LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

Wellington Independent, Volume VI, Issue 506, 17 August 1850, Page 3

LATEST ENGLISH NEWS.

Mr. Wortley's Marriage Bill has passed a second reading, in spite of very active resistance on the usual grounds. Mr. Roebuck, one of the most conspicuous among the resisters, declared his conviction that such marriages as that which the bill is to legalize, between a widower and his sister-in-law, is not forbidden by the laws of God or of Nature; but lie opposed a chango in our social arrangements, since it would tend to destroy a very delightful and beneficial sisterly relation. Mr. Roebuck's argument is based on two fallacies, remarkable in one who aims to reason so closely. The bill proposes to abrogate a disabling law. Now disabling laws should be as limited as possible in their application, and should, not restrain parties from acting on their own convictions unless the thing prohibited is bad in itself. Mr. Roebuck would prevent A and B from marrying, because C and D, and many others'perhaps, wish it to be understood that they have no intention of marrying: a negative intention which they would be perfectly free to carry out without putting any compulsion ou A and B. The other fallacy at the bottom of Mr. Roebuck's argument is, that a brother-and-sister relation between man and woman is only to be maintained by prohibitions; which is a very serious error—as the experience of many Continental countries might show. If we are to admit that persons allied by family ties cannot reside together without overpassing that relation, we pronounce the English to be less moral and less sensible to simple affection than some foreign nations. Exclude the theological argument, whfeh is a question disputed among the best theologians, and the prohibition rests upon a very absurd and unjust ground—it restrains certain parties from marrying because others do not wish to marry.—• Spectator, March 9.

Opening of the Britannia Tubular Bridge.—The first Train through Menai Straits.—Tuesday Afternoon. —The opening of this magnificent structure came off this day, with the grandest success, at dawn. At half-past 6 o'clock, a.m , three powerful engines, the Cambria, the St. David, and the Pegasus, of from fifty to sixty horse power each, decorated with flags of all nations and union jacks, steamed up and harnessed together, started from the Baugor station, carrying Mr. Stephenson, Mr. Bidder, the engineer, Mr. Tevethick, locomotive manager of the London and North Western Railway, Mr. Edwin Clark and his brother Mr. Latinier Clark, Mr. Appold, and Mr. Lee. At precisely seven o'clock they swept over the threshold of the stupendous fabric, and progressing at a speed, of seven miles an hour, were lost sight of in the recess of the iron corridor. The total weight of the locomotives was ninety tons. They were, brought to a standstill in the centre of each of the great spans, and rested with the weight of all wheels on the floor of the tube, but without causing the slightest strain or deflection. The first process, that of going through the tube and returning, occupied altogether ten minutes. But another and more critical ordeal had to follow—to ascertain how the vast machine was capable of sustaining the equilibrium of forces; and the result was such as to prove beyond cavil, the accuracy of the first experimental conclusions arrived at by Mr. Stephenson and his staff of engineers. The experimental convoy that went through, consisted of twenty-four heavily laden waggons, filled with huge blocks of Bryrnbo coal; in all, engines included, an aggregate weight of 300 tons. This was drawn deliberately through at the rate of from eight to ten miles an hour, the steam working at quarter power. During the passage through the tube, a breathless silence prevailed; and when the train rushad out on the other side loud acclamations arose, followed at intervals by the rattle of artillery down the Straits. Upon" the return, which occupied aboat seven mi

some o'r(? , irn"tanr , .c which has never been rroc'v:'■.■■ .wcertnined, was considered by the W r al!aohs a signal to attack. " Now followed a horrifying scene. One part of the disarmed wore cudgelled to death, others pierced through with pointed mountain sticks. Some hanged on trees, were mangled with hayforks; others thrown into pits wore buried under blocks thrown down upon them. Womefl and maidens were mutilated anl murdered in tho most dreadful manner. " The slaughter lasted long. Rainhold, a German, tho inspector of Zalatuya, to whom clung his wife and two grown up daughters, not seeing any possibility of •averting their dreadful fate, drew out his double pistol, which more distrustful than his companions, he had retained, shot down first his two daughters, loaded

again, shot his wife, and, lastly killed himself. The haste and the excitement, in which he achieved this awful deed, Tendered his hand uncertain, his mutilated wife survived this horrible catastrophe, ->an& related/it. Of 1,200 persons about .'llO remained wounded amongst the bodies of their comrades. Of these survivors about 70 or SO, most of them women, one, thewifo of:the,;jud.ge Csazar, bleeding from countless wounds dragged themselves before the gates of tho fortress of Gyula Jeharvar (Karlsburgh). But ••: the commander of this pkco, which was occupied by Austrian troops, drove the exhausted victims, with blows, from the ■gates, where, after having been refused entrance, they sank powerless to the ground. " These horrors never were pwnished .' by the Austrians, and when, some months - f later, Puchner was driven from Transylvania by General Bern, and Csanyi, as Hungarian Commissary, sentenced several of tho instigators and perpetrators of the above mentioned bloodshed to be hanged, the correspondents of tho Austrian party filled the papers .of; foreign -countries -with declamations on ' Hunga.•risui terrorism.'