The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-18 00:00:00

N. trtning >"l' Mt

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1844.

On Wednesday last, a public meeting, at which
the Earl of RADNOR presided, was held at Highworth,
for the purpose of taking into consideration the dis-
tress of the working classes. At this meeting several
stern home truths were told, which appeared to make
a deep impression on all who heard them ; and it was

further remarkable, as showing the keen sense which
the labourers entertain of their present forlorn con-
dition ; their perfect consciousness that they are not
treated as they should be, by their superiors ; and the
exemplary patience with which, notwithstanding this
conviction, they bear their privations. Occasionally,
however, a bitter feeling of indignation was exhibited
by those of the humbler classes who attended the

meeting ; and when one of the speakers observed—
" The gentry ought to come forward and see to the poor;
if their horse or their foxhound was ill, the doctor
would be sent for, and the fine generous animal would be
cared for and physicked. But if men—men made in
the image of God, with wives and children, whose
cheeks met together from starvation—came to them,
they would not give them a bit of bread. They knew
that the people were starving, yet they would attend
to their horse or their dog, but they would do nothing
for the honest, industrious working-man ;"—when,
we say, one of the speakers expressed himself in this
blunt, energetic manner, the indignant murmurs of
his hearers proved how strong was the conviction they
entertained of the truth and force of his remarks.
For our own part, however, we are by no means dis-
posed to go the extreme lengths of Mr. EDRIDGE.
We do not acknowledge the strict justice of his cen-
sures upon the gentry. We do not believe that the
poor are treated by them with such callous, insulting
indifference as he would have us sup-
pose ; their treatment, indeed, is far—very
far from what it should be ; still it is
more considerate and kindly than it has been for
many years past ; and we think we can detect grow-
ing symptoms, on the part of the higher and middle
classes, of an earnest wish to ameliorate the condition
of the humbler orders, and raise them in the social
scale. The spirit that prevailed at the late agricul-
tural meetings—the favour shown to the allotment
system by many of our great landowners—the
public subscriptions raised in some of our leading
provincial towns for the formation of public walks
and parks— and still more, the active stir now making
by that compact band of zealous social Reformers,
who cal themselves " Young England ;"—all these
are signs and tokens not to be mistaken, that the
nobility and gentry are at length awakening to
the necessity of improving the condition of the
ignorant and impoverished masses. The midnight
torch of Swing has, we suspect, assisted not a little to
bring them to a determinatiou in this matter. When
the farmer's hay-rick is in a blaze, the thing is be-
c.oming. too serious for mere superficial considera-
tion ; assumes a direct personal importance—narn
tea res cuptur panes cum praximus ardet—and this,
no doubt, i; one of the many causes that have in-'
duced the upper classes to investigate the condition '
of the masses, with a view to see what can be done
fpr their improvement. However, be the motives of
the former what they may, we hail their present
altered tone as an omen of auspicious import; and
trust that the day is not far distant when the poor
fend the oppressed shall no longer have occasion to

complain that they aro neglected by the rich and
the influential.

In the Herald of this morning app ars some deli-
cious twaddle—quite a treat in its way—on the subject
of the sayings and doings of her MAJESTY and Prince
ALBERT at East Cowes. It seems that on Thurs-
day last—memorable day I—the il'ustrious couple
"strolled to the sea-side, which surrounds the grounds
attached to Osborne House," and there indulged them-
selves " in watching the sinuous course of the vessels
majestically gliding up the waters, or in exploring
the beach for curiosities." Our Contemporary does
not tell us what were the " curiosities" which the
QUEEN and the Parfet; expected to find on the sands ;
but leaves us quite in the dark on the matter, which
is a pity, for it sets conjecture on the gui vine, only to
tantalize and disappoint it. While searching
for these annonymous " curiosities," her most
gracious MAJESTY unluckily got off " the hard
beach into the softer sand," the consequence
of which was—as the Herald quaintly assures
us—" that her feet up to the ancles became im-
beded." Shocked at this catastrophe, " his Royal
Highness was immediately by her MAJESTY'S
side ;" but she—greatly, as it appears, to the
astonishment and admiration of our Contemporary—
"making amusement of the occurrence, laughingly
retraced her steps." The Herald is particular in
telling his readers that the QUEEN laughed at the
calamity which had befallen her ancles, fearing that
otherwise their loyal sensibilities might have re-
ceived painfrom theibelief that she had wept, and that
the PRINCE from sheer sympathy had mingled his
tears with hers. " Meanwhile," continues the Herald,
" Colonel BOUVERIE came up, and to him, as to
others, it was a matter of surprise and remark that
the lady and gentleman, watching the sea arm-in-
arm on the strand, apparently two private persons,
should be the beloved Monarch of England, and
her illustrious Consort." We do not wonder at the
surprise of the gallant Colonel and his companions !
It was indeed a legitimate subject for astonishment,
to see the QUEEN and PRINCE, looking just like any
other people, and " watching the sea" just as any
other people might have done ! We wonder the be-
holders of this strange spectacle did not go off
in a swoon, out of the very excess of their wonder !
But the richest bit is to come. " Having got
on board the royal yacht, her MAJESTY ordered that
they should start on a short cruise, and during it a
shower of rain came on ; but it was received very
good-humouredly, and, as a matter of course."
Wonderful I Our Contemporary, no doubt, expected
that the QUEEN would have been quite in-
dignant with the atmosphere for presuming to
rain upon Royalty, and duck the LORD'S Anointed
instead of which—to his ineffable astonishment—she'
took the drenching quite "as a matter of course"—
just as if she could not help it ! Really it is high
time that all this ,nonsensical twaddle about the daily
movements of the QUEEN should be put a stop to.
It cannot but be highly distasteful to her, desirous, as
she evidently is, to enjoy for a time the blessings of
privacy and retirement.

There is nothing more perfect in the whole of our
udicial institutions than the system under which, in
theory, the criminal jurisdiction of this country is
administered. We will not be tempted by then mart-
ness of the antithesis to say " that there is nothing,
in practice, which can be much worse ;" but we
must protest against some of the crying vices that
have crept into that administration, as being calcu-
lated to mar the primary objects it was intended to
accomplish. The subject, however, is much too
large a one for the purposes of incidental discussion,
here ; nor should we have adverted to it, at all, but
for its relation to a very remarkable case under the
present administration of the criminal law of Scot-
land, to which our attention has been pointedly di-
rected by an article in the Scotch Reformers' Gazette.
We have no desire to be hypercritical as to the
occasional exercises of any discretionary authority in
modifying the ordinary forms, or even in qualifying
the penal decrees, of criminal justice, with which the
law and practice of the Constitution may have in-
vested certain recognised public functionaries. But
we shall ever be disposed to regard with a jealous
eye any proceedings, on the part of those officers,
which may appear either to exceed the fair construc-
tion to be put upon the extreme limits of that dis-
cretionary power, or to travel out of the class of
cases to which, alone, the Constitution originally
meant that it should be applied. These limits we
hold to be comprised
,within lines large, broad, and
well-defined. They never can have been designed
to exceed either the scope of the whole Executive
power of the State, or the extent of the privileges of
the Crown in its interference with the action of that
Executive. Now, we are bold to maintain that
neither the one nor the other of these could be put in
motion, in England, Wales, or Ireland, for the pur-
pose of withdrawing from trial, under a capital in-
dictment, a party who had been accused of two
appalling murders ; taken up on these charges ; re-
committed on a first, and subjected to four subse-
quent examinations, before the Sheriff of the dis-
trict; detained and imprisoned at the instance of her
accuser, the public prosecutor, not only pending the
mooting of certain technical pleas of exception argued
by her counsel before a higher court (which deter-
mined these against her, and remitted the cause), but
altogether for a period of no less than three hundred
and twenty-eight days. Yet all this, and more, it
would seem, may be done with impunity by the Lord
advocate of Scotland. After attaching so much
weight to the allegations of guilt propounded against
such a delinquent, as (in the words of a letter ad-
dressed by Mr. R. WALLACE, M.P. for Greenock, to
the Scottish journal above• mentioned) to have, first,
formally accused her, and afterwards "summoned

and collected in Glasgow no fewer than seventy-five
witnesses from the surrounding counties, as well as
from the remote district of Jura, in support of the
indictment," the Lord Advocate permits her libera-
tion, without bringing her at all to a trial before a
jury, and flatly refuses to give, in his return to the
House of Commons, of papers connected with this
mysterious affair, his reasons for having thus removed
the case out of the cognisance of the criminal courts
of her country !
It is a painful and invidious duty to press on pub-

lie attention the imputed delinquencies of a party who
has already been brought before the tribunals of justice,
has suffered a long imprisonment, and now is, whether
rightfully or otherwise, at liberty. Nevertheless, we
must not shrink from the duty of concurring, with
our northern Contemporary, in thus adverting (we
use his language) " to the extraordinary return just

brought out under the authority of the House of
Commons, on a motion of the indefatigable Member
for Greenock (Mr. WALLACE), in the case of a woman
of the name of MACIARLAN, in the adjacent county
of Renfrew, who was accused of two very aggravating
acts of murder, by means of poison, in that county—
the one victim so murdered being, we understand,

her own husband, and the other a poor old woman,
their neighbour."
We, of course, can only put these facts—and we
do so hypothetically—as the case raised in the some-

what loosely-drawn, yet very strong indictment,

against MARY MACFARLAN, or TAYLOR, signed
" DAVID MILNE, A.D.," a copy of which forms the

main feature of the Parliamentary return. To this
latter document, however, is appended a hideous

" inventory of articles referred to in the preceding
indictment," consisting of earthen jars, and wide-
mouthed phials and tin boxes, with the exhumated

stomachs and intestines of the two poisoned victims,
and theirlanalysed contents, including portions of the
fatal " white powder" (oxide of arsenic), libelled as
the immediate cause of their deaths. The Reformers'

Gazette thus epitomises the story :
"Mrs. Macfarlan was a woman—a very respectable
woman, we may admit—arraigned, publicly accused, by
the Lord Advocate, of two separate and most appalling
acts of murder. She was seized, taken up, and actually
incarcerated for a length of time, at the instance of the
Lord Advocate or the Procurator Fiscal of the bounds,
on those charges. She underwent the ordeal of four or
five examinations before the Sheriff of the district. She
was transmitted from Paisley to Glasgow to undergo
trial at our Glasgow assizes, under an indictment for
murder, in which the issue to her was an issue of life

or death, guilty or not guilty. But, after sixty or
seventy witnesses were in attendance, at the instance of
the Lord Advocate, to give evidence at these assizes—

to determine apparently the fate of the accused, some
technical objections or other were started. The case on
these technical objections W a 3 remitted to the Court of
Justiciary in Edinburgh. That Court did not entertain
the objections. On the contrary, that High Court re-
pelled the objections—found them to be of no avail to the
accused. And yet, after all this formality had taken place
—after the accused was committed on anew warrant—after
she was kept in prison at the expense of the country, on

The interests of criminal justice in Scotland ; the
professional character (deservedly high and honour-
able as it is) of the Lord Advocate ; and the legalpre-
rimptions which the woman, MACTARLAN, can now
plead in her own vindication from the charges origi-
nally preferred against her, and the personal wrongs
she must therefore be assumed to have endured in
consequence;--alike demand such explanations from
the responsible officer of the Crown in Scotland, as
are thus insisted on.

The Madrid journals of the 11th are chiefly filled
with details respecting the opening of the Cortes, and
comments on the QUEEN'S speech. They possess,
however, no interest. A supplement of the Gazette
of the 11th announces to those interested in the public
stocks, that the junta named by the royal decree of
the 13th of March, 1837, as directors of the National
Sinking Fund, is prepared to burn and annul bonds
to the amount of 400,120,000 reals of the Five per
Cent. Stock, and giving thirty days' notice to parties
who may have any claims upon these bonds. The
Gazette then contains the following decree from the
Minister of Finance, for the conversion of the Float-
ing Debt of the Treasury into Three per Cent.
Stock :

" Art. 1. The conversion into consolidated Three per
Cent. Stock, ordered by royal decree of 26th June for
the holders of Government contracts, is hereby ex-
tended to the inscriptions of the floating :debt of the
Treasury.
" Art. 2. The conversion is to be made at the rate of
forty per cent., or at the rate of 250 reels of nominal
value in bonds, for every 100 reels of inscriptions.
" Art. 3. The said inscriptions shall not be entitled to
the four per cent. interest, hitherto allowed after the Ist
July last.
" Art. 4. The produce of the salt and the stamp duties,
mortgaged for the payment of the Centralized Floating
Debt, shall enter into the public Treasury from the date
of the liquidations of the month of September last, and
shall be devoted to the payment of the obligations of the
State.

" Art. 5. The holders of the inscriptions of the Float-
ing Centralised Debt shall be subject to all the other
conditions established by the decrees of the 26th June.
"Art. 6. The Government will submit to the Cortes
the dispositions contained in this decree."

The following gossip about the young QUEEN is
given by a correspondent of the Journal des Debate
at Madrid :

" The Queen is much grown, and though she is thin-
ner, her constitution has evidently gained strength. Her
forebead, her eyes, her smiles, and, above all, her voiee,
and also her deportment, are those of her mother, whom
she seeks to imitate. Since the unfortunate occurrence of
last year, her Majesty never transacts business with more
than one of her Ministers being in the presence ; but two
of them always attend her in her cabinet. She is said to
display a great aptitude for business, conferring at length
with her Ministers, and almost always in important cases
requiring the papers to be left with her, that she may
consider them maturely before she comes to a decision.
She takes pride in showing courage and resolution. On
their return from Barcelona the two Queens having been
very ill, from the usual effects of a sea voyage, they, on
landing at Tarragona, determined to make th rest of the
journey by land, as far as Valencia. As their equipages
were not there, they set out incognito in one of the
diligences, accompanied only by General Narvaez and
Count Vista Allegria, Under Secretary to the Minister
of War. On passing at nightfall through Maestrargo,
the scene of one of the most terrible of Cabrera's ex-
ploits, General Narvaez perceived some horsemen in the
distance, whom ho suspected might be a party of rebels,
who had recently infested the country. He and the Se-
cretary alighted to examine them more closely. Hap-
pily, they proved to be only a band of muleteers. On
the Queen's return to Madrid, one of the grand officers ,
of her household asked her if she was not frightened at
Maestrargo ? 'Frightened I' exclaimed the Queen,
looking proudly at him, No ;I am like my mother, I
atm never afraid !' Her Majesty has an excellent me-
mory, retaining the whole chronology of ancient and
modern history, of which she has given many remark-
able proofs in this respect as well as in others. She never
forgets the name of a person she has once known. She
is perhaps the only person in Spain who can repeat by
heart the whole of the Constitution of 1837, and also all
the rules and orders of the two Chambers, of which she
is a strict observant."

Accounts from France state that the KING arrived
at Eu on Tuesday evening, in excellent health. The
Paris journals, of Tuesday evening, publish the fol-
lowing telegraphic dispatches, announcing his safe
arrival in his own dominions :-
1 " CALAIS, OCT. 15, SEVEN A.m.--The weather has
not permitted the KING to embark at Portsmouth.
He came from that town to Dover by the railroad.
His MAJESTY arrived at Dover this morning at three
o'clock, and is to embark at noon for Calais."
" CALAIS, OCT. 15, HALF-PAST THREE P.M.—The
KING landed at three o'clock. He has reviewed the
National Guard, and received the civil and military
authorities. He was received with the most lively
enthusiasm by the entire population. His MAJESTY
has left for Eu."
The papers bring no news of importance. The
principal topic to which they advert, is still the
KING'S visit to England ; and as we hope the subject
is now nearly exhausted, and this may be regarded as
the winding up of the discussions on a very remarkable
event, a few more extracts from them will not be con-
sidered out of place. The Presse, a journal supposed
to be under the influence of Queen CHRISTINA,
has had very few articles on the subject, though it
evidently had regarded the visit with jealousy. At
last, however, it breaks forth in good earnest in these
words :—" The presentation of an address at Windsor
by the Corporation of the City of London, is certainly
a manifestation of great value, as a personal homage
rendered to the character of the former refugee at
Twickenham, the present KING of the FRENCH. But
to attribute to that manifestation, as is done this
morning by the Journal des Debals, an immense
political importance is to fall, according to usage, into
exaggeration and fawning. To keep within the
bounds of truth and prudence, it is necessary to dis-
tinguish between the sentiments which ally the two
SOVEREIGNS, the sentiments which draw the two
Cabinets together, and the rivalities which seperate
the two countries. These rivalities have existed at
all times, and henceforth cannot but increase. To
hope, or to suppose, that they can be allayed by fine
speeches, would be a gross deception. 'What sen.
Bible man could partake in the illusion, especially a

times when the constitution of the State were in
question, when the existence of Ministers is dependent
on the fluctuating voices of majorities, and when
the two Cabinets may very probably not be animated
with the same feelings as those which might continue
to exist between the two SOVERBIGICS. Unfortunately
the cordial and pacific phrases which have been ex-
changed at Portsmouth and Windsor, will not pre-
vent the agents of the two countries, wherever they
may be together, from disagreeing and becoming,
rivals. They will not diminish the and con- ,
tempt of the British nary. They will not prevent

the inveterate sentiments of hostility, the auspicious
jealousy, and the insolent disdain which we have re-
cently seen bursting forth at Otaheite and Gibraltar,
in the whole conduct of the Consuls PRITCHARD and
ROBERTWILSON, in the speech of Sir ROBERT PEEL
himself, and, to go back to 1840, in the insulting
propositions of Lord PALMERSTON, and in the diplo-
matic dispatches of Mr. BuLwER, from being at
bottom the true sentiments of the English nation
with regard to us, as soon as she shall receive on our
part the smallest resistance or the most involuntary
opposition. Did the enthusiastic reception given to
Marshal SoimT in 1838 prevent the signature, two
years after, of the treaty of the loth of July ? Yes,
there is one certain means of making the two countries
live:in mutual peace, and to make their union cordial
and durable. It is to accept frankly the supremacy of
Great Britain, to content ourselves with the rank of
a second-rate power, to consider it quite right that

England, which has already snatched from us
Upper and Lower Canada, Acadia, Terra Nova,
Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Kitts, Tobago,
St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and New Zealand,

this capital el.'erge for several sr iontbs, it turns out that
the
w Adt
hvoc u 'gate or his Depr rtes, for whom he is an-
swerable,
t:making an
i
Y subsequent statement or
explanation whate\ ver to the p üblic, in any court of j us-
tice or otherwise, allows the prisoner accused of these
at.ttual. trial at all. Tho prison doors
aggravating and most. horrib ,le crimes, to slip through his
ftel • the country has been startled
afirnegoepr se,nwedi t ht
o outh e
ra,ny and a
and alarmed by these cr "roles of blqud and violence, or
horrid depravity impute dto her, sheis allowed to walk at
large, as if nothing of tl le kind had. 'taken place."
Mr. WALLACE, in 117 is letter to. our provincial Con-
temporary, states that 'this case -came under the official
cognisance of three Depute Advocates. We quite
agree with him, that,
" Some cause for the conceals nent there must be, and
if no good one cars be assigned, is natural, and will be
justifiable, to impute one of a conh'ary nature. Common
justice required, for the sake of everything which is
sacred in the administration of the law, that this case
should have gone before the only convetent tribunal, to
try all such ina'tters, viz., a jury, by whose deliberate
verdict alone, after suck an appalling indictment, could
the accused be restored to society with an unblemished
character, whit h, fbr anything that is properly before
the public, she is still entitled to, and bas only to blame
the public admit iistrators of the law, and their unjustifiable
silence, for being left in the questionable predicament she
has been placed in." _