Glasgow Courier. — 1846-02-10 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

TUESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 10.  For the proceedings in Parliament on Friday the reader is referred to the usual abstract. They were not of a kind to tall for remark.  We are still without any foreign news of general importance. The Paris journals of Wednesday acquaint us with another signal triumph of the French ministers over the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies. It turned upon an amendment of M. 'Unit on "the Right of Search" question, when, on a division, the ministry had a majority of 73 in a house of WI. As a matter of course, this event affords a subject for speculation to the Parisian papers, but there is nothing in their remarks that would interest our readers. Latest accounts from Madrid inform us that the address of the Chamber of Deputies in reply to the speech from the throne was voted on the 29th ult. The rumour that obtained of the resignation of Senor Mon, the Spanish Minister of Finance, proves to have been one of the baseless fabrications of the hour. . hind  The intelligence brought from India by the last ovens. mail is more important than any that has reached this country for the last five years. Meagre as the details are there can be no doubt that the Governor-General had succeeded in defeating his assailants, though not without a hard struggle; for the Sikhs are a brave race, awl have been long subjected to a strict military organisation. Their irruption into the British territory was anticipated before Lord Ellenborough left India, and it was that muchabused but able nobleman who collected on the frontier that force which has now repelled them. Runjeet Singh, the last Maharajah, was a man of ability, and, like the rest of his countrymen, a soldier.. His life was devoted to the formation of a native army which, under French officers, became the most effective that Asia has seen since the days of the Mahrattas. His government was n purely military despotism, the only one, seemingly, fitted for thesi) regionS; on his death (in 1842, if we remember rightly), it fell to pieces. Since then the Sikh territory has been the scene of anarchy, bloodshed, and revolution. The soldiery kept together,_ and have acted the part of the prtetorian bands of imperial Rome, controlling what remained of the old executive, and exercising a frightful tyranny over the inhabitants. The love of plunder would appear to have led them across the Sutlej, and the result of Sir H. Hardinge's victory will probably be their dispersion, and the restoration of something like a government at Lahore. The country on the left, or eastern, bank of the Sidlej which has been annexed to the British dominions is represented as sterile, but as it feeds droves of wild horses the presumption is in favour of its being good pasture land. The chief, indeed the only, advantage of the conquest, however, is, that it gives us the river as a frontier; and the presumption is that when the inhabitants are relieved from the tyranny of the native rulers it will turn out to be a more valuable acquisition than it is supposed to be. The next mail will be looked for with great anxiety, as till its arrival we can know nothing of the details of this important battle.  We publish in another column the conclusion of a trial for murder which has excited considerable interest in England. One Johnstone, captain of a ship from London to China, killed three of his men on the passage homewards. On his arrival in the Thames he charged the crew with mutiny, an investigation ensued, the real facts came out, and the captain was committed to take his trial for murder. No ! defence was offered, but the circumstances were alleged to be so unaccountable that nothing but insanity could explain them, and the jury have, accordingly, acquitted him on that plea. We confess that we do not understand this kind of reasoning, and that we look with no slight alarm to its practical application. This man was perfectly rational till he took to brandy supplied to him by a French vessel ! which he met on the voyage, and the only evidences of insanity which he exhibited were clearly such as strong drinks produce. Formerly this used to be considered an aggravation, but now it is an extenuation, and a jury is complaisant enough to acquit the culprit because he was drunk when he murdered 'three of his crew. If the theory of law be defective on this point it should be remedied forthwith, otherwise -the trial by jury will become something worse than a farce, •t will become a nuisance.