The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-28 00:00:00

Inman 2int4

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1844.

The collision which, sooner or later, will take place
between England and France, cannot be disguised.
The Courts of the two countries are on the best
terms ; they are intermingled by marriage; they
have, we believe, a real affection for each other, but
public events and public feelings overpower all private
relations, and unless some other line of policy is
adopted by Louts PHILIPPE, there will be a general
European war. This is a frightful prospect. All the
arts of peace—all the communication between the two
countries, the intermarriages, the friendly bonds of
peace, and the community of feeling which prevailed
between France and England on the accession of the
Citizen King, will be abruptly destroyed. England
would regret such a Consummation as much as
France. She would undergo at once a vast change.
Commercial transactions now in progress would be
interrupted; speculations of vast extent, and of high
importance to the country, would be arrested; France
would suffer in a ten-fold degree; and all the ener-
gies of the two countries would be directed only to
one object—mutual destruction. History has shown
that, after great victories, the two countries
retain nearly the same relative position. Is there any
prospect that a fresh war would produce any other
result? England at no period of her history was
ever more powerful than she is at the present moment.
The nations of Europe and Asia admit the fact. Is
France half so powerful as she was under NAPOLEON,
when England, with crippled resources, set him and
the whole Continental Powers under his control at
defiance ? We have no wish to boast of our strength.
Our only object is peace, and we trust France will not
consider a brief statement of facts a bravado. Our navy
is not mere helpless now than it was in the days of
DUNCAN and NELSON. We have no mutiny at the
Nore : there are ships in English harbours more nu-
merous than all the ships of the world besides. We
have sailors too, in abundance ; and we fear officers,
also, that are too eager to enter into a deadly con-
test. France, without a commercial navy, cannot
supply the Royal fleet with men ; a great victory, in
the words of the Prince DE JOINVILLE, would de-
stroy the navy of France, and what then would be
the result of a defeat ? But a new force has sprung up
since the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar.
Steam has produced wonders, and we ask the French,
if any country in the world, or all the countries to-
gether, could muster such a steam fleet as England ?
We have steamers of the first class, both in tae royal
and commercial navy, that could in a few months be
adapted to every warlike purpose; and those which
could be put to sea—for we put river steamers out of
the question—would, under proper management, be
competent to capture every merchantman and
every privateer that would venture from the
ports of France. We do not put forth this
statement as a boast. We mention it as a fact
which cannot be disputed, and which is even ad-
initted fig- the Gallant Prince who is bombarding
the towns on the Morocco coast, and exciting, we
hopein ignorance, the most warlike feeling among
both men and officers in the English navy. The cir-
cumstance is to be regretted, but who is to blame ?

We have in no instance interfered with the interests
of France. England had a just war with China,
she avenged her wrongs, made peace with that coun-
try, and claimed no exclusive advantages. France
was placed on the same footing with England at
Canton, Ningpoo, and the other three ports, opened
for the first time by British enterprise. Has France
acted in the same way in Africa ? or can she com-
plain that England is alarmed when French guns,
heard at Gibraltar, are battering down the forts of a
friendly Power ? The affair of Otaheite is a mere
farce, but we may ask what right had the French to
take possession of an island which had been virtually
under English protection for fifty years, and expel a
Consul or a missionary, we care not which, in a most
ignominious manner ? It will be recollected, too,
that the Prince DE
.JOIN VILLE seized a pilot on board
of an English vessel of war in a most unceremonious
way in the Gulf of Mexico, and England was satisfied
with a very slight apology. These are facts which
the writers in the National, and Commerce, and
Constitutionnel should remember ; and they should
remember, also, that with the exception of the
accidental death of a French fisherman on the
coast of Newfoundland, for which England
made every reparation, they cannot bring one
charge of aggression, or conquest, or insult, com-
mitted in :any part of the globe. Louis PHILIPPE
deserves every praise for the admirable manner in
which he has restrained the belligerent disposition of
the French for fourteen years, and thereby preserved
the peace of the world. He has been aided by the
Governments of England during that period, and
England is still anxious for peace, but it must be a
peace with honour. We cordially hope that the two
countries will see their interests in a true light, and
not headlessly rush into a war which would benefit
neither, and throw the whole of Europe into confusion.

In the press of other matters claiming our early
attention, we have found but little time, hitherto, for
the perusal in detail of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S Bill
, " foe the better regulation of Medical Practice
throughout the United Kingdom." But we have
mastered its contents sufficiently, to pronounce an
opinion upon its general bearings, and to be enabled
to indicate some features of palpable inconsistency,
unfairness, and inexpediency. The Bill, in its pre-
sent form, is certainly one of the worst specimens of
the excess to which the genius of central legislation
may carry its advocates. In their laudable endea-
vours to abolish the evils of that partial, interrupted,
and local law-making, which has so much marred
many institutions derived from our ancestors, that
were of the very wisest kind in princi-
ple, they are apt to produce a species of
mischief at the least as much to be de-
precated. From a scheme, defective by the num-
ber of its jurisdictions or the conflicting character of
the powers which these exercise, they are prone to pass
to a system, more or less impracticable from the limi-
tation of its faculties, to a range of operation by no
means co-extensive with the multiplied and varying
demands on their exercise, and only to be set in mo-
tion from a single centre. The result of these sacri-
fices to the one element of consolidation may be de-
fined, in a word, as a defect of adaptation. There are
infinitely more demands, or more classes of demands
to be met and satisfied than machinery, of this centra-
lised character, can adequately treat. But the 13111
in question has more specific vices, besides this ge-

neric one.
Its enactments are tyrannous as well as invidious.
They throw a degree of imputation on the skill,
competency, and character of vast bodies of a liberal
profession, who will vainly plead against the requi-
sitions of some of the clauses before us, touching pro-
bationary examinations in some cases, certificates in
others, &c., &c. ; the best of testimonials, supplied by
the terms of their professional experience and prac-
tice, and the esteem and confidence wherewith they
are regarded by their patients and connexions. The
capital error of the Bill appears to us to be this—
that it proposes, for the future, to treat with indiffer-
ence, or absolutely to reject, the positive evidence of
merit and theoretical knowledge, implied by the
previously-passed examination of the successful can-
didate for a diploma or professional status in medi-
cine, or surgery, (under the practice which
has for many years past obtained in London) ;
and to substitute in place of this qualifying title a
new species of certificate of registration, to be granted
by use ci uwsny -contrived councils, ale creation or which
would appear to be the real and paramount, though
but incidentally avowed, object of this Bill. From
one or two circumstances of primii facie suggestion,
as the Bill is printed, we should infer that Sir JAMES
GRAHAM must promise himself a long tenure of office.
Thus, it is carefully stipulated that " the Secretary
of State for the Home Department shall be President
of the new Council ;" and again, that " he shall be
empowered, from time to time, to nominate one of the
members of the Council appointed, as aforesaid, by
her MAJESTY, to be Vice-President of the Council."
Here are two of the favourite, besetting, aims of all
Sir JAMES'S measures in his official capacity, developing
themselves even in this embryo of a Legislative Act,
which cannot be born till next session. Sir JAMES'S
vanity and love ofpower are to be tickled by the occupa-
tion of the President's chair; his love of patronage to be
gratified by the nomination of some toady, probably,
whose hand even now perhaps is dimly traceable in
the concoction of the Bill—to that of Vice-President.
What business with, or relation to, or affinity for, the
presidency of a medical board (unless it be an indo-
mitable passion for opening letters) a Home Secretary
of State can find in himself, we are quite at a loss to
determine. The preceding clause, 9, may perhaps
furnish some clue to this puzzle in clause
10. By clause 9, the salaries of the mem-
bers of council and other officers are to be
determined by the Treasury. Qy. ? Will the
president rank as a member of the council ? Will
the Treasury, in that case, overlook the " equitable
claim" of their good colleague, the Home Secretary ?
The author of " Corn and Currency" must have
fretted his very soul out, under the compulsory though
silent sanction he was compelled to give to the.
Premier's monster-blunder, his Bank Charter Bill.
In the course of his new medical studies, possibly the
notion of a presidential salary may have flitted before
the forecasting mind of Sir JAMES in the type of an
" emollient lenitive." But we will not travel further,
on the present occasion, into the detail of the clauses.
A medical friend complains to us, with much show
of reason, that the general scope of the preamble it-
self is distinctly and most iniquitously favourable to
the success of medical empiricism and quackery, and
is signally calculated:for the discouragement of regu-
larly educated and duly qualified practitioners. It
withdraws the protection hitherto afforded to the
public from the reckless audacity, the mischievous
ignorance, and the unhesitating presumption of the
former class of medical " professors." By repealing,
at one swoop, all th© salutary restrictions heretofore im

posed upon them, inadequate as even they have proved
for the purposes of a sufficiently stringent control—

the health and lives of the public have been set up as
a free mark, as it were, for their fatal experiments.

But Sir JAMES (who certainly has no reason to be
well pleased with his present standing in their estima-
tion) distinguishes between the public and the public
servants. The " gentle public" are to supply open, un-

restricted, moor-shooting to these unqualified gentry,
who may wound, or bag, or scare, or destroy just as

many victims as they please. But the army, the navy,
the East India service—public hospitals, infirmaries

for the poor, &c.,—these are street preserves,
into which the empirics, who are thus let loose on

society at large, may by no means trespass. Enough
for them, we should suppose, that they are left, by
_ _ ...

implication, the honour of being doctors of the public!
What guarantees are to be exacted from those gra-

duates who, under subsequent clauses, are to qualify
before the new board, as licentiates in medicine and

surgery, or as surgeons, after rigorous examination,

we find shadowed out in clauses 13, 14, 15, 16,

&c. But they who are still to be authorised
to practise—on the public—minus the honours,
advantages, and emoluments accruing from the
registered certificates of which they will be
deficient, for aught that we can see to the contrary,
will not be troubled for any guarantees at all as to
their education, skill, or proficiency ! They may deal
with the most complicated diseases of the digestive
organs, although the previous extent of their medical
or pharmaceutical education may have been limited
to ascertaining the different intensities of a solution
of an ounce of Epsom salts and an ounce :of jalap ;
their experience of cerebral sensitiveness, to the vary-
ing effects of an ordinary narcotic draught, and a
concentrated preparation of morphine. The utmost

amount of their physiological iesearches may not
have possessed them of the important distinctions be-
tween muscular contraction and vascular irritation ;
but they will deal, at a moment's notice, with cases of
organic derangement that may require all the patho-
logical learning of a second HUNTER to detect, or all
the surgical skill and precision of a BRODIE
or a LAWRENCE to operate upon. Now it is
very certain that nothing has more tended
to improve and advance the medical sciences—to
extend the range and instruct the enterprise of opera-
tive surgery—than those more modern restrictive Acts
which have been passed during the last seven or eight
reigns with the avowed and wholesome purpose of dis-
couraging the irresponsible practice of incompetent
ernpirics. The education which it was, by reason
of those Acts, incumbent on the regular practitioner to
acquire, has necessarily become a very expensive and
elaborate one. The vast amount of talent, care,
and research which has been devoted, year
after year, to perfect this scheme of edu-
cation, has prodigiously facilitated the most re-
markable and precious discoveries of modern days, in
all the higher branches of chemistry, of anatomy,
physiology, and surgery, and therefore, in the appli-
cation of therapeutical agents. But in exact propor•
tion to, and coincidently with these advances in the
great march of all medical science, have been the
increased sacrifices of time, money, and application,
the additional severity of intellectual discipline and ex-
tensive study, which medical students in all classes have
made and given to the completion of their curriculum.
By what magical sympathy is Sir JAMES GRAHAM
induced to give to quacks,—who have little or nothing
of this preparation, these qualifications, that
knowledge, those laborious studies—to justify their
empirical practice—the advantages, the legitimate
advantages, that should justly and exclusively remain
with men who have adequately prepared themselves
for the able and conscientious discharge of the in-
valuable and most responsible duties to society, which
it is the honourable privilege of their profession to
render ?

We have received Madrid journals of the 19th inst.
The QUEEN, with her mother and sister, was ex-
pected to enter the capital on the 20th. According
to the Heraldo, the Moors were busily engaged in
repairing the fortifications of Tangiers, which were
said to be defended by fifteen hundred infantry
while there were four thousand cavalry around the
town. The English Consul had returned from Gib-
raltar and resumed his official duties.

The Three per Cents. were done at 27 1-16 for
cash, and 27-1 at sixty days; and the Five per Cents,
at 20f at sixty days.

We regret to find, from the Paris papers, that the
same hostile feeling towards this country still pre-
vails, with little prospect of abatement. On the pre-
sent occasion we admit that the French have grounds
of complaint, but they ought not to confound the
feelings of one anonymous and indiscreet writer with
those of the whole English nation. To impute any-
thing like cowardice to the French people, only shows
a want of common honesty, a wilful departure from
truth, and a malevolent spirit. Ninety-nine Eng-
lishmen out of a hundred admit the bravery of the
French to the utmost extent ; and, if proofs were
wanting, it is only necessary to look back to the
great victories gained by their armies, not under NA-
POLEON only, but under every French General, over
the best troops of almost every Continental State.
The editors of French papers have no occasion to re-
but the charge, and they would have acted wisely
had they treated it, as it deserved, with contempt.
The details given in the telegraphic dispatch from
Marshal BUGEAUD are very meagre. lie states that
800 of the Moors were killed on the field of battle,
but does not give the number' of the French killed,
nor any idea of the forces under his command. This
battle, unfortunately, will only render peace more diffi-
cult. It will make the French desirous of further suc-
cess, and exasperate the fanatical Moors. No addi-
tional intelligence had been received from the French
squadron, though accounts from the south of Spain
announce that the firing of cannon had been heard in
the direction of the Straits of Gibraltar, and that
Larache, and some other small places along the
coast, had been bombarded. A letter which ap-
peared in a morning Contemporary, stating that the
Emperor .1. a....cctiod to all the dr: -
mands of the French when the Prince de JOINVILLE
commenced the attack on Tangiers, has called forth
remarks from several of the papers. The
Journal des Debats which has access to
authentic information denies the statement.
" We know not," says that journal, " if this letter
be authentic, but in any case it is a tissue of errors
more evident the one than the other. Every one now
is aware that the EMPEROR refused four out of the
seven conditions submitted by Spain ; and as to what
concerns the reclamation of France, it is only neces-
sary to remind the reader that he demanded the dis-
missal of Marshal BUGEAUD, whose presence on the
frontier no doubt was very galling to him. There-
fore, either the letter in question is apocryphal, or
the person who wrote it was singularly misinformed.
We have reason, on the contrary, to believe, that the
reports of the English Consul himself contain conclu-
sions quite opposed to him, and it was only after being
convinced the EMPEROR was seeking merely to gain
time, that the Prince de JOINVILLE resorted to sum-
mary measures. It is also right to observe, that the
news received a short time previous to the action of
the 6th, announcing as certain the conclusion of an
accommodation, was communicated to the French
Consul at Gibraltar by the English Governor, and
thus transmitted to the French Government; and,
nevertheless, the news did not emanate either from
the Commander of the French squadron, from the
Consul-General of France, nor, as we believe, from
the English Consul-General."

The French Funds were more firm on Sunday. At
TORTONI'S considerable business was done, when the
Three per Cents. were quoted at 80f. 70c., having
risen about 35 centimes since Saturday.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SlR,—Observing in yesterday's paper that my pri-
vate Circular has found its way into your columns,
with an introductory remark giving me credit for
what I am not entitled to, I beg to mention that the
public is mainly indebted, in the first place, to the
exertions of Mr. Waghorn ; and, in the second place,
to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, for the establishment of the overland com-
munication with India. My only merit is the ga-
thering together the authentic information which my
letter contains, and circulating it among my friends.
Knowing its value to the public, I am rejoiced to see
it obtain more extensive circulation through your
columns, yet I should be sorry for any one to sup-
pose that I laid claim to a distinction I am not len-
titled to.—l am, Sir, your very obedient servant,
ALEXANDER F. RIDGWAY.

42, Leicester-square, 27th August, 1844.

TRAVERS TESTIMONIAL.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SER,—Parrnit me to suggest, through the medium
of your valuable columns, to the subscribers towards
a memorial to the memory of the late John Travers,
Esq., that if the funds collected for that purpose were
to be appropriated to the erection of additional
" Reform Alms-houses" (with a suitable tablet), or
in increasing the comforts of the present and future
inmates of that valuable institution, instead of applying
them, in any manner, to the " City of London
Schools," it would be a far more appropriate testi-
monial to the memory of that staunch Reformer and
truly benevolent man ; and I know of many who
would cheerfully subscribe in the former case, but not
in the latter.—l. am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
W. A. A., AN OLD REFORMER.
Moorgati, Aug. 27, 1844.

ANOTHER MONSTER TRAIN.—The cheap Sunday
excursion train on the London and Brighton Railway,
on Sunday last, exceeded in magnitude all the other
monsters with which this railway has of late teemed.
No less than 78 carriages, containing 2,123 passengers,
left London-bridge in the morning, and after spending
the day in Brighton, returned in the evening. In order,
however, to avoid the inconvenience experienced on
former occasions from the delay in providing a large
number of passengers with accommodation, the train
was divided into three portions, each of which was dis-
patched as soon as full. By this arrangement the earlier
part of the train was in Brighton before the time an-
nounced, while the rest were not more than half an hour
behind time ; whereas, on the previous Sunday, the
whole number were delayed upwards of two hours
and a half. The passengers spoke highly of this ar-
rangement.
We have reason to believe that an action for breech
of promise of marriage has been already commenced by
a beautiful and accomplished young lady, possessing
landed property in one of the midland counties (Leices-
tershire), against a wealthy young nobleman, who has
recently entered into the holy bonds of matrimony.