The Sun.
London, England, 1838-06-07 00:00:00

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

Last night Mr. Anderson had his benefit at this house, and
it was gratifying to observe that it was most respectably ho-
noured. The house ought, however, to have been rather more
fully attended. It is not the etiquette to notice benefits—but
in departing frem customary forms, it is agreeable to be able to
notice that the enterprising and tasteful talents of Mr. Ander-
son were substantially appreciated by so respectable an atten-
dance of friends. We do not profess to go into particulars.
The first performance was the delightful, but now seldom per-
formed Opera, of Love in a Village—Mr. Anderson very ex-
quisitely sustaining the character of Hawthorn. It was a real
treat, and justly deserved the warm plaudits with which his vocal
efforts in it were greeted. Miss Rainforth (it beicg her first
appearance this season) appeared as Rosetta, and charmed by
her tasteful execution of the songs allotted to her. There in-
tervened a " Concert," as it was termed, in which Madame
Damoreau, Signor Ivanoff, &c., in the execution of some Ita-
lian performances, greatly contributed to the rich treats of the
evening, which were so deservedly applauded. It was a bril-
liant evening's entertainment, and the only drawback on so de-
lightful a series of performance was, that though there was a
most respectable, there was not so crowded an audience as
there ought to have been, and as we should have been glad
to see.

The General Half-yearly Meeting of the members
of the Western Literary and Scientific Institution was held on Tuesday
evening, at their house in Leicester-square; Mr. Perry, of Bond-street,
in the chair. The Secretary read the report of the Comm.ittee of Ma-
nagement, which stated that the number of new members which had
joined since the last general meeting was 95, making a total of 479..
The library now consisted of 6,672 volumes, and the musical library of
upwards of 150 pieces of instrumental music. The Report also con-
gratulated the members on the prospect of obtaining a sufficiently exten-
sive and well-arranged theatre, by which its utility would be greatly ex•
tended. Of the lectures given during the last half.year those given by
Mr. Carpue, Mr. Deville, Mr. Chambers, Mr. Everett, and Mr. Snelson
had been gratuitous. The Report, after some discussion, in which
Messrs. Robinson, Arber, Nevett, and other members took part, was or-
dered to be received. A proposition for increasing the salary of the
Librarian was referred to the Committee, after which the meeting sepa-
rated.

It is rumoured that since the New Zealand scheme
has been in agitation, Mr. P. Thomson has consented to admit spars
for ship purposes from thence free of duty, provided they are more
than 70 feet long, the Riga spars seldom exceeding that length. Here-
tofore it was understood that no spars of that description should be
admitted at a less duty than fixed to be paid on Rigs spars, on the
ground that none other of the size and length requisite, and of equal
quality for the navy, could be elsewhere supplied. If this be true, it
serves to show what deep root the New Zealand job has taken.
LARGE EGGS"—Is the title of a paragraph in our
contemporary the Paisley Advertiser, who says he has received a couple
of eggs, measuring 6 by if inches, and weighing 31 ounces; they are
stated to have been produced by a hen of a Spanish breed. We won't
be beaten, and the title of our paragraph is,—" Larger Eggs.--A gen-
tleman brought to our office at Ayr, on Friday last, a hen's egg of Brob-
/clignagian dimensions : it weighed exactly one quarter of a pound im-
perial, and measured 63, by Si inches ; and a sonsie chuckle belonging
to a neighbour, every second day produces an egg which measures (ii to
71 inches, and weighs nearly 4 oz.—" Lass gin ye lee me, tell me two.—
Ayr

TORSDAY, JtJNE" 1,182 g,

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

• The preelicament ins whirth the, Melbourne Cabinet is now
placed by the slave apprenticeship qtle:tlen would call forth
some sympathy from the unprejudiced part of the enrn.thunity,
if the ordinary procedure and policy of the men who compote
that Cabinet were filthily and straightforward. Bilt, ss mat-
ters are, the embarrassment into which they bade teen thrown
excites no corresponding feeling in the public mind. Tile ley-
slanders are only amused to witness the rough handling e the
pitiless pelting, which the Ministers experience at the hands
of their friends, the moment they venture to resist the Pres-
sure from without, and to differ in opinion with any particular
section of their supporters. To adopt a decided course of
their own is so contrary to their usual habits, that the stand
they have now made will be attributed by many to wounded
pride rather than to higher motives. They are aware that
he of the " tomahawk," once their ally, but now their impla-
cable foe, directs the "gathering," and that if they were to 3 told,
it would be said they yielded to him. But, leaving these consi-
derations, it is clear a storm is rising which will not speedily be
quelled. The " Central Negro Emancipation Committee,"
a formidable title of itself, and " the delegates now in Lon-
don, have recorded their most solemn and deliberate protest
against the attempt which has now been successfully made to
supersede and annul a deliberate decision of the Commons of
England." When these agitators have settled the weighty
affairs they have in hand, the " Short Time Committee of
Factory Operatives of Manchester and the surrounding dis-
trict" will be ready thankfully to avail themselves of their ser-
vices, and will no doubt be happy to merge their own modest
title, and become an auxiliary to a " Central White Slavery
Emancipation Society;" patron and prompter, Lord Brougham
and Vaux. These memorialists have had to record their so-
lemn and deliberate protest, not in a case in which an attempt
had been made to annul a decision of one branch of the Legis-
lature, but in a case in which the most important provision of a
public Act (passed, therefore, with the consent of the three
estates of the realm—Commons, Lords, and King) has been set
at defiance. Iu answer to their first memorial, these plain Lan-
cashire men were given to understand, and this by the Home
Secretary himself, that the law should thenceforth be duly ad-
ministered ; that the illegal regulations to which they had
drawn his attention should be forthwith rescinded ; and that
for the time to come no rules should be issued by the inspectors
until they had received the sanction of the law officers of the
crown. To the astonishment of these memorialists, after the
most frank admissions of error and explicit promises of amend-
ment, the same malpractices were recommenced within the
short space of three weeks, and have ever since been persisted
in ! Under these circumstances they laid their complaint
against the Inspector, and demanded to know who were
" his eiders and abettors." " Your Lordship clearly," said
they, "is not one of them." Never were wayfaring men
more completely at fault. A double game had been playing,
and to that game the Government had, all the while, been a
principal party. In the spring of 1837, a nest form of cer-
tificate for children of 13 was to be provided. The inspector
tells us he took the specimen lie had prepared to the Home-
office, for the express purpose of its being submitted to the
law-officers of the Crown, as Lord John Russell had under-
taken that it should be. Was it so submitted? It was not.
What was done with it ? Why, Mr. Phillips, the Under-
Secretary of State, we are told, " suggested some alterations :"
these alterations the inspector " adopted," and he returned on
a subsequent day, as any poor printer's devil might have done,
with " a fresh proof," which was examined and returned to
him as approved of : " I thereupon," says he, " issued the
circular," &c. " Your Lordship," he adds, " will thus per-
ceive, that having transmitted a copy of my proposed instructions
for the purpose of their being laid before the law officers of
the Crown, I did all that rested with me." We admit the
validity of this defence. The inspector on this last occasion
must stand exonerated from blame. He had been act-
ing under the guidance and direction of the Home-office.
The whole affair now, therefore, rests with the Government—
the Home Secretary and his colleagues—the " Lords of Mis.
rale." These are the teen who (to use the language of the
memorialists) have been "treating with equal contumely the
law-givers and the law-expounders;" who are "exercising in
this free country morethan kingly power." Their professional
per-
son,
nh:p:nlep:CeAtteolhetro: r
advisers have given them no encouragement; the responsi-
bility cannot be shifted on to the shoulders of those gentlemen.
officerslctli,aohw7iel
rs,
h a"anyil ot,fe
ft.hprermo Co
ofrfooses; canenrtti
fie
e artdeeea in
accordance'
age' soafyst
hiNelr
l
shall immediately and gladly adopt it." If the
really believe that her Majesty's law officers
cannot (if they choose, or are called upon) devise a
form of certificate in accordance with the Act which shall
be proof of the real age of the older children, he is a much
greater simpleton than we take him to lie. One point is now
indisputable—that all parties have known full well that the
certificates of " probable" age in the case of such children,
have not been in accordance with the Act of Parliament. Ano-
ther important fact is also clearly established—namely, that
the spurious certificates have been " resoeted to in all the dis-
tricts since the Act came into. operation." Mr. Horner, we
see, admits that fully one-half of the children now working
with these certificates of 13 are, in fact, not more than 12,
many not more than 11, years of age. He might, we believe,
have added, that three-fifths of them are females. Now, all
Governments are bound to protect from oppreision the helpless
an 1 the weak, and it is especially incumbent in such a state of
things ashes arisen in this country, where in many branches
of inustry—(we have high authority. far the assertion)—
not even the able-bodied adults can be looked upon as free
agents. The Factory Act came into operation on the Ist of
January, 1834. We are now in the month of June, 1838,
and we have been living during the whole of that time under
a despotism. The rulers—meaning by that term the execu-
tive—are above constitutional control. They have set the
example of taking the law into their own hands. The people
have only to be actuated by an equal contempt for legislative
enactments, and the social system is at once dissolved. Con-
t:nue to deal thus with the great masses of the population,
and anarchy may soon overtake us. There is no need to go
back to the " old almanaeks," as Lord Pluuket once with
thoughtless levity expressed himself, when speaking of the
France which ought to have taught Whig
last seven years in
lesson; but they are slow, it seems, to learn.—
statesmen a
chronicles of remote times : events have occurred within the

Times.
Mr. SlaneY has placed a notice on the Order-book of the
(louse of Commons—" To move a resolution respecting the
formation of Public Walks, in the vicinity of large and popu-
lous towns, calculated to increase the comfort and contribute
to the health of the inhabitants." Considerations of an im-
portant character are involved is the purport of Mr. Slancy's
resolution. The education of the artisan is considered by all
the great and philanthropic advocates of a popular system of
education one of its most important features and departments.
It is absolutely requisite that the artisan, confined to the wear
and tear of sedentary labour during the week, should have in-
v iandn tmeansh:,
vicinityhealthy
of
f relaxationhis
industriousand
affordedns.
toNo
eir
n of the artisan could be complete without it. It was
deemedso of old in Greece, where schools for healthy re-
t ecnheaails ti° m
of(r the the
free purposestate s o
off ant antiquity,
and embellished public walks were considered requi-
site accessories to the healthy and manly training of a free ;
population. For our part, we consider that not only ought
public walks to be established in the neighbourhood of all
the manufacturing; and populous towns in the country, but
that a Boardshould be
appointedgard ens
contribut-
ing to their due embellishment with objects of taste, like the
pot toes and academic
so ti at the gratification and intellectual improvement of the
people'
might be both combined in their establishment. It
a ou
Id be well also if the same Board were authorised to take
care that the public rural walks which the people at present
possess should not be encroached upon, or abstracted by the
continual encroachments which are made on the public right
of „y. Complaints are made in all parts of the country
of proceedings—Public or private—for illegally stopping
up the ancient footpaths. If a public Board cannot
be established for their protection, an Association for
would be desirable; and has,fact,
in
the purpose been
ia-o-ested. These encroachments on the public right of way
have latterly become so numerous and pertinacious as to as-
sume a serious character. They are themselves becoming,
public nuisances. Private Bills are incessantly smuggled
through Parliament, which take away ancient rights of way
appertaining to the people on the most invidious and fallacious
pretences; and the public often find themselves excluded by
a barrier from some pathway, to which their ancestors, from
time immemorial, have been accustomed, before they have had
time to be acquainted with the details of the proceeding, and
to make the requisite appeal against it. These things are in-
considerately cruel. They seem trifles, but they do great
harm by exhibiting a bad lesson of aggression, and by
checking the healthy tone of social talent. The preservation
of ancient footpaths is intimately connected with Mr.
Slaney's direct object, and isith its indirect object,
the education of the working population. Shall we
allow this beneficial right to be impaired by a thoughtless
spirit of moneyed monopoly, or vulgar rapacity? While we
arc opening the public monuments to the artisan, for the pur-
pose of contributing to his education, are we to close from him
the picturesque and beautiful haunts of nature, which impart
at once salubrity to his frame, energy to his industry, and
elasticity to his mind? No true friend of the people ought to
permit these unjust encroachments on their rights, their pro-
perty, and their sources of improvement. No true statesman,
especially, ought to permit it. As long as the artisan of this
country is kept in a state of unrecreated labour, and uncorrec-
ted ignorance—so long will our manufacturers be beaten out
of the foreign market by the superior intelligence of the arti-
san of France, to whom all the public galleries are freely
opened, and for whose especial use and improvement embel-
lished public walks have been, by the wise forethought and by
the sagacious policy of successive administrations, established.
—Morning Advertiser.
While resisting with strenuous and uncompromising efforts
all attempts upon the independence and stability cf the Pro-
testant establishment, we have ever advocated a thorough arid
efficient reform of the abuses which have crept into the
Church, and which have the effect of blemishing its purity
and impairing ite usefulness, both as a depository of Christian
truth, and an instructor of the people. We have, indeed,
never confounded with just and necessary reforms those inno-
vations upon the Cathedral Establishments, and the property
of Deans and Chapters,recommended by the Ecclesiastical
Commission ;—alterations conceived rather in the spirit of
destruction than reformation, and calculated to lead the way
to the final abolition of the Cathedral service, and the conver-
sion at some future time of those glorious structures of
ancient piety into stables, as in Cromwell's time, unless
they should, according to the pious wish lately expressed
by a Radical vestryman be pulverized with the hammer of
infidel utilitarianism to, Macadamize our streets. We feel
shame that any member; of the episcopal bench should have
1 ' allowed thenfselves to be made participators in this unhal-
lowed work. Lord John Russell should have been left to
find other, instruments wherewith to carry into effect his soci.

nian designs against the protestant establishment. But as
to the dispensation of patronage within the Church, whether
in the hands of bishops or deans and chapters, we should
greatly likely to see that reformed, for greatly does it stand
in need of reformation. We give an instance to-day con-
nO.eted with the cathedral of fit. Paul, for the particulars of
which we refiCYMlTierid to the perusal of our readers the petition
Of Dr. Birch, which Will he found in another column, and which
was, lately presented to the House of Commons by the Marquis
of elidndol, The Rev. Doctor; who case is therein set forth, is
Prebend of Twyford, kn(l has been so for nineteen years, with
an income under three pounds a'-year, As such Prebend he
has acted as Deputy to the Dean and Residentiaries, discharg-
ing their duties in their absence conjointly with another Pre-
bendary, upon the understanding that he should succeed to
the Divinity Lectureship of the Cathedral when it should
become vacant. It has not became vacant, and Dr. Birch last
year applied to the Dean and Chapter fur a benefice of mo-
derate value, but it was conferred on the Rev. Mr. Tate, who
had already an income of 2,262/. from the Cathedral, to which
he had been attached but four years. But Mr.' Tate is a
" Liberal," of the school of the Rev. Sydney Smith, nut
all Liberals are " Reformers" of all abases but those by which
they profit.—Morning Herald.