The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-25 00:00:00

Obiening

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUN F 23, 1844.

In the House of Lords, the Earl of WINCIIILSEA
gave notice that on Friday he should present some
pQtitions on the corn-laws, and call The attention of
the House to public granaries--a subject which he
had deeply considered.
The House resolved itself into Committee on the

Bishoprics of St. Asaph and Bangor Bill. The
Duke of WELLINGTON had previously announced that
be would oppoSe the motion, hut little notice appeared
to have been taken of this announcement, for the Bill
Ntent through Committee, and was ordered to be read
a third time on Monday.
The Bishop of EXETER moved that the House re..
solN itself into Committee on the Brothels Suppres-
sierk Bill.

Earl FITZRARDINGE took the opportunity of de-

vying the statenents made by the Bishop of GLou-
CESTBR relative to he suppression of these nuisances
in the neighbourhood of Westminster Abbey, and on
property belonging to the Dean and Chapter.
The Bishop of GLOUCESTER* made the best of a
bad case, but at the same time mode singular ad-
mission. On that very day he said Dean and
Chapter had given notice to many of the tenants to
t.
quit. We imagined, from the former speech Of he
Right Rev. Prelate that the system of purificatiOu
had been carried to the utmost pitch. The honour of
purifying the purlieus of Westminster Abbey, it thus
appears, will be conferred on Earl PITZLIARDINGE.
The Bill went through Committee, and the House
adjourned.
In the Commons, after the presentation of petitions,
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE again brought on a question
which interests every Englishman—the Atrocious
system adopted by Sir JAMES GRAHAM of opening
letters at the Post-office. We cannot abridge his
speech. Every word of it should be read. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM'S reply exhibited a Minister of State in the
most deplorable light. Mr. DUNCOMBE moved for a
Committee of Inquiry. The Home Secretary
resisted the motion. His conscience, he said, was
pure—he had discharged his duty, which was an im-
portant one, and he should resist the motion.
Mr. MACAULAY supported the motion for a Com-
mittee of Inquiry, in a speech which made a great
impression on the House. Indeed, there appeared to
be but one feeling on the subject, though of course
the Ministerial supporters were obliged to vote with
Sir R. PEEL, who did the best he could to get his
ultra-Tory friend—once an ultra-Radical--out of the
scrape.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Mr. MILNES, Mr. SHEIL, and
several other leading Members spoke, and the dis-
cussion altogether was full of interest. A division
took place, when, with all the power of the Govern-
ment, in a House containing 372 Members, they could
muster a majority of only 44. If Englishmen sub-
mit to such a system they deserve to be slaves.
The third reading of ' the Sugar Duties Bill was
postponed till Thursday.
After the transaction of some minor business, the
order of the day was read for going into Committee
on the Bank Charter Bill."
Mr. MASTEItMAN, moved that the House go into
Committee that day six months. The motion was ne--
gatived on a division by a majority of 187, and the
Bill was committed.

On clause two being proposed, Mr. NE WDEGATE
moved that the blank be filled up with twenty-two
instead of fourteen millions. Eventually the amend-
ment was withdrawn, and the House resumed.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at Ten Minutes past One.

Mr. DUNCOMBE, who is one of the few really honest
men—the rani ?zanies in gurgite ,asto—that the pre-
sent House of Commons possesses, and whose speeches
are uniformly characterised by that straightforward-
ness, good sense, and intrepidity, which are among the
best qualities of a statesman, brought forward last
night the important question of opening letters at the
Post-office—a practice which the Home Secretary has
not thought it beneath him to sanction with his direct
approval, and which the Premier, though with the
longest and sourest face that ever man yet made, has
vainly endeavoured to justify. Not only, as appears
from Mr. DurtcomßE's statement, have the private
letters of Captain STOLZMAN, M. MazziNr, and
God knows how many other persons, been
opened at the General Post-office by order of the
spotless Cataxim, but the affair has been transacted
in the most mysterious manner possible, and with a skill
and science which convinces us that the parties engaged
are adepts in the work, and could not fail to achieve
high distinction as burglars and cracksmen, were they
ever to turn their attention that way. "Every care,"
said the Hon. Member for Finsbury, " had been taken
to avoid suspicion ; impressions had been taken from
the seals, and from these the opened letters were re-
sealed, and the cut was made so clean that it required
almost a microscope to discover it. There were also
double impressions made with the official stamp, so
that the date when the letters were received at the Post-
office could not be ascertained." Now wherefore all
these mean, tricky precautions, savouring so strongly of
the genius of petty larceny, if the act were one per-
fectly defensible at law, justified by frequent prece-
dent, and in strict accordance with the ordinary
usages of the Home-office ? If it was absolutely ne-
cessary that the thing should be done, it should have
been done boldly, and not in this burglarious fashion.

" That the power of opening letters was vested in

the Secretary of State," observed Mr. DUNCOMBS,
" he admitted, but it was only to be exercised in
cases in which internal sedition or domestic trea-
son was apprehended." Now, in the instances of
Messrs. STOLZMAN and MAzzim, no plea of the
sort could be urged in justification; neither of these
gentlemen had ever interfered in the politics of
the country ; consequently the official violation of
their correspondence was an act of the most gratuitous
treachery and despotism. And what was the defence
set up by Sir JAMES GRAHAM, in reply to the Mem-
ber for Finsbury's charges? He was warranted, for-
sooth, in acting as he had done, on the faith of a law
almost as obsolete as that which sanctioned the use
of the torture, the burning of witches, the wager of
battle, and other such monstrosities ! And was this
all that the Home Secretary had to urge in arrest of
judgment ? Oh, no ! The richest part of his de-

fence is yet to come. He denied the authority of the
House to call him to account ; and, with a face of the
most comical solemnity, insisted that he had dis-
charged his duty, and that his " conscience was pure

in the matter !" His conscience ! Does he forget
his past political doings ? Does he forgot his numer-
ous Protean changes and tergiversations from ultra-
Radicalism to Whigism, from Whigism to Toryism,
and from Toryism to any other Ism that has suited
the views of his master and the exigencies of the
moment ? Does Sir JAMES GRAHAM forget all this ?
If he is conveniently oblivious of the past, the right-
thinking portion of the community are not; and
when they read his defence, and more espe-
cially his allusion to his " conscience," greatly
indeed shall we be mistaken if they do not experi-
ence a nausea akin to that of sea-sickness. To find

i the Devil quoting Scripture is bad enough ; but to
i find the Home Secretary talking of his "conscience"
is, if possible, still worse. Poor Sir ROBERT PEEL !
He is really greatly to be pitied for the exhibition
he was compelled to make last night ; though when
we bear in mind how often he has dragged others
through the dirt, we ought scarcely to feel regret that
he is now dragged through it himself. Never had this
consummate master of specious common-place so
little to say for himself or his colleague, in reply to the
crushing attack of Mr. MACAULAY. In vain he
endeavoured to throw over the case a fine coating of
sophistry. The naked facts stared through the var-
nish. " He thought," he said, " that his Right Hon.
Friend was justified in exercising the power he had
done." Mark the safe, discreet, wily wording of this
sentence, so characteristic of the Premier's charac-
ter ! He was not positive that the Home
Secretary had acted rightly; he only "thought" he
had—a most convenient mode of defending his col-
league, which commits him to no decided opinion,
but enables him to back out of an ugly pre-
dicament, and even throw Sir JAMES GRAHAM
overboard, whenever it may suit his views of ex-
pediency to do so. We do most earnestly hope that
the people will mark their sense of the Home Secre-
tary's conduct, by holding public meetings on the
subject in every county, city, and town, throughout
the length and breadth of the land. They may rely
on it that the evil will not stop at the point which it
has now reached. The principle that private letters
may be opened at the Post-office being once sanc-
tioned by Government, will soon engender a regular
system of official espionage, under whose inquisitorial
tyranny
corre-
spondence
be
or a wherefore,
maynoman can be safe. If one individual's
v mayiolated by authority without a why
why should not another's ? Dr. Plum.-
POTTS, for instance, indite a moving epistle to
the Ecclesiastical
Commission, requesting that his
rich and long-lamented rectory of Stanhope may be
restored
ohrienlh the Member for Evesham, finding
politics
a o
honourable than lucrative profession,
t m
may: address a letter to the Manager of the Surrey,
requesting that he may be again allowed to play
Othello for his benefit at that theatre; and
both these strictly private and confidential ,
communications may be violated by order of
the Home Secretary, and. the greatest possible
shock be thereby inflicted on the delicate sensibilities
of the unsuspecting writers. The principle—whether
legal or not—of opening letters intended solely for

the perusal of those to whom' they are addressed, is a
most iniquitous—a most und iustifiable one, suited
only to the meridian of St. Pete, -shurgh ; and, there-
fore, one can hardly wonder at fin. ling it sanctioned
by, a Conservative Government, and supported by a
majority of forty-four sycophantic Con. iervatives

The subject of railroad travelling, tu.ll, in con-
nection' with it, the marvellous improvements and
advances in the art of locomotion which almost
every week's experience developes or improves, are
matters of such universal interest in this country,
that the Legislature appears to be impressed with a
salutary sense of its own responsibility in dealing
with them. They come home, in fact, to the every-
day business of every man. They concern equally
his business and his pleasure. They regard a new
power which approximates the remotest points of
these islands to the metropolis, the extremities to
the centre ;—a power, whose velocity outstrips the
wind ; whose strength mocks all living forces—whose
endurance is measured only by the supply of a simple
vapour, and the capacity of machinery to resist its
expan;iiro pressure ; and is regulated by the limita-
tions of its" employer's pleasure, through means of
the simplest il;.%iginable construction—applied with,
at ease, a certaintr and a facility of control, that
seems magically disTmPortionate to the terrible
power and the enormous bulk to be acted upon.
If such be the mechaniC.
al triumphs of this
wonderful application of steam 'sower to locomo-
tion, the moral effects of that application have been
yet more wonderful. Local prejudices and district
prepossessions have been more sensibly extinguished,
during the 10 years for which our principal lines of
railway have been opened, than they had been in the
previous half century. Sections of society, between
whom it has been customary to imagine there existed
almost instinctive animosities, have been more largely
brought together in the course of railway communi-
cations, than without these aids, in the lapse of very
many year's would probably have been the case. The
reciprocal isolation of the capital and the provinces is
fast disappearing; and in less than another decade we
may find it a favourite relaxation with„ the farmers of
Caithness to traverse the wealds of Sussex, and for
experimental reclaimers of the moors in Cornwall or
Devonshire to inspect upon the spot the turnip hus-
bandry of Norfolk. By an analogous process, this
growing interchange of opinions and intelligence and
observation may, at no distant period, push the march
of agriculture into districts, the capabilities of whose
soils have not yet been adequately tested ; and establish
manufactures in localities where the power of raising
raw material has been hitherto little more than sus-
pected. It may be found that hops may be taught to
flourish in the north as well as the south of
these islands ; and that there are' still large
wastes 'in the home counties, those adja-
cent to the metropolis, on which the enterprise,
sagacity, and industry of cultivators from bleak but
improved and productive sections of the border coun-
ties of England and Scotland, may raise excellent
crops of barley and farinaceous produce. Far more
sanguine than these were the anticipations under
which Dr. CAMPBELL, seventy years ago, developed
in his " Political Survey of Great Britain," the
vatural resources of these kingdoms. To an extent far
more extraordinary have his views been since verified—
and by means and under encouragement infinitely less
—than those which now justify us in looking forward
to an incalculable amount of national benefit and
social wealth, as likely to be derived from the more
general establishment of railway lines through the
length and breadth of the land.
We recommendattention to the abstract we publish,
in another column, of the principal features of the
new Government Bill, relative to the conditions to be
observed in respect of the construction of future rail-
ways, &c. We hope it may receive the careful dis-
cussion of Parliament, as one of the most important
measures that has been brought forward in the pre-
sent session.

Our readers, on referring to the Queen's Bench
report, will see that the Baron DE BODE has
at last obtained justice. He has been struggling with
the English Government for twenty years. That
Government had received from France money to pay
all just claims to French emigrants, but had disposed
of it in a way only known to GEORGE the FOURTH
and the Earl of LIVERPOOL. The Baron DE BODE
was one of the sufferers. He has had the courage, and
the indomitable perseverance too, to prosecute his
claim to the last. He threw himself on the honesty
and judgment uf an English jury, and he has not been
disappointed.
After a trial of three days, the jury returned a
verdict, yesterday, in favour of the Baron's claim,
awarding him the full amount, 364,2661., with in •
terest. There are some other claimants still on the
Government for money which has been swamped in a
similar manner, and which, from this auspicious ver-
dict, we trust will yet be restored to the rightful
owners.

In the report from Worship-street office will be
found another instance of the tyranny which the new
police force would, if they could, establish in the
metropolis. An industrious man, selling ginger beer
and other beverage requisite in this hot weather for
the poorer classes, is taken into custody, his little
property carried to the Green-yard, and his whole
stock probably destroyed, because a policeman thought
fit to interfere on a pretended order issued by a
sergeant of police. An inspector attended to give
some explanation, and stated that he knew
nothing of the order in question. The Magistrate, of
course, set the man at liberty, but what remedy is
that for such an outrage upon the poorer classes ? If
the public do not support the journals that take an
interest in restraining the inroads of the police on the
liberty of the people, they will speedily find that
Colonel ROWAN and Sir JAMES GRAHAM will treat
Englishmen like Russian serfs. There is an evident
tendency in that direction. We believe Sir J. GRAHAM
to be the most dangerous Home Minister that ever
Slled the office, not even SIDMouTH excepted ; and if
the people of this country wish to preserve their
liberties, they ought to get up meetings in every dis-
trict to pray the QUEEN to dismiss the renegade. He
opens letters entrusted to the Post-office, be disperses
harmless multitudes when they assemble to petition
Parliament for a redress of grievances. He was once
the advocate for sponging out the national debt, the
most radical leveller of the present time ;
and he is now the moat bitter persecutor of the
men who follow out his original principles.
We could bear with some degree of patience such
conduct from an old consistent Tory ; but such de-
spotism on the part of a Radical-Reformer, an osten-
tatious friend of liberty—a professed friend of the
people, and one of the leading men who carried the
Reform Bill, is quite insufferable.

Madrid papers of the 17th have been received, but
are entirely devoid of interest. Reports prevailed
that all the Ministers had been summoned to Barce-
lona, but for what purpose is not stated. A letter,
dated Bayonne of the 20th, contains the following
remarks, which, probably, are more true than the
fulsome reports published in the Madrid journals :
"The people, of Barcelona appear to take very little in-
terest in the movements of the Spanish Queens. Altogether
their Majesties have met with a very cold reception from the
Catalans. If it were not for the soldiers in their new uni-
forms, and the coaches and horses of the Ambassadors, and
General Naryaez, Barcelona would be very dull.
"Several insulting pasquinades, reflecting upon Queen
Christina, have been affixed to the walls of the Palace and
against the Theatre in the Rambla.
"Queen Isabella continues her course of sulphurised tepid
baths, but the irruptions on her face and hands remain the
same."

The Funds have advanced. The Three per Cents.
were done at 27i for cash, and 28 at 60 days ; and
the Five per Cents. at 20i- for cash.

We regret to find from the Paris papers of Sunday
that the troops of the Emperor of Monocco have
made another attack upon the French troops under
General LAMORICIERE, and according to the account
given by General BUGEAUD, in a most unfair and
treacherous manner. These facts are announced in
the following telegraphic dispatch :
"TOULON, JUNE 23, 8 O'CLOCK, A.M.
" LALLA MARGUIA, JUNE 16.
"THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF ALGERIA TO THE