The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-16 00:00:00

'SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL..

Wo this day publish a short but very important public
document—a return moved for by Mr. Hawes of " A
Copy of the Report of the Superintendent of Police in
Hyde-park to the Commissioners of Police, on the Day of
her Majesty's Coronation." It is remarkable, as shouting
in a most unquestionable manner the good conduct of the
people of this metropolis. In a multitude larger than ever
was gathered together in London, there was no rioting, no
offensive scenes of drunkenness, and during th day only
TWENTY persons were taken into custody and cont eyed to
the station. They consisted of :
Pickpockets 7
Felon (only apprehended in the fair, for the act WaS
committed some time before) 1
Persons charged with gambling l2

20
It is, perhaps, not overstepping the limits of trUti' to say,
that two-thirds of the population of the metropolis were at
one time or another in the fair. A.nd vet on Fk clay of
general excitement—surrounded by every temptation to
indulgence—beer-shops in abundance—not cne per-
son was apprehended for drunkenness or riot Where
was Lord ? Did this noble example set by
the working population of London awe aristocratic drunkards
and brawlers into decency and decorum even on the day of
her Majesty • Coronation ? It is said that before Lord
John Russell took upo❑ himself the responsibility of order-
ing the holding of this fair he made very careful inquiries on
the subject, and consulted the persons most likely to be
acquainted with the present character of the metropolitan
population. 4mongst those to whom his Lordship app:ied
were the Commissioners of Police, who had been recently
examined in the Police Committee on this very point, and
whose evidence in favour of the improved and inzproving
character of the people was expressed in very strong terms.
On such grounds of assurance that the indulgence would
not he abused, her Majesty was pleased to grant the use
of Hyde-park for the fair, and it must be a source of
gratification to her Majesty to find that her gra-
eious condescension and wish to promote the amuse-
ment of hundreds of thousands—we might almost say
millions—of her subjects—was unattended with one single
circumstance' calculated to mar the rejoicings on the happy
day for England of her coronation. We find upon return-
ing to the report in question that whilst the truncheons of
the police were quietly in their pockets, their hands and
eyes were in full activity, for a hundred children were lost
and found ! and the chief and most difficult business of the
station was to procure rations and toys for the little urchins
who, haling been separa'ed by the pressure of the crowd
from their parents, were lost, but who were duly appre-
hended by the police as very innocent vagrants, being un-
able to give any account of themselves, and taken to the
station-house, and committed to the charge of their parents
again ! Thus terminated the police duties on the day of
her Majesty's coronation, It was a proud day for Eng-
land and for England's Queen. We wish we could add
that the celebration of the coronation throughout the
island exhibited everywhere the same improvement ,
in 'the demeanour of the people. But the savage
manner in which the lower orders of Dundee set fire to the
theatre in mere mischievous sport, forms such a contrast to
what took place in the metropolis, that we cannot help
noticing it. We do not believe that the circumstance is to
be taken as an indication of growing depravity of the lower
orders in Dundee but merely that they have not kept up
is refinement with the lower orders of the metropolis. No
man can look into a Newsaper, Magazine, or similar pub-
lication of fifty years back, without being shocked with the
scenes of revolting blackguardism which they record. A
favourite amusement, for instance, of the mob on days
when any thing was to he seen in the streets used to be to
carry about with them dead cats and dogs, and to throw
them into any window which they found open, or into
coaches, or on well-dressed persons. But the other towns
of England that day exhibited equally revolting scenes.
We have a poem, with copious Notes, forming an octavo
volume, called the Mobiad, describing the brutalities of
the lower orders of Exeter in former times. Englishmen,
who visit Scotland, are no doubt struck with the rapid pro-
gress of the people in industry and wealth ; but they arc not
less struck with the rude behavionr of a great portion of the
urban population. This is the more remarkable, as
the same individuals, who in crowds appear so very ill-con-
ducted, when spoken to singly display more than an usual
share of intelligence. In conduct, on public occasions, the
lower orders of Scotland have much to learn before they
can equal the same classes of the towns of England. We
have no doubt, however, that civility is spreading amongst
them. The time is not remote when such was the disposi-
tion to mischief, that the walls of bridges, milestones,gates,
and everything destructible, suffered most unmercifully.
Those who visit the Continent are much struck with the
comparatively refined behaviour of the lower orders, both
in town and country. From the rapid improvement of the
metropolis, which influences so much the rest of the king-
dom, we may confidently anticipate the disappearance of
this contrast so unfavourable to our national character.
We hope the time will come when a nobleman will allow
the introduction of the working classes into his grounds
without danger of having his trees and shrubs injured
and suffering from other descriptions of nuisances
(which, to our knowledge, has been the result of some at-
tempts
of benevolent noblemen in the north of England
towards their humble neighbours.) As yet the organ of
destructiveness is not confined to Scotland. But to return
to the metropolis. No circumstance redounded more to
the honour of the very humblest of the people than the
manner in which they resented the ill-timed attempt of the
Quarterly Review directed against Marshal Soult. We
may add one anecdote peculiarly indicative of the anti-
Quarterly feeling of the people. Marshal Soult in re-
turning from the Duke of Wellington's party was blocked
up in Piccadilly along with many others ; and there, like
many others, he might have remained till morning if Mr.
John Wilson Croker's friends had been very numerous.
The mob, however, recognised the old and sturdy enemy of
their country in the field of battle,and with one accord de-
voted themselves to making a free passage for the Marshal,
and which was done, and the venerable old soldier released
amidst the congrrtulations and cheers of the multitude !--
Morning► Chronicle.

Rumours have been afloat for some days past, that at
length the harassed and scurvily treated navy of Great
Britain was released from the sordid gripe which so long has
tormented it, the Prime Minister being roused to a full,
though tardy, sense of the disgrace to his own Government
of retaining in a post so conspicuous, and in every national
„point of view so important, as that of First Lord of the
Admiralty, a personage incapable, when judged by his own
words, of cettprehending the clearest principles on which
the service ought to be conducted with reference to foreign
States ; and, if judged by h's actions, no less incompe-
tent to regard the authority vested in him over that
noble service, as anything better than a commodious
instrument for meanly advancing his own selfish ends,
and loading his personal connections with that rank
and those emoluments due only to professional experi-
ence and merit. It has, we say, been rumoured for
some (Lies, though we do not believe the fact, that the
Seoteh First Lord of the Admiralty, whose respect for the
freedom of the seas and for the law of nations stands much
en a par with his attachment to the freedom election, is,
under some strange impulse of honest shame on the part of
Lord Ale!bourne, sent about his business, being looked
upon a portion of the Ministerial concern, from which nei-
ther credit, profit, nor any other benefit, can henceforth
be drawn—an article of the cargo whose weight gives no
stability, nor its bulk arty buoyancy, to the vessel, and for
which the order ought long since to have passed to " cut
the lashings, and sent it overboard." Now, we but re-
peat the rumours in circulation. We do not believe a
word of them. It is not :redible, arter all- we have seen,
that Lord Melbourne should at this time of (lay be
troubled with inward sisitings of any fastidious any
nature. The element s of that • Mitsistry which, with
open eyes, he himself constructed, the power which
alone sustained it, and the form and course of action to
which it was thus from its very origin predestined, forbade
access of surprise, mortification, or resentmel,t, to
the innl of him by whom it was put togeths r, at the most
flagrant ex!.iiit•ons of in' aeacity or aorthlesmess in any of
its component parts. That moral sense, to the imperfec-
tiers ci w hick in its author we ewe the creation of such a
Cabinet, net t have been further deaenerating every day.
The Lord Melbourne who was cap, of solectine Lord
Minto, and who d d not feel himself o r the Government
degraded by t! e disgustirg incidents of the Roxburgh
electien, is not a man to be now provoked by a mere dis-
hy of aer'rnon'ous, mischievous, and dull perverseness in
P • -
this came quarter, on a question of international law, into
the expuls'oe- from his Ministry of a cull r t whom he has
lean. hone n lstiown to be hard-mid and incorrigible, who
may indeed have first found favour in lily patron's
from a persuasion that he teoulil stick at
nothing. Once more, therefore, it is to us incredi-
ble that a person qualified like Lord Minto to perform
work for which many other noblornen are not qualified,
should be dismissed from office by a Pi into Minister
who is accustomed so to appreciate such quad fieatiens ; and
as there is only one other cause to which the evil of the
First Lord of the Admiralty could be ascribed—that is to
say, his own voluntary dudgeon at the flat disclaimer ex-
pressed be Lord Melbourne of him and his new construe-
tiou put upon the quadruple treaty—we need scarcely say
that it is too ridiculous to imagine for a moment the possi-
bility of any such consummation. We agree in this case
Kith Lord Breugharn, who on being told that Lord Minto
had taken buff and " resigned" is reported to have answered
" No, ne, all nonsense, you may assure yourself ; that gen-
tleman has a d-- deal more patience' about him than
nes/gat/lion." Indeed, according to appearances, if there be
one scullion in the whole kitchen less likely than another
to turn up his nose at dirty pudding, administered to him

by the head cook of the establishment, it is an indivi,
dual whom we think it superfluous to
further.—Times.

That Lotd niglietb Possesses considerable talents no one
has ever been inclined to dispute, but they are unfortu-
nately so overlaid and borne down b' a sour temper and
an over-weaning, haughsy tlUncanour as to render them
comparatively nselot, if not indeed mischievous. Of
this indlitptitabie proof is to be found in the fact that seve-
re' of his former colleagues in admistration positk ely re-
fused to act with him any longer ; and that he has been
sent into honourable exile, first to St. Petersburg, and now
to Canada, as an unmanageable friend, liable to become
an incensed opponent. If the secret history of the period
which elapsed between Lord Durham's nomination and de-
parture were to be made known, we have no doubt
that. it would appear to base been made up of mutual
wranglings—tbat his Lordship was more than once on the
eve of throwing up the appointment altogether—that at
length everything that he demanded was yielded to him,
but that, notwithstanding which, lie left England on no very
warm terms of confidence or conciliation with his em-
ployers. This is made apparent by the extraordinary
state of ignorance which the latter profess themselves to
be in when applied to on the subject of Lord Durham's
staff and arrangements. Lord Minto, it may be presumed,
as First Lord of the Admiralty, ought to have known that
the Chaplain was removed from the Hastings to make way
for Mr. Turton ; yet Lord Melbourne knew so little about
this latter personage that his being appointed as one of
the Autocrat's Council he acknowledges to be a subject of
equal surprise and regret. And why do we revert to
this subject but to show the danger to which the best
interests of the country are exposed, by the wretched
timid policy of intrusting so important a mission to
one whose absence from home is all that is desired,
and who scarcely condescends to consult his expatriators
upon any part of the line of conduct which he proposes
to pursue ? We aro quite aware of the discretion which,
to a certain extent, must be confided to the Governor of
a distant settlement ; but before a person in Lord
Durham's situation departs upon a special, and that so
important a mission, it is material that there should be
the most free and unrestrained intercourse and corre-
spondence, both before and after his departure, between
him and the Government at home. Yet so little of that
confidence appears to have existed in Lord Durham's case
that we have him actually taking out in his suite a person
unknown to and disclaimed by the Government, and whom
on his arrival he immediately elevates and gazettes to the
highest office, next to his own, in the colony. What, then,
is to be expected from a mission which commences its ope-
rations under circumstances so little flattering as these ?
That Lord Durham may and will succeed in tranquillizing
the Canadas, in crushing both the outbursts and the em-
bers of rebellion, must be the wish of every man not iden-
tified with the small radical clique to whom mischief of
every kind is everything. But this hope and confidence
would be greater if they rested upon a calmer, right-judg-
log person than Lord Durham has ever proved himself to
be, and were there not such untoward proofs that his own
want of prudence and discretion is not likely to be supplied
by wisdom, foresight, and confidence from home.—Morn-
ing Herald.
We trust that although Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's Copy-
right Bill has been dropped for this Session, the Right
Hon. President of the Board of Trade will proceed with
his Bill on the subject of international copyright, respect-
ing which there are not the same objcotions, and with re-
gard to the advantages—national and commercial—of
which no reflecting person can entertain a doubt. When
stating the nature of his measure, the Right Hon. Gentle-
man truly observed that—
" It was a matter of notoriety that the works of literary
men in England were pirated at once—that no sooner were
their productions sent to the press in this country, than the
utmost efforts were exerted to purloin proof-sheets, for the
purpose of sending them to America,
France, Belgium, or
Germany. Pirated editions were published in those coun-
tries, and transmitted forthwith to England, by which means
the authors were deprived of the fair fruits of their labour—
of those legitimate pecuniary rewards for which they were
reasonably entitled to look."
Let us add, that the works of foreign authors are
pirated in an equally profuse manner in this country ;
and the Government will greatly promote the interests
of literature generally, by entering into a convention
with foreign powers—with America, France, and Ger-
many, for example—whereby the writers of each of
those countries shall be protected from having their rights
invaded in any of the others. Such, indeed, is the inten-
tion of the Government. It is the home market which is
rapidly closed against the author by foreign piracy. Not
only, owing to the increased facility of communication with
the Continent, does almost every Englishman who visits
the Continent purchase copies of the cheap foreign editions,
which do not benefit the author, but wholesale importa-
tions of those pirated copies are regularly shipped for this
country, and supply half the provincial circulating libraries.
What is worse is, that by the impunity which attends the
system, English printers have been encouraged to publish
editions of popular works on inferior paper, in the shape
and appearance of the French edition ; so that there is a
double reaction of mischief. The injustice of the pre-
sent existence of the law not only injures authors,
but injuriously affects the interests of literature ge-
nerally. It is equally well known that a similar
system of. piracy as that which we have described,
exists with regard to the works of authors in
other foreign countries, and that a work is no sooner
published in France than proof sheets are dispatched to
Belgium, where pirated editions are immediately brought
out, with which the English and foreign markets ;.re at once
inundated ; and thus the foreign author is equally deprived
of his fair and legitimate expectation of remuneration as
the English. On the last occasion of subjecting this wide-
spread evil to Parliament, Mr. P. Thomson gave sorno
curious and valuable examples of the misehievous working
of the present system. The Right Hon. Gentleman said:—
" He found upon inquiry that of the work of Travels in
America,' by Mrs. Trollope, no less than 15,000 copies had
been printed in Paris, without the slightest benefit to the
author, either in their sale or in that of the copyright. He
might cite instances of the same description in the works of
Mr. Bulwer ; but he would turn to works of greater im-
portance—those of science, in reference to which this Bill
was particularly necessary. There was Dr. Arnott's Ele-
ments of Physical Science,' a work of the greatest labour
and pains, and for which everybody would admit the author
was entitled to all the advantages the sale of copyright
could bring him ; and yet he (Mr. P. Thompson) had been
informed that there was not a village of 2,000 inhabitants in
the United States in which several copies of a pirated edition
were not to be found, for which the author never received one
farthing, simply because there was no way of protecting the
copyright. He might also instance Dr. Webster's Diction-
ary,' which was published in the United States, and immedi-
ately pirated in England, for which editions the author re-
ceised no remuneration whatever, although a vast number of
it was sold; and ' Dr. Richardson's Dictionary,' published in
England and pirated in the United States, both works of great
labour, merit, and expense, a single number costing, he be-
lieved, three or four guineas. Thus, in one case, the
American work was sold so cheap here that it was superseded
by the English edition, and in the other the English work was
sold so cheap in the United States, that it was entirely super-
seded by the American edition. The principal cause of this
evil was, that no sooner were works in the Press, than at-
ten pts were made through the means of bribery, sometimes to
a considerable amount, to obtain copies of them from persons
engaged in the printing department, for the purpose of having
them pirated in another country. One of the last of Sir
Walter Scott's works had actually been purlo:ited in sheets
here, and published in the United States before it was pub-
lished in London. It was pirated and sent to France in the
same way, and published there also before the London ed,tiGn
appeared."

• 'These startling facts ere stated on the undoubted autho-
rity of the official functionary, who, to his own credit, and
for the advantage of literature, has brought forward this
motion for sane international arrangement on the subjec•.
They show that it is absolutely necer.sary, in justice to
English authors, as well as those of foreign countries, that
some check should be instantly put to the growing mis-
chiefs of the present system. We put it to the common
justice and common honesty of the public, if such an inva-
sion of the rights of labour would be permitted in any other
department of industry in which labour is exerted. The
injustice of the permission hitherto is aggravated by the re-
flection that the labour which is thus mere:le.sly p'undered
is, firstly, accompanied with greater " wear and tear" of the
physical frame than any other, thereby occasioning prema-
ture decay ; and, secondly, is less selfish and exclusive in
its benefits than any other. Other labour benefits the la-
bourer only, but intellectual labour, by its very nature, acts
reflectively on society generally, and promotes the :ntcrests
of mankind at large.—Morning Advertiser.

We fear that we not yet given all the credit that is due
to her Majesty's Minister:, and those over whom they ex-
ercise th,_ir pure and gentle influence, for the kind r3eep-
fon which has ben afforded to the Conservative amend-
ments of the List' Municipal Corporation Bill in tte
Howe of Lords. It is t: ue there was a little resivance
—a little coy denial of the perfect propriety of that which
the Conservatives proposed ; but there was no more of
that than might be deemed sufficient to nice a zest to the
triumph of concord vthich succeeded. Even in stating his
objections to the amendments of Lnrd Lyndhurst, the
Prime Minister was so bland and complinil ntary that it
s.7etned to be impo:sishle hut that "love was in the next
degree
" And the coy Melbaurne willing to be press'd"
soon yielded up all scrup!es upon the subject, unable to re-
sist the force of the fascinating Lord Lyndhurst's appeal to
his tender srnsibilitiei. It was true there was a div.sion—
but it was more like the " division" of a melody than of a
political contest, and sweet was the harmony between its
result and the unusually mellifluous tor.es of next day's
Ministerial papers. Now all this is very agreeable ro fr
as the House of Lords is concerned, but it must occur to

THE SUN LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 16, 1s 3S.

many persons of an inquisitive turn of mind to ask how it
happens that Ministers in the House of Lords, and Minis-
ters in the House of Commons, should have, or appear to
sUch very different views upon the very same mat-
ters ? In the latter House, Lord Juhn Russell proposed
and carried a five-pound franchise—in the Upper House
no Minister had a word to say in favour of that franchise.
Lord Lansdowne himself (who generally follows the track
prepared for him as steadily as a mill horse, and no doubt
upon the same mental conclusions as influence that useful
animal) was as ready as any Noble Lord on the Opposition
benches to dismiss the fise-pound qualification which his
potential colleague, the Leader of the House of Commons,
had so victoriously carried. This must to the unitiated
appear rather curious, and yet the conductors of the
Ministerial prints, and especially of that. remarkably
vigorous And equally honest Paper, the Globe, are, no
doubt, in possession of that which makes the seeming
inconsistency quite plain and natural, for they do not
appear to be at all struck with it, while they do not
fail to dwell upon the inconsistency between the qualifica-
tion insisted upon by Sir Robert Peel in the House of
Commons, and that carried by Lord Lyndhurst in the
House of Lords. Now we do not see that there is much
in this latter to give pain to the nervous system of even
the most scrupulous lovers of uniformity. The difference
between a qualification of 101. as assessed to the poor-rate,
and a qualification of exactly the same kind, less only
by the amount of rating in respect of landlords' repairs
and insurance, is certainly not a very important. one.
Taking into account the general habits of that curiously
careful and patriotic people, the Romanist Irish, we
should say that any difference in respect of " repairs"
and insurance" is rather a nominal difference than a
real one. The amendment of Lord Lyndhurst, which
has regsrd to these matters, no doubt meets sundry
objections which were urged with an air of considerable
seriousness in the House of Commons' debates ; but
inasmuch as these objections were themselves sha-
dowy and imaginative, the modification of Sir Robert
Peel's qualification, which has been prepared in order
to meet them, creates little or no substantial diffe-
rence between the qualification which the Conservatives
proposed in the House of Commons and that, which they
have carried in the House of Lords. But if it were other-
wise, we have yet to learn either that usage or the practical
efficiency of an opposition demands an exact uniformity in
their proceedings. We believe, on the contrary, that both
custom and the nature of opposition duties demands an
adaptation of their mode of operation to the circumstances
which arise before and around them. They hold no Ca-
binet Councils—they are not responsible to the. Sovereign
and the country for an intelligible line of action by which
the governed may estimate beforehand what they have to
expect from their governors. They are not the managers
of a great campaign working from a certain basement line
of operations to predetermined points of
achievement.
Their warfare and the mode of conducting it must
rather be suggested to them by the proceedings which they
have to hold in check than by pre-conceived plans for the
government of the country, which plans ought not to be
their concern. If, therefore, an opposition does change its
propositions according to the place in which, or the circum-
stances under which, these propositions are made, it cannot
as a body be charged with inconsistency of purpose,
although any individual, who at one time proposes one sort
of measure and at another time another, is no doubt bound
to show how he has happened to have altered his mind, or
how, being still in the same mind, he consents to an altered
line of proceeding. With regard to a Government, how-
ever, since it is responsible as a body, and since it is under-
stood to determine as a body what shall be the specific
terms of the measures by which it proposes to govern,
i there s certainly more reason for demanding either strict
uniformity or a strict account of the reasons for departing
from it. It is scarcely to be supposed, considering the delay
which took place between Sir R. Peel's proposition in the
House of Commons and the adoption of a different course
by the Government, that the Cabinet did not deliberate
uyon the matter, and settle that the Government leader in
the Lower House should propose a 5/. qualification. We
can scarcely believe that this franchise was merely Lord J.
Russell's idea of what was easiest for him under the pecu-
liar circumstance of the case, and that he sent the Bill up
to the Lords without the sense of the whole Government
having been taken upon it. Now, if the whole Government
determined two or three weeks ago upon a 51. franchise,
how happens it that, in the House of Lords, the gay and
gracious Premier seems never to have thought of a fran-
chise lower than Si., and the ponderous Lord Lans-
downe gave the Si. from the very beginning as " un-
questionably too low ?" If Lord John Russell's pro-
position was without the consent of Government, what
safety, or dignity, or uniformity, can we look for from
an Administration which allows these important mat-
ters to be proposed in the House of Commons without
previous consideration ? If it was with the consent of
Government, why is it that Government—without even
so much as a word of explanation on the subject—has one
rule for the House of Commons and another for the
House of Lords? We think that this—especially in ques-
tions relating to Ireland—does admit of explanation,
and since that explanation is a very brief one, we must
e'en do what those agreeable and profound publica-
tions, the Ministerial newspapers, might have saved us
the trouble of doing, only that they were so occupied with
describing
.the " mote" of inconsistency in the eye of the
Opposition that they could not notice the " beam" in the
eye of their friends who affect to conduct the
is of this country. The explanation then s briefly
this—there is no Mr. O'Connell in the House of Lords—
no O'Connell tail, at sight of which the Minister must
remember his state of slavish dependence, and must
propose anything, however absurd and contrary to his owa
ideas of right, which his Romanist dictator may suggest.
Mr. O'Connell having shown his power by compelling the
Government in the House of Commons to propose . and
carry what the Government in the House of Lords dis-
avows, will no doubt show his condescension by allowing the
Government in the House of Commons to consent to that
which the Government in the House of Lords has not
been able to resist. The alternation of tyranny and con-
ciliation has been, and is, the favoerite Romanist system,
and by bullying one day and flattering the next Mr. O'Con-
nell and the Irish Priests have become what they arc.
When we have an honest Government which will equally
despise both, the wings of these gentry will be clipped.—
Morning, Post.