless conquest. - Ih this
respect, England has set an example to the, rest of
Europe: her total length of railway line,' extending
now to nearly 2,ooo'llllles, representing an investment
of upwards of 50 millions. Belgium alone of the
Continental States has as yet largely imitated
our. example ; but within the last year France
also has bestirred herself, and the intersection
of that fertile and industrious country with railways
in all directions has new become a prime object of
the French Legislature. In our advertising columns
we present to-day the prospectus of a projected line
to be undertaken in conjunction with the French
Government, being one of the most important of
these national undertakings—a line to connect the
metropolis of France (already about to be brought
near to England by the railroad to Havre) with the
city of Strasburg, the point of departure from
Germany. At the head of this undertaking appear
names of commercial and political eminence, the
French President being one "who has served the
Crown" in its highest office, and "may hope to serve
it again." The district to be traversed will appear
important, even from a glance on the map of 'France,
but we perceive, from authentic data, that, besides the
bronzes of Paris, of Which, even under a duty of 20
per cent., we import annually to the value of
1,000,0001., the line abounds not only with rich
natural resources, both of the farm and the vineyard,
but with woollen and cotton factories, producing
fabrics to the annual value, in one province alone, of
5,000,0001. sterling ; and affording, even under much
disadvantage as respects intercommunication, abund-
ant local traffic. In a national point of view, the
undertaking presents, both to France and England,
prospects of extensive moral and commercial benefit.
—Railway paper. •

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Last week, handbills were distributed at all the
police stations, offering a reward of 201. for the detection and
apprehension of thediabolieal person or persons, who, on the
7th instant, sent by the ten o clock train, from the Euston-
square station of the London and Birmingham Railway, a
basket addressed to a gentleman at Cheltenham, in which was
placed a small black coffin, containing a full-grown dead male
child. The coffin was a small black one, two feet long, made
of half-inch deal, with inch elm ends. • The child was dressed
in a new cap, with a lace border, a bed gown, and covered with
a diaper naitk:in, A further reward of 5/. is offered to the per-
sap who bad the coffin, on his giving up the name and ad-
dress of the person to whom it was sold, and 5/. to any per-
son identifying the clothes and other articles found around
the child in the catisi,
Mr. ColadWa motion for a Select Committee to in-
quire into the peculiar burdens borne by land,.--so important
W the tenant-farmers and farm labourers of this country-
was brought before the House of Commons on Tuesday even-
ing: We unite wittairgotden in expression of his surprise
that the bringing iitiVard- a 'motion for the appointment of
such a committee should be left to him. Wherefore was it
not brought forward by .the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of
Harewood, Lord Wgrsley, or some other Member of the Coun-
cil of the Anti-League Association ? Was there no noble or
honourable Ptrrner's friend to anticipate the motion of then lion.
Free-trade Member for ' Stockport ? Was his fat-
heided Grace of Buckingham asleep? Where was Mr.
Christopher, the Lincolnshire "Peel pilot balloon?" One
would have supposed that every pretended " farmer's friend "
in Parliament would have appeared armed with such a mo-
tion the instant it was known that a single voice was raised
in the country in favour of the abolition of the corn-laws.
>But the landlords arc a peculiarly coy race. They are deli-
cately sensitive upon the subject of those peculiar burdens
of theirs, They shrink from exposing them as much as a
young beauty would from indicating a high shoulder, or the
necessity of a pair of padded stays. Like the sweep in
" Hood's Comic Almanac," perusing the Act of Parliament
which forbids him to proclaim his calling from the house-
tops, and, who indulges in the plaintiff ditty, " I have a silent
sorrow here," the landlords, with a modesty as peculiar as
their burdens, have hitherto confined the details of their dis-
tresses to the somewhat vacant sanctuary of their own bo-
soms.-Hull Advertiser.
SUPPOSED MURDER OF THE STEWARD ON BOARD
THE CHIEFTAIN, OF SUNDERLAND, CAPT. R. REAY.-On the
*1 instant, two letters were received here, written on board
the above ship, and dated Spalatro, Feb. 16. John Med-
forth, second mate, the writer of one addressed to his mo-
ther, says :-" I am sorry I have bad news to tell you ; on
the 21st of January, being Sunday, about half-past eleven,
or a quarter to twelve o'clock at night, the carpenter came
down into the cabin, and called up the master, who dressed
himself ' • and then I saw hint (for I was not asleep) put a
pistol in his pocket, and go upon deck. He had only been gone
a short time when I heard the report of a pistol ; I went im-
mediately upon deck, and saw the steward shot, and the car-
penterholding his head." The other letter is from William
Smith, seaman before the mast, in the same ship, and bears
the same date. Smith writes suppose you have learnt
the sad account of poor John Harrison ; he was shot by the
captain on the 2lst of January ; the ball entered the brain,
and he died on the 22d. I had been on shore with him in
the evening, and wanted him to return on board with me,
but he did not ; he came, however, in about an hour after, and
I helped him on board ; I knew nothing more until I heard a
pistol fired, when I came on deck and found the steward
shot." Such are the statements of the letters with regard to
the death of poor Harrison, who has left a widow and child
to lament his hard fate. Harrison served his time with Mr.
Bunney, of Hull, and always bore the character of an upright
seaman, and an honest man. His widow has received a cer-
tificate of his death from the captain, stating that he met his
death by accident. The ship is understood to be now on its
passage to Southampton.-Hull Advertiser.
Our friends in the ‘.‘ far north" appear to feel the
rigours of winter with almost unexampled severity. We
learn that, since Monday, the 19th ult., the inhabitants of
Stornoway have been under the necssity, in several instances,
of finding egress from their houses by the roofs, or by pas-
sages dug under the snow. All the roads are completely
blocked up, and many of the houses are buried beneath the
drift. Loss of life, we are sorry to say, has frequently oc-
curred in the Highlands since the commencement of the pre-
sent storm. An instance has just come within our notice.
On Friday, the 23d ult., whilst a man named Alexander
Macdonald, belonging to Coll, was returning home from
Stornoway, he was overpowered. by the storm, and perished
in the snow. His body was found on Monday, at a short
distance from his own house. He has left a widow and six
children to lament his death.-Inrerness Courier.
VESSELS SPOKEN `VIII;.-British schooner, Sophia, Feb. 4,
lat. 30, lon. 61, by the Pollux, arrived at New York.
Ernestine, Nantes to Mauritius, Feb. 9, lat. 3, N., lon. 18,
W. ; Franklin, Liverpool to New Orleans, Feb. 23, lat. 25, N.,
lon. • 37, W., by the Margaretha, arrived in the Downs,
Louisa Maria; Patjatan for Amsterdam, Dec. 22, lat. 26, S.,
lon. 60, E.; Urgent, Calcutta to London, Dec. 27, lat. 28,
lon. 19 ; Barbab, from Padang for Amsterdam, Jan. 21,1 at.
18, S., lon. 2, W., by the Catherina Johanna, off Portland.
Devon, of and from Liverpool, Feb. 6, lat. 841, N., lon. 21
39 W. ; Urania, of and from Leith, to the Cape of Good
Hope, out 35 days from Stromness, Feb. 8, lat. 10 15, N.,
lon. 23 50, W., by the Mary, from Mauritius, arrived.
Margaret of Bristol, South Australia to Batavia, in the Straits
of Sunda, by the Margaretha Bauer, arrived in the Downs.
Ernestine Leroy, Nantes to Mauritius, 9th ult. lat. 3 N.,
lon. 18 W., by the Franklin, Liverpool to New ult.,
lat.
25 N., lon. 37 W. Carolina Johanna, Batavia to Amsterdam.
Jan. 2, lat, 38 S., lon. 39 E. ; Maria, Batavia to Rotterdam,
15th, lat. 32 S., lon. 12 E ; Francis Ann, Liverpool to Sin-
gapore, sth ult., on the Line, in lon. 20 W., by the Cambridge,
Brown' arrived off Falmouth. Matilda, of Liverpool, steering
S.W., hat. 38, ion. 12, by the Princess Royal, West, arrived ,
in the River, Englishman, Bristol to Africa, Jan. 17, lat. 14
N., lon. 28 W., by the Columbus, arrived at Liverpool.- Ab-
botsford, Liverpool to Boston, 25th ult., lat. 43, lon. 47, by
the Menussia, arrived at Liverpool. London, Calcutta to Li-
verpool, Jan. 8, lat. 30 S., lon. 42 E. ; William Henry, Li-
verpool to Halifax, 7th inst., lat. 45, lon. 15 ; Little Wonder,
London to St. Michael's, 9th, lat, 48, lon. 11; Argus, front
Shields, 10th, lat. 49, lon. 8, by the One-and-All, Brocken-
shire, arrived at Milford.

Is- moral principle so utterly extinct in the British.
Parliament, that not one of its Members evinces sufficient in-
tegrity, or possesses the common honesty to protest against
the flagitious robbery contemplated in the confiscation of the
small remnant of right which the avarice of landlords has
left to the poor of England in their native soil ? Can it be,
that the power of doing wrong with present impunity has so
04.clened the feeling of shame for the meanness of plunder-
ing, and so completely extinguished every spark of genero-
sity, and sense of manly pride in the aristocracy, that not
one of its body shrinks from the infamy indissolubly bound.
with the aot of spoliation projected by the parents and sup-
porters of Lord Worsley's Bill? It would appear so, from
the facility with which this unnecessary, indefensible, and
most odious measure, has passed through its second stage;
and that we are now to witness the further augmentation of
rabllaebourers
overgrown estates, by the annexation of every patch, strip.,
anti shred of land, which has hitherto escaped the maraud-
irg of the landlords, and assisted the over-taxed,
over-worked, e
preservation
sery more than
oftheir half-starvedmiserable
existence. Fo
and
cot_t
the vast masa of the population—for all, in fact, who do not
actually occupy as owners and tenants—this Bill, the mo-
ment it becomes a statute, severs every tie that connects
them with the land of their birth. They have no longer any
claim upon it it has no longer any claim upon them. ft
belongs to those who have taken possession of it in the exer-
ciaq of their power as legislators, and all others are tres-
passers and aliens. Bit by bit, and parcel by parcel, the
landlords have seized upon the property of the peoule, with no
advantage even to themselves correspondent to the amount of
pauperism which they have engendered. And it is not the
least remarkable feature of these acts of robbery, that each
has been preceded by an affectation of sympathy for the poor,
and a protestation that the deed was intended to give them
additional employment. Every successive act of robbery by
means of Inclosure Bills, whether private or public, has been
defended on precisely the same grounds, and every successive
Act has left the people eventually in a worse condition than
before. rrivate estates have accumulated, and in the same
proportion the means of general subsistence have decreased.
We have at once the wealthiest aristocracy and the greatest
number of hopelessly destitute, that can be found in any
country of which the soil is abundantly capable of sustaining
its entire population. Look on the subject in what light
Welter we may, a melancholy picture is presented of a free
people degraded into slaves, and a rampant aristocracy wal-
lowing in wealth, which has been accumulated by a base per-
version of their power as legislators. Men condemn the act
of the highwayman, who, strong in weapons of destruction,
plunders unarmed travellers : yet the seizure of the rights of
the weak by any act of power whatever, is substantially the
same, , The name alone makes the difference ; and, if this or
any other Bill of a like nature for the general inclosure of
common lands become a law, let him that is endowed with
inexhaustible patience endeavour to discover the actual dif-
ference between a house of landlords and a den of thieves.—
liforsing Advertiser.
Ensign Swetenham, of the 3d Buffs, son of Major
Swetenham, of Somerford Hall, Cheshire, was very severely
wounded, in charging a battery of the enemy's guns with his
regiment, at the battle of Punniar. A cannot shot entering
his right leg above the knee, carried away almost all the flesh
inside his thigh, passing through, killed his covering sergeant,
who fell dead at the same instant. Mr. Swetenham had
been previously struck by a musket shot, when his sword-
belt arrested the ball from entering his body. We are happy
to learn the last account left him doing well.
DUELS.—From the commencement of the reign of
George 111, to the reign of her Majesty upwards of 1,00
duels have been fought. In three both combatants were
killed. In 80 one of the combatants was killed in each, acd
in all 120 were wounded. Upwards of 20 trials for duels have
occurred, in which four duellists were found guilty of mur-
der, and two were hanged. In the list of duellists occur the
names of York, Norfolk, Castlereagh, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan,
Burdett, Canning, Peel, Wellington, &c.

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