The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-17 00:00:00

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LONDON :
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 183 A.

The Peers forwarded last night a considerable number
of measures one stage without any discussion.
On Earl STANHOPE presenting a petition, he took the
opportunity of giving a description, with which he had
been favoured, of the first Birmingham riots. We own
that we are not ►n the habit of placing much confidence
is the correspondents of the Noble Earl, but supposing
the communication to be correct, it makes the conduct
of the Birmingham Mqgistrates in the first instance ap.
pear far worse than hitherto.
An attempt was made by Lord LYNDHURST, still fur-
ther to mutilate the Metropolitan Police Courts Bill on
the third reading. He moved the omission of a clause
increased salaries to the Magistrates, as the
clause inruosing additional duties on them had been re-
moved front the Police Bill. The Noble Lord was de-
feated on a division, because the clause was of the
nature of a money clause ; so the greater remuneration
is given, while the increased services are not demanded.
The Bill was passed.
The Portuguese Slave Trade Bill went through a
Committee without any considerable amendments, though
one was threatened.

The Birmingham Police Bill also went through a
Committee. Lord BROUGHAm suggested an amend-
•ment, namely, to allow the Town Council to appoint
the Commissioner, subject to the approval of the Secre-
tary of State, which was reserved for further considera-
tion on the third reading.
Their Lordships rose at Eight o'Clock.
The Commons' did not make a House, so that an-
other night has been gained on Mr. SPRING RICE and
the Irish Bank affair, and there is now great hopes that
this jab, for as it has no public basis it must be a job,
be defeated.

NN,-ieo the Reform Bill was in progress, and a
question' arose about the extent of the suffrage, it
was e'(7enecally contended that making it so wide as
to embrace a 11 the ten-pounders was ensuring a con.
sti tuency
wli:(141 would be a correct epitome of
every interest in the State. It is impossible, it was
said, that so large a constituency can have any sin-
i:,terl
and what it resolves be
or class interestlf
ajeeable to the wishes of the whole. Nay, some very
good and true Liberals went further, and main-
tained that a narrower constituency, a constituency
composed of nothing lower than 201. householders,
would he a complete miniature of the whole State,
Mid would protect the interests of all.
We heard at that time a great deal about
probable collisions between the two Houses of
Parliament, and it was said the Lords would lose
all power. But no Statesman, no political writer,
that we are aware of, foresaw the present state of
things, in which the House of Commons has really
become subsidiary to the Lords, and is scouted by
three-fourths of the people as a partial, narrow,
and unjust representation. In 1832, all that le-
gislation could do for the people was promised by
the Reformers; for seven Years a Reformed Par-
liament has been i„p eat.-n, and i
dif-
ficult to find a sinftlemrea operation, w:ould be
ure passed in that whole
period intent-Led exclusively to benefit, and which has
benefited, the Anrepreserited classes. That seven
years could pass, and that the Reformed Parliament
would not in that time redress a single grievance of
the unrepresented class: s, wouldby no man have been s
credited in 1832 ; that they have passed,
areand
that in consequence the but;; of the population
greatly discontented and more alienated from the
Reformed House of Commons than ever
they were
from the Boroughmongering House of Commons,
is about as memorable a lesson of the insurTnielc;
of the sagacity of politicians to provide for the coi
eingeneies of society as we are acquainted with.
Some of the Tories, we are aware, warned the
Whigs against revolution. Sir ROBERT PEEL,
we remember, talked of the danger of excluding,
by a strict line of demarcation, all below the
ten-pounders from the pale of the Constitution ;
but neither he nor any one else foresaw the almost
universal discontent, or dreamed of Parliamentary
Reform making a complete and fatal schism be-
tween the middle and lower classes. There was an
apprehension that democracy, speaking through a
popular House of Commons, might overawe the
Throne, and subvert the House of Lords, but
that Reform would make government by any ordi-
nary and hitherto accredited means almost hopeless,
is conargriePf' of the discontent of the excluded
rnt,asen, •-r‘s-Nit suspected either by Tories or

Whigs. Such is, however, at present the condi-
tion of the country, and it requires far different
statesmanship from that of the red-tapist, or the '
pike and gun school, to extricate it from its almost
overwhelming difficulties.
It deserves, at the same time, to be noted, how-
ever we may have bungled in accomplishing Re-
form, that in 1830 a great change had become ne
e:ssary. The authority of Parliament and of the
Government had been, in fact, overthrown by the
success of the Dissenters and the Catholics against
the declared opinions of the Ministry and the Peers ;
and after the Revolution in France a revolution
would have ensued here, had not the decried
Boroughmongerint, Parliament been peaceably re-
formed. The Reform Act, therefore, which has led
the way to the present discontents, was itself a ne-
cessity, and so will be that much gretear Reform, or
that complete tyranny which must issue from the
present separation and disturbance of the very
elements of society.

There seems to be a sort of Chartism amongst
the fish salesmen. A case was carried before the
LORD MAYOR, on Tuesday, of Mr. READ having
sold a greater number of soles in one lot than the
Act of Parliament, regulating such matters,
allows. The LORD MAYOR heard the case
very patiently, and finally convicted Mr. READ
in a penalty of 201. Mr. READ refused
to pay, and the LORD MAYOR was obliged to
direct the officer of the Court to execute the
warrant in a delicate manner. Nevertheless Mr.
READ, and the other salesmen, had proceeded openly
and deliberately to set the law aside, and declared
that it was for the good of the public that they did
so. They are to go on violating the law, they say,
till they are convinced by an authority superior to
that of the LORD INIA-vo tt's that they are wrong ;
and, till their appeal from his decision be settled,
he has graciously assured the Chartist fish sales-
men that he will not grant any other summons
against them for violating the law—the beautiful
valuable law for violating which, other Chartists
are much less mercifully treated.
From the examination before the Chief Magis-
trate, as reported in our paper on Thursday, it ap-
pears that by the Act 42 Geo. 111., cap. 88,
sec. 3, not more than twelve pairs of large
soles, and not more than twenty-four of small
soles, shall be sold in one lot. Now, Mr. READ,
-who- carries Chartism into selling fish, gloried in
having sold as many as 60 pairs of soles in one
pad. He, or his advocate, a Mr. MARTIN, went on
to contend that the maker of the law 42 Geo. 111.,
c. 88, knew nothing of the fish-salesman's business,
and that the law must be set aside by the Chartist
salesman. " Mr. READ,' said Mr. MARTIN,
" had frequently to sell as many as 18,000 fish be-
tween five and twelve o'clock, and, therefore, what-
ever the law might say, it was indispensably
necessary that he and other salesmen should sell in
larger lots than the law allowed." The salesmen
insisted on judging of the law for them-
selves ; they de fared that their mode of
dealing caused r o injury to anybody, that it bene-
fited the public, and that they were determined to
resist the Act. Such was the language used in
Court, and the majesty of the law was violated in
its very temple and sanctuary.
What meddling noodle was it who first formed
the notion that the sale of fish could be better regu-
lated by Act of Parliament than by the convenience
of the buyers and sellers ? Noodle, however, as he
was, he was not half so great a noodle
as many of the Members of the present
House of Commons, who have had the
benefit of nearly forty years' experience since
he devised his fine plan to regulate the sale
of fish, and who, in spite of that experience, have
of late busied themselves about :egulating chuck-
farthing, have prohibited stealing a ride, and have
made decrees concerning apple-stalls and hoop-
tflodlinff. In the consequences of the nonsense
called :1-1; 42d Geo. 111., cap. 88, sec. 3, which those
who sell til:11 declare they will not obey, and which
must be set z..cide, our law-making noodles may
foresee the conset;:iences of their own equally
comprehensive legislatio,?,. In 1870, if not before,
the nonsense of this ParliaZient will be just as
much laughed at and despised a.: the nonsense of
the Parliament which, in 1802, passes an Act to
prohibit salesmen from selling more than i:7enty-
four pairs of soles in one lot. Such laws, however, ,
in which our Statute-book abounds, and which
have been most inconveniently multiplied of late,
bring all law-making into contempt, and make it
look like one great mass of quackery, humbug, and
delusion. When to such supreme folly we add the
supreme wickedness of some laws—those which
starve the people, for example, to enrich the law-
makers—the more general Chartism which now pre-
vails seems almost as well justified as that of the
fish-salesmen. When Judges, Legislators, Coun-
sel, and large-bellied and thick-headed men, who
prate incessantly about the necessity of upholding
the law, again open their mouths on this subject, in
Courtior out of Court, we hope they will make a
distinction, and tell the public whether the law
which prohibits the selling of more than twenty-four
pairs of soles in one lot, and the law for starving
the people, are, like the law which punishes murder
with death, to be upheld by the sword.

One great offence imputed to all the persons who
have hitherto been tried at Warwick and at Ches-
ter is, that they have conspired to bring the laws
into contempt. If this be an indictable offence,
and if the law infer conspiracy from a perceptible
co-operation of different persons to bring about the
same end, though they may not be seen together,
we know not how any newspaper can be suffered to
exist. One great, one avowed object of most Jour-
nals is to bring some one law or other into con-
tempt. The new Registration Laws, the Reform
Act, the Municipal Reform Act, are objects
of continual attack by the Tory Journals. By
sarcasms, gibes, false statements, exaggerated
stories, the Times and the Standard, the Post and
the Herald, and all the provincial Journals which
follow their lead or go beyond them in hostility
to Reform, labour, and appear:to conspire to labour,
to bring those laws into contempt. We, too, with
the Chronicle and sundry other papers in every
part of the empire, continually do our best to bring
the Corn-laws and sundry other laws into con-
tempt. We call them by all kinds of opprobrious
names, because we think them wicked. One
Journal copies the paragraphs of another
which seem to promote the avowed object
of bringing certain laws into contempt. They la-
bour in the same cause, and conspire to bring about
the same result. Either that is a crime in them,
and all the Journals of they empire ought to be
prosecuted, or doing the same thing cannot be a
crime in the men who were tried at Chester, and
who were found guilty of conspiring to bring the
laws into contempt. When scientific men are
so precise in their norsenclature, and will on
no account allow plants which have some
slight difference in their fructifying organs,
or insects which have a couple of legs or antenna
more or less, or minerals which vary ever so little
in hardness, to be classed as the same, we are at a
loss to comprehend why a similar degree of precie-
ness should not be introduced into morals. Insects
seem to us of far Jess consequence than actions, ,
and it is more necessary to classify correctly the
latter than the former. It is, therefore, a gross
piece of neglect or inconsistency in the legislator
to jumble together, under one phrase, the ac-
knowledged innocent, and often praise-worthy,
exertions of some of the cleverest men of the day,
and the proceedings for which the individuals at
Chester have been found guilty. If the classifica-
tion be correct, then is it a scandalous perversion of
all justice to allow and encourage individuals to
write against particular laws, making them appear
foolish, contemptible, and iniquitous, and to punish
other men for conspiring to bring the said laws into
contempt. We insist on the necessity of correcting
either our phraseology or our laws.

i
I Not having received, at the time when it is neces-
-1 sary for us to write, Mr. Stephens' defence, we
shall pt;.stpone our remarks on that gentleman's
case till the report of his trial is complete. It is a
matter of course that he was found guilty.; he
has been sentenced to eighteen months' imprison-
ment.

The Journal de Smyrne, of the 29th, and the
with
de L'Orient, of the 27th ult., have been received,
accounts from Constantinople, of the 27th, and from
Alexandria, of the 19th of July. On the 21st ult. the
Government steamer, Peiki Schevket, arrived at Con-
stantinople, bringing AKIFF EFFENDI and Mtatottiv:i
EFFENDI from Alexandria, the former commissioned
to announce the death of tile !?to I.lt,.•rkw to UP-M-
-AUI', and the latter to recal the fleet to O.Ons',..ntlimPlL
Thep preceeded directly to the Porte, where 1(110SREW

PACHA had assembled all the great dignitsries of the
empire to receive their report. AKIFF EFFENDI in-
formed the Divan that his reception by MEHE MET
ALI was most flattering. His Highness the VICEROY
had repeatedly visited him at the Lazaretto, expressed
the greatest Sorrow at the demise of the Sultan MA lI-
NIOUD, commissioned him to assure the glorious
UL-MEDJID of his faithful devotion to his
person and Throne, and prayed that the seem-
ing treason of the Capitan Pacha might be gra-
ciously forgiven. The letter addressed by ME.
HEMET ALI to the SULTAN, was then read. It
abounded in professions of ardent loyalty, couched iu
the most humble language. The Viceroy admitted that
his conduct had given just grounds of uneasiness to the
Porte, but pleaded self-preservation as an apology.
He was ready, however, to expiate his offences by any
concession, and would cheerfully, when required, pro-
ceed to Constantinople and do homage to the SULTAN,
whom he was resolved to serve with the utmost fidelity.
After much secret deliberation in the Divan KHOSREW
PACHA laid the letter before the SULTAN. It was then
communicated to all the Foreign Ambassadors, and a
long diplomatic council was immediately held, but its
result was not made public. It was only known that
the hereditary domination of Egypt was to be ceded to
MEHEMET, under the sovereignty of the Porte.
This had become unavoidable by the treachery of HA-
FIZ PACHA, who, with his staff and 8,000 men, the
wreck of his whole army, has gone over to IBRAHiM
PACHA. Nor is this the climax of the recent misfor-
tunes of Turkey. Fifteen thousand of the Imperial
Guards encamped near Koniah, have revolted, and dis-
persed themselves over the country. Their Commander,
IZZET PACHA, narrowly escaped with his life, leaving
the camp to be plundered by the mutineers. The
Pachas of Erzeroum and Cesarea have likewise preferred
their personal safety to remaining at the head of their
respective Governments, and thus Turkey may be said
to be wholly at the mercy of the Viceroy. After the
several councils were held at the Porte, the Govern-
ment steamer, which brought AKIF EFFENDI to Con-
stantinople, was ordered to be in readiness to sail on
the evening of the 27th with fresh dispatches from the
SULTAN to the VICEROY. HADJI SAIB EFFENDI,
said to he a man of much talent, and no inconsiderable
share of diplomatie cleverness, was appointed to deliver
them to MEHEMET ALI, and to negotiate a settlement
of the question without, if possible, European inter-
vention. It was generally believed in Constantinople
that Russia was really at tile- bottom of these negocia-
tions, and that her great object was to prevent any in-
terference on the part of France and England. The
arrival of a Russian Courier in the incredibly short space
of seven days from St. Petersburgh, with fresh letters
of credence for M. BOITTINIEF, and an autograph letter
from the Emperor Nrctior.As to the SULTAN, had led
to frequent interviews between the Russian Ambassador
and the Grand Vizier.
This includes the substance of the news from Con-
stantinople. We quote from the private correspondence
of the Journal de S»zyrne of the 2.9 th ult. the latest
intelligence from Alexandria.
" ALEXANDRIA, JULY 19.—The day before yesterday
the Consuls met, for the purpose of requesting Mehemet
to give some explanations of his intentions respecting the
Sultan. To this Mehemet made rather an evasive reply,
whereupon some energetic observations were made by
Count de Lurdes, who officiated for the French Consul,
M. de Medem ; he requested Mehemet to send back the
Turkish fleet. The Paella replied "That until his affairs
were definitely settled he would not dismiss the fleet, and
that no concessions were to be expected from him until the
Governments of Syria and Egypt were recognised as here-
ditary in his family, and his personal enemy, Khosrew
Pacha, was dismissed.'

The greater part of the crews belonging to the Turkish
ships came ashore yesterday. A police ordinance forbids
that any articles of refreshment, &c., should be sold to them
above their value. The local authorities have tacitly per-
mitted the free circulation of the Constantinople money, in
order that the Turkish squadron may purchase their neces-
sary provisions. Mehemet has bought about seventy
thousand yards of blue cloth and an equal quantity of white
calico, which he has distributed to the Turkish fleet.

The English steamer Firefly arrived here on the 17th
and yesterday arrived the Confiance. Lastly came the
English frigate the Tyne, but these motions of the ships
are so mysterious that no one knows their destination ; it
is now said that the Firefly is to take despatches to Admiral
Stopford in the Dardanelles, and the Confiance is to go to
England. The Tyne will probably remain here. A French
ship is also expected.
Advices from Syria state that Ibrahim was still at Ma-
rasch, where he had received his father's orders to halt.
The Government, not being able to dispose of their cot.
ton for ready money, has decided to pay their creditory
agents at the price of 16 talaris, and 33,000 bales have
already been delivered. The present harvest will give
about 50,000 bales, so that the price of this article cannot
fall considerably, notwithstanding the financial crisis which
still threatens America.

In a letter of the same date from Alexandria, pub-
lished by the Echo de POI ient, it is stated that IBRAHIM
PACHA has received orders to advance towards Con-
stantinople.
The French fleet, with three English steamers, was
at Tenedos, and the English squadron at Paros. Rus-
sia was labouring bard and succesieully to save timnathe
trouble of forcing a passage through the Straits of the
Dardanelles.

There is no domestic news of interest in the Paris
Journals. Spain and Turkey‘chielly engross the atten-
tion of our Parisian Contemporaries. Of the news
from the East we have given a summary in another
article, and from Spain the most interesting intelligence
is contained in the following dispatch copied from the
official columns of the Moniteur of Thursday :
" Bayonne, Aug. 13, One P.M.
" The General Commandant of the 20th Division to the