The Sun. — London, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

LETTERS ON THE CORN-LAWS. No. XI. (From the LPti , rue.) TO MESSRS. E. MUSES A XI) SOS. • GENTLEMEN,—YOU are, unquestionably, the must renowned slopsellers in Europe. The eye always ad verts to your advertisements. Your shop-mark is on the daily broad sheet of fame, as if it were only one of your own bllipkets. The poetry of your puffs, and the cheapness of your charges, are alike prodigious. Peel and Russell rise and set with the session ; but you are always above the horizm—the Ursa Major of the Vineries. " Custom" cannot " stale your infinite variety." You are, indeed, a " commercial pheno- men• - ei." But rivalry is threatened, and you must submit to a corryarison •of claims. You are an " establish ment," but my Lord Ashley dissents, and erects a voluntary institution. His Lordship is a philiantro pist ; and his love of man turns to hatred of Moses. He charges you with taking undue advantage of the need of needlewomen. Meetings are melted by his pictures of your oppressions. It is said that, although you rig the ragged, yet you starve the stitchers. T he world cries out that you are too worldly. The Queen Dowager heads the hostile slopshop; • and the lists are up for contention of charity with cheapness. Messrs. Moses, father and son, I know nothing of . you, but the public notoriety that you keep a very cheap shop and pay very low wages. Doubtless you act on the principle of the Premier ; and when he h;ts a principle, it ought to be acted upon ; and, if not by himself, there is the greater need that it should be acted upon by other people. Doubtless, I say, you act on the principle of the Premier, to " buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dear est.' But you do not, like Lord Ashley with his corn, legislate for rendering dearer the market in which you sell. You undersell your competitors, and pull down their prices. He oversells his com petitors, and keeps their prices up to the consumer, by a tax. You make a cheap market cheaper by competition, and he makes a dear market dearer by legislation. Thus far, Moses, your Judaism is more merciful than his Christianity. No, replies his Lordship, for cheapness is the root of all evil. At the Society for the Protection and Employment of Distressed Needlewomen, last week, his Lordship " wished to impress upon the meet ing, for he felt it very deeply himself, the very great evil arising in all directions from that constant • and unceasing effort to get every single thing, not only the common trumperies of life, but even the greatest necessaries, at the very minimum of remuneration."—(Morning Herat! report.) The assembly cheered, ladies and all ; and in the name of consistency let no one of them ever try for a bargain again, but always inquire after the highest price when they make their purchases. The mischief is, however, less, it seems, of bidding low for the " trumperies of life," than for its " greatest necessaries." A curious distinction. The wealthy, if their wealth be in land, are the sellers of neccessaries and the buyers of trum peries. Pleasant doctrine for the fashionables of Willis's Rooms, but hard measure for those who forego the trum peries of life, and, with a minimum ofmoney, are advised sto be content with even less than a minimum of bread. • Moses, how does this bear upon your customers ? Meay of them must go with bare backs, did not you ' cover them at the aforesaid" minimum of remunera tion." They must make shift without shirts, did not you supply them cheaper thau his Lordship's charity slopshop. Yours is the emporium for poverty stricken purchasers. It drives nakedness down a degree lower in society. Sir Peter Laurie backs Lord Ashley, and scolds people for buying cheap shirts. 'this is cold work when the only alternative is to remain unshirted. That must they do, unless • there were some such Refuge for the Destitute. Your shop is as good as a charity, with an associ atioa, and a secretary and reports and patrons. Much better, Moses. You clothe the naked with out making beggars of them. They pinch their . beUres for the sake of their backs; out of the daily bread which Lord Ashley helps to tax, they screw enough for two shillings' worth of the " common trumperies of life," foregoing a portion of its ." greatest necessaries," and walk away with an un suiselued sense of independence, not less satisfied than if clothed in purple and fine linen, but less disposed to rate Lazarus for obtaining the rags that stanch his sores at a " minimum of remuneration." But, then, you only pay 6d. for the making of these 2s. shirts. Your needlewomen famish. They wear out eyes and fingers, brain and heart. Their privations are terrib!e. I will not blink that part of the case. God forbid. No, nor will I for g-stthe fact that out of this fearfully earned 6d. , witty Lord Ashley and the landowners take 2d. by their bread-tax. The broad-acred philanthropists .exact the 2d., and you, whom they abuse, pay the 6d. It is "villainous low ;" but not so low as robbing them of the 30 per cent. out of that miserable pittance. 'That is by far the dirtier trick of the two, and the most cold-hearted. They get little from you, those poor needlewomen ; but, were it not for you, would they get anything ? You have not cleared the coun try of cottages. You have not obstructed the progress . of trade and commerce, and so diminished the amount of employment. You have not enhanced the price of .lood, and the terrors of the poorhouse. If you do but little in mitigation, and that little for the sake of , business, still it is a mitigation. Lord Ashley says you should do more. Let him and the landlord legislators do less, and your mitigation will grow -thereby. On what principle, and by what law, are • 'Jewish slopsellers bound to feed the poor whom Bri tish landlords have impoverished for the benefit of 'their own rent-roll ? Answer me that, ye aristo .gratioal map-milliners of philanthropy, who talk of piiarity and vote for scarcity. The professed object of Lord Ashley's Society is to raise the needlewomen's wages to 9s. a week. If accorriplished, the needlewoman may be thankful she is not a Dorsetshire man : a man, with a family, la bouring on a farm. But let U 3 see how this charity works. It promises to raise the cost of making a shirt to the price for which you are now selling the shirt. What, then, becomes of the poor purchaser who can afford no more ? The Society ought at least to tattoo him gratis. He is driven out of the market, victimised by benevolence, made an example of, for being an accomplice, after the fact, to the " minimum of remuneration." There is another sort of result likely to happen. The Ashley slopshop only with draws a third of the applicants from the general competition. That vacancy will soon be supplied by a rush from the hovels of starvation and the dungeons of the poorhouse. The numbers of the destitute will keep dawn wages. The Queen Dowager might as well be p itrones3 of a society for suspending the law of gra vitation. Not a voice less will the " Song of the Shirt" have in its dismal chorus. There will be quite as Many to bear the burden. The ranks will be promptly filled up by remorseless necessity. Still will " most unwomanly rags" hang loose upon the wasted form ; the insufficient pay tempt to fraud or prostitution ; and famine or suicide close the dreary scene. More work is the want. Proportionate abun dance of employment, and that alone, can ensure ade quacy of remuneration. The valley of the Missouri would grow plenty of food for all the needle women of Great Britain; and the roughly clad growers have plenty of occasion for their services. My Lord Ash ley cannot see his way to the repeal of the corn-laws. He thinks Moses grinds the faces of the poor, and keeps his own booted heel upon their stomachs. De liver us from our friends and save us from the selfish ness of sentimental benevolence. One word more, not peculiarly for yourselves, but for the whole class of tradesmen to which you be long. There is no reason why any of that class should be dispensers of charity in the disguise of wages. Ignorant or hypocritical is the outcry against labour being purchased at its market price. Individually, you must purchase it, or you may shut up shop. What good would that be to the poor needlewomen ? But, Moses, remember you are men as well as slopsellers. Those whoseefingers ache over your shirts are stitching their own shrouds. Misery toils in your cheap factory. You ought not to have done with it, when you have paid its wages. The employers of the poor are their natural protectors. Unfairly have the tables been turned against you ; but not altogether without fault on your part. You should have been the foremost to expose and denounce this state of things, and the system by which it is produced. Your inert ness, your disregard of the wants and rights of the toiling poor, has allowed the authors of the wrong, the taxers of their fool, the obstructors of employment, to come forward as their patrons, and point towards your heads the thunderbolt of public indignation for inhumanity which should have fallen on their own. You and they are thus juggled into the wrong places. they should be in the dock, and you in the witness- XIX. Why do you not tell Lord Ashley that he, and nis class of monopolist , legislators, have wrought this shame in the land? Why were you not first in the field clamouring for justice? Why did you wait fee the wretchedness, of which you had know ledge, to be found out and laid at your own door by its finders and its makers ? Why have you handed over the poor to the care of courtly Cades and andy demagogues. Retrieve your blunder. Leave not this sore di sease i n th e b o dy p o liti c to be tam pered with by legislative empiricism. Demand of Lord Ashley that he helps to untax the needle women's bread. Claim emancipation for the giant Industry, who, whe n ti free, will feed all his sons and daughters: pin yourselves for such a demonstra tion of public o as Como forward, a wiser policy on the Government. though late, for the sake of those who depen ° d wara ' amends for past indifference, whetheYr°urearodr makeonly seeming. Win the blessings of i n t e lli gent titude, instead of the curses of misguided ii7nra o- ranee. By your zeal, your votes, your remon strances, be earnest for trade; more trade; and all whom trade feeds ; the widow and the orphan whom it supplies with work and shields from starvation. It fIIE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAIt_A!VENA±46,_ DECEMBER 17, 1344$ is the duty which belongs to your position in society. b , tween selfish lawmakers and injure.l millions. You who make the lawmakers can unmake t e misery, Up to your duty, or both Jew and Gentile amongst you must bear the curse of Meroz. A NORWICH WEAVER BOY. SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS. FRON THE EITE?iING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY. GLUBE.—We intimated last week that an anxious wish prevailed among the Liberal members of the Ox ford Convocation, that in dealing with Mr. Ward and his book, the beads of the University would avoid two things. Conceding that it was due to truth and honesty that some steps should be taken to mark with suitable ignominy the attempts now making to reconcile subscrip tion to Protestant articles with the advancement of the in terests of priestcraft, we expressed a hope—first, that there would be no repetition of the impropriety and folly of submitting theological differences to the arbitration of those sagacious critics, the majority of Convocation; and secondly, that in vindicating its consistency, the Board should avoid adopting extreme measures towards the un fortunate disciple of the Littlemore Pope—of whom we may truly say, on his own confession, " non sponte sun." We have now before us the actual statute, which ap peared on Friday last, and which we understand was assented to by a largo majority of the Oxford Board of Heads, and we think it has sufficiently guarded against both the evils which some had apprehnded. No at tempt to submit theological opinions to an incompetent tribunal is made, nor is it proposed to deprive the author of "The Ideal Church" of any pecuniary advantages purchased by his non-natural profession of conformity. The first of the two Statutes proposed, after reciting certain passages of the work, in which (to quote the author's own words) he proposes to show " how the dry wording " (which Dr. Pusey would call the literal sense) " may be divorced from the natural spirit" of the Articles of the Church, " how their prima facie mean ing may be evaded, and the artifice of their inventors be thrown back and recoil on themselves," and after quoting farther his avowal that "in subscribing the Articles, ho renounced no one Roman doctrine," signing them in " a non-natural sense, proceeds to remark, .that whereas the party notoriously reputed in the University and believed to be the author, had obtained the degrees of B.A. and M.A. on the faith of a subscription which he cancels by his present avowals—he be required to an swer to the charge of having published passages incon sistent with good faith, and be degraded from the privi leges attacheikto those degrees. The second statute is of more importance,"und is rendered, it seems, necessary by the following circumstance :—A statute is already in ex istence entitling the Vice-Chancellor to summon before him a member accused of heresy, and to require him to purify himself by subscribing to the 39Articles. Most per sons will recollect the not very decent sarcasm of the Vicar of Leeds in his Church Dictionary, when he stated that an Archbishop of the Church of England had purified himself from the suspicion of heresy by signing, the Articles on his appointment to his see. Dr. Hook, however, was a good judge of his own friends; and so the Hebdomadal Board seems to think—fur the new statute proposes to add to the subscription a declaration that the party subscribing does so in the sense in which they were "prinutes editi," that is, in 1571, when the impo sition of the articles as tests was first made by the joint authority of a Synod and of Parliament. This is a plain and intelligible proposal. If you take a pledge, take it without equivocation or mental reservation — take it in the sense in which it is meant—in the sense in which its imposers put it—or--support those by your example of refusal who object to subscription altogether. We have no time now for further remark, but shall rettern to the subject, which, between this and the day of Convocation (February the 13th), will, we anticipate, engross much of public interest—and involve the recon sideratiou of the whole subject of tests. We hear that the Tractarian section of the Oxford Convocation are disposed to abandon Mr. Ward to his fate—provided they can eject the second statute, which provides a check to their own practice. STANDARD.—A great deal of noise has been made about a few bags of Venezuelan sugar imported at Liverpool. This noise has been made on the ground that the sugar is slave-grown—with how much reason the sugar is said to be slave-grown will appear from the letter of our old and valued correspondent, Mr. 111`Queen. Mr. M'Queen, who has visited Venezuela three times within the last ten years, and who knows more of the commercial geography and statistics of the tropical countries than any man alive, has brought home with him all the' public docu ments of Venezuela, as well as of the other countries that he has visited, and has been kind enough to place the Venezuelan papers in our hands. We prefer, however, to the labour of translating these voluminous documents, to avail ourselves of Mr. M'Queen's own letter. That letters tells that the territory of Venezuela —a territory as large as France—has a population under 900,000, of whom, notwithstanding that slavery has been long abolished by law, about 30,000 (one in thirty) are in a state of qualified slavery, for this sole reason, that the Republic has been hitherto too poor to buy eut, the liberty of all its slaves, though having made the best provision it was able to do so. No slave, however, can be born in Venezuela, for all are born free. No slave can be inspert4d ; and even the remnant of' the slave population that lingers, notwithstanding large annual redemptions ; and manumissions cannot be transferred from master to master—the thirty thousand slaves—one in thirty of the population, are thus almost necessarily employed as house servants, or in the cultivation of gardens and small farms, and, from the nature of things, cannot be em ployed in sugar grounds. The Venezuelan sugar, therefore, is neither slave-grown, nor the produce of a country attached to slavery. All the world is not as rich as Great Britain, and able, like her, to buy the freedom of the negro; but the Venezuelans are doing the best they can to imitate our example, and therefore deserve all the encouragement that we can give them. Unfortunately, however, we have little opportunity to encourage the sug it trade, for the country produces little sugar, and it costs a dollar the hundred weight to carry it to the coast. To compare Venezuela in any respect with slave-trading countries, like Cuba and the Brazils, would be the grossest folly as well as injustice. AGRICULTURAL LABO URERS. (Prom the Times.) The address of the Sussex labourer which we insert in another column is one of those genuine utterances of fact and feeling which are sure to make themselves heard in the greatest din of human voices. It is far too touch ing not to move the kind, far too substantially true not to inform the candid. True, the feeling may be mixed, or rather that mixture of feeling which all mortal griev ances give rise to, is here very little disguised. Or, again, the philosophy may not always be sound. The Sussex labourer may not have a very exact and definite view of our social system, or of political economy. He takes things in the lump. The landlord, the farmer, and the clergyman are, in his ken, the gentlemen who make the laws. He does - not appreciate what are called the great prizes of industry, whether parks or parsonages. lie is for putting his spade into every bit of waste laud in the country, and in the very face of unlimited foreign competition would trench up the whole island from Land's-end to John o'Groat's House. He does not make due allowance for the lax economy and irregular hospi talities of gentlemen's honseholds. To such objections his address is doubtless open. But its main purport is undoubtedly true, and confirmed by the experience of everybody who has the means and the heart to inquire, or even to notice what he sees. The poor man admits, that in the present state of the market, his labour is not worth more than five shillings a week. More than this, therefore, he certainly will not get, as farmers do not give for labour more than its worth; or rather they do not give seven shillings for work which they can got done for five. Here, then, is a simple fact. A man, his wife, and three children, five persons, are to be maintained on five shillings a week, there is nothing to modify this fact, no indistinct out: line, no elastic feature of the case ; excepting only the pickings to be got out of the wages of the two boys, who have each to find everything on half a-crown a week. Out of that half crown of course they pay for their lodging and washing, and an occa sional sight of the cottage fire. But you cannot make a park in a flower-pot, or a coal-pit in a coal-scuttle; so, after a working troy has been half-fed, and half-clothed, there wont be much over out of half-a-crown a-week. When, therefore, a shilling a-week has gene for rent, and another shilling for about as much fuel as is burnt in an ordinary drawing-room fire, at this sea son of the year, by luncheon time, there remain three shillifes., thirty-six pence, for five persons. This is a penny e Ly for each of them. It wont stretch a bit. If the i..ther, to sustain the severity of the weather, the weakuesa of his constitution, and the long pull of a day's work, takes twopence a-day :out of the store, the little ones must pay by a further halving of their half plates of potatoes. The mother is in the like evil case. Then there is the clothing of the whole five, a doctor's bill now and then, and twenty other inevitable expenses. All this is to come out of the extra wages of harvest, we suppose ;---harvest ! which perhaps, after weeks of exhausting toil, leaves just thirty shillings towards the discharge of long arrears I But this simple fact does not depend on the Sussex labourer's testimony. It is an inevitable fact, a law of the labourer's present state. If the farmer cannot or does no: choose to give him more than five shillings a week, he must be content with it, or go to the work house, where he still will not see his wife and children, except occasionally in the presence of the governor or his deputy. Wisely or not, the old system provided for such a case. Besides its general effect in raising the wages to a living standard, it provided specially for ex treme degrees of poverty. It helped a man in so dire a strait as having to house, feed, and clothe five wretched beings on a crown a week. Now, on the contrary, there are tens of thousands in thi3 strait, unhelped, uncared for, unseen, unknown. There they must remain. What ever the commercial or political rights of the question, such is the shocking, undeniable, unalterable fact ; and the nation which has brought things to this pass, and made the fact, is answerable for it. Often and often have we heard at the lips of the rustic housewife the very counterpart, the very words of the " English cotter's Saturday night," as related by the Sussex labourer. Some half-dozen scales of weekly ex penditure are before us, ascertained by careful inquiry a dozen years back, on the disastrous eve of the new law. We thought them searcely credible at the time, but they contain not a few articles of comfort or customary neces sity, which have no place in this newer Sussex budget. One by one, we suppose, they have dropped out of use,and ceased to be necessary. We shall be told that the Sussex labourer has the same chance as thousands who are burdened above their hugs a strength. Perhaps we shall be told of the Irish cottier or the Hungarian peasant ; perhaps reminded that a fellow with so ready a pen can get more than five shil- week in Lond better man hawks about o o p r eac d e o , es an ia d ig r h uin t winogrk nor Manchester ; that many a the public oranges, disturbingNvers a nab-stand, his own prospects, by writin4 let- I tors to newspapers. But, whatever may be the his- night? if he has, let him compare it with my wife's tory of this individual labourer, we kn o w there are! description of the English cotter's Saturday night : tens of thousands in his very case, and hundreds of ~ Well, James, I have just been to market, I wish thousands only a shade better off, to whom it i s sim p l y ' you would go yourself, for I really do not know how absurd and indecent to propose those transmigrations. to lay the money out. I have paid 7s. for flour, Is. It is all very easy to say by rote that any man can go . for coals, 3d. snap, 3d. candles, 3d. yeast, sd. for anywhere ; but take particular cases—go to this man and ' butter, Gd. for meat, 2d. for tea. I did mean to save that man, consider his habits and capacities, and hear . 2 , 1. for to buy ou one pint of beer, because you y you what he has to say, and you will see at once that it is a i l poor y for the last three days, but I _ mere impossibility. The English agricultural labourer, have been so once in for it, is that, and nothing more. There is not a could not s p are it ; for you know our lade babe can more fixed, unchangeable being in the world. This is not eat his sop without a little sugar ; if he has dry his most remarkable characteristic—his virtual serfdom. bread to eat for two or three days he is ready to Excellent,beyond all comparison, in his line, he is nothing starve, dear little soul. I have bought one pound of out of it—a fish out of water, a plough in the Royal Ex- I mutton, with which I will make you some broth to change. He is narrow-minded, bigotted, ignorant , in all night ;it will do your cold good : what you leave beyond his daily round of labour. The Russian serf, will- make a dinner for us to-morrow. I wanted who may become, and often is, a tradesman, a profes- -to buy some flannel for Mary, and some calico sional man, an artist, or a poet, is far more versatile and I for myself. George wants his shoes mended, helpful. The English labourer has utterly staked himself ; and Richard wants some trousers • he and all and all his prospects in the narrow field of agrieul- , are vary thin . 010 for winter, I was tural employment. We hear much talk of vested inns- 01 us rests, and nowhere are they more respected than in this in hopes this week that I should be able to buy land of privilege and prescription. We should think it a basin or two, for we have only one ill us all. Oh, indecent to remove a Cabinet Minister without a pension, dear met I have spent all the money, and have forgot to unsalary an old employe o f th e F ore i gn -office with 4 to buy some oil for the shoes and boot-laced. Dear recommendation to the counting-houses of Liverpool, to rue, my heed tome round; lam bewildered when I toll a bishop of thirty years' standing t o g e t h i s bread think of our numerous wants. When you was ill, a again by hearing little boys construe zEsychylus, or to month since, and could pot work for a weep, we draught our generals into the rural police. Yet scarce should have perished if the shopkeeper had not kindly is the Queen on her throne more rivetted to that one glven us , eredit for a little grocery, and the miller for These people expect their money i they do only place in the State, than a labourer to his fields and a grist. not ask me for It, pertainly ; but I do hate to look his tools. There he is, and there he must remain. The labour market is no more open to him than q the empty, vast, and wandering air," Whatever the mercy or the them in the face, because low e them so n 144, I hope justice of the Legislature may design for him, let it not no n e o f m y dear children will over marry, fbr love mock his humble views and powers with the suggestion le to the poor the greatest curse. Ah, James, you of impracticable, almost unintelligible alternatives. may look at me; even my lore to you is a curse. And - can we wonder if there is something rude flow hurtful to my feelings is it when in winter you and gloomy in the tone these hard necessities have so me home wet through, no good sloes to keep your f inspired ? Is it strange if there is even a touch of eet dry, day after day, in consequence of which you that " stupid malignity .' which this poor cre ature have got the rheumatism in your feet. flow do I wish scarce ventures to repudiate, and is content to ex at these times T had something to nourish you In lieu of case ? The labourer seldom speaks , His int e l l ec tu a l a bit , of bread and a little toast and water, a poor re nature, as also his sense of suffering , has scarcely orga nisation, His expression is scarcely articulate. He is ward for a man who has stood the pelting of the piti es the brute earth with which is his daily conversation. less storm all day long. God grant that in the next It moves but once a thousand years, area then to shake world we may not be governed by human beings, but and bury cities. Once in a century we hear its ominous by the law of God, which wicked human beings wil murmurs. When the rural spokesman d o es comes forth fully misconstrue. There we shall no more hear the he cannot fail to be something portentous , at once voice of our oppressors." f g e l l i l s o h w i - 4 1 l e l o b u o fellow-labourers, e r r e ' .. e 4' Sa i ;u n rd t ay ti n d i s gh a t tr to ue ei dwarfish and prodigious. His looks are gild and strange, eight t tu ou re t of of He summarily moves the cause of labour against the th!fin whole superincumbent world besides, against every . e .se human power and ordinance, political, religious, Bogie ten r A ay, I have put down nearly word for word and domestic, Ids feels the reality and heavings of a P the s eeeh that my anxious wife has often made to me. soul which claims a place is the universe which man Let us send petitions to our good queen, stating refuses. He only stops short of rebellion against Heaven the truth of our wretched condition. Do not make but at its very portals, and of treason against mortal known our griefs by incendiary fires, or sit down sovereignty but et the very footstool. It is in his mind brooding and planning schemes of revenge, as did a all against all—an earnest, small, and feeble perhaps, but man at Rye last year, who invented a new prime, still a veritable earnest of a conflict which snail one day, which, had it not been nipped in the bud, would have owe for ages, be waged between the great divisions and made England one vast watch-house. powers of humanity, when this or that law, this or that My fellow-labourers, my experience of human life particular grievance, Ulla Pr that political faction, shall convinces me that the majority of mankincl—not have been lost in distant antiquity, withstanding their very stria observance of the forms, rites, and ceremonies of religion—notwith standing the repeated admonitions of the still small voice—are but half civilised, and bear too close a re semblance to the finny tribe, which inhabit the deep and prey upon each other. Rut there is a glorious minority of human beings who possess souls. To those who possess that inestimable gem let us make an appeal ; let us try to interest them by our re spectful and patient behaviour to intercede for us, and not let us sink clown into a much worse than Egyp tian bondage. I have said that bread alone will not keep a man's strength up; nor will it. But alas ! how many thousands of us are there that do not get enough of that necessary food ! How many times have I my self been obliged to make up a dinner art raw turnips, because I have not had bread enough for myself and two boys; and how often have I told my poor boys that my master gave me leave to take them, fearing to inculcate a bad lesson in them on their first expe rience of life. Why is it that fevers always stop at the poor man's door ? The answer is as plain a the way to the pariah ehureb—it is our low living that breeds this miasma. I could say much on the harshness and severity with which we are treated by guardians and farmers when we apply for work ; but in this case I shall at present keep in my mind the motto of the absent Allan, " I hide my time." I must now conclude by telling you all, that our condition will yearly get worSe ifyou do not come forward and state your grievances, Therefore, if you love your wives, if you love the children whom God has committed to your care for purposes best known to Himself, come forward with respectful petitions, and pray for adequate and fair wages.—l remain, your well-wishing Triend, * • 4. it, ADDRESS TO THE LABOURERS OF StiBnX BY A FELLOW-LABOURER. (From thelfh*" ion Herald.) The following address is from the pen of a labour ing man, living in a village in this county. His name and place of abode are affixed to the produc tion •, but, although it does him credit, and is evi dently the effusion of truth, still we think it' best to suppress them, lest it should expose him to persecu tion. The writer, in his letter to us, thus describes himself : "I am a labouring man, with a family of five children. Two of my boys work at wages, 2s. 6d. each weekly. My own wages is only ss. weekly, in consequence of my not being so strong as my fellow labourers. It is on this account that I wish to do something better for my family if I can. I have wrote it in haste, in my wife's absence, because the authorities of - have told my wife that my pen will one day be the ruin of me. Alas ! my fate must be bad indeed, if I fare worse than I do now. Had I time to reflect before I wrote, I doubt not I should have wrote better and spelled better. People in towns are little aware of the petty tyranny existing in villages. The gen try take a deal of pains to convince the poor that they have a soul, but if we should presume to say we know it, they are at great pains to convince us that we ought to keep it with as much secresy as the Pro testants did their Bibles in the dark ages of Romish bigotry." The following is his address : My Fellow-Labourers,—Dr. Johnson has ob served that ' the poor look up with stupid malignity at the rich.' But he did not tell us that this bad feeling arises from the hardships and privations we undergo, and the little comforts we enjoy, in com parison to all other classes. Let us respectfully ask the three gentlemen whom we maintain in luxury out of our labour—viz., the landlord, clergyman, and farmer, not to grind our faces as they hitherto have done. Let us pray them to stretch forth their hands to save us from that squalid poverty towards which we are approaching with gigantic strides. Our con dition gets worse every year. The cry of the farmer now is that *e are too numerous : this is a falsehood. We must first cultivate every acre of waste land, in cluding the various parks throughout England, ere we can say this. Human pride will try to forbid our cultivating the numerous parks, but, in the eyes of Him who sent us here to till the land, what has human pride to do with His laws and the natural rights of man ? We are Nature's out-door cooks, and we are the only cooks in this world who are not allowed to take a sop in the pan. There are those who think that bread alone is sufficient to keep a man's strength up who has to la bour in the fields. I rash that those who think thus would accompany me on a cold winter's morn, with the bitter biting north wind blowing in his face, with rain, sleet, or snow. Let him work in the fields for five hours, and afterwards sit under a wet cold hedge and eat for his dinner a bit of bread day after day. He would then, like me, and thousands more, in the words of Burns, " find every sad succeeding night and joyous morn the same." He would wonder why he, of all created beings, should be so wretched, How often have I envied the birds and beasts ! " You," said I, " have a table spread in the wilderness ; you eat and drink from it without anxiety or care." When I look around on the providence of God, everything I see is conducted with so much benevolent care to every living being, that I am quite convinced that Ile never sent a human being to pass through a life of misery, The new poor-law was a direct robbery of 24 per cent. from the labourer's wages. The difficulty of bringing up a family at this time is extreme, more espe cially if the two first-born are femalas. Boys get to work much sooner than girls, Surely it is very laudable and kind . to send out missionaries abroad to ameliorate the condition of our sable brethren ; and it would be also very laudable to inquire into the condition of our own labourers. And it is very kind of the gentry to send us religious tracts—to teach the rustic moralist to die ; and it would also be very kind if our superiors would teach us how to bring up a family upon 103. a week. We beseech the three gentlemen whom we are keeping in luxury, when they make laws for the people, to recollect that we form part of the community—a low part certainly, yet we are a link in the great chain of society. Brethren, our state is worse, much worse, than it was in our fathers' time ; and I am sorry to say it will yearly get worse, unless we are allowed to till all the waste land in Britain, or emigrate to some of our colonies—not under the present syitem, but under a well organised system of emigration. Leave not your native land to starve on a foreign shore, as thousands have done lately. We often see accounts of the de pravity of man, but can there be an instance of greater depravity than the following fact ?—ln consequence of the rapid increase of the population we have not of late years grown corn enough for our consumption; we are, therefore, obliged to buy many thousand quarters of foreign corn to supply and tnake up the deficiency, How kind is God to send us a supply from other countries! And how wicke lly depraved are those who try every means in their power to starve .us by refusing to take the gift a kind God sends us ! _ _ VACCINATION IN ITALY. (From a paper by Mr. E. Lee in the Medical Gazette.) In no part of the world perhaps, was the discovery of Jenner received with a greater degree of faith and enthusiasm than ie Italy, and the Government sought by every means to prevent the ravages of the small pox, and favour the progress of vaccination. In Milan for instance, if parents refused to have their children vaccinated, a proves verbal is signed by the vaccina tor, the curate of the parish, and the syndic of the district, stating the opposition that has been made, and this is sent to the provincial delegation. Charit able institutions do not grant assistance to those who cannot show a certificate of having been vaccinated. The curates are obliged to send every three months to the vaccinator of the district a list of the children born and baptised in their parishes; to read from the pulpit every three months the names of those who have died from the small-pox, and at the same time to remind parents of their duty towards God and the Prince, which command them not to omit to avail themselves of so great a benefit as vaccination. When an individual is attacked by the small-pox, the head of the family, and the physician or surgeon in attendance, were bound to make an immediate de claration thereof to the municipal authority, under a penalty of 100 francs, or a fortnight's imprisonment. The Administration causes to be placei over the door of the house, the follow is ing inscription, in large let ter :—" The small-poxin the family of -- re siding in this house." 411 those who have had com munication with the patient are shut up in the same the body is car riedbeing accompanied by a priest, and is buried without funeral ceremonies house to until th e burial-ground ri cure al lt. o r r o u death t h without ensues in a spot apart. According to the new regulations issued by com mand those who have o rn m a i n t d ted of to t a h v e ail K t i h n e g ms o e f lv N es a o p f le v s a , ccination are incapa.• citated from enjoying the sovereign munificence : peti tions are not received by the Ministers, nor in any charitable institution, unless accompanied by certifi cate that the individual has been vaccinated. The ad ministrators of hospitals are bound to cause children to be vaccinated in the month following their admission. Directors of colleges, ecclesiastical, civil, 'or mili tary, are prohibited from receiving any pupils who have not been vaccinated. A central Royal Vaccine Institution is established in the capital, composed of ten ordinary members, and two superadded, who have under their orders twelve ordinary vaccinators, and as many extraordinary, as also six employes for the correspondence. Each vac cinates gratuitously at his residence daily. Every three months vaccine virus is sent to the provinces, from the Minister of the Interior, and its receipt, in a good state, is acknowledged by the provincial vacci nators. The children vaccinated must be brought se veral times to the vaccinators, in order to ascertain that the effect is produced. Vaccine Commissions excite in the chief town of every province and district; which are bound to act according to the instructions transmitted to them, and to endeavonr to diffuse the propagation of vaccination in their respective localities. * All employ4x, and those who live at the expense of Government, must have their children vaccinated. The clergy are charged to preach to the people, respecting the usefulness of vaccination, and the duty which is imposed by God and the King upon each father of a family to preserve by its means from sickness the lives of their children. The vaccine junta of each district causes midwives to be instructed and convinced of the utility of vacci nation, and obliges them to promote its practice as much as possible. The junta meets every month to ascertain that its regulations are obeyed, and in what degree vaccination has prospered or declined. This careless, hard-hearted behaviour to the la bouringthe aristocracy, people, has created in us a disgust and hatred often a d n i d spl l aye a d m bsoyrrtyhetobuhrenairng n that f corn. This is wicked, and indeed very stupid. The gentry do not pay us just wages to enable us to bring up our families, and in o rder to b e rev e nged on them we do a very wicked, stupid, and m a licious act, which injures those people who do not injure us, via., the people who keep the fire offices, for every stack and rick is insured. Let us petition Parliament to take up our cause. 1 made, some little time since, a calculation. I took the amount of meat consumed by ten of the fa milies of the aristocracy, and I found each of the members, including servants and all, amounted to each member per day to one pound and a half, which is ten pounds and a half to each individual weekly. I also took the amount of meat consumed by ten fami lies of poor people, and it amounted to only half an-ounce per day, or nearly half-a-pound per we e k. So that we see that the idle eat or waste three times as much per day as the poor do in one week. Did they but know the faintness and langour that so often come over the hard-working labouring man who eats only bread, the gentry would U 3. I am not speaking about those labouring people 11 1• Ye grown-up children and able to work, hut those who have to bring up families with only the man's wages to Jive on. Some little time since I saw this shameful para graph in the Agricuhurtil xpress i--" hf Wr , 1 9°4 into the beer-shops on a Saturday night we shall sof) the cause of the distress among the agricultural labourers." A more gross falsehood against a suffer ing class of the community was never uttered. Per haps the man that wrote that insinuation against us has ma gunge; description r o fettAr' Saturday A BLow Ur.—ln our obituary will be found the death of Mr. G. Durant, of Tong Castle ; and here we may menti-m a rather singular c ircumstance that took place on the occasion. In the year 1820 Mr. Durant took legal proceedings against the first wife, and in con sequence of the ju r y h av i ng d ec ided in his favour, he erected a monu men t on an eminence on his estate at Tong Knowle, to commemorate the event. The monu ment was a conspicuous object from the road from Shiffnal to Wolverhampton, and resembled a church tower, j entnec ii at , e l ) .. on his death being known to his family, two of his sons, accompanied by twenty - nine labourers, went to the place, and commenced excavating round it to the d e pth o f s i x f eet ; a ft e r which they made a hole in it, and placed 501 b. of gunpowder in a cask, aid 20Ib. in another pickap,e, under the monument, and e at three o'clo:ilt in the morning of the 39thfugo was tilt d to it, a n d siit , fi re to, an d i n a few minutes the monument was laid tilt on the ground without any acei• dent. Thu eldest son and heir to the estate died some years ago,and on his death-bed he requested the younger branches of the family, that as soon as their father was dead, they would cause the monument to be blown up, that it mi g l i t cease to ex i st with t h e f oun der, and that lue memory of the scwialous catise fur r(hiGh It was ei . e.•ted and h e raiA* perish t,teetlier. Tbe ruins were visited on Sunday last by lar t' ts nu mbers of per,ons, many of who m came f rom a „, ,, reat distance. The 'Tog Castle estate goes i n to the hands of the executors of the late Mr. Durant, jun. who reside in Ireland, and will ti - 4 • -•-• who is now sixteth, stave _ e tr A h„,go4-ie a t of t 4 e p ro p er ty until the heir, attai n s hi s ina joiity,—Shrewsbury Journal. Dispatches were sent off at evening from the Colonial-office for the Governor of Jamaica, and also for the Governors of the other West India Colonies. LAW INTELLIGENCE PRIVY COUNCIL, Dec. 16. THE LIEUFENANT-GOYEBNOR OF GUERNSEY. (Continued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.) Mr. ROEBUCK, Q.C. (with whom was Mr. Wadding ton), continued his argument on the part of the Crown, in defence of the Lieutenant-Governor. Ile commenced by referring to the opinion . pf the Procureur- General of the Island (who formed part, ex officio. of the loyal Court), whioll had been given as to the legality of the Lietltemint , Governor's conduct in respect to the depor tation of the Frenchman. The LORD CHANCELLOR thought the opinion could not be received as evidence ; but it might be read as part of the Learned Gentleman's argument. Mr. ROEBUCK then read that part which referred to the point at issue :—" We give our opinion that the Lieutenant-Governor has the power of sending any in dividual away whose sojourn here appears dangerous to the public peace. We believe many instances might be fatted of the exercise of this power on cis part, though we cannot cite the cases, not having access to the books. But we believe it to he generally the received opinion that the Lieetetiant-Governor has the power of sending mettec any alien from the island and that no alien c a n reside either in Guernsey or Jersey without the assent of the Lieutenant-Governor in each case," The Learned Gentletaaa then animadverted on the tone in which the Royal Court had asserted what he oonceived their illegal and unfounded uitaruptioals of power. They had spoken of the Lieutenant-Governor as having acted "in igno rance of the constitution," " contrary to his oath," and "in violation of the law." They actually asserted that the Orown had only reserved to itself political and mili tary power in the island, and that supreme civil executive power resided in themselves. It had positively been pretended, that registry by the Royal Court was neees eery to give etibot and force, not only to writs of pardon, bet to Orders in Council —nay, to Acts of Parliament. Mr. S. WORTLEY denied that the petitioners' counsel had ever asserted that Acts of' Parliament had no force till so registered, but that it was the regular and legal practice so to register them. Mr. Ronnucrt declared, that till the Royal Court dis tinctly relinquished that pretension he should assert that they premed it, and he should prove that they did so. Les upprobations des lois (of the time of Elizabeth), rested upon, as conferring on the Royal Court such powers, only pee eeetain powers of regulating the in ternal effitieu of the island ; and her Majesty had dis tinctly reserved to herself and her successors, as she could not avoid doing, all her regal prerogatives. He should argue, however, that the Qoeen of England could not divest herself of the prerogative of pardon in any part of her dominions without an Act of Parliament, that the island had been annexed (by conquest) to the realm, and formed part of the dominion of England, and sub jected to the laws of England awl the prerogative of the Crown. But he eenteeded that on the true construction of the ancient oustoms of Normandy, as set forth in the Coms , entaries of Terrier (confirmed by the authority of Warburton's Laws of Guernsey), combined with the approbations des lois in the legal operation of the royal letters of pardon, was declared to be, de facto, the libera tion of the prisoner. The words were, " Les lettres de pardon; remission, ou grace, du Prince ou Reine d'Angle terre, zont acceplA ici, et deffait mettre les oriminels en libert6 scion la tenour des dites lettres." _ Th.? Loan CHANCELLOR—What construction do you put on the phrase—" aont acceptc63 et deffait I inettre des criminels," &c. ? Mr. ROEBUCK—" Are considered, de facto, to set the prisoners at liberty." Mr. S. WORTLEY denied this construction of the phrase " dqrait," as Norman translation of de facto. The Loan CHANCELLOR intimated that something , might turn on the import of the word " acceptees," ac cording to the uiages of the island. Mr. ROEBUCK proceeded to observe, that though the claims of the Royal Court professed to be founded on the " Constitutions of John," they had adduced no in stances of letters of' pardon registered earlier than 1641. Why ? Because their books, which had been searched, presented, no earlier authorities for their claim, though numerous writs of pardon existed on the records of the island before 1641—a pregnant proof this, that their claim was unfounded. The instances, which had been cited, however, also proved this claim unfounded. They tended to show * that the prisoners before they had regis tered their pardons " had been discharged 1 " instead of their registering the pardons in order to be discharged. ":„" writs, too, were addressed to the goveree-- Now, in ow, the ease At Issue, a man having eusentenced by the Royal Court to a 1 . 6 "" nf imprisonment had been coin he Royal Court had discharged their were ' judicial. Once in prison, the man was in the custody of the Executive—that is, of the Crown. The prison was her Majesty's. The gaoler was the servant of the Crown. He had been appointed by the Governor—by the last Governor, Sir W. Keppell (since whose time there had been only a Lieutenant • Governor), and had continued in the office since. He gave a security that he would surrender to the Royal Court any prisoners to be tried ; but once tried and sen tenced, he held them for the Crown. The terms of the bond were, "par deliverance en justice"—i.e., to ti ial. In this case there bad been no interference with the course of judicial proceeding. On this point the Learned Counsel cited Warburton. The King's Prevot was to bring the prisoners before the Court, " and to see its sentence executed"—that is, to see them put into prison, or hanged, &c. Mr. S. WouTLET—IIe is to see the sentence com pleted ; he must be responsible for their custody. Mr. ROEBUCK—No, no. He cannot so much as enter the prison. The Learned Counsel went on to argue that this claim of the Royal Court, undoubtedly shackling and fettering the exercise of the Queen's prerogative, raised the question whether any Sovereign of England could, without the authority of Parliament, so shackle the prerogative. He contended that this could not be done according to the laws and constitution of England, as laid down by Lords Coke, Hale, &c. Those high au thorities, confirmed by " Berry's History of Guernsey," showed the island to be under the dominion of the Crown, and to form part of the realm of England. The royal prerogative, therefore, must prevail in the island, as in any other part of the country. He also cited " Ryley's Pleadings in Parliament," pages 467-9. " Justices itinerant" had sat in the island under the Royal Commission, as in England. The Barons of the Cinque Ports and of the County Palatine of Chester had made claims akin to those now urged by the Royal Courts of Guernsey and Jersey, and they had been disallowed. The fact was, in all these cases the " Royal Charter " had conferred no more than the usual powers and privileges of corporations of such a cha racter. These jurisdictions were under the sovereignty of England, arid subject to the prerogatives of the Crown of Englaid, instead of being, as the Royal Court pre tended, part of some foreign sovereignty, under some sort of independent separate powers, and laws and usages. In the 4th Institute, Lord Coke had laid it down that the King could not, without an Act of Par liament, divest himself of any portion of the imperial prerogatives, among which he enumerated the writ of pardon ; and if the Queen was so ill advised as to issue " letters patent" (as Coke called them), granting to any body the power of " verifying" her writs of pardon, &c., and the privilege of not obeying them till so verified, the charter would to that extent be null and void. Sir S. Lusurstwroar was understood to draw a distinc tion between countries conquered, and merely annexed by treaty. Mr. BOEBUCK remarked that the islands of Guernsey and Jersey had been re-conquered by English sovereigns subsequently to the forfeiture of Normandy to France. Mr. BURGE—But he also alleges the King of England's seisin of those islands to be a good seisin (pars pro tanto) of the whole duchy. Mr. ROEBUCK considered that a curious principle. He, however, admitted that C,.ke conceived the islands not part of the realm of England, though subject to the Crown of England; giving as his reason that writs from Chancery ran not out of the jurisdiction of Chancery. But it was enough for this case that the islands were under the Crown of England, subject to the prerogatives of the Crown. Sir S. LUSHINGTON—Do you contend that the prero gative of pardon is similar to that of declaring peace or war, and is coextensive with it ? Mr. ROEBUCK—Certainly. Lord Cuke affirms it to be, " Omni, soli, et semper." Sir S. LUSAINGTON—This argument is a most mo mentous one. Let me clearly comprehend your proposi tion. Is it, that whenever the Crown of England be comes possessed (at the close of war, by peace, &c.) of a foreign country, there the great prerogatives of the Crown instantaneously, and without any qualification, attach ? " Omni, soli, et semper" are large and compre hen ive words, certainly. But let me put a case. Sup pose we reconquered what we now call " British" Guiana, and that previously the right of pardon had been in some other jurisdiction than the Crown's, would the royal pre rogative of pardon directly prevail ? Mr. ROEBUCK cited Lord Coke, 4th Institute, pages 356 and 357. At the same time, he admitted that Lord Mansfield; in his judgment in the great case of the island of Grenada, had appeared to consider that seine of the principles laid down, on the authority of Coke, might be worthy of revision. This, however, was dis tinctly laid down, by Coke, that the Sovereign could not grant away by charter any part of the royal prerogatives, and that even by Act of Parliament it could not be done by implication. Now he affirmed the language of les approbations des lois, appealed to, as proving a grant of this privilege now claimed for the Royal Court, could only be conceived as conferring the privilege by way of implication, if at all ; for it was only a general approval of the customs of the island, which, according to the Norman usages and laws, were said to justify the claim. It was of the highest importance for the protection of the liberty of the subject, that, in an island where a peculiar local jurisdiction existed, with no right of appeal save to the Queen in Council, the royal writ of pardon should not be rendered nugatory by a privilege of disregarding it until that local court should choose to register it. Let it be observed, that the claim was made equally as to writs, Orders in Council, and even Acts of Parliament— all were placed in the same category ; yet, from the time of Charles 11- downwards, whenever the Royal Court hal presumed, in reference either to Orders in Council or Acts, to claim that its registry was a condition precedent to their validity, :he Council had (so lately in one case as the governorship of Sir J. Doyle) peremptorily di rected the Court to regard them as binding on the Wand, independently altogether of the registry, which was only for convenience. Mr. S. WPMET refeePod to the order of the time of Charles 11. (set forth in " Duncan's History of Guernsey") as expressing that the Court had only acted under an erroneous impression. Mr. ROEBUCK read the order at length. The argu ment had been placed on, the sync footing with respect to acts of Parlialuent and Royal writs. Now, he con tended that the claim, as admitted to be groundless =pith respect to Acts of Parliament, and as shown by precedents since Charles IL's time to have been dis regarded and overruled by the Crown in Council with regard to Orders in Council, must be equally groundless as to royal writs of pardon s it being by law as impossible to grant away any part of the royal prerogative as to give the right of dispensing with an •\ ot of Par liament. The Learned Counsel then proceeded to argue that in a cOnstitutional, as well as in a legal point of view, it was very important that the judicial and the executive powers should be kept separate and distinct. When a man had been judicially sentenced, the enforce ment of the sentence was ono of the functions of •the executive; therefore, if the Crown officer (the Lieut.- Governor) had the custody of the prisoner, he was right in enforcing his liberation, as he had done, under the authority of the Crown. In conclusion, the Learned Gentleman intreated their -Lordships—recollecting the feelings which had been excited in the course of this contest—would in their decision vindicate the Lieu tenant-Governor, without giving a triumph to one party or the other. Mr. WADDINOTON followed on the same side. The Learned Counsel's arguments were not concluded when the Council rose. At its rising the Council adjourned till Wednesday. COURT 01 QUEEN'S BENCH, Dec. 16. :sittings at Nisi Prius, at the Guildhali, before Lord DENMAN and a London Speciul jury.) THE ARCHIMEDEAN SCREW—LoWE V. PENN AND ANOTHER. The plaintiff in this case, a smoke-jack maker, who in the year 1838 had taken out a patent for :propelling vessels, by means of a screw working under water at the stern of the vessel, and the defendants are Messrs. Penn, the celebrated steam-boat builders. The action was brought for an infringement of the plaintiff's patent, by applying his screw to the steam-boat " Infant Prince." Mr. Sergeant Byles conducted the case for the plain tiff, and Mr. Platt, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Peacock ap peared for the defendants. It appeared from the evidence for the plaintiff. that he had taken out his patent in 1838, and that in 1839 he had caused a number of experiments to be tried on b yard a steam-boat called the Wizard, the name of which was subsequently changed to the Cygnet, and that, in consequence of those experiments, he had caused various alterations to be made in the skape of his £crews or propellers. It appeared that Mr. Francis Smith, the proprietor of the Archimedes, was present at some of those experiments, and one of the persons who had assisted at the building of the Archimedes, deposed that she had first of all been fitted up with a whole screw, which occasioned a disagree able vibration at the stern, but that subsequently the whole screw had been changed for the sec tions of a screw, by which the vibration was got rid of. A person had called on Smith for the purpose of remonstrating with him, but Smith was not at home, and it did not appear that any further steps were taken in the matter. It also appeared that the Government had adopted the same principle in fitting up some of her Majesty's ships, but it did not appear what steps the plaintiff had adopted in consequence. When the defendant was fitting up the steam-boat Infant Prince and another boat with steam propellers, they were waited on by Mr. Curpmeal and Mr. Briggs, a gentleman possessing 7-12ths of Lowe's patent, to re monstrate with him for using Lowe's patent propeller without a license:; various interviews took place, at the conclusion of which Messrs Penn refused to apply for a license, and the present action was in consequence brought. For the defence it was contended that the invention was not a uew one—that it did not differ in principle from Shorter's patent skulling machine, which was invented in 1800—that it was identical in principle and nearly in detail with Millington's propeller, which was patented in 1816—that a Mr. Brown, had invented and published, in 1825, a method of pro pelling vessels by means of vanes working under water. and had published it to the world, ; and that as far back as 1815, had invented a method of propelling vessels by means of a worm screw, or a number of leaves placed obliquely round an axis; and that in Dec., 1829, a method had been invented by Cummerow, of placing the screw pro. peller between the stern-post, and the rudder-post. The various patents andmodels having been ';,tit in, Mr. Rennie, the engineer, gave it as opinion that the principle of Lowe's i l '",rention differed in nothing from those ",;ready known, and that the mode of propel = ing by means of curved blades working und47, Water, and providing for the pass ing ar::y of the water without choking, had been in use oefore 1838. On his cross-examination, he stated that in Shorter's, Millington's Brown's, and Trevethick's in vention the vanes were flat, and that Cummerow's patent ' was for a whole screw, and not for a section of a screw. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff—Damages, Forty Shillings. POLICE INTELLIGENCE. GUILDHALL. Thomas Barry, a respectably-dressed young man, who was remanded on Saturday, on a charge of attempting is pick a lady's pocket on Ludgate-hill, for the purpose of making inquiries into his character, was again brought up in charge of police-constable Wardle, 325. A policeman of the L division of the metropolitan police, stated that he had known the prisoner for the last four years as a member of the swell mob. About that time he was taken into custody for assaulting the police, and was sentenced lo two years' imprisonment. He sub sequently, about two months since, was brought up be fore the magistrates for thrusting a lighted link in the face of a policeman, and was sent to prison for 14 days. He was a well-known character. Alderman JonNsox said he should send him for seven days for his present offence, and, as he appeared to be so well known to the police, he had no doubt it would not be long before he would be in their custody again. Charles Why, a young urchin, about nine years of age, was charged with stealing a sovereign entrusted to him, the property of George Brown, hairdresser and per fumer, of No. 17, Ludgate-hill. Alderman JOHNSON said that the lad had been often before brought to the Court. On the last occasion Le was sent, it appeared, with half-a-crown to buy some meat for the purpose of making a little beef tea for hi. 4 sister, who was lying dangerously ill, and that he then absconded and spent the whole of the money. It ap peared that he was incorrigible, and for his present offence he should send him for three months to Bride well ; and in the meaatime see what could be dune with him. MARLBOROUGH-STREET. EXCISE INFORMATION.— William Coots and John Hay were charged by Mr. Knyvitt, an Excise officer, with having sold gin in Hyde Park, without a license. Knyvitt said he had received information that persons were in the habit of breaking the law by selling gin to the skaters on the Serpentine, and that, acting on this information, he went to Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon to make observations. He saw one of the defendants with a table before him in the park selling something from a bottle to various persons. He saw the other de fendant place a small bottle on the table, from which both defendants drank a glass of some liquor. Witness went up to the defendants, and asked what they charged for a glass? One of them replied the charge for a glass of peppermint-water was 2d. Witness asked what was charged for a glass of gin, and on being told 21d. he or dered a glass, and was served with the gin, for which he paid. The defendants were afterwards given into cus tody. In their posses ion several bottles were found. These bottles were either full of peppermint-water or smelt as if they had only had peppermint-water in them. The only bottle containing gin was the small bottle out of which witness was served. _ _ _ In defence, one of the accused stated that after having dinner on Sunday he asked his companion to fetch some gin for their own use. When the gin was brought they drank some of it, and at that moment the Excise officer came up, and as he wanted some gin and not peppermint-water, and there being about a glass of it in the bottle, he was supplied with a single glass. The defendants further said that they only sold peppermint water for the accommodation of the skaters. Mr. MALTBY had no doubt that gin had been sold im properly, but under all circumstances he was of opinion that the present was not such a case as called for a con viction, and he should, therefore, dismiss the complaint. BENEVOLENCE.—The Earl of C— sent SL, and A. 8., Conduit-street, $l., for the poor-box. UNION-HALL. A respectable tradesman of the name of Dronsart, carrying on business in the City, made an application to the magistrate under the following circumstances : He stated that he was the brother of Fanny Dronsart, a young female, who was charged, in conjunction with a Frenchman named Charles Richert, with stealing a gold watch and gold neck-chain, the property of a lady named Williams, in Stamford-street, and that they were examined at that court on Saturday ; that since then, he (applicant) . had had an interview with his sister in the county gaol, and that she there apprised him that while they were under examination at that court on the day above specified, her fellow-prisoner (Richert) made a confession of his guilt to her, slid that he had taken the watch and chain out of Miss William's drawer, and had pledged the former article at the shop of Mr. Atten borough, the pawnbroker, in Fleet-street. The ap• plicant added that he was persuaded his unfor • tunate sister had no concern whatever in the robbery. Mr. TRAILL said the charge wns brought before his colleague, Mr. Cottingham ; that he was of opinion the latter gentleman would, under the circumstances just mentioned, sanction her liberation on entering into her re cognisance to be present on Wednesday, the day ap pointed for the next examination. The magistrate the n directed Berridge, the chief usher, to proceed to Flee:- street, and ascertain whether the watch was pledged, as described, at the pawnbroker's. The officer returned, and reported that the watch was pledged on Monday last (the day on which it was stolen) by a man answering the description of Richart. Mr. TRAILL, upon this information, sent an order for the liberation of the applicant's sister from the county gaol; and being afterwards brought up to this Court, and the necessary bail being enterid into, she left the Court with her brother. WORSHIP-STREET. John Harman, alias While, a notorious " smasher," was charged upon the police sheet with uttering a counterfeit half-crown to Mr. Edmund Warlter, a butcher in Durham-street, Bethral-green-road. It appeared from thstatement of police-sergeant K 8 that, on Saturday evening, the prisoner entered the prosecutor's shop, and in payment of some trifling article he tendered a half-crown piece, which Mr. Warlter im mediately discovered to be spurious, and, on looking at the utterer, at once recognised him as being the same person who had practised a similar imposition upon him on the preceding day. On being charged with the fact, ;l - ,e prisoner made ,a sudden attempt to repossess himself of the coin, which, in the struggle fell to the ground, and finding the butcher was determined to secure it, the prisoner caught up one of his cleavers and made a cut at his head with such force that, but for his fortunately evading the blow, must have produced fatal conse quences. The prisoner, after a violent struggle, was overpowered, and given into the custody of a policeman, who conveyed him to the station-house. While the charge was being there taken against thu g the prisoner made another attempt to snatch the money from the hand of the prosecutor ; but, instead of getting posse s ' ti . on of the ba s e co in, he grasped hold o.`'a large pet ol Y; piece, which he iriuu,:iia..ely thrust into his fnouth, and made an attempt to swallow. He was observed, how ever, instantly to turn black in the face, the piece having got tightly fixed in his gullet, and, after some aborti‘e attempts on the part of the officers to dislodge it, be 1c 55 conveyed, in a state of strangulation, to the London Hospital, where the coi n was - forced down his throats The sergeant added that the prisoner still remained 10 the hospital in such a condition as at present entirely precluded the possibility of his removal. Mr. BROUGHTON gave directions to the sergeant to.. keep his eye up o n th e case , a nd when the prisone r had sufficiently recovered, to bring him to the court, to meet the charge ageing him. THAMES POLICE. Yesterday James Bridgman, alias Smith, andwith great many o th er i://qses, was brought before Mr. 13r0: derip, charged with breaking into the Union Char' Poplar, with intent to commit a felony. Henry Plewrite, a police-constable, No. 10 6 K , stated that on Saturday morning, the attention of the i nbabi : tants in the neighbourhood of the chapel was attracted by the groans of a man, which gradually became fainter; About six o'clock information of the occurrence *as lel to the station-house, and he walked round the chsPe : I heard a low moaning, and cries of " Help, sav e I t% lam dying !" Having procured the keys, be vitro% the interior for some time, and ultimately traced sthw sounds to the chimney of the vestry-room. and then „ a man's legs, and attempted to haul hies down, but pi , was unable to do so. He then attempted to force him up the chimney, but with no b e tter success, and the m a d in a low tone said he was stuck fast in the chimn e y s k i e dying, and that he could not hold out much longer. Le Mom diately procured assistance and demolished Om chimney with pick -axes and crow-bars. About eig o'clock the pri-oner was rescued, quite insensible. si surgeon was called in, who found him in the last s ta g e exhaustion from the cold and bruises he had inflicted uPehl; himself in his efforts to get out of the chimney, wh ere must have remained for five or six hours. After the P i r s : i soner was rescued, he was sent to the London Hosr ' wer and he had just been fetched from that place to Os - to the charge against him. He knew the priso ner te e be a notorious thief, and he examined the chimney s had his apprehension and discovered that the tcp Of 4 been takers off and the prisoner had descended thr°llb. the opening, and was proceeding towards the ve*,,, tol : room for the purpose of robbing it, when be bec "' -- fixed in the chimney. ol- Mr. George Cross, of No. 6, Titchbourne-cour t, born, said that on the Ist or 2d of December, 1842,1 1 prisoner made application to him for employmet i lin to said he could make himself handy. He ordered sore come on the following Monday. and found him work to do. The prisoner said he had no lodgings and asked permission to sleep in the house. li e t ented to his doing so, although such an arrange":„" was extremely inconvenient. Next morning, bef° l43 l — no s one else was stirring, the prisoner decamped after P dering the house of a quantity of tools belonging W: 1 0 - '6 ness and a journeyman in his employ, the apPren ha wearing apparel , two pillows from the bed on wh icl. slept, and other property. A 0 1 The prisoner, who was very ill and weak, tar_ "ms• covered with soot and dirt, on being called on f o r to defence, faintly articulated —"I have nothing at a l l say." Aar. BRODERIP remanded the prisoner till Ttlem bli next, and he was led away by the gar,ler. Yesterday the Mercers' Compan - y nual contribution of 101. to tb., poor-box of the C° lll. On Saturday the Earl of sent 51. 11 4 11 .1 - 111 ER SMITH. vrleag e Mr. PAYN forwarded their l i t : TER 'requested our reporter to 2 001 0 - „ zi t! the receipt fry him, on Saturday last, of two five - r - % notes y sent by the Earl of C., one for the poor hero of ''nis Court and the other for that of the Wand s° I Police-court. TRIAL of MR. PORT at CHESOI4. (Reported in the Times of the 11th instant) i;e , The trial of Mr. Port proves, beyond con ion tion, how juries have been imposed upon in q uesti ..,,a of medicine by interested doctors, in order to pp up their sinking theory (the organic). The 1 r 11 : 4 of laid down by Sir Mathew Hale, in " Hale's ne-4,30 the Crown," and affirmed by Blackstone, at 9 itlo when medicine was not made such a trade of ° col' at present, in cases similar to Mr. Port's, ig loVs "If a physician gives a person a potion intent to do him any bodily hurt, but with an in ne r to cure or prevent a disease, and, contrary to the tation of the physician, it kills him, this is no 1 10113 . 1 % to opin . „ l° and the like of a chirurgeon ; and I hold their be erroneous that think, if he be no licensed chirn, ell or physician that occasioneth this mischance, OP „" f ed it is a felony, for physic and salves were before lic e ; bo without try physicians and chirurgeons and therefore, if , a ile / off not licensed according to the statute of the 3a A. 1.0 c. 1., of the 14th Henry VIII., c. 5., they are so ) 4 to the penalties of the statutes ; but God forbid tha t 00 ; mischance of this kind should make any PeP °ll ' licensed, guilty of murder or manslaughter: „ h Of late years a competition has arisen w" fio jit diplomaed doefors, and consequently our judg es 4o o l convenient, and in opposition to the before-in e i n dict um high legal authorities, to adopt another ,T v of which is, " that the accused shall be de e med 8 1 ;, - ,,, / ' manslaughter if he acted with rashness a 7 0 1 i. Bence," and the judges of this "rashness or 1 :,-1' Bence," are—who do you think ? The judge e l* J,t in but the doctor, with the piece of p a rchtn e ": 4 his pocket, who is directly interested in obtat i Sir conviction. The very forcible reason given lysie M. Hale, and affirmed by Blackstone, that `` P we r and salves were before licensed doctors is 50 the ful, that we need not say_ another word ' to Prb°' law' iniquity of the present m o de o f l a ying down t `f for The idea of placing an honest man on his trim ore e felony, when his only crim e i s that he does trot e with the opinions of the interested doctors, an thot he has done all he can to save, is so monstrous, Ail every lover of liberty must rejoice at the trin l 7, j acquittal of Mr. Port. It is hoped that the a new toil the doctors, on their cross-examination o n thsv o isb will open the eyes of the people. Our judg el a o ctoll present day appear to combine with the a the; against the people ; it is, h o wever, to be hope 9 0 0 the verdict of acquittal in Mr. Port's case, i n , .1;011 to both jud g e a n d d oc t o r s , w ill o p era te as l e i no s them. The only thi ng that s h ou ld have been th - ts tea Mr. Port, if he acted as an apothecary, was O s by Sir M. Hale) for the Apothecaries' Co have brought an action against him on the stlll u t Ae penalties. That's the true remedy for doctors ; presume that that, like Sir J a m e s Graham s , f ibes not sufficient protection for them. If a surge:ll/%0, Ae drunk, kills a person in performing an operitt!"loo hear of it because it is so palpable that not",,, ln fi een t l shield him ; but with respect to a physician, 'l e o OP to be responsible to no one ; and the only ref's!, (the he is not responsible appears to be, that the.Y physicians) all differ in theory and practi ce : o o o, subject is certainly deserving of serious coosine +,§ ig 6 ; The new President of the United St ll `" -- 1 0 . " r Scottish lineage ; and bis curious looking 13, fa y abridgment of a good old Scotch one. Mr. P01k.% 00 1 or grandfather is said to have been a Lanarkahlro rlio. P il e : a t :e t i s r :;:i of the name of Pollock. In the somewhat lect of the upper ward of this county, that nounced Poke, and hence, probably, the ort h e lilP " adopted by the transatlantic branch of the 1 Glasgow Post. R BIRTHS. af o rtis bits' yl. - On the 10th inst., at Meppershall Rectory, "-- ore. • the wife of the' Rev. Henry Howarth, of a son, still of esP On the 12th inst., at Torrington-square, the ladY n . o f tamn Mackenzie, Royal Engineers, of a eon, still -b°r ), - ;1 5 ` 11 On the 13th inst., at Merrow, near Guildford, t -- ir Captain Parke, Royal Marines, of a daughter. , r , o f O t On the 14th inst., the lady of George Taylor , P- 6cl "' field House, Hants, of a son. „,,00, f 044 On the 14th inst., the lady of A. H. Kind er "' _.,d Liverpool, of a daughter. Ay On the 15th inst., at Connaught-place, La dy %CO Hope, of a . On the 15 d th aughter inst., in Portland-place, Mrs. Jamb A A, es Nicol, of a daughter. 0 v. On the 15th inst., in Dorset-place, Dorset-squ are " v• - of John Lagier Lamotte, Esq. , of a d aug hter. f ill* On the 15th inst., at Cl aremon t-terrace, Pen t°ll tb i lady of Henry Hills, Esq , of a son. tr'ra, On the 15th inst., at Edmondthorpe, Leie este rB-1 1413' Hon. Mrs 16th ins tea t Edwars of a son. A ° On the Ratcliffe, Mrs. Buchan an, °I. to ter, still-born. TI i 4ri‘ ' On the 16th inst., at Westboarne-terrace, --, d.- wife of James Colhoun, Esq., of a daughter. IV MARRIED. ti , Isti At the church of St. Bride's, in the City of Lon-- io , Rev. H. Hyndman Jones, Mr. W. Simpson, t° '''. „00 Best. '1 7 ‘7.4' II On the sth inst., at St. George's, Hanover-sciusTA.lhvy ood, Esq., late of Bond-street, to bliss Fella , ° 0' ye, ri f p street, Regent's-park. .i.t , r On the 12th inst., at St. James's Church, D° Jo be Lodge, of London, to Ann, only child of th e late 0 11 1 den, Esq., Kingston, Portsea. g r " ' On the 14th inst., at St. Botolph, Bishopsg O lt A , Humphery Smith, to Mary Ann, second daughter Hall, of Bishopsgate-street Without. !G et ' On the 14th inst., at St. Mary's, Islington, Danie l p-.1,;* away Porter, Esq., of Great Tow er- street, to Ji... 0 1 1 .1c-p' daughter of Joshua Reynolds Pugh, Escli . :ll . City-road. tte 4 DIED. ly T e l'', On the 11th i ns t. after a few hours illnes s, dsel) 0 ,, 13 by his a ffl ict e d family, Richard Hazel, Ea+ , I " Ol e aged 66. jernai r rig e. On the 29th of October, at Lower Clarendon, coolocp, Rev. John Nash. 8.A., of Corpus Christi College' mrs. I .' t On the 7th inst., at Frankfort -on-the-Maine; , e , el 0 , the wife of her Britannic Majesty's Consul to t o h ‘ _t ert ' ileg On the 9th inst., at Woodford, Wilts, n u k O il Esq., ag e d 69. O gl/ ar._, n the 9h inst., in Connaught-square, E 11.7d e- P on beth, relict t of the late John Crosse Crooke, gli e f ';1411 rn , -On the 10th inst., at Guernsey, Elisha , eldes 7 , „', ,, i „ ~ of the late Peter Dobree, Esq., of the I . leau ree e Vl.ag "" On the 10th inst., at Upper Gower-street, Is w of the Peter Muter, Esq , aged 61. thy, yeti' On the 12th inst., at Southampto n, Dore loc i, late William Bowyer, Esq. r 'one l EsOqn, late C l3 a t i li )ta i i n n st i . n , h at er A m lbv es , t , y n,e s . ,ed 7 8 ' ; On the 14th inst , Elizabeth .All4nartehGliuDai,lr;rdeyu'w-"a:r°fte°'- Mansse, Esq., of Lawrence Pountney- lane , ab ~, o r yOt ll ll' —.........,—..............................---- __ _...,- ~p 0 Lou-ton : Printed and Published by DI" , itc e._ _,,:' 1 Yo. 112, Strand, Printer, at The S"" 2 .; ) the Ow" S - rand, in the precinct of the Swop .. 1 . Middlesex, Tuesday, December 17,1844 I si l o ht' U" bill 4 hei hut fk: : t ittto