The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-21 00:00:00

LONDON :
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1839.

A public meeting for the repeal of the Corn-
laws is to take place at Glasgow this day, and there
is every reason to suppose that it will be nume-
rously attended. On Thursday the inhabitants of
Manchester met in the Town-hall for the same
purpose, D. PRICE, Esq., one of the Constables,
in the Chair. The room was crowded in a few
minutes after the door was opened, and it is sup-
posed that at least 1,500 persons were present.
Mr. M. PHILLIPS moved the first resolution, which
was seconded by Mr. Ho o LE, a Tory. Mr. B RLEY,
' of Pcterloo notoriety, moved, after considerable in-
, terruption, an amendment to sanction a fixed duty,
and to pass a censure on the Ministers. He ex-
erted himself, though without much success, to in-
flame the people by telling them that the abolition
of the Corn-laws would lower wages. A Mr.
EID seconded his motion, and took the same line
of argument. Mr. WROE, a Chartist, we believe,
then moved a second amendment for the abolition
of the duties on corn, malt, hops, sugar, and all the
necessaries of life. After a considerable discussion
the Tory and the Chartist amendments were nega-
tived by overwhelming majorities, and the first re-
solution was carried. The several opponents of
the petition for the repeal of the Corn-laws then
left the Hall, and the other resolutions were carried
triumphantly. We insert a full report of the meet-
ing; and cannot close these brief remarks without
expressing our pleasure at seeing the honest and
bold larrguage in which the resolutions are couched,
and with which they were enforced and supported.
We most add, that we cannot see how, consistently
with the words of the second resolution, denouncing
the Corn-law as " violating the sacred principles
of religion and morality, and causing disease, de-
moralization, and premature death," the people can
stop short of demanding a total and complete aboli-
tion of the. law. The speech of Mr. GA DSBY,
taking up the religious view of the question, should
1)e studied.

A ictter headed " Negro Slavery," and addressed
to Mr. THomPsoN, the eloquent advocate for im-
proving the condition of the inhabitants of India,
,tates very justly the reasons why his mission has
found no sympathy in Lancashire. The people
arc occupied by their own sufferings, and engaged
seeking redress for their own wrongs. It now
becomes in fact the urgent and paramount duty of all
influential men, in regard to the public safety,
to attend to home matters, and let distant regions
arid distant nations take care of themselves. The
yet affecting, because true, description
plain anal
given of the present, condition of our agricultural
labourers, in a letter signed " A Guardian of the
Andover Union," in another part of The Sun,
only adds to the many hundred similar descriptions
with which the Journals have lately teemed, and
all acre reasons for first redressing grievances at
home before philanthropy goes abroad to promote
improvement. It is pleasant to be generous—it is
a sacred duty to be just.

It is sometimes jokingly said that the present
system for the repression of crimes requires one man
to watch another. To prevent mischief, every
citizen must have a policeman accompanying him
like a shadow. But what is said as a joke seems
in a fair way of being realized, if we go on as at
present, multiplyina troops at home, increasing
the fistral and town police, and the guardians of
prisoners. An Act passed last Session prohibits
" the employment of any prisoners in the House
of Correction for Middlesex as yardsmen, wards-
men, overseers, monitors, or schoolmasters, after
the Ist of January next
and the regulationi
which it may be necessary to adopt in conse-
quence were brought under the notice of the Ma-
gistrates at Clerkenwell on Thursday.
It appears
by the report then made that .36 additional male
turnkeys, and 26 additional female turnkeys, will
be necessary for that one prison. Of themselves
here is quite a little army of gaolers. All these
persons will be abstracted from productive occupa-
tions, they will all have to be maintained out of
the produce of labour, and while the great disease
cf the country is that too many unproductive la-
bou:ers are already to be maintained, and too little
of the produce of labour is left to be its own re-
ward, this new system will add to the disorder.
But the little army of 82 turnkeys is in addition
to the regular staff of the gaol, the amount of which
is net stated. If the regular army be equal to the
auxiliaries the number will be 164, a very modest
proportion of persons to be abstracted from the use-
fully ,employed population, to take care of about

1,000 criminals by help of a costly gaol. From a
statement in the report it appears that these addi-
tional turnkeys will add 4,992/. to the annual ex-
pense of the prison. At the same time the annual
cost of supporting thieves in London and Middlesex,
according to a report of the Inspectors of Prisons,
is 55,000/.; and the result as stated by Mr.
LAURIE, is to turn 16,000 thieves annually out of
these gaols loose on the community. From such
statements we can only conclude that our whole
penal system requires revision, and that the change
made last Session will add to its deformities.

A case occurred in the Secondaries' Court yes-
terday before Mr. JAMES, which that Learned
Gentleman described as of the greatest importance
to bankers and merchants, not only of the City of
London but throughout the empire. He did not
overrate it, and, if we do not misapprehend the prin-
ciple of the decision, it is important to the best in-
terests of society and the progress of civilization.
Nevertheless, it was only an action brought by a
',qr. MESSENGER, a chair-maker, of Stoken-
Church, Oxfordshire, against a Mr. SOUTHEY,
a cabinet-maker, of Finsbury-square-pavement,
to recover payment upon a promissary-note
for balance of account of 151. 2s. 6d.,
and it will excite the curiosity of our readers to
know how so trivial and ordinary a question can be
raised to the importance Mr. JAMES and we have
ascribed to it.

The solution is extremely simple. The justice
of the case as reported was very plainly on the side
of the plaintiff. On the part of the defendant a
legal plea was set up which the Secondary, after
full deliberation, declared a good one, and directed
the Jury to find for the plaintiff on the issue of
goods sold and delivered, but without damages, and
for the defendant on the remaining issues. The Jury
having consulted, says the report, for half an hour,
returned a verdict for the plaintiff on all the issues
with damages to the full amount claimed, thus
overruling the legal defence, overruling the
Judge's directions, and returning a verdict, which
on the face of the case appears to be consistent with
justice, and by which the Jury meant, we have no
doubt, in spite of the quibbles of law and lawyers
to do substantial justice between the parties. The
circumstance that the Jury. in defiance of the

aw, in defiance of the Court, returned a verdict
;hat is substantially just, gives to the case the vast
mportance which we have ascribed to it.

We recollect, and we must remind our readers,
that the stubborn virtue of Juries, in finding verdicts
utterly contrary to law and fact, but consistent with
reason and justice, in order to save individuals from
capital punishments, was the leading cause which
compelled the Legislature to ameliorate our absurd
and sanguinary criminal code. We suppose, there-
fore, that Juries, getting as tired now of the quibbles
and absurdities of the civil law, and the senseless
jargon of lawyers, by which common sense is set
at naught, and substantial justice is, in nine cases
out of ten, defeated, and roguery rewarded,
have been practically led by the necessities
of the case to adopt a resolution to dis-
regard the unjust, though legal direction,
of Judges, and the bribed, false, and misleading
arguments of Counsel, and in spite of them to do
what is right between parties. The decision in the
secondaries' Court is, we conclude, the first evi-
dence of such a resolution ; and if Juries continue
so to act, they will soon bring about a more effec-
tual reform in the civil than they caused in the
criminal law. By no other means will it ever be
accomplished. The whole law tribe—judges from
habit, barristers and attorneys from the most selfish
and sordid interests—are so decidedly attached
to all the grimgribber of Westminster Hall, that
as long as the people ask a reform of the law at
their hands, or according to their recommendation,
instead of reforming it themselves, they never will
throw off the accursed dominion of legal chicane.
Because we look on the decision in the Secondaries'
Court as an indication, on the part of Juries, that
they are at length resolved to help themselves, help
their countrymen, and do justice in spite of law
and lawyers, we say it concerns the best interests
of society, and the progress of civilization.

We quite agree with ADAM LAWSON, whose
letter on prohibitory duties will be found in another
part of The Sun, that the more the proceedings of
those who lord it over us, meaning the landlords and
their allies, the priesthood, the more iniquitous and
indefensible shall we find them. The prohibitory
duties he refers to are the necessary complements
of the duties on corn. They just serve, as it
were, to equalise the advantages of the diffe-
rent species of cultivation, and prevent the
uwners of arable land from getting more from
the people than the owners of grazing land.
Our Correspondent might have added that fresh
beef, beef slightly corned, and great cattle, may
not be imported into England, on pain of for-
feiture. These prohibitions have been enjoyed by
the landlords since the reign of WILLIAM 111.,
but now that the superiority of English cattle is
incontestible, were it not for their other laws to
keep up the price of every thing which the land
produces, those prohibitions might safely be dis-
pensed with.

Our Correspondent refers also to the timber
duties and the shipping interest, but surely

the shipping interest would be far better
served by the abolition of the timber du-
ties, lowering the price of building air! repairing
ships, and the abolition of the Corn-laws and the
tax on salted beef, lowering the price of victnalling
the seamen, than by having to bring timber from
Canada instead of Norway, making one long voyage

instead of three short ones. There is, however, a
set of jobbers connected with the shipping interest
who haunt the metropolis, who probably have an
interest in felling timber in the colony, and who
influence the bulk of the shipowners to sit con-
tented under a series of monopolies, which
have been almost sufficient to counteract their
great enterprize and skill. Now that the
manufacturing community is beginning •to
stir in order to procure the repeal of the
Corn-laws, we hope the mercantile community will
zealously aid their manufacturing brethren. We
must, however, inform the shipowners and mer-
chants of the outports, that there is but very little
hope that the mercantile and commercial portion of
the metropolis will set them a good example, and
that if they wish for a repeal of the Corn-laws they
must not wait to follow the lead of the Londoners.

Letters from Athens of the 29th ult. announce

that King OTHO has signed a Royal Decree, au-
thorizing Mr. WRIGHT to establish a Bank in
that capital. We did not expect from the Greek
Government the adoption of so wise and beneficial
a measure, after the series of absurdities perpe-
trated in the KING'S name since the date of his last
return from Bavaria. The privileges which the
new Bank is to enjoy are tolerably extensive. For
twenty-one years after its establishment it is to have
exclusive authority to issue paper money. The
capital, which must in the first instance be wholly
British, is to consist of two millions of drachmas, or
eighty thousand pounds sterling, one half of which
is to be devoted to lending money on mortgages,
leases, and all such securities, for agricultural pur-
poses, making of roads, and otherwise improving
the face
and increasing the produce of the country.
The highest rate of interest for money so advanced
is fixed at ten per cent. The other half of the ca-
pital of the Bank is to be expended in the usual
routine of Bank business, such as discounting bills
and the like. As the Bank capital increases, the
Bank shares are to increase in the same proportion,