The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-06 00:00:00

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metropolis. The sword of justice in his Lordship's
hands had already defeated the machinations of the
northern league, and under its powerful protection, and
fostered by public approbation and support, the infant
Association would soon acquire strength sufficient to
baffle and destroy every attempt at unjust combination
or monopoly.—(Cheers.)
Mr. EWART, M.P., said that it gave the deputation
peculiar pleasure to see the Chief Officer of the City sig-
nalise the commencement of his Mayoralty by uncom-
mon exertions for the public good, and by the warmest
sympathies for the mass of poverty with which the me-
tropolis abounded.—(Cheers.) He was intimately con-
nected with parts of England which owed much to the
cheapness of coals. The town of Liverpool owed
much of its splendour, indeed he might say, the very
existence of its population, to the low price of the
article which bis Lordship was using his praiseworthy
endeavours to cheapen in London. Subsequent cir-
cumstances made him (Mr. Uwart) acquainted with
the borough of Wigan, where he sincerely believed the
inhabitants were enabled, through the cheapness of that
commodity, to bear poverty better during the periods of
the high price of corn.—( Hear, hear.) The coal
owners told the public, with a sophistry peculiar to
them, with what might be called the logic of monopoly,
that they stood between the consumer and, the supplier,
in order to regulate the prices for the benefit of the
public. He admitted that they interfered with, but he
denied that they regulated the prices ; the only thing
they did was to increase them. When he first
entered Parliament he bad been placed on the
Committee on the East India Company's Charter.
The members of that monopoly then, as the members
of the coal monopoly now, declared themselves to be the
best friends of the consumer by regulating the prices.
Oh, that regulation ! what a convenient word it was to
shield and shelter monopoly and high prices with 1 He
never heard the word used as between producer and
consumer but he immediately suspected imposition and
extortion.—(Hear. hear.) Then, as now, disinterested
dealers, like the Noble Marquis, were sworn friends to
the public, guardians against adulteration, protectors
against ruinous alterations in prices, preventers of sud-
den or extreme 'oscillations between high charges and
low charges. Only believe them, and really monopolies
become public blessings instead of public curses, in which
every consumer found bis private interest instead of
his private injury —(A laugh, and cries of " Hear.")
Teas, they said, would become worse and deerer—their
system alone kept them good and cheap. But the
Committee did not believe them. The Committee, like
the Lord Mayor, took evidence. The Committee, like
the Lord Mayor, prepared to open the trade, and what
was the result? Why, teas from the first day of the
free trade fell in price—(Hear, hear)—and so, from the
exertions of his Lordship, and that great public Asso-
ciation to which he was proud to belong, would coals
fall in price, and become accessible to all without impo-
sition, extortion, or admixture.—( Hear.)
Mr. GAY said, that as Surgeon to the Royal Free
Hospital and the Refuge for the Houseless, he perhaps
might be permitted to add a few words to the eloquent
addresses which had been delivered. His Lordship had
laid the axe at the root of a system most iniquitous and
cruel—a system of bold and daring effrontery against
the benevolent purposes of heaven itself, and one that
interfered, not only with the comforts, but with the very
lives of our fellow-creatures. Having the honour to be
connected with two institutions in London, whose de-
signs were to relieve the wants and distresses of the
destitute poor, he had ample opportunities of witnessing
their miseries and diseases. It was the poor, the op-
pressed and suffering poor, on whom the systenii bore
most heavily.—(Hear, hear.) The influence of re-
striction upon the sale of coal affected the very mor-
tality of our country. Every one was aware that cold
was notorious for causing pthisical complaints, and that
these complaints had an intimate connexion with
the undue performance of the functions of the skin,
especially through the want of proper means of
maintaining its proper temperature. (Hear, hear,
hear.) He could not, therefore, but regard his Lord-
ship's efforts as tending materially to lessen the effects
of a climate so changeable, and at times so rioorousupon
the population, and diminish the high rate of mortality
from colds and consumptions which unfortunately pre-
vailed. On the part of the poor he thanked his Lord-
ship, and he hoped that for years unnumbered, around
happier hearths, would more gladsome hearts beat high
with gratitude and warm with blessings for his Lordship's
exertions, and the Anti-Coal Monopoly association
which had sprung up from them.—(Hear, hear.)
The LORD MAYOR said that he felt much obliged to
the respectable deputation he saw around him for the
trouble they had taken in waiting upon him with the
vote of thanks. It was highly gratifying to him to find
that any humble exertions of his met with the approba-
tion of so numerous a body of his fellow-countrymen.
Soon after he took the chair in the justice-room, upon
first coming into office, his attention was drawn to cer-
tain abuses in the coal trade by a gentleman
whom he had never before seen, but who, he observed,
was well acquainted with the trade, and therefore re-
ceived a most ready attention from him. A. day or two
afterwards a brother Magistrate called, to caution him
against lending bis ear to a person %via° would, if en-
couraged, be very troublesome, a fact to which many
preceding Chief Magistrates could bear testimony.
Soon afterwards a coal-factor also called, to put him on
his guard against so persevering a public visitor. The
latter happened to be present at the moment, and a
conversation took place between both, in which the

denouncer of the system had so much the best of it,
and the coal-factor so totally lost his temper, and with
it the power of showing his accuser's errors by informa-
tion and judgment, that the inevitable conclusion was
that there was something behind which ought, for the
public good, to be inquired into.—(Cheers.) The scene
he described had scarcely taken place, when he was as-
sailed by the captains of colliers, for his sanction
to the violation of the bye-laws. The necessity of
inquiry was thus more and more deeply impressed upon
him. He daily received additional proofs of the exist-
ence of a great evil, which net only affected the public,
but particularly the poor and labouring classes ; and he
determined to make a thorough investigation, with the
view to attempt as complete a remedy as he was capa-
ble of administering. As he proceeded, anonymous
letters, published and unpublished, poured their ven-
geance upon him, but instead of deterring him from the
course he had commenced, they had the effect of add-
ing, if possible, to the energy with which he attacked
the system, and its confederated supporters. They con-
vinced bins that he had already done some good, and
he had the gratification to receive constant assurances of
the gratitude of those who were aware of the nature of
the evil, and of its bitter and extensive consequences.—
(Cheers.) Indeed, whenever a contrary opinion was
expressed, he invariably found upon inquiry, that those
who condemned his labours were in some way or other
either related to or connected with a coal-owner, a ship-
owner, or a coal-factor.—(Laughter.) A friend of his,
just arrived from Paris,who dined with him the other day,
told him that the daughter of a Member of Parlia-
ment, a large coal-owner, said in the course of conversa-
tion in the French capital, " Now as you are going to
London, you will probably see the Lord Mayor. Tell
him that I spend the whole of my spare time in abusing
him. We have sunk a new shaft at an expense of many
thousands, and the Lord Mayor is doing all he can to
render it useless."—(Laughter.) Attacks from ladies
are quite excusable, but he was a little surprised when
he saw a Nobleman of Lord Londonderry's standing in
society, a Member of the Lipper House of Parliament,
giving vent to his rage in low, scurrilous language, which
would do no credit even to his footman. As Lord
Londonderry had kindly taken leave of him for ever, he
would not occupy his time in answering the last letter
which appeared from the Noble Marquis's pen in the
columns of the Morning Post. He hoped he could
spend his time more profitably in pursuing measures
which appeared to be duly appreciated by those in whose
welfare he felt deep interest, and in the further prosecution
of which he should, he had no doubt, teach his Lordship
a practical lesson which no theoretical observation would
be likely to produce upon such a mind. What did
his Lordship's letter amount to ? A mere tirade of
abuse from a tradesman anxious to puff off his own ar-
ticle, and to &cry the commodity of everybody else.—
(Laughter.) The Noble Marquis spoke of preferring
the evidence of the housemaids of the Mansion-house to
that of the principal occupant, " I wish," said the Lord
Mayor, "he would take that evidence—how can I let
him have it ? They would tell him that they found
the furniture nearly as clean at night as they left it in
the morning—certainly not more dust, if so much, as
when Lord Londonderry's coals burned in the grates."
—(Laughter and cheers.) The Noble Marquis then
raised a hue and cry about the injury done to the furni-
ture, and exclaimed that the upholsterer must be called
into requisition to remedy the vices of the cheap coal,
by substituting new decorations, &c. Need be deny tho
correctness of the statement. Let the furniture be ex-
amined. If people were so weak as to swallow the No-
ble Marquis's account of the affair lot them. If they
preferred the charge of 30s. or 40s. a ton to
225. let them purchase accordingly. He did not wish
to dissuade them. Those who were so much afraid of
the bugbear of dust and white ashes, constituted a very
small portion of the consumers. Let the Noble Mar-
quis visit the abodes of the poor miserable helpless
widow, and her nine children without a blanket to cover
them, perishing with cold ; let him hear the piercing
wind whistling through every crack and cranny of their
wretched abode, and look in upon them on the bare
fluor, huddled together, to prevent the current of the
blood from ceasing to flow. What would the Noble
writer say to the damage likely to be sustained in
the furniture of such a habitation as this ?
(Great cheering.) And yet a little of this
article in which the Noble Marquis dealt, would go a
great way in alleviating misery so great. It was the
next blessing to a loaf of bread. Let Lord London-
derry, look to the little shopkeper, to the humble trades-
man, who struggled day and night to make both ends
meet. Was los. a ton no object there ? Would the
225. coals spoil the silk curtains.—(Cheers.) These
were the coal consumers—these were the parties injured,
not the wealthy man who rolled in his riches regardless of
the cost of his coals or of any other household commo-
dity. But he would say it to the credit and honour of