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

his reply to the questions of Sergeant Wilkins, and we
believe that there is no fair and candid reader of that
evidence who will not close its perusal with the same
conviction that we do, that these transactions must
have been monstrously and cruelly misrepresented
before they could, to any mind, supply the slightest
reason for the obloquy with which Mr. Hudson has
been assailed.
CHRONICLE.—The Europa steamer, which
brought the last American mails, left the people of
the United States, particularly the inhabitants of
New York, in a perfect phrenzy of excitement—dis-
tracted by conflicting emotions, like Garrick between
Tragedy and Comedy, or (if they will pardon the
simile) like the donkey of the metaphysicians, who
was unable to make up his mind which of the two
bundles of hay to begin upon. Jenny Lind had ar-
rived, and Professor Webster had been hanged. If
Lord Brougham (as was once anticipated) had cotem-
poraneously landed with his new pamphlet in his
hand, they would have gone mad outright, and Mr.
Diraeli would no longer have bq en able to boast that
he is the only living politician in either hemisphere
whose warmest (if not most discriminating) admirer
is shut up in a lunatic asylum. But the indefatigable
ex-Chancellor richly merits . a triumphant entry
to himself amongst a people who have so largely
benefited by his enlightened labours in his own pecu-
liar field of Law Reform ; and, for the moment, they
have enough, and more than enough, to occupy them.
Mr. Cooper's last novel, "The Way of the Hour,"
was composed for the avowed purpose of reforming
the administration of the criminal law in the
United States ; and he draws a startling pic-
ture of the mode in which juries are alternately tam-
pered with through the instrumentality of professional .
agents, and misled or prejudiced by the lowest class
of newspapers. Webster's case, however, had at-
tracted too much attention in the old world to admit
of the employment of these indirect influences, even I
assuming them to be in constant operation as de- I
scribed ; and the greatest pains appear to have been 1
taken by the tribunals and authorities to impress the
European public with a favourable opinion of Ame-
rican justice. The verdict, in our opinion, was fully
supported by the evidence ; but the Governor and
Council are said to have hesitated as to the execution ,

of the :sentence until the second confession, in which
the accused admitted the act of killing, but declared
it to have been entirely unpremeditated and the result
of sudden passion. In the first confession he had
maintained his entire innocence, and a strong feeling
had been got up in his favour upon the strength of it.
Yet all who are conversant with the workings of the
human mind under analogous circumstances, will
agree with us, that very little reliance is to be placed
upon self-exculpatory revelations at any time, and
that the hope of inspiring belief in a pretended con-
fession will often cling to the hardened offender to
the last. If a manslayer, to whom the fact of
killing is brought home, could shake off the guilt of
murder by a frank acknowledgment of all except the
premeditation or the motive—to convict by presump-
tive or circumstantial evidence would be an impossi-
bility, for it would be always open to the alleged mur-
derer to say that the pre-existing intention to kill had
been given up. The execution was what is called
private. It took place in the yard of the gaol, in the
presence of two or three hundred spectators, police
officers and others, required or invited to attend. But
the Boston correspondent of the New York Herald
(whose letter we printed at length yesterday) states,
that several of the neighbouring houses commanded a
view of the yard, and that the windows and roofs of
some of them were packed with persons of both sexes
and of all ages. "It grieved me," he adds, "to see
ladies and young girls manifest their morbid curiosity
in this way." On the other hand, it gladdened him
to be able to say that three of the houses so situated
were shut up, and that on the door of one of them was
posted a bill to this effect : "Not at home. Opposed to
capital punishment." When some tender-hearted
moralist once requested the interference of the late
Lord Ellenborough to stop an assize ball, and alleged
the impropriety of dancing whilst trials of life and
death were actually pending, he growled out, " Why
should not any fools who like it dance and fiddle now
as well as at other times ? There are always people
going to be hanged somewhere." The inhabitants of
New York are entirely of the Learned Chief Justice's

opinion, and they differ, moreover, very materially
from Lord Ashley as to the degree of strictness with
which the Christian day of rest should be observed.
So soon as the Atlantic steamer, known to carry the
Swedish Nightingale and her fortunes, was descried
in the offing (on Sunday, September Ist), they forgot
the Professor, and deserted both church and chapel
to hurry by thousands towards the port. She landed
amidst the acclamations of the crowd, who attended
her, shouting all the way, to the hotel, in which
apartments fit for the Queen of Song, or the Queen
of Beauty, or a real Queen Regnant (as a New York
contemporary expresses it), were prepared for her ; the
hotel itself being surmounted with the Swedish
colours. In less than half an hour every street and
alley in the city resounded with cries of "Extra
Heralds! Arrival of the Atlantic! Jenny Lind !
The great Jenny Lind"—to which many added "The
good Jenny Lind"—for her reputation for munificent
charity, gentleness, and kind-heartedness had pre-
ceded her, and added not a little to the enthusiasm

she calledforth. As her admirers couid,;i-;i;;
they were resolved not to let her sleep. It was past
midnight when the New York Musical Society, con-
taining two hundred members, arrived in front of
her hotel, escorted by twenty fire companies, where
they played "a magnificent serenade"—at least so

says our correspondent, who computes the number
of persons present at thirty thousand, " including
" a great number of carriages filled with ladies,"
When the serenade was over, a select band of the
performers were introduced, and delivered an address
—" The tender of fraternal love, sincere admiration,
and profound respect." Her brief reply was marked
by her characteristic diffidence, simplicity, and good
taste. " The sight there," she concluded, pointing to
the window—" was the most beautiful I ever saw."
In an audible aside, she murmured to a friend, " They
are all firemen," which was explained to allude to the
warmth of their enthusiasm, rather than to the nu-
merous fire companies assembled in the street. We
have been wont to believe that the boundless enthu-
siasm excited by Madame Rossi (then Mademoiselle
Sontag) some twenty years since in Berlin, would
not be outdone in our time. One of her shoes, pro-
cured by bribery from a treacherous waiting maid,
served as a drinking cup, on festive occasions, to a
club of officers, so long as it lasted ; and a half-
finished glass .of wine, captured by a body of students
who forced their way into a room she had just left,
was actually put up to auction and bought by one of
them for seventeen dollars. The Yankee amateurs,
however, are running the Germans hard. The hall
of Jenny Lind's hotel is filled from morning to night
with crowds pressing to see her autograph signature
in the arrival-book; and it is said that the tickets of
admission to her first concerts are to be disposed of
by auction. All this time there are questions of no
mean importance under discussion in Congress ; but
what avails it to refer to "alarming differences be-
tween North and South," to new laws for aggravating
the horrors of slavery, or to the budding seeds of
communism. Murder and music, horror and har-
mony, are the all-absorbing topics of interest in New
York.