The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

.The Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and the
other heads of the Tories, obtained credit for candour
when they not only supported the new Poor-law Act,
but admitted that the Ministry who proposed and car-
ried that measure were entitled to the highest praise,
for succeeding in an attempt from which all former
Administrations had shrunk. " The subject," said
the Duke of Wellington, " had been submitted to the
House by several Noble Lords, and had also been
under the consideration of every Administration that
he had known ; but no plan had ever been suggested,
or scheme proposed, to remove and remedy the evils
of the existing laws which, in his judgment, at all
equalled the present, and for it he must return the
Noble Lords opposite, with whom it had originated, his
sincere thanks." But though the Tory Leaders gave
this praise the new Poor-law and its authors, and
hold the same language to this day, and though it
is well known that if the Tories were in power
to-morrow, they would no more than the. present
Ministry think of either repealing it or rendering it less
efficacious, there is yet a most discreditable tampering
with the people on the subject. The Tory leaders do
not commit themselves ; but they seem to have given
the word to their underlings to do all that they possibly
can to subject the Whigs and Reformers to obloquy on
account of the measure. At all the elections the
candidate supported by the Tories is invariably found
the opponent of the PooF-law, and to hold language to
the electors of a most inflammatory character, in
order to profit by prejudice and, delusion. The nobles
of a century or two back used to have retainers whom
They employed in the perpetration of ugly deeds, from
which they-could profit without being implicated in them.
The Tories of 'the present day seem to have studied.
.11.1aehiaVel to some purpose. They send out their Ser-
geant Adams and some such personageS to hold a lan-
guage of which they are themselves ashamed, and
which, of course, they would at once disavow ; but
they have no objection to profit by the mischief caused
by such instruments. Thus, while Sir Robert Peel
and Sir Jairies Graham affect to be strongly in favour
of the new pbor law, Mr. Sergeant Adams, at War-
wick, has the assurance to tell the electors that " the
poor were locked up in prisons ; in places where they
were deprived of the light of day. Husbands were se-
parated from their wives, children from their parents ;
nor did the treatment of the poor in this unfeeling way
end with life : when they were dead they were put un-
der the sod without bell or pall, or the ordinary decent
observance of a funeral." Mr. J. ParkeS boldly took up
the gauntlet thrown down, by the Learned Sergeant.
" Ile would only observe," he said, "on one miserable and
disgraceful attempt of the ultra-Tory candidate to
throw the dust of a popular prejudice in their eyes.
The Learned Sergeant had retailed to them the hetim-
hug electioneering device of ,use of the Poor.law, and
reviling its administrators. He (Mr. Parkes) should
despise himself if he stooped to popularity by pretend-
ing to opinions not really held by him." After ob-
serving that the measure had been supported by the
great majority of all parties—Whigs, Tories, and Ra-
dicals, he added—.

" He would not say there were not defects in the mea-
sure, and room for improvement in the administration of
it. All such organic changes in the social condition of
a nation must. have- time for improved working, and when
experience and results would amend such a measure as
the Poor-law Bill, and they might rely upon it that pre-
judice would give way to interest and conviction. He
was far from regretting the jealousy evinced by honest
opponents of the Act. on the rights of the poor ; that
jealousy would usefully watch over the unions, and make
the Legislature anxious to remove any real evils in the
law or its administration. If he had a proposer such
as Mr. Wyse, the Chairman of their unions, and such a
Tory partisan as the vicar, Mr. Boudier, an able advocate
in pamphlets for the Bill he (Mr. Parkes) should scorn to
act at the hustings the part of Mr. Sergeant Adams in
thus propagating delusion and prejudice."—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. Sergeant Adams was proposed by Mr. Wyse,
a gentleman who owns land round the borough of War-
wick worth about- 5,0001. a year, and who is the
Chairman of the Poor-law union to which Warwick
belongs. The other gentleman above alluded to, the
Rev. John Boudier, vicar of St. Mary's Warwick, a
strong ultra-Tory,published-some time ago a very sen-
sible pamphlet under the title of " Remarks on some
of the more prominent features and the general ten-
dency of the New Poor-law Bill, addressed to those
who are disposed to think it a harsh and oppressive
act." The Rev. Mr. Boudier, who himself farms 120
acres, is a member of the Board of Guardians, and
is competent from experience to speak of the working
of the old and new systems, does not hesitate to affirm
that " the charges of cruelty and oppression in the
administration of the new Poor-law are founded in

misrepresentation ; he maintains that the old ys-
tem was " fraught with very many evils necessa-
rily fatal to the prosperity of the country, and
surcly working its ruin ;" he inveighs against the
qualified advocates who set themselves in hos-

tile array against the New Bill, and cry down its
enactments with a pretty general anathema ; and " la-
ments to see that the very virulence of party politics
is let loose against it." How impudent in Mr. Ser-
,cant Adams to rest his claim to the suffrages of the
electors of Warwick on the bill of indictment which

he has drawn up against his own proposer, and one of
his most violent partisans ; and what depth of degra-
dation in these men to show such utter 'indifference to

principles as to give their support to one whom they
must despise in their hearts as a panderer to the lowest
pr-ejudices, "letting loose the very virulence of party
politics" against what they consider an excellent mea-
sure most 'unexceptionably administered. Mr. Ser-
geant Adams must be in their eyes either in unscru7
pulous asserter of any opinion from which he may
derive a temporary advantage, or an ignorant charlatan
v.-ho prates about that of which he is totally ignorant.
Mr. Sergeant Adams will find in the pamphlet of Mr.
Boudier a refutation of all that he has advanced, and
a picture of the old State of things in the very darkest
colours :

" For a family consisting of so many individuals, a cer-
tain sum of money per head was deemed requisite for
their support, and could be demanded, as we have seen,
of the parish, no natter whether the father or mother
were of good or ill character ; industrious or idle ; sober
or addicted to drunkenness ; the number of heads was
the only
reriterion, so many shillings for each must be pro-
vided. fhough it were known that the parent worked
perhaps some two or three days only in the week, and
spent the remainder in the ale-house, the same allowance
could be. demanded, and must be paid; and what was
the inevitable consequence of all this ?—that all proper
moral distinction was done away with ; the industrious
labourer who struggled bard to maintain a large family,
and to keep himself from what in good old times was
thought the disgrace of applying to a parish for relief,
hadindeed the conscious merit of independence, but
how was it likely he would persevere in his good purposes,
when he saw his idle, drunken, or profl;gate neighbour
demanding from the parish, as his right, a weekly sum,
equal, perhaps exceeding, what he could earn by steady
:And persevering industry. Another evil, was, that the
quantum of relief ordered by magistrates in various parts
of a county was often different in amount, and was the
occasion of paupers going from one magistrate to another
for the
Purpose of ascertaining from which of them the
highest scale of allowance could be obtained. Every
parish furnished glaring instances of this kind. The good
principles and resolution of the industrious became natu-
rally impaired and broken down, and even those who could
earn high wages deemed it quite unnecessary to lay up any
portion against sickness, accident, or old ago ; they natu-
rally enough saw no disgrace in doing as others did, and in
every emergency to supply their needs by an appeal to the
parish. The labourer in this manner lost his independence,
became heedless of character, indifferent whether his cal-
1-layer thought ill or well of• him, argued with himself that
he must be Supported, and could exact, not as a matter of
favour, but of right, the full allowance of parish pay ; not,
noreover, necessarily
in return for labour performed, but
even though he were idle, drunken, and profligate. The
enormous sums requisite to meet these unjust and pernicious
demands overwhelmed the country in difficulties, and hard-