Star. — London, England, 1813-10-05 00:00:00

. • •;.) eowirr OF COMMON COUNCIL. Yesterday.a Court •of Common Council was held • if Guildhall,. in consequence of a Requisition pre tented to the LOUD MAYott by several respectable Members, requesting his Lordship would convene a • Court, to take into consideration the present high Price of Bread, which hai been kept up in 4, most alarMing degree, unprecedented after so abundant an Harvest as- P4I)VIDE4'/CE hasbeen. pleased to bless • us with." . '• • After the Minutes of the last Court had been read, • • end some routine business had been disposed of,. • Mr. S. DI X ON mrved, that the new Sheriffs be in vited to take their seats on the Bench; which was agreed to. The Requisition upon which the Court bid been convened, having been read by the Clerk, The LORD 'MAYOR read a letter he had received from the Lord Mayor Elect, intimating that he con 'sented to take upon himself the office to which he had been elected. • • His Lordship also communicated to the Court, that he had received letters frem Generals Sir T. • Graham and Sir R. Hill, acknowledging the receipt of the letters, conveying to them the Vote of Thanks - .of the Court.—These letters were ordered to be en tered on the Journals. A letter was also read from Commissioner Palmer, requesting permission of the Court to have the use of The Guildhall, for holding his Court for discharging the Insolvent Debtors confined in the city'Prisons. The letter having been read, was complied with ; and it was ordered, that such. parts of the Hall as the Lord Mayor should think fit should be appropriated to Mr. Commissioner Palmer's nse. On the motion of Mr. QUIN, it was ordered, that the Statutes of the Court shoold be put in order, for' the perusal of the Members. HIGH PRICE OF BREAD. On the motion of Mr. GRIMM, the Requisition for calling the Court was again read ; when Mr. GRIPPITHS regretted that it had not fallen to other hands than his to bring forward this subject, but as it had fallen to his lot, he should detain the Court very shortly. He was persuaded, that the Act regulating the Assize. of Bread was not effective ; there were many loop-holes through which a bad man Might escape : this, he believed, was known to all who heard him. He did not believe the Bakers were the men who were guilty of the misconduct, or who had the profits: he considered they were the injured men; their profits were fixed, and fixed at so low a rate, it was almost impossible they could live upon them. Indeed, so poor were they generally, that, al though he had known the Corporation of London near SQ years, he had never known a Baker either Lord Mayor or Sheriff, or rich enough to fine for Sheriff ; or had he ever known a Baker even drank to.— (Hear, hear. )—But such was not the state of the Mealmen and Flour Factors, they were rich : and they, he contended, were many of them - combined fcr the purpose of robbing the public.' These were his opinions; he wished to protect the Bakerd, but he wished to put an end to this system of plundei on the public. He should detain the Court no longer than to submit the following motion, viz : 4tf That this Coln do recommend to thi Court of Aldermen to take tratsionlideration the propriety of applying to Parliament for a Bill-to revise and reduce ail the present Acts relating to the Price of Bread into ooe Act ; and to consider the propricy of intro ducing into that Act a Clause to compel Meal-factors, Comfactors, Millers, and flour-factors, to make Returns to the Lord Mayor of the quantity of Grain and Flour sold by them, in the URIC %latter as the Bakers at present were obliged to do; and that a Committee, consisting of the Lord Mayor, all the Aldtrmen, situ! a Commoner from each Woad, should be appointed to carry Ibis Resolution intd eNeet." Mr. HARPER felt considerable pleasure in seconding the motion : he was convinced abuses existed, which if they were investigated would call most loudly and imperatively fer the interference of the Court. ' Mr. S. Dom uas persuaded the Court would pause before they proceeded rashly on this subject ; and, if they . should ultimately think it right to inter fere with the price of Bread, they would set about it as . senbible men, and first Consider whether the pre sent laws on the subject were inefficient, and if they were so, in what the inefficiency lay? Having done this with due deliberation, they knight then apply a remedy to the evil. He had lived long enough in London to see that all interference' with the price of provisions had proved injurious, and so he was per= ;traded it would prove in the present instance. No Resolution which, the Court could adopt would force any body of men to sell their commodity under the price they wished. Nor did• he believe any body of men would long be able to keep up the price of a commodity beyond the fair 'value. He was of opinion -an open competition would be the best mode of ob taining the object which all must have -in view, namely, to obtain, at a fair price, an wholesome and snort important part of the sustenance of men for the public. With respect to _the present' high price of I'louf, he was of opinion it was owing to the long and at this season of the year unusual drought, which had , prevented the full supply of Fleur reaching the mar. ket, that evil would soon cease, and a Ind supply would soon reduce the price. Mr. Alderman Wows, when he heard of this ques tion, was at a loss to conceive how the worthy Moser of this Resolution would bring the subject forward. He now found that all the worthy Gentleman intended to recommend was a Retolution to go to the Court of Aldermen. This was somewhat strange, for du ring 22 weeks that the price of Bread had remained so high, the Lord Mayor bad never, as his prede cessors had done, thought fit to consult the Court of Aldermen. This was, in his opinion, an insult to the Court of Aldermen. Sir J. Shaw had done so in his Mayoralty ; and he had frequently heard that Wor thy Gentleman say, that dining his Mayoralty he had contemplated fixing the price of Bread by the price of Wheat—but after the most mature conside ration be had abandoned it, upon a conviction that such a measure would only tend to the utter ruin of the Bakers. Ide had also heard Sir W. Curtis de clare his opinion, that such a measure was imprae. ticable, and that the best remedy would be, to do away the assize altogether. This was also his (Mr. Alderman Wood's) ,opinion. He wastonvinced the London market was, under the present system, as well and fairly supplied as possible; and that it was owing, in a great measure, to the long and unusual drought which had prevailed, and which had pre vented the mills working, that the Flour now was about ss. higher than it ought to be—but there were, - he believed, large supplies us their way. to market the, owners, indeed, would. get the beat price they 'could for their commodity:—wese they to blame ? The measures proposed to be adopted by . the ,Lord r lslaYor were such, as would involve the Bakers in ruin. The Bakers had declared, and declared truly, that if the Assize had been fixed by the price of, Wheat, they must have suspended baking altogether, and the public would then be without a supply of Bread at aqy price. This eicsald not have failed to create a disturbance, and the anger of tbe mob would have been directed* against the unoffeading. Baker. whose property would - probably have suffered. The worthy Alderman contended, that *the Baker stood in a much worse situation than the Butcher, or any other tradesman ; the Baker, perhaps more than any other tradesman, was obliged to give credit ; yet his price was fixed, and however long the credit he bad to give, he could make no advance in the price of his commodity ; whilst, if the Butcher was obliged to give credit, he could, and was, he contended, jus tified, 41 putting an additional halfpenny in the pound on his commodity. He again repeated, that he considered the Court of Aldermen as having been insulted, and strongly opposed the motion. The Loan MAYOR said, his conduct had been per sonally alluded to by the worthy Alderman just sat down. If that worthy Alderman had been in his place twenty-two weeks ago, he would have beard him mention the subject to theaAldermen, and ex press his anxious desire to reduce, as far as possible; the price of that article. He had also mentioned the subject to Sir W. Curtis, who had certainly said, it was a delicate thing to meddle with the price of Bread • but expressed his wish that the state of the poor should be ameliorated by the reduction of the price of this necessary article of life, if possible, though the subject must be treated most delicately. Some of the assertions of the worthy Alderman (Wood) had much surprised him. The .wol thy Alderman had ac cused him of having treated the Court of Aldermen with neglect ; he denied the charge—he had always wished to treat that Body with the greatest respect. ( 4 / 1 /daran.) The worthy Aides man had also said, there was no extraordinary difference between the price of Wheat and Flour, only about ss. per quar ter. What would the worthy Alderman and the Court say, when he stated, that the result of his en quiries had proved, that, instead of a difference of ss. there was a difference of 20s. per quarter N—(ilear, hear.) The worthy Alderman hau also•said, there was no combination or collusion amongst the Flour Factors orMealmen, and that large supplies of }lour were on their way to the market in London. He had beeii indefatigable in his enquiries on that subject in the districts round the metropolis, and the result . of his enquiries had been a conviction that Flour was not suffered to find its way fairly to market, even though the seller was allowed to make the best price he could of his commodity. Indeed, he could men tion an instance, in which a dealer in London had' written to a miller in the country, desiring him, by all means, to keep back his supply of Flour from the market till Christmas. He had been. accused of wishing to obtain popularity at the expense of an in dustrious and highly oppressed body of men (the Bakers), that he denied—on the contrary, he wished to protect the Bakers, who he considered as a highly oppressed body of men—and they, he well knew, by their own declarations, considered the present Lord Mayor of London their best friend—(clear, hear.) He considered himseif, placed in the MO situation he hat'. been placed, to be the protector of the lower classes of the' community in particular—and in the performance of that duty, and not in pursuit of po pularity, it was, that he had adopted the steps he had done on this subject. Mr. Alderman WOOD rose to explain—when Mr. WRITE also rose to order. He said, that the question before the Court was, whether any altera uons were necessary to be made in the Assize Laws; and if so, what they - were ? But the worthy Alder man (Wood) had not spoken at all to the question. Instead of that, he had confined himself almost en- tirely to making reflections on their worthy Chief Magistrate. There certainly were abuses in the re gulation of the Price of Bread existing, which, under the present Act of Parliament, could not be amended. Mr. Alderman Noon explained. He had spoken only in defence of the Court of Aldermen. He main tained, that the opinion which he had stated Sir W. Curtis to have given there was a correct one. He still contended, that this question should not have come before the Court of Common Council, but be, fore the Court of Aldermen. He was far from wish ing to deprive the poor of any thing ; he would give them all they ought to receive : but it an amendment was wanted in the Assize Laws, he would rather have it accomplished by going to Parliament to do away with the Assize altogether. He knew a man in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch, who he believed was a most respectable character; he had carried on the business of a baker with credit and advantage to himself for 15 years under the Assize price. The way he had been enabled to do so. was, by going to the country markets, where he could get flour at a lower average price than that of London. He had therefore acquired, by his industry a larger fortune than the ge nerality of bakers. Mr. QUIN said, that he had never heard a question which more interested and astonished him than the one proposed. It was to him a most anxious and aw ful question ; but, in the strange,way in which it had been brought before then', • he wished to know how the Court could come to a specific determination on so important a subject, - without having considered it in all its relations. But it was reserved for his wor thy Friend to find out a plan for fixing the price of corn, alter that subject had puzzled and baffled the greatest Statesmen of ancient and modern times. He was sure that most of those respectable persons who had signed the requisition could not have been aware of the strange proposition which his worthy Friend had just submitted to the Court. As bread was the most valuable of all the articles of life, it was there fore that our Legislature had scarcely touched it; and. where they had done so, they had done it with a- Most careful hand. He defended the bakers, as be bug in general a very upright body ; and said, it was dreadful that a set of men should be stigmatized as being perjured, because there might be among them some vicious individuals, who were regardless of the sacred obligations of an oath. It therefore behoved them to defend men from the danger of becoming exposed to an infuriated mob, rather than by unguar. ded and intemperate language to excite, as it were., that fury against them. In 1795, the country was visited with a real famine, while it was labouring un der a state of warfare ; but even at that period, so awful and alarming, the Legislature did not dare to interfere with the price of bread. Indeed, there was nothing so dangerous to a State, as tampering with that, which should be always as free as air. In IWO, there was no real scarcity; but an idea one was cre. ated, with which the bakers had nothing to do ; yet a cry was set up against them, to which they could only leply by appealing to the fixed Assize. Riots were beginning in London at that time, which were only prevented by the manly and decided conduct of Mr. Alderman Combe, who was then Lord Mayor. When he (Mr. Quin) found that the Court was called on to interfere in the price of provisions (a subject which the Lords and Commons had not dared to touch), be was tempted to say that his worthy friend had not considered the subject at all. The Court, however, could not agree with the present proposi tion, without seeing the outlines properly filled up. In its present state, it was no better than a mutilated skeleton. He was aware that the price of bread was not low enough according to the price of wheat ; but that was not the way in which it ought to be regula ted; and he thought it became us to enjoy the bless; ings which PROVIDENCE had sent us moderately. It was in vain to expect any very great fall in the price of bread or flour for some time ; Tot the prices of labour and of rents had considerably increased—(A cry of ' " No.")—He said, he was prepared to prove it. The supply from the large mills had been stopped by the dry weather; but the present season would soon oc casion abundant supplies of flour to be brought to market in the Metropolis. . Mr. MOORE proposed an Amendment to the origi. nal Motion— " That it be referred to a Committee of all the Aldermen, and a Commoner from each Ward, to take into consideration the resent high price of Bread; and to consider whether any, and what measures can be adopted in relation thereto; and to report accordingly." Mr. S. Dam; seconded this Motion. Mr. Alderman Armes said be was sorry to find a Motion .of so very great importance as the present in troduced into that Court without one fact to support it. He would therefore caution the Court, how it impressed the public, in any way, with unfavourable and erroneous opinions respecting any class of men in the community. Had it been practicable to have done any thing to amend the Assize would not the Legislature have done it ? Yet wi th all the great men (and he would say also, men who had the good of the poor as much at heart as any that had ever lived), these laws had been but little altered since the reign of Alfred to the present day. Some persons .had talked of doing away the Assize altogether, and the moment that was mentioned almost every one agreed to the proposition without considering the danger it would lead to. In his opinion, it was of the greatest importance there.should be an appeal to the 'Magistrates ' in a matter of so great importance as the price of bread, between the buyer and the seller ; between the Public and the Bakers: He considered it would be particularly dangerous to interfere or meddle with this matter, at a period when the harvest bad been so abundant, that in case of tumult the ut most mischief might be done in a very short time.— Let the question be thoroughly looked at in all its i r parts, and if any were inefficient, towards arriving at the general end, let it be amended with care. Indeed it must be so done, for it had already been considered by the best and greatest men of the country. He 4 believed the mealmen as well as the bakers to be as respectable a body of men as any in the country. If the present question was to be considered, let all the Acts on the subject be consolidated, and let due pro tection be afforded to the baker and the mealinan. He deprecated mutual attacks made on each other by different bodies of men, and considered the Assize as the most effectual mode of preserving the price of bread at a fair average. Mr. GRIFFITHS here consented to withdraw his motion, to make way for that of Mr. Moore. Mr. SLADE said, that it appeared to him the great question was whether the Assize was in itself a good measure or a bad one ? He certainly was inclined to think this a most important question, when he looked round to other countries, and indeed to some parts of our own, and saw that these matters were very well managed without any Assize at all. He would there-i fore propose, as an addition to the motion, to enquire " whether the operation of the Assize was or was not beneficial to the people, and to report on it. Mr. MOORE conceived that he had made the scope of his motion so general, that it would also include an enquiry into the consequences produced by the establishment of an Assize. - Mr. Junxims (a baker) stated, from a paper which he held in his hand, that if the Lord Mayor had fixed the Assize from the average price of wheat for S 3 weeks, the price of the quartern loaf would have been Is. consequently against the Public ; for nine weeks it was equal, and for three, since harvest, in favour of the Public. Until this subject was excited, both the Public and the Bakers he believed were very well satisfied. He considered the present attempts as no thing more than experiments to try to lower the price of Bread. He complained that it was a shocking thing that the trade should have such vile aspersions cast out against it by the Public Prints, as well as in songs about the streets. It appeared to him, that the Public was not sufficiently aware of many things which would retard the Flour from coming to mar ket. In the first place, during former harvests, there had been some bad weather, when the farmer could not employ his men out of doors, and then he could set them to threshing that part of his crop which he had got in. But the weather has been so favourable ' during the present harvest, and since it has ended, that the farmer is glad to take advantage of it, for the purpose of preparing his ground to receive new crops. Another cause was the convulsed state of the London market at present. He had himself received a letter from the North, in which the writer states, that he will not send his corn to market at present on that very account. Mr. GRIFFITHS rose to explain. He said be had made use of an expression in his former speech— ,l robbed the public"—for which he was very sorry, and he begged the mealmen's pardon. But he was sure there was a combination somewhere, but he would not say where.— ( Hear; hear.) Mr. Alderman BIRCH said, the Assize had ob tained in this country upwards of 700 years ; and during that time it had gone untouched, because it was always considered that to meddle with it would • . • . be to endanger the supply ornread '6l the ttlefropd. is. .. The baker at Shoreditch, mentioned by Worthy Alderman (Wood), was a proof din ' Assize did not prevent a competition anicne bakers under it. The motion of Mr. Moons was then read, d to, without a division. • A Petition from the Debtors in Ludgate was pre sented and read, praying for relief, and referred ' the Committee of City Lands. The Thanks of the Court were unanimously voted to the LORD Mayott's Chaplain, for his Sermon pre vi6us to the Election of Lord Mayor;--after which the Court adjourned. The following is an extract of a sort cif ofgeal letter on regulating the Assize of Brea.l at Bath : ~ Gisitasit, &velour, Ist: " tam directed to inform you, that the Magistrates of CltY (since the operation of the late Bakers' Act) have dett r• sifted to discontinue setting the A s,ize wi•h a view of yrotr.ot. log a cosnpetitioa among the trade. S ufficient time has not yet elapsed to enable the Bench to judge of the effects and general policy of the measure—but they are led to aliticipate the most favourable results. Thee are 'cartel Bakers in bath who now underselling the otNrs." - Form of Prayer of Thanksgiving, for the recent abundant Harvest, ordered to be used in all Churches and Chapels in England and Wales : " 0 Gon our Heavenly Father, who of Thy bountiful good. Ma towards Uf t has canoed the Earth to give back to the labour eff man, the fruits of his industry, with an abundant increase, amps we besec - Cla rime the relies and thanksgivings of a joyful eople: And of Thy great mercy 0 GOD, teach us so to abound s that we forget not, by reason of our many fraikies, the mem from which the 'abundance iloweth. Thou halt looked down upon us with tenderness, and compaseion ; Thou hest listened t our supplications, and supplied our wants; dispose us rumor., to elevate our beans and minds umo Thee in pious gild grateful remembrance cf this Thy blessing, and of all other Thy manifold merclee, through Jesus Cetise our Loan. Amen." Mr. OAKLEY, the Gentleman who some time since was so wantonly shot at, and desperately wounded in Weymotith-street, Newington, is so far recovered as to be able to quit his house, but be still walks with crutches. The subscription for Mrs. CLIFFORD amounts eight hundred pounds, the chief of which is to be set tled on her children. We regret to state that another of those dreadful calamities, the blasting of a coal-mine, occurred or. 'Tuesday last, at the Hall Pit, at Fatfield, in the perish of Chester-le-street. Upwards of 30 men and boys were killed. Yesterday, the roof of a public house at Hounslow was blown off by gunpowder, in rather a singular manner. A man, who had visited the powder mills in the vicinity, dishonestly filled his pockets with loose gunpowder, and afterwards visited the public house in question. A few grains of the powder having been observed to drop from his pockets on the floor, same ,persons present, not aware of the quantity he had. about rim, waggishly set fire to the. powder—an ex-. plosion immediately took place, and the roof of the bouse was blown info the air : fortunately, all the iramaiir furrows escaped with their lives;, some were, however, considerably hurt. About noon on Saturday se'nnight, while the work. - wee employed in repairing the Holy Trinity Church, in Hull, were at dinner, a young man . of genteel ap- Liesmance, having, it is supposed, secreted himself in the church, found his way to the top of the steeple, and, mounting the battlements, stood upon a short pillar, where, with 'violent gesticulations, he ha rangued the passengers in the market-place, and 'a crowd whom his perilous siteation attracted towards the spot, for near 20 minutes. At length one of the workmen having silently gained the top of the steeple, cautiously 'caught hold of his arm, and pulled him from the battlements. He was taken before the . Mayor, where it appearing, on inquiry, that he wak in a deranged state, he was forwarded to his friends, et Hatfield, near Doncaster. The Commissioners of Public records continue their labour to methodize, register, and publish the Public Records of the Realm. In the course of these re- Searches many important documents have been covered which had been supposed to be no longer in existence, or had been lost in the confused heaps of I unarranged materials. Amongst the charters of the liberties of England, the Carta de Foresta, 2 Henry 111. concerning which Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTON2 sup posed that , 4 the original and all the authentic records were lost," has been found at Durtiam. In the Tower there has been formed a voluminous collection of let ters missive from the Kings of England, many of theth in their own hand-writing, beginning with Henry 111. and extending to the reign of Rich. 111. . The excavations among the ruins of Pompeii con. tinueto be prosecuted with much industry. An ex. tent of about 500 feet of the town wall has been com pletely cleared. It is from 18 to 20 feet in height,. 12 thick, and fortified at short distances with square towers. In the main street, passing in front of the temple of Isis, has been discovered the portico of the theatre. Near the same spot, ten feet below the level of the street, was found a human skeleton, and imme diately beneath it a large collection of gold and sit. ver medals, in the finest preservation, chiefly of the reign of Domitian. Under a superb portico in the 'quarter of the tombs, a number of skeletons were dis. . covered, and among them that of a female and seve. ral children. Three finger-rings and several ear-rings were found among the bones. Among the vases dis covered, there were two which were full of water, with a small quantity of ashes at the bottom. In one the water was limpid and odourless ; in. the other, of a brownish tinge, and had the taste of lye. Qn opening a vault lately in the middle aisle of the west transept of Winchester Cathedral, a stone coffin was discovered, immediately uilder the surface of the , pavement, supposed to contain the remains either of a Prelate or mitred Abbot. A ring of pure gold, with an amethyst, about the size and shape of a tur key's eye, set therein,' and a part of a crosier, much' decayed, were found in the coffin, but few vestiges of the body.remained. The ring was in a good state of preservation, and -greatly resembles that on the left hand of the effigy of WILLIAM of Wvanass, as repre sented on the beautiful altar tomb in the same cathe dral. The crook and ferrule of the crosier were cf metal, and the shaft of wo•)d, quite plain. This af fords internal evidence of its blng of a much earlier date than that of. WI . Kn o tm, which was composed of silver, gilt, of exquisite workmanship, and is now pre 'served en the chapel of New College, Oxford.. ropd. by a t the the and Pte - d to oted pre- hicb ic;al IS. this eta r- mot. t yet nrral molt s are cent ches mod. bour ease, trffibi nod s wee town ad u) Ufa dfold ince ided bred with s to set. dfhl I on the and low ular mills )ose )use oeen tome had. ex-. the the ere, prk- • ref), ap. I in ple, sort ha- d 'a trds the .pie, him the - wak nds, 'bile re. dis._ T in