The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-14 00:00:00

WITH WHICH

THE t, TRUE SUN" IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 14, 1838.

The Times and the rest of the Tory Journals have
been raving, day after day, ever since Lord DURHAM'S
Proclamation reached England, about the indecorum
of that Noble Lord in appealing from the Peers to the
people. He ought to have waited, they have said, till
he was in his place in Parliament, before he defended
his conduct. But the Times will on no account allow

the same privilege to Lord MELBOURNE. He must
answer, if not to the people, at least to their great
leader and mighty organ, the Times, at once. " Our
purpose," says the Thunderer, " in denOuncing Lord
HEADFORT, on political grounds, exclusive of all
others, was, we repeat, kind both towards him and
towards Lord MELBOURNE. It was a memento to
the latter that Lord HEADFORT was a man not fit to
be intrusted with executive power, nor worthy of being
admitted near the Royal person, and a hint to the
Noble Viscount that he should not compel us to resort
to arguments of a more caustic and painful nature,
Lord MELBOURNE, therefore, cannot complain of
having been taken unawares in the sequel of this dis-
cussion. He has forced it on us by his utter disre-
gard, for this last fortnight, of our address to his
principles as a counsellor of the Crown." Lord
MELBOURNE waits to answer in the House of Peers,
if any of that virtuous and patriotic assembly shall
accuse him of neglecting his duty, as a Minister or as
a man, in retaining Lord HEADFORT about the
Court ; and the Times, which is so vehement
against Lord DURHAM for not waiting, is forced
to take a strong step 'against Lord MEL-
BOURNE. With great pain to itself, with much ex-
pressed unr.illingness, accordingly, it proceeds to at-
tack the private character of Lord HEADFORT.
Was there ever such a journalist ! He denounces:Lord
MELBOURNE for not dismissing the Marquis of
HEADFORT, on public grounds, and because the
Noble Viscount will not at once confess himself guilty
to the charge of this new public accuser, the Fou-
QUIER TAINVILLE of our day proceeds to wreak
his vengeance on Lord MELBOURNE, by dragging
before the public the private character of another
Nobleman. That is a sort of warfare which must
please the immaculate Tory Lords, and it will keep in
the hand of our TAINVILLE, till he is again
ranged in opposition to them, when his present vir-
tuous abettors will be dragged for similar imputed
delinquencies before the same tribunal. How delight-
ful it will be to the mob to have TAINVILLE, increased
in expertness, once more on their side.

As we cannot now get rid of the tax which the
State collects on the conveyance and distribution of
letters, the next beet thing we can do is to make it as
little burdensome, and as productive as possible. Not

one farthing more ought the State to get than at pre-
sent, and it ought to get that at the least possible cost
to the public. In future articles we shall extract from
the Report the various suggestions which have been
made to reduce the postage without injuring the re-
venue ; and at present we shall briefly notice some
of the many injuries which the Legislature, by mono-
polizing the carriage of letters, and ordaining a high
rate of postage, now inflicts on the people.
Nothing strikes us more than the injury which the
high rates of postage inflict on the poorer classes, to
whom, as Captain BENTHAM deposes, it is " nearly
a total prohibition" to correspond. Mr. W. FELICIN,
wko, as a Guardian of the Poor, has known much of
the habits of the poorer classes, states that they
" scarcely receive or transmit any letters by post," and
what they do send or receive is by private hands.
Mr. ALFRED DAVIDSON, of a needle manufactory
in London, and Mr. T. DAVIDSON, of Glasgow,
both give similar -evidence, and the latter calls the high
postage " a Non-intercourse Act for the Poor." Ac-
cording to Colonel COLBY, those at the extremities of
the kingdom are more affected by it than others, and
are entirely precluded from corresponding with one
another. Mr. BRANKSTON, the managing agent
for LEAP and Co., in whose business there are 150
young people, declares that the high postage operates
most tyrannically on such persons ; and he, as well as
several other witnesses, depose to the very injurious
moral effects which ensue from crowds of young
people, who are necessarily separated from their
parents in early life, being prevented from keeping
up with them a close and affectionate correspondence.
But perhaps some fastidious readers may assert
that the poor do not want to write letters ; and
some may say that they have no business to
write them ; that ignorance of writing is suitable
to their situation in life ; that to write letters is
a waste of time ; and they may desire to continue the

high postage, as such persons desired to keep up the
high stamps on Newspapers, in order to prevent the
poor from getting knowledge, and from communicating
together. The evidence supplies many answers to
both assertions. Captain BENTHAM says, that sol-
diers who have the privilege of sending letters to their
friends on paying a penny in advance on each letter,
which is franked by the Commanding Officer, " take
great advantage of this, appear to derive great gratifi-
cation from it, and it benefits them in a variety of
ways." The same fact is well-known to be true of
sailors, and it is also well-known that when they are
abroad, their friends and relatives derive great plea-
sure from this little privilege. Mr. GRAVENER HEN-
EON, a lace-manufacturer of Nottingham, says, " that
during the war, nearly a dozen persons in that town
obtained a good livelihood by writing letters for sol-
fliers' wives, and now there is only one schoolmaster
and a female who writes occasionally: But so strong
is the desire amongst the poor to communicate
with each other, that Mr. A. DAVIDSON says he has
ascertained that parties have pawned their clothes to
pay the postage of letters ; and it is at the same time
given in evidence that letters are often rejected from
inability to pay for them. Mr. DAVIDSON, of Glas-
gow, too, where the generality of working people can
write, says they desire much, particularly servants, to
keep up a communication with their friends, but the
Non-intercourse Act prevents them ; and the domestic
and kindly feelings are repressed, and the moral
chajacter, deteriorated by the prohibition. From want
of opportunities these people, he observes, lose the
habit of writing ; so that the State is at great expense
and trouble to teach an art, of which it afterwards, in
their case, almost prohibits the exercise. But one of
the strongest illustrations we can quote of the poor
desiring to communicate with one another,,,bis the case
of a poor woman who very frequently walked four
miles to hear information of her husband, which would
probably have been spared, and she frequently gratified
with intelligence, if a letter could have been sent to
her, as to a soldier's wife, on the payment of a penny.
Now as to not having any business to write, no per-
sons seem to have more occasion for it than the poor.