The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We publish in another column a report of a meeting
near Manchester of a large number of our fellow-subjects,
whose political designation we are left to guess at. We
have heard of Radicals ; we have heard of Destructives ;
but the spokesmen at this meeting would seem to belong to
an order far superior to both, though (to use their own lan-
guage) of the same kidney. They are " Destructives and
something more," and should perhaps be called, for want of
a genteeler name, " Kilrem and eat'em" politicians, whom
it would be equally foolish to be angry with or to reason
with. The meeting, however, cannot fail to be produc-
tive of much good. In the first place, it has given
vent to ill humours which pent up might be dangerous ;
and when the mothers and the children of the would-
be orators, who, to their astonishment and disgust, were
only hearers, find that the loss of a day's wages, and the
consequent falling off in the Sunday's dinner, are added to
the care and anxiety of husbands' and fathers' presence in
a mob who may break the peace or keep it, as the number
of drinking booths happens to be great or small, we doubt
whether the assemblage of so large a number of well mean-
ing but misled men will often be gathered together again
to build castles in the air. Let these worthy artisans
bear in mind, while they plume themselves so much
upon what their labour produces, that if it were not
for the capitalist they must starve though they were as
strong as giants : let them consider that every fine dress,
every gaudy equipage, every towering mansion they be-
hold, calls into use and into pay labour which would be un-
employed, if lords and ladies and the gentry were to be
housed, attended, and arrayed after a more homely fa-
shion. They directly or indirectly profit by all ; and they
may rest assured, that if the condition of all men were
equalized to-morrow, there would be much more startling
comparative disparities in the amount of men's possessions
this day twelve months than there are at present. We are
led to these observations by a perusal of the address of the
Northern Union, which was issued on this occasion, and
which we may at another opportunity notice more in detail.
For the political part of the Manchester display of we
know not how many thousands—we must, with great re-
spect for the multitude, and with greater pity for its leaders,
decline to discuss it. That is not an affair to talk about,
as we hope the audience at the meeting will on reflection
see, and as we know they will find, if their own good sense
should not enable them to discern how unwise and how
wicked it would be for them to make the experiment to
which their leaders have invited them.—Times.
Our paper of yesterday contained a lengthened report
of the speech of Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey, delivered at
the Borough of Southwark Dinner on the previous even-
ing. It is gratifying to find that, notwithstanding Mr.
Harvey's acceptance of office under Government, he is still
the same man he ever was. So far from having, even by
implication, made any sacrifice of his principles in accepting
a Government appointment, it appears that he distinctly
apprised Lord John Russell, in whom this appointment was
vested, that be would only accept it on the express condi-
tion that he was to remain as free arid unfettered in the

—.—
House of Commons, both in his speeches and votes, as he
had been heretofore. And Mr. Harvey proved in his ad-
dress on Monday ovening, that this w,s no idle or un-
meaning stipulation ; for immediately after stating that he
bad made it, he proved that he was in earnest, by freely
animadverting on some of the measures of the Ministry,
and unreservedly denouncing others. The country will
participate in our gratification at the circumstance of Mr.
narvey remaining an independent man. The country

can ill afford at such a moment as the present to lose the
services of a man of such splendid tal-nts and undaunted
boldness as the Hon. Member for Southwark. We
prize such men as he the more highly, because talent
and patriotism are qualities which are now-a-days of very
rare combination in our public men.—Morning Advertiser.
The meeting of the workrig classes at Kersal-moor,
near Manche-ter, on Monday last, was numerously at-
tended, though the estimate that 300,000 persons, even
including women and children, were present, must be ex-
travagAntly high. Experience of the looseness with which
numbers are given on such occasions, by persons who have
no rules to guide them, would render us very sceptical
with respect to the estimate in this case, even if we did
not know from the population returns of that part of the
country that 300,000 persons could not possibly have been
collected. By and by we shall learn, from those who.:e
business it was to watch the proceedings of the me!!ting,
what the numbers really were. In the mean time one fact
is undisputed, that the meeting passed off very quietly.
There was not the least disturbance or attempted breach
of the peace, and the behaviour of the people assembled
11 as in every respect most ordA.ly. The speeches deli-
vered at this meeting call for no particular notice. The
Rev. Mr. Stephens had fewer allusions to arms than usual,
and though in his description cf the advantages to he de•
rived from Universal Suffrage he did not come up to Jack
Cade, it must be owned that it was well calculated to make
an impression on his audience :
" The question before them that day," said the Reverend
Gentleman, " with respect to the People's Charter, was a mere
knife-and-folk question—could he resolved into a mere bread-
and-cheese question.—( Hear and cheers ) If he was asked
what was meant by Universal Suffrage, be would say that the
working man should have a good coat to his back, a good hat
to his head, and a good roof to his house.—( Cheers.) The
labouring man should have such a rate of wages as would
enable him t.) procure all the necessary eujoyments—all the
blessings of life which a reas.mmble man could wish for.—._
( Loud cheering.) Universal Suffrage should be passed before
those things could come to pass."
All, we suppose, are to h ive good hats, good coats,
good houses, and the necessary blessings and enjoyments of
life. In the political millennium announced by the Rev,
Orator there are to be no pickpockets, for we are curst
with thieves and pickpockets because we are without Uni-
versal Suffrage. The idle and the lazy will be better off
under Universal Suffrage than the diligent now are. Bad
seasons and failures of crops will be merely matters of
history, to be referred to on the anniversaries of the date
of the Charter of Universal Suffrage, in order to enhance
the enjoyment of the people by the contrast with their past
sufferings.—Morning Chronicle.

At Lambeth-street Office, on Monday, a lad was held
to bail for having got upon the back of a horse that had been
turned out on Sunday to graze in Eel-pie-fields, and ridden the
animal so furiously as completely to exhaust it. The proprie-
tor of the hone had suffered severely from similar acts on for-
mer occasions.
At a special meeting of Middlesex Magistrates,
held on Monday at Fulham, to revise the Jury Lists, Mr.
Corder, clerk to the Strand Union, applied to have his desig-
nation in the Jury List for the parish of Chelsea altered.
He said he was described in the list as a gentleman, when
he ought to have been designated an esquire. He was a
member,of Lincoln's Inn, and a special pleader, and he, there-
fore, claimed that designation. When he resided in West-
minster and Hampstead he had, on appeal, had the amend-
ment made, and he showed by the Law List that he was there
termed an esquire, the same as a Counsel. Mr. Towne, a
Magistrate, said the Act of Parliament only allowed the term
of esquire to barristers actually practising. Mr. Frere,
another Magistrate, recollected a case in the Court of Com-
mon Pleas, of a special pleader of the name of Perry, who
when making an affidavit in which he was termed a gentle-
man, the Judges refused to receive it until the designation was
altered to esquire. The Bench allowed the appeal.
A person who gave his name Ackerby, and de-
scribed himself as being in the commission of the peace, and
living in Davies-street, Berkeley-square, appeared on Monday
before the police committee to complain against a constailo
for ordering him to " move on," while engaged in holding
forth in Smithfield-market on Sunday week. The policeman
said he had interfered on the occasion, because the gentle-
man bad along with the Bible, which was used merely as a
blind, a Bishop's cap, tablets, some indescribable instruments,
and water, which he called holy water. He had a weather-
glass and his pot of water by him, and he said, " This is the
holy water, my lads ! Come along, tipple it, and hand it
round." The strange and incoherent answers given by com-
plainant led the Magistrates to think he was insane, and they
dismissed the case.
About four months ago, a boy of four years of age,
son of a joiner named. Wilson, residing in the Nethergate,
Dundee, disappeared in a ratherofmtyhsetedrrioosuss
hme awnonreer.at
Histhe
disappearance, and a description
time, were published in several of the newspapers, wfiththaevloieswt
to assist the disconsolate parents in the discovery o
child. No trace of the infant could ever bet forunadr,dainngd
hitiss
parents have been in a state of painful anxiety regarding
fate, and the mother, in consequence of certain vaguaerdumatouornse,
bad gone to several places in the neighbourhood, n
time as far as Aberdeen, in search of her son, but without
effect. The bad taste of the water of a pit-well in Victoria -
square,
i
square, Nethergate, incited some of the people residing n
that locality to investigate into the cause, and on Monday they
examined the well, and discovered the body of the unfortu-
RakevciaAA
,t!t the bottom of it, where it must have remained
I;el;tlieLLAie of the boy's disappearance. The body, when
'"
- up, wail t157m11- to be considerably decomposed ; notwith-
„
this, theterous inhabitants of the square had daily
'--ased the water wit ' t feeling anything peculiar in the taste
tiAt ivitkin a tow. dupj Past.—Dundee Chronicle.