The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-27 00:00:00

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SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—" Thank God we have a Sir James Gm-
ham!"—may exclaim all determined admirers of the
entente cordiale with all Powers, no matter by what sacri-
fice obtained. It might have happened, by en untoward
chance, that there was a Tory honnete-homme at the
Home-office. Dis aliter visum—it is ordered provi-
dentially, for the views of all lovers of prostration before
all. Powers being, that there should mot be an honest
Tory, but a renegade Whig, at the head of our police.
The corruption of an author, it has been said, is the
generation of a critic ; and the corruption of a Whig,
it should seem, is the making of a spy for Turin or
Vienna. We give Sir Robert Peel credit for this last
specimen of the cast of parts in his Ministry. It is pos-
sible that Sir James Graham in Ireland might nit have
matched the De Grey coup de theatre of the Clontarf
proclamation, and its concomitants. It is tolerably cer-
tain that in India he would have stopped short of the
glories of Sinde and Gwaiior, to say nothing
of the Samson-like exploit of the gates of Som-
nauth. At the Foreign-office, we cannot quite think
he would have preserved Aberdonian meekness ; • and
we should almost have trusted his complexional ill-
nature to save our diplomacy from that security of insult,
which even President Tyler feels—that most offensia e
bull-frog that has yet leapt on the back of King Log. But
at the Home Department !--ah, there indeed. Sir J. Gra-
ham is in his element. There the entente cordiale is safe
in his hands ; for it depends on good offices entirely in ac-
cordance and congeniality with his °an nature. How
fortunate ! France will be satisfied with running her rigs
in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. America with
insulting our policy, and asserting her right to take
Texas and the Oregon. Russia with undisturbed arma-
ments in the Baltic or Black Sea ; and condign ven-
geance fir insults in sartorial ears to imperial breeches.
It is impossible fur the entente ccrdiale to be preserved at
a cheaper rate! But tastes vary. President Washington
lost the entente cordiale with some Choctaw or Chickasaw
chief or other, because he had not the hospitality to
devote Mrs. Washington to his service. He would
graciously have declined the courtesy—but not to have
had it offered was unheard of in Chickasaw comity—
almost amounting to a cases belli. In like manner his
Holiness the Pope, or his Silliness the King of Sar-
dinia, or some other relic of savage times still unac-
countably not " improved" out of Europe, comes with
a civil request to our Home Secretary to act as his
tool and spy in the British Post-office I—to teach
his subordinates in that department the knack of un-
sealing and re-sealing letters, without leaving traces of
the felony I All in the interest of his Holiness, or his
Silliness ! Are these the sort of favours Lord John
Manners wants reciprocity for by an embassy at Rome ?
Suppose ad anti-Puseyite minister, having scent of an
alarming progres's of the Oxford conspiracy against the
obedience of the Church to the State, and accrediting
an Ambassador to Rome for the useful purpose of
demanding inspection of all the letters from Oxford
Fellows to Romish Cardinals. We believe he would
find an abundant harvest of " conspiracy." But
is such a harvest worth reaping ? And are we, who
have no such harvests to reap in any foreign bureau of
espionage—who don't care a straw how many block-
heads conspire with pen, ink, and paper—who laugh at
all metaphysically explosive missives sent through
the Post-office—are we, who have no recipro-
city to ask for in this dirty trade—are we to con-
taminate our public service gratuitously with this
foreign virus ?—to teach our functionaries lessons
by warrant, which afterwards they may repeat without
warrant ? It appears to us that when Government
opens letters, it should do what every individual does
when he opens letters—namely, avow having opened
them. We cannot conceive that the power representing
the nation can be entitled to practhe forgery of men's
seals to conceal inspection of their letters ! Is it pos-
sible that this can be a question amongst freemen and
men of honour?
STANDARD.—The -Mazzini Correspondence Ques-
tion occupied the House of Lords for a considerable
portion of its sitting last night, but without leading to
any practical result. The subject is one which presents
remarkable attractions for grievance-mongers, like
Lord Radnor, who introduced it to the House of
Lords ; it is, as the fashionable phrase goes, excep-
tional—that is, it is not governed properly by the ordi-
nary rules, and it seems to inflict a hardship, while,
from the nature of the case, the details of any particular
instance cannot be conveniently explained ; in short, it
deals with matter, to make accusations in ss hich is the
easiest thing in the world, and in which the best de-
fence is odious. That the Government ought to have
the power of detaining and opening letters seems to be
pretty generally conceded ; but many who concede this,
qualify the concession with an opinion thlit the power
ought to be exercised with great caution, which opinion is
no doubt well founded ; but all this leaves the matter
just where it was before, for who shall determine what is
a cautious exercise of the power ? In Mazzini's case, the
case which has been brought forward as a matter of
complaint, the power appears to have been exercised
most cautiously, for it is not pretended that Mazzini
himself, or any of his correspondents, has suffered any-
thing by the opening of his letters, if it be not the
cloud thrown over their political intrigues, by the
consciousness that the British Government is acquainted
with them. The more we consider the subject, the more
convinced we are that the sacredness of post-letters is
a very much exaggerated notion. We ought, perhaps, to
acknowledge ourselves incompetent judges, because we
certainly differ from many whose authority we re-
spect upon the question of secresy. We have no love
or sympathy for those who love a secret. In
the affair in hand, however, we need not trust to
our own impressions; for the law of the country, which
is the embodied wisdom of the country, has as little
respect for secrets as we have. If the law enables
a Secretary of State to read a man's letter, the law
no less enables a magistrate to place the writer
of that letter in a witness-box, and compel him to
tell, upon his oath, every word written in that letter, '
if there is a prima facie ground for supposing that
the letter can reflect an important light upon a question
of a trumpery assault or a debt of 40s. He must be
a subtle casuist who can distinguish between the inva-
sions of secresy, in the two cases ; but every one can •
appreciate the greater hardship of being obliged to
publish on oath a man's secrets in a court of justice,
than having them read in a closet by a Minister of the
Crown, bound by honour, and responsible in character,
not to make an ill use of the information thus obtained.
There is one point raised in Lord Denman's
excellent speech (and excellent in spirit, in matter,
and in style his Lordship's speeches always are)--a
point which we own caused us some difficulty ; we allude
to the near proximity of the practice of re-sealing the
letters to the crime of forgery. We think that there is
no good reason for this re-sealing. The person whose
letters have been opened ought to know that they have
been opened. The practice of this quasi forgery most
probably, arose in bad times, not remote from those in
which spies were employed, and from the zeal of subor-
dinates, always disgracing and sometimes seriously
embarrassing their principals, by pushing vigilance
and caution into downright fraud. Lord Denman
knows that all the processes of his Court were,
while imprisonment for debt before judgment
was permitted, executed by the most villainous
frauds ; hardly a writ was served or a debtor
arrested without the agency of some vile lie. Most
persons, probably, recollect the story of a father stolen
by. a bailiff from his starving children, under pretext of
bringing him a present of meat for his Christmas dinner,
and the further prosecution, by the bailiff, of the
hungry children at a police-office for detaining the
meat. Well, if the processes of the courts of justice have
been so abominably dishonoured, how can we wonder
that something of the same kind may happen in the
Post-office, by converting an act of strict Justice into an
act of fraud ? We are quite sure that since the attention
of Sir James Graham has been called to it, the practice
of resealing must be discontinued.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian.)

There continues to be a good and extensive demand
for yarn, especially for the better qualities, suitable for
the Russian market, and prices are generally firm and
rather buoyant. In the goods market there is little
change from last week ; 40-inch shirtings and 9-Bth
printing cloth are in limited demand, and rather lower in
price, whilst 27-inch printing cloth sells readily, and at
rather better prices. Domestics also are rather easier
of sale, but without change in prices.
ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, MONDAY, JUNE 24.
There has been a very fair business doing in flannel to-
day, at former prices. The good demand for goods at
the present season of the year is supposed to proceed
from a spirit of speculation, as many are of opinion that
wool will keep its present upward tendency.

POACHING EXTRAORDINARY. —We have often
heard of the ravages committed by the hooded crow on the
eggs of game during the breeding season, but we were
scarcely prepared for such a proof of wholesale destruction
as the following fact discloses. A few days ago, Mr. Purves,
tenant of Linton Burnfoot, ascertaining that there was a
hooded crow's nest in a certain tree on his farm, proceeded
to the spot with his gun with the intention of destroying the
brood of young, before they took their departure from the
parent nest. On arriving at the place, however, Mr. Purves
was much disappointed at discovering that the whole brood
had flown. Knowing the destructive propensities of this
vermin, he had the curiosity to examine the ground around
the foot of the tree, and was so astounded at the number a
partridge egg-shells which he found strewed about, that, lest
lie should be accused of exaggeration, he took the precaution
of requesting two gentlemen, his neighbours, to assist him in
counting the shells, when, to their astonishment, they picked
up the enormous number of one hundred and ninety-six
shells of partridge egg., within a few yards of the tree I The
whole of these eggs were evidently consumed in feeding the
young birds ; but how many the old lady and gentleman had
themselves gobbled up without ever bringing them near
the family domicile, it would be difficult to estimate. Kelso
Mail.

SINGULAR OCCURRENCE AT • SOLDIER'S FUNERAL,
Life Guards,
WINDSOR, JUNE 25.—Yesterday afternoon th funeral of a
private, named Garride, in the Ist. Regiment off
left the cavalry barracks (which are in the adjoin
of Clewer) for the church in that village. Upon tiTegf!)narish
procession (preceded by a firing party, under the commainnlf
Major Heppy) arriving on the ground, there was neither
clergyman, clerk, nor sexton to be seen, and not even a grave
dug for the remains of the deceased! The clerk and sexton,
after some little time had elapsed, were found, and from them
it was ascertained that, from some neglect (but on the part of
whom did not appear), no orders had been received for the
funeral to take place. The sexton and assistants then pro-
ceeded to dig the grave • the corpse, in the meanwhile, being
taken into Clewer church, and the comrades of the deceased
" standing at ease" in the churchyard. This operation ne-
cessarily occasioned a delay of upwards of two hours, at the
expiration of which the body was consigned to its last rest-
ing- place.
POWDER MILL EXPLOSION AT EWELL.—On Mon-
day morning, at five o'clock, the roof of a powder mill in
Ewell Marshes, near Epsom, belonging to Sir Henry Brydges,
Bart., was blown off, the explosion being occasioned by.lin
accidental combustion of the materials used in manufactunng'
gunpowder. Several persons were at work on the premises
at the time, but they all escaped injury.