The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

By the French Papers of Thursday, which
arrived last night, we learn that the convocation
of the French Legislative Chambers is fixed for
the 2d of March. This delay of two or three
months beyond the usual time of meeting has
no doubt been occasioned by the difficulties with
which the new :Ministry have hitherto been sur-
rounded, and by.the necessity which they feel of
maturing their projects before they are submitted
to a hostile examination. Perhaps they may
, even intend to make the lateness of the session
an excuse for adjourning to another year several
ofthose important questions which were expected
to occupy the present. In this case, they, will
endeavour to limit the duties of the Chambers
to the scrutiny of the Budget, which, by several
laudable attempts at reduction, they have ren-
dered rrrore palatable to the friends,,of prudent
retrenchment and rigid economy. In accordance
with this supposition, almost every member of
the Government has published some decree by
,Which additional order has been introduced or
additional savings effected in his department.
The only exception to this rule, we believe, is the
Department of `War; and, perhaps, where the
efficiency or comfort of the army is concerned, as
much popularity may be obtained in France by a
prudent increase of pay, -as in other cases by a
timely reduction of expense. Had no prejudices
existed against the Ministry, the improvements
which they have effected would have procured
them credit for activity and good intentions; and j
probably they may expect that the evidence of
these qualities, though it has been lost on the
exasperated feelings of the public, may be better
appreciated by the calmer judgment of the
legislature. However that may be, they have
now taken an irreversible resolution,—they have
announced their determination to meet their
antagonists,—they have arranged the lists and
fixed the day of conflict. Whether from a re-
liance on their strength, or an apprehension of
their danger, they have falsified the sinister pre-
dictions of their enemies about attempts at arbi-
trary violence, and have fairly appealed from the
journals to the Chambers. If they have the
majority of the national representatives in their
favour, they will be able to maintain their
ground, and perhaps gain leisure to acquire
popular favour. If, on the contrary, they
find themselves in a minority, they are
'kind by the nature of the ordeal to which
they appeal to confess their defeat, and to retire.
In either case, the Constitutional rights of the
nation must gain in robustness and vigour by
this repeated exercise of their strength. While
speaking of legislative chambers, we must not
omit a fact, of which we are assured in a French
paper, that the Pacha of Egypt has collected at
the seat of his Government a representative
council, composed of deputies elected by the
towns and provinces of the dominions under his
sway; and that he has already submitted to this
assembly several questions of legislation and ad-
ministration. It is added, that he has set on
foot a journal printed in the Turkish and Arabic
language, to communivte to the Egyptian pub-
lic the deliberations and resolutions of the new
council. The Gazette de France, which men-
tions these facts, tells us that the first numbers
of the Egyptian newspaper had arrived at Paris.
There seems no good reason why the Pacha, if
he himself escapes the bow-string, should not
shame Don Miguel and King Ferdinand by
giving a charter to his people ; why he should not
have his Chamber of Deputies or House of Com-
mons, as the means of getting a better budget than
he could otherwise levy, or gaining a personal se-
curity which he could not otherwise enjoy. But
we must confess that for some time to come we
should not like to be members of the left side,
or to sit on the Opposition Benches; and that
in case of a dispute between the Mace and the
Three Tails, we should prefer the place of Ser-
jeant at Arms to that of Speaker. But poli-
tical improvements and civil reforms among the
Mahometans are not confined to Egypt. It is
stated in a letter from Pisa, that, in imitation of
his Egyptian Viceroy, the Sultan had resolved
to send to Paris a hundred young Turks, chosen
from the best families, to obtain a military and
scientific education. This certainly is the com-
mencement of the " march of intellect" where
we least expected it, and must be viewed with
even greater surprise than that expressed by the
Roman satirist at the spread of a taste for im.
provement among the northern barbarians o
his time.

" De conduceudo loquitur jam Rhetore Thule !"
The great cause of this liberal excitement in
the parts of the Turkish empire bordering on the
Levant, is, no doubt, the Greek revolution, or
those events which have arisen out of it ; and
one of the most cheering prospects connected
with the establishment of a new Greek State
under a sensible Prince and wise institutions is,
that it may become a new focus of freedom and
civilization, to the once celebrated but now
barbarous regions with which it is surrounded.
—Times.

A Circular, it appears, has lately been ad-
dressed to the Keepers of the different Lunatic
Institutions, private as well as public, for the
purpose of enabling the Lord Chancellor to ob-
tain a general estimate of the average number of
insane persons who recover in the present im-
proved state of medical science. We have seen
one of these Circulars, of which we insert a copy,
as the best mode of making public the benevo-
lent intention of the Lord Chancellor upon this
important subject. The care and treatment of
this pitiable and unprotected class of our fellow-
creatures, have lately occupied the attention of
many excellent and benevolent minded men,
and was the subject of considerable discussion in
both Houses of Parliament in the Session of
1828, upon the present Act to regulate the Care
and Treatment of Insane Persons being passed.
The indefatigable industry and patient investi-
gation of the Commissioners appointed under
that Act are generally allowed, but its provisions
(very properly) exempting from their controul
all persons under the protection of the Court of
Chancery, we are in hopes that the Lord Chan-
cellor is about to institute some general in-
: quire into their treatment. They are in most
cases persons possessed of considerable, in
all cases of some, property ; the situation of
very few of them without its temptation to some
interested party to retain them in their melan-
choly state of confinement. What the precise
object of the Lord Chancellor may be, or to
what class of these unfortunate beings his Lord-
ship's attention is to be extended, we knov; not;
from the circular it is quite evident, however,
that his Lordship takes a much more enlarged
view of this melancholy subject than that of their
care and treatment as mere animals ; that his
benevolent and enlightened mind does not mean
to be satisfied with an inquiry only into their
cleanliness and clothing, or into their enjoyment
of the common comforts and necessaries of life,
but has reference to their ultimate recovery ai
reasonable creatures, capable, by proper, judi-.

cious, and disinterested treatmen', of being re-
stored as valuable members of society. We can
only observe, that should this be the Lord
Chancellor's object, we anticipate'The,most be-
neficial results ; for not only will, doubtless,
many valuable and highly-gifted individuals be
restored to society, but a spirit of inquiry and
honourable emulation be excited in the profes-
sion. With respect to the subjec as a branch
of medical science, productive of consequences,
justifying the expectation that this most dread-
ful of the afflictions of our frail nature may be
deprived of some, if not most, of its greatest
horrors.—Morning Chronicle.
The country gentlemen who, as long as rents
could be collected, were the most 16yal of the
loyal, ready to sally out at a moment's warning,
at the head of their Yeomanry Cavalry, against
those whom distress made clamorous, find the
Government much less attractive now that fat
stock sells for less than it was purchased for when •
lean, and the tenants must either remain in ar-
rear or pay rents out of their capital. This is
another exemplification of the adage, that " Wis-
.dom conies with lack of food." At the Lin-
coln county meeti ig, and at tile dinner, on Fri-
day last, there was speaking out. The meeting
.was called to consider the expediency of peti-
tioning for the repeal of the beer and malt
duties ; and it is but doing justice to the speakers
to say that theY.lllsplayed nothing of the equivo-
cating and temporizing spirit which characteriied
the proceedings of the 'meeting at the London
Coffee-house. They not only called for the
repeal of taxes, but contlemned the lieetce-
mopopoly; -and, in the petition adopted by the
meeting, they humbly pray that the Hon. House
" would be pleased to repeal forthwith these
odious taxes, and grant that the trade in two- may
be made free." The expenditure of the country
ought to have been greatly reduced_ long ii t;0;
and if the country gentlemen had'thane their
duty, it would have been reduced. They
know why it was not reduced. They know
that the great obstacle which Ministers have
to encounter in all such undertakings is the ra-
pacity of the Nobility and Gentry, and all pos.
sessed of Parliamentary influence. They know
that Committees after Committees have - been
named to give a little courage to Ministers id
propose reductions; but no longer pipe no
longer dance; and means must be found to
move Parliament. What are all the Re Venue
Inquiries instituted by Ministers—to Otiti.
which we alluded only so late as Saturday List'
—but manifestations on their part of a disposi.
tion to awe the Gentry into moderation lty
means of public opinion ? The expenditure is
excessive, and ought to be reduced.—Grantad.
The Beer and Malt Taxes amounting to seven
millions are intolerable burdens, and their re-
moval would be a great relief to the people--
Granted also. A sensible man in private life
reduces his expellees to his means ; and Govern-
ment ought, in like Manner, to consider.,nry:ex-
pences justifiable but what they can afford. But
the Country Gentlemen have higher gam*. in...
view than ordinary economy. The tuna; they
think, is now come for speaking out respecting
the national debt.- " A great deal of talk (said
Sir Robert Heron) was made about the nieces.
shy of keeping the national faith with the public:
creditor; but in his opinion the doing so wntild
be breaking that faith with the grossest injustice
towards all the rest of the community. He did
not mean to say that the Government onBlit to
be blamed for the alteration in the circulating
medium, or for reducing that which was once
exclusively British circulation to the circu-
lation of all Europe ; he believed that in a
time of peace such a course was necessary ; but
he objected to their now paying the interest of
what was borrowed at a depreciated currency, in
(thHr,eeaadvanhecea.) Thosecurrencydr who were calling of the presecnttig outime.--
loudest respecting the national faith with the
public creditor, knew that it could not be done;
they kneiv that in the very first year of a war
the whole system must be put an end to. His
object was to anticipate that time." No, no, Sir
Robert, that will not do. Tax the national ere=
ditor as highly as you please, provided you tax
other property as highly ; but beyond this you
shall not go. You tell us that in the very first
year of a war the whole system must be put an
end to, and that you wish to anticipate that
time. And what security have we that the
same Aristocracy, to gratify and pamper which
all this debt has been created wantonly and un-
necessarily (for every war in the last King's
reign was both unjust and unnecessary), if the
debt were out of the way, would not play the
same game over again ? With such a Consti-
tution of Government as that under which we
live, the absence of means will always be the
best -tecurity for moderation. Major Handly
observed, that "salaries ought to be lowered,
and there was some public property which might
be appropriated." Sir E. French Broomhead
hoped that " nothing was meant to be un-
dertaken against the Fundholders and against
the property of the Church."—(Voices in
the crowd, " Against both.") Major Hand-
ley explained, " that his observations applied
to the Corn Laws." But Colonel John-
son afterwards avowed that "he wanted to

have a slap at all public properties; and after
that he would compromise with the public cre-
ditor 011 the best terms he could, but so that
every person should bear his fair share of the
public burdens."—Sir William Ingleby " did
not know why the farmers should be ruined to
enrich the tax-gatherer and the fundholder. If
the country was in such a bad state that its re-
sources were no longer equal to its wants, the
Government was bound to reduce its expendi-
ture, to lay its taxes on equally, and allow all to
go down together, not to ruin only one c!ass."
We understand this language very well. The
gentlemen of England, however, are very much
mistaken if they think that any Government of
this country dare to attack any one description
of property. What is taken for the public exi-
gencies must be taken on some general principle,
applicable not more to the national creditor

than to other descriptions of property. Times
of revolution are times of confiscation ; and
times of confiscation are times of revolution.
Every man who holds property in this country,
holds it subject to the share of the debt corres-
sponding to that property; and as all property is
the creature of the law, the same law which pro-
tects the one necessarily protects the other. It
has been proposed by Mr. Heathfield, Mr.
cardo, and others, to extinguish the debt at
once, by a contribution from all property to
which the national creditors would contribute

their proportion. This is an intelligible. pcq-
ceeding. But any measure levelled exclusively
at the national creditors would lead to other
consequences than the 'Squires dream of.:: , We-
have a long way to go before arriving at private
property. We must reduce our expendilure iu
all directions. We must have soldiers arid -sailors
just as we must have prisons and havginetk.-_Hitt-:-,

though a nation cannot ilispense with soldiers
and sailors, it may discover, that if an establish-
ment for religion be necessary, it is not neccs-
sary that the Church of Ireland should require
a million of beautiful acres, besides tithes, to
attend to the souls of a few hundred thousand
Protestants. Even in Church matters, however,
private property will always be respected. When-
ever the public exigencies shall demand that the
Clergy, like other public functionaries, should be
placed on a new looting, the property of Lay
Impropriators and owners of Advowsons will be
held sacred ; no individual in possession of a
benefice will suffer any diminution of income.
The property of the Church is public property
of course, and subject to such regulation as may
be found most conducive to the national ad-
vantage ; but irnpropriations anti advowsons are
private property, and is also the life interest of ail
incumbents. Whether the necessities of the
country will compel recourse to be had to
Church Froperty with a view to the placing
the religious establishment with every other on
more economical footing,, we know not.
But this we know, that if the slightest dis-
position should be manifested to invade any one
description of private proporty in particular, an
cera of violence would succeed to that of law.
In the struggle to which a sense of common in-
security would give rise, the result might be
very different from the anticipations of those
who provoked it. Let country gentlemen ask
themselves what property is without law, and
whether there is any more necessary connection
between a Baronet and his park and any other
man and the same park, and they will pause on
the brink of the abyss. When law gives place
to force, the landowners of England are only
forty or fifty thousand individuals ; and any
other forty or fifty thousand individuals in the
county can scramble as well as themselves. Let
them remember, too, that when London was
not larger than Glasgow now is, its apprentices
beat the nobility and gentry of England, with
their tenantry, and the King at the head of
them. The Presbyterians and Independents
of that day did not form the twentieth part of
the inhabitants of England, but they were
strong in London and some other Corporations.
In the French Revolution, whoever possessed
Paris gave law to France. We throw out
these hints, that the Country Gentlemen may
not allow themselves to be led away by the idea,
that after trampling on all law, they would still
hold the power the) now possess under the law.

We call the attention of our readers to an
excellent article in another column, or, the Irish
Post Office, taken from the Scotsman. It is a
masterly exposure of the working of the system
of corruption (of which Irish ascendancy may
be considered the ne plus ultra) in one depart-
ment of Government. Take the following as a
sample :—'• In making contracts for the mails,
it is admitted that there" was eldom more than
one e'er, and that they were not held out to
any real competitor ;' in other words, they were
jobs I The cont aciug party on the part of the
Post Office was sometime the Secretary, some-
times the Chief Clerk, sometimes the one Post-
master, and sometimes the other. It is no doubt
odd that a Postmaster. who never intermeddled
with the other parts of the business, should make
contracts for mails without consulting any other
person ;' but so it is. We leave Ithe reader to
solve the mystery for himself I The contractors
seem in no case to have had a very hard bargain,
for the mails are carried in Ireland at an ex•
pence varying from 61. to ls. 3d. per mile,
while in England they are conveyed at 3d. ; and
Mr. Johnston, an excellent authority, states, that
' a mail or stage coach might be worked cheaper
in Ireland than in England, on account of the
cheapness of provender and labour.' This, we
think, speaks a pra!ty intelligible language ! The
ei4ht mail coaches belonging to the Dublin
establishment worked 1,450 double miles. In
En(land, saes the Report, the expence of this
would be 7,5001. ; in cheap Ireland it is 30,4381.
Irish money !" Again—" A second Cork mail
was tried, and found to be a bad concern.
Lord Rosse, the usual acting Postmaster, then
issued directions to give it up ; but in his absence
his colleague, Lord O'Neil, had signed an agree-
ment with a contractor to run this losing mail for
21 years, upon terms (says the Report) as ad-
vantageous to the contractor as they have been in-
jurious to the public.' It was, in short, a job which
the party refused to give up for an indemnity of
20,0001." Our contemporary concludes this
ai-
title with the pithy declaration that " the whole
establishment, in fact, is an unweeded garden,
where idleness, negligence, waste, favouritism,
and jobbing, run riot !" and that " it would be
no great error to describe it as an aggregation
of places and pensions for the benefit of indivi-
duals, the public business which it performs
being merely a sort of accessary in its constitution,
and that the Press should not be silent when such_
evils are brought before it. It should raise its
voice, and call for the correction of abuses which
the Government has honestly exposed to public
c,oiure." When we are asked what good Eman-
cipation has done, it would alone be a sufficient
answer to say that it has enabled the Govern-
ment to attempt with safety the reduction ofjob-
bing in Ireland to the average level of the Empire.
We are not simple enough to suppose that Go-
vernment can be carried on in this country with-
out bribing the Aristocracy with the public
money ; but then, in Ireland, there was no
measure; the Jobbers there were insolent and
shameless, presuming on the dependence of
Government on their services. There is an
excellent remark on the subject of the benefit
to be expected from strengthening Government,
in a pamphlet published by the late Lord Sel-
kirk, so far back as 1808 :—" The harshness
(he observes) with which the lower orders in
Ireland are too frequently treated by their im-
mediate superiors can never be effectually
checked, till the Government is rendered
stronger than it has hitherto been—strong
enough to maintain its own authority, indepen-
dently of the aid of any party. It is with great
injustice that the English Government has been
accused of encouraging a system of proscription
and rigour in Ireland. On the contrary, the
Cabinet has, for a long time back, shown a dis-
position to mild and conciliatory measures ; and
if our Ministers have erred in not following up
these principles with sufficient steadiness and
system, the failure is to be ascribed to the pre-
judices of persons to whom they felt a necessity
of yielding. They could not shut their ~yes on
the dangerous situation of Ireland, ario sg from
the extensive prevalence of a refractory spirit, not
to be repressed, except by the strong hand of
power; they were not in possession of a military
force adequate to the maintenance of tranquillity ;
and no choice was left but to have recourse to the
aid of those among the inhabitants most immedi-
ately interested in the preservation of order. In
this way a powerful force was obtained to assist in
repressing disturbance; but it was composed ofmen

too much under the influence of ancient prejudices,
and too much goaded by the irritating circum-
stances of their situation, to act on all occasions
with coolness and moderation ; nor was it an easy
task to curb the violence of men on whose as-
sistance the preservation of the country appear to
depend. Such is the mutual rancour of the
different classes of people in Ireland, that while
Government are under the necessity of compro-
mising their principles, and of propping up their
authority by the aid of a party, they never can
maintain a steady system of impartial justice and
moderation. By the establishment of a large
military force, sufficient both to repel invasion
and to overawe the disaffected, Government will
be freed from the trammels in which they have
hitherto been entangled, and will he left at liberty
to pursue the obvious policy of imposing a re-
straint on the violence of all parties in that dis-
tracted country. The effectual protection •of
such a force as that which has been proposed
will relieve the Protestants in Ireland from a
harassing state of insecurity ; the feverish
jealousy which attends their present situation
will be diminished ; and they will then have less
difficulty in opening their eyes to the perfect
safety with which the political claims ofCatholies
may be admitted." From every quarter we learn
that the ofd distinctions of Ireland are breaking
fast up. It is no longer necessary to bribe at so
extravagant a rate any set of men to keep the
body of the people down. By degrees, measures
of domestic administration and police will re-
duce the population to order, and the mis-
government of Ireland will subside to the
common level.—lbid.

A sensible, if not also a very clever pamphlet,
from the pen of sir. Dance, the Provisional
Assignee of Insolvent Debtors in England,
has just been published by Ridgway, on a
subject with which the author has enjoyed pecu-
liar facilities of becoming intimately acquainted,
and, which we hesitate not to add, is of the very
first importance to the whole of the commu-
nity—we mean the practicability of reducing the
present enormous expenses of law proceedings,
and of selling justice to the country as cheaply
as possible. The remedies which Mr. Dance
points out are all of a practical nature, and have
the additional recommendation of not materially
interfering with the law itself as at present esta-
blished. The first grand error in the present
system to which which Mr. D. adverts, as tend-
ing to increase the costs of law proceedings, is
the paucity of the Courts of Justice compared
with the wants of the community, and at the
same time the immense number of trifling actions
which by their constitution may be brought before
them.
" There can be no possible reason," says he,
" why a matter of account disputed between two
persons, for a balance of a few pounds, should be
seen to occupy the Chief Justice of England and his
Court during several hour. Yet such cases are
common enough to give us a title to reason upon
them; and if we were to divide the sum of the an-
nual expense of this Court by the average number
of days in the year which it devotes to business,
we should ascertain very neatly the cost to the
country of providing two such litigants with the
splendid arena in which they are to decide their
trumpery battle, at a further price (to be paid in
some way between themselves), of about twenty
times the value of their stake.
" So far we can calculate with accuracy enough
for our purpose. But there is yet another conse-
quence of all this which is much more undefinable,
both in its expense and in its inconvenience. From
twenty to thirty other causes appointed for the same
day, must each have suffered the delay, and incurred
the costs of one day more than they otherwise need
have done. The attorneys, the witnesses, and the
auxiliaries in all these causes, have many of them to
be paid, and many more to lose their time without
pay, always to their detriment, and often to their
great loss.
" Undoubtedly the number of cases for trial in
the superior Courts is much greater than in fot riser
times ; and when we allow for the increased and
increasing population and internal trade of the
country, it is impossible not to see that further and
continual additions must be expected. Yet centu-
ties have not increased the number of superior
Courts, or of Judges. Possibly they were ton
many formerly; certainly they are too few now for
the business.
" Actions for the value of forty shillings or up-
wards are still generally permitted to be brought in
these Courts, and indeed, except in certain districts,
where inferior or summary Courts have been esta-
blished, there exists no other remedy for a forty-
shilling demand. Now, unless we can suffer our-
selves to be persuaded that the relative value of
money has undergone no alteration since this sum
was fixed, here is another most cogent reason for
the increase of business. This portion of the in-
crease takes place too, let it be recollected, at the
bottom of the scale, in the causes of the least im-
portance to the public at large; although from the
general situation of the parties it is precisely in such
as are likely to be conducted in the keenest spirit of
litigation, and when decided, to cause the loudest
complaint of the expences."
Another great source of the enormous in-
crease of law expenses, is the mode in which,
in almost every case, evidence of facts must be
given in a Court of Justice. Every fact must
be proved, according to the present arrangement,
in open Court, and the witnesses, at whatever
distance they may be residing from the place of
trial, attend in person ; while, as Mr. Dance
has shewn, there are many facts of merely minor
importance which might as satisfactorily be
proved elsewhere, and without either loss of
time or expense.
" There are," says he, " instances to which relaxa-
tion, by the introduction of a less expensive substi-
tute, might, I think, be extended with perfect
safety. Such are all matters of what may be called
mere official proof, as of the service of a notice, of
the delivery of a letter, of the execution of a deed
when no fraud is imputed, and many others, which
in fact are often agreed on as admissions between
the attorneys. Upon this subject I should propose,
that some one of the officers of each Court be
appointed, before whom the attorney of either a
plaintiff or a defendant (notice being previously
given to the opposite party) might attend with any
witnesses, and for a small fee on each, the officer
might swear them, take their evidence, and give a
certificate (to be used on the trial) of the docu-
ments and facts proved.
" It seems to me, that all possibility of inconve-
nience resulting from this rule would be prevented if
the adverse party, either after cross-examining any
such witness or not, might cause him to be ordered
by the officer to attend the trial of the cause, on the
condition of being paid such expellees as the officer
should then settle. It would be well to add to this
arrangement, that subpoenas for this purpose might
be made returnable before the officer, so as to com-
pel the attendance of witnesses in the same manner
as before the court. There are many instances, par-
ticularly at the Assizes, where such a provision as
this would save from ten to twenty pounds, or even
possibly more, for a single witness, whose testimony,
though comparatively unimportant, it might yet be
imprudent to forego. And I am well assured that
very many proofs would be taken at this small ex-
pense, which parties now omit altogether, at the
risk of consequences that sometimes prove most
serious. It may be added too, that every substitu-
tion'of a certificate of proof for the calling, swear-
ing, and examining a witness, tends also to econo-