The Sun.
London, England, 1830-11-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We regret to state that the incendiary system extends.
Perhaps there is now less of it in Kent, where fires first
began, but it has reached the adjoining counties of Sussex
and even Surrey. We will not excite needless alarm by
depicting the mischief hestronger colours than it deserve,
for it is, no doubt, a very deperate one, and the first et-
tempt must be to put a stop to it, and then must means be
applied to eradicate the cause ; as skilful physicians first
cure the disorder, and then prescribe rules for preventing
its recurrence and strengthening the constitution. Our
opinion is, that the incendiaries are indigenous to the
places where the fires happen, and that they are agricul-
tural labourers ; and this is more firmly our opinion, inas-
much as it will be observed, that the premises of bailiffs
and overseers are chiefly attacked or menaced. We wrote
years ago against the race of bailiffs : no such persona ought
to be employed. When a farm, or as too often happens, an
accumulation of farms, has a bailiff to support, it is evident
that it is charged with the maintenance, and that in
a genteel and expensive manner, of one person more
than is necessary fur its cultivation, and the public pays
for that person's maintenance by an increased price put
upon the productions of the farm. The farmer ought to
manage his land, and be with his labourers himself; If a
landlord, ignorant, as he must be of one of the most diffls
cult of all arts, that of agriculture, take a farm or farms
into his own bands for amusement, as it called, but really
from more sordid motives, then the matter is worse: the
farmer is extinguished, farm-houses sink into decay, the
peasant has no where to fly to for shelter or relief in cases
of difficulty or illness—he is brutalised, and the country
becomes a kind of desolation, No one can conceive the
absurdities as well as miseries that have sprung out of gee
tleman-farming. There have been stock-pi:here and
tailors that have written books upon the breeding of
horses, and the five-crop husbandry ! But to return to
the fires. Whilst great criminality has been incurred in
these who have kindled them, we cannot think that suffi-
cient courage and watchfulness have been evinced in the
suppression of them and the detection of their authors ; and
it is to excuse this negligence, or timidity, theta mysterious
kind of veil has been thrown over the guilty transactions,
They are Frenchmen or fiends that have set English barns
and hay-ricks in a blaze ! Troops of horsemen have been seen
nursing it by midnight—we had almost said through the
air—to kindle conflagrations! What trash ! What stu-
pidity ! The barns and ether agricultural objects are set
on fire by clownish men who are in a state of starvation,
who know no other means of avenging themselves than
these illegal ones, but who we, on reconsideration, feel
yet more strongly convinced might be detected with proper
resolution and watchfulness. In truth, to what is it, in
some degree, owing, even under any circumstances, that
they are not detected already, but to the mischievous prac-
tice of accumulating small farms into one large one, by
which the little farm-houses with which England was once
studded have been destroyed, or are left in the occupation
of some wretched creature of a shepherd, who has a
feeling for the incendiaries, if he be not in fact one of
them? Hot the conflagrations have enteeded now into
Surrey and Sussex ! No doubt : similarity of feeling and
similar causes will produce similar effects upon different
persons ! they are not necessarily the same villains who
kindle the fires in the three counties. Indeed a slight
consideration will convince any man of common sense,
that the thing is impossible. Nay, without any great
similarity of external circumstances, unreflecting, unptin,
eipled people are often induced to commit a criminal act,
because they see others do it with impunity, and it is
much talked of, and 110 one in the neighbourhood thinks
of any thing else ! However, be the incendiaries who they
may, we believe we have now stripped them of their pre-
ternatural garb,—they are no mystic beings, but simple,
*tepid, suffering, and, withal, malignant knaves, who
may he detected by proper exertions. And, did we be-
ong to any of the Fire-offices, we should hesitate atgain
and again, before we paid the insurance, if sufficient
watchfulness had not been displayed before the act was
perpetrated, and sufficient activity in the pursuit and de-
tection afterwards; and if the premises were not properly
guarded by an household appropriate to their value and
dimensions ; and, shove all, if the master and his family
slept at a distance in some other farm-house or mansion,
surrounded with dogs and servants, and all things neces-
sary for preservation or alarm. The curse of great farms
has inflicted a kind of absenteeism in England, similar to
that of Ireland.— TiMalt•

We have no hesitation in, repeating our assertion--of
the truth of which, further inquiry has convinced ns,—
thet wherever there are cries of 4. Down with the new
jediee," " No new police," mingled with other expressions
of a horrid nature, the persons who utter these cries are
nuiversally pickpockets, or thieves of scone other descrire
thin, or persona connected with .pickpockets and thieves,
such as receivers, brothel-keepers, &c., and should' be
treated accordingly. Observe, that by this we do not
UWAO to say, that there are not other persons who may be
aggrieved by the construction of the new police; but they
are not of a character to create riot in the streets, or to
obstruct public officers of any description whatever in the
execution of their duty, but rather to assist them. ,
Among the ,more rational complaints against the
new police, is one fur which the individuals composing
it are in no wise to blame. The expense of the este-
blishment is spoken of. This may probably, as we have
said before, admit of some modification. But in the mean
time we shall mention a circumstance or two connected
with this part of the subject. Government, it is said,
ver lays a tat upon any article but what the vender of that
article doubles the toe to • his customers, the consenter,.
Something similar has often happened in the ease of the
New Police s vestries anti overseers have needlessly ins
creased the rate for the New Pollee, in order to have mo-
ney to apply to other purposes. We have been told that
in the parish of Bt. James, for instance, twentypence in
the pound has been imposed for the New Police, when
isightpenee or trnpenee would have been sufficient.
Mimeo great diesatiofaction in that parish against the New
Police ; whilst, in so , adjoining parish (that of St. Mar.
garage, we believe) the rate is only eightpenee, and the
inhabitants are delighted with the security which they now
enjoy.— 7'iniess:
The Duke of Wellington seems to have thought that the
Ultra-Tories would now he glad of tamest any pretext to
return to their old position ; and conceiving, no doubt,
that the alliance between Tories and Reformers was as un.
natural as the alliance between the ,Administration and
Reformers, be mud have throWn ,out bigh-tiown
eulogy of Borough-mongering in order to rid himself of
the Reformers, and thereby conquer any remaining
coyness on the past of the Tarim, In the observe,
tient on two pamphlets, attributed (but wrongfully, it
seems) to Itir. Brougham, the writer, Mr. Croker,
or Colonel ► or whoever he may be (for it le attri-
buted to mere than oni), alludes in very plain term"
to this necessity of the Duke of Wellington to choose
between the sheep and the goats, or rather between
the wolves and the sheep ; for be says—" While
Mr. Brougham was hovering, a bird of ill-omen and
of prey, over the field of politics, there were dismal
suspicions in many minds that he nnight at last
alight on the Duke's as yet unsullied banners, and this
doubt did more to neotraliae zeal and to alienate confidence
than (considering only Mr. Brougham's intrinsic value)
would seem credible; and I tun well nonvinced that the
uncompromising opposition of Mr. Brougham will ex-
ceedingly alleviate the difficulties which the pamphleteer
apprehend', that Mr. William llointes mey have in con-
gregating ministerial majoritina." The (federation was a
strategical operation, la this light it seems to have been
viewed by the reformas in the Owe*. Mr. John Wood
last night said 4. that he came up to town with a strorg
disposition to look with favour on the acts 01' due Go.
vermeil, during the present crisis, but the declaratine
reepeeting Reform had lately changed his opinions. The
Duke of Wellington, like his brother Minister, Prince
bed issued his ordinances against Reform, and
wets determined to Abide the issue in spite'of the opicione
oldie people." Mr. Hums also said " lie confessed he
had looked to them (Ministers) with hope and expectation.
Ile spoke of it with regret; but weak as he was, he had
been the dupe of the expressions of his Majesty's Govern-
ment." When Mr. flume, at Glasgow, expressed his
confidence in the. Doha of Wellington as one who
would keep the aristocracy in cheek, we remarked at
the time the utter impossibility of his Grace doing any-
thing of the kind. ft is impossible, as Mr. Pitt thelared,
for a Minister of this wintry to he an honest moan,
tiricke cannot be made without straw. %tyke cannot Ire
out with razors, Those who have 'Parliamentary interest
most be gained over; anti ,in what manner Can they by
pitied ore, but by dividing among theta Ali that can be
Wrung in the shape of taxes front the real of the noniron,
Inv? An individual here and there cony exhibit such
late 41i.interecednes* as to decline availing himself of hi.
I'4th-04040y interest to promote the advantage of hin,'"
eelf or his eontiretions ; but these are exceptions to the
'la?. The Doke of Virelliogtam knows 'list votes are no;
te he obtained wittuut .an equivalent ; and that those
:ho otheMnate anajotity of the How of Cortunone, look
eo the venial as esiq;ret t4r tbt,ir profit and IL/111YVIthIlli*
T:tXi104111 in this VottMry, 01044VV, undcr the proem:
system, will al Nays, bo limited by the tibiaty to hoer it
The object is not to take only what service
fairly demands, but, under the pretext of the public eer-
vice, to extract all that the patience of the people wilt
elder to be taken. The Duke of Wellington, matins'!).