The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-10 00:00:00

„iv bininrnt

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1845.

The House of Commons met at Four o'clock.
The order for the second reading of the Midland
Counties Railway Extension Bill was discharged, on the
ground that s clause had been introduced into it sur-
reptitiously and against the standing orders, and which
had escaped the observation of the Committee of the
Bill. The attention of the House was drawn to this cir-
cumstance by the Speaker.
Mr. T. DrNCOMBE asked if this was one of the Bills
which had been reported favourably on by the Board of
Trade?

Mr. STRUTT, as Chairman of the Committee, threw

he blame on the Parliamentary agent, as it was impos-
sible for the Committee to read through all the Bills
submitted to them.

Lord G. SOMERSET hoped the House would punish the
Parliamentary agent, and
Mr. ENTWISLE gave notice that he would again draw
the attention of the House to the subject.
Mr. W. B. FERRAND, amidst roars of laughter
from all parts of the House, gave notice that he would
on Friday present a petition from the Dublin Operative
Protestant Association, praying for the impeachment of
Sir B.
Mr. AaLIoNBY then drew the attention of the House
to a letter which had appeared in the Times, animadvert-
ing upon his conduct as a Member of the New Zealand
Committee, and entered into several explanations on the
subject.
In answer to Lord EBRINGTON, Sir J. GRAHAM said
he was not aware that it was the intention of the Go-
vernment to prevent interments in St. Margaret's
Churchyard.
Mr. W. COWPER moved the second reading of the
Field Gardens' Bill.

Mr. EBCOTT opposed the Bill. After a few words
from Mr. M. MILNE! in support of the measure, the
House divided, when there appeared—For the second
reading, 92 ; Against it, 18 ; Majority for the second
reading, 74.
The Scotch Infeftment Bill passed through Committee.
The Public Museums' Bill was read a third time and
passed, as was the Glass Duties Excise Bill.
The Mutiny Bill, and the Marine Mutiny Bill, passed
through Committee, and were ordered to be read a third
time to-morrow.

The Sugar Duties Excise Bill was read a second time;
and the House adjourned at Seven o'clock.

It was understood at the Anti-Corn-law meeting, held
in Covent-garden Theatre last evening, that no other
meetings would be held in that place till the close of the
Great Bazaar, which will be opened in the course of
next month. This League has now been in existence for
nearly seven years, and we trust that long before other
seven years have elapsed its labours will be accomplished,
and a complete victory obtained not oaly over agricul-
tural monopolists, but monopolists of el ery class in society.
The advocates for the maintenance of the sliding scale,
and the heavy tax on the staff of life, advert with com-
placency to the little noise made by the League—to the
less frequent meetings and the very small effect which
they have produced on Sir ROBERT PEEL and the
House of Commons, for, say they, notwithstanding the
thousands and tens of thousands collected, the vast dis-
play of patriotism and liberality made by so many
individuals and the country excursions of paid lecturers,
the Corn Bill remains, and will remain unaltered. We
will not enter on that point. Our opinions are very
different, and time, a very short time, too, will show whe-
ther these men prophecy truly ; but, looking at the effects
produced already by this powerful body, what rational
being can believe that, while monopoly is on the wane
in all other directions, it is to remain fixed
and immutable only as regards corn ? During the
existence of the League the most unexpected commer-
cial changes have taken place. Many agricultural pro-
ductions, which were formerly prohibited or paid an
enormous duty, are now admitted at comparatively mo-
derate charges. The landowners have been as-
sailed by the Minister on every point: he has al-
tered the corn duties, and though that alteration
was not very material, it caused the resignation of the
only farmers' friend in the Cabinet, Ile has reduced
the Customs' duty on cattle, on beef, and hams, and
many other necessaries of life; and are we to infer that
he is to stop here, and not carry into operation the
great principle of free-trade—purchasing in the
cheapest, and selling in the dearest market—
which he unequivocally professed in his place
in Parliament? These changes could not have taken
place but for the pressure from without, and that pres-
sure owes more to the League than to all the writers on
political economy, to the cries of the poor, or to
any other circumstance whatever. If the League
had done no other good than open the eyes of
the farmer, they would deserve immortal honour.
They have done that and something more. They
have taught that class their true interests, and
convinced many that their only hope of safety rests
with themselves—that they must obtain leases, under-
take agricultural improvements, and put down competi-
tion, not by Acts of Parliament, but by energy, industry,
perseverance, and new inventions. But the League
has not confined its labours to corn—its princi-
ples apply to all commodities; and this very session,
during which the duty on four hundred foreign articles
of production has been abolished, furnishes the most con-
vincing proof that their labours have been crowned by a
great victory. They have only to pursue the same path
for a few years more—to urge on the willing Minister
to further reforms, to enlighten landlords as they have
enlightened tenants, and to keep their irrefragable prin-
ciples before the public mind, in order to consummate
their benevolent and noble purposes.

Mr. MACKINNON brought forward on Tuesday evening
last the proposition, of which he had given notice, for a
declaratory resolution on the part of the House of
Commons, affirming the report of the Commissioners on
the Health of Large Towns, condemning and denouncing
the practice of interring the dead within churchyards
and other such mural precincts. The simple object of
this motion was, by the moral influence attaching to such
a declaration of opinion, effectually to discourage the
practice of burying the dead within localities densely oc
cupied by the living. We should blush for the Legisla-
ture that could repudiate a suggestion so consonant to all
the moral and religious associations under which a
Christian community regard the disposal of their mortal
remains who have been called from among them ; so
essential to the decency and decorum with which sur-
viving kindred desire to see the dust of their deceased
connexions undesecrated in the earth to which it has
been solemnly committed; and, above all, so imperatively
demanded by a just regard to the health and comfort of
large communities. This motion, however, was lost by
161 votes against 78. It is gratifying, on the other
hand, that, notwithstanding the uncompromising oppo-
sition of Sir JAMES GRAHAM, and other leaders of the
majority in question, a second division affirmed, by a
considerable majority, the substantial object of Mr.
MACKINNON'S appeal, by carrying Mr. THOMAS DUN-
COMBE'S amendment, to the effect that—" The practice
of interments in the precincts of the metropolis, and in
large towns, is injurious to the health of the population,
and demands the serious attention of Parliament."

It is not necessary that we should carry our readers
again with us over that revolting field of strange and
terrible details, connected with the weekly, daily, hourly
treatment of the dead that we have, on several occasions,
found it our duty to explore. In noticing the reports of
Mr. CHADWICK, Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH, and others,
to whom the public are indebted for their courageous
exposure of these polluting enormities (occurring at our
own doors, before our own eyes, under our own feet,
within the most busy quarters of this vast capital), we
have felt all the difficulty of discharging a hideous duty.
But it was necessary to demonstrate how the further
toleration of this abominable system was instrumental
to the wholesale extirpation of living generations. On
evidence not to be impeached we showed that the reek-
ing exhalations of our crowded Golgothas were decimat-
ing families and individuals, and infecting whole dis-
tricts with malignant fever and fatal centagion. That,
whilst all human sympathies and affections were scan-
dalised by the outrages and mutilations committed on
the dead, in order to suit the purposes of avaricious
landlords, greedy parsons, and reckless sextons, the in-
habitants of the vicinity in which such practices were
and are commonly perpetrated were more or less affected
by strange and noisome diseases, manifesting themselves
in types of aggravated intensity and under hitherto un-
recorded forms. The three plague spots in this desecrated
region of interments which we more particularly de-
nounced to the notice and supervision of the authorities,
namely, Enon Chapel, and the churchyards and burial-
grounds of St. Clement's Danes and St. Ann's, Soho,
were on Tuesday evening the subjects of emphatic denun.
ciation in the House of Commons. We may now hope,
therefore, that the Legislature is beginning to feel itself
pledged by the reports of the Health of Towns Commis-
sioners to a vigorous repression of these filthy abomina-
tions. But there were passages in the same debate
which we cannot allow to pass unnoticed. The speech
o
Sir JAMES GRAHAM was remarkable for a degree of
bigotry and a deficiency of argument that really sunk
ost•office piracies had precipitated hi
Pm.
Home Secretary deeper than the depths in which his
m. He discovered,
in opposition to Mr. MACKINNON'S argument and the
Commissioners' elaborate researches, that
practice of thereinte a could
be no serious objection to the u 1
interments in large towns, on the score of danger to ther
public health, because, although it prevails to
so vast an
y extent in London, London is yet the healthiest city in
the world. Perhaps the Right Honourable Baronet's
logic does not recognise the doctrine of proportions.
It thus may not have occurred to him to ask why the
ratio of mortality should not be much less even than it
is, looking to the unrivalled advantages of sewerage and
ventilation which London, with all its defects in parts,
Possesses as a whole over every other capital? More-
over, if he will refer to the weekly returns of
mortality, he will find that diseases of the lungs,
the viscerze, the larynx, and the other organs which are
most susceptible to the action of malignant influences,
have been actually increasing, as compared with corre-

.ponding periods of the last year or so, si►,ce the date
~t which the noxious effects of intermural interments

in crowded localities were first irresistibly forced upon
public attention by the pamphlets by Mr. WALKER and
other medical and statistical authorities. To show how
Far the bigotry of administration, as well as political
intolerance, may carry a sensible man out of his ways
let us observe the example by which Sir JeAtns illus-
trated his opinion. He apprised the House, with a be-
coming mixture of solemnity and confidential assurance,
that the present Bishop of LONDON, whilst he was yet
but a beneficed clergyman, resided is the parsonage
house of Bishopsgate parish, looking into the church-
yard ; that he enjoyed a remarkably fine state of health
there during the whole period of his incumbency, and
reared a fine family of children there. Why, surely
the Right Hon. Baronet is not se simple as to imagine
that so stout a churchman as the Right Rev.
CHARLES JAMES would wax faint and fall sick in the
high road of his preferment! As to the good state of
health which CHARLES JAMES enjoyed as rector of
Bishopsgate, we take so lively an interest in it, that we
can sincerely state we wish he was still the incumbent
of that parish—and not Bishop of LONDON. The parish
would probably not have fared much the worse—the
diocese would certainly have fared much the better—
had he never removed from his incumbency. Lord
NIAIioN, with much more reason than Sir JAMES GRA-
uem, admitting the technical difficulties that might at-
tach to the carrying Mr. MACKINNON'S resolution, ex-
pressed his conviction that the Right Hon. Baronet had
greatly underrated the importance of the question it
involved. His Lordship forcibly argued on the ultimate
inutility and failure of the present extraordinary efforts
fur the improvement of the ventilation and drainage of
the metropolis, if such dangerous practices, as had been
proved to exist in connexion with interment, were per-
mitted to infect the air to which those efforts would but
give freer circulation, and to pollute and poison with
the putrescentcy of human corruption, the drainage to
which they would give but freer motion. We shall
await with anxious and vigilant curiosity the first sane-
tary measures that are to result from the carrying of Mr.
DCNCOMBE'S amendment

The intelligence from Madrid is to the 2d inst. The
Committee appointed to examine the Budget, had re-
duced the estimates from 1,400 millions of reels
(14,000,0001.), to 1,100 millions (11,000,0001). It was
said also that as the Committee cannot grant to her
Majesty Queen MARIA CHRISTINA DE BOURBON the
3,000,000 reals (30,0001) demanded for her by the Go-
vernment, in the capacity of Queen-Widow, since she has
married the Duke DI RIANZARES, they propose the sum
being awarded to her " as a testimony of national grati-
tude for the services she has rendered to Spain." This
large sum had excited much astonishment among several
of the Members. The report proposes authorising the
Government to proceed to the regulating of the public
debt, granting it for that purpose 40,000,000 reals
(400,0001.;, and a delay of eight years.
The Three per Cents. closed at 34i for cash, and 34
at 60 days ; the Five per Cents. at 25. at 60 days ; and
the Debt without Interest at 81 at 60 days. In the
evening the Funds rose at the Puerta del Sol I per cent.
in the Three per Cents., and a in the Five per Cents.

In the French Chamber of Peers, on Monday, the
Count DE MONTALEMBERT made an admirable speech in
reply to the arguments cf Baron CHARLES DUPIN, and
the Prince DE MoszowA, on the emancipation of the
slaves in the Freneh colonies. The former, we believe,
is the paid agent of the planters, and the latter fights
for slavery without an object. These two Peers had
opposed emancipation, because it would be dangerous to
French interests, and the English scheme had proved a
complete failure. Count DE MONTALEMBERT said the
accounts given of the ill condition of the English
colonies had been much exaggerated. The moral success
of the abolition of slavery had, he said, been complete;
not less than 800,000 slaves had passed from slavery to
complete liberty, without disorder, or the effusion of
blood. That was an immense result, such as had never
been exhibited in any of the revolutions that had taken
place in Europe. The excellent conduct of the eman-
cipated slaves the Noble Peer attributed to the admir-
able exertions and zeal of the Protestant missionaries.
He was not of the same religion, he said, as those
worthy men; they were even proclaimed to be heretics
by the religion which he professed, but be did not the
less think it just to acknowledge the immense services
which they bad rendered to civilisation. The Noble
I'eer then proceeded to examine the state of religion
in the French colonies, and declared that, after a
most minute and conscientious examination, he was
obliged to admit that none whatever existed
there—that religious instruction was a complete
fiction. He attributed this state of things partly to the
want of energy on the part of the Catholic clergy, and
partly to the hostility of the slave-owners to the intro-
duction of all moral instruction, which they feared
might serve as a progress towards emancipation. The
Noble Peer instituted at some length a comparison be-
tween the disposition and character of the slave popula-
tion in the English and French colonies, and concluded
that the former had decidedly the advantage. He then
proceeded to consider the case of a war between Eng-
land and France. He said that the colonies of the latter
would either fall at once into the power of England, or
would resist. In the former case, the first thing that the
victors would do would be to preclaim emancipation. In
the latter, if resistance was offered by the colonies, how
could the Government hope to effect anything with the
slaves ready to fly into rebellion, and the enemy ready
to attack. There was, he maintained, no possibility of
defence, unless the slaves were emancipated. From all
these considerations the Noble Peer came to the con-
clusion that it would be the interest of France, not only
to abolish slavery in her colonies, but to do so at once.
Two other Peers followed, and urged the necessity
of coming to a decision on the important question, both
for the good of the owners and the slaves themselves.
The discussion was adjourned. In the Deputies M.
CRF.MIEUX brought forward a motion for granting the
electoral franchise to persons belonging to the liberal
professions, which was rejected by a majority of 28—
there being 151 for the motion, and 179 against it.
The Paris papers contain additional details respecting
the affairs of Switzerland. The Journal des Debats
says—" Our advices from Zurich are anything but
favourable to the maintenance of peace in the con-
federacy. The elections that have just taken place for
the re-composition of the Executive Council have given
the majority to the Radical party. It appears certain
that M. MoussoN, President of the Voiin, has re-
signed. The Radicals are, therefore, absolute masters
of the authority which, as being the Vorort, is, fur two
years to come, to direct the affairs of Switzerland." The
following is the official account of the battle before
Lucerne, published by the Executive Government of
that canton:—

" Dear and faithful Confederates—As we anticipated in the
letter which we addressed on March 28, to the Federal Direc-
tory, the enemies of legal order of every kind in our common
country hays dared to raise afresh the standard of insurrec-
tion and anarchy. On the evening of March 30, armed bands,
arriving from different parts of Switzerland, who had as-
sembled under the eyes of the Grand Council of Argau, for
the purpose of making a hostile incursion into our canton,
passed the frontier in great numbers, and occupied several
communes. They got into movement in the early part of the
morning of the 364 turned the positions where troops were
assembled, and attempted to obtain possession of the town of
Lucerne by a sudden attack. Although they experienced
heavy loss near the bridge of the Emme, where they could
not force a passage, they succeeded in passing the river near
Littau, where our troops were obliged to retire before their
superior force ; and it was in this way that the column of the
insurgents which fought in that direction was able
to penetrate into a faubourg of Lucerne, and, by occu-
pying the road to Bale, to impede considerably the
communications between our troops. The attack on
the bridge of the Emma not having succeeded, the
greater part of the insurgents' artillery remained placed near
this point. The bands, which had forced the passage near
Littau, remained all the night of March 31 at their place in
the Bale faubourg. On the morning of April 1 the contin-
gents of Uri and Zug having entered the town, the insur-
gents were attacked on different sides, repulsed beyond Lit-
tau, and dispersed. The rest of these hordes, on the night of
March 31, passed the Emme, near Malhers, with the greater
part of their artillery ; but in this commune some companies
of regular troops and the landsturm gave them so warm a
reception that, after a combat of several hours, their flight
became general. A bridge was occupied, and all the artillery
which was to pass that road was taken. A detachment of
cavalry succeeded in escaping. The park of artillery which
was seized is composed of 2 twelve-pounder howitzers of
Argau, 2 ditto of BAle (country), 1 four-pounder gun of
Berne, ditto of Argau, 1 cannon of a bore and origin not
possible
to be indicated, 2 caisson of shells of Bale
(country), 1 ditto of Argau, 2 ditto for six-pounders, and
1 waggon of Congreve rockets. In addition a great quan-
tity of arms, several colours, and a number of' troep and artil-
lery horses fell into our power. Some hundreds of prisoners
were taken, and several hundred others of these buccaneers
paid for their crime with their life either during the combat
or the rout. Pursued on all sides by the landsturm, they
fled unceasingly during the whole day of April 1 towards the
frontiers of the canton. It is thus that visibly protected by
Divine Providence, and assisted by our faithful confederates,
we gained a decisive victory over the enemies of all legal
order, whom other members of the confederation have
seconded with perjury and treason, and who had thus at-
tempted a second time to spread over our canton all the
horrors of civil war and anarchy. In informing you of this
victorious struggle, dear and faithful confederates, it is use-
less to repeat the assurance which we have already given in
our letter of March 27, and according to which we think we
can dispose of sufficient troops to maintain in the most com-
plete manner order and tranquillity in our canton ; so that
the task which is imposed on the federal authority ought to
be confined to restore legal order in the cantons, where, as in
those of Argau or Bale (country), the governments are evi-
dently either influenced by the anarchists, or by the accom-
plices and abettors of their culpable proceedings."
According to the latest accounts, the number of killed
does not exceed 300, and the prisoners 1,730. Dr. STEIGER
and Colonel ROCRPLETZ have been arraigned before a
court-martial st Lucerne, and their fate is expected to be