The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-01 00:00:00

nuisance, are called traitors to Protestantism, and
enemies to our Protestant Constitution. There are
some social evils which no Ministers, and no Govern-
ment can remedy, as, for example, the excessive
poverty and ignorance of the Irish peasantry ; but the
Church of Ireland is an evil created by Parliament ; it
would have no existence but for its decrees, and as the
experience of more than 200 years has demonstrated
that it is a source of enormous and unadulterated evil,
the Parliament is bound to strangle its own misbegot-
ten offspring. To defend it because it is Protestant
is to heap disgrace and dishonour on Protestantism.
The first duty of the QUEEN and of the QusEN's
Ministers is to promote the public welfare. That
over-rules all their other duties, and if the Protestant
Church of Ireland stand in the way of the public
welfare,—as who can doubt that it does ?—both the
QUEEN and the Ministers are bound to put it down.
What the Times says about the Marquis of HEAD-
FORT and the Ministers betraying their Mistress, is
puerile nonsense, such as terror is very likely to extort
from a frightened bully.

The attention of the public, as the only real pro-
tectors of the working classes, for Justices of the

Peace and Parson Magistrates are their enemies and
persecutors, will be worthily bestowed on the case of
JOHN WILLIAMS, which appears in our Paper to-
day, copied from the Shrewsbury Chronicle. To re-
quire bail from a working man to the amount of 2001.,
is equivalent to a sentence of imprisonment for life,
and is a manifest and palpable violation of the Bill of
Rights. To require such bail would be highly re-
prehensible in the Rev. Mr. EVORS if WILLIAMS had
committed some gross offence, but when the amount of
his offence is a little drunken swagger towards an ob-
noxious police officer, the conduct of the Rev. Gentle-
man seems a great deal more improper than that of
WILLIAMS. Such a proceeding is well calculated to
bring the whole administration of the law into con-
tempt ; and we trust Lord JOHN RUSSELL will step
in and rescue WILLIAMS from the Parson's tyranny,
and the law itself from the scandal with which he
has branded it.

It is stated by Mr. LIARDET, in his report on the
state of the peasantry at Herne-hill, &c., that the
rental of that parish is 3,3001. a-year, and that the
Vicar is the only resident gentleman in the parish.
On one meritorious individual, who has raised himself
from the condition of a labouring man to a most re•
spectable position, falls the whole burden of the se-
cular concerns of the parish. In it, though the rental
is 3,3001. a year, there are one Sunday school and
three others, in only one of which is writing taught ;
the two others are merely dame schools, the largest of
which, as well as the Sunday school, are chiefly sup-
ported by the Vicar. Now, such a description of what
the receivers of the 3,3001. a-year perform for the in-
struction of the parish, reflects no credit on the land-
owners. Mr. LIARDET says, that his description of
this one parish may be taken as a correct specimen of
the general condition of the peasantry of Kent, at least
of a district not less than 25 miles in length from one
.extremity to the other ; and as it has, within a few
days, fallen to our lot to see something similar in a
different part of the country, we wish to confirm his
statement.

In a different part of Kent, a few days ago, a stable
was broken into, and two guns stolen, with other
articles of less importance. Had such an event taken
place in Ireland the state-of-the-country journals would
have harped on it for a week, as an indication of a
deep-laid Ribbon plot ripening into rebellion, and a
small army of police would have been calttd into re-
quisition, to apprehend the offenders. In Kent such
things pass unnoticed ; and the property having been
stolen from ladies, who dread the expense of a prose-
cution, and naturally shrink from the possibility of
being dragged into a Court, no energetic means have
been, or can be, employed to apprehend the thieves.
Now, in the parish where this occurred there is not
one resident landlord, whose property is of any extent,
and the only Justice of the Peace is the Clergyman.
Both his character and situation preclude him from
taking any active part as an instrument of police, and
he could neither advise nor promote any measure for
finding out the culprits. They are left unmolested.
The parish consists, we believe, of about 4,000 acres,
and contains upwards of a thousand inhabitants ; and
the only officer of justice amongst them, besides the
Clergyman, is a decrepid worn-out constable. Thus
the landowners provide no means whatever for the
security of property or persons, the former of which is
plundered almost with impunity.
To protect themselves,ithe farmer and tenants have
formed a sort of prosecuting union ; and, taking it
turn and turn about, they perambulate their farms at
night, and watch over the safety of their homes and
their families. Besides paying a high rent, which,
when given to the feudal Baron, provided a police ;
and tithes, which, when given to the Roman Catholic
priest, kept the poor, and provided education for their
own children ; besides paying heavy taxes to the
State for defraying the expense of Government, they
have to burden themselves with all the onerous duty of
the police, or run the risk of many nightly depredations.
This is generally the case, we are afraid, in the rural
districts of England, the landowners of which levy on
us a heavy tax by the starvation laws, and then desert
their duty and their estates. They have taken no
pains whatever to provide, by new regulations, for the
changes which have taken place in the condition of
society. Their people are almost everywhere grossly
neglected ; nothing is done either to instruct them,
or to provide, by a suitable administration, for the pro-
tection of property ; and the once happy rural districts
of England are now filled with ignorance, vice, and
crime. The landlords stands self-condemned. By a
clause in most of the leases they grant, they provide
that all the straw grown on the land shall be carried
out to manure it, and none of it shall be carried off
the land ; but they carry away the corn, and leave the
people to hunger, and the land to decay. If there be
only half a dozen other districts like that of Herne-
hill, and the one we have spoken of, destitute of landed
gentry, and destitute of all efficient means both of
administering the law and educating the people, the
metropolitan police must be extended all over die
country. The farmers will require protection and
relief from the trouble of perambulating the parish
themselves, and the whole country will say that the
landlords ought to be taxed, to provide the means of
security.

Let us take the opportunity of reminding our
readers that the landlords, who so grievously neglect
all their duties except that of collecting their rents,
are the great authors of the Game-laws. To find
them amusement on their estates, and tempt them to
reside there, as is said, hundreds and thousands of
persons were annually committed to gaol for infringing
those laws. Thus they demoralised the peasantry,
whom they desert and neglect. Their conduct on
these two points, and on the Poor-laws, which they
perverted, ought to have convinced the public that
there never was a class of men who so little deserved
public approbation and public support as the law-
making landlords. Yet these impudent quacks are al-
lowed to tax our bread and to starve the people, to
maintain their state.

It is not a little edifying to observe with what savage
if.rotpanderers to the depraved taste of
"eoryci.Y theismp publicounce upon any Churchman who happens to
fall into that greatest of all heresies in the eyes of a