3 AUGUST 1844, Page 2

Two attempts to assassinate Kings have been made—in Prussia, and

in Greece. Neither can be construed to mean much. The pistol directed at FREDERICK WILLIAM was aimed by a disap- pointed man, whose petitions had been rejected : it was a case of private malice. In Greece, a mad sergeant of gendarmerie, disap- pointed in a money-claim on the Government, tried to force him- self into King OTUO'S presence, and was brought to the ground, wounded, but not mortally, by the bayonet of a sentinel. These outrages, we say, mean little—they prove nothing peculiar in the politics of the two countries. In neither act was any political question mooted : the assassins were not bookish in their deadly ambition, like FiEscus; it was simply private interest warring with authority,—a conflict to which any social system is exposed, in any time and place. In perfectly savage life, conflicts between man and man are endless: social order, in the person of its officer, ex- poses itself to bear the brunt of such conflicts, that it may quell the spirit of turbulent animosity ; and each such danger incurred by the minister of social order, be he King, Lord of the Treasury, Private Secretary, or any other, is a sacrifice in place of hundreds and thousands of others that else would invade private life. The occurrence may remind us, that if we are still so far removed from perfect civilization as to be familiarized with pistols and daggers, we have yet made some way in putting a check upon them.