The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-29 00:00:00

FOREIGN FUNDS.

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Brazilian Bonds
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Chllian, 6 per Cent — Ditto, Metallic ..... ........... .
Colombian, 8 per Cent
Ditto, 1824 Ditto, S per Cent 345
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Danish, 3 per Cent
Greek, 18Z, 5 per Cent— — ,Exchange —f. --c.
Mexican, 5 per Cent ...... ... French, 3 per Cent. —f. —c.
Ditto, 6 per Cent., 1837 Dutch, 2) per Cent.... 62
Peruvian, 1825, 6 per Cent — Ditto, 5 per Cent .........100%
SHARES.
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Ditto, New Shares, 17% paid
Caledonian (5 paid)
Chester and Holyhead ( 5 paid): 4
Chichester and Brighton, 5 paid
Dublin and Cashel, 2% paid
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Ditto Perpetual, 5 per Cent., 13s 4d. paid,No. 1 %
Ditto ditto, paid, No. 2 %
Edinburgh and Glasgow, 50 paid
Great Western (75 paid)
Ditto Fifths, 12 paid
Hull and Selby, 50 paid —
Ditto, Quarter Shares ( S paid)
Lancaster and Carlisle, 5 paid 5
London and Birmingham (Stock) ! 2'9
Ditto. New Thirds, 2 paid
London and Blackwall (161.135. 4c1.) 7 %
London and Brighton (50 paid) ... 46(
London and Greenwich (12t. 15s. 4d. paid) ......
Thito, Preference or Privilege, 418 17s 2d paid 19%
London and South Western (411. 6s. 10d. paid)
Ditto Eighths (15s. paid)
Newcastle and Darlingron Junction. 21 paid 4l
North British, 2% paid
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York and Scarborough Branch (25n paid)
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Paris and Orleans (20 paid)
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SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FRO% THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—Thaeks to Sir James Graham for invest-
ing the fag end of a dull, do-little session with un-
wonted interest! But for his Paul Pry practices at the
Post-office, Somnus would have re-assumed his reign
in Parliament, and the nation would have caught the
soft infection. The mutiny in the Ministerial camp,
and the rumoured resignation of the Cabinet, gave a
fillip to the slumbering public. But the report was
too good to be true. The quarrel of Friday
was patched up on Monday ; the nation re-
sumed its nap ; and Peel was himself again.
The Home Secretary excels his Chief. His proceed-
ings are not likely to pass into forgetfulness. He
has aroused the public mind to indignation. The topic
in every circle, where politician, or commercial men,
" most do congregate"—in the house, or on the way—
the astounding fact, that the correspondence of the
public, foreign and domestic, which is committed to
the Post-office, in the full confidence that it is there
alike safe from curiosity or cupidity, so far as the sanc-
tions and penalties of law can render it secure—
that this sanctuary is liable to be entered and ran-
sacked, and selections made from it at the pleasure
of the Home Secretary—that by virtue of a " general
warrant" from him, any and every letter addressed to
any individual may be stopped, detained, opened, read,
and its contents communicated a revelation of such
a state of things, so unexpected and alarming, was
well calculated to awaken public attention, and to
arouse the dormant feelings of Englishmen. And it
has done so. The subject was again brought before the
House of Lords last evening, to be resumed on Thurs.
stay evening next in that House. A motion on the
same subject is also to be brought forward in the
I louse of Commons in the course of the ensuing week.
Lord Radnor introduced the subject to the House
of Peers on presenting a petition from Mr. Mazzini, si-
miles- in terms to that presented to the House of Commons
by Mr, Duncombe from the same person, complaining of
the detention and opening of his letters by the Post-
office authorities. The discussion which ensued, though
almost exclusively a legal argument as to the import of
the terms of the statute under which the obnoxious prac-
tice is defended, is invested with extraordinary interest.
A great constitutional right is placed in question. A
privilege only second to the boasted inviolability of an
Englishman's house—be it a palace or a cottage,
tt mansion or a hovel—is jeopardised. The impression
of a man's seal has, in England, been hitherto regarded
as securing a letter against every individual except the
person to whom it was directed, or his authorised agents,
us completely as the lock upon a man's house, or upon
his desk, secured them from invasion against all but
himself, or those to whom he entrusted the key,
as the holy authorised mode of effecting an entry.
This delusion has passed away. We are now told
that this is a popular error, which Sir James Graham
has taken upon himself to dispel, and Lord Lynd-
hurst and Lard Brougham—par nobile fratruni
defend. The old practice—so consonant with the
notions of Englishmen—of respecting the seal of a letter,
or, at least, if it be opened, to apprise the party most
concerned that it has been broken and the contents
of the letter read, is now abolished. Every man
in England—the boasted birth-place and dwelling of
freedom, based on and defended by constitutional
law—who commits a letter to the Post-office, or who
receives a letter from his correspondent, does so under
the humiliating apprehension that it may be, or has
been, opened and read at the Post -office by some autho-
rised spy of the Home-office—the original seal broken
up, and a counterfeit impression skilfully executed, and
adroitly applied, affixed in the place of the original !
The legal point raised last evening is one on which
the Law Lords differ in opinion. It will, however,
be observed that the affirmative is adopted by Lord
Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst ; the soundness of
whose opinions will be impugned by their relative po-
sitions. Those, on the other hand, who contend that the
power of detaining and opening letters is limited, and
can only be exercised over a pasticular letter—specially
described in a warrant issued by the secretary of State
with reference to that letter, authorising its detention
and inspection—are not open to the objection we have
stated as applicable to the Noble and Learned Lords to
whom we have alluded. The latter view was maintained
by Lord Denman and Lord Campbell. In a doubtful
matter, where far greater ambiguity exists as to the
construction of the words employed by the Legislature,
we should be quite as much disposed to take the law
from the lips of the Lord Chief Justice of England—
cool and dispassionate as his Lordship is in temperament,
and removed as he is, by virtue of his office, from the
turmoil of party strife—than from the Noble and Learned
Lord who occupies the woolsack, whence he would be
hurled by the overthrow of the Cabinet of which he is a
member. With reference to Lord Brougham, whatever
admiration may be excited by his powers of oratory, his
talents as a lawyer were never rated at a high value ;
while Lord Campbell has been regarded by all parties as
a lawyer par excellence. In the present case, however, we
think the construction to be placed on the terms in dis-
pute is sufficiently obvious. Lord Campbell had "carefully
read, and attentively considered, the several Acts under
which the power exercised by the Secretary of State
was claimed and defended ; and he hal no doubt that
they did not confer the power of issuing a general war-
rant." Lord Denman, in the most decided language,
expressed his concurrence in the interpretation of the
law given by Lord Campbell. "He was of opinion that
every letter which was opened in the Post-office, should
be opened under the authority of an express warrant."
The..irsord Chancellor referred to the Act in support of
his construction of the words the meaning of which was
in dispute, but stopped short of the part of the clause
which made against his argument. The principle of law,
which requires that all penal statutes Shall be construed
strictly, and not with a latitude of interpretation against
the parties to be affected by them—the constitutional right
placed in issue—the resemblance which the case bears to
the case of " general warrants," in the celebrated case of
Wilkes, whose person and papers were seized by virtue
of a general warrant" issued by Lord Halifax as
Secretary of State, the illegality of which was decided
by an appeal to the constitutional tribunals of the coun-
try—whaistver view be taken of the question, whether
as to the teruss of the statute, or by analogy, as supply-
ing illustration feote cases similar to that now in dis-
pute ; all tend to the acme conclusion, that the practice
complained of is as unjusi;Riable in law as it is odious in
the estimation of the public. That it must be abolished
by special enactment, if not vote.'! by Parliament to be a
positive infraction of existing lase, is now no longer
doubtful.
STANDARD.—As we anticipated, the Postesffice
safe is not likely to be let drop. Lord Radnor brought
it forward last night again in the House of Lords.
There is an obvious reason for all this. Signor Mazaini
in this way obtains nightly an advertisement as " a lite-
ran, person —an advertisement of which he apparently
stands in need, for We imagine that his contributions
to literature ,are as much a secret to the rest of
the world as they certainly are to ourselves ;
and the grievance i moreover an excellent grievance,
and ono that will hear well, for it is impossible
for the Ministers to explain it aw,y
, without a gross
violation of duty, and uneXplainsu it must remain for
ever odious. All the habits of thinking and feeling,
which we form from our social experience, are repug-
nant to the notion that it can be right topry into
private
letters ; and even the cases which
" the
safety of the commonwealth, the sup law"
supreme ins
been pleaded in excuse for violating the secrecy of
private correspondence, have not been uniformly
such as to reconcile us to the irregularity. Dr. Frank-
lin, the Dc puty-Postmaster of North America, not only
stole but published private letters in 1773, for the pur-
pose of kindling war between the colonies and the mother
country ; he pleaded the public good as his apology ;
but he received a chastisement from the Solicitor-Gene-
ral Wedderburne, which few men would undergo for all
the fame, whether as writer. politician, or discoverer, that
attaches to the memory of the American philosopher.
Again, some years ago the Whigs received, and published,
and made use of—if they did not themselves actually
steal—a letter of the late Chief Justice, Lord Norbury,-,
employing it for the aid of the disaffected faction in
Iceland, but of course pretending the public good. Now
these abuses of confidence naturally enough make more
hateful what our habits of private life cause us to detest,
and therefore the grievance is one of the most promising
kind. Still the difficulty remains. What is to be done ?
Nobody ventures to say that, under no circumstances
shall letters be opened in the Post-office ; and how are
you to find the proper limits ? The law has left I
it to time discretion of the Home Secretary to fix those -
limits pro re nata, subject, of course, to the respensibi-
lity to which every act of a Minister is subject' and we •
do not see how, in this respect, the law can be improved

upon. Lord Campbell, indeed, and Lord Denman, hold
that the exercise of the discretion is hampered to
the extent of requiring a particular warrant for each
letter opened. We must always dispute any opinion
of Lord Denman's with extreme diffidence, and, more
particularly, a legal opinion, but we cannot assent to his
Lordship's doctrine, which seems to us to involve a whole
knot ofpractical contradictions. Let us, for example, sup-
pose, the case of an officer of the Post-office indicted for
opening one of Signor Mazzini's letters. The officer
pleads in his defence the act of Queen Anne, and a
warrant, under the hand and seal of the Home
Secretary, authorising him (the officer) to detain,
open, and copy all letters addressed to the Signor.
The clause in the Act of Anne, is not, as the Morning
Chronicle to-day sagely ! remarks, a penal clause
to be construed strictly ; it is, on the other
hand, a remedial and enlarging clause ; and,
therefore, entitled to the most liberal construc-
tion. Nobody knows this better than Lord
Denman. Now, we ask his Lordship, would it be eon-
sistent with such liberal construction to reject the pled
of the prisoner in the case supposed ? But we will put
the case still more strongly against the Home Secre-
tary's right, and suppose that the warrant was directed
to the detention and examination of a single letter
to Mr. Mazzini ; still the officer would be safe in
detaining all the letters addressed to that individual,
because each might be the letter anticipated; and upon
whatever letter he might be indicted the warrant would
be a good defence, for the prisoner would be in a
condition to say that that was the letter intended.
Mr. Mazzini says that in the course of two or
three months he received seventy letters, which
would be, on the average of post days, three a day
at the least. How could a warrant distinguish the
letter suspected out of three ? We, alas, know those
who sometimes receive twenty times, and even
thirty times three letters in the day. Now suppose, ab-
sit omen, any of us, who give such work to the letter-
carriers, suspected of seditious practices. How could a
warrant, applicable to a single letter only, afford the
means of sifting our correspondence? The question of
law was, however, too completely disposed of by the
arguments of Lord Brougham and the Chancellor to
permit that we say more about it. The power exists
legally in the Government, to the full extent to
while Sir James Graham has exercised it, and probably
it must continue to exist, if for no other reason, to deter
men from using the Post-office as the vehicle of criminal
correspondence. What the public has a right to
claim is, that it shall not be wantonly exercised—
exercised for any unworthy purpose—or exercised
without using every precaution against injurious
consequences either to the public or individuals.
Now, it is not even insinuated that in Mazzini's
case the power was exercised wantonly, or with any
unworthy motive, and no injury to any human being can
be traced to its exercise. How different the cases of
Franklin's stolen letters, and of the Whig employment
of Lord Norbury's stolen letter : there, breach of trust
—breach of trust, too, without any sanction of legal
authority—was used as the means of exciting sedition,
fomenting public hatred, and calumniating individuals.