The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-18 00:00:00

(E)itilinit glltt.,

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1850.

Unable to extenuate their own horrible atrocities,
the Austrians have recently endeavoured to diminish
the sense of their infamy by exciting feelings of exe-
cration against the fallen Hungarians. To this end
the Cabinet of Vienna has compi!ed a document of a
most portentous character, enumerating the pretended
crimes of their antagonists. During the last fortnight
this catalogue of imputations has been freely circu-
lated both in the continental organs of Ab-
solutism and in those journals which even,
amongst ourselves, are mendacious enough to
uphold the principles of despotic government.
Considering that up to this late period not
a single word had been whispered charging the Mag-
yar leaders with any such wanton executions, we
cannot but think it remarkable that acts of such
flagrant ferocity should have been shrouded in secrecy on
occasions when their announcement would have mate-
rially affected the fame and influence of the Viennese
Councils. Here are no less than four hundred and
sixty-nine victims said to have been destroyed in cold
blood by order of the Hungarian Dictator and his
Ministerial colleagues. The list is punctiliously fur-
nished with the surnames and Christian names
of the respective victims. The place of their death,
by the bullet, the sword, or the rope i 4 scrupulously
particularised. The dates are given, and the whole
catalogue is entitled in conspicuous capitals " The
:Magyar Bloody Assizes." Yet with this formidable
evidence of the terrorism exercised over the Hunga-
rians by their revolutionary Government, not a syls
fable had been uttered up to this time taxing that
provisional Ministry either with systematic or inci-
dental severity. It was not so with Judge JEk,
runs when he sentenced men and women in-
discriminately to death by the hands of the
hangman. It was not so when the soldier CLAVER-
nousE was leading his troopers through the villages
and unfrequented districts of Scotland. It was not
so when CARRIER was desolating the departments of
France with his " republican marriages," while
TALLIEN was wooing the beautiful THERESA, and
ROBESPIERRE was counting upon his nuptials with
the carpenter's daughter. The execrable massacres
with which the chieftains of Hungary are now
charged were, if done at all, not done in a
corner. They were perpetrated either in the
lying imaginations of their assailants, or in
the broad face of day, before earth and before heaven.
Yet until now they have never once been mentioned.
The circumstance is suspicious. Infinitely more sus-
piCiowz, however, is the fact that the list has been
drawn up—how ? By offering bribes for accusations,
by holding out rewards to the impoverished and un-
conscientious 1

A careful analysis of the catalogue reveals its
en°. mous insincerity. A casual scrutiny discloses
such anomalous peculiarities as the repetition of
the same charges of blood,led at different times
and in different localities. Thus, in one
quarter we find a certain shepherd of Beba
mentioned as having been shot in December, 1848,
and in another part in February, 1849, at Szegedin.
Thus, moreover, we End General BEM accused of
*hotting a peasant at Ittebe at a period when that
commander was secluded among the sequestered val-
lies of Gallicia. As for the assertion that such and
such individuals were quietly sentenced to transporta-
tion, when it is sufficiently notorious that Hungary is
without any penal settlement, that we opine is suffi-
ciently absurd to preclude us from the necessity
of its refutation.. When, however, it is learnt
...which is actually the case—that out of the 469 1

victims, 82 were killed according to the laws of war,
29 were punished with death as spies and mutineers,
and 183 were hung on the gallows as felons and mur-
derers, we conceive that the Magyar Bloody A!sizes
will be reduced to a somewhat less criminal character.
To illustrate the falsity of the accusations en masso
we may remark that the Cabinet of Debreczin is
charged with causing the destruction of men who fell
victims either to infuriated mobs or to private
assassination. A Croat is killed by a chymist named
SZABI, and the crime is hurled at the reputation of
KOSSUTH and his colleagues. A cabinetmaker is
butchered by the rabble, and the deed is regarded as
a new cause for execration against the Hungarian
Government. A monster who was executed for try-
ing to strangle one of the magistrates is described as
having perished by reason of his loyalty to his SOVE-
REIGN. An execrable ruffian, bung for having hunted
the lady of the manor with bloodhounds through a
forest, is revered as a martyr to the cause of the KING
and EMPEROR. So on throughout the entire list, if
we except 153 cases, in none of which are given the
smallest details whatever. And this is the document
officially published by the Austrian Government, in
compliance with whose assertions we are to execrate
the patriots, and statesmen, and heroes of Hungary as
wretches of the most sanguinary temperament. Some-
thing more authentic than this catalogue, branded
on the very face of it with the brand
of imposture, will be needed before the
people of England can transfer their senti•
ments of loathing from the Austrian soldiers to
the heroic soldiers and administrators of Hungary.
Some more specious charge will be required to
blacken the fair and lofty reputations of KOSSUTH and
DEMBINSKI ; some more effectual arguments to clear
from guilt the infamous renown of lIA:rNAu and Pas-
KEWITCET.

Toe dastardly attempt here made by the Austrian
Cabinet and its apologists, the attempt to vilify the
Magyars by a long list of fabricated cruelties, is not
only unsuccessful to the last degree, but is even with-
out the merit of ingebuity.

The remarks which we made in reviewing the evi-
dence recently given by Mr. HUDSON in the course of
the cause on which he was subpoenaed as a witness, at
the Yorkshire assizes, have called forth a leading
article in the York print, to which, for the sake of
exhibiting the character of those who conduct that
paper, and the impudent recklessness with which they
advance the most unfounded and even absurd imputa-
tions against those who chastise, however lightly,
their little arrogant ways, we mean to devote a few
moments' attention. The provincial press is
at the present day, in most cases, ably
and respectably conducted by gentlemen who
know the responsibilities of their position ;
but there are exceptions, and it not unfrequently
happens that a country scribe makes his office the
means of annoying and worrying some individual
who may happen to have been of a different colour in
politics to those to whose prejudices he is glad to
pander, and who perhaps may have superadded to
his other crimes a contempt of the said scribe,
—neglecling to send him a card of invitation
to dinner at the Mansion-house, or peremptorily

excluding advertisements under his control from
the columns of his mischievous publication.
And what sort of excuse does the York worthy make
for having issued a garbled and imperfect report of
Mr. llunsoN's evidence, and of having slanderously
scattered imputations solely with a view to create
prejudices against him—imputations which he himself
KNEW were unworthy of belief? Why, a statement
that The Sun, being " the only newspaper in the
kingdom" that would venture to say a word on be-
half of the ex-Railway King, had actually been
sold to Mr. HunsoN ! It is rather unfor-
tunate fur this invention that on the same
day on which the York paper itself was
published, the Morning Post, the Weekly Chronicle,
the Standard, and some provincial papers, took pre-
cisely the same view of Mr. HUDSON'S recent evidence
as we did. To those who know the fidelity with
which this journal his adhered to a consistent course
of public principle for upwards of twenty years—
" True as tho dial to the sun,
Although it be not shone upon"—

it will hardly be necessary for us to contradict the
story to which we have alluded. It can only be
characterised by that nervous little monosyllable
which we shall not discompose ourselves here to re-
peat. How can people be surprised that Mr. HUD-
SON should be libelled, when everybody who ven-
tures an independent opinion as to his public conduct

is libelled before the honest citizens of York?
The Yorkshireman writer has the unprincipled effron-
tery to assert as a proof that this paper was sold to

Mr. HUDSON, that the proprietor, Mr. MURDO
YOUNG, " had been more than once a visitor at
Newby Hall." There is not one word of truth in
this assertion—it is a pure fabrication ! So far from
this being the fact, Mr. YOUNG NEVER SPOKE TO
MR. HUDSON IN HIS LIFE, and never had any cam-
munication with him directly or indirectly. It
is also added that Mr. YOUNG had been " the
guest of Mr. HUDSON'S private secretary " one fort-
night before the appearance of certain articles in The
Sun, in 1849; but, like all the rest, he vouchsafes
nothing to support the statement but his own word.
The public will estimate the value of this word,
when we assure them that Mr. YOUNG never

saw Mr. CLOSE, the party alluded to, in the
year 1849 at all, consequently was not
hi 3 guest " a fortnight before " the time when,
&c. Mr. YOUNG never was,—in town or country,—
in 1849, or in any other year,—the guest of Mr.
CLOSE, or anybody belonging to him, or any other
person acting as secretary to Mr. HUDSON. He never
spoke to Mr. CLOSE but once in his life; it was at the
York station, on the 21st July, 1848, when he saw him
for five minutes in the company of another, for the
purpose of getting a pass, in the way of business, from
York to Hull, on returning from Newcastle. Now,
such being the fact, we call upon and require the edi-
tor of the Yorkshireman publicly to retract and apolo-
gise for his libellous statements respecting Mr. YOUNG.
In our review we asked who was the author of the
pamphlet purporting to 'be " a revised and complete
report" of the late trial ?—we had a reason for asking
that question. It is, we are now informed, the pro-
duction of the editor of the Yorhshireman, who comes
forward, like some theatrical hero, indignantly ex-
claiming " I, Hamlet, the Dane !" Then that
being so, we have a word with you.
In the biographical sketch prefixed to the trial,
which you have published in a pamphlet, there, is
the following announcement :
" We may remark, in concluding this section, how-
ever, that a small portion—and very email—of the
materials for the foregoing sketch has been gleaned from
an article which appeared in a London paper, now de-
funct, called the English Gentleman. But as we wrote
that article ourselves, upon special order, we have only
borrowed that which, in truth, is our own property. We
have thought this explanation necessary, lest some slight
similarity in ideas, or facts, or language between that
which appeared in the English Gentleman and that which
we give in this pamphlet might subject us to an accusa-
tion of plagiarism. All we have done, therefore, is to
adapt, for present purposes, our labour of former years,
and to place it before the public in a more permanent
shape than the ephemeral columns of a newspaper can
expect to accomplish."
We have referred to the article in the English
Gentleman,--one copy
of which fortunately exists for
reference,—and what will the gulled readers of the
Yorkshzreman say when we tell them that the whole
tenor of the sketch there is complimentary to, and com-
mendatory of Mr. HUDSON, whose biography is given
by that paper as the first of a series of the portraits of
those " who most fully realise and sustain the cha-
racter of English gentlemen ?" There is as much
difference between the language employed by this
same high-principled man in the Yorkshireman and
in the English Gentleman, as between " Phillip
drunk and Phillip sober." Mr. Hunsores success
and good fortune in every project he entered into—
his influential position—his extraordinary and in-
domitable energy—his useful and active career,
—his exertions and his tact,—his moral
character—his filling " the honourable" post of Lord
Mayor, &c., &c., &c., are spoken of ! ! ! Respecting
the York Union Bank the very man who now vili-
fies Mr. HUDSON for his conduct in reference to it,
penned the following paragraph:—
"Most people are aware of the ruin and insolvency
cf the Yorkshire Agricultural Bank, which ruin was the
result of the carelessness and incompetency of the di-
rectors. To the honour, however, of Mr. Hudson, be it
said that the Bank of which he was the originator is to
this day in ajlourishivg and qficient condition I !"
But this is not all ; the unprincipled creature who,
in the pamphlet which we last week reviewed, casts

the most unwarrantable insinuations on Mr.
llun-
sox respecting the property of 30,0001. left to him by
Mr. BOTTRELL, and who in his last paper has yet the
hypocrisy to say, " We are sorry that this matter has
been renewed,"—he himself being the party to renew
it,—has, with his own hand, written the following :

" There was some scandal afloat at the time, not very
complimentary to the integrity of Mr. Hudson. We
shall not further allude to it here, BECAUSE 'WE BE-
LIEVE—and WE HAVE MEANS OF KNOW-
ING—Mr. Hudson obtained Mr. Bottrell's property in
the most legitimate and honourable manner. Indeed,
we only allude to this matter here, because the fortune
he thus acquired was the original practical provocative
of that spasmodic spirit of adventure, and comprehen-
sive speculation, which have made the name of Hudson
inseparable from locomotion and steam-engines."
Now, what do the citizens of York think of the
person that constitutes himself their oracle, whose
right hand seems not to know what his left
hand doeth ? Is the conduct we have shown up
consistent with their standard of common honesty ?
Why, if he were to print his own sketch of Mr.
HuDsoN'a:career,—written " by special" order for a
London paper,—in the columns under his con-
trol at York, he would run the risk of being
tarred and feathered by his subscribers ! In
order to represent himself as an injured innocent
to his readers, he has recourse to an untrue state-
ment of our exceptions to his pamphlet—which state-
ment is,then, of course, described as " unwarrantable"
and "outrageous." We stated that he had compressed
into seventeen lines of narrow column the whole of the
examination of Mr. HUDSON by Mr. MARTIN, Q.C. ;
—he omits that learned counsel's name, and then repre-
sents us as saying that he had confined the zrhole of Mr.
HUDSON'S examination (including that byMr. Sergeant
'WILKINS) to that space! These are the petty
artifices the party who, by hardihood of assertion,
has got his representations against Mr. HUDSON into
circulation, is compelled to have recourse to ! Ser-
geant WlLKyas, now his counsel, at the late York
city election, we see it mentioned, described this same
individual as one of those loathsome insects for which
SYDNEY SMITH used to prescribe soap, hot water, a
hard-brush, and the small- tooth comb ! Let him
beware of his impending fate. He seems astonished
that the rays of The Sun should be able to detect so
small a creeping thing; but he may depend upon it
that as the "great eye of Heaven" can cast its glances
into the nooks and crannies of the world, and make
a sunshine in what was before a shady place, we can
see many things which he would as lief were veiled
from view.