The Sun. — 1832-05-04 (London, England)

PETERSBUCII, APRIL 17.—His Excellency Ma-shal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, Ambassador from his Maj.sty the King of the French to our Court, arrived here on the 18th, in the evening. The lonacs bridge was moving, and the ice in the Newar is broken up, so that the communication between Was,ely and Ostrog and the left bank is wholly. intercepted.—St. Pele?sburqh Journal, April 18.  It is rumoured that " a split" has taken place among "the waverers," some of the more liberal are said to be disposed to support the 10/. franchise, to which the others are opposed. Lords HARROWBY and WHARNCLIFFE are reported to entertain opposite sentiments on the occasion.  A Society has lately been formed under the title of " the Society for the Diffusion of Information on the subject of Criminal Punishments," of which his Royal Highness the Duke of SUSSEX, whose name is connected with every enlightened and benevolent institution, is patron. The laws of England have been too justly compared with those of Draco. Their sanguinary severity, however, is not, as many perscns are inclined to believe, a relic of former barbarism, but is for the most part of comparatively modern date. Treason, murder, rape, arson, were the only crimes, by the ancient common law, punishable with death ; but between the years 1660 and 1819 upwards of 180 (different offences were made subject to the same penalty, and the more recent statutes have in reality done but little to remedy the evil.  A speech made by Sir WILLIAM MEREDITH, in the House of Commons, in the year 1777, on debating a Bill for affixing the penalty of death to a crime not previously so punished, has been lately published as a tract by the above Society, in which he observes that—" When a Member of Parliament brings in a new hanging law, he begins with mentioning some injury that may be done to private property, for which a man is not yet liable to be hanged, and then proposes the gallows as the specific and infallible means of cure and prevention,"—which he afterwards observes, " in process of time leads to making crimes capital that scarcely deserve whipping." He then gives the following account :  " Under this Act, one Mary Jones was executed, whose case I shall just mention ; it was at the time when the press-warrants were issued, on the alarm about Falkland Islands. The woman's husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debt of his, and she, with two small children, turned into the streets a-begging. 'Tis a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under nineteen) and must remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak ; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down ; for this she was hanged. Her defence was (I have the trial in my pocket) that she had lined in credit and wanted for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her; but since then, she had no bed to lie on ; nothing to give her children to eat, and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.' The parish officers testified the truth of this story. But it appears there had been a good deal of shoplifting about Ludgate ; an example was thought necessary; and this woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of some shopkeepers in Ludgatestreet. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a distracted,i breastand when despondingshe stateseto u;i for andTtyhbn ( euerhi suckingldgraallwsys. i her  We doubt whether the records of any age or country can furnish a case of greater infamy, or a greater disgrace to national jurisprudence. " Take all the circumstances together," says Sir \VILLIAM MEREDITH, " 1 do not believe a fouler murder was ever committed against law, than of this woman by law," and justly adds, that « the true hangman is the Member of Parliament—he who frames the bloody law, is answerable for the blood that is shed under it." The law under which MARY JONES suffered