The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-11 00:00:00

ABOLITION OF PUBLIC OFFICES.—On the 28th inst.
an Act will come into operation, under which a number
of offices in the Court of Chancery will be abolished.
The offices are the clerks of ennshnent and their
deputies, comptrollers of the hanaper, six clerks,
sworn clerks, and waiting clerks, except as to the
recovery of bygone fees, and to certain rights. The
duties hitherto performed in the offices mentioned are,
after the day stated, to he transferred to other persons.
The Lord Chancellor is to fix the compensation allow-
ance to persons whose offices are abolished. Orders
are to be made with the sanction of the other equity
Judges, or any two of them, and the Lord Chancellor,
with such consent, can stay the operation of the Act
for a period not exceeding six months. The expenses
of the Act are directed to be paid out of the interest
arising on the money in the Bank of England. Another
Act was passed, which will come into operation on
the Ist January next, abolishing certain offices on the
revenue side of the Court of Exchequer. The officers
are the first and second secondaries, of sworn and
side clerks, of registrars, and of bag-bearer in the
Remembrancer's-office. The parties are to be awarded
compensation, to be fixed by the Lords of the Trea-
sury. The Court of Exchequer to make certain fees,
and, from the Act coming into force, attorneys of the
superior Courts to practice on the revenue side of the
Exchequer.
TILE NORTH MIDLAND RAILWAY INQUIRY.—We
hear that the reductions proposed by the Committee
are to the large amount of between 17,0001. and
18,0001. a-year, out of an expenditure (on the esta-
blishment, including wages and salaries of all kinds)
of about 44,0001. a-year.—Derby Reporter.
A letter from Vienna of the 20th ult. says:—" The
municipality of our capital has just completed an
establishment unique in its kind in Germany, or per-
haps in the world—a swimming school for the winter.
The premises of this useful institution are composed
of a room of red marble, 163 feet long and 46 wide,
covered with a vaulted roof of glass supported by 18
cast-iron columns with composite capitals. In the
middle of the room is the basin, 122 feet long and 4C
wide, lined with earthenware, behind which are pipes
for conveying steam, in order to kLep the water at a
certain temperature. Round the room are two rows
of closets tar dressing, heated, as well as the room
itself, by hot air. Twelve huge lustres for gas, sus-
pended from the roof, give light to the place until
eleven o'clock at night."

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
CHRONICLE.— The Ministerial journals
would have done much better -to have attended
to our advice in the beginning. From what
errors, inconsbitencies, and needless advocacy 01
the most shameful and untenable doctrines
would they not have been preserved, had they
allowed Lord Ellenborough's conduct to remain
undefended as it was obviously indefensible.
When the intelligence of the order to retreat
was first published, it was boldly justified, one
day upon the ground of the impracticability of
the march to Caubul, another of the danger to
the prisoners by which it would be attended.
For a moment, however, the fact of the order
having been issued was never questioned. Times,
Herald, Post, and Standard, all admitted it :
" Lord Elleuborough has issued the order," said
they, " but he could not avoid it. Under the
circumstances it was the most politic thing he
could do. It is wholly impossible for either
General Pollock or General Nott to advance to
Canbul ; and even if they could advance, their
doing so would only expose the prisoners to
ceri am destruction. Therefore Lord Ellenbo-
rough has judged and acted wisely in ordering
the troops to retreat." The next mail arrives,
and lo ! the Governor-General has counter-
manded his firstorchlk .944, notwithstanding all
the weighty considerations of policy and human-
ity, both General Pollock and General Nott have
been ordered to advance. Did we not tell you
it would be so? On the sth of September we
noticed an observed m of a writer in the Times,
which was to the effect that " a forward move-
ment would not take place unless it was ordered
from home," and we then remarked—" Most
fortunately the move in advance has been ordered
from home, and will be carried into etffect, Bat
it will be in violation of the orders of the Gorer-
nor-General of India." We spoke confidently,
and not upon light grounds. The Government
writers, however, were confounded by the sup-
position that upon a question of such magnitude
Sir Robert Peel should take a course so directly
in opposition to Lord Ellenborougo. They ven-
tured
it. In repeating our state-
ment
to
we
referred,
deny
in justification of Sir no:

bert Peel, to the express promises which he had
given to the house of Commons. We were told
that these promises were only given " under the
influence of then•eneral excitement that prevailed
at the time," and that it would be " very unfair
to hold Sir It. Peel to the strict letter of his en-

gagement." pitiful appeal we answered
(on September 13)—" We must interpose to
protect Sir Robert Peel from the imputations

.
east upon him by his own supporters. Events
will justify his policy and our anticipation. The
Right Hon. Baronet meant what he said when
he undertook to redress the reverses of the last
campaign, and that policy towhichhe has solemnly
pledged his Government he will carry into effect..
For a season he must endure, as the head
of the Government, the disgrace which
the dastardly conduct of the Governor-Gene-
ral of India has cast, not alone upon
the Ministry which appointed him, but upon
the country to which he belongs. But the
orders subsequently sent from England, and
which most probably the next mail will tell us
have been acted upon, if they do not altogether
exculpate Ministers, will at least limit their
responsibility to the secondary offence of having
handed over our Eastern empire to the manage-
ment of a man so shallow, heartless, and con-
ceited as Lord Ellenborough." And yet with
this controversy in recollection, some of these
very journals have now the coolness to charge us
with want of due caution ill considering the order
to retreat! We have throughout the contro-
versy done the Government the justice, done it
in opposition to the earnest protests of all their I
own writers, of declaring our well-grounded be-
lief that they would be no parties to the das-
tardly fatuity of their Indian servants. We
knew and said, that come whit would, Minis-
ters would order an advance upon Caubul.
POST.—A Correspondent at Calcutta, who
has access to the best sources of
political infor-
illation, has favoured us with a communication
which enables us to assert, in the most unquali- '
fled terms, that the Governor-General of India
never !rave an order, either to General Pollock
or to any other officer, tar the evacuation of Aff-
ghanistan by the British troops; and to assert,
moreover, that Lord Ellenborough,
from the
moment of his arrival in India to the date of our
Correspondent's letter, never used any language,
privately or officially—no single word, by tongue
or pen—importing that his Lordship contem-
plated the withdrawal of the British force• from
Affghanistan, until everything
the honour of Great Britain and the mainte-
nance of her character, authority, and pre-emi-
nence in India could be supposed to require.
We learn from the Correspondent above referred
to, upon whose information we implicitly
rely,
that whatever military
movements may recently
have taken place at Candahar and Jellalabad,
and whatever may be their object, those move-
ments are not the result of immediate instruc-
tions front London, but of the deliberate, cohe-
rent, and unvaccilating system of policy adopted
by the present Governor-General, and pursued •
without the slightest deviation, even for a mo-
ment, since his Lordship's arrival in India—a
policy always in harmony with the wishes and
the determination of the British Cabinet, with
which his Lordship's mind was so fully imbued
before he left England, that he could
feel no
difficulty, and incur little risk of error, in
(riving to those wishes and that determination
''their due application and proper force in
every conceivable emergency. We heartily
condole with the Morning Chronicle on the
discovery that the innumerable columns of
eloquent and patriotic indignation which it has
bestowed upon Lord Ellenborough's order for
the British artily to retire within the line of the
Indus have been thrown away upon a mere
phantasy. No such order was ever issued. No
such order will be issued. Oil the c mtrary, the
most diligent, strenuous, and systematicexertions
have been made to restore the British army to an
efficient state fbr the execution ofsuch operations
as may be necessary fbr the recovery of the Bri-
tish prisoners now in the hands of the Affghans,
and fbr obtaining such further satisfaction as na-
t iome ls lior:ottiisr od requires
by
i exact for the savage ex-
pof a war into which the Indian Government had
dvee
emv statesmen,eo(riaverted
o
repaired the
eosis c(nrubsar to b a r i a n
fo
e,
in the course
rushed, regardless alike of policy, humanity, and
justice. When theseobjectsare achieved, the whole
immediatepurposeofthe present Indian Govern-
ment,inAffghanistan,willhaveheenaccomplished;
and Lord Ellenborough will have fulfilled in India
what seems the proper and natural function and
at home and
the errors of his
Whig predecessor, and a
abroad,destiny oinf Cboatlirsinegrvartei
national calamities they were calculated to pro-
duce. We also assert, with perfect confidence
that we shall be justified by the future course of
en‘'etnnak
tsi,the aattnhy further e B.rittbiselrt Government
attempt
to of India will
o
conquer Aff-
glianistan, with a view to the permanent occupa-
tion of that country. It is universally felt, both
in Great Britain and in India, that 110 military
operations ought to be undertaken in • k .
- fighanis-
tan, beyond what may be m
needful for obtaining
the prisoners, and rescuingthe British name fro
the disgrace which the
mad enterprise of the
Whig Government has brought upon it. The ,
invasion of the Affghan territory Was a grossly
unjustifiable proceeding from the beginning, and
to persevere in it for one m t loner
,onger than
we are compelled to do by the necessity of re.
trieving the misfortunes and disgrace it has occa-
sioned, would be utterly unworthy of art honest
Conservative Government.
TIMES.—Our reader will have seen with
much interest in our Saturday's paper the 40=
A COM Of the defence of KI I maw. ,hii4ie by
Captain Craig, a defence not inferior in the pa-
tience and courage with which it has been car-
ried through to the noble efforts or General
Sale's ferce at Jelialabad. We doubt not the
officers and corps who have submitted with
x
cheerfulness and constancy to the • •
riYatintba
there detailed, will not be tiefrowiii Ott their
treed of distinction il 011 Pflwartl- We would also
call attention to the verY just observations of our
Hyderabad Correspondent upon the services of
General Nutt.
" It is strange," be
says; u that while laudatory
orders have been Flared forth upon Sale and Pollock,
and not less than either well merited, General Nott
should have been treated with comparative neglect,
But for his admirable maintenance of his positi(ol at
Candahar, and his entire repeated nvarthrews of the
rebel forces, the rebel fgrpes would have acquired
strength, and the destruction of that arm,7.,
might have