The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOVRNALS.

(FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.)
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
Our attention has been pointed to a statement in a
Sunday paper of the 29th ult,, tivhich the conduct of
the Commercial Gas Company is severely handled
gross exaggeration; tontained—and the most palayalete
falsehoods asserted. The insertion of th'e article
upon the part of the journal alluded to, may readily
enough be excused, for it would be an absence of cha-
rity as well as of justice, on our part, not
Ito
admit
that the DispatfA, as well as every other public jour-
nal, may not be occasionally be imposed upon by stater,
ments wearing the guise of truth, which are thoroughly
based on falsehood or misrepresentation •i but there is
no similar palliation for the author of the statement,
who, if we are rightly informed, is a discharged servant
of the Company, and, as such, must have been well
aware of the difficulties which the Company had to
encounter, and the false construction which would be
put upon its conduct. From him, of all persons, what-
ever the conduct of the Company may have been, such
statements ought not to have proceeded ; for if the
example be imitated, as it might be, in other cases, all
confidence between the employer and the employed
would not only be destroyed, but superseded by a sys-
tem of suspicious tyranny on the one hand, and of con-
tracted zeal on the other, which would be painfully in-
jurious to both parties. Such breaches of confidence are
fortunately rare, and generally terminate, as they ought
to do, in the discomfiture of the assailant, and the
triumph of the intended victim of falsification. That
such will be the case in the present instance, we cannot
entertain the slightest doubt ; for although we are not
prepared to state that the whole of the circumstances
asserted. respecting the Commercial Gas Company
are false, yet there are some of them so utterly at
variance with truth, as to induce us to place very little
reliance upon the others. Thus, for example, Mr.
Morris, lately an active member of the Committee, is
reported, by the Correspondent of the journal alluded
to, to have retired from it in disgust ; whereas, the real
truth is, that the said Mr. Morris informed the Com-
mittee a few days ago, that though he must for private
reasons cease to be a member of the Committee, the
Company might not only depend upon his warmest
support, but that he had formed so high an opinion of
their straightforward, honest, and inzenitous conduct,
that if his pecuniary resources should admit of it, he
would place at their disposal the whole amount of
capital necessary for the completion of the works!
This is one sample of the accuracy of the statement in
the Dispatch, and another is to be found in the alleged
retirement of Mr. Hodges. This gentleman is still a
Director of the Company ! We should not have been
so particular in alluding to this matter, had not the
question been one of a public instead of a private cha-
racter, and the Company which is the subject of dis-
cussion had enough to do in contending with the oppo-
sition of interested parties, without being troubled with
those of disappointed individuals, The Lighting Board
of the Mile-end district, without for the present alluding
to other obstructions, might occupy its time more use-
fully than in impeding the progress of a Company which
has no other objects in view than the supply of a portion
of the metropolis with a necessary commodity, at a cheap
rate, and the realization of a fair per centage upon the
outlay of its capital. We shall watch its conduct as
well as that of some other public bodies, and expose it, if
necessary, with care and attention.

(From the Times.)
The enemies of the Established Church (who pre-
tend all the while to be its friends) extol the Roman
Catholic clergy of Ireland for denouncing to their con-
gregations the atrocious conspiracy of Ribandism, and
institute a comparison, which they mean should be a
wonderfully advantageous one for the priests, between
this discharge of duty and the supineness of " the
ministers of Mammon" (which is the charitable nick-
name bestowed upon the clergy of the Church of Ire-
land), in ❑ot issuing a similar denunciation " against
Orange Ribandism, that worst kind of Riband-
ism—that real, that nefarious, that truly trea-
sonable, that often sanguinary system," &c. We
question whether even the readers of such a jour-
nal as that from which we copy the foregoing
piece of vulgar virulence will sympathise in this aggres-
sion upon a body of men who so unequivocally command
the respect of their neighbours, that \Vhiggery itself, in
the days of appropriation, durst not mention them to
Parliament, except in terms of reverence ; bat this we
notice only in passing, and by way of protest against
the assumption, tacitly involved in this extract, that
there is a class of reading people among our country-
men to whom such calumnies on the resident work-
ing clergy can be acceptable. Further than this, we
shall not condescend to notice the libel. Two
or three questions have been asked of Major
Warburton about Orange societies ; with a view
to get up something like a recrimination upon the
Protestants, that witness stated, that the Orangemen
had secret oaths, of loyalty to the Crown, mutual sup-
port, and nondisclosure of passwords ; and he expressed
his opinion, that Orange processions and demonstrations
•• had an injurious effect upon the peace of society." Of
this the Orange leaders themselves became indeed S.)
well convinced, that they voluntarily dissolved the asso-
ciation,vvhich has now accordingly ceased forseveral years.
The only relic of it is an occasional display of Orange
tins, by some of the lower classes, in an anniversary
procession. To pretend any sort of similarity between
Orangeism and Ribandism, even while Orangeism re-
mained in full force, was the emptiest thing imaginable.
Both, indee3, had affiliated societies, with secret oaths 1
and passwords ; but so much may equally be said of the
Freemasons, and more cannot be predicated of the
Orangemen.

(From the Morning Post.)
The enemies of the Church of England and the para-
sites of the Whig Administration do not scruple to ap-
plaud with great vehemence what they call the "firm-
ness" of Ministers touching the new plan of public edu-
cation under Government inspection. They are pleased
to say that for Ministers to have done this, under the
circumstances of formidable opposition with which they
had to contend, they must be endowed with great
" moral courage." Courage indeed ! For " moral
courage" read " monstrous impudence,"and the affair
would be correctly described. With a falling revenue—
falling under the reckless mismanagement of stupid and
fearful Ministers—they have assumed leave to dis-
tribute a certain portion of money voted for public
education in such a way as may most promote their
eown advantage. They have resolved upon coupling
the advancement of this money with such conditions as
will throw it chiefly into the hands of their own crea-
tures, and they have devised a plan for inspection which
will give rise to new appointments, and enable them to
apply the money voted for education in pampering the
puppyism of certain hangers on who have not abilities
to earn their bread by honest industry. This is their
" moral courage !" It is a matter of boast also with
the parasites (some of them, no doubt, being on the
look out for inspectorships,") that in doing what they
have done Ministers have " utterly disregarded" all who
remonstrated against their proceedings, and all the ar-
guments which the remonstrants brought forward.
This we shall look upon as no more than the usual
insolence of a set of empty tyrants, rejoicing in their
temporary triumph over the people, whose reasonable
representations have not been attended to ; but we find
it coupled with something like an appeal to the favour-
able opinion of that very people whose most serious
feelings have been outraged by these Ministerial pro-
ceedings. This is certainly carrying audacity to a won-
derful pitch.

(From the Morning Herald.)
In the second chapter of the Government pamphlet,
intitled " Recent Measures for the Promotion of Edu-

cation in England," we are presented with what is

. ----
absurdly termed " Results of Reformation in European
Protestant States"—from which we might suppose that
we should be furnished with a regular account of the
educational history of these states, from the times of
Luther and the Reformation. But it begins only "as
early as the year 1736," with a slight notice of the
erection of schools in Prussia! The famous Frederick
11., no less celebrated for his infidel principles and
writings, than for his abilities as a warrior, was, in
fact, the great founder and promoter of that system of
Prussian education which it is the object of Mr. Wyse
and the Privy Council Committee now to introduce into
these kingdoms. This was the Monarch who assem.
bled at his court Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, and
all the infidel spirits of the age—who no sooner con-
quered Silesia than he covered it with deistical schools
—and whose educational measures are held out as the
" beau ideal" for our institutions. His object is repre-
sented " as the spread of true religion, the maintenance
of social order, the diffusion of useful knowledge and
virtuous habits," p. 21. Such was the origin of that
Popish-infidel system of education, which has since
emasculated the spirit of the Reformation in every
part of the Continent, and which is now to be set up
in England by State authority, for the destruction of
our Protestant Church and Constitution. The
late disputes between the Court of Prussia and the
Papists have, however, somewhat cooled the admi-
ration of Mr. Wyse and his associates for the Prus-
sian schools. We are told, therefore, that " the
change for the better, consequent on the system of
instruction introduced into Prussia, seems inferior to
that which has followed the introduction of national
schools into Wirtemberg, Baden, Bavaria, and gene-
rally in all those States included in what was formerly
denominated the Confederation of the Rhine," p. 24.
It is not difficult to arrive at the meaning of this dis-
tinction. Prussia has leaned, on the whole, to the. side
of Protestantism, but those other States are almost
"No ex-
clusively under the dominion of a Popish influence.
in
any
ypaorf the
tieulasroLsoia in
temef‘rveitetohrg
lrigioniesallowedand
mtoebset. t
of the
aught
seettihoereoGoeer?maTnichaSttGateersm,"ap. 25. And, niadh,
uwthaant
oitshr,enceonine-
for modern infidelity, andntnheaot the spirit of Luther no
Tlohneger373i6g4ns oßvaevratrhiaeoGaeorhmoaonla schools and uai.versities.
containingßtooi
itahn ad i
iol e4r.9Bg ,roeodoe
the
.efoun- 1
pupils, have only reduced Bava'ria
of European unimportance ! But
try in which, according to this Privy-CounciLmammoedsetror: i
we are to look for the chief triumph of t