The Sun.
London, England, 1830-10-09 00:00:00

terranean end that of the Rhine, the Meese and the
Scheldt, is wholly out of the question. But it is
useless to expend arguments when arguments are of
no avail in bringing matters to a right decision. In
polities it is the strongest that has always the most
right; and if it be determined that strength and
not right shall prevail, why the Belgians must of
course succumb-to what their " high and mighty
Signiors" may dictate ; but while we hope, on the
one hand, that tree p-dicy will guide the councils of
the Belgians---and true policy dictutea their union
with Holland—we trust, on the other, that their
cause will not suffer from foreign aggression, and
that if force is to be the arbiter, the combatants
will be only Belgians and Dutch.—Morn. Advert.
Barretti, in his amusing letters from Spain and
Portugal, tells us that he fell in with a Spanish
moldier, who, in the course of conversation, toll
him that he hell been some time a prisoner, in Eng-
heel, and that he hated the English ; and on being
asked why, he hesitated awhile, and at lest answered
because they used vinegar with their veal. A cor- 1
respondent of the Courier front Brussels, which we
have copied,,seems to hate the Belgians as cordially
as the Span;ard did the English, and .for an equally
valid reason, bemuse they are " a beer-drinking
race." A good Engl'shoutn, long after the French
Revolution, used to consider himself bound to place
all the evil in the would to the account of French
Preebyterlanistrewas, during the greater part
of the last century, the Week dog with ell true-born
Englishmen. Popery seems to hold the piece now
due Presbyterianism once held with a number of
good Englishmen. Our contemporary of the Standard
will have it, that there is hardly an evil in the world
that cannot be traced to Popery. Unfortunately, in
his zeal against Popery, he is sometimes a little apt
to be a little too careless as to the facts on
which he grounds his charges. Thus, for .
in-
stance, he teils us lust night, " that the two prin-
ciples from which the Brussels insurrection had its
origin—Popery and pnuperistn—are too extensively
diffused throughout the whole of the Belgian pro-
vinces to permit,the hope that any prospect of good
government, any sense, of morel obligation, will be
strong enough to controul the ambition of the
Itounish Priesthood, or to repress the natural elmIli•
firm of prottgitcy, joined with poverty, which that
Priesthood creates wherever its influence extends."
That there is poverty in Belgium as in every other
country of which we have yet heard, may readily be
admitted; but that poverty is a characteristic of the
Belgians we deny. The truth is that Flanders and
Brabant are now and have always been among the
Intuit orderly and industrious of countries of Europe.
Every Englishman who visits Belgium is struck
with the order and industry of the people. The
Rev. Thomas Radcliff, who has drawn up an ela-
borate Report on the Agriculture of East and West
Flanders, which he examined immediately after the
Peace, gives a picture of the farm labourers in that
country, which contrasts strongly with the condition
of the attune class of people in England.
" It is a pleasure," he says, " to observe the laborious
industry of the Flemish farmers recruited by intervals of
decent and emnfortable refreshment ; and nut less agree-
able, to perceive the farm servants treated with kindness
and respect. They uniformly dine with the farmer and his
family, at a clean table-cloth, well supplied with spoons,
with four-pronged fmks and every thing necessary for
their convenience, In Flanders the gentlemen are ell
farmer', but the. farmere do not aspire to be gentlemen ;
and their servants feel the benefit. They partake with them
of a plentiful and orderly meal, which varies according to
circumstances. One standing dish, however, is universal—
! a soup composed of butter-milk, boiled and thickened with
flour,, or rye-bread, potatoes, salt pork, salt fislt, varioue
vegetables, and eggs ; fresh meat and fresh fish occur occa-
sionally, though not for daily consumption ; add to these a
plentiful supply of butter, or rendered lard, which is some-
times substituted; and, when it is recollected, that those
articles of provisions are always made palatouble by very
tolerable cookery, it will be allowed that the farmed
table is comfortably supplied. The potatoes are always
peeled, and are generally stewed in milk ; a particular kind
of kidney-beau, as mentioned before, the feve haricot, *lied
and stewed in milk also, is a frequent dish. No farmer is
without a well-cultivated garden, full of the best vegetables,
which all appear at his own table ; and apples are also in-
troduced into their cookery.
tunes a beggar is scarcely to he seen, except in the towns,
and but few there. In the country, habits of industry are
kept up till health fails; and to meet the infirmities of age,
the pear posseases a revenue from pious donations, regu.
lated by the Government, and vested' by them in Commis-
sions of which the Mayors of the different Communes are
Presidents, respectively, in right of their office. The
clothing of the peasantry is warm -Mid comfortable—good
shoe', stockings, end frequently gaiters of !matter or strong
linen, which are sold very cheap ; their usual frugality leads
them, however, to economise in tese articles substituting,
on many occasion, coarse flannel socks and wooden sabots,
both which are supplied in all the'ptiblie• markets at about
eightpeuce cost. The comfortable supply of linen is re-
laminable; there are a few of-the labouring classes without
many changes. In riding with a landed proprietor theme,
a part of the country in which his property was situated, a
neat cottage presented itself t the clipped hedge which
surrounded the garden, covered with linen very white,
suggested an inquiry, whether it did not belong to a
washerwoman ?' The answer was, that it was occupied
by a labourer and his family, and that the limn was all
their own.' Any circumstance connected with the
cleanliness, health, and comfort of the lower clams, is
in-
teresting; 11111 to this, of which we have been speaking, a
peculiar degree of decency is attached. . If the lahourer is
comfortable in point of appearance, the farmer is still
more so. . . . In home work the firm& gene-
rally protects Ilia clothes by a smock-frock of blue linen
a great attention to cleanliness prevails throughout.—
With respect to the farm-house, the exterior is for the
most part ornamented with creepers, or fruit-trees trained
against the walls ; and within the neatness which prevails
is quite fascinating. Every article of furniture is po-
lished ; the service of pewter displays a peculiar bright-
stets; and the tiled floor is purified by frequent ablutions.
The cottage of the labourer, though not so well furnished,
is, however, as clean; a frequent and periodical use of
water and the broom pervades every house, great and
small, in the country and in towns."
Contrast this state of things, not with Ireland,
the peasantry of which, whether Catholic, Protee•
Wit, or Presbyterian, never yet knew comfort; not
with Scotland, among the Mowing classes of which
country cleanliness is hardly yet known—but with
Protestant England, as described in the various
Parliamentary Reports of Committees on the con-
dition of labourers, on emigration, tc, With the
exception of one or two counties, the labourers
throughout England are riot indeed in the lowest
state of degradation, because the With arc
lower, but in a dreadful comibion nevertholoss.
Kent, which is far from having the most miserable
peaeantry of England, is at present filled with dis-
orders, originating in the, misery of the working
,clasees. The papers of that county are tilled with
accounts of outrages. Other counties exhibit outs
rages, though not to the same, extent, from the same
`causes. At a meeting at Maidstone, on Friday
lutst, Major Wayth made the following observations
'on.the disturbances which have lately prevailed in
Kent t--w
He hoped the meeting would excuse_ him in advert-
ins to the burnings and machine-hreakinge, which- en-
happily have occurred in the eastern and western parts of
the county. He was Convinced...-and he had no doubt
that every oee in the room was of the same opinion, that
these outrages must inevitably lead to the total destructiou
of the misguided beings who-engaged in them. Every,
One wee aware of the difficulties under which the labour-
lug classee of this country were suffering) their privations
were dreadful, and loudly called for miogation. But he
felt persuaded that the grievances which, afflicted this po-
tion of the pee* would remain unrielressed until there
teas a thorough reform in the Commons' House of Parlia-
ment; or, at least, until the exercise of, the elective fran-
chise was protected by the haliot.—(Applause.)—He
claimed the indulgence of the meeting for alluding to 'it
circumstance, apparently extrinsic to the object for which
they had assembled ; but he considered it important that
they should distinctly and indignantly disclaim any con-
nection with the men who had disgraced themselves by
their participation in acts of lawlehs violence. The mid-
night ineeseliary was as bad as the midnight murderer;
and they might depend upon it that, if these outrage.
were persisted in, ,a: Special Commission would be sent to
lelaidstone.. The Oliver* and Castles would again come
arrreagat thorn; -tire unfortunate men would be sold, and
executed on Penenden Heath."
When have the Popish labouring daises of Bel-
gium furnished materials for a picture like this ?---