The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-12 00:00:00

HINESE SUPERSTITIONS.

A, fire k
The chinZeneda few days ago in an adjoining street.
.
L. attribute it to an evil spirit ; and, to conci-
kd 'H; they have erected, in a public place, a long pole
_corned with lanterns ; the priests have visited it for seve-
ri Mornings with music, and have bowed towards it. A
play
is aPpointed, with the hope of appeasing the evil spirit.
11on the island of Honan, which is opposite to the Euro-
_,ln factories, the tea tree is found; but it is not larger
lkncie
Snail I very small gooseberry-bush. The building of the
nt Ta, or pagoda, about half-way between Whampoa
411 d Canton, called by the Europeans " the half-way Pa-
opa," is 200 feet high, and the walls five or six feet thick.
...!!it the aide, from the top, hangs a chain a short way down.
hwhin are niches for the reception of idols : in the lower
ahes are also placed a few. The structure, at a distance,
s 41' appearance similar to that of the Monument near
',ern
_London bridge. In several temples into which I went,
Papers pasted up soliciting of the gods a supply of
rain which is at present greatly needed.
The Chinese, amone• other methd, when inquiring
their fate in the templebsst, have in a box as few slips of bam-
boo numbered. While on their knees they shake the box,
holding it with both hands, till a single slip falls out ; in
the temple is a paper with replies corresponding to the
number of the slips, which answer, whether felicitous or
otherwise, is supposed to be the will of the gods.
11NT PeuPle discoursed this evening about the paper
al__sen the Chinese burn with gold and silver leaf on it.
The paper, they say, is to represent raiment, and the gold
and silver leaf money ; all which, when sent up in flame,
are caught by the surrounding spirits. I asked if they
thought the spirits had need of clothes, or were delighted
by the offering. The reply gas that the did not
know. They laughed at it, but said it was the Prevailing
custom, and therefore observed ; magistrates, and the Em-
peror himself attended to it and they could not be singu-
lar
the usa . Th e
is reasoning the Chinese said was not good, but
g was not properly theirs, it was introduced by
sorcerers. Confucius did not inculcate it, The obser-
vances were introduced by Hoshang (Bhudha Priests), against whom they entered. into
. a long declamation, and
inveighed against their sloth, igoorance, and use of Robert Morrison, D. D.

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and the
Ladies Georgiana and Rachael Russell, were expected to
leave Woburn Abbey, on Wednesday, for the Doune, their
seat in Scotland,
On Saturday, Francis Nixon, an usher at a
school, whose case was heard a few days since, was called
up to the Insolvent Debtors' Court, to receive the junis-
mfnera4t6oL. a
of the
de Court. The insolvent had defended an action
put his detaining creditor to 351. expense, for
i
which the Court sentenced him to eight mouths' mprison-
ment from the date cf his vesting order.—Mary Merton, a
widow; an embroidress, carrying on business in King-street,
Soho, was opposed by her landlord for putting him
to la
the in recovering his rent. It appeared by herbo
oks
that e Earl of Harrington was indebted to her in the sum
of 340/ for work done- for his Lordship. The insolvent
said that the mon_ey.was tie to her son ; the assets, when
collected, aro sufficient to pay 40s. in the pound. The
ti
rynn cl:i ner
case was adjourned for thepurpose of procuring the at-
tendance the Earl of Haprrington.—William Gibson,
perty,
asNseenwte-court Crutched Friars, who was opposed
300 L, on th
date of th •
during Hathwaite, to whom he became security for
e ground of having made away with his pro-
need to six months' imprisonment from the
. e vesting order.--The Court will sit once a week
g the holidays, to take bail for in

CHARTIST DEMONSTRATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN-

SlR—Yesterday (Sunday), one of those novel
demonstrations of ChartiNm, which seem to puzzle
so the admirers of the eternal-fitness-of-things-sys-
tem, took place in Sr. Paul's Catheural, when, as
one of themselves, I am happy to say that the con-
duct of the vilified Chartists was in all thin',-; un-
exceptionable. The appearance of the great ma-
jority must have proved to those who saw them,
that the Chartists are not the refuse and outcasts

of the community. It was true that there were
some whose poverty would not permit them to make
as decent an appearance as their brethren in the
good cause ; but though in extreme distress, their
conduct as church visitors would have become many
of their church-going enemies. This event, some-
what remarkable in itself, is deserving of notice on
another account—the conduct of the City Authorities
on the occasion. There was no attempt to interfere
with any person, however poor; but there was an un-
worthy imitation, on the part of the authorities, in
their conduct, of the personification of littleness in
mind as well as in body. A number of the City
Policemen, from privates to inspectors, disguised,
were stationed in the interior, and about the exte-
rior of the Cathedral, and, of course, by order of
the most liberal magistracy in the land. Some of
those individuals were busy in their avocation, out-
side the Cathedral, listening to the conversation
of some persons on the present and passing events.
I witnessed one instance, when a person, who was
speaking to two or three others, was cautioned by
some gentlemen that an inspector was standing be-
hind him.

Sir, you,- in 3e) tiol of this will oblige,
Your most obedient Servant, J. J.
August 11, 1839.

THE CHARTISTS-

The Earl of Wilton, in the Lords, on Friday night,
referring to the wicked determination of the Chartists
to attend church, and also to certain placards posted at
Bolton, informed the House that he was about to p-o-
-coed to Lancashire, where he should be glad to have
Lord Melbourne's co-operation with him in preserving
the peace of the county ?
Lord Wilton, though residing in the immediate vici-
nity of Manchester, is not much known amongst us,
except as a very accomplished person in the art of rid-
ing race•horses for a plate. We are, it seems, to have
him now in a new character. Insted of seeing him in
the buck-skins and top-boots, the striped silk jacket and
the jockey's cap, eagerly striving to be the first at the
wirldng pos`, we are to witness him as the grave but
energetic Magistrate, heading a troop of dragoons, and
directing the dispersion of his half starved neighbours,
the weavers of Harpurhey and Middleton, met to peti-
tion for Parliamentary Reform.
We beg leave to suggest to his lordship a more ef-
fectual way of putting down discontent in his own
neighbourhood. He has an income ample enough,
supposing he relinquishes horse-racing and other still
more expensive and less defensible amusements, not
only to live at Heaton as a nobleman might be expected
to live, in the exercise of plain old English hospitality,
but to enable him to expend many thousands a year in
promoting the education and relieving the physical
wants of the poor people who live in close proximity to
his park walls. Let him try the experimemt but for
one year, and he will do more to produce quiet than it
backed in his plan of coercion by a thousand dragoons.
His lordship, however, would probably give the pre-
ference to the system of vigour which was acted
upon from 1817 to 1821, and more emphatically
on the 16th of August, 1819, when a large assem-
blage of men, women and children, peaceably met to pe-
tition for parliamentary reform, was dispersed at the
point of the sword, before half a dozen words had been
uttered from the hustings,—A renewal of the mode in
which the law was administered in those days might also
be acceptable to his lordship. Old John Knight was
sentenced to one year's imprisonment on no other evi-
dence than that he presided at a meeting on the outskirts
of which one man showed another a pistol. Henry Hunt
had two years and a half's imprisonment in Ilchester jail,
and on what evidence ? Some time before his arrival there
had been a meeting on White Moss, at which an amateur
spy of the police bad been beaten. The object was to con-
nect the great meeting at Manchester with that particu-
lar breach of the peace ; and this was effected by proof
that when the people who accompanied Flunt on their
way to St. Peter's Field came opposite the shop of the
said amateur, they stopped and groaned. Oa this evi-
dence Hunt was found guilty and sentenced to that long
imprisonment. There was no charge of seditious words
—no charge of seditious action—but his followers had
groaned at the door of a man who had been beaten,
and Hunt was made responsible for the heating! This
was the vigour of the law then ; and no doubt his
lordship of Wilton, in conjunction with the justices
Hulton and others of the day, would be glad to have
it revived.—Manchester Times of Saturday.
THE SACRED MONTH.—We are most happy to per-
ceive that the Council of the General Convention have
been induced, by the information laid before them, to
rescind the mad vote of that body, or rather the mad
vote of a small and indiscreet section of that body—
for a month's holiday, to begin on the 12th of August.
The powerful address of Mr. O'Connor, printed in our
last number, has, we cannot doubt, rendered much
service to this purpose.
We perceive that the Council have adopted the
suggestion of Mr. O'Connor for a holiday of two
or three days. Nothing can be more clear, to our
mind, than that all the practical good which can
come from a month's holiday, will c)me equally from
a day's holiday. The only thing the holiday can effect
is the proof of union and determination among the peo-
ple ; and a single day's cessation from labour will decide
that. We are not of those who love double dealing.
We have ever been, and we purpose to be, always, can-
did and sincere in what we say. It has been charged
upon the Chartists, by their enemies, that under colour
of a National Holiday, their object was to organise a na-
tional fight, to attack property, and resort at once
to aggressive violence. We do not believe that any
Chartist ever so meant it. If it have ever had this
turn given to it, it must have been eider by some

very short-sighted person, or some villanous spy. If
this were indeed the meaning of the Month's Ho-
liday-, we should then so much the more heartily
denounce it, and that for two reasons : first, because
we have always denounced, and do still denounce, any
resort to aggressive violence by the people. We have
always maintained that the moral power of the people
was irresistible otherwise than by brute force ; but we
have always maintained, and we do still maintain, that
if they should be illegally attacked by physical violence,
they have the natural right of self-defence, which, by all
laws, human and Divine, they would then be justified
in exercising.—Ecrthern Star.