The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-13 00:00:00

fitaritilta

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1344.

The death of Lord ABINGER, and the changes
which that event must necessarily produce—first, a
tw present
yancy for Horsham, whose representative
becomes a Peer ; next, the all but promotionrtain
seat
in the
ot
sir FREDERICK POLLOCK to the judicial
Exchequer, creating a vacancy for Huntingdon
third, the raising of Sir W. FOLLETT to the . tto 1
Day-Generalship, requiring a new election for Exeter
_-and, lastly, the acceptance of the Solicitor-Ge•
neralship, making a vacancy either for Cambridge
or for Woodstock—ciuse considerable speculation
as to the result of these elections, and as to the
conduct the electoral bodies of these constituencies
will pursue. The mere question of Whig or Tory,
is one but little raised at -election contests now ; acme
broader, and bolder, and more intelligible principle of
_action, and some more important subject for decision
`*bal the mere ascendancy of a particular party, with
a view to the wielding d political power by some
favoured leader, is now submitted to the constitn-
encies. Free trade—abundant and cheap food—mo-
derate labour, not forced to excess by the necessity of
working to procure the means of existence—form
the great, the important subjects, now prominently
submitted to every constituency. For this change in
_ the subjects upon which the electors have to think
-:-.and consider, the countrytohisahiln;lebted to the Anti-
'Corn-law League, and and zealous advo-
cates of that body, in Parliament
--toetat. And it is a "great fact," ntt,,anhd out of Parlia-
tat a body of men
like the Council of the Anti-Corn-law League,
should have been able to bring the public
of elections,
mind into
-such as state that, even amidst the turmoilwhich in this free country have long been the
scenes for the free exercise of every base, seh
and chosenbrutal, and degrading passion ; where freemenlhfiasve

sought to barter their cmsciences for gold, and their
consciousness for liquor—the voice of argument and
of truth shall even there be heard and attended to.
The triumphs of London and of Durham—the not
inglorious, though unsuccessful, contest of Salisbury,
shuw the strength and power of free trade principles.
And although Devizes, Hastings, and Christchurch,
gave no laurels to the League, they-bore testimony to
the energy, the zeal, and the courage, with which the
apostles of free trade can disseminate their principles,
in places where, some few years back, the men-
tion of such notions ; would have roused the very
stones, against the intruderS upon the agricultural sto-
lidity which then pervaded those boroughs.
Not a contest of any kind ought to take place in
England, where the voice of the League should not
be heard. In every borough, every county, the op-
portunity ought to be seized of discussing those prin-
ciples, which, sound as they are, require to be ex-
plained and expounded to men whose prejudices cause
them to dread innovation, and whose ignorance re-
quires enlightenment. Not a chance of procuring
the return of a free trader should be omitted, and
every means should be adopted to call honestly into
exercise the franchise in favour of free trade principles,
and to prevent that buying and selling of the electoral
right, which, in many places, is the only understood
notion of free trade at present.
But we do not counsel the League, nor do we
think it advisable for them, to put forward candidates,
and to go to the poll with candidates, when the chance
of success, so far from being even remote, is totally
impossible. We object to a majority against free
trade being compulsorily and needlessly recorded,
without necessity, and against all good judgment.
We object to any splitting of interests, or apparent
alienation from one common liberal purpose, of per-
sons who should be found under the same banners,
but who, knowing and feeling a contest hopeless, dis-
like being forced into it by any persons, or for any
purpose whatever. We object to a plan of action
which contemplates only defeat, and which seems to
ensure complete and apparently entire discomfiture,
by excluding as many friends from the ranks as pos-
sible. The constituencies of England are, as yet, to
a very great extent, corrupt ; the seeheri and tie
sought of corruptionists. They must be taught)
trained, and drilled, before they can be relied upon in
action. As well might raw recruits be put to face
veteran soldiers in the open field, as the uninstructed
electors be placed against the means that corruption
uses. The first great object of the League ought to
be to inform, educate, indoctrinate the people, with
the knowledge of free trade principles, and the inju-
rious effects of all monopolies. Show the people that
their own true interests consist, not in legislation for
a class, but for the whole people—not in aiming at
the benefit of the few, but at the good of the many.
When they have effected this—and seeing what they
have already done, it cannot be long to wait until it be
completed—there is not a constituency in the empire to
which they may not appeal with confidence of a suc-
cessful result The cause of the League is a righteous
cause ; it must and will prevail ; and the name of
Connell will in after ages he heard of, when mono-
poly is only mentioned, as a monster which he mainly
assisted to destroy.

The cause a "Popular Education" is one which,
is the abstract, is calculated to enlist the universal
support of the community. All classes—the noble and
the commoner, the rich, the middle, the poor, the des-
titute, the desolate—have, prima facie, a direct inte-
rest in its progress, an ultimate interest in its success.
For, what is the natural tendency of education
What is its inevitable result (unless in cases where
that result is wilfully or wickedly perverted, by means
not necessary to be here recapitulated, but easily to
be conceived in connection with " corruptors of youth
and teachers of false doctrines") ? This natural ten-
dency is now to remove, and hereafter to obviate, the
brutalizing effects of ignorance. To exalt the intel-
lectual faculties of our fellow-creatures above the at-
mosphere of dangerous error and sordid prejudice—
to raise their physical condition beyond the degrading
influence of that prejudice and error—these are the
elementary principles and objects of education, in its
largest sense. It follows, that the true welfare of a
State must be identified with the application of such
principles, the attainment of such objects in respect of
the greatest possible number of its subjeets.

In fact, then, we find, accordingly, all men of all
shades and divisions of opinion, moral or political,
concurring in the doctrine " that it is expedient to
provide education for the people." But the instant
you prepare any organised scheme of instruction—
any working plan to regulate and define the nature of
the learning to be taught, and to provide for the mode
and means of communicating it—all this unanimity
appears to dissolve. The general proposal, which all
hands were eagerly extended to receive, is like a
globule of quicksilver. Once touched, it falls into an
uncertain number of molecules,—all equally globular
and shapeable to the eye, but diverging in twenty or
thirty differentdines ; and caught up and manipulated,
each according to the fancy of the individual operator
by whom it has been seized—all chance of applying
the original globule to its destined purposes is lost.
In the same way a large and well conceived plan of
instruction for the people seems fated, in this country,
to fall in pieces, the instant it is brought into actual
contact with the forms of praCtical administration.
One party runs off, with his little scheme of exclu-
sively Scriptural education ; another with a project of
exclusively economic instruction ; a third with a
theory of purely technical initiation ; a fourth, with
proposals for a course of tuition devoted entirely to the
acquisition of practical acquaintance with manufac-
tures, or the processes of particular trades. All this
has been so visibly shown in recent.examples, memo-
rable for the important bearing of the proposals
brought forward, and for the signal failure of those
proposals, that, we need not insist upon the point. The
Factory Education Bill was a signal exemplification
of the most certain method for defeating a great, and
, good object by the attempt to secure a minor one, in
the shape of patronage to a party. Its failure has ne-
cessarily left an incredible number of young persons,
who are incessantly engaged in the pursuits of manu-
factoring labour, without any education at all, pend-
ing the ultimate fate of a graceless squabble about
the " sort" of education to be given, and the " exclu-
live control" over it which has been claimed
on behalf of "ministers of the Establishei Church."
I En the meanwhile whit appalling evidences does
every day's experience present to us of the necessity
for a general scheme of sound, moral, useful educa-
tion, not limited by the defective scale of the so-
called " national" system adopted in Ireland,—
' (which is no more than a mere Board monopoly)
—nor yet to the halting progress of our parochial
system in England, which, though better, is very in-
complete, and badly superintended! The multipli.
cation of crimes, and the increasing intensity of their
character, against order, property, and life, are ter-
:ihle indications of the volcanic evils that are in
active combination, as it were, beneath the surface of
society. 'We are unwilling to particularise in order
o corroborate this assertion ; for we deeply feel the
responsibility of all journals in these days, in giving
publicity to frightful. excesses and enormities of
sanguinary guilt that operate (we greatly fear) to
encourage inethe more ignorant masses of our popu-
lation, a hideous monomania. With the habitual
contemplation of great crimes, eves cultivated !
minds lose the healthful instinct of involun-
tary repugnance and disgust, which only gives
place, first, to a species of morbid curiosity as to
details ; then to an apathetic toleration of their
horrors ; finally,
to a mysterious excitement of imi-
tation. In proportion to the uncultivated character
tohfetmheeelmveine,diatothwe
hifecehb esnuecsi
ofd e
ts
hc
er i pi
nt
ni oaht
es Aahnuds
original
principle of abhorrence they should be calculated to
excite.

The recent cases at Taunton—the suicides and
murders that have still more recently occurred in one
family at Deptford—but we must close the dismal
list we have but half unfolded, with that which y 3e"
terday added to the bloody record, the overwhelming
tragedy at Whitwell, in Norfolk, with its four infant
victims to the brutal frenzy of a father (!)—theie are
catastrophes that appeal, with the solemnity and force
of voices issuing from the tomb, for preventive legis-
lation. Let those who imagine that the duty of edu •
rating the people is accomplished by a strict ad-
herence to this or that particular canon of
even "evangelical" teaching, as it is called, learn
from the last atrocity we have just enumerated, the
absurdity of supposing that such a course of training
necessarily constitutes all that it is indispensable for
the poorer classes to learn. We run no risk of pre-

judging the cage of FROgT, with the evidence of the
witnesses and 'his own confession before us, in saying
that his awful fanaticism has perpetrated one of the
most inconceivable and ghastly crimes which ever
stained the annals of civilised society. Who will ven-
ture to predict that it may not be proved hereafter
that this wretched culprit was one of the " Bible-
without-note-sr-comment" school, who have long
been claiming infallibility for this their " one" and
"all-sufficing" educational dogma? It appears that
the man was originally a Methodist Ranting preacher ;
afterwards a minister of a new sect called the

"Revivalists;" and that after slaughtering his four
innocent children—the eldest of them but five
years old, the youngest ten weeks—" he was con-
veyed to Norwich Castle, singing psalms the whole
way !" It is scarcely necessary to add, what
our readers will have anticipated, that the miserable
man, in answer to those who questioned him, ex-
pressed his ' conviction that " he had done well in
what he had done ;" for this is but an ordinary phase
of fanatical prepossession in perpetrating crimes, from
JOHN of Marston down to NAYLOII, the Quaker. But
we do hope and trust that those into whose hands the
business, or direction, or control of a large and bene-
ficial scheme of popular education may hereafter fall,
will feel it to be their first duty to inculcate in'the minds
of the young the primary duties of man to his GOD,
and to his fellow-creatures, to his family or kindred,
and to society; the reciprocal duties of obedience and
protection between a parent and child,—and State
and parent. Let these elementary principles of cha-
rity and goodwill be the first and chiefest moral les-
son impressed on every pupil. The internecine
struggles and atrocities related of the Jewish people,
in the earlier periods of their history, and their im-
placable opponents, may be better be taught when
the pupil's mind is sufficiently matured to note the
difference between the traditional authority for dread-
ful facts—unquestionable as it is,—and their applica-
tion as any rule of duty or conduct.

The Post of yesterday has an article filled with
vehement abuse of the members of the Anti-Corn-law
League, whom it roundly accuses of "vanity, inso-
lence, and brutal ferocity." The terms are strong
ones, but surely they apply with far less force to the
free-traders than to the monopolists! It was not a
member of the League who expressed the " brutal
and ferocious" wish that Mr. COBDEN might be flung
neck and heels into a muddy Lincolnshire ditch, and
there provided with board, lodging, and washing
gratis ; it was not a member of the League who, in
the excess of a self-complacent " vanity," spoke of his
own repeated acts of liberality towards his poor
tenants, when it was demonstrated, and not denied,
on the evidence of a resident clergyman, that
those same tenants were in the very lowest
state of mental and physical destitution ; it was not a
member of the League, who, in all the wanton " in-
solence " of aristocratic hauteur, designated the ma-
nufacturers as a heartless, selfish, unscrupulous body
of men, who looked to nothing but their own pecu-
niary interests, and advocated no principles but such
as served their own petty and purblind views ;—it was
no member of the League that was guilty of all this
" vanity, insolence, and brutal ferocity," hut certain
members of the monopoly -faction, who judging of
others by themselves—asvery common error in hu-
man nature—took for granted that the same ungene-
rous and malignant feelings which rankled in their own
bosoms, must exist to an equal extent in those of the
antagonist party.. People who live in glass-houses,
says the old adage, should never fling stones ; and our
Contemporary should have bethought him o the
" sayings" of his own cherished monopolists ere he
accused the Leaguers of " vanity, insolence, and
brutal ferocity." But not contented with bespatter-
ing the latter in his leading article, the Post repeats
his attack on them in a letter from a correspondent,
which he heads " League Disinterestedness." In this
letter occurs the following passage :—" One would
suppose that it required more impudence than even
the Leaguers possess, to induce them to attribute
to their opponents merely interested motives in
protesting against the abolition of the corn-
laws. Why, Sir, are they not compelled to
confess—and depend on it nothing but compulsion
would induce them to confess—that this measure is
the only one calculated to rescue their mills from
that state of quiescence into which extravagant specu-
lation and consequent over-production have reduced
them ? Whatever virtues they may arrogate to them-
selves, and never were individuals less backward in
self-laudation, it does seem a little preposterous that
they should seek to add disinterestedness to the num-
ber." What sickening twaddle is all this! The
members of the League never pretended that they
were wholly disinterested in their advocacy of the
principles of free trade. They are frank.
manly, intelligent men of the world, and would
scorn to be guilty—first as a matter of taste,
and secondly, as a matter of common honesty--of
such false, sentimental drivel. They have always
boldly and openly declared that by the application of
the doctrines of free-trade to the commerce of the
country, they themselves, as enterprising capitalists,
would be considerably benefited ; but that coincident
with their benefit would be that also of the commu-
nity at large. They have never asked for exclusive
privileges for themselves ; they have never agitated
with a view merely to their own interests ; they have
never sought to aggrandise the manufacturers to the
detriment of the agriculturists ; their demand
has invariably been for fair play to all parties.
By knocking off the fetters that now cripple
the limbs uf commerce, and abandoning a
system of protection by which one small section of
the community only is benefited, or supposed to be so
you give industry, enterprise, and intelligence a rea.•
sonable chance of success; you multiply tenfold their
motives to exertion ; you call forth powers that. have
hitherto lain comparatively dormant, and open up
new channels of mercantile intercourse; and by so
ding, you diffuse the means of enjoyment to an ex-
tent of which no immediate conception can be
formed ; you diminish the worst horrors of
poverty ; you give ample work to those who now
cannot procure it; and bring content, happiness, and
prosperity to the poor man's fire-side." Such has
been the language invariably held by the members of
the League ; such the reasons which they have
frankly and boldly assigned for their agitation ; and
may God speed the cause which is impelled by such
motives, and enforced in so enlightened and catholic
a spirit !

Madrid papers of the 4th instant announce that
the KING of the FRENCH has conferred the cordon of
the Legion of Honour on Senor GONZALES BRAVO
and three of his colleagues. If the statement is cor•
rect, certainly that honour never was so prostituted.
What have these men done to merit this mark of distinc-
tion ? They have destroyed the Constitution, disbanded
the National Guards, put down the liberty of the press,
established military despotism, and sanctioned atro•
cities at Alicant which bring disgrace even on
Spaniards. Will patriotic Frenchmen, who regard
the Legion of Honour with veneration, consider its
value enhanced when shared with such colleagues ?
These papers, as usual, contain long accounts of the
movements of the two QUEENS. On the 4th they
left the Palace on foot, to attend the religious cere-
monies usually observed on Holy Thursday. The
process:on to the church was headed by a squadron of
cavalry, and followed by the municipality, the magis-
trites, certain of the foreign Ambassadors, and the
superior clergy. Count BussoN, the French Ambas-
sador, walked by the side of the QUEEN, the QUEEN.
MOTHER was accompanied by her youngest daughter,
and an immense crowd, says the Castellano, silently
contemplated the salutary example thus given by the
young Sovereign.
The Bourse was closed on Holy Thursday. Oni
the previous day the funds had risen. The Three
per Cents. reached 36i for cash, and 38 at sixty
days; and the Fives, with the coupons, 23 at sixty
days.

On Tuesday the French Chamber of Deputies ap-
pointed two Committees to consider the proposed rail-
way lines from Orleans to Bordeaux, and from Paris
to Lyons. These Committees were appointed by
ballot, in order that lines of such importance might
meet with impartial consideration. This new mode
of appointing Committees was proposed by M. HAYIN,
with a view to prevent the influence of local interests,
and to obtain the choice of those Members who would
be most likely to look rather to the public benefit than
to the interests of particular departments. Much
discussion is expected when the report is made to the
Chamber, as a number of Members recommend that
Government should make the lines and then lease

- ,
them to companieg, While others' are decidedly in
favour of the English system, which leaves the con-
struction in the hands of private companies.
In the Chamber of Peers the Education Bill
was to be introduced on Friday, and the debate,
after the opposition made to the plan by the Church,
was lo;lied forward to with much interest. It is
generally believed that the French Government in-
tend to bring forward a measure for abolishing slavery
in the colonies, and to appropriate a certain sum, said
to be 2,000,000 f., as a compensation to the owners of
slaves. Such a plan is extremely probable, as both
the Government and the Chambers have for some
years shown a strong disposition to put an end to
slavery in the colonies.
The following appears in the Mom' teur of, Wed-
nesday :

' " Lieut. Reine, of the navy, who was one of the Com-
mission for inmring respect to the Protectorate of
France in the Society Islands, and who, since, has acted
as Aide-de-Camp to Admiral Dupetit Tho'iars, has
arrived in Paris. Me is said to have had a long con-
ference with the Minister of the Marine. It is believed
that he has brought and laid before the Minister nume-
rous documents relative to the late events at Tahiti."
We subjoin additional extracts from the journals :
" If faith may he placed," says the Sentinel& des
Pyrenees, " in a report which has acquired a great con-
sistency in the Basque Provinces, the Spanish Govern-
meat intends suppressing the customs line established on
the frontier, and removing it to the place where it existed
formerly, that is, on the banks of the Ebro."
" A letter from Tunis of the 12th ult. says :—' We
have just received the visits of two frigates, one Sardi-
nian, and the other English. They came to inquire of
the French and English Consuls whether the Europeans,
Sardinians, or of other nations, had anything to fear
from the preparations made by the Bey to repel an
attack from Sardinia. After remaining a week in the
Bay of Carthage, the two ships sailed away again, with
assurances that the Europeans were in perfect security.
The camp of Mahommedia, three leagues from Tunis,
where the Bey is residing, is composed of 12,000 regular
and 15,000 irregular troops, brought from different parts
of the regency. The camp, which is under the com-
mand of a French officer, presents a picturesque spec-
tacle, from the variety of the costumes and the move-
ments of the troops."
A letter from Rome, March 28, in the Augsburg Ga-
zette, says—" The directors of the Roman Post-offioe
department have given in their adhesion to the postal
treaty between Austria and France, so that, from
April 1, letters intended for a great part of France,
Belgium, England, the Colonies, and America, will no
longer pass through Sardinia, if the line be not expressly
indicated, but by Mi!an. This will save both money and
time."

A letter from Peath, March 31, in thy' Augsburg Ga-
zette, has the following:—" Grave disorders have taken
place at Konaoru on the election of several functionaries
of the Comitat. A riot ensued, in which thirty persons
were wounded and a few killed. If the public force had
not been speedily called on to interfere, the greatest
asters would inevitably have occurred. We wait for
more ample details."
THE BOURSE—WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10.

First Highest Lowest

Last

Price. Price. Price. Priee,
Freneh Five perCenta 123 35 .. 123 40 123 38 .. 123 30
Three per Ceuta.— • 83 25 .. 83 35 • • 83 25 .. 83 30
Bank of France—••• • ••.• • 3120 ..3130 —3120 ..3130
latfitte Bank, I,ooof. Sharesll7o ..1170 • • 1170 • • 1170
Belgian Bank ..• • • • • • • • • • • • 680 .. 700 • • 680 .. 708
liclgieu 1831.....• •• . 104 .. 1021 • • 102 f • • 1021
1840 ........ 106 .. 106 •• 106 • • 106

1842
1071
Spanish Active • • • ...... 341
Threes 371
Passive •• 6/
New Deferred ..... 15i
Portuguese Five per Cents.. 47
Dutch. Two-and-a-8ait'.....61
Neapolitan.... •••• • • • • •• • • 102

.. 1071 1071 1071
.. 35 341 .. 35
.. 371 37t 371
.. 61 61 61
.. 15f, .. 151 .. 15
.. 471 47 47
.. 61 , .. 61
.. 102 15 .. 102 .. 102 10

Roman ***** •••• • ••••••••• 106 .. 106
RAILWAY SHARES.
Versailles, R.B.
L. 8..... ..... ..• 267 30 267 50 •• 257 50 .. 257 50
Rouen .......... ........ 950 .. 950 •• 950 .. 950
Rouen to Havre.. ...... 700 .. 700 • • 697 50 697 50
Orleans .• • • • •• •• • • • • .• •••• 920 .. 925 .. 920 .. 925
Strasburg to Bale-- •• •• 277 50 .. 280 •• 277 50 •• 277 50
Avignon to Marseilles...... 760 .. 760 757 50 .. 757 50
RAILWAY SHARES, FOR THE ACCOUNT.
St Germain
Versailles, R.B 385 .. 385 •• 380 380
L.B. ..... ....... 260 .. 270 .. 255 .. 255
Rouen ............. ....... 950 .. 955 . 950 • • 950
Rouen to Havre••••.••••... 698 75 .. 698 75 •• 097 50 •• 697 80
Orleans • • • • ••
Strasburg to •• 276 25 .. 278 75 • • 276 25 .. 277 50
Avignon to 31arsel/1e5•..... 760 „ 760 .. 767 bo 757 50

.. 106

• • 106

The betting at the West-end of the town yesterday
was very much in favour of Mr. Kelly as Solicitor-
General. He was freely backed against Mr. Thesi-
ger, at considerable odds, whilst Mr. Godson and Mr.
Wortley were scarcely named. Indeed it is felt by
all parties that the two latter gentlemen have not
the slightest chance. Mr. Godson as Solicitor-Ge-
neral, of whom nothing at the Bar was ever heard !
or Mr. Wortley, who, ever since he had a silk gown,
has found to his cost hat he had mistaken his powers
to lead ! Sir Robert Peel is too good a judge of ta-
lent, to make either of them Solicitor-General ; the
first might address the Ouse, as he calls it, without
gaining attention ; the second is a failure both in and
out. There is no doubt that Mr. Thesiger is the fa-
vourite of the Bar, but Mr. 'Kelly has the talent.
Neither of them is certain of his seat— Mr. Kelly will
lose Cambridge ; Mr.. Thesiger cannot sit for Wood-
stock without the consent of the Duke of Marlbo-
rough, and that is doubtful ; so that the only refuge
for Peel's future Solicitor-General is in the borough
of Huntingdon. Still we should say that Mr. Kelly's
chance is the best.

We have been greatly pleased by a survey of the
beeesstte models, have been
, &c., by Coade
improvements effected, and in progress, at the Surrey
and Seeley,
Zoological
afterns.
tStatues,
erected in various parts of the grounds, greatly to the
embellishment of the scene. One of them, a cast,
after Canova, struck us as one of the very xtst we
have seen. Danson, Tolbin, and other artists, are at
increased, and the condors and of animals and birds
work upon the new subject, and Southby is preparing
all
has hishe resources.been
vvery
greatly
The e
ostriches are the finest ever seen in this country.
What a change has a few years effected in the
public taste! Formerly all was vanity and dissipa-
tion—now mind and i
, the ntellect are catered for, and
nowhere mare sQ than at the -Surrey Zoological
Gardens.

(FRON OU )
THURSDAY, APRIL 11.—The Princess Alice steamer,
Commander Luke Smithett, arrived this afternoon at
balf-past two, from Ostend, with his Royal Highness
'Prince Albert, the Prince of Leiningen, Colonel Wylde,
and Captain Seymour, having made the passage in four
hours and forty minutes, with afresh wind contrary.
It being low-water, they were immediately brought in a
galley from the steamier, in charge of Capt. Mercer, R.N.,
nd landed on the South Pier, under a royal salute from
the Wt. stern Heights. They were received by Colonel
Jones, H.E., eputmanding the garrison, and a guard of
honour from the 95th Regiment. The Princes and their
suite immediately drove to the railway station, where a
state carriage had been prepared, and proceeded in
a few minutes by special train for London, under a
second royal salute.
The weather being very fine a vast concourse of people
had assembled to welcome the Prince Consort on his re-
turn to England.