The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-13 00:00:00

while they expend hundreds of thousands sterling in
furnishing Spaniards with muskets and bayonets, to
protract the revolting butchery of a barbarous civil war.
The Government Journals have been lately much em-
ployed in endeavouring to overcome the strong public
disgust felt for the inhuman working. of the Bill, by
parading the miserable savings which it is said to have
effected with the view of overpowering the Christian
sensibilities of the ratepayers, by what these economists
consider the stronger sensibilities of the breeches pocket.
We can tell them how they can save the whole instead
of a part of the amount with which the property of the
country is taxed to support the poor. Let them in place
of doling out a starvation subsistence under the name
of relief, do away with relief altogether, according to
the principle avowed in Lord Brougham's celebrated
speech in derogation of the claims of the poor—
let them carry into effect the principle proclaimed
by that Noble and Learned disciple of Mal-
thus, that no poor man in sickness, age, or infirmity of
any sort has any right to relief, or any good claim,
unless it may be for a broken leg. Let them " carry
out" this principle in all the perfection of its philo-
sophic barbarity, and the whole of the rates assessed
to the relief of the poor will be saved ; for as to the
" broken legs" of the poor, the voluntary charity from
which those noble institutions, the public hospitals,
have emanated, provide tolerably well for them. But
the saving, we suspect, would turn out to be a serious
loss when a population, like that of Ireland, hungry,
forlorn, destitute, and desperate, would be let loose
upon the property of the country, and the days of Wat
Tyler and Jack Cade would be renewed. 'While upon
this part of the subject we cannot avoid noticing an
able exposition of the Whig Poor Law system by
Sir Richard Phillips—himself a Whig, at least a Li-
beral—in a series of letters published in a weekly
journal—the Dispatch. In these letters, Sir Richard
places the monstrous iniquity of the Whig measure—
its narrow-minded, illiberal policy, and its inhuman
working, in a strong light. Speaking of the parade
made by the Government prints about the " savings,"
he says, addressing Lord Melbourne, to whom his
letters are directed :

" It is the craft of the pufers of the un-English and
anti-Christian poor law to put forward its savings. This
sordid appeal indicates the low and grovelling policy of the
abettors of the measure ; but as an argument, it is false,
irrelevant, and sophistical. I repeat, that three per cent.
on the profits of the community is no undue concession
to poverty. It is, therefore, no recommendation of the
measure that half per cent., or even one per cent. is ab-
stracted from the relief of the poor. It would have been
as easy, and more just, to distribute the assessments equally,
and allow them to press on no man beyond the meant of
payment, and then three pi,r cent. on the general income
of 200,000,000 would have been cheerfully conceded to
destitution, old age, and decrepitude."

The abuses which required correction under the old
system we not only never denied, but we often pointed
out ; among these were the waste of money by parish
jobbing, the rose-water dinners, and all that at the ex-
pense of the poor, and the paying a portion of the
wages of employed labourers out of the poor rates.
Now, most assuredly, such abuses could have been
corrected by a statutory provision that would not have
inflicted upon honest poverty the punishment due only
to crime, or have plAced all the parishes of England
and \Vales under a Board of Central Bashaws, with its
arbitrary power—its autocratic proclamations—its poor
house code and inquisitorial Government, wanting only
the rural gensdarmerie to make the system complete—
or, perhaps, by accumulating the grievance beyond hu-
man endurance, to bring it to a speedier dissolution.
Sir Richard Phillips takes the same view. He says—
Any man with a moderate knowledge of society and
law, could have drawn up a bill to put an end to parish job-
bing and the payment of labourers out of the Poor-rates.
For this object there was required no Star Chambers—no
hostiles—no war against the aged, helpless, and decrepid—
no violation of Christian principles and the charities of life."

A favourite sort of deception practised by the poor
law economists is to take credit for all reductions in
the rates, although, in truth, 'having in many in-
stances, no connection with the practical operation of
the Bill—reductions that would have taken place tin:-
der the practical reform introduced in particular pa-
rishes, although the Whig law had never been in exis-
tence ; need we also mention the reductions in conse-
quence of the increase of employment and the rise in
wages occasioned by railroad projects during the past
year or two ? One remarkable instance of fraudulent
misrepresentation as to the wonder-working economy of
the Whig Act, Sir Richard Phillips mentions by way
of example ;we give it in his own words. The worthy
Knight says—
" Since there has been an attempt made, by innumerable
puff paragraphs and laboured statements to make it be be-
lieved that some great savirt', has been the peculiar effect of
this particular measure, and to prove the wisdom of those
who, with little discretion, enforce its cruel provisions, I will
state a circumstance connected with those puffs which, I
presume, will surprise you. It cannot have escaped your
recollection that one of the earliest statements of the bene-
fits derived from the Bill was the astonishing saving that it
was said had been made by it. in the parish of Battle. It
was formally laid before Parliament, and trumpetted in all
the Journals which esteem their profits more than their
Christian duty to the poor. I was aware, my Lord, that
great savings ought to result, but a diminution of rates
from 235. in the pound to 95., indicated either a wanton-
ness of peculation that deserved criminal punishment, or
the worth of an economy of subsistence, in that two-
eighths of a farthing about which the economists were so
solemnly divided—that is, whether Is. 53-d. and 3s. Bd. per
week, or Is. sd. and ss. Bd. per week should be allotted
for food. Being, therefore, a few days at St. Leonard's,
near Battle, and desirous of improving my political arith-
metic, I paid a visit to that small and quiet town, now be-
come as thmous in poor law economy as it had long been for
the victory of the Northmen over the Saxon people. On
making inquiry I heard tales about the cruelty of removing
some old and respected poor of both sexes to a neighbour-
ing (what shall I call it?)—and all agreed in referring me to
a gentleman near the church, and one of the active guardians
under the new system. On mentioning that the object of my
calling was to inquire how they bad been forced to reduce
the rates from 235. to 95.. he told me he had seen the
statement to which I referred, and was as much surprised
at it as I could be ! He then related that some years ago
the rates had, from a variety of causes, got above 20s. in
the pound, but the amount creating a strong feeling in the
parish, meetings had been held, and they had in successive
years been reduced Is. 2s. and 3s. per annum—'till, said
he, last year we lowered them to I Is., and a continuance
of the same measures leads me to anticipate that this year
they will not be above 9s. These circumstances, he con-
tinued, had, however, nothing to do with the new Poor Law
Bill, which was not then in existence, and which had been
in operation with them but a few months."
The above is a specimen of the imposition practised
upon the public by the Whigrate-doctors and the Mal-
thusian prison-building economists. But, if even all
the savings which they attribute to the Bill in particular
places were the result of its operation, and of nothing
else, what gain has society to counterbalance the dis-
content and misery which the system occasions ? Those
who are driven to commit crime rather than submit to a
famine allowance with perpetual imprisonment, must
be prosecuted at the public expense. Then look at the
cost of covering the whole kingdom with Union Bas-
tiles—look at the salaries of Commissioners, Assistant
Commissioners, &c., thrown upon the Consolidated
Fund. Looking at these things, we ask, what savings
are derived from the Act comparable with the evils it
inflicts upon humanity.—Morning Herald.

SNOW ON RAILWAYS.—It was a matter of some
curiosity whether or not the engines could continue to
work upon the Carlisle railway during -the continuance of
the snow upon the road. The possibility of so working was
put to the test on Monday last, and the utility of railways
demonstrated in a most striking manner. In the deep cut-
ting through the Cowran Hills the snow had come down on
Monday, and numbers of country people had assembled to
see hew the engine would act in such an emergency,
and to render any assistance which might be necessary. On
arriving at the spot the engine-man made no bones of the
matter, but dashed right into the drift, clearing his way
through, apparently without the slightest difficulty, the snow
flying over the top of the engine chimney like foam from the
broken waves of a violent sea ; and, notwithstanding this
and other similar obstructions, the train came down from
Greenhead (twenty miles) in an hour and a quarter. The
trains have continued regularly to keep their time, while all
communication on common roads has been more or less
most seriously obstructed, if not entirely cast off for a time.
—Carlisle Journal.
Farrell, the indefatigable manager and proprietor of
the Pavilion Theatre, has backed himself for 2001. to pro-
duce a new two-act melodrama or farce every week for the
next six months. The task seems an Herculean one, and
the odds are two to one against the accomplishment of it
but the worthy Manager feels confident he shall win, and
nothing else. We wish he may.