The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-27 00:00:00

TRE SUN, Lown o►w, SATURDAY EVENT NGs APRIL 91, 1844.

has been a successful, and for England, a triumphant
one. There have been no gross mismanagements like
that of Caubul—no defeat to be deplored—no incom-
petent commanders to be censured—and if the seed
of future disasters be sown, which we very much
doubt, there are no symptoms or signs of them at
present. Sir JAMES GRAHAM will have one great
advantage in India. No man is more thoroughly
hated or despised than he is by all parties at home—
he may gain credit and honour abroad—the field is a
wide one, and the opportunity ample.

The secret of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S intentions with
regard to the renewal of the Bank Charter, and the
revision of the Currency question, appears to have
been better kept than is usually the case, where any
given line of policy has been already discussed between
the Government and a public corporate body. Our
readers are aware that a succinct statement of the
alleged propositions of the Cabinet on the all-im-
portant topics we allude to has been set abroad, on
the authority, it is said, of communications con-
fidentially made by a Director of the Bank of
England to a certain private country banker. To
that statement we will advert presently. But the
authenticated state of the case remains simply as it
stood on the day after the 21st ultimo, when Sir
ROBERT PEEL, having received and heard the Depu-
tation commissioned to wait upon him by the
General Meeting of Provincial Bankers held in
London, declined to disclose to them one word about
the purposes of her MAJESTY'S advisers touching the
objects of the desired conference. Nothing certain or
definitive, therefore, is actually known as to the
course which the Premier means to pursue in the
matter. So far from perpetrating any "great fact,"
he has vouchsafed no "sign," beyond, indeed, a shake
of his head, doubtless as profound, but unhappily as
inexplicable, as Lord BURLEIGU'S in the play. Yet,
there were " stuff and pith" enough in the recent
address transmitted to him from the "Private Bankers
and the Joint-Stock Bankers of Yorkshire" to have
extracted—one should have thought—some glimpses
of intention ; some shadowing forth of organized
plans—in the principles and the details of which
were involved the present hopes or fears, the future
well-being or prejudice, of millions of his countrymen.
He was reminded, in that address, of the incalculable
benefit which had been derived by the empire from
the able exercise of those privileges of which, it was
assumed, on the credit of the rumour we have already
referred to, that he means and still means to deprive
private banks and public banking companies. It was
demonstrated to him that in proportion to the almost
incalculable benefit and aid which the commerce,
agriculture, and industrial labours of the country had
derived from those privileges—in the case of the
former for nearly a century, of the latter during the
last seventeen yeass—would be the embarrassment,
the distress, the panic, the widely-spreading in-
solvency and ruin which must ensue npon their
abrogation. When the Premier was waited upon, he
looked unutterable plausibilties, after the most ap-
proved forms of official gesticulation ; and with
oracular solemnity, said, " That, at present, on the
part of her MAJESTY'S Government, he must decline
to say anything." With this statesmanlike and very
interesting communication, he blandly bowed, and
the Deputation retired.
To keep his purposes secret is undoubtedly, in
the, general proposition, an excellent property in a
Minister of State. No man has more forcibly illus-
trated its excellence than Sir ROBERT PEEL; but,
e cancers°. It is precisely what he has failed to do
on certain occasions of signal and momentous interest
to the public ; of vital importance to his own personal
career as a Chief Minister of the Crown. 'Whether
the case regarded the relief of Roman Catholic Dis-
abilities, or the extinction of rotten boroughs—the
difficulty of making himself acceptable with the
ladies of a Royal Household, or the crowning diffi-
culty of dealing with Ireland,—we have known Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S intentions au pied de lettre, for
months before. They have been patent-z-transparent;
albeit he himself has thought aloud about them, and
talked enigmatically of them, as if the world without
had continued as blind and uninformed in reference
to them as he could wish. No man has more ad-
mirably imitated, in his time, the ostrich, who, if it
can but thrust its own head into a bush, complacently
imagines that all its pursuers are at fault. Now we
are unwilling to give him credit for one jot of states-
manlike sagacity, prudence, or discretion, on account
of his dogged taciturnity in the present instance,
with regard to a question so entirely sui generis as
the views which his Government may have adopted
upon the future scheme of banking and currency to
be established throughout these kingdoms.

Does Sir ROBERT PEEL mean to renew the Charter
of the Bank of England upon its present terms, the
currency and the standard of value remaining on the
footing upon which they were' placed by his never- to-
be-forgotten wonder of 1819 ? The experience of
1825-26, 1833-34, 1836-37 ; the seventeen years'
trial or experiment and extensive working of
the joint-stock banks, established in the closing
years of GEORGE the FOURTH'S reign ; the uninter-
rupted, the panic-unstricken prosperity of Scotland,
with its still unprohibited issue of 11. and 21. notes
since they were put down by statute in England—
the increased monetary prosperity of Ireland, which
has retained the same inestimable aid to the deve-
lopment of her agricultural and commercial resources
—the increased stability of country banks from the
modification of the enactments as to partnerships ap-
plicable to them, and the corresponding increase of
popularity which has long attended their paper issues
in the rural districts; these are elements, many
of the most important of which could not
be said to be in existence when the same
great question was last dealt with by Parliament ;
whilst others did not then, as they now do, co-exist
and work together. Therefore it may be assumed
that the Charter of the Bank will be renewed, on dif-
ferent terms. What these terms may be, it was the
Premier's duty, surely, to have sufficiently announced
before submitting them to Parliament, in order to
give fair opportunity, to those who are best qualified
to discuss such matters, to prepare themselves with
whatever information, arguments, or statistics, may
seem most applicable to a due appreciation of the
faults or the merits of the Premier's statement. If
►:o such previous intimation be given, we
shall imagine, of course, that the same mys-
tification is to be practised on the Legislature
as was employed in 1819 in forcing down a
measure, every line of which told of an organic change
in the most prosperous of monetary systems which
the world had ever witnessed, on the authority, in op-
position to so long a practical experience of its prodi-
gious powers, of its astounding success, of anybody
and every body who was less qualified to pronounce a
judgment on the matter, than those who, though pos-
sessed of the greatest light and intelligence and
practical knowledge that could have been brought to
bear upon it, were never examined at all.! Parlia-
ment is to be taken by surprise immediately after the
Easter recess of 1844, as it was after the Easter
recess of 1819. Wanting, then, all authenticated
statements on the matter, let us suppose the alleged
intended propositions of Government really to be those
which it will venture to bring forward. What are
they ?
To suppress the smaller note circulation in Scot-
land and Ireland, to compel the withdrawal, within
a given time, of all local and provincial paper (bank
notes), to substitute in its stead Bank of England
paper, exclusively; and to constitute the Bank of
England the sole Bank of Issue. What may be the
quid pro quo which the Bank of England is to secure
to the Government in return for these outrageous
monopoly-keys,—keys, that are to lock up and let
out at pleasure the whole paper currency of the Em-
pire,—has not yet transpired in any shape so tangible
as to warrant us in noticing it. But if it
be gravely intended,—if it be really pur-
posed—to bring forward propositions of this
kind, the Government presuming to enter on such
a task had need take care that they steer clear of
future impeachment. The Minister presiding over
such a Government must have lost his reputation for
habitual caution and cold conception, who will
challenge the indignation of a people already so
grievously shattered as they have been by the dis-
astrous Act of 1819, in asking their assent to further
'measures for crippling the currency, paralysing in-
dustry, checking agriculture by drying up the
fountains of its encouragement—obstructing com-
merce by damming up the circulation in one main
chennel, instead of giving it the freest flow through
multiplied currents; and, lastly, by assigning over to
one Corporation, whoa* alternate expansions and con-

tractions of the currency, et en when modified by the
controlling counter agency of joint-stock and other
banks of issue, have been so abrupt and violent as on
more than one occasion to have brought the nation
withintwen ty-four hours ofbankruptcy—an unlimited,
uncontrolled, unchecked, unmitigated power over that
currency which, under less perilous conditions, they
have so grossly mismanaged, and so disastrously tam-
pered with. On a future day we will consider to
what extent the mischief of such exclusive powers to
the Bank will be aggravated by the coincident main-
tenance of PEEL'S gold standard—if,4ndeed, that ex-
tent be capable of adequate appreciation.

We quote the following paragraph from the Times
of this morning :—" Mr. Sheriff MUSGROVE attended
at Newgate yesterday to perform the painful duty of
fixing a day for the execution of MARY FURLEY,
under sentence of death for the murder of her infant
child, and he has appointed Monday, the 6th of May,
at eight o'clock A.M. He afterwards visited the un-
happy woman, in company with the Rev. JouN
Davis, Ordinary, and Mr. Corn, the Governor. The
prisoner received the announcement in the greatest
agony of mind, and in a few minutes became almost in-
sensible from grief. She has conducted herself with great
propriety in the prison, and exhibits every sign of real
penitence." Our first impression on reading the above
announcement was that of astonishment, our second,
that of unmitigated disgust. We could scarcely be-
lieve it possible that, in the nineteenth cen-
tury, which prides itself, and not unjustly, on its
humane endeavours to diminish the severity of our
criminal code, and to do away with capital punish-
ment, except in aggravated cases of atrocity, a poor
wretch—and she a woman, too !—could be forcibly
huorrreie deadly outdly of
crime existence
on a public scaffold, for no
m
society
than that of having
against
attempted to commit suicide with her infant in her
arms, under the pressure of intolerable agony and
destitution, which had driven her to the very verge
of insanity. GOD forbid that we should seek to exte-
nuate the crime of murder ; it is one of the blackest
in the long calendar of guilt ; but here there was
no cool, wanton, -deliberate . attempt at murder,
prompted by a heartless and malignant nature; the
act sprung out of the very intensity of ma-
ternal affection ; the poor creature, MA.RY PURLEY,
had just lost her sole remaining chance of pro-
viding a day's meal for herself and starving child ; after
having, with incredible difficulty, scraped together a
few paltry shillings by making shirts at three half-
pence each, and small dress caps, she was robbed of
every farthing she possessed; and, under the over-
whelming agony of mind produced by the sudden
discovery of this loss; feeling that nothing was left
her but death by a lingering process of starvation, or
a resort to a union workhouse, of which she had
already.had a most painful and humiliating experi-
ence—the wretched mother, we say, under the
overwhelming influence of one of those pa-
roxysms of lsewilderment which are so apt to
beset people in her situation, when the mind
has wholly lost its balance, and madness -flashes
across the brain, resolved at once to put an end to her
griefs by suicide, and involve her child in the same
fate, knowing well what would be its condition,
should it be left on earth, when the only friend and
protector it had was gone. It was not a callous na-
ture, but an exquisitely sensitive one, that was exhi-
bited in this phrenzied determination—it was not
that the feelings of the mother lay dormant, but that
they were too painfully awakened, in the heart of
MARY FURLET ; had she been a merely selfish
parent she would have acted otherwise, and hur-
ried herself only out of life, while she left
her child behind, to take its chance in the great
struggle of existence. At the trial which took place
before Mr. Justice MAULE, there was no positive proof
that she had flung herself and infant into the water;
she herself observed in her defence, " I fell off the
plank into the wharf;" and the only evidence that
was adduced in contradiction of this assertion, was a
remark which she had been heard to make a few days
before, to the effect that she and her child would
meet a watery grave. If ever there was a case that
demanded the lenient consideration of the autho-
rities, this is that one. Legally speaking,
the sentence passed on her may have been
a just one ; but, _morally speaking, it is a
most merciless and unrighteous one ; and pity
—benevolence humanity— equity—every feeling,
in short, of our common nature, alike shrinks
with horror from tba idea of its being carried into
execution. Are there no degrees in such criminality
as that \ of which MARY FURLEY has been found
;slaty ? Is the starved, hopeless, heart-broken, half-
frenzied mother, who, if she really did endeavour to
destroy her own offspring, did so out of the
very excess and agony of her maternal love,
to meet with the same punishment as that
awarded to such heartless; deliberate murderers as
GREENACRE and COURVOISIER, who set about their
work with the cool, pitiless malignity of fiends ?
Even now, though the day of execution is fixed, we
can scarcely believe that the sentence will be carried
into execution ; for though in the eye of the law, the
sacrifice of MART FURLET may be just and orthodox,
in the eye of humanity it cannot-fail to be looked on
as a murder.

Accounts from Madrid, of the 20th, state that
CAERASCO, the Finance Alinister, had completed a
loan for one million of reals, with the house of CE-
RIOLA, CARRIQUIEI, and SEVILLANO, and also on
the part of other capitalists in Madrid, Barcelona,
and Cadiz. The loan is in the Three per Cent.
stock, and is taken at 40. We trust the English
and French capitalists will leave these gentlemen all
the profits of this hopeful speculation. The QUEEN
was to leave for the baths of Caldas on Thursday
next, the 2d of May. The Barcelona papers an-
nounce some more butcheries at Gerona. Two Car-
list refugees, who had returned from France, were
captured at that place on the 19th, and immediately
shot.

The Three per Cents, were done at 37f at 60 days ;
and the Five per Cents. at 22 at 60 days.

The Paris Moniteur of Thursday publishes the law
passed by the Chambers for a vote of 527,241 f. to pay
the dividends of the Greek loan due on the Ist of
March. The same journal also contains a compara-
tive return of the principal imports into France, with
the amount of duties during the first three months of
the years 1842, 1843, and 1844. The duties have
remained nearly stationary, being in 1842, 32,317,123 f.;
in 1843, 35,251,140 f.; and in 1844, 33,952,250 f.
There had been a considerable falling off in the im-
ports of cotton, wool, linen, and flaxen cloths and
woollens, ani a great increase in the imports, both of
foreign sugar and sugar from the. French colonies.
The . National contains the following report of a
change in the Cabinet :--
"It appears to be decided that M. Martin (du Nord) is to
retire from his office as Minister of Justice, after the close of
the present session. The favourite project of M. Guizot is to
till his place by M. Dumon, and to offer the Public Works to
M. Dufaure ; but we do not believe that he will compromise
himself by accepting the appointment. In this case it is
probable that M. Hebert will become the Keeper of the Seals ;
and it is not impossible that M. Zangiacomi, jun., may be
made Procureur-General. Some recompense is required for
the elder M. Zangiacomi, who gives up the Presidency of
the Chamber of Requests to M. Martin. It is still, however,
in contemplation to give the Prefecture of Police to M. Zan-
giacomi, jun. ; but, to make this vacant, the Prefecture of the
Seine must become the apanage of M. Gabriel Delessert, and
M. Rambuteau clings closer to it than ever."
On Thursday the Three per Cents. advanced to
13f. 70c.. The Fives remained stationary, having
closed at 122 f. 40c.

THE BOURSE—THURSDAY, APRIL 25.
First Highest Lowest Last

Price. Price. Price. Price.
French Five per Cents ..
Four-and-a-Half III .. 111 •• 111 •• 111
Four per Cents. lO6 30 .. 106 30 .. 106 30 .• 106 30
Three per Cents B3 80 .• 83 85 .. 83 60 .. 83 85
Bank of France..... 3091 25 ..3092 50 3091 25 ..3092 50
Lailltte Bank. I,ooof. Sharesll7o .. 1170 • • 1170 ..1170
5,000 f. Sharesslss .. 5155 ..5155 ..5155
Belgian Bank 697 50 .. 697 50 697 50 .. 697 50
Belgian Fives, 1831......... 1031 .. 1031 • • 1031 • • 1031
1840 ........ 1061 .. 1061 •• 1061 .. 1061
1842 .. 1081 .. 1081 1081
Spanish Active . ..... 341 341 .• 34 .. 34
Threes ............ 37/ .. 371 • • 37* .. 371
Passive .. 61 •• 6/ .. 61
Portugnese Five per Cents.• 46 •• 461 •• 46 •• 461
Neapolitan ••••- •
Roman . . 1061 .. 1061 .. 1061 .. 106/

RAILWAY SHARES.
392 60 .. 392 50 392 50 .. 392 50
L. 8..........••• 260 .. 260 .. 257 50 •• 257 50
Rouen .................... 972 50 .. 972 50 .. 972 50 .. 972 50
Rouen to Havre 717 50 718 75 .. 717 50 .. 718 75
Orleans ..... ......... 962 50 .• 965 .. 962 50 .. 965
Strasburg to 8a1e•......... 277 50 .. 280 .. 277 50 .. 280
Avignon to Marseilles.. .... 767 50 •• 767 50 767 50 .. 767 50

RAILWAY SHARES, FOR THE ACCOUNT.
Versailles, R.B
L.B. ..... ....... 258 75 .. 260 .. 257 50 .. 257 50
Rouen ..•• .• — 972 50 . 975 .. 972 50 .. 975
Rouen to Havre•
Orleans •
Strasburg to.Bals• •• • . 278 75 .. 280 . 278 75 .. 280

DRUNKENNESS AND DISORDERLT CONDUCT.—A
return has been laid before Parliament of the number

of persons taken into custody for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct by the metropolitan police in each
year, from 1831 to 1843 inclusive, and stating the
population of the metropolitan police district in the
years 1831 and 1841. These returns exhibit some
singular contradictions. It appears that drunkenness
had decreased by More than two-thirds, while dis •
orderly conduct, in place of decreasing through the
exertions of Father Mathew, had taken a turn in the
other direction. In 1831 the total number of persons
taken into custody for drunkenness was 31,353, while
in 1843 it bad dwindled down to 10,890. In the same
years the numbers taken into custody for disorderly
conduct were respectively 10,383 and 14,855, show-
ing an increase of about one-third. This shows that
temperance is more disorderly than drunkenness.
The returns for the City of drunken cases show a de-
crease of about one-half since 1840, the numbers in
that year being 5,113, and in 1843, 2,595 ; but for-
tunately in that district the number of disorderly
persons had increased in a very trifling degree. The
total population included in the Metropolitan Dis •
trict is 2,068,107, which, with the population of the
City, 125,273, makes a total of 2,193,380.
THE WEATHBR.—Yesterday the temperature was
higher than it has been any day this season, the ther-
mometer at 2 P.M. having reached the extraordinary
height, for April, of 69 degrees. This day the wea-
ther is not quite so warm, as there is a brisk north-
east wind ; but still it is uncommonly beautiful, and
the sun shines with remarkable brightness. During
the night there was a slight fall of rain, though the
barometer stood very high.

Her Majesty and Prince Albert, accompanied by
his Majesty King Leopold and her Majesty the Queen
of the Belgians, left town this morning for Clare-
mont. The Royal party are expected to return to
Buckingham Palace this evening, in time for dinner.

THIIS DAY'S NEWS.

VICE-CHANCERY.-(THIS DAY).
(Before Vice-Chancellor Sir J. K. L. Baum)
His HoNoult disposed of several cause petitions and short
causes, presenting no feature of general interest.
(Before Vice-Chancellor Sir J. Wion.A.m.)
CROCK FORD V. SALMON.

His HONOUR gave judgment in this case, which was a
motion to set aside an injunction ordering the defendant to
work a certain zinc mine, and also the appointment of a re-
ceiver. The application to the Court was made to rest
partly on the ground that there had been a dissolu-
tion of a partnership, and that the parties interested
would not agree as to the appointment of managers.
The case, then, stood in this position :—The Court
had appointed a receiver, not to manage the mine, but merely
to collect what was due to it and pay the debts, and he had
restrained the defendant from interfering with the mine. The
property in question was granted under a Crown lease to
Crockford and Attwood, and it was subsequently assigned to
Crockford and Salmon. By the terms of that lease the lessee
was bound to employ fifty miners, to search and explore the
mine for nine months in every year, and the profit which the
Crown derived from it depended on the working of the mine.
There was a proviso against assigning the lease without a
license from the Crown, and a further proviso that if the
lessee did not faithfully perform all the covenants, the lease
should fall to the ground. The effect, therefore, of stopping
this leasing of the mine wou:d be to subject the lease to for-
feiture ; and he could not do what would have such an effect
upon an interlocutory application. His Honour referred it to
the Master to appoint a receiver ar.d manager of the mine,
with liberty to all parties to propose themselves the manager
to carry on the concern, according to the covenants.
At the close of the above judgment, his HONOUR stated
that a friend of his own had lost half his fortune simply
through not working his mines.

QUEEN'S BENCH.-(THIS DAY).
(Sittings in Banco.)
THE QUEEN V. THE OVERSEERS OF ST. ANDREW'S, HOLBORN.

In this case a mandamus had been obtained, calling upon
the defendants to submit their poor-rates' accounts to be
audited by the auditors appointed by the Poor-law Commis-
sualers. A return had been made, which had been traversed,
and a trial had been had. Ultimately, as there was no dis-
pute as to the facts, the matter had been brought before this
Court to settle the verdict. The point to be decided was,
whether the parish officers were subject to the jurisdiction of
the auditors of the Poor-law Commissioners, and turned en-
tirely on the construction to be placed on the various sections
of the local Act of Parliament, regulating the affairs of the
parish.
The COllaT, having heard Mr. Erie on behalf of the parish
officers, and Mr. Tomlinson, on behalf of the Poor-law Com-
missioners, reserved its judgment.

BAIL COURT.-(THIS DAY).
(Before Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.)
TIIE QUEEN V. BLAKE AND OTHERS.
Mr. HUMFREY applied to the Court for a rule to show cause
why an indictment, now
_pending in the Central Criminal
Court, against Blake and others, parties concerned in the re-
cent Custom-house frauds, should not be removed by certi-
orari into this Court for trial. It was an indictment for con-
spiracy, and as the judges of the land did not try such
charges at the Old Bailey, and there were most important
points of law as to the reception of evidence certain to arise,
it was desirable for the ends of justice that it should be tried
in the Court of Queen's
.Bench. The evidence to be adduced
was precisely the same as had already been produced on two
informations against the same defendants, tried in the supe-
rior courts, and the decisions upon both of which were at the
present moment under question. One of these had been tried
before Lord Denman, when the then Attorney-General (Sir
F. Pollock) tendered evidence on the part of the Crown,
which was objected to by the counsel for the defendant as im-
proper to be received, inasmuch as it consisted of the
declarations and books of certain parties, co-conspirators of
the defendants. Lord Denman, at the time of trial, had
doubts of the propriety of receiving such evidence, but had
at last allowed it to be put in, with permission to apply to
the full Court. That application had subsequently been
made, and the Court had granted a rule nisi for a new trial,
on the ground of the improper reception of evidence. That
rule now stood for argument in the Court of Queen's Bench:
The second information had been tried before Lord Abinger,
in the Court of Exchequer, and when the same evidence was
there tendered, counsel for defendants had again objected to
its reception, but fruitlessly. Subsequently a bill of excep-
tions was presented, and that now remained for argument.
Exactly the same evidence—namely, the declarations and
books of co-conspirators—would be brought forward on the
trial of the indictment at the Central Criminal Court, and ex-
actly the same points. would arise as to the propriety of the
reception of such evidence. As the judges of the land would
net be present at the trial, it was most desirable that the in-
dictment should be removed into the Court of Queen's Bench
for trial before them.

Mr. Justice COLERIDGE—These facts ought to appear very
clearly on the affidavits.
Humritny read extracts from the affidavits, giving
the facts we have embodied above ; after which
Mr. Justice COLERIDGE said—That will do. Take a rule.