The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-01 00:00:00

eV ening

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1849.

It is our painful duty this evening to announce the
decease, the unexpected though by no means prema-
ture decease, of one of the most eminent among the
benefactors of the working classes. Thousands of
our industrious population will be saddened when they
learn that on Monday, the 28th of May, their old and
devoted friend, JOHN FIELDEN, breathed his last
breath in a spirit of tranquil resignation.
Very recently our columns have evidenced in a
startling and mournful manner the evanescence of
human existence. Not that the general mortality has
been perceptibly increased, but that within a com-
paratively brief interval so many of our dis-
tinguished contemporaries have disappeared.
Heroic warriors of the military and maritime
professions; distinguished legislators, and illustrious
writers, individuals remarkable for their generosity
of disposition, or for the untutored vigour of their
intellects, have one after another, in rapid Succession,
been summoned into the land of mysteries. Since
the sudden demise of SAIfUEL MAUNDER, the author

of the " Treasuries of Literature," a demise which, it
will be remembered, took place as recently as I
the 30th of April, several names familiar to the
multitude, and synonymous with gallantry, or geniu.,
or goodness, have appeared almost simultaneously in
the obituary. In this respect the ordinarily " merry
month of May" has been suffused with an unusual
melancholy.
One of the brave soldiers of England, Sir JASPER
NIcoLLs, the man who led on the 2d division of
infantry on the occasion of the siege of Bhurtpore in
1825, departed life on the 4th ultimo. One of the
heroic sea captains of Britain, Sir ADAM DRUMMoND,
a man who had stood the French fire under RODNEY
in the West Indies, and the Dutch fire under DUN-
CAN at Camperdown, died on the preceding day,
namely, on the 3d ultimo. On the 9th ult. died Sir

ROBERT WILSON, the soldier who calumniated the
Emperor NAPOLEON and bewailed the Queen CARO.
LINE, and yet, who in spite of his many faults and fol-
lies, secured our admiration by his generous conduct
in aiding the romantic escape of LAVALETTE. On
the 13th ult. died Sir EDWARD PAGET, eminent not
only by his birth and services, but by the position he
had attained as Governor of Chelsea Hospital. From
the aristocracy passed away on the 26th ult. the here-
ditary Grand Falconer, the Duke of ST. ALIUNS—
known as the husband of Mrs. COUTTS once the cele-
brated actress, HARRIET MELLON. From the ranks

of the poorer classes disappeared, on the 16th ult.,

one of its brightest ornaments, WILLIAM NICHOLSON,
familiarly called the Galloway Poet, and admitted to
the honours of the bay leaf principally in
consideration of his " Brownie of Blednoch."
On the 4th ultimo the biographer of Lord ELDON
was numbered amongst the deceased, and on the 21st
ult. Mr. HORACE Twiss was followed to the grave by
the renowned author of "Castle Rackrent." Within
the last few days the melancholy catalogue of the
dead has been extended, by the departure from this
world, on the 22d ult., of ROBERT VERNON, the mu-
nificent patron of art, who so recently secured to
himself the grateful remembrance of his countrymen
by his splendid donation ,of the Vernon Collection of
Paintings to the National Gallery ; and on the 28th
ult., by the demise already mentioned, of JOHN
FIELDEN, for several years the representative of Old-
ham in the British House of Commons.

More brilliant characters have passed from the
stage of public life, but none more worthy, more
honest, more true, more reputable. JOHN FIELDEN
was essentially the advocate of the labour-
ing classes. Once a labouring man him-
self, his sympathies were with them always.
None of your upstart parvenu speculators was he—
but a plain upright toiler to competence, and in-
fluence, and authority. Having worked at the loom
with his own hands, and shared the troubles,
anxieties, and vicissitudes of the population of the
factories, JOHN FIELDEN knew by personal expe-
rience the wants and necessities of those who, less
fortunate in acquiring prosperity than he, were never-
theless always afterwards regarded by him as bis
brethren. Become a master himself through the
medium of his combined intelligence and industry, he
was still to the last at heart an artizan. A
member of the Legislature, he was still in all his
recollections and predilections a member of the
labouring multitude. This feeling it was, this faith-
fulness it was to his caste which rendered JOHN
FIELDEN the earnest and untiring champion of the
rights of his fellow-toilers, when he himself had
earned the power of advocating the rights of those
toilers in the British Parliament.

His exertions in regard to the memorable Ten
Hours' Bill will not very speedily be forgotten. His
disinterestedness in forwarding the principles of that
measure were conspicuous before the House and be-
fore the country, securing to him even from those
who differed from him in reference to its operation a
ready and cordial respect ; for the enactment went
towards the material diminution of the powers of the
master manufacturers, and Mr. FIELDEN was known
throughout the United Kingdom to be a master manu-
facturer himself. The whole secret of his enthu-
siasm as to the Ten Hours' Bill was dis-
coverable in his solicitude to ameliorate the condition
of the women and children in the manufacturing dis-
tricts. Instead of beholding the mothers, and wives,
and sisters of the poor artisans deprived, by perpetual
drudgery, of all the comforts and consolations of do-
mesticity, he wished to open to them and to their
families, generation after generation, the most golden
and blessed haven from all tribulations—the haven of
nomE! He wished to render those women and those
children less beasts of burden, less hewers of
wood and drawers of water, less parts of
a great, stern, and iron mechanism, steeling the heart
against gentlene-s, shutting the mind against know-
ledge, drying up the milk in the maternal bosom, and
depriving infancy of all the charms of childhood. It
was the ambition of JOHN FIELDEN to break in pieces
this cruel and unhumanizing system—an ambition in
which Lord ASHLEY generously sympathised. And
thanks to the indomitable victory of truth, that
ambition was working out its own realisation
long before death closed the eyes and put an
end to the useful and benevolent exertions
of FIELDEN. His memory will " live green in the
souls" of the people, for his name is written in charac-
ters of light on the statute-book of England. There is
no one but will coincide in our earnest respect fur the
sincerity of the late Member for Oldham, or who will
not share, in some measure, the regret with which we
announce the death of Join FIELDEN.

"In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity."

The case of Mr. ROBERT Coox, the Particulars of
which were contained in a letter which appeared in
our impression of Tuesday, is worthy of the con-
sideration of those who are now calling on the Legis•
lature to re establish the mischievous practice of
arrest on mesne process, and thus to increase a
hundredfold the evils that still exist from permitting
a creditor, generally vexed and exasperated at the
loss be has sustained, to become the judge in his own
case, and to incarcerate his miserable debtor at his
own mere will and pleasure—a power which is too
often exercised from the most unworthy motives.
Mr. Coos, it appears, having fallen into pecuniary
difficulties, was arrested and conveyed to White•
cross-street Prison, in the month of July last,
more than ten months since. Being unable
to obtain his liberty in any other manner, he
was compelled to present his petition to the
Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors.
After sundry delays the case was adjudicated on, and
Mr. COOK was declared entitled to his discharge, he
having been a prisoner in close custody for nearly
• nine months. This was surely punishment enough
for an innocent man. Nine months of close, weary-
ing imprisonment, during which he was debarred
from exercising his industry in any useful pursuit,
or of earning money for the support of himself and
family, or for the satisfaction of his iPortajfde creditors,
might surely be enough to satisfy the vindictive
feelings of the most harsh and oppressive creditor.
But not so; after the Commissioner had decided
that he was entitled to his freedom—while he was
eagerly looking for his anticipated liberation—the cre-
ditor discovered, or fancied he discovered, some formal
irregularity in the wording of the adjudication, and
lodged a new detainer, which prevented the hoped-for
discharge.
Here, then, was this unfortunate man not only
punished
by a long and irksome imprisonment before
trial, but even after the case had been fully investi-
uptiotnledfultlo
con-
sideration,his had declared that
gated; and after the presiding Judge,
enheJuwdags
immediate discharge, we find the creditor still
allowed to step in to oppose his will against the
judgment of a competent tribunal, and to say, " I
will still detain in prison the man whom the law bath
declared to be entitled to his freedom, in whom the
Judge found nothing worthy of punishment." This
is, undoubtedly, a grievous hardship. Why should
a mere matter of form be sufficient to prevail
under such circumstances ? If there had been any
substantial error, any wilful and deliberate conceal-
ment, the case might have been very different, and
fair reasons might be alleged for bringing the party
again before the Court, to deal with him under the
new state of facts ; but this is a mere error of words,
the fault most probably of one of the officials of the
Court itself, for which the wretched prisoner could
not fairly be held responsible, and yet he still lingers
in confinement, a victim to the mistakes of others.
Mr. COOK was equally unfortunate in his subse-
quent attempts to obtain his discharge. His applica-
tions to set aside the capias were.J6ected on two

occasions, in consequence of the absence or the pro-
fesglonal advisers to whose care he entrusted the
mat ter, the result of which was of such vital
importance. They were in fault, and he again
wass, the sufferer. They did not appear when
(Jailed on, and the Court, to mark its displeasure of
such conduct, and to punish the legal gentlemen for
their carelessness, strike out the rule, the effect of
which is to heap further costs on the unfortunate
client, and to detain him still lingering in prison,
pining under " the hope deferred which maketh the
heart sick." The application to reinstate the rule in the
paper, although in favorem libertatis, is peremptorily
rejected, the client must suffer for the default of his
counsel.

It is not, we believe, generally known that there
are at this moment very many persons lingering in
hopeless confinement, because, strange as it may ap-
pear, they are too poor to become insolvents ! It is
true that there is a benevolent society that by its
gratuitous exertions procures the discharge of many,
very many, such persons in each and every year, and
restores them to their half-starved families ; but
their aid thus charitably bestowed i 3 necessarily
limited, and many persons deserving of the deepest
sympathy still remain in prison from want of money
sufficient to bring their cases properly forward.
It may be said that these are necessary evils—that
in a commercial country the creditor must be per-
mitted to retain full power over his debtor, in order
that fraud may be properly punished, and that any
relaxation of the law would be attended with very
mischievous consequences. We cannot, however,
coincide in these conclusions. Every good purpose
would be answered if the creditor were allowed, on
obtaining judgment, to summon his debtor before a
judge, to show cause why a vesting order
should not be obtained of all his estates, and
effects, and himself sentenced to a fixed and definite
term of imprisonment if his conduct should appear
deserving of punishment. Such an imprisonment
inflicted under the sentence of a Court would be much
more dreaded than the present confinement, where
the innocent suffer equally with the guilty, and
where the fraudulent debtor, who conceals his assets
from the creditors, is enabled to make better terms
than the honest but unfortunate man, who has fairly
given up his all for the benefit of those to whom he
is indebted.

Sanitary reforms seem to be procrastinated beyond
the limits of the national patience. The steps
already taken, however, in the movement are sufficient
to show that the advocates of the system of improve-
ment are merely tarrying for a while to enable them-
selves the more effectually to advance their favourite
measures, and to do this by mustering all their
available energies. To this end has been founded
the Health of Towns Association, an association calcu-
lated to stimulate unofficially the official endeavours of
the Commissioners at Gwydyr House. Meanwhile,
out of the multiplicity of the advocates of sanitary
improvement, the public have gradually acquired a
very confused notion of their intentions. Anything
that can at all tend, therefore, to reduce those
scattered and in some instances incongruous opinions
into one compact and harmonious system in the mind
of the multitude cannot but tend directly to the ad-
vancement of the cause, and to its better compre-
hension by the community. A pamphlet which
accomplishes precisely this has recently been
published ;* and it is to the fact of its pub-
lication that we would here direct the public
attention, satisfied, as we are, that it will materially
forward the wishes of the Sanitary Commissioners
and cf the Sanitary Association, namely, in placing
the views of their most distinguished members
prominently forward, and together ! The digest of
Mr. SIMPSON, as will be observed by the title of the
pamphlet given below in a foot-note, embraces the
opinion upon sanitary matters of Dr. SOUTHWOOD
SMITH, of Dr. Ax OTT and of Dr. GAVIN, of Mr.
CHADWICK and of Mr. WALKER. In this respect
the pamphlet fills up a gap, and a very important one
too, previously existing in the list of sanitary publi-
cations.