The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-09 00:00:00

ItAIL WAY INTELLIGENCE.

THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN, AND
SHREWSBURY AND CHESTER, AND SHREWSBURY AND
BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY COMPANIES.—It is rumoured
in a quarter where accurate information generally
circulates, that such a change is likely to take place
in the management of the Shrewsbury and Birming-
ham Railway as will, in all probability, put an end
s withcseriously
uei
stotsi
myrfoeuafna yffto traffic,
trethearteiot
to the unfortunate dispute which has so long existed
between that company and the authorities of the
London and North-Western Railway. The necessity
of some change in the policy of the two companies—
the Shrewsbury and Chester and the Shrewsbury and
Birmingham—who are associated in opposition against
the London and North-Western Company, would
appear to be self-evident from the fact published
by us a few days since, viz., that the Shrews-
bury
add Chester Company absolutely applied
to the Court of Chancery for the committal to
the Queen's Bench Prison of three of the London
and North-Western directors, who, as members
of the Chester general station committee, felt it to
be their duty to oppose the measures advocated by
their opponents belonging to the Shrewsbury and
Chester acd Shrewsbury and Birmingham party.
It is not to be expected that anything like an amicable
arrangement can be entered into with persons who
are actuated by so violent a personal spirit as would
appear to have characterised some of the proceedings
of the two northern companies.
One of our contemporaries states this dispute will
and great gtrheea t in-
crease
cost the London and North-Western Company
50,0001. Our contemporary is mistaken. We should
say 5,000/. at the outside. But whatever the loss to
the London and North- Western Company, it will,
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dividend.
fv
earlyreib
they approaching
balances
al
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unfeltg
pro-
prietors, white the loss to the Shrewsbury and Ches-
ter and Shrewsbury and Birmingham Companies
hsettlementango
change
Shrewsbury
ianmdatuinhss
and
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WEST INDIA MAIL CONTRACT.
The particulars of the mail contract, recently en-
tered into between the Admiralty
and the 'Vest India
Steam Packet Company, have just been printed and
published by the Government. According to this
document, the 'West India and Brazilian form one
contract, which is to commence on the Ist of January
next, and to last 11 years. The company are to
provide 15 wooden steam-vessels; ten of them are to
be of 400, four of 250, and one of 60 horse power.
They are to provide also a sailing vessel of 100 tons
burthen. All these vessels are to have lightning con-
ductors, and the commanders, and chief, and second
officers, must have certificates of fitness from the
Boara of Examiners appointed by Act of Parliament.
None of the small vessels are to perform the Atlantic'
service. The company are to receive 27,0001. a-year
from Government, and the penalties to which they are
liable are 50,0001. for non-performance of the con-
tract ; 5001. for not starting from Southampton at
the proper time ; and 2001. for not starting from any
other port. They are bound to vary, if required, the
route of their vessels employed in the North And
South Atlantic Oceans, between the latitudes of 27
degrees IS ortb, and 37 degrees South, and 20 degrees,
and 97 degrees, 52 seconds, West longitude. They
are to receive 9s. 10d. for every additional mile their
vessels are required to perform in the course of a year
beyond 547,296 nautical miles. They are bound to
make improvements in the construction, equipments,
and machinery of their vessels, as the advanced state
of science may suggest. If the packet station is re-
moved from Southampton, they are to receive com-
pensation for the expense of removal, and for dimi-
nution of receipts. In case of war, they are to be
paid extra—that is, in the event of increase of rate
of insurance, and of the freight of coals. But the
extra pay is not to exceed in one year 75,0001., nor
are they to be paid for additional freight on more
than 75,000 tons of coals annually. They are bound,
if required, to convey as passengers on board each
ship a limited number of officers in the navy, army,
and civil service of her Majesty, and of non-commis-
sioned officers and soldiers, at reduced fares.

[ADVERTISEMENT.]—Another Proof of the Effi-
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years with fearful sores in both legs. Notwithstanding the
various medicines and treatment of which trial was made, the
ulcerations grew worse, and for months she was unable to stand.
At length it was decided that Holloway's Ointment and Pills
should be used, and these excellent medicines soon worked
wonders, for in a few seeks all the wounds were healed, and
the use of her leg so perfectly restored, that she is now able to
walk several miles a day with ease.—Sold by all Vendors of
Medicine, and at Professor Holloway's Establishment, 244,
Strand, London.

AN AMERICAN GAROMETER.—The Philadelphia
Ledger states that the gasometer being put up at the Phila-
delphia gas works will be the largest in the world. It is
built in the telescopic form, with two sections. The di-
mensions are one hundred and forty feet in diameter, by
seventy feet in height, capable of containing one million
cubic feet of gas•

TIMES.—The French crusade against the great
anonymous is assuming the ugly look of a struggle
between matter and spirit. The press makes little
resistance, hut the Government makes no way. All
sorts of difficulties show themselves, not in the
humour of the people, but in the operation of the law.
It begins to be evident that the object of attack is too
airy, too impalpable, too subtle and illusive, to be
chained, or transfixed, or cloven, or crushed, or other-
wise subjected to the laws of matter. Countless ques-
tions arise. 'What is an article? What is a " discuss.
siren ?'' What is en opinion ? What is a fact ?
What is a signature ? What is an author ? Indeed,
the troops are on the move before it is precisely un-
derstood what they are to attack. 'When tyros legis-
late they invariably substitute their intention for the
actual process, and think that a motive makes a law.
In the present instance the National Assembly have
done little more than express their feelings
,against
anonymous journalism. They certainly have not
yet given effect to that feeling. They trust possibly
to an assistance which even the most experienced
and practical legislators occasionally are fain to
depend upon ; namely, that the courts will supply-
the defects of the law, and put the new
principle into working form. That is all very
well when we are moving in the track of existing
law, when we are dealing with things already recog-
nised, and when there are precedents to guide us ; for
jurisprudence favours those that keep in the old paths.
But the sample of legislation now before us is alto-
gether uncustomary i • it introduces new things into
legal discussion, and demands new interpretations. In
the first place, what is an article ? Does a black
line—do two or three asterisks—does a total change
of subject, destroy the unity of an article ? If a
writer is not able in the hurry of composition, or by
the habit of his mind, to arrange his thoughts in
mechanical continuity, but throws them out in the
form of "thoughts," though with a perceptible unity
of subject, is he writing one article or a dozen ? On
the other band, if a man gives a mechanical unity to
his composition, and pours it out in one continuous
paragraph, without break or halt, but begins with
an indecent story from Lucian, proceeds to a criticism
on the original text of -Job, glides off to Whigs, stock-
brokers, and Jews, and winds up with some corn-law
statistics, is that one article merely because it is one
paragraph? If we regarded only the subject, a strict
interpretation of the French law would require only
one signature in the former instance, and in the case
of the multifarious gentlemen would insist that he
should pause, and write his name at full length half
a dozen times in the course of a half column. The
Moniteur made several distinct statements on the au-
thority of the Attorney-General, with the name of
that functionary only once expressed, and did not
dream that it was breaking the law ' • nay, it daily
repeated the offence till the Gazette de France pub-
lished Pewees diverses, separated by asterisks, with
only one signature for the whole, and the National
did something of the same kind. It then became evi-
dent that the law was evaded, and all the offenders
have been called to account. But we need not look to
the other side of the Channel for proof of the fact
that there are people not so much ingenious at evad-
ing the rule of unity as incapable of observing
it. There is also the conversational style,
such as that of " Christopher North " in
our northern contemporary. 'What is to hin-
der every variety of subject from being brought
into a dialogue between two imaginary per-
sons, or more, if necessary ? The British public
would recoil against the requirement of a signature
to every little morsel of with--ta a pun, for example
—not two lines long. Charivari is already ground
to dust by this process. Again, what is to prevent
the use of mouth-pieces ? We do not mean what
somebody has called a go-to-prison editor, or any con•
trivance of that obvious description. But there are
men who habitually gather round them their juniors,
or their inferiors, or peogle with less force of charac-
ter, and more easily moulded than themselves. Their
fol,owers repeat their sentiments almost as faithfully
as they could do it themselves. Socrates never wrote
a word, but we know %abet he thought and felt on
every possible subject of philosophical discussion.
Boswell did Johnson more justice than Johnson
did himself. We have frequently read arti-
cles in reviews which left no doubt of the im-
mediate inspiration to which they were in-
debted. The " Tinguy .Lahoulie amendment," as it
is called, cannot touch this sort of influence. It can
only extort the name of the man that holds the pen,
though he may be little more than reporter to the
real original. The moving spirit of the National
or the Presse may go into the office of his journal
every day, gather a set of young spirits about him,
and set them all of a flame on some topic of the day.
They will not be good for much if his facts, his images,
his quotations, his antitheses, and a good many of his
very expressions do not appear in the paper the next
day. Everybody acquainted with the press knows
that an article is often a condensed and perhaps a dry
form of an animated conversation. Everybody knows,
too, that many a good article is nothing more or less
than a private letter, translated into the dialect of
journalism. Now, how does the Tinguy-Laboulie
amendment affect articles of this class, in which, by a
natural and innocent process, the prompter and the
writer are two different persons? The result will be that
some young hand, or some ready writer, wholly un-
known to the public, will sign his modest name at
the foot of the article, while the prompter will retain
his incognito. If this is not already the case at Paris,
things are in train for it. The old hands are lying
by to wait for the event, and youngsters are supply-
ing their places for the time with tedious articles
that are not the better for being owned. Paris wilt
not stand this very long ; and if its chief political
writers do not choose to comply with the new law,
they will at least have to put more life into their
proxies. Could we suppose the law to continue in
force, and the signatures of well-known men regu-
larly appearing in the papers, it is evident that what
the Government and the cause of order may gain in
one respect they will lose in another. Journalists
will write in a more guarded, but perhaps a more
sarcastic, more allusive, and more telling style, than
now. They will get into the way of con-
veying an impression, when they seem only
to be stating a fact. They will learn the insi-
dious and powerful tone by the use of which so
many writers of the last age succeeded in sapping the
foundation of sound policy or religion, without leaving
the censor one word to lay hold of—the style of
Voltaire, of Hume, and of Gibbon. These men owned
what they wrote, but they were not the less dangerous;
and the two former at least were not the less shrouded.
The difficulty of drawing a line, and possibly a wish,to
appear impartial, have led to the prosecution of no
less than six journals ; one of them a devoted Minis-
terialist. As usual, the most hostile amongst them
affect a laudable desire to become acquainted with the
law, but ask for some less inconvenient mode of in-
struction than a series of prosecutions, each elucidating
some one mystery of the new law, but at the expense
of a considerable fine, or worse penalty. It is sug-
gested, or rather demanded, that the Attorney-
General should give practical lectures on the opera-
tion of the law, with examples of what a
journal may do, and what it may not. In
England this is certainly no part of the Attor-
ney-General's functions. The Evißeinent, how ever,
has succeeded in extracting an opinion gratis, though
there is some reason to apprehend that the opinion is
a bad one. At all events, it is at variance with the
proceedings taken against the six journals. In reply
to questions from the Evenement, the Attorney-Ge-
neral is said to have given an opinion that a number
of facts might be clustered together, with asterisks
between them, and with only one signature below ;
and also that the editor's signature would do for an
article prepared at his discretion by another hand, a
responsible signature being all that the law desired.
Such an opinion is so lax, so open to abuse, and so
contrary to the line already taken by Government,
that some people suspect an intention of backing out
of the Tinguy-Laboulie amendment altogether.
Whether there be such an intention or not, the result
will probably be the same. The attempt to destroy
the old position of the press, and to split it up into
individual names, is too: serious an attack on its
power and independence to be readily complied with.
It will open a festering sore between the Govern-
ment and popular feeling, in which all the accidents
and opportunities of the quarrel will be in favour of
the latter.
CHRONICLE.—The Journal des Debuts, of two
or three days since, made a very true remark the
foundation of a singularly false conclusion. After
observing that English jurisprudence clings servilely
to the letter of the law, and that the legists of France
make it their. business to discover its spirit, the writer
proceeded to infer that the new enactment against the
Press would be absolutely intolerable in London,
while, under an equitable application of its provisions,
it might possibly be endurable in Paris. We leave
the controversy, as to the abstract merits of the
English and French systems, with the hint, that each
might borrow with advantage from the characteristics
of the other; but we must express our strong dissent
from the notion that a law requiring the signature of
articles in a journal would operate with greater
severity in England than in France. It might be
urged, with much greater plausibility, that such a
law would be a mere dead letter in the English