The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-30 00:00:00

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PRICE sd.

YalliEMSon'te Video Reporter.)
MONTE VIDEO AND BUENOS
(From the BritanniaA
Tt is somewhat remarkable that the London Minis-
terial papers make no mention whatever of the affairs
of the River Plate, beyond the mere insertion of pa-
ragraphs of news as they are received from Monte
Video and Buenos Ayres. We are aware that on the
side of the Opposition, intervention would be objected
to on principles of consistency, and we insert the
following article from one of them as affording
an encouraging indication that we are not
altogether overlooked or forgotten. The si-
lence of the opposite party on the general
question may arise from a consciousness of the awk-
ward position in which Ministers have placed them-
selves by their vacillating policy, and the consequent
difficulty of doing justice to the subject without re-
flecting discredit on the Government. But in spite of
this studious reserve from all discussion, it may be
perceived, in the occasional slight allusion to our
affairs, that a profound abhorrence of the infamously
criminal system of Rosas is a prevalent feeling among
all who know anything of the war in the River Plate.
The accounts which have lately been published of
the state of affairs in Monte Video are at once dis-
tressing to humanity and disgraceful to our own
apathy. Monte Video has been exposed for about
twelve months, not so much to the more immediate
horrors incident to a protracted siege, as to the
more hopeless and withering process of a land
blockade, efficiently established, and rigorously main-
tained by a bigoted and remorseless solier. General
Rosas, commanding the troops of the Republic of
Buenos Ayres, invests Monte Video with an army
which cuts of - all communication between the be-
leagured town and its commercial resources and con-
nexions. Monte Video contains not only a very con-
siderable pumber of English merchants and their
families, but Spanish and colonial mercantile esta-
blishments of extensive connexion and character. It
is believed, that through this body, in the aggregate,
outstanding credits on English account are due,
amounting to, upwards of 50,0001. The passion of
Rosas having, for its peculiar object, the extirpation
of foreign commerce, he will not permit the cordon
which he has established under the walls of the ill-
fated city to be broken through on any pretence of
communicating with the native and colonial con-
sumers, from whom these credits are due. The in-
evitable consequence, it would appear, must be, that
they-can never be collected. The Montevidean
houses must perish =der the continuance
of the cruel duresse in which the contend-
ing pretensions of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video
thus operate to keep all foreigners who are shut up
in the latter. They have especial reason to complain,
and do, accordingly, most vehemently complain, that
they have been made the instruments of aggravating
the losses which are likely to be sustained by the
strong assurances that were given to them by Mr.
Mandeville, our Minister, when visiting the shores
of the Plata, that the British Government would
certainly protect British rights and property in
those regions, in the event of the Buneos Ayrean
armament entering the territory of Monte Video,
by repelling force by force. In consequence
of this assurance—so the correspondence, recently
received. in London, declares—" large sales of
merchandise were made on credit, and orders
transmitted to this country for further shipments."
When Rosas did cross into the territory, there was a
British force in those waters more than five times
sufficient to have effected his instant discomfiture andz
retreat; but he was not interfered with, and has, ever
since, cooped up the unhappy residents at Monte
Video within the bare. walls of their strong position,
where the whole community experience the un-
satisfied cravings for the common necessaries
of life. In the meantime the native and other
consumers in the interior of the country are
becoming, every day, less and less competent
to pay for their purchases, owing to the unre-
lenting destruction of all foreign property, carried
on by orders of Rosas throughout the territory sub-
ject to his vengeance. To such an extent does Rosas
indulge his stupid prepossessions against external
commerce of any kind, that he had very recently en-
forced the immediate return, without unloading, of
several vessels which had arrived with cargoes of pro-
duce from Corrientes at Buenos Ayres. These car-
goes were composed, in part, of returns of the native
dealers and consumers above alluded to, for the
British merchandise and manufactures supplied to them
by the importers of Monte Video. It seems, there-
foie, that no course more effective could have been
taken for sacrificing all chances of reimbursing the
shippers or owners of 500,0001. of British merchandise,
destined for that market alone.

•
THE LUCIFER MATCH AND THE LUCIFER TONGUE.
—At the Chelmsford Assizes a boy of nine years old
has been found guilty of firing a barn. John Hardy,
aged eleven, was also convicted of firing a stack of
straw. At Huntingdon, Samuel Baxter, aged ten, was
sentenced to fifteen years' transportation for a like
crime. These offences are very dreadful—very. We
are shocked at the powers of mischief which the
lucifer match places in the hands of the reckless and
malignant. Terrible is it to contemplate blazing stacks
of hay, and straw, and wheat—most terrible to imagine
the savage satisfaction gleaming in the eyes of a starved,
and therefore sullen and revengeful peasantry. How•
ever, the evil-doers are caught, arraigned, and sen-
tenced; and little would it avail them if, in the dock,
they were to make the most contrite, yea, abject
apology for their wickedness. The crime, they might
declare, was accomplished in an idle, reckless, or
passionate moment; and therefore they humbly begged
pardon of judge and jury, and of the directors of the
offices insuring the destroyed property,—and so, having
apologised, the culprits might trust that nothing more
would be said of the matter. Alas! such apology benefits
not the incendiary with the lucifer -match; he is not
permitted to " explain," but is inevitably transported.
How different the late of the incendiary with the lucifer
tongue ! he may idly, passionately, malignantly apply
his combustible to the character of any man ; he may
in the House of Commons—beneath that awful roof
where laws are made to restrain and punish the vindic-
tive and ferocious passions of men—he may there,
in his place and solemn function of statute-maker,
cast fire about him,—and when caught in the fact, when
become an object of most unenviable attention—he may
apologise for his inadvertence ; he may declare that he
meant nothing ; that he is very sorry if he have used
his lucifer tongue to the inconvenience of any gentleman,
and therefore hopes that his accidental use of the brim-
stone will be looked ever. Great is the privilege al-
lowed to the lucifer tongue,—but woe to the errings of
the lucifer match ! Is it not so, good Mr.. Wodehouse ?
The lucifer tongue may " apologise," and the lucifer
match is transported.—Punch.
SUN-PRINTED BANK Noms.—The only specimens
of photography, strictly speaking, are some bank notes that
have recently been produced. They are first engraved by
the action of light upon the metal plate, and then printed
from that plate in the usual way, and by the ordinary pro-
cess! This wonderful power will, doubtlessly, produce, ere
long, most remarkable effects. As regards bank notes,
however, so prepared, the public will require to be careful,
if they come into circulation. Some time since all our gold
was weighed ; and people will still have to guard against
fight money when these sun-printed notes come into existence.
DISPATCH IN WAR.—Captain Warner's apparently
remarkable and extraordinarily powerful explosive and de-
structive agent, whatever it may be, calls to mind a saying
of George the Third, in relation to inventions for destroying
life in war. Bishop Watson was at a levee, after his sue-
cessful experiments on his improved gunpowder had been
made, when the then Duke of Richmond, Master-General
of the Ordnance, informed his Majesty that they were in-
debted to the Bishop for that great improvement in its fabri-
cation. On the latter saying he ought to be ashamed, inas-
much as it was a scandal in a Christian Bishop to instruct
men in the mode of destroying mankind, the King answered,
" Let not that afflict your conscience, for the quicker the con-
flict the less the slaughter."
FIRE IN THE "BEAUFORT PIT OF BLACK BAND.--
The subterranean fire which has for some time seriously
alarmed every person interested in the welfare and prosperity
of this and the adjoining mineral districts, has been at length,
with much labour and difficulty, subdued, so that the men
were enabled to resume their accustomed employment on
Tuesday se'nnight.—Cambrian.
BOVLOGNE AND CALAlS.—During the week ending
the 25th instant, the greatest number of persons ever em-
barked or disembarked from these places entered or left them
from or for England, namely, 4,389; of which 3,328 were at
Boulogne, and 1,061 at Calais.
BOOKSELLERS' PROVIDENT RETREAT.—John Dick-
enson, Esq. of Abbott's hill, Herts, has with great liberality
given a plot of ground, of about three acres in extent, situated
on his estate, to this excellent institution. The ground lies
between King's Langley and Abbott's Langley, and is ad-
mirable located for the houses which the managing commit-
tee of this body intend to build for decayed booksellers, their
widows, and assistants.—Literary Gazette.
ofa femalema rri
marriage.
in
ed. i sprohsei n
prosecutor
o
COURT OE SESSION.— BUCHANAN V. SMITIL—This
iognhttsra ct of
was a case of considerable importance, as defining the law in
enteringregard
t o
intoe re.
f effects
this
n after
case pleaded that only one day previous to his marriage his
bride, at the instigation of certain interested parties, had dis-
posed of heritable and other effects to a considerable amount,
bequeathed to her by a former connection. The same hav-
ing been remitted to the Court of Session, it was there found,
and decreet accordingly pronounced by Lord Cuninghame,
that said deed was illegal, and null and void ; and granted
warrant agreeably thereto for such being expunged from the
public records and of none effect —Edinburgh Evening Post.
LAUGHABLE, THOUGH SERIOUS.—A lad who bawls
" hot cakes—hot cakes !" around the town of Newport, daily,
with lungs like those of Stcntor, last week opeued his mouth
so wide in bawling, that he. was unable to shut it again, till
having run• through the streets, with distorted mouth and
horrible grimaces, towards the residence of the first surgeon
he thought of, he procured medical aid, and had his unfortu-
nate jaw reset ; and now he may be heard—thougli,in much
lower key, again pursuing his usual avocation of bawling and
selling ". hot cakes—hot cakes."--211innotah Merlin.
Low FARES ON BAILWAYS.—If any proof were re-
quisite of the advantage of low fares to,railway traffic, it has
been satisfactorily furnished by the case-Of the Croydon Rail-
way. Since the reduction in the fares on that line the traffic
has increased in a remarkable manner, the
,amount received
for passengers having been greater in the last week than in
any week since that ending the 14th of September, 1841, and
the number of passengers carried exces4ng that of aily one
week since the Whitsuu-week in June, 1040, with one,excep-
tion only, which occurred in the corresptindingiveek of June,
1841. The Croydon-fair weeks in every ye4are, oCcourse,
likdwise excepted.—Raibray Record
Upwards of a hundred large religious paittings,
by artists of the seventeenth century, are at prestt being
suspended in the chapel and choir of Notre Dam : One
bears the name of Corneille. who flourished towards the close
-ofithat contury—frenth Print,