injustice. Such was the result of a trial in the the coolest disregard of their own safety. After Central Criminal Court on Monday; though the the disaster, the crew of the Brazilian ship accept Common Sergeant did his best to mitigate the a reward which they had fairly earned, only that injustice by circumventing the law. William they may hand it over to the sufferers. The Parker was tried for bigamy. It appears that in 1833, when he was a mere boy, he was the victim of a woman twice his age, who affiliated to him her third illegitimate child; and he was put in prison. The sequel is told by the parish clerk of Horsham, who appeared as a witness for the prosecution

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

Paris, Sept. 13th, 1848.

MEDLEY.

Protestantism is slow, or doubtful; the difficulty is to create a sense of the importance of the subject.

66

On Saturday, the Assembly revoked the decree Two days of equinoctial flurry; fine autumnal of the provisional government, which limited daily weather returned; rather too cool. The National labor to ten hours in Paris, and eleven in the provAssembly may, however, rejoice in this circum-inces. The substitution of twelve hours for the stance; their hall is usually between 86 and 90 whole country was adopted after abundant debate, Fahrenheit. They are now debating a truly and with a reserve for contracts which leaves, virevaporative question-the right of labor-by which tually, a universal option. Four ci-devant workthe demagogues and socialists mean obligation of men-representatives-delivered their opinions in the state to provide work for every one who hap- good style, and, what is remarkable, all reasoned pens to be without it; to undertake a universal against any limitation, except for children. Phiguardianship and assurance. Yesterday, an orator losopher Leroux exclaimed: "Deceived generain the tribune being interrupted from the floor, the tions have applauded Napoleon's phrase-I do not President of the Assembly cried to the interrupter: like ideologists—idéologues." Many voices, “He "Let the citizen proceed. If you wish to reply was very much in the right;" others" Nor do to him, you will be the fortieth on the list to be we either." But the Assembly are obliged to yet heard." General Cavaignac was observed to bear with interminable lectures, of algebraic abbe in profound sleep-particularly while M. de straction, made up of pages from old articles of Tocqueville was holding forth against socialism; pamphlets and reviews. "You are radically inin an excellent strain by the way. A nap is a capable of understanding me," said Proudhon. rare enjoyment for the general, whose shoulders " Perfectly true," vociferated the floor. Last week carry a heavier load than the constitutional sove- Leroux concluded a huge chapter with the encourreign bore. A representative-Pelletier, of Ly-aging assurance: "A constitution is indispensaons-formerly a common operative, had a large ble; but a good one is impossible." He was part in the debate; when the call came, from several quarters, Speak louder," he answered, "Open your ears;" then a call to order; he rejoined, “Keep to order, yourselves." He added, "I employ five hands at Lyons; they will earn for me during my absence some two or three thousand francs. What right have I to that money, the sweat of their brow? None whatever. Association of labor is the only title to a share of profit." This idea is widely propagated.

66

་་

deafened with-" Now, Mr. Pierre Leroux, give us your secret-your practical science—your machine —your principle. You are negation personified." Pierre could afford no help; and a motion (yet undecided) was submitted that no member should deliver from the tribune what he had printed for the public.

Cormenin, the chairman of the committee on the constitution, has published a little pamphlet of criticism and ridicule on the scheme adopted On Saturday last, the Abbé Sibour, a member, by the majority. Lamennais left the committee, and brother of the new archbishop, moved that the because his draft was not admitted entire, and the public works should be intermitted on Sundays, so chairman decries the work of the committee, out that the workmen, duly inclined, might attend re- of spite for the rejection of some of his notions. ligious worship. He argued, in a brief and beau- On the appearance of the pamphlet his colleagues tiful discourse, that observance of the Sabbath refused to sit with him any longer, and he was fain was both morally and physically best for the peo- to withdraw altogether. In the pamphlet he pros ple. Cries on all sides-" But the laboring classes ecutes his original hostility to the idea of two must eat on Sunday;-better for them to work branches in the legislative department. "Are we,” than to spend their wages in the tippling-houses.' he asks," two nations, to have two deliberative bodThe abbé urged the edifying example of repub-ies? Are we an aristocracy?" And he adds: lican America; but his motion was not even "If there is any point exploded, in and out of the seconded. The minister of commerce contended Assembly, it is that of a senate; the greatest and against him, with a final declaration that the intermission was absolutely impossible. The National sneers, and says, The Abbé Sibour got nothing from the Assembly: he showed, however, a very pretty knack at preaching. The law of 1814, on the observance of Sundays and religious festivals, fell stone dead under the monarchy; it is not likely to be resuscitated by the republic." The abbé might have protested about the grand military reviews on the Sabbath, which draw a third of the population of the capital to the Champe de Mars. My impression is that not a tenth, perhaps not a twentieth, partake of any religious service or ideas on the Sunday. Females form the great majority in all the churches of France. The progress of

66

the smallest men equally cast it aside." He takes credit to his efforts in the committee, for this fine result. He teaches, also, in his commentary, that the virtue necessary for republican government is found only in the lowest classes of society—le bas de la société; that the middle, whether the official, the lettered, the commercial, lacks all sterling qualities and positive belief; the constitution must be imbued and fashioned accordingly.

The journals accuse M. de Tocqueville of living in the aristocratic contemplation of facts and ideas. The recent number of the Révue des Deux Mondes observes: "For a large proportion of those who are engaged in framing the constitution, it is a task of despair; for others, a mere

The Assembly had already more than once pronounced on the power of the government over the press, and the government did not think it prudent to hand over to parties without control such as the jury, a right which it might employ to weaken either morally or materially the former decisions of the house.

experiment; for all, it is not nor can it be anything | sieur Marie, who achieved his fame and fortune at more than an expedient in a critical juncture; an the bar, by the defence of every journal prosecuted incident in a difficult predicament: we cannot look by the monarchy, and anathematized, on republifar ahead; personal preservation is, and must for can principles, every or any abridgment of the a long time be, the first and almost the only thought freedom of publication, not merely claimed the and business of individuals, and what government privilege of suspension without trial, and at mere soever, in France." The article of the Révue, on will, but went to this length of resiliency : the new constitution, by Albert de Broglie, is an elaborate and able survey of the whole case, dismal enough, unfortunately, in its views and conclusions. We can all testify that nothing is more dreaded by the substantial and orderly folks, and a great majority of the Assembly, than the relinquishment of martial law for the metropolis. This has abundant confirmation in the the votes of more More than four pages of the Moniteur of yesthan the half of the whole nine hundred represen- terday are occupied by a most instructive official tatives, against the bills proposed and vehemently report on the administration of criminal justice in advocated, to transfer the faculty of suspending France during the year 1846. In that year, the journals from the executive to juries and courts of number of suicides was three thousand and two, law. Suspension may amount to suppression and including seven hundred and seventy-three females confiscation of the property; few new subscribers and a hundred and thirty-nine persons between sixcan be hoped for papers of which the editors are teen and twenty-one years old; also twenty-seven not habitually cautious. Nearly all raise a most from ten to fifteen years. The crime is more freindignant outery touching the decree in the Assem-quent in summer and spring, than in winter and bly we may, however, think that those who pre-autumn. Our police returns of suicide show a tend to be respectable and conservative should ab- considerable increase since the Revolution of Febstain from complaint and stricture, rather than inruary. In Germany and Italy, a like augmentasist on that scope for the press with which the tion is officially stated. organs of anarchy could satisfy their supremely pernicious ends. La Réforme says:

Switzerland, with its regulated and rooted democracy, maintains internal peace and external neutrality, in honorable contrast with the rest of Europe. It lately pleased the British chargé d'affaires at Berne to ask the Vorort if the confederation meant to submit the new Swiss constitution to the cabinet of Great Britain. The answer was:

The National Assembly is treating the press with a rigor which afflicts, although it does not astonish us. After having inundated us with professions of faith, circulars, and oaths in favor of the republic; after having glorified in every tone, the freedom of thought-when they were candidates-"Doubtless it will be formally communicated to our masters of the day-messieurs the representa- all the European governments according to diplotives are now vying with each other for the sad matic usage; but, as for requesting the sanction honor of gagging us. The law they have made us

subject to is a cruel violation of right; it is a for- of any European power, and of England in parmal contradiction to the victory of February, to the ticular, Switzerland will not do this, until the cabprinciple established amongst us of old of freedom of controversy, to that sacred prerogative of inquiry, which, having been twice infringed, has twice been the cause of redoubtable explosions; it is, as has been said by an orator, who cannot be suspected of being a demagogue, M. Victor Hugo, censorship and confiscation suspended from hour to hour over our heads.

inet of St. James shall deem it proper to submit, with the same view, the British constitution to the Swiss federal authorities." The Journal des Débats, of yesterday, informs us that the philosophi cal friends of peace, of the two hemispheres, have instituted in Great Britain a society called the League of Universal Fraternity. Its journal or organ is issued at Birmingham, in England, and at Worcester, Massachusetts, by Mr. Elihu Burritt, your learned or philanthropic and errant blacksmith. A grand meeting of the society is to be held next week in this capital, Paris, and about a hundred respectable persons, representing the principal cities of Great Britain, mean to attend. Their main purpose is to compass the erection of a Supreme Court of Nations to arbitrate international differences. Some fifty or a hundred other amateur cosmopolites are expected.

Victor Hugo now stands ambitiously the antagonist of the executive. In the speech to which La Réforme refers, he expressed the hope that nothing he might utter would be applied to the honorable chief of the executive power, personally. Cavaignac cried from his seat-" I can assure you that I am perfectly easy on that head." The soldier holds cheap both the transcendental poets. Altaroche, editor of the Charivari that never spared the Orleans monarchy for its restraints on the press, actually read in the tribune a studied Assuredly, never were sound lessons and effiargument for non-interference with the executive cient tribunals of fraternity and peace more needed in the matter of the journals, and for all latitude in Europe than at this era. It is not international to martial law" exceedingly harsh indeed, but war alone that is to be denounced and remedied, necessary." And the minister of justice, Mon- but civil animosity and conflict beyond any simul

taneous pictures of the kind noted in modern his- Inience or disadvantage for France-if they retory. We have the very theatre of the grand solved to emigrate thither, like the Arcadian commanifestation of the League of Universal Frater-munists; but I do not counsel them to this course. nity threatened with general carnage and pillage Be assured, gentlemen, that democracy and soat every moment; several of the principal cities cialism are not at all identical—they are, in fact, and provinces of France are now disturbed by an- contradictory; democracy is equality with full libarchical and sanguinary riots; London is armed erty; socialism is universal thraldom; the absorpand quaking from fear of chartist excesses; Ireland tion of all liberty-equality only in the negation filled with troops to crush insurrection; Vienna of what democracy gives and assures." (Bravos and Berlin are subject to mob-law, and likely to be very well, from various quarters of the hall.) visited with new battles between the governments Pelletier, the Lyons operative, mentioned above, and the clubs, and the multitude and the soldiery; stated in his speech, that he reckoned the so-called elsewhere in Germany (as at Mayence and Mu- working-classes in France at eight millions-(not nich) much effusion of blood in the same way: the farmers and masters inclusive)-of whom, the inhabitants of the northern duchies are at drawn two millions tolerably well-off-two millions living daggers with each other and the old rulers; the from hand to mouth-au jour le jour; two milHungarians and Croats engaged ferociously in mu- lions absolutely indigent, and the remaining two tual slaughter; the Bohemians ready to rebel and millions, beggars and vagrants with wallets. A fight anew; Genoa lately a scene of devastating cry from the floor-"But what of the tipsyists and murderous feuds; Leghorn is still worse cir- and drunkards?" Answer: "They are wretched; cumstanced; the king of Naples is bombarding they drink to drown care and misery; they have not, Messina again, and though-as we are told-re-like you, for relief or pastime, theatres, balls, conpulsed by the heroic prowess of the Sicilians, pre-certs; they cannot command bottles of champagne." paring to return with increased forces, to the as- It appears, by an official return, that in 1846, sault upon both the Sicilian capitals. in France, the number of persons drowned was

In Spain, Carlist insurrections, partisan war-three thousand eight hundred and sixty-one; of fare, military executions, progressist conspiracies, the crushed to death by horses and vehicles, six arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and banishment. hundred and twenty-four; and the fatal rail-road In Moldavia and Wallachia, Russian invasion, accidents only forty-five-hence, a conclusion much Turkish occupation. Hostilities are likely to be in favor of this mode of conveyance: the cabrioresumed between the Germans and Danes, and lets of Paris furnish the most cases to the hosthe issue of the French and British mediation be-pitals.

tween the Austrians and Italians remains proble- In my epistle by the steamer United States, matical. If it be not successful a general conti- from Havre, which, owing to the mishap of that nental war must ensue. In Silesia, the peasantry vessel cannot reach you early, I mentioned the are burning the castles. recent discussions in the Academy of Sciences, Let me translate for you the passage concern-respecting the Leverrier planet, and calculations. ing our republic in M. de Tocqueville's speech of The Comptes Rendus of the sittings of the 21st the 11th inst. "I will now venture to notice the ult. and 11th inst., are highly interesting on this true origin of the word democracy. I do not head. Monsieur Babinet, first in natural philosomean to run through a dictionary of Greek roots-phy, produced his memoir on the real position of it is enough to seek the true and unequivocal the planet which he supposes to be situated bedemocracy there where I saw it thoroughly vital, yond Neptune, and to be complementary to it, and unremittingly active, completely triumphant—the which he provisionally dubs Hyperion. He sets only country of the world where it can be seen, out with such remarks as these: The identity of and where it has been able to found something the planet Neptune with the theoretical planet of truly great; you must perceive that I refer to the M. Leverrier, is no longer admitted by anybody; United States of America." (Cries from the since such enormous differences have been ascerfloor, "We expected this—an old story—an old tained in the respective mass, the term of revolustory.") De Tocqueville in continuation—“Yes, tion-distance from the sun-eccentricity-and you will distinguish there a people on a truly even longitude. Babinet refers particularly to the equal footing-in a condition far less unequal than observations made and published in America. Proours; a people incessantly engaged, through all fessor B. Pierce, to whose papers on the planet forms and degrees of the political hierarchy, in Neptune, Leverrier transmitted a reply, which regulating every public concern; and every indi- was inserted in No. 9 of the excellent Cincinnati vidual of whom enjoys, nevertheless, perfect indi- Sidereal Messenger, must rejoice in the present vidual freedom. So far from prevailing in that sequel to his able investigations. French astrorepublic, the theories of socialism have acquired nomical authority now ratifies his assertion that so little influence, that they have not the right to the planet Neptune is not that to which geometsay they have excited any apprehension. That is rical analysis had directed the telescope." The the country to which, indeed, the professors of reporters say "The planet Neptune, discovered socialism could hold out the least promise of ben- by Galle at Berlin, is not the planet invented by efit from their crudities. For my part, I should Leverrier. This is a fact assured to science and not be sorry, I should not discover much inconve- truth. The French astronomer has lost his

The discussions in the British parliament, and the editorial articles, and communications, in the London Times, concerning Vancouver's Island, cannot fail to attract the attention of American statesmen, and commercial projectors. It may be directed, also, to the British jealousy of the Dutch possessions and enterprises in the east, as that feeling breaks out in London articles replete with interesting details. Your legislators should glance at the long report of the evidence taken before the committee of the British House of Commons on the best means of conducting the business of that body. The four columns of the speaker's testi

planet." Babinet adds-" We should have to | institutions, and of the patients in general. Jewait half a century yet, before the perturbations rome Paturot in search of the best of the Republics, of Neptune, and of Uranus by that planet, would in two duodecimos, by Louis Reybaud, is the new manifest its existence. We must, therefore, seek work of the hour, the most sought and relished. another, whose action, combined with that of Nep-It is a pleasant, ingenious, good-tempered and intune, would occasion the perturbations observed." structive satire. His previous adventures of the Professor Pierce, however, announced to the sci- same hero, of the same cast, acquired for his pen, entific and most meritorious editor of the Messen- considerable, and just popularity. ger, "the important fact, that Neptune will account for all the perturbations of Uranus with the most surprising accuracy.' On the 11th inst., Leverrier read to the Academy his explanations, in reply to Babinet and the American astronomers. The reporters of the sitting do not deem them satisfactory. They state that the great geometrician was more modest and limited in his claims, than he appeared to be at first all his argumentation consists in showing that the nature of his calculations did not admit of greater exactness; that any other in his place would have been as much mistaken as himself; and that, in estimates of this kind, nothing more is required of astrono-mony are entitled to special heed. The American mers. They continue-" He has real and mighty evidence seems to have left a salutary impression. deserts, by his very difficult and admirable calcu- Even the Times concedes that something directly lations, really useful to science, but his achieve- useful may be learnt from the practice of Conments were overrated; they fell far short of his gress. The question of the French colonies is original pretensions. He pronounced the tele- much handled in the Paris journals; the measures scope to be of little use any longer; he described of the provisional government are generally conhis planet as an astre perfectly determined; as- demned; the amount of the proposed indemnity tronomy was, at some period, to trace in the to the slave-proprietors, ninety millions of franes, heavens the route of many planets which would by instalments through several years, is probe visible only to the mind's eye of the geometri-nounced too small-not a third of what should be cian." The title of one report runs thus-"Nep-accorded to save the colonies from utter ruin. tune is not the planet calculated by Leverrier-The right of refining their sugars, and freedom cruel mystification-notable differences-suicidal of navigation, are equally insisted on by their delconfession of Leverrier-the Hypérion of Babinet -what the astronomers will discover, &c."

egates. The generosity exercised at New Orleans towards the fugitives from Martinique, obtains proper acknowledgment and praise. Fifty millions of francs, in a few annual instalments, asked by the department of war, for its project of colonizing Algeria with French citizens, are likely to be voted by the Assembly.

Paris, 14th Sept., 1848.

WE are in a ferment, caused by the canvass for the elections on Sunday next to three vacant seats in the National Assembly. Cabet, Raspail, and Thoré, are the candidates of the red republic, named by its clubs and the corporations of workmen. Fear of the success of these dangerous demagogues, and the manœuvres of the votaries of Prince Louis Napoleon, all over France, to get him a host of

On the 4th, the Academy of Sciences received from the traveller Rossignon, an account of a tree, myrica cerifera, a species of laurel, which secretes a wax suitable for the same uses as that of bees. There are "precious forests" of it in Guatimala, from Rio Polochie to the borders of Yucatan, and it might be exported by the Atlantic Ocean. He submitted a memoir on the natural productions of Central America, in which he observes that no part of the world exhibits more traces of geological bouleversements. The Institute is about to issue the 21st and 22d volumes of the Literary History of France, which was begun by the Benedietines in 1733, and has been continued since 1808 by an erudite committee. Some great manuscript Provençal poems, little known, are cited among the contents of these volumes: period, the end of the thirteenth century. The Compte Ren-suffrages, affected the Paris exchange, yesterday; du of the Academy of Sciences, published on the 10th inst., comprises an extract from an important memoir of the eminent surgeon, C. Sedillot, On the Means of assuring the Success of the Amputation of Limbs. It appears that not more than a third of the wounded in the Four Days of June, who suffered amputation, have survived. There is more success in the Provincial hospitals, owing to the better condition (ventilation, &c.) of those

stagnation first, decline of stocks before the evening. The corners of all the streets are covered with electioneering placards. This morning, I was first struck with an immense blue sheet. "Triple Protest. Dignity, Firmness, Independence: Napoleon, Girardin, E. Thomas." Girardin is the editor whom General Cavaignac confined for a fortnight; E. Thomas, the director of the national ateliers, whom the minister of public