The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-27 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE PROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, THURSDAY, March 26.

That a dissolution will take place this summer seems
more and more probable ; and this event will, it is be-
lieved, bring about a change of Ministers, for M. Pinard,
the new Minister of the Interior, is supposed to be unequal
to the task of directing the elections. It is not unlikely
that M. Rouher will undertake this onerous duty, since
as the Chambers will not then be sitting, he will
not be called upon to fulfil his present function—•
that of defending the Imperial policy—which func-
tion he holds by virtue of his office as Minister of
State. There is some talk of M. Duruy and M. Baroche
going out of office. The first has offended the clerical
party by his endeavours to promote female education, and
of course it is important to regain the support of that
party before the elections. M. Baroche is the Minister of
Justice. He is believed to be desirous of quitting his
post, and in that case M. Pinard will probably exchange
his own for it.

The Public Meetings Bill has passed the Corps lAgis-
latif, and will pass the Senate unaltered, except for the
worse. It is terribly stringent. For instance, the ninth
clause empowers the courts to inflict a fine of £l2O and six
months' imprisonment upon persons who, being as many
as seven in number, unite together to form a meeting
without the consent of the authorities, or upon any one who
lets them have a room, or upon the chairman and the
assessors of the meeting. Such a heavy pecuniary fine as
this (to say nothing of the imprisonment) will deter every-
body in the small towns from letting a room for any
meeting, inasmuch as no one can be sure that all the con-
ditions requested by the law have been fulfilled. For
instance, it may turn out that, although the Government
authorisation has been given, one of the persons who signed
the requisition for it is not in the enjoyment of
his civil rights, or there may be a mistake in the spelling
of his name or the number of his house ; or the hour or
the place at which the meeting is to be held may be for-
gotten to be mentioned. In fact, the smallest mistake or
omission may bring down a sentence absolutely ruinous to
a poor man, and, indeed, to the great majority of the rural
inhabitants. The right of public meeting will be a dead
letter throughout the rural districts.
I mentioned yesterday that the Government some time
ago prosecuted the Courrier de ringerie for stating last
September that a famine was impending, and that the
editor was punished for publishing false news. It now
turns out that the Government was fully aware that the
calamity was at hand. Marshal M`Mahon, Governor
of Algeria, has just stated in the Senate that so long ago
as April of last year the Emperor wrote to him authorising
him, at any cost, to succour the native population ; yet
five months later the Government denied the existence of
the distress, and punished the journalist who referred
to it.

It is rumoured that Count Bismarck is about to send
out a despatch to the Prussian Ministers at the different
Courts, explaining to them that Prince Napoleon's visit to
Berlin had no diplomatic object. If for " object''
"result" were substituted, the despatch would be more
truthful.

The King of Prussia has sent to Ntlaton, the famous
surgeon, a beautiful vase made at the Royal porcelain
works, together with an autograph letter and a view of
the Palace at Berlin, as a thank-offering for his skilful
treatment of Count von Goltz, the Prussian Minister in
Paris.

The Pall Alan Gazette publishes extracts from an
Abyssinian letter, whose contents it describes as almost
incredible. It appears that the Turkish and Egyptian
mule-drivers were left for some days after the starting of
the expedition without food or water. They naturally did
not like this. About 150 of them came up jabbering to an
officer, who, not understanding their language, took it into
his head that they were mutinying, and reported accord-
ingly. Forthwith two companies of infantry were sent
down, and sixty of the Turks were tied up to
the triangles and got fifty lashes each. It then
leaked out that the poor wretches had been three
days without rations, and were only complaining.
This sort of treatment continued for some time, but at last
interpreters were sent, and Captain Annesley, who is a
good linguist, took them into his division. They were then
happy and contented, and worked so hard that Captain
Annesley was thanked, and was promised that the threat
of discharging them, which had been made, should not be
carried out. On the strength of this they threw away all
their old rags, having now the Government clothing to
wear. Suddenly an order came down to send all the men
back to Egypt, and to deprive them of the Government
clothing. Remonstrance was vain, and the utmost that
Captain Annesley could obtain was that some of these
unhappy men should be allowed to retain their trousers. The
whole of them were embarked under an armed guard, and
sent back to Suez, where they will tell the tale of British
injustice and cruelty—truly a most scandalous tale.

The French Government is using every effort to induce
the Pope to accept a new .Franco-Italian Convention.
The Cabinet of Florence, under the pressure of France and
Prussia, has renounced the project of making Rome the
capital of Italy, though it will not abjure the vote of the
Italian Parliament. The design is now to make Rome a
free city, under the presidency of the Pope. Napoleon
stipulates that no change shall take place during the life
of Pius IX.

The rumours as to probable amendments to Mr. Glad-
stone's resolutions are gradually pointing to a definite
issue. That issue is unmistakeably to the effect that the
House of Commons has nd'hitention of standing two dis-
solutions within twelve months. During the discussion on
the Army Estimates on Thursday night a report was
current in the lobbies that Sir Robert Peel proposed to
move an amendment to Mr. Gladstone's motion, which
would be in effect a reference of the question of the Irish
Church to the new Parliament next year. Although the
rumour was not traceable to any authentic source, it was
vet accepted as probable.
Whether the right hon. baronet persevere in his inten-
tion or not, there will not be wanting members of the
Liberal party who will be ready with their amendments
on this occasion. Mr. Watkin, one of the Tea-room party
of last year, will move that instead of Mr. Gladstone's
first resolution, the House give its consent to the following
motion : " That this committee considers the question of
the future position of the Established Church in Ireland
should be finally decided upon by the Reformed Parlia-
ment, which ought to be convened at the earliest pos-
sible period after the electoral revision of the year
1868." The hon. member, it u-ill be seen, limits his motion
to a final decision by the Reformed Parliament, and has
no idea of preventing the present House from expressing
an opinion upon it.
Mr. Laing, who, from his connection with the Cave of
Adullam of 1866, finds no favour in the eyes of the
advanced Liberals, is also ready with an amendment.
This, however, is only in the case of Mr. Gladstone's
resolutions being carried. Should the Opposition leader
be successful, Mr. Laing will move : " That this House is
of opinion that while the principle of disestablishing the
Irish Church has been affirmed by this House, the ques-
tion is too important to be settled without an appeal to
the constituencies created by the New Reform Acts ; and
therefore that it will be the duty of the Government to
arrange the course of public business so as to enable this
appeal to be made at the earliest practicable opportunity."
Clearly, then, the House of Commons does not mean to
be put to the anxiety, the expense, and the delay of two
general elections. The Post intimates that the Govern-
ment, if defeated, as they possibly will be, will probably
elect to postpone the decision of the Irish Church question
to the elections of next January, and to retain office in
the meantime. But what they certainly cannot do is to
dissolve Parliament in April,! to reassemble in May, to be
redissolved next January. It could only enter into the
romantic brain of the present Premier to hold up such
an impossible " bogey " for the intimidation of such
members as he may imagine to be not men, but children.
On the other hand, the Ministerial papers are as emphatic
as ever in threatening a dissolution should the House sanc-
tion the policy of Mr. Gladstone. They say that Mr,
Disraeli and his colleagues will cheerfully avail themselves
of the occasion for allowing the nation to institute a com-
parison between their predecessors and themselves.
A. strange story comes from the other side of the
Atlantic. Many of our readers will remember the famous
trial of the Earl of Cardigan which took place some
twenty-seven years ago. Captain Tuckett, an officer in
Lord Cardigan's regiment, believed that his commanding
officer had been unduly familiar with his wife, and
forced him to fight a duel. Lord Cardigan was tried
before the House of Lords on the charge of attempted
murder, and was acquitted. Captain Tuckett and his wife
went to the United States, and lived in Philadelphia for
many years. The pair had to struggle with povery, the
husband editing an insurance journal, and his wife, a
lovely woman, helping him all she could, and a model of
everything that a wife should be. She had denied to her
husband in the most solemn manner that she had ever

received from the earl any other letters than the one the
accidental discovery of which had led to the duel, and his
last words were assurances that he never doubted her.
But a week of his death, according to the New York
paper from which we are quoting, she threw off her dis-
guise, and resumed what the writer says had been her real
character from the beginning. Her first act was to write
to the earl that she intended to publish the letters he had
written to her in India in a volume, which had the desired
effect of bringing a remittance. Her career from that
time forward is represented as having beenbold, courageous,
and profligate to the last degree. Her last years
were years of great privation and suffering, and she finally
tied with a friend to Colorado, where she at last rests in
peace.