The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-10 00:00:00

customs of dressing and fashions in arparel are exceedingly
distressed, and, in part, ruined ; multitudes of flourishing
families reduced, and a general obstruction or etnbarge
laid upon their employments.
" 5. 'Tis a most irreparable damage to the tradesmen
and shopkeepers, on whose stocks the poorer sort of peopl?
are employed ; who, being obliged to provide large quan-
tities of goods against the usual season of trade, by these
unforeseen accidents of mourning have all these goods left
on their hands ; the channel of trade turned from them,
and the demand being quite of another nature,. their sticks
he dead till their goods become unfashionable, by which
they are unavoidably ruined ; the trade itself rendered ha-
zardous and precarious, and men of stocks discouraged from
adventuring to employ the poor.
" 6. The condition of the poor, who had their em-
ployments and subsistences under these trades, is most sad
and deplorable, and particularly deserves the compassion of
the nation, their trade being lost, to which thousands of
them having been bred up, know not what die to turn
their hands to ; the particular advantage to the nation by
some of those employments, in setting to work children
very young, women, and impotent persons, which cannot
be done in other works, exposes them to terrible distresses
and inevitable poverty.
" 7. The variety of these trades, and the vast and in-
credible number of poor who feel the miserable effects of
the distress, are very considerable ; such as all sorts of
silk-weavers, ribbon-weavers, silk-throwers, dyers, and
spinners of silk and silver ; together with the merchants
trading to Italy and Turkey, and the woollen manufactu-
re's under them ; the fringe and lace-makers, mercers,
lumen, milliners, hosiers, &c., and by modest computa-
tion above an hundred thousand families of poor employed
by them, are the miserable objects to move against this
unhappy increasing custom, and the starving objects of
charity waiting for redress of so ruinous a disast:•r in trade."
If such was the extent of calamity caused by a
general mourning in the days of Queen Anne, how
much more extensive must the calamity be now,
when so much greater a proportion of our people
aspire to the distinction► of being fashionable.—
Morning Chronicle.

The Hampstead Heath question, it is to be hoped, I
is now at rest. Next to the inherent justice of
throwing out the Bill, this result, we suspect, may
be attributed to the warm, the powerful, and inde-
pendent support which the matter has met with
from the Press, by which the attention of the Le-
gislature was awakened to the mischievous tend-
ency of the measure. The victory is one of great
moment, not only to the inhabitants of a large
vicinage, who have become purchasers or tenants
of their houses upon the faith of fields and com-
mons not being converted into masses of brick and
mortar; but to those of the whole north and west
parts of the metropolis, to whom the " evadere ad
auras" in the regions of Hampstead and Highgate
has been at all times desirable us a means both of
health and recreation. But, while Hampstead
Heath has thus been rescued from the Gothic hands
of the spoiler, why has not the Legislature, we may
ask, shown as much zeal in protecting the Parks
(those still more vital lungs of the town) from similar
invasion ? Must we say, because they have been in
most cases Members of Pailiament, their connec-
tions, or patrons, who were to be benefirted by
the nibblings and the slices which have bees al-
lowed in all those spots to be purloined from the
nation ? and, in this respect, the curtailing of these
open spaces is as impolitic as it is unjust. As the
population of this immense metropolis increases, of
course more space, instead of less, is wanted for air
and exercise. In St. Jaines's Park this ill-timed
curtailment of a place of public promenade is doubly
striking; for there, while the stew Palace necessarily
renders the Park a greater object of attraction
both to royalty and the people, and its undiminished
space more than ever a matter of public concern,
the first thing done was to take away one of the
malls, and cover with huge edifices, equal in height
to Liverpool. warehouses, the only open ornamental
space adjoining the Park which the former enclosers
of it had left untouched ; yet not a word is said of
this, lest Honourables and Right Honourables
should take umbrage at being even questioned in the
enjoyment of spaces belonging to the public, which
were necessary to the health and iimocent recreation
of the people.—Morning Herald.
An Evening Paper, The Sun, has some very sen-
sible remarks upon the prosecution of a surgeon and.
apothecary, foi• staving signed a certificate of insanity
without having visited and personally examined the
patient. Our contemporary observes that " a man
once immured in a mad-house, probably remains
there for the residue of his existence, without the
means (unless front accident) of bringing his case
before any public tribunal ; it is only when, from the
nature of his property, the friends of a party cannot
possess themselves of it without applying to the
Court of Chancery, that a Commission issues, and,
where it does, it is mostly held in some obscure pot-
house, and seldom affords the unhappy object any
sufficient opportunity to dispute the allegation against
him, or rebut the evidence got up by parties whose
interest it is he should remain incarcerated, sup-
ported by the doctors they have feed, most likely
with the money of their victim." The fact is that,
so long as medical practitioners possess the power of
sending a man to a mad-house upon their certificates
alone, the personal liberty of every individual in the
kingdom is at their mercy, or at the mercy of those
who may choose to employ them. It is nonsense to
say that the public have a sufficient security against
any abuse of such power in the high character of the
profession. However honourable the profession may
be generally, recent cases have suiliciently proved
that medical men in abundance are to be found
capable of lending their names to the most nefarious
practices ; sad, indeed, we have no hesitation in
saying, that there are at this moment in London-
many practitioners, who would, for a sovereign each,
give as many certificates of insanity as might be re-
quired, whether the persons certified were mad or
not. We say this without intending to cast any
reflection upon the profession as a body; but when
we know that almost every street has its quack,
and that that quack is in possession of a diploma
from the College of Surgeons, we cannot doubt that
the fact is as we have represented it. In short, the
law, as it now stands, with regard to insane persons,
or persons alleged to be insane, is a disgrace to the
Statute-book, and we do hope and trust that Par-
liament will not separate without reforming it. A
remedy for the existing evil may be very easily pro-
vided. Instead of consigning a person to prison on
the certificate of a medical man, the law should re-
quire the certificate of at least two practitioners be-
fore-the patient could be legally put under restraint,
and, before he could be finally sent to a mad-house,
the certifiers should be examined on oath, in the
presence of the patient, before two or more Magi-
strates.—Morning Herald.
Among the Parliamentary documents which have
just reached us, there are two from which very im-
portant inferences, respecting the policy of impri-
sonment for debt, may he drawn. They are returns
by the Marshal of the King's Bench prison, to an
order of the House of Common, stating the number
of persons to whom the privilege of the rules has
been granted—the sums in which they were in-
debted—the amount paid by them for receiving the
privilege of the rules—the manner in which these
sums have been applied—and, finally, the number of
prisoners for debt in the custody of the Marshal and
Warden on the Ist of January last; and, also, the
number of years during which they have been con-
fined. With regard to the sums received for grant-
ing the privilege of the rules, the Marshal states :
.4 That there is no other authority for taking fees for
the rules, than custom from tints immemorial ; and the
Commissioners for inquiring into the duties, salaries, and
emoluments in Courts of Justice, did not recommend any
alteration to be made therein. The Marshal begs to men-
tion that when lie came into office, he found the fees, re-
ceived for prisoners, going into the rules, by his prede-
cessor, to be ten guineas for the filet hundred pounds;
this, he himself, of his own accord, soon after reduced to
eight guineas for the first hundred pounds; and four guineas
for every subsequent hundred pounds, with which a prisoner
may be chased,
,‘ The Marshal begs further to be permitted to observe,
that there are very few cases in which he receives the
whole of his fees ; and that in the above-mentioned five
years, fifty-seven persons have been allowed the privilege
of the rules, upon having paid 11. ls. only, and fifty-five
others to whom the rules were given, without the pay-