The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-07 00:00:00

CAVEIVDISH, and Mr. TEELAWNEY ? Somehow or
other, the enemies of the public are never caught

napping.

It has been a general subject of conversation, during
the sitting of this Committee, that some of the Tory
Members of it, especially Lord G. BENTINCK and
Mr. G. BERKELEY have pursued a course of systematic
insult to the witnesses against the game-laws; and this
being so, it is not difficult to conceive why these gen-
tlemen should have been anxious to keep back the
evidence. No sooner did Mr. BRIGHT announce his
intention of calling a witness, than inquiries were sent
to his locality, with a view to find out everything which
by any possibility could be made a means of annoyance
to him, and he was subjected to a cross-examination by
Lord G. BENTINCK with which no Old Bailey practice
would compete. A respectable solicitor, who furnished
the Committee with his experience of game•law con-
victions, was harassed with innumerable irrelevant
questions about his professional practice, and then
taunted with being a gaol-bird. Another witness was
in plain terms told by Lord G. BENTINCK that his
morality was very lax, because he could not view
poaching with the full degree of horror which it

kindles in Lord GEORGE'S most innocent mind.

tenant of Lord FORESTER'S was subjected to a rigorous
cross•examination under the eye and with the constant
promptings of Lord FORESTER'S brother. Such pro-
ceedings as these are surely never contemplated in
Committees of the House of Commons. If information
is to be elicited by Committees, witnesses must be pro-
tected trom insult.

No Iran can have read the statement which was made
a flaw nights ago, by Lord PALMERSTON, on the state
of the capacity for defence of this country, in the event
of ally hostile descent upon any part of its coasts, with-
out acknowledging that the Noble Viscount made out an
undeniable case fer the adoption of some precautionary
arrangements and preparations—by no means incompa-
tible with the maintenance of our amicable relations
with all the Powers of Europe—but not to be longer
delayed, in the face of certain aspects presented by the
attitude of a neighbouring State. When Sir, ROBERT
PEEL ventured to read the Noble Lord a lectare on the
ill-considered timing of this speech, and put on one of
the long faces of his official prudery, in order to rebuke
his Lordship's imprudence at mooting a matter which
might be deemed so disagreeable in the French Cabinet,
the Right Hon. Baronet must have forgotten that it had
been already much insisted upon at the close of last
session, and recurred to at the commencement of the
present one, by his own leader—the Noble and Gallant
Duke, the Commander-in-Chief. It was quite consistent
with the usual Parliamentary tactics of the Premier, to
endeavour to turn off the attack on the policy of his
Government, implied by the animadversions of Lord
PALMERSTON on the neglect of such precautiOnary pro-
visions as he directed the Right Hon. Baronet's atten-
tion to, by declaiming on the constitutional aversion of the
eeople of England for a large standing army. But
Lord PALMERSTON did not ask for its increase. It was
all in the way of the Premier's manner, to call off the
louse's attention from that which it should be directed
to, by taking credit for the fact, that at no time
had our navy been in a more efficient condition than
it was at present. It formed no part of Lord
PALMERSTON'S statement to declare that it had been.
But Sir ROBERT PEEL gave no tangible assurances--
advanced no counter statements, either to meet the sug-
gestions or to disprove the averments of Lord PALMER-
STON. What was the nature of these averments ? That
France now maintained a standing army of 340,000 men,
fully equipped, with a large cavalry and artillery ; that
in addition to these she had, in Paris, " nearly 1,000,000
of National Guards trained, disciplined, reviewed,
equipped, clothed, and accustomed to all the fatigues and
duties attendant upon a time of war." He reminded
the House that the English Channel could now be
crossed in a few hours, and that the navy of France
was, (in the Noble Lord's opinion—we trust and believe
an erroneous oae,) "in every respect superior to ours ;
that she had a steam navy capable of transporting
290,000 men ; harbours inaccessible to any foreign
powers for the safeguard and refuge of this fleet ;" and
" immense bodies of disciplined men around these har-
bours regularly and always stationed." These are very
grave facts undoubtedly ; facts to excite the most serious
reflection. But we do not see that because they are such,
therefore, the Noble Lord is justly amenable to the cen-
sure of Sir ROBERT PEEL, or the silly sarcasms of cer-
tain French journals, for alluding to them. It is one
thing to create a danger, it is another boldly to look it
in the face when created. Lord PALMERSTON can no
more be justly taxed with a desire to excite, or keep up,
feelings of hostility between this country and France, by
reason of merely touching on these notorious statistics of
foreign forces, than with being the father of the childish'
boast in the journals in question, that a French com-
mander would not require more than 40,000 men, after
making a successful descent, to move with upon London
itself. The facts and the foolery.are equally beyond his
control.

Now, what were the suggestions that followed upon
the statements of the Noble Lord ? Ile assumed that,
notwithstanding the present amicable condition of our
relations with France, questions of extreme delicacy and
difficulty might, at any time, arise, in reference to which
it was highly expedient that we should not be wholly
unprepared for whatever emergency might arise. On
the contrary, for the 'more unembarrassed discussion of
these questions we ought to be in a state of efficient pre-
paration. We ought to have harbours of refuge ; we
ought to have our naval arsenals put in the best condi-
tion of defence. It was said those sereral works are in
progress. If it was so, it was matter of just congratula-
tion ; and it was to be hoped that those preparations
would be vigorously carried out to their full and efficient
completion. But here were the discouraging truths to
be most seriously taken to heart by our GoNiernment,
and to be dealt with as they required to be :—First, That

our own steam navy was still in a ♦ery deficient state ;
we had no disciplined bodies of men, stationed near to
the coast, as in France ; and, in case of an invasion
being attempted, it would take at least three months to

getour steam tieetintosuch a condition as to be available

torepel the enemy. Secondly, That we had no disposable
military force at hand, independent of that portion of our
limited standing army which was at home, to cope with
any military force that any enemy might once succeed in
landing on our shore. Now, to remedy this deficiency,
the Noble Lord proposed that we should have recourxe
to the most constitutional of all the means of military

armament in this country at all times—namely, the re-
embodiment of our militia. What adequate objection
there can exist to this course we cannot imagine ? The
expense of embodying one-half of that force, and of
giving them the necessary training and equipment,
would apply only to the soldiers and non-commissioned
officers. There would be no lack of volunteers among
the officers, and officers commanding, to provide
their own equipments, if due encouragement were
extended by the Government to gratuitous
offers of that kind. The country we are sa-
tisfied would, on the one hand, be well content to
bear the necessary charge of such a proceeding ; and on
the other, be fully prepared to require that all existing
branches of the public expenditure not indispensable to
its service, should be required to contribute to defray
the charge of this, which undoubtedly is of that nature.
As for Sir Robert PEEL'S 50,000 able-bodied pensioners,
so many of them as could be really asst mbled and orga.
nized for such a purpose would form the best possible
nucleus for a militia force, which they would so essen-
tially assist in bringing rapidly into good discipline and
efficiency. Without some such a militia force—without
some better guarantee for the immediate' construction of
harbors of refuge, and the renovation of our batteries,
arsen lis, &c., that we can accept Sir R ..OBERT'S vague pro-
mises for, we shall still conclude with. Lord PALMER sToN
that we are utterly short of that condition of prepara-
tion and defence which the extraordinary attitude both
of:military and naval organization that is now assumed by
France at once justifies us in adopting, and most as-%
suredly precludes her from complaining of.

To the long catalogue of terrible catastrophes which
from time to timedesolate our coal districts, and sweep
off human victims by whole hecatombs, but under cir-
cumstances of aggravated horror unknown to the won
ship even of the ancient Moloch himself—a new
calamity has just been added. It occurred on the morn-
ing of Saturday last at a colliery situate in Crombacb,
between Aberdare and Merthyr Tydvil. We have to
direct attention to it, not, alas ! as some rare phe-
nomenon the impression of whose very terrors is alniost
effaced by the absorbing astonishment and wonder with
which we contemplate the novelty of their aspects.
These explosions of fire-damp have become, unhappily,
rather the anticipated per-centage casualties, to be allowed
for on the aggregate "lives" of a given district. They
have assumed their regular place and number among
the long array of columns and divisions and tables that
are marshalled forth in the economic "returns" and

" reports" annually printed by order of Parliament.
They are a branch of the statistics of "premature mor-
tality," all the elements of which are calculatei with de-
liberation and certainty—save one : the specific periods
of their recurrence. Were the fact, otherwise, were
these appalling visitations so " few and far between"
that they could be properly regarded only as violent and
convulsive throes of nature, like devastating earthquakes,
or inundations, we should not marvel that the last event
of the kind had been no better prepared for by such

means as human sagacity and prudence could devise,
than its predecessor. Where the subterranean opera-
tions of nature that are to be most dreaded from their
destructive influence on human life are elaborated on the
vast scale of volcanic eruptions or widely-spread-
ing earthquakes, they cannot be, guarded against.
For example—all that was known of the symp-
toms which preceded the destruction of Quito, in
1755, could not have enabled the inhabitants of the once
devoted city to escape from the second and more terrible
destruction of 1797, nor bad the fierce eruption of Etna,
in 1830, enabled the inhabitants of its most peopled region
to guard against the hideous combustion that rolled its
lava flood over Bronte in 1832. But it is certain that the
inflammation of that noxious gas which is so largely
generated in coal mines, although the gas itself be in a
process of perpetual elaboration. may be to a'very great
extent prevented by precautionary means which prat_
tical science has long since applied to that salutary pur-
pose. The same labours which explore these mines
extract their mineral fuel, construct the galleries, and
maintain the shafts, edits, and drains necessary for thsir
profitable working, have necessarily given to those en-
gaged in such occupations that which no man will ever
be permitted to acquire with respect to earthquakes or
volcanoes—that is to say, no incl'insiderable insight into the
manner in which the gas is developed, and the indica-
tions by which the fact of its development is to be ascer
tained. The " Davy" lamp (which never seems to have
had a perfectly fair trial, owing in part to the avarice
of mine owners and the carelessness of managers, and in
part to the reckless apathy and obstinacy of the working
miners), is one of these means, and a most salutary and
remarkable one. But that system of ventilation—of
clearing away rubbish and slate—of drainage, on a
larger, more simplified, and economical scale than has
hitherto been in practice—of bricking up the tireel aper-
tures that have been left marking the site of exhausted
works and demolished passages—yvith the several other
plans adapted to the attainment of similar objects that
were submitted to, and favourably reported on, by the
Select. Committee on " Accidents in Mines," which sate
some two or three sessions ago ; that system and those
plans, honestly and vigorously carried out into prac-
tical adoption, would reduce the number of these fearful
disasters in the proportion of at least three-fourths of their
present. amount. It is very certain that that dismal
fate which, is a moment, entombed alive or blasted te
death upwards of one hundred of our fellow-creatures,
in the pits of the Haewell Colliery, little more (if we
remember rightly) than twelve months ago, might have
been averted, had the • parties charged with inspecting
the condition Of the works at stated intervals, previously
to setting on the men, properly discharged that duty.
There can be no reasonable doubt that if the recommen-
dations of the Committee we have just ulluded to had
been previously enforced by Government, this last coal-
mine explosion at Crombach, that has hurried nine-and-
twenty pour labourers in that colliery into eternity,
might have been avoided, that the desolation which
has overtaken the widows and the orphans, and
the childless ones who are at this moment vainly
wailing over their awful bereavements, might
have been escaped. By an account we else-
where publish, it appears " that this pit has
always been in bad repute on account of its deficient.
ventilation." It really seems to us that a very onerous
responsibility attaches to her MAJESTY'S Government—
to that part of the Executive especially which is more
immediately connected with the Home Department—
for these arid similar disasters. It seems to be the re-
proach of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Government to grant
" commissions" and to slumber over their'reports. Thus
a commission has pointedly reported on the expediency
of surrounding all machinery in the interior of factories
and mills in such a manner as to secure those who
must pass by it while in action from being caught
up and entangled iu its evolutions. Penalties, we
believe, are attached to the neglect of these pre-
cautions. With so much laxity, however, are they
enforced, that the provincial newspapers teem with
narratives of the most hideous accidents resulting from
unprotected shaft-wheels, &c. In like manner, the
report on coal-mine accidents seems to have become
utterly a dead letter. We doubt whether the casualties
have not become m ,re frequent since that report was
made than they were previously ; and, in nine cases out
of ten, they are palpably the result of the neglect of
such precautionary measures as were recommended
by the report in question. We have ourselv s a strong
impression that the Government has done no more
to carry out those recommendations than it has
done, in fact, notwithstrnding the vague and slippery
assurances of Sir ROBERT PEEL the other night to
the contrary, in answer to Lord PALMERSTON, in
giving effect to the earnest recommendations of the Com-
mittee on Harbours of Refuge, and the declared opinion
-of-Parliameet in fairmir of them. The fact seems to be,
that for the protection of property, of vested rights, as
they are called, of monopolies, eren of game, the pre-
sent Government is all vigilant and all powerful. Hu-
man life, as such, seems to enjoy but secondary claims
on its solicitude. Penal statutes for the punishment of
debt and the multiplication of the wretched inmates of
prisons are being re-enacted, after a short but hollow
truce of two or three years with indignant humanity and
outraged public opinion. Brave sailors continue to be cast
away upon the coasts of their native land for want of har-
bours of refuge to run to in the extremity of their peril
Able seamen are still compelled to quit the ungrateful
service of their country, which turns them off at a mo-
ment's notice, without a home or a maintenance of any
kind for their old age and its infirmities, and betake
themselves to a foreign service, which they exalt and
consolidate at the expense of our own. Children and
women wear out a benighted and dreary existence near
the surface of mines, where they perish by slow degrees
by damp, paralysis, and disease. Men in the
deepest recesses of those mines, where they toil
from mouth's end to month's end for scanty wages
with unwearied indastry, perish by the fatal fire-
damp in unknown numbers through catastrophes of dread-
ful frequency. But in all these cases the First Lord of
the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the
Secretary for the Home Department look on apparently
unmoved, so long as the effect of these accidents ope-
rates only on human life, not on property. They may
decimate a coal district, provided they do not interfere
with Sir ROBERT'S factitious surplus, or Mr. GouL
BURN'S Ways and Means ; with the Premier's pa-
tronage, or Sir J. GRAHAM'S centralisation of official
power. Parliament must instantly discharge those duties
to humanity which the Government persist in neglecting.

• --..---
A letter from Tripoli, 11(h July, says:—
" A caravan, which.left this place for Gadaines, was at-
tacked and rubbed a few days after its departure, when crossing
the mountain of Gebel, where fresh disturbances have broken
out. There is a talk of an expedition to be fitted out against
that part. The quantity of grain in the country has given a
degree of activity to the corn trade ; but the only one who be-
nefits by it is his Excellency Mehemet Pacha, who has already
received several cargoes from the Levant. There is a report
that Mehemet Pacha is to be recalled, and it is a change which
would be generally approved of, and particularly by European
merchant."
News has been received from. Tunis to the 18th July.
The Tunisians feel no alarm from the presence of the
Turkish troops in Tripoli. No attack is meditated
either in Tunis or Gerlic. The landing of the Alba-
nians has been occasioned by changes in the garrison,
for the purpose of making Tripoli more secure from the
attacks of the mountaineers of Gebal.

Swiss papers of the 30th ult. have been rec,ived. The
Diet was sitting, but its •proCeedings related solely to
matters of mere local interest. It was expected that a
revolution, similar to the one which was so successful at
Lausanne, six months ago, would tike place at Berne,
and with similar success. A letter from Geneva,
30th ult., says:—

" Our Council of State, anticipating that the Jesuits, when
expelled from France, might be tempted to come and form
establishments on our territory, has just reminded the public of
an ordonnance which forbids any foreigner to undertake the
duty of instruction in the Canton of Geneva without a special
authorisation. It is still, however, feared that they may form
an establishment in some Sardinian commune on our borders,
which would for us be attended with the same dangers as if a
college of Jesuits were established within our canton."

Madrid journals of the 29th and 30th ult. have been
L received. The application on the part of the inhabitants
of Malaga for a suspension of the sentence on those
found guilty ,of having taken part in the late plot has
been refused by General SANZ, who says his orders are
positive. lie'probably has the 'five of General OaIBE
before his eyes, who was dismissed, for waiting for in-
structions before shooting the son of ZURBANO.
The Tiempo states, that at one of the Cabinet Coun-
cils held at Saragossa, it had been decided that M. CAS-
Tru.o Y AYENSA should quit Rowe immediately. The
Ministers were expected at Madrid on the evening of
the 29th. Letters from Saragossa mention that the
QUEEN would take nine mineral baths at Santa Aguada,
and as many sea baths. vier Majesty will repair thence
to Bilboa, and, after sojourning three or four days
in that city, she is to return to San Sebastian, to receive
the Duke and. Duchess of NEDIoURS, who are to
arrive 'there 'towards the end of August. It was not
known how long the Princes of the Royal Family of
France would remain at San Sebastian, but it was
believed that their stay would not exceed two or
three days. The QUEEN will afterwards visit Vit-
toria, Burgos, and Valladolid, and return to Madrid
by La Granja, towards the middle of September
The QUEEN'S departure from Saragossa has been de-
layed a day by the illmss of the Infanta Dona LUISA.
Ministers have taken due precautions against the conse-
quences of the journey they so dread; for, besides the

" The St. retersburgh Journal of the 22d July publishes a
second bulletin from General Woronzoff, detailing his further
operations in the Caucasus. From it we find that the Russian
(;eneral, assuming as the basis of his operations the line of the
Terek and the torn of Kisliar, has penetrated, by the north of
the Daghestan,
_._ into the mountains which bound that • country
to the west. His object is to secure the communications between
the capital Derbent and the line of the Terek by penetrating to
the Mussulman mountaineers, commanded by the Emir Chamil,
who lately invaded all the country below, and blockaded the
town of Derbent. The general has not yet pushed his opera-
tions further than towards the sources of the Soulak, a river
which falls into the Caspian Sea, at a short distance from the
mouths of the Terek. Success appears to have hitherto crowned
the Russian forces ; and Chamil appears to have adopted the
tactics of avoiding coming to a regular engagement. The
Russian general has disposed his army into two detachments,
one at Kisliar and the other at Derbent, the combined move-
ments of which have compelled the enemy to evacuate his posi-
tions."

Public Securities improved consiletably in the Paris
Money Market on Monday, owing to the fact that the
house of RoniscuiLD Brothers had placed itself at the
head of the principal parties uho have announced their

intention to bid for the northern line of railroad.
The Three per Cents. closed at 83f. 95c. ; the Five per
Cents. at 1221. 25c. ; Orleans Railroad Shares, 1,268 f. 75c- ;
Rouen, 1,080 f.; Vierzon, 792 f. 50c. ; Havre, 905 f.; Avignon,
1,060 f. ; Basle, 2751. ; Spanish Actives, 36; Spanish Three
per Cents., 38 ; Spanish Passives, 63/4.
The following are the quotations for the new lines
Orleans and Bordeaux, 185 f. premium; Boulogne, 1351.
ditto ; Troyes and Montereau, 35f. ; Paris and Lyons,
( Laffitte), 31f. 25c.; ditto (Calon), par ; ditto (Ganneron),
6f. 50c. ; Northern Line (Laffitte), 451. ; ditto (Rom-
mel), 12f. 50c.; Tours and Nantes (Mackenzie), 12f. 50c. ;
ditto (Drouillard), par ; ditto. (O'Neill), 3f. 50c. ; ditto
(Jacques Lefevre), par ; Lyons and Avignon (Lecointe),
17f. 50c.; ditto (Talabot),36f. 25 ; ditto (Cosnpagnie Merl-
dionale), 51. ; Bordeaux and Toulouse (Mackenzie), par;
ditto and Cett.e (Espeleta), 131.
.; Creil and St
par ; Paris and Strasbourg (Ganneron), 12f. 50c. ; Dijon and
Mulhausen, par. . Quentin,
MARSEILLMS, JULY 31.-Marseilles and Avignon, 1,030 E ;
Boulogne, 635 f. ; Orleans and Bordeaux, 680 f. ; Vierzon,
782 f. 50c,
LYONS, AUG. 1.-Avignon and Marseilles, 1,027 f., end of
Arg. ; Paris and Orleans, 1,2301., ditto; Paris and Rouen,
1,085 f., ditto; Orleans and Vierzon, 785 f, ditto ; Orleans
and Bordeaux, 685 f., ditto.

MORTALITY OF THE METIIOPOLIS.—The total number
of deaths regisered in the metropolitan district, for the
wee 4 ending Saturday, Ugust 2, is 827, of which 812
were from disease, showing a decrease,-as compared with
the previous week, in deat6 froui disease, of 49. The
number of deaths from diseases of the respiratory
Orleans, was 292 ; and from epidemic, endemic, and con-
tagious diseases, 184.

r
ItOROGATIc.N OF PAnLlAMENT.—Summonses were
ismed on Tuesday morning for holding a Privy Council at
Buckingham Palace on Friday next, at half past two o'clock,
when the royal speech on the prorogation of Parliament will
be submitted for her Majesty's sanction and approbation. The
Queen and her illustrious consort are expected in town in the
afternoon of Thursday next. Orders have been given for
making the necessary preparations for her Majesty's pro-
roguing Parliament in person. A Cabinet Council will. be
held at the Foreign-office to-morrow, when the royal speech
on proroguing Parliament will be considered and arranged.
PRICE or GOLD —The premium or. old at Paris
is 10i per milk, which, at the English Mint Price of 31. 17s.
lOid. per ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange of
23 41; and the exchange at Paris on London at short being
25 55, it follows that gold is 0.55 per cent. dearer in London
than in Paris. By advices front Hamburgh, the price of
Strt,id is 436 per mark, which, at the English Mint price of
i. 178.'100. per ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange
of 13'10i ; and the, exchange at Hamburgh on London at
short being 13 11i, it follows that gold is 0.34 per cent.
dearer in London than in Hamburgh.
The will of Mr. Edward Coode, of St. Austell,
Cornwall, was proved on the 4th instant by Edward Coode, the
son and sole executor. The personal estate sworn under
12.3,0001. He devises his real estate to his wife for her life,
also an annuity of 700/. besides her income under settlement;
and after her decease devises the same to his son Edward. Be-
queaths to his son Thomas his share in the East Cornwall
Bank ; leaves annuities and legacies to his daughters and
grandchildren; and the residue of his personal estate he be-
queaths to his son Edward. It was the deceased's wish to be
buried privately and early in the morning.