The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-27 00:00:00

a confession, wherein she explains her motives for
committing so dreadful a crime, and enters at some
length into the urticulars of the revolting transac-
tion. The following is a portion of her narrative,
which we subjoin for reasons which the reader will
presently understand :—" I heard my half-sister one
day talking of a woman who had poisoned her
husband with arsenic, which she had bought under
the pretence of killing rats. The idea then
first entered my mind of poisoning my fa-
ther, and I thought I should be at liberty to go
where I pleased, and do as I pleased. If I could have
opened my mind to anybody, and had received a little
good advice, I am sure I should not have committed
the crime. I did not think I should be detected."
The tone of cool deliberation—we might almost say
of nonchalance—that pervades this statement—is truly
extraordinary. The daughter, it seems, was instigated
to the murder of her father from the mere simple cir-
cumstance of having one day heard an account
of a woman who had poisoned her husband by
arsenic ! She needed no further stimulus. The
train was already laid, the match lighted, and it only
required that it should be applied. But then she
adds, if she could only have received a little good ad-
vice she would not have committed homicide ! What
maudlin, self-deceiving cant is this ! How
was it possible that she could have applied to any one
for advice, as to whether or not it was expedient to
murder the author of her being ? The very remark
shows the cool indifference with which she regarded
the crime of parricide. It was evidently in her esti-
mation an act to be consulted about, instead of an
atrocity to be shrunk from at the very first
whisper of the impelling fiend within her. We urge
these points from no desire to excite public indigna-
tion still more strongly against the wretched criminal,
but simply because we are anxious to expose the false
morality—the hypocritical cant—the whining mock-
humanity of certain individuals who have decided
on petitioning the QUEEN in favour of MARY
GALLOP. Among these are to be found
the Bishop of CHESTER, the Chancellor
RAMIS, and a great body of the clergy and gentry.
The reasons which these sentimentalists allege in
justification of a commutation of punishment are some
of them of the most unaccountable character it is
possible to conceive. First, we are told that pre-
viously to the commission of parricide, the prisoner
" had conducted herself as a teacher in a Wesleyan
Methodist school with strict propriety." Now, to
our thinking, the circumstance of MARY GALLOP
having been a teacher of children aggravates rather
than extenuates her guilt, for it proves
that if she sinned it was not at any rate
from brute ignorance, or from any unacquaintance
with the rules of virtue and morality. Secondly,
the petition states "that the dreadful crime which she
confesses of causing the death of her father does not
appear to have been long premeditated, but to have
been accidentally suggested to her mind by a person
in her company." Why, this circumstance, too, which
the petitioners allege in her favour, tells most de-
cidedly against her. 'What sort of a mind must that
have been which could have been urged to the com-
mission of the most awful of all crimes, from the mere
casual small talk of a neighbour ? But the
fourth reason stated by the petitioners is the
most extraordinary—" That should the QUEEN'S
mercy be extended• to this miserable woman, she
might prove of great use in being employed in teach-
ing young persons in one of the schools in any place
to which she may be transported." Truly, the woman
of mature age and decent education who could com-
mit parricide from no stronger motive than that--
to quote her own words—" I should be at liberty
to go where I pleased, and do as I pleased "—is
admirably qualified for the sacred and responsible
office of an instructress of childood ! With what
earnestness and sincerity of heart must she impress on
her young pupils the commandment which says,
" Thou shalt do no murder." Children brought up at
the feet of such a mistress cannot but turn out exem-
plary members of society ! But the whole affair is of
so repulsive a character, that we have no wish to
pursue it further. Enough, therefore, to state that
the Bishop of CHESTER, and all who have had a share
in recommending MARY GALLOP to mercy for the
reasons we have just specified, have not evinced a
healthy spirit of humanity, hut, on the contrary, a
maudlin, dangerous sensibility, that cannot be too
severely reprobated.

The last accounts from Madrid are of the 18th inst.
The Chamber of Deputies had commenced the debate
upon M. MON'S project of law for the conversion of
the outstanding debts of the Government into Three
per Cent. Stock. Several members spoke in opposi-
tion to M. MoN's plan, and M. MoN replied, after
which the debate was adjourned..

The Paris journals of Tuesday, in the absence of
any stirring aspects to break the monotony of their
political horizon, are unusually grave and didactic.
The Debats, alone, devotes its columns to miscel-
laneous features of foreign news, such as that news is.
On the subject of Turkish affairs, we find this para-
graph :—" The Morning Chronicle, for some days
past, recurs with affectation to a pretended collision
of influences, a rivalry of direction which is said to
have recently developed itself at Constantinople be-
tween Sir STRATFORD CANNING and our Ambassador,
immediately prior to the departure of the Baron
DE BOURQUENET. The fact itself is as unfounded as
the consequences which theM'orning Chronicle de-
duces from it. France, equally with England,
England equally with France, desire the triumph
at Constantinople of those principles of mo-
deration which alone can guarantee the existence of
the Ottoman Empire ; and the Ambassadors of both
Powers have always laboured together in that mutual
good understanding which is based as much upon the
reciprocal esteem inspired for one another by their
mutual characters, as on their perfect cognisance of
the intentions of their respective Governments."
The Times having lately announced, on this side
of the water, that considerable activity prevailed in
the dockyard at Deptford, struck a chord to which
the National, as might have been anticipated, is not
slow to respond. "At the end of this month," pro-
ceeds the National, quoting his authority, "a steam
war-frigate, of the first class, and of 800 horse-
power, will be launched. Her measurement will be
upwards of 1,800 tons. Another frigate, to be called
the Odin, is being built in the same yard. Two
war-steamer brigs, of which the Times publishes the
names, are at the same time to be constructed at
Deptford, and will contribute a new reinforcement to
the British navy. Every time that the pre'ss reveals
to us the efforts made by our neighbours to increase
their naval force, we are compelled io deplore the
inaction in which our dockyards, and our building-
yards fur all classes of shipping, are suffered to re-
main. This inaction might have accomplished but
little in 1840, but, since then, it has accomplished
nothing at all. Admiral JOINVILLE might have truly
said six months sine•,, that France could not engage
in a maritime war oecause we had not a fleet to supply
our losses, even in a case of a victory.' He declared in
print that our forces and those of England were too
much dispr °portioned to risk a contest.' Nevertheless,
this disproportion is suffered to increase every day. A
tnoraent will, however, come when England, already
4o insolent with respect to us, will forbid us to fish
on our own coast, without our being permitted to
offer the least remonstrance. Our Ministry, which
sends our seamen to the other end of the world to
seize all manner of islands and islets, in order that
our flag and its best officers may be insulted there,
appears to see with pleasure the British navy in-
creased with new ships, whilst our own does not
continue even stationary. Yet, notwithstanding all
the deceptions that are practised upon us, we still
hope that the Chamber will refuse to succumb, in
this particular, to the anti-national action of our
Ministry, and that it will, as in duty bound, take into
its careful consideration these continual extensions of
our neighbours' forces."'

On the frightful condition of Spain the National
speaks out with much energy and eloquence :
" The impudent correspondence which the Spanish
Government addresses to the Paris journals, after it has
passed under the eyes of the French Ambassador, at-
tempts to justify the reactors in the atrocities which
they have committed. The only answer we shall give is
a summary of the list published by El Clamor Publico
Hof the victims who have been struck within the last
twelve months. This journal has taken only the
public documents, and, quoting the Madrid Ga-
zette, enumerates the persons who have been
Put to death by this obdurate Government. The
total amounts to 214. All have been shot without
trial, except about a dozen. Their identity once estab-
ished, an have been mercilessly murdered; and that in
~irtue of no other authority than a royal order. Two
hundred and fourteen Spaniards killed in one year for