The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-07 00:00:00

ZI)/e cl,t'll,+

WITH WHICH
THE eg TRUE SUN" IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 7, 1933.

The Report of the Coal Committee, relative to the
allegations made before the Common Council by Mr.
BRADFIELD, was presented to the Court yesterday,
and we need hardly say that it fully answered our ex•
pectations. Relief from such a Committee was not
expected, but it was expected that all the par-
ties accused by Mr. BRADFIELD would be ac-
quitted of blame, or eulogized for their excellent
arrangements, and that on Mr. BRADFIELD
alone would fall the whole of their censure, and
Such is the substance of the Report. The Court of
Aldermen is acquitted, and the coal trade is praised
because they had lately appointed ten additional
weighers, thogh, according to Mr. BECKWITH, the
foreman of the Coff2mittee, there were already more
weighers than work. The Committee did not deem
themselves justified in making any inquiry relative to
the admission of colliers into the pool, because that was
'beyond their sphere, and belonged to another body
of Corporators called the " Navigation and Port COlll
mittee ;" but this body, nevertheless, Mr. BECKWITH
Could not pass by without praise, and accordingly
pronounced their arrangements " perfectly satisfactory."
Of course they are all honourable men, and make the
best possible regulations for the good of the public.
Nay, the very shipowners, who suffer by delay in the
discharge of their vessels, are made to say this does not
enhance the price of coals, though according to
Mr. DYER, their representative on the occasion, it
puts them to additional expense. In other words,
though they can make only ten voyages instead of
fifteen, the freight is not thereby raised. This is
carrying the white-washing system farther than pru-
dence dictates-; but, nevertheless, the public will be-
lieve this absurdity as readily as they believe that
the Court of Aldermen have no power to
put an end to the . " tricks," and the injurious
" combinations and conspiracies" of those who extort
from the inhabitants of London fully 150,0001. a year.
If this is true, the Court of Aldermen have power only
to do evil. By their means the tax is imposed—they
have the appointment of Coal Committees, Port Com-
mittees, Navigation Committees, and other Commit-
tees, who play into one another's hands, but
unfortunately they have no power to redress
one grievance. Mr. STANNEN could not adduce
a better argument for Corporation Reform ; and as he is
well acquainted with the mode of appointing these City
Committees, and could point out what interest the
different members have in throwing dust in the eyes of
the public, we would recommend this subject for the
consideration of the Society at its meeting next Thurs-
day.

In another part of our Paper will be found the
Prospectus of an Institution for the temporary retire-
ment of persons in the upper walks of life, who may
have been visited with that greatest of all calamities—
mental aberration. No one, we think, can cast his
eye over this Prospectus, without perceiving that
the new Institution is founded on principles
which have never yet found their way into
retreats for the insane, namely, the principles of
humanity and common sense. Such establishments
have hitherto been conducted as if they had been in-
tended to prevent, rather than to promote, the restora-
tion of reason, and, in the generality of cases, this is,
and must be, the effect produced. The whole ma-
chinery of the present system is so calculated to bring
about this dreadful result, that we are almost justified
:in saying that the law seems to have conspired with
the cupidity of individuals, if not to make men mad,
at least to keep them so. Some of those who have had
the best possible opportunities of judging from experi-
ence, confess that "it is not the interest of the proprietor
of a private asylum to cure his patients." When we
find such a sentence of condemnation of the existing
system as this assertion implies pronounced by no less
an authority than Sir WILLIAM ELLIS, and Dr.
CorroLLY's testimony is to the same effect, it is
surely high time that the treatment of insanity should
undergo, not a slight alteration, but a complete revo-
lution.

In adverting to the institution at Denham-park, we
beg to direct the attention of our readers to those
features of the new establishment, with which we have
ourselves been particularly struck.
In the first place, it is not the property of a medical
man, but is under 'the immediate superintendance of a
Committee of Proprietors, the medical resident not
only having no interest in the continuance of the pa-
tients in the Institution, but receiving a premium for
every patient who is restored to society. By this
means, interest and duty, instead of being at variance,
go hand in hand.
Again, the facilities afforded for visiting the inmates
cannot be too highly appreciated. The names of the
Royal Patron, and of the Vice-Patrons, who have un-
limited access to the Institution, are a guarantee that
no one will be allowed to remain under its roof longer
than is absolutely necessary, and that no abuse—no
deviation from the established regulations will be per-
mitted. The friends of the patients as well as their
usual medical attendants are also allowed to see them,
without any restraint, or any of those previous pre-
parations which are customary at other establishments.
The classification of the patients is another point of
the very greatest importance, which is here duly at-
tended
to. The person who is under the influence of
raving madness is not associated with him whose
reason is but slightly obscured. For each class of in-
valids there is a separate mansion ; while for those

who are capable of enjoying recreation a variety of
amusing occupations are provided, the tendency of
which is to promote recovery by gently beguiling the
disordered mind from the habitual contemplation of
those ideas on which it is apt to dwell.

On the whole, this Establishment seems to us to
realize all that can be expected, or even wished, in
the treatment of insane persons. To use the language
of the Prospectus, the Proprietors have set " an ex-
ample of a more attentive, benign, social, active, and
effective system of treatment for persons afflicted with
mental diseases, than has hitherto been adopted." To
have done this, is a subject of congratulation in a
public point of view, while it redounds greatly to the
honour of those enlightened and humane persons who
have accomplished it.

All Protestants are deeply indebted to the Times
for the manner in which it has of late drawn attention
to the priestcraft of the Roman Catholic Clergy. Its
exposure of the discipline of the Jesuits a few days
ago was admirable, and its condemnation of their ne-
farious object of getting all men and all things under
their feet, was not more severe than deserved. If our
Contemporary would only direct his sharp vision to
our own country and our times, he would find, we
think, almost as much to condemn in the conduct of
our own Clergy as in the conduct of the Jesuits. For
example, Dr. CHALMERS, a rigid Presbyterian, for
the mere purpose of giving power to the Priesthood,
though they be those of a Church completely different
in doctrine and discipline from his own, insists on
planting a paid Clergyman and providing him with a
Church among every two thousand persons, and directs
that Clergyman to worm himself into the affections of
the people, to mingle in their business, to preside
at their most important engagements, and gain
over them, by working on their hopes and fears,
as well as ministering to their material enjoyments,
a lasting and overwhelming influence. In what
such a scheme differs in its aims from the gigantic
ambition of the Jesuits, we are too dull to
perceive. Nor are the means by which it is to be
accomplished so dissimilar, from those employed by the
Jesuits, as might at first sight appear. They sought
wealth and power by trampling moral obligations under
foot; and when our Clergy insist on taxing the people
to build Churches, or incarcerating them if they do not
attend Church ; when they appropriate to themselves,
their families, and friends, the revenues destined for
the education of the people,—in what do they differ
from the Jesuits ? A case illustrative of their con-
tempt of moral obligation, and the contempt of the
same obligation with which they have inspired the
Legislature—which, let us assert, shows this contempt
in a very marked manner by tolerating a single
oppression by the priesthood, whether it be by
Ecclesiastical Courts, or any other means, of the people
whom the Legislature exists but to protect and defend
—a case illustrative of the contempt rwith which both
the clergy and Legislature under their influence treat
moral obligation, has just been brought under our
notice. What moral obligation, for example, is stronger
than that trustees of property should devote every far-
thing of that to the uses to which it was devised or
destined ? Yet when that moral obligation stands in
the way of the clergy, see how they disregard it. By
the third of Geo. IV., one of the Acts for building
Churches, it is made lawful
" For any Corporation, or for any trustees, guardians,
commissioners, or other persons having the controul, care,
or management of any hospitals, schools, charitable founda-
tions, or other public institutions, by any conveyance,
signed by or under the seal of such Corporation, to
convey any hereditaments ; and, if they be copyhold,
with the consent of the Lord, to enfranchise the same,
to be used as sites for churches or chapels, or for en-
larging the same, or for parsonages or residences for ecclesi-
astical persons ; and all such conveyances shall be made to the
commissioners, or to whom they shall appoint, to be used for
the purposes of the Act; and such grants may be made with-
out any valuable consideration, and all such conveyances shall
be effectual, and all such grantors are hereby indemnified."

Now the effect of this law is to allow Companies
or Corporations, those for example, of the City of
London, to make over property placed in their trust
for civil, or secular, or charitable purposes, treating
with contempt the obligations imposed on those trus-
tees. We understand that some of the Companies
have acted on this clause, and without any valuable
consideration, have alienated for ever to the Church
land that was placed in their hands for totally different
purposes. We may take the opportunity to remind
our readers of the investigation into the lunacy of Mr.
DAVENPORT, several months ago, when it came out in
evidence, that more than one great Churchman had been
employing some true jesuitical arts to enrich the
Church at the expense of that gentleman's family.
We affirm then, that neither the ends contemplated by
our priesthood, nor the means they employ to obtain
them, differ in any sensible manner from the ends and
the means of the Jesuits, which the Times a few days
ago so eloquently reprehended.
History informs us that the whole scheme of our
present Church government—the division of the land
into parishes—the appropriation of tithes to the Clergy
—the hierarchy of Priests, Curates, Vicars, Rectors,
Archdeacons, Deans, Bishops, and Archbistops,
rising one above another—with the whole power of
the priesthood centering in one or a few leaders,
including Ecclesiastical Courts—with the greater part,
of the Church service, and of the doctrines and
discipline of the Church, are all derived from or are
merely a continuation of the former doctrines, disci-
pline, and government of the Roman Catholic Church,
which our ultra Protestants so vehemently and conti-
nually condemn. Is it not strange that rational,
clever, and thinking men, men who have followed the
better way, for before they were bought or bribed, they
taught us that we " had too much Church," should blame
the Church of Rome so bitterly, and should at the
same time so strenuously advocate extending the power
of the English Church, which differs in nothing but in
name from that of Rome ? It would be passing
strange did we not know the dirty cause. It happens
that the Church is closely allied with one political
party and opposed to the other. To extend the Church
and to plant Parsons amongst the people, is to foster and
encourage Toryism. So to rescuscitate a decaying
and worn-out system of political tyranny, public
writers of great and acknowledged reputation are
selling the land to priestcraft, and striving with all
their power again to reduce the people under the yoke
of a quasi Romish priesthood.

We give in another place an abridged account o
the meeting at Llanelly, to subscribe for the payment
of the fine levied, in the shape of costs, on Mr.'
JAmEs, he being a Dissenter, for absenting himself
from the parish church of Llanelly. As Mr. REEs
said, the Vicar has drawn the picture of a Church
Establishment in vivid colours, and has done more to
make it hateful to the people than all the arguments,
however eloquent, of the Dissenters. He is quite cor-
rect ; men are not to be taught by words but facts, and
no declamation would have the smallest effect against
the Church, were its clergy not, as a body, rapacious,
extortionate, negligent, and ungosliy.

A Correspondent
has
I.n sent us a Worcester C'hronide
of March Bth, 1838, in there is a remark of
Mr. Baron ALDERsOI4 than is
so pertinent to the
case of Mary WooLFREy that
roan_n,deoofcthe Learned
di-
rect the Mtention of the Learned Baron, deem it right to
Judoes of the Ecclesiastical Court,a
in general to it. A man of the nail, of
of
fthtle
CHARLES
public
Rn La name
se
GOODMAN was provoked by another man
fight him.
of EDWARD HILL, on January 27th, to