The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-07 00:00:00

SUMMARY OF NEWS

AND
VUbltt Optitton.

" Who rams may read."

FOREIGN.

The King and Queen of the French gave a rand dinner,
followed by a concert, at the Tuileries, on Thursday, in
honour of the visit of ' her Royal Highnees the Duchess of
Kent, to which the Ministers, Foreign Ambassadors, and a
great number of the nobility and gentry, members of the
Chambers, and distinguished English and other foreigners,
had the honour of receiving invitations. The concert con-
sisted of selections from Gluck, Handel, Mozart, Rossini,
May erbeer, Balfe, and Donizetti. Messrs. Duprez,Barhoille
Balfe, Levasseur, and Mmes. Dorus-Gras and Balfe, were the
principal performers.
The Duchess of Kent, accompanied by the King, and the
rest of the Royal Family, visited, on Saturday, the Exhibition
of the Products of French Industry.
A Company has been formed for executing the projected
railroad between Lyons and Avignon. This will complete
the grand line from Paris to the Mediterranean, decreed by
the law of 11th June, 1842. It will be connected on one side
with the northern railroad by the line from Paris to Lyons,
and, on the other side, to the southern road by its' direct or
branch junction with the roads already executed, or in pro-
gress of completion, from Avignon to Marseilles, from Beau-
caire to Alais, and from Nimes to Cette, and hereafter will be
joined to that between the MediteirAnean and the ocean
by the Toulouse and Bordeaux railroad.
The National, of the sth ult., in speaking of M. Emile
Girardin, when observing upon the combination between the
journals at 40f. per annum, made some reflections ; in answer
to which he sent a letter to the National, stating that the
original shareholders of the Presse had been deceived by the
calumnies of the National. This letter the National refused
to insert. Whereupon M. Emile Girardin cited M. Delareche,
its responsible editor, before the Tribunal de Premiere In-
stance, to enforce the insertion. The case was heard on
Friday, when the Court declared that the complaint was ill-
founded, and gave judgment in favour of the defendant.
The Maltese Times, of the 22d ult., announces that the
Maltese Huereb, who had been condemned to death for the
murder of a servant of Sir Thomas Reads, was beheaded at
Tunis, on the 12th ult.
The Gazette des Tribunaux announces the arrest, in Peril!,
of another gang of thirty-nine thieves and robbers. NH.
merous complaints, says this journal, having been laid before
the Prefecture of Police against a gang who have for some
time infested the museums, concert-rooms, and other pablie
places, but more particularly the churches, the officers of
justice were put upon the alert, and by their researches disco-
vered a large confederacy under the common appellation of
the Bands Beige, composed chiefly of malefactors who had
for their misdeeds been inhabitants of the prisons in Belgium,
and who, being too well known in that country, have come
over to Paris to exercise their nefarious talents.

PUBLIC OPINION.
The following are the opinions of our Morning Contempo-
raries respecting the appointment of Sir Henry Hardinge to
the Governor-Generalship of India
TIMES.—We cannot think it any great deprivation to our
Indian empire to have lost Lord Lllenborough and gained
Sir Henry Hardinge. That Gallant Officer stands in strong,
and far from unfavourable contrast, with his predecessor. He
is a tried man and a trained man. He has been very long
engaged in different kinds of active life, and has done well
what has been committed to him. Me is not given to Lord
Ellenborough's truly Eastern aspirations, and may, in conse-
quence, neglect as impracticable, or as out of his own line,' some
noble enterprises which the useful restlessness of his prede-
cessor might have called into being ; but neither will he make
himself ridiculous by au apish affectation of Orientalism. He
has seen too much of war to be at all anxious to play at so!-
diers—he has served under far too able a master of that art to
be unprepared for such emergencies as may occur.
CHRONICLE.—Sir Henry Hardinge's is a mind of good
quality, if of no high order. With little general knowledge,
he is acquainted with but a limited portion even of the field
of politics. But within that limited field he seems to judge
with correctness and promptitude. He is not a man likely,
of course, to originate any great scheme of policy; but no
man may better be relied on for carrying into execution the
suggestions of others, for understanding what he undertakes,
and undertaking nothing but what he understands. By
such a man in the position of Governor-General, it may fairly
be expected that the actual duties of the office will be
efficiently and safely discharged.
POST.—Sir Henry Hardinge has been selected as the suc-
cessor of his near connection, Lord Ellenborough, in the Go-
vernment of India. We have reason to believe that this
nomination has been made at the suggestion of the Court of
Directors, and with the full concurrence of the Cabinet, of
which Sir Henry is a member. The appointment will be
confirmed at a Special Court to be held this day at the East
India House for that purpose. One thing, at least, is decided
by this nomination : in choosing A member of the Cabinet
which has avowed in both Houses of Parliament its entire
approval of the policy of Lord Ellenborough—one who, of
course, will carry out that policy as his predecessor has com-
menced it—the Directors have given an unequivocal indica-
tion that the motives which operated with them to induce the
recal of that Noble Lord, are not connected with State con-
siderations arising out of his political Government of India.
HERALD.—The East India Directors have atoned for their
late indiscretion in what, after all, is perhaps the best man-
ner open to them. They have solicited the Government
to agree to the appointment of Sir Henry Hardinge as the
successor of Lord Ellenborough ; and, although, from the
absence and indisposition of the Earl of Ripon, President
of the Board of Control, nothing has been formally ar-
ranged in the matter, there is no doubt that the offer will
be accepted. Lord Ellenborough could scarcely remain in
the Government satisfactorily to himself, or usefully to the
empire, after the gross affront offered by his recal ; and a
better successor than Sir Henry Hardinge—one in whom
the country would repose more confidence, even were not
the Government heartily disposed in his favour—could not
be named. Sir Henry's near family. connexion with the
present Governor-General, too, is a circumstance in favour
of the proposed arrangement, deserving of regard with those
who think the feelings of even public men are entitled to
some respect.