The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL

We have received from several correspondents,
under the signature of " Planters," or " Friends of
the West India Interest," letters on the compara-
tive charges of producing rum and home-made
spirits, the relative increase of their consumption
since the last arrangement in 1825 to the present
year, and the injustice of closing, by exorbitant
duties, the Scotch and the Irish markets against
the spirits supplied by our colonies. On the two
first tvies we have nothing to add to our former
remarks. We gave the statements and calculations
of the British distillers and of the West India
planters, as we found them quoted from official re-
turns, and we see no reason to modify the opinion
which they led us to express—that so far as Eng-
land is concerned, any increase of the existing duty
on gin, without a corresponding increase of the
duty on rum, would amount to a transference of the
business of distilling from this country to the West
India islands. With respect to the privilege
enjoyed by the inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland
of drinking their own whisky, at a duty of 2s. 10d.
the gallon, and the inhospitable exclusion of ruin
at any duty short of Bs. 6d., we do not feel our-
selves called upon, at present, to make any
observations, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer
proposes no increased rate of taxation of the slightest
consequence, in altering the relative prices of
these articles. "By a Parliamentary return" (says'
one of our correspondents) " published this morn-
ing, the consumption of rum in Scotland has de-
creased in the last year from 168,089 to 152,401
g,dlons, and in Ireland from 24,708 to 21,262 gal-
lons. The whole quantity of I; ish spirits consumed
in Ireland was 9,212,223 gallons, and the whole
quantity of spirits consumed in Scotland was
5,777,280 (see p. 272.) Surely your sense of im-
partiality will induce you to notice this striking
proof of the injustice of the present arrangement."
It seems quite natural that the people of the " sis-
ter kingdoms" should prefer an article taxed only
2s. 10d. to one taxed Bs. 6d., if the former suits
-their taste as well as the latter. But what has that
to do with the question at present litigated between
the English distillers, who pay 7s. of duty, and the
We,t India planters, who pay only is. 6d. more ?
The protection afforded to whisky in its native land
is evidently sufficient, because it has nearly excluded
its rival; but the relative consumption of rum and
gin in England during the last and some previous
years, shows that the latter enjoys no such protect
tion, and that the proposed increase of duty svotdd
effectually turn the scale against it in the market
Times.

The discussion of several important subjects—
particularly the Beer Bill and the Jews' Relief Bill
—was last night postponed, in consequence of the
absence of Mr. Peel, whose father is said to be dan-
gerously ill. We observe, however, with pleasure,
in Mr. Dawson's reply to Mr. Portman, that Go-
vernment are not going to stultify themselves, by
adopting the suggestion of the Country Gentlemen,
to prevent beer sold under the new Bill from being
drunk on the premises of the retailer. Such a re-
striction would destroy the very principle and object
of the measure. The fears expressed by publicans
on this head are natural, though groundless; but the
apprehensions of our rural magistracy are at once
childish and unintelligible. In the Committee on
the Miscellaneous Estimates last night, in the House
of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
having proposed that the sum of 100,0001. should
be granted to defray the expense which might pro-
bably be incurred for the alterations and repairs at
Windsor Castle in the year 1830, Mr. R. Gordon
objected to the vote, and moved, as an amendment,
that 10,0001. should be taken on account, and the
estimate postponed, with a view to having it referred
for consideration to a select committee. Mr.
Brougham, Sir J. Sebright, Mr. Hobhouse, and
several other Hon. Members supported the amend-
' ment, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer finally
consented to withdraw the estimate for the present,
in order to have it referred to a select committee,
which the Right Hon. Gentleman stated he should
move for at a future opportunity.— Times.
The important and extraordinary trial of Messrs.
de Potter, Tielmans, Barthels, Coche Stamens, Van-
derstraeten, and Neve, for a conspiracy against the
Government of the Netherlands, which has been
going on at Brussels for the last fortnight, has now
been brought to a conclusion. The first has been
condemned to eight years of banishment, the second
and third to seven, the last to five, and the two
others have been acquitted. We call the trial im-
portant and extraordinary, not on account of the
persons implicated, though one of them is a well-
known ecclesiastical writer, and two of them are
zealous and powerful agitators,—nor on account of
the excitement which the proceeding has occasioned,
though probably no political trial in that country
ever created so strong a sensation—but on account
of the principle involved in the prosecution, and the
consequences to be expected from the verdict. It
is not only M. de Potter who has been alternately
the enemy of the Jesuits, and the chief promoter of
the union between the Jesuits and the Belgic
liberals,—it is not M. Tielmans, an advocate of
talent, and a few newspaper editors, who were
either promoted by the zeal of the former, or lent
themselves to assist their labours, who have been
condemned, but it is the cause of Belgic agitation
itself,—it is the strange coalition between religious
bigotry arid political liberalism,—between the
Catholic priesthood and the enemies of the Catholic
faith, to obtain political objects which neither
could command separately,—it is the manoeuvres so
effectually employed during the last eighteen months
to disunite the Belgic and the Deteh provinces,—it
is, in fine, the Belgic press and Belgic associations,
which have been brought before the Brussels Court
of Assize, and received their sentence. The in•
fluence employed against the Government to get up
petitions—the exertions made to secure an anti.
ministerial majority in the second Chamber of the
States-General—the organized plan of attack on
every measure of the Ministry—have all been dis-
closed in the course of the correspondence which
the law-officers of the Crown seized in possession of
the defendants. The public has been let behind the
scenes; they have seen the rehearsal of the piece in
the green-room before the audience had collected in
the theatre; they have heard the private opinions
of the actors on their parts before they appeared on
the public stage in the characters assigned them ;
every whisper of an aside has been recorded and ex-
plained; the grounds on which the plot was con-
structed have been discussed in the presence of the
whole nation ; the strings which moved the puppets
have been shown, and all the dramatic artifices by
which popular excitement and political reforms were
to be represented or produced, have been exposed
to the eyes of the dupes or partisans who believed
in the sincerity of their agitators. The means
which the Government employed to obtain these
results, and the principles of judicial proceeding
which the tribunal has sanctioned in the course of
the prosecution, are as extraordinary and alarming
as the issue of the trial is important. The law-
officers of the Crown in the Netherlands converted
the simple project of a doubtful association where
no association had been formed, into a conspiracy to
overturn the Royal authority, elevated an article of
a journal into an overt act of treason, charged an
alleged abuse of the press as an offence amounting
to actual rebellion, and reversed the whole code
of criminal jurisprudence, as far as relates to
the distinction between the expression of mis-
chievous opinions and the commencement of se-
ditious action. The only ground on which the
public prosecutor had to go in instituting pro-
ceedings against M. de Potter, was an article in the
Courier du Pays Bas, of February 3, in which he
proposed, from his prison, the formation of a so-
ciety similar in its object to the Catholic Association
of Ireland as it existed about two years ago. This
might be dangerous, or it might be innocent,—it
might be founded on bad principles, or defensible on
reasons of general freedom; but at any rate it was
a mere letter in a journal—a mere abuse of the press,
Inot calculated to produce tumult, and followed by

no seditious movement. When•the paper was or-
dered to be prosecuted, the Government had no
evidence that it was any thing else awn the indivi-
dual opinion, or the personal proposal of the
writer, whose name it bore. As M. de Potter
was, however, in custody, the crown-officers thought
it as allowable as it was easy, to seize his papers and
to examine his correspondence. In the course of
this examination, they found that he had communi-
cations from various persons who concurred in his
opinions, or were directed by his superior talent.
Hence the idea of abandoning the prosecution for
an abuse of the press, and cemmencing a charge of
seditious conspiracy. The persons whose names are
mentioned above were in a short time apprehended,
with the exception of M. de Potter, who was al-
ready in prison. The charge against them was ren-
dered foimidable by an announcement that they were
to be tried for their lives. The two chief conspi-
rators were placed in secret confinement. All
intercourse with their friends, or even with their
legal advisers, was denied, except in the pre-
sence of the gaoler. Flints were thrown out of
horrible discoveries and alarming dangers. Every
letter that came to the prisoners from their friends,
or was addressed to the journals with which they
are connected, was opened, in expectation of new
proofs of the grand conspiracy. After six weeks of
this tormenting inquisition and harassing suspense,
the charge of high treason was abandoned by the
preliminary Judges, and the prisoners were ordered
to be tried before the Court of Assize on the minor
charge of sedition, exposed to a punishment on con-
viction short of capital severity. The trial began
on the 16th ❑lt., and did not terminate till the even-
ing of Friday last, the 30th. Unfortunately we
have left ourselves no room to give even a brief
summary of the proceedings, or to make our readers
sensible of the grounds of the sentence which was
then pronounced. Suffice it to say, that the whole
evidence against the prisoners consisted in the
contents of their private letters, which the Govern-
ment had intercepted at the post-office, or had
seized in their possession. The most important of
these letters passed between M. de Potter and
M. Tielmans, and the only circumstance that
gave them a character of dangerous mystery,
or political plotting, was an affected use of nick-
names, circumlocutions, or metaphorical phraseo-
logy, to express or to describe persons and objects
whose common designations might have been used
in their correspondence without exposing them to
any suspicion. Thus the Government is called the
padarclzy (or the regime of children), the King is
called the tutor, the Second Chamber of the States
General is called the family council, the provincial
states are called the tribunal of the provinces; one
member of the Legislature gets the name of the old
man, another of the asparagus, and a third of the
weathercock; but these enigmatical designations are
never used except on occasions where the real name
might have been employed with innocence arid
safety. The letters in which these useless substi-
tutes are used for common names refer to projects
for increasing a Belgic majority in the Chambers,—
for getting up an opposition to the Ministry,—for
agitating the questions of the liberty of the press,
freedom of general instruction, as equal distribution
of place and emolument between the inhabitants of
the Belgic and Dutch provinces,—equality of tax-
ation,--equality of religious rights, and other topics
on which the popular mind could be excited by the
discussions of the journals. In no instance through-
out the whole corresponce have we seen any trea-
sonable or seditious purpose manifested. The end
directly proposed was never criminal, though the
means described or recommended might tend to fos-
ter disquietude, to encourage factious opposition, or
to harass legitimate authority. The sentence passed
on de Potter and Tielmans is probably imprudent,
because too severe. If less harsh, it might have
put a stop to the proposed association without ex-
citing the popular sympathy in favour of its pro-
jectors. The disclosures made in the course of
the trial by the reading of their letters must have
displeased their best friends. They showed that they
were endeavouring to use the opposition members of
the States-General as their tools,—that they had no
gratitude for their services, except when employed in
faction,—and that they would trample upon them as
soon as they gave a ministerial vote or uttered a mo-
derate opinion. It was, perhaps, useful to make this
exposure of the agitators, and to check their dan-
gerous artifices by a slight punishment; but so
severe a sentence as a seven or eight years' exile
will convert them into martyrs, while, by settling
on the French territory nearest the Belgic frontier,
the efficiency of their machinations will be rather
increased than diminished. It will add to their po-
pularity that they have been condemned for osten-
sibly supporting Belgic rights against a Dutch
Court and a Dutch Ministry,—that they have been
refused the protection of a trial by jury, to obtain
which was one main object of those counsels for
which they are punished,—and that their punish-
ment has been awarded by Judges liable to be dis-
missed at the pleasure of the Crown, against which,
in the risme of their fellow-citizens, they have so
long protested.— Times.

In aggravation of the eharges against M. de Pot-
ter, before the Brussels Court of Assize, on which
he was condemned, on Friday last, to eight years'
banishment, the public prosecutor stated that the
defendant had been associated with one Buonsrotti
ia publishing at Brussels a work entitled '!'he con-
spiracy for Equality, otherwise called the Conspi-
racy Babeaf. The book, of which a copy lies be-
fore us, purports to be written by Philip Buonarotti,
and is advertised for sale at the Librairie Ro-
mantique. It does not appear from any passage
of the work, or from any part of the conduct of
de Potter, that he could approve of the doctrines
or plots of the conspirators, though he was inti-
mate with Buonarotti, who wrote the history
of this singular incident in the history of the
French Revolution. As these judicial proceedings
at Brussels have recalled to notice a revolutionary
transaction nearly forgotten, we make no apology
for giving a brief notice of it from the work al-
luded to.

" Babeuf and his coadjutors belonged to the ultra de-
mocratic party, which at the time of the conspiracy was
insignificant, and had never been very numerous. In the
early period of the Revolution, however, it appeared to be
powerful, because alt the parties who from different mo-
tives opposed the Government fought under its colours,
until events offered them opportunities for pursuing their
own separate views, and because its ranks were swelled
even by enemies of the revolution, who, willing to disgrace
the cause of liberty by follies and crimes, found in the
violence which the- mask of jacohinism enabled them to
assume the means of at once concealing and aiding their
purpose. The Babeufites were not satisfied with the
abolition of privileges, but looked forward to an equaliza-
tion of property ; they wished to see established among
the inhabitants of every commune throughout the whole
extent of France, a perfect equality of labours and enjoy-
ments. Had they been sufficiently powerful, they would
have tried to realize their impracticable system by force,
without regard to the misery so insane an attempt must
have produced. It might be supposed that Robes-
pierre was a favourite with the Baheufites, but even
he did not come up to their idea of perfection : and
the Constitution of 1793, the most democratic of all
the codes promulgated during the revolution, was far
from being satisfactory, as one of its articles sanctioned
the right of property ! However, after the 9th Thermidor,
that constitution was thought better of, and Robespierre
became a hero and a martyr ! The Constitution of the
year 111., •r 1795, being established under the Directory,
it was considered advisable to make the resumption of the
Code of 1793 a rallying cry. But the ultimate object of
the party still being the equalization of property, the Con-
stitution of 1793 was not thought fit to be carried into
operation. It was said that a reform of manners and opi-
nions ought to..precede the full enjoyment of liberty, and
that tle extraordinary measures necessary to produce this
preliminary moral change were not practicable under a
regular system. A society for promoting the object of
the party formed in Paris corresponded with other clubs
of the same kind in different parts of France. In the mean
time Babeuf published a periodical under the title of
Tribun du Peuple, in which he advocated with great
seal the proposition that private property was the cause of
all the evils on the face of the earth. Babeuf, Darthe, and
Drooet (who prevented the escape of Louis XVI.), then
a deputy, were the' leaders of the party, and the plot

seemed to Le approaching maturity, but it was only ai-
lowed to ripen under the eye of the Government; for a
police spy named Grisel, having insinuated himself into
the confidence of the conspirators, gave daily information
of their proceedings, and became the principal witness on
the trial. When the Directory conceived that the proper
time for interference had arrived, a great number of per-
sons were arrested in Paris and the department.
Drouet, and some others, escaped from prison. The num-
ber of the accused, some of whom were not in cus-
tody, exceeded sixty; th.y defended themselves boldly be-
fore the High Court of Vendome. During the trial, they
sang the popular patriotic songs. addressing to the Judges,
and in particular the prosecutors, that stanza of the Mar-
scillais Hymn which commences Tremblez tyrans, et
sous perfides I' They flattered themselves with the ex-
pectation of an insurrection in their favour, in which the
troops would join the people. Nothing of the kind, how-
ever, took place. The trial terminated in the conviction
of only nine of the prisoners; 56 were acquitted. Of the
nine found guilty, Babeuf and Darthe were condemned to
suffer death, and the remaining seven, of whom Buonarotti,
the historian of the conspiracy, was one, were sentenced
to he transported. On hearing the sentence, Babeuf and
Darthe drew from their bosoms daggers and stabbed them-
selves; but the wounds, though severe, were not mortal,
and they were prevented from repeating the blows.
Babeuf's poniard broke, and part of it remained in his
breast. It is stated that they endured great pain from

their wounds, until the guillotine next morning put an
end to their sufferings."
Buonarotti, one of the conspirators, still lives.

He resides in Brussels, where these memoirs have
been published. He was a friend of M. de Potter ;
but it is rather hard to charge the latter with con.
spiring against the King of the Netherlands, because
the former was a conspirator against the French
Directory.—Times.

The discussion of the Miscellaneous Estimates
came on last night. Mr. R. Gordon, who opened
the discussion, commenced with observing that
" any observer of the proceedings of the House,
not thoroughly acquainted with the Constitution,
might sometimes be surprised at the manner in
which Members voted away the money of their con-
stituents. Most Honourable Gentlemen took their
departure, and the few who remained yawned, and
exhibited other unequivocal symptoms of weariness,
an►ounting to something very like disgust." Mr.
lume observed, that, " at present, the whole cere-
mony was a perfect farce, and it was a mere
mockery to say that money was conscientiously
voted. On occasions when such enormoussums were
voted, it was difficult to obtain as many co unty
Members as were present that evening to vote
about a mere Private Harbour Bill." The prin-
ciple which leads Members to absent themselves

when the public money is voted, and to be present
when Harbour Bills and the like are voted, may be
set down as one and the same. The House of
Commons is styled the guardian of the public purse,
and there was a time when the House, however base

in other respects, was firm as a rock when money
was demanded. In those days the money de-
manded was that of the Members themselves;

in the present day, the money demanded
is intended for the Members themselves. Ever
since the King found it necessary to associate with
him the guardians of the Public Purse there is the
best understanding in general on the subject of ex-
penditure ; and auy Member who pries too closely
into money matters is looked on,' if not as a faux
frere, at least as a troublesome fellow. In attend-
ing to Private Bills Members attend either to their
own interests or the interests of their friends ; in
attending discussions respecting grants of public
money, they expose themselves to the inconvenience
of either voting against their wishes, and, perhaps,
thereby defeating an object they have at heart, or
exposing themselves to the inconvenience of having
their names placed before their constituents, if they
have any, in an awkward association. However, it
would appear that the reproach was less deserved
last night than on some occasions. Mr. Flume, in-
deed, gave some sort of solution of the mystiry.
" As, ere long they must have a new election:—
(Order, order.)—He did not know what the Hon.
Member meant by crying order,' but as this was
the fifth year of the Parliament, and six was its na-
tural age, he did not see what there was out of
order in what he said. He would say—come when

an election might (which, perhaps, might please the
Hon. Member better), he hoped that those who had
to vote for county Members would remember how

seldom their Representatives had attended when
these money matters were to be disposed of." Per-
haps the Election, but more probably some other
apprehensions which may have naturally enough
come across them at the present moment, led to the
rather unusual result of the first vote of 32,0001.
being carried only by a majority of 139 to 123, and
a sub•equent having been lost. There are reasons
for everything.-111orning Chronicle.
The publicans are greatly afraid that the morals
of the people will suffer from the interference with
the license-monopoly. They wish to secure their
fellow-countrymen against the evil of unlimited tip-
pling. It is said of Moliere, that on a beggar, to
whom he had given a Louis d'or by mistake, running
after him to return it, he exclaimed, " Who would
have expected to find virtue here !" Who could
have believed that publicans were so anxious to dis-

courage tippling—that they had the morals of the
people so much at heart ! But England is the coun-
try of universal benevolence. Many men among us
unfortunately are not so attentive to their own morals

as they ought to be; but the man is not to he found
who is not ready to take charge of the morals of
Isis neighbours. In a country in which all men are
so ready to sacrifice themselves for the good of the
public, it is a miracle to us how any find time for
their private interests. We trust the publicans will
not allow their virtuous indignation against tippling
to carry them too far. An excess of sobriety might
endanger the establishments of the country. Let
them remember the observations of a great poet
" Ten thousand casks,
For ever dribbling out their base contents,
Touched by the Midas finger of the State,
Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away.
Drink and be mad then ; 'tis your country bids !
Gloriously drunk obey the important call !
Her cause demands the assistance of your throats ;
Ye all can swallow, and .she asks no more."—M. Chron.
Mr. Goulburn, feeble and short-sighted though
he be, and in every respect unqualified to fill the
office of Minister of Finance, is, nevertheless, not
more responsible for his fiscal absurdities than the
other Members of the Administration. The Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer may be a fool, but what
must his colleagues be who tolerate him ? It can-
not be alleged that he has sufficient influence on
Parliamentary patronage to command place, and
therefore the natural inference is, that his associates
are unconscious of his weakness or his errors, blind
to his paltry shifts, and, in fact, as ignorant as him-
self. On no other grounds is it possible to recon-
cile the blunders of this one Minister with the
pretended efficiency, energy, and unanimity of
the Wellington Cabinet. The blunders of
this unfortunate accountant and schoolmaster
ought not, for these reasons, to be placed
solely to the debit of Mr. Goulburn.—
It is the policy of the present Government to
divide and destroy—to fight one class of persons
against another—to balance injuries-rather than re-
dress grievances—to pacify the clamorous by billet-
ti fig them upon the less noisy—to prop up a falling
house by beams stolen from the adjoining one—to
rob the farmer in order to keep the weaver out of
the workhouse—to fleece the landowner for the be-
nefit of the sinking
,planter of the West Indies--to
increase taxes in one quarter in order to reduce
them in another quarter—to encourage smuggling
for the purpose of preventing insolvency, and to
take from the people of Ireland an additional potato
per diem in order that the English tax-eater and
fundholder may not be compelled to drink one bottle
of claret less per month. This being the needy and
desperate policy of the present Ministers, it is no
wonder to see the unhappy Chancellor dealing in
shreds and patches, and making promises and hold-
ing out hopes which he, poor soul 1 has not the
power to redeem or fulfil. The repeal of the beer
duty, and the opening of the trade in that article,

were his grand remedies. He was told that the
people were starving, which, by the way, he did not
believe till he found that the produce of the Excise
was declining, and then he proposed to relieve
them by deducting the serious sum of OW far-
thing from the price of a quart of porter. Doubtful,
however, whether such a reduction would take
place under the present monopoly he resolved to cut
off the leasehold and life interests of the licensed
victuallers, dissolve the unholy compact between the
the publicans, and the sinners, stop up the
chimneys of the big brewers, and allow every man
or woman, green-grocer or oilman, pastry-cook or
cheeseman, to brew and retail beer on their own
premises, on payment of a two-guinea annual re-
tainer to the tollmen of Somerset-house. '1 his was
considered a measure of grace by the wide-mouthed
and long-eared multitude. Mr. Goulburn was
reckoned a wise and liberal statesman—he was
hailed as the friend of the people and the evil
genius of the monopolists, and Mr. Horace Twiss
admitted that he was almost the shadow of the
shade of the immortal Pitt. God of the blunderers !

—if there be such a deity in the Pantheon—behold
thy votary, and crown him with thy own everlasting
and odoriferous dandelion ! When this virtuous pro-
posal was promulgated from the Treasury bench some
of the beer lords pretended to approve of it. They, ex-
cellent gentlemen, had no objection to the plan—oh,
none whatever. It did not affect them personally—
they were not afraid of competition—they were
quite willing to sacrifice their " vested interests"
for the public welfare! There was some who did,
we did not, believe them. We were certain from
the first that they would oppose the scheme in
every possible way. They plotted in secret—they
roused the publicans—they got up a storm among
the pewter pote, and an insurrection among the
spigots, so that it was dangerous to either by day
or night. We really cannot tell all that these armed
tapmen did do; but we suppose that they either
threatened to poison the people in a serious way, or
commence a much more serious run upon the bank ;
for certain it is the Chancellor quailed, hoisted the
white flag, and promised to withdraw the obnoxious
measure by virtue of an amendment which we de-
scribed yesterday. The beer monopoly,therefore is to
becontinued. The repeal of beer duties, without the
abolition of the beer monopoly, is consequently nothing
but a juggle. It will not cheapen the beer to theamount
even of a dolt per quart. It will increase the profits
of the brewer, giver better returns to the retail
adulterator, enable the maker and the vender to
cheat with equal facility and increased compensa-
tion, but the public will not be benefited in any
way whatever. If any arguments or any facts were
required, beyond the glaring injustice of the system
itself, to induce Ministers to abolish the beer moue-
poly, the returns on the tables of Parliament might
supply them with abundance. A document has
just been published by order of the House of Com-
mons, which shows the number of quarters of malt
used by the brewers, and the number of barrels of
ale brewed since 1821 to 1830. We give the re-
sult of the first and last period
:
Qrs. of Malt BARRELS BREWED.
paid Duty. Strong. Table. Total.
1821 ... 2,985,530

1830 ... 2,938,509
Add Intermediate ... 55,498

By looking carefully at these figures it will be
easy to discover how far the public have been
robbed, and to what extent adulteration has been
increased and the profits of the brewer augmented
since 1821. In 1830 the quantity of malt used,
when compared with that of 1821, is less by
57,021 quarters. But out of this diminished quan-
tity of malt the honest brewers have managed to
squeeze an increased quantity of beer of no less
than 211,503 barrels. Read this, beer-bibbing
reader, and judge for yourself. The brewers out of
a less quantity of malt have made a much larger
quantity of what they are pleased to rate as strong
beer. As the people have become poorer they have
the pleasure of knowing that the more diluted has
become their national beverage. As their hearts
have become more faint the brewers have poured in
the more water; and as their sixpences have become
scarcer they have gixen them a decreased allowance
of malt for their money. This is a document
which no casuistry can circumvent. It speaks for
itself. Mr. Barclay may cover it with froth—
Mr. Buxton may pray over it—Mr. Whitbread
may close it with arguments as bitter as quassia—
but they cannot erase its truth. It tells a tale of
shame, which no drugs can make us forget. It ex-
poses the selfishness, the rapacity, and the iniquity
of the system. It shows the effects of monopoly in
figures as plain as the dome of St. Paul's. It proves
to demonstration that this monopoly flourishes on
the very vitals of the poor, encourages fraud, holds
out a bounty for the use of deleterious ingredients,
and gloats the more greedily on the decreasing means
and falling wages of the labourer. And yet this is
the system which bids defiance to Mr. Goulburn
and his Majesty's Ministers—which laughs at their
impotent threats, and forces them to retire from any
hostile position which in their ignorance they may
take up against it. Poor Ministers I happy brewers !
Proud nation of freeborn Englishmen ! held in
chains, poisoned, cheated, and derided by a coterie
of beer-boilers, whose establishments Jack Cade
would have sent down the common sewers in one
night.—Morning Journal.
The second reading of the Bill for removing the
civil disabilities of Jews was postponed hut night
to the 17th instant, on account of the absence of Mr,
Peel, who left town in the morning in consequence
of the serious illness of his father, Sir Robert Peel,
who has suffered a relapse, and who, it was reported,
could hardly be expected to live until the arrival
of his son. This melancholy event caused several
other matters of an important nature to be post-
poned ; among the rest the Beer-trade Bill, and the
presentation of the Birmingham petition, which Mr.
E. Davenport deferred at the request of the Right
Hon. Secretary, who addressed a letter to him for
that purpose. The accumulation of business is
already very great, and these postponements will
have the effect of lengthening the Session far
beyond its usual period, or throwing over to another
year some questions which, it was expected, would
have been disposed of before the rising of Parlia-
ment.—Morning Herald.

It is gratifying to every friend of humanity to
find that the public are becoming every day more
and more convinced of the necessity of improving
our criminal code. We believe more meetings have
been held and more petitions presented on this sub-
ject during the present Session than at any former
period ; from the east to the west, from the north
to the south, the feeling of repugnance and disgust
towards the useless and barbarous frequency of ca-
pital punishments has been manifested ; from every
quarter the Legislature has been called upon to
efface from the Statute-book those cruel enactments
which, though passed with the view of repressing
crime, are themselves criminal, confounding, as they
do, all degrees of moral guilt, and violating the dic-
tates of reason and religion. The dictum of our
Judges, since the days of Sir Matthew Hale, has
been that " Christianity is part snd parcel of the
law of England," but it is a bad compliment to the
religion of mercy to identify it with a system of
law whose principle is not justice, but ven-
geance,—whose end is not amendment, but
extermination. Even Mr. Peel, in intro-
ducing his Bill for the alteration of the law rela-
tive to forgery, admitted the unparalleled cruelty of
our criminal law—even the code which people who
were captivated more by the name than the sub-
stance of legislative reform gave him the credit of
having essentially improved—for he said " it was im-
possible to conceal from ourselves that capital
punishments were more frequent and the criminal
code more severe, on the whole, in this country,
than in any other in the world." These were nearly
the words which we used a short time before, when
exposing the fallacy of the popular error that Mr.
Peel's labours had actually reformed the spirit and
character of the criminal law; but we see, on his
o►vn admission, he allowed it to go out of his hands
more sanguinary, and consequently more barbarous
than that of any other country in the world ! But

the disgraceful errors of legislators are likely to be
rectified by the corrective intelligence of public opi-
; the approaching discussion upon the law of
forgery will show what a moral force has arrayed
itself against vicious legislation. It will show how
extensively prevalent among the well-informed and
respectable classes of society the aversion to un-
necessary severity of our criminal laws has be-
come. We have adverted before to many in-
dications of this feeling so creditable to the ad-
vancing civilization of the age. We showed that
even the bankers—to protect whose interests es-
aecially the terrors of capital punishment were
directed against forgery—had discovered, by
the most instructive of all teachers, the inefficiency
of a principle of punishment which so far exceeded
the offence as t• deter the greater number of those
who suffered by this species of fraud from prose-
cluing the offenders. Most of the petitions which
have yet been laid on the tables of Parliament have
the names of bankers attached to them; but the
most important one, perhaps, is that from Edin-
burgh, which has lately been signed by about 700
persons, all respectable, as many signatures were de-
clined which is was thought would not add weight
ro the dccument. Among the names are those of
IS bankers, 14 clergymen, four magistrates, 48 pro-
fessors of the University, doctors of medicine, and
surgeons, 11 advocates, 34 writers to the signet,
10 insurance and other agents, aNd the remainder
private gentlemen, merchants, and traders. The
petitioners pray for the abolition of the penalty of
death for forgery; yet in a country and in an age in
which civilization is. so far advanced as to call forth
all respectable opinion in opposition to this vindic-
tive law, Mr. Peel proposes to re-enact, in his new
Bill, the sanguinary principle which disgraced the
old law, and rendered it nearly abortive; and that,
too, whi!e the very class about whose interests he
seems to be most anxious repudiate his proffered
protection, and entreat him not to believe that, by
advocating the barbarity of the law, he can do more
than perpetuate its inefficiency.—Morning Herald.
It is quite amusing to hear Mr. Peel declare that

he had proposed a plan with regard to the reform
and enlargement of the jurisdiction of the County
Courts, which would have embraced all, or neatly
all, the reforms contemplated by Mr. Brougham.
If so, then why did not Mr. Peel carry his reform
into effect ? Why has be allowed Mr. I3rougharn
thus to step in and snatch the freshest laurel from
his brow ? Was it not because he had not the cou-
rage to grapple with vested interests—ebecause one
of his present colleagues, holding a large sinecure
office, met him as a lion in his way, crossed him on
his path, and frighted him from any further prcceed-
ings. The truth, however, is that Lord Althorp had
the merit of p,ojecting t he improvements in the County
Courts; that Mr. Peel took the matter out of his
Lordship's hands, and then shrunk from the bugbear
which defeated it. Mr. Brougham's, however, is a
reform of a much more important and comprehen-
sive nature ;—it cannot pretend to originality, in
deed, in point of principle, though in matters of de-
tail it is for the most part new. Cheap and expe-
ditious justice, under certain limitations, is admi-
nistered by local Judges in Scotland and Ireland—
under the name of Sheriff's-depute in the former
country, and assistant Barristers in the latter—
though the district-Judgeships proposed by Mr.
Brougham would be, in a great measure, different
from both. We shall take another opportunity of
entering into its merits, only observing at present
that it will be difficult to find men of sufficient legal
knowledge and practice to make those appointments
truly efficient and respectable, who would accept the
salary proposed on condition of abandoning their
profession, and with it the chances of much greater
emolument and distinction—and if ignorant and in-
capable men are appointed to such situations, it is
evident that the increase of patronage will only tend
to the diffusion of injustice.-11forning Herald.
It will be seen, from the proceedings in the House
of Commons last night, that the second reading of
the Sale of Beer Bill was postponed until this even-
ing, on account of the absence of Mr. Peel, who
had left town for the purpose of paying a ♦isit to
his father, now said to be dangerously ill, and that
Mr. G. Dawson stated, in reply to a question from
Mr. Portman, that the Government had no intention
of making any alteration in the Bill. This is an
apparent contradiction of what we stated yesterday
upon the best authority ; but be it remarked, in the
first place, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
was ❑ot in the House at the time the reply was
given—in the second, that Mr. Dawson might not
be aware of the intentions of the Government—in

the third, that it is not usual for the Government to
announce alterations in a Bill brought in under the
recommendation of a Committee—and, lastly, that
the proper and usual time for such alterations is
when the Bill reaches a Committee of the whole
House. We are, not, in fact, in the slightest de-
gree, shaken in our belief that the obnoxious clause
of allowing the beer to be consumed on the premises,
will be abandoned. The opposition to the Bill in its
present form—not to speak of its injustice and im-
policy—is strong in all quarters ; and it will be
seen from the proceedings of the House, that Mr.
Portman has formally announced his intention of
opposing it on the second reading, this evening, and
that other Hon. Members are equally unfavourable
to its being passed into a law without great modifi-
cation. We do not mention these matters for the
purpose of inducing the Licensed Victuallers to
abate their zeal in opposing the Bill—on the con-
' trary, let the exertion be redoubled, and the object
in view a ill be more certainly obtained ; but we
again repeat, that we have no doubt of the accuracy
of
.e•tr information, and still less that, even were it
not accurate, the offensive clause would be struck
out in the Cominittee.—Morning Advertiser.