The Sun. — 1844-08-24 (London, England)

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1844.  The proceedings which took place at Edinburgh on Wednesday will be read with deep interest by every British subject. After a lapse of half a century justice has been done to the memory of MUIR, and PALMER, and SKIRTING, and the other brave reformers, who dared to raise their voices against corruption and oppression—who risked and lost everything dear in life for their country's cause, who suffered and died, with one exception, like felons—men who advocated principles which were carried into effect in 1832 by the acclamation of the United Empire. It is melancholy to look back on such a scene, to reflect on the savage despotism, and the browbeating of the Scotch bench, the servile imitation of the jury, the atrocious sentence passed on prisoners who are justly entitled to the rank of martyrs in a great and good cause, and at the same time remember that these " felons " paved the way to reform, and only advocated priciples which, forty years afterwards, ,were sanctioned by Kin, Lords and Commons. The scene exhibits a heart-rending picture of human nature. They were all men of irreproachable character ; they were actuated bthe purest feelings of patriotism ; they excited no !edition they merely proclaimed the political doctrines of the' present age ; but they came before their time ' • they were in advance of the spirit of the age, and they were hunted to death like the vile monsters that disgraced the French Revolution. Well may unsettled minds look with doubt on the dispensations of Providence when they find such merit subjected to such fearful inflictions, and the only redress is a public dinner and a monument, forty. five years after most of them had expired in miserable exile, and among the most degraded and wicked of the human race. It is some consolation, however, to know that justice has at last been done to their memory; that an old reformer, who struggled with them in the noble cause of liberty, Sir JAMES GIBSON CRAIG, survived to preside over the meeting ; and that the son of one of these martyrs of the people's rights was present to represent the feelings and the spirit of his murdered parent. But, after all, it is a poor consolation. Scotland can never wipe out the stain by public MOBlLmanta, or banquets, or by universal expressions of  such is ablaost invariably the fact, we saw in the servile insuitection under the leadership of FROST and other Chartist agitators; and, still more recently, in the extensive outbreak in the manufacturing districts, which at one time threatened to involve the whole north of England in anarchy. The strikes of work men, too, which are so frequently occurring in the colliery and mining districts, where education is no toriously at a lower ebb than elsewhere, may be all traced to the same source—the besotted ignorance of those who take part in them, and who, as a necessary consequence, adopt the very means which are the  most certain to increase their distress. Surely, with these facts staring them in the face, Ministers will be greatly to blame if they hesitate any longer to put their shoulder to the wheel, and grapple with the momentous question of education, in a prompt—conciliatory—comprehensive and energetic spirit !  Madrid journals of the 16th have been received. In one of them we find a letter from Algesiras confirming the intelligence from Marshal BUGEAUD, conveyed by the French telegraph. "A report is current," the writer states, "that the bombardment of Tangiers was decided by the arrival of a telegraphic dispatch for Marshal BUGEAUD, in which the Prince de JOINviLLE was informed that the Marshal's troops had had another engagement with 20,000 Moors under