The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-31 00:00:00

1 FRANCE.
(FRON OCR CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, JAN. 29.—The debate in the Chamber of De-
puties on the Address is unusually long this year, and
without being characterised by any struggle of parties
on great or fundamental principles has been marked by
much petty animosity and squabbling. The Ministers
have, however, carried their points by strong majorities,
and will no doubt remain in office till the end of the
Session, if not longer. Their opponents are all divided,
and are too . much occupied with their own rivalries to
be able to unite in any well-combined plan for over-
throwing the Cabinet : otherwise there is no doubt
sufficient dislike afloat to dislocate the Government,
though the country would gain little in honesty or ability
by a change. It is reported to-day that Ministers have
already made up their minds to have a general election
next summer : the Chamber has only one year more to
run before it is dissolved de facto, and it is supposed that
a certain degree of additional strength may be obtained
by going before the electors in July, if by that period
the Prefects have arranged and doctored the electoral
hits acording to their instructions from Court.
The financial measures of the Session will turn prin-
cipally upon railroads ; but it is not -expected that more
than two or three of the lone-lines will be actually voted.
That from Paris to Lille and the Belgian frontier ; the
small line from Marseille's to the Rhone, near Beaucaire;
and the Strasburgh line ; these are all which are likely
to be definitively proposed by Ministers as lines to be
undertaken by Government. There will he a branch to
Boulogne-sur-Mer from the first line, so that communi-
cations between Paris and London will certainly be much
expedited within the next three or four years. We may
add that the Paris and Rouen railroad is going on ac-
tively, and will be opened nextyear. Its shares have risen
considerably in the Paris market within the last two or
three days. There is a push making among the Deputies
of the south-western departments to get a Government
grant fbr prolonging the Paris and Orleans railroad in
two directions—one to Bordeaux, and the other to
Nantes. A meeting has been held of the Directors of'
the latter line, and an interview with the King has been
the consequence. His Majesty, we have reason to know,
has expressed himself strongly in favour of the immediate
prosecution of the undertaking, but has not committed
h;mself, nor given any specific promise, beyond
that of offering to urge the point on the Mi-
nister of Public Works and the Cabinet. If France
gives herself up seriously to these great undertakings,
and if she would be persuaded to put her false pride in
her pocket, and abandon the ridiculous p!an of fortifying
Paris,.. she would do more to promote her internal pros-
perity, and to give fresh vigour to the nation, than by
anything else effected since 1815.
The great scandal of the day is the affair of M. Le-
hon, which is only another of the many proofs afforded
since 1830 of the low state of morality in the middling
and upper classes of French society. M. Lehon was
one of the most respectable men in Paris only a few
months ago ; hand and glove with Montalivet and all
Louis Philippe's people, and whose credit was as good as
the Bank of France. One of his unfortunate creditors
acknowledged the other day on the trial that he had
suspected affairs to be going badly with M. Lehon for
some time before the blow-up took place, but that he
dared not say anything about it, since an action for
libel would have been immediately brought against him,
and the damages, which a complaisant and packed Jury,
such as is always to be found in Paris, would, no doubt,
have awarded, would have ruined him. The Journal des
Debuts is remarked to have hardly made any report of
this infamous affair, though all the other Journals have
given the proceedings at full length. The reason is,
that the editor is an intimate friend of Lehon. This
man will undergo his five years' imprisonment, and that
will be all ; for his friends will compromise the matter
with the four creditors, on whose suit he has been con-
demned, and he will get off with what is a very inade-
quate penalty. Meantime his brother and his sister-in-
law affect grand airs, and show themselves even at Court,
and where by the way one, if not both, of them have
more titles than one to appear, and bid defiance to the
world. This condemnation of Lehon to such a slight
penalty for one of the most serious crimes that can
affect a civilized society, and the sentencing of Dupoty
for an imaginary crime, not even proved, and not even in-
cluded in his original indictment,—these two cir-
cumstances, coming one after the other, have pro-
_duced a profound effect on the thinking part of the
people, and have revealed the existence of a degree
of political baseness and more weakness, which perhaps
was not before suspected. The affair of Madame La-
farge—though she was as unjustly condemned as Dupoty
has been- and the previous affair of Peytel, the notary,
who murdered his wife and servants—to say nothing of
the trial of General the Marquis de Brossard, or the
affair of General Bugeaud, and the " boudjous " re-
ceived fromAbd-el-Bader—all these trials are such illus-
trations of the manners and morals of the middling and
upper classes in France as cannot be witnessed, we are
inclined to believe, in any other nation in Europe.
Salvandy's affair is put on the shelf. Louis Philippe
will not fight, even against Espartero ! He prefers pas-
sing the rest of his days as quietly as his conscience will
let him, and he leaves all future troubles to his next heir.
We repeat our prediction that the Duke of Orleans, on
coming to the throne, will be found to adopt a war policy,
and, as a young man, he will not hesitate to run the risk
of foreign aggressions as the only means of preserying
his throne. The Members of the Spanish Cortes, it
will be perceived, speak out pretty boldly against France,
because they on their side know that that there is no
danger of a French army marching to Madrid to demand
reparation. In one respect the Spanish and the French
Deputies show themselves quite of the same mind, and
much to their disgrace. Thus both vituperate Great
.Britain to the best of their abilities for her endeavours
to suppress the slave trade, and declare that she is grasp-
ing thereby at additional power on the sea. How in-
consistent is this on the part of Assemblies professing
to call themselves Liberal I The only persons who have
spoken boldly in defence of England are Marshal Se-
bastiani and M. Mendizabal.
The Paris papers and the Parisian salons have been
universally devoid of news for the last few days,
public attention being much turned to the ceremonies of
the christening of the Prince of Wales. The good people
on this side of the water have no idea of what a good side-
board of plate is, and therefore the accounts of the banquet
at Windior have filled them with astonishment. Musical
parties are all the rage in the French capital at the present
moment, and the musical world is all on the qui vice in
consequence. The grandest parties in Paris are
those of the Neapolitan Ambassador, the Duke de
Serra Capriola, who has got the fine Hotel Ileauveau in
the Faubourg St. Honore, and who admits only the
height of fashion among his guests. The Prussian and
Austrian Ambassadors -being absent, and Lord Cowley
being one of the quiet species, there is hardly any gaiety
in the diplomatic world ; and as Paris always takes the
tone from the Ambassadors, this has had a damping
effect on the Capital in general.
We never saw Paris dirtier than at the present mo-
ment ; alternations of snow and frost and thaw and rain
have accumulated such a mass of snow and mud in-the
streets, that to walk is almost impossible. The only clean
bit of pavement in the Capital is that which is laid down
in wood on the English fashion in the Rue Neuve des
Petits Champs, and this is tolerably decent.

THE 'HURRICANE IN IRELAND.

LOSS OF LIFE.

The following distressing accounts of the fatal effects
of the late storm, are copied from the Limerick Reporter
of Friday :—The roof of Mr. O'Shea, a bookbinder,
buried his daughter Hannah in its fall ; she has been ex-
tricated, but life was extinct, and the inquest on her
dreadfully mutilated body returned a verdict of " Acci-
dental death." In the adjoining house Mrs. Sarah Jane
Dunne, the wife of one of the day police, had both her
legs badly fractured, and the abdomen and back severely
contused; She was conveyed in a pitiable state to Bar-
rington hospital, where she lies in a very precarious con-
dition, though some hopes are entertained of her recovery.
In one house in John-street five persons were buried
beneath the ruins, all of whom escaped with some imma-
terial bruises. In John-street, Francis Peaford had his
thigh badly fractured. In the same street Mary Pea-
ford received a severe contusion of the back. In Corn-
wallis-street, Bridget Fallaher was severely wounded in
the leg above the allele. All these were removed to
Barrington's /lospital, where they remain under the care
of ,the attending surgeons and physicians.
was In 11krialireyd:
street, Mary Smith, the wife of a shoemaker,
An inquest was held during the day, and a verdict of
" Accidental Death" returned.

The chimney of a house in the English Town fell in,
carrying away the roof to the first floor, and killing a
woman of the name of Smyth.
It is said that the village of Murroe was nearly demo-
lished ; and at Askeaton a house fell, killed one man,
and severely fractured another.
At Cork four poor women were buried by the fall of a
wall in their dwelling. Judith Cunningham had her
right leg literally smashed iu two, while the right temple
i was opened, which must have caused her death ; she
was borne to the shop of Alr. Jones, apothecary, where
she expired in a few moments. The others, Mary and
Ellen Sullivan,. and Mary Collins, were each frightfully
bruised and mangled. They were conveyed as soon as
possible to the South Infirmary ; the second of the suf-
ferers has since died. Another poor creature, Ellen Sul-
livan, of St. Barry's, lies in a most precarious state,
baying both her legs fractured, a severe injury of the
head, and many contusions of the body ; but little hopes
are entertained of her recovery.