The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-29 00:00:00

prussic acid in each—considerably wore than sufficient
to destroy life.
In answer to a question from Mr. Duckett, sen., Mr.
Letheby positively declared that there had been no im-
proper intercourse between the deceased persons.
Elizabeth Keely, staying with her sister, a lodger at
Mr. Duckett's house, proved letting Mr. Duckett, jun.,
and Miss Williams in at half-past six o'clock on Sunday
evening. They went into the parlour, and she heard no
more of them.
The Coroner having remarked on the very melancholy
and mysterious nature of the case,
The jury consulted, and ultimately returned a verdict
—" That the deceased persons, Charles William Duckett
and Elizabeth Williams, died from imbibing a certain
quantity of prussic acid, bu t by whom or how adminis-
tered there was not sufficient evidence before the jury."

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THIS EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
STANDARD.—The Chapter of the diocese of
Exeter have addressed to the Lord Primate a memo-
rial, praying his Grace to consult with the Bishops
as to the best means of establishing uniformity in
the order of public worship. The course pro-
posed by the Chapter is no doubt open to some
objections, and objections of considerable weight
have been offered against it ; but, looking to the
evil consequences that must flow from the present
state of affairs if much longer continued, and
unable to discover any better means of correct-
ing that unfortunate state, we must express our
anxious hope that the proposition of the Exeter Chap-
ter will be favourably received and firmly acted upon.
We have besides a complete confidence that the Bishops
will decide with a full knowledge of what suits the
age in which we live, and decide without pre-
judices and wisely. The characteristic of our
time is practical common sense, which, with-
out slighting imagination in that which is its pro-
per sphere, the sphere of innocent pleasures, rejects
it absolutely from all the serious business of
life. This makes us severe and strict in all our
graver concerns, and there is none so grave as reli-
gion. It makes also (though not in the bad sense)
jealous and sceptical. Whether it has originated in
our political inquiries or elsewhere, we will hardly
submit to anything without a reason for it, and a
good one. And in truth our best religious teachers
are somewhat to blame for this disposition, if the dis-
position (which we are far from thinking) is one to
be lamented. What are " Butler's Analogy," and
" Paley's Evidences," but practical commentaries
upon the Apostle's command to " prove all things ?"
Now, this being the temper of the time, as is well
known to the Bishops, we have no apprehension that
their Lordships will not see the necessity of adapting
their arrangements to it, and take care that while
public worship shall be conducted "decently and in
order," no ceremonies shall be imposed that have
not the sanction of uninterrupted usage or manifest
utility ; sternly rejecting whatever is merely sym-
bolical, or otherwise only calculated to work con-
fusedly upon the imagination. Such things, in this
mature age of the world, are objectionable as
puerilities—injurious to the grave temper proper
for religious worship ; and their puerility is cer-
tainly not atoned for by their known con-
nexion with Popish errors, both in those who
first introduced them, and in those who would now
revive them. We repeat our conviction that the
Bishops will see the necessity of restoring the order
of public worship universally to what it has been
during the last two or three generations, without the
least regard to time-repealed rubrics, and obsolete
customs. The worst of revolutions, it was said
by Lord Somers, and afterwards by Mr. Fox,
is a counter-revolution ; and the most offensive
of innovations is the renovation of what has
been long and deliberately discarded ; the
reason is the same in both. The counter-revo-
lutions and renovations are victories gained over
their former superiors by a lately depressed party,
and the history of the world tells how such victories
are always used. The Bishops will be cautious how
they draw upon themselves, or, if they are careless
about themselves, as we truly believe they are, how
they draw upon the sacred Establishment of which
they are. the guardians, the odium of giving a triumph
to the Tractarian party, by setting up innovations or
renovations abstractedly distasteful to the people, and
rendered more intolerable by their apparent connexion
with Popish errors.
GLOBE.—Since we roused the attention of the
public to the state of our relations with Brazil there
has been nothing but restlessness in Downing-street
and Whitehall. The organ of the Board of Trade is
told to browbeat the Ministers of Brazil; and forth-
with " insolent Brazil" is held up to scorn and j
indignation for attempting to profit by the foolish
and selfsought perplexities of its super-subtle pre-
sident. But this course being found inexpedient,
the apologist of the Foreign-office is instructed to
bold the language of conciliation, and to justify even
the Brazilian tariff! Accordingly, we learn that
" the sole object of it is revenue,"—that Brazil has
no " hostile intentions towards us,"—that she is ac-
tuated only by one motive, " which Brazilian
Ministers are bound to make the law of their conduct
—we mean the interest of the state whichtheygovern."
Now, this is all beside the question. The intentions
of razil towards us may readily be supposed to be
dictated by her own views of her own interests, and
by a very natural desire to increase her trade, and, of
course, her revenue. About her intentions towards
us, we may concern ourselves but little. The ques-
tion the public is interested in is, as to the intentions
of our own Government towards Brazil, which, as
far as they can be gathered from existing in-
formation, have reference neither to the exten-
sion of our trade nor to the increase of our reve-
nue ; but appeart, on the contrary, calculated at once
to narrow the one and restrict the other. The attempt
now made to clothe the wretched policy of our
Cabinet with a sentimental regard for the inte-
rests of our merchants, we discard as altogether
childish; as the last resource of men who, struggling
both against events they either did not or would not
foresee, and principles they can no longer oppose,
and left destitute of any intelligible defence of their
policy, seek to disguise their failure under the
chimerical pretence of protecting our merchants from
the evils of over-trading and over-credits. Their
course in opposition left them no alternative but
to allow the Brazilian Treaty to expire without
making any attempt to renew it, and to risk the in-
jurious consequences to our trade; and it precluded
them from all frindly negotiation with a Power with
which we had long enjoyed an advantageous trade in
that very article which we still import, refine, and
export ; but which we are not allowed—in deference
to the political casuistry of the Board of Trade--to
enter for home consumption. We import and carry on
a direct trade in the article to the extent of 13,000 tons
annually. IVe supply both our own colonies with
refined sugar, and foreign countries with still larger
quantities of raw sugar ; but not a pound may we eat
at home ! We may carry on any amount of trade in,
and consume all or any of, the products of Brazil—
her coffee, or her hides, or her tobacco—and even her
sugar—provided not a pirticle of the latter find its
way into the tea or coffee of the labouring classes of
this country ! And, beyond even this, we may import
free-labour sugar as it is—(absurdly as falsely)
called from Java, which now competes with the slave-
trade sugar of Brazil in continental markets, and thus
increase the demand for the sugar of Brazil and Cuba
there; but to consume ourselves that which our policy
forces others to consume, is forbidden by the
dictates of humanity ? Hence, as Mr. M'Culloch
observes, "though we do not sweeten our tea with
sugar produced by Brazilian or Cuba slaves, we
clothe ourselves with wool, manure our lands with
bones, and manufacture our paper of rags which are
paid for with this very sugar ! It is obvious, there-
fore, that in so far as buying their produce goes, we
are direct encouragers of slavery in Brazil. And
thus it is, that while our present system lays our
trade with Brazil and Cuba under a disadvantage,
and obliges our people to pay double its natural
price for an important necessary of life, it pro-
motes that very slavery we affect to deprecate !"
Such sophistry as that to which we have ad-
verted has indeed only to be stated, in order to be
scouted by every intelligent and honest mind. And
what is the plea put forward by the Government for
these absurd inconsistencies —put forward, too, by a
paper peculiarly affecting a knowledge of mercantile
affairs—that "it was indispensable that a salutary and
foreseen check should be given to the export trade now
and for the next few months"—and " to change the
slovenly, and in many instances desperate system of
doing business now practised in Brazil ?" Com-
ment upon such puerility as this were wasted. It
is further stated, that " if the Budget of 1841 had
bean adopted at the moment it was brought forward,
it would not have changed in any one particular the
subsequent policy of the Brazilian Government. Mr.
Baring proposed the reduction of the Sugar Duties
absolutely and unconditionally; and no stipulation for
the renewal of the commercial treaty, or for the main-
tenance of low import duties on British goods, was
so much as required of the Brazils." Now, if this
were merely the dictum of the Times, it might be al-
lowed to pass without much consideration. But if it
be derived from any higher source, we hope the day is
not far distant when we may find it confirmed in Par-
liament by some one competent to speak, and having a
full knowledge of all the facts of the case. We shall be
anxious to hear any one, speaking with the authority of
the Board of Trade, say that the reduction then pro-
posed by Mr. Baring, absolute and unconditional as it
was, " would not have changed in any one particu-
lar the subsequent policy of the Brazilian Govern-
ment ;"—that is, if wr.e are to understand by this
that the reduction o
posed would the sugar duties then pro-
not the sugar
us to negotiate and re-
new a favourable
Brazil, without that
interruption to our trZiewithi.
fleyoni 1h.0rn;10,4 poky
or Lich now immediately
present Government.
zant—that Mr.
If,. however, this; and this onl
policysoniFar duties,
Baring's evell-timed.eductionY'of
Brazil t
would not have Chan,Od the old
wards this country, wjai 11 was singularly favourable to
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344.