The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

`We regret to find that the fires of the incendiary
are blazing mere fiercely than ever, in the very dis-
tricts which are the scene of the labours of the
Special Commission. We refer our readers to the
account of our reporter for details on the subject.
The incendiary is a far more formidable enemy
than the rioter. Assemblages of riotous peasants
can be easily put down ; and, indeed, in all our
communications with gentlemen from the country,
we never heard them express any alarm on ac-
count of mobbing. A rural police of the owners
of property can always be easily formed, and against
such a police rioters can make no stand. It is
otherwise, however, with incendiaries; for, from the
exposed nature of the property, it is almost impos-
sible to watch it. The peace of the country must
be preserved, anti, therefore, it is necessary to re-
press all riotous assemblages to destroy machinery,
'or levy money. At the same time great allowance
is to be be made for the ignorance of the agricul-
tural labourers, and we must also bear in mind that
the example set them by several of those to whom
they looked tip as authorities, by no means tended to
rectify their notions respecting machinery. In
truth the labourers have been, in most instances,
the dupes of others. A correspondent, for
whose communication we have not apace to-
day, observes, that " the war of the labourers
for higher wages, as it has been called, had its
origin in a war of the yeomanry and gentry
against tithes. The doctrine has been assiduously
propagated by the latter that they could give higher
wages if it were not for the exorbitancy of the
tithes ; and when the poor have asked for higher •
wages, I have heard them told by farmers that
they must speak to the Parson about it.' What
could be expected, but that they would congregate
together and call upon the Parson—in many in-
stances absolutely dictate to him the terms suggested
by their employers ; and on a refusal, proceed to
tumult ? I say, what else could he expected from
masses of ignorant men, thus tutored by their em-
ployers, who were looking on; and who, in many
cases, themselves assembled in a body to form one
of the capitulating parties with the Parson ? The
labourers, thus incited and countenanced, little
dreamed that they were putting ropes round their
necks, or taking their places for Botany Bay ; they
imagined that they were moderating between the
farmer and clergyman, for the equitable acquisition
of their own rights; and having the concurrence
of one party—nay, his alliance even, is it won-
derful (considering their gross ignorance) that
the other party who refused should incur their
resentment ? In short, the labourers were by
the farmers set on to plunder the parson of
his tithes, that they might share it with them.—
In most cases the parson refused to be thus
made a scape-goat and a victim ; but to appease
their ill-will, with a profession of proving that he
was not insensible to their distresses, he has given
the mob money, and they have dispersed to spend or
share it. The excitement of such an adventure was
too pleasing—the holiday too agreeable not to make
a recurrence a matter of course; and as the Parson
had treated them, they called on the farmer in his
turn." This we take to be a very fair account of
the origin of many of the assemblages. In fact,
wages have almost everywhere fallen to their former
level, as was to have been expected, and the
labourers, stupid as they are, can hardly fail to per-
ceive that they have been used as tools for the pur-
poses of others. It is notorious that the farmers in
many parts of the country have of late been exposed
to great difficulties. That they should wish to re-
lieve themselves is also quite natural. From the
labourer nothing could be taken. The struggle lay
between himself and the landlord, and the parson.
But the labourers, though not themselves interested
in the struggle, were tempting instruments.—
Throughout several Sessions nothing was heard
of in Parliament but lamentations for the hard
case of the poor peasantry, who entertained
the very worst feelings towards all above them,
and who would soon break loose from all con-
trout. The labourers had not been in fact worse
off than during the days of agricultural prosperity
but were benefitting by the low prices. However,
they were far from well off; and hearing themselves
spoken of as objects of compassion, they naturally
wished to improve their situation. The magistrates
set them on the farmers, the farmers referred them
to the parsons and landlords, and thus, step by step,
we have arrived at the present state of thi-dgg. We
perceive that in passing the sentences at Salisbury,
there is an altered tone on the bench, This is a
confirmation of what Burke says, " It has happened
frequently in cases of this nature, that the fate of
the convicts has depended more upon the accidental
circumstances of their being brought earlier or later
to trial, than to any steady principle of equity ap-
plied to their several cases. Without great care
and sobriety, criminal justice generally begins in
anger and ends in negligence. The first that are
brought forward suffer the extremity of the law,
with circumstances of mitigation in their case ; and,
after a time, the most atrecious delinquents escape,
merely by the satiety of punishment." Mr. Justice
Alderson says, for instance, " The Judges have been
placed under infinite difficulty in selecting one most
lit for punishment ; they would have been justified
in punishing with death many others." Our fear is
that the punishments have been already too flume-
sous and too severe for the circumstances in which
many of the labourers were led to act as they did.
We confess we do not like the renewal of the fires.
We wish our apprehensions may prove groundless,--. I
Morning Chronicle.

It will bein the recollection efourreaders.,that Sir
Edward Sugden, towards the close of the last Par-
liament, brought forward in the House of Commons
a Bill for the appointment of an additional Judge in
the Court of Chancery, and that such Bill was
warmly opposed by Mr. Brougham, Mr, Michael
Angelo Taylor, and others, upon the ground that
there was every probability that the Master of the
Rolls and the Vice-Chancellor would be able to
subdue the arrears of business--the former Judge
sitting in the morning instead of the evening, and
frequently five or six, instead of three or four days
in the week, as his predecessors had done. As the
B 11 was lost by the demise of the Crown, public at-
tention has never been drawn to the remarkable man-
ner in which the prediction of the opponents of that
inconsiderate measure have been verified. The Mas-
ter of the Rolls, early in Machaelmas Term, had dis-
posed of every cause in his paper that was ready for
adjudication ; and during the last fortnight of the
Chancery sittings he only sat occasionally as cases
could be brought forward for hearing. The Vice-
Chancellor has not been equally successful, for al-
though there is a diminution of the arrears in his
branch of the Court, yet there are, at present, not
less than between two and three hundred matters in
his paper, most of which have been 3et down twelve
months. Under these circumstances, it has, we
understand, been proposed that a portion of the
causes depending before the Vice-Chancellor should
be transferred to the paper of the Rolls ; an ar-
rangement which would, of course, be a great relief
to every party whose suit has not been instituted
!nerdy for delay, and to which no objection could
possibly be made, except the fear of overload-
ing that excellent and indefatigable Judge, the
Master of the Rolls. Sir John Leach, how-
ever, with
justice
zeal for the prompt adminis-
tration of w hich has always distin-
guished him, has expressed himself not only willing
but anxious that the proposed measure should be
carried into effect. But an unexpected obstacle has
arisen in the person of Sir Edward Sugden, who no
sooner heard of the contemplated movement, than
he hurried to his place in Lincoln's-Inn-hall, to
express to the Lord Chancellor his fears of such an
appalling innovation. What are the reasons that
have occurred to him which had not already sug-
gested themselves to the Master of the Rolls, he did
'not condescend to state, arid we cannot pretend to
guess. The causes which it is proposed to transfer,
although ordinarily adjudicated by the Vice-Chan-
cellor, are, in fact, set down to be heard before the

Lord Chancellor; and the Master of the Rohs bas
for centuries been in the habit of assisting the Chan-
cellor in the despatch of the business of the Court;
and to suppose that the honest suitor (even as-
suming against all principle that he has a right to
make the selection) will complain, is an•absurdity
which will find its way into no unprejudiced mind.
Even Sir Edward Sagden will not venture to
assert in the House of Common!: that injustice
cats be done to the plaintilf or defendant, the de-
cision of whose cause shall be accelerated by its
removal from the Court of the inferior to that of
the superior Judge—by the suhstlration of Sir John
Leach for Sir L. Shadeveli; although such party
be, by that means, deprived of the able professional
aid of Sir Edward himself. That gir Edward Sug-
den can be influenced in his opposition to a measure
so beneficial to elstity litigants from its interference
with his own pecuniary interests, we are not willing
to believe, although his proposal; in a recent speech
on the Chancery question, to transfer certain de-
scriptions of business, in which he does not practise,
to the Rolls' Court (a meateare that would increase
his own emoluments come two or three thousand a
year) does sot altogether leave us without some
misgivings on that point. As some mode must,
however, be devised cf preventing an accumulation
of business in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, it is pos-
sible that Sir Edward Sugden's love of consistency
will induce him again to put forth his Bill for an ad-
ditional Judge, and we shall then no doubt, hear
cogent reasons for not availing ourselves of the
magnanimous and disinterested zeal of the Master
of the Rolle, and for appointing, at en expence of
not lees than 10,0004 a year, a new Equity Magis-
trate to assist the Vice-Chancellor, whilst one of I
the most learned and enlightened Judges ,loot ever
adorned the bench, is literally without employ. We
suspect, however, that the prenent Lord Chancellor
is not a man to be deterred from an act generally
beneficial, for no other reason than because it is
adverse to the interests or the wishes of an indi-
vidual member of the bar,--eV,trning Chronicle.
News from Poland is looked for with intense
anxiety, as the Russian troops advance, and the hour
of direct collision in arms approaches. If we are to
place much reliance on the accounts transmitted
through private letters from Warsaw, the fears
which every friend of liberty must have entertained,
and our own among the number, on viewing the im-
mense disparity of apparent power between the
Russian Government and the Poles, ought to give
way to confidence in the capacity of that brave and
united people to maintain what they have won so
nobly. We have been informed (but enthusiasm
never doubts) that every man in Poland, with ex-
ceptions not worth mentioning, hae inearibed his
name on the lists of armed patehots, and the nation
which has deliberately thrown down the gauntlet,
has with consistent boldness flung away the scab-
bard. It needed not the manifesto of Nicholas
to assure them that there is for rebel Poles
no wisdom but in desperation ; for that they will
be exterminated if they do not destroy the in-
vader. The physical power of the Poles engaged
in this great effort has been generally measured
by a very inaccurate statement of the popula-
tion. It has been said that their teimbers are but
three or four millions, because such was a few years
ago the estimated amount of the inhabitants of the
" Kingdom of Poland," representing pretty nearly
Buoneparte's Duchy of Warsaw, But as the Rus-
sian manifesto declares the provinces of \Vilna, Vol-
hynia, and Podolia, as well as those more contiguous
to Warsaw, to be in " a state of war," we take for
granted that they also have joined the insurrection,
which must therefore have for its besis a population
of at least eight millions of inhabitants, and there-
fore not less than a million and an half of men lit to
carry arms in defensive war. Attempts are thought
to have been made in this country to depreciate the
Polish cause arid prospects, by representing their
present circumstances with regard to other points
besides that of population, as less favourable than
the ease would warrant. It is said, that the ads's).
crude party in Poland have assumed the power,
arid that nothing further is to be hoped. If any
one fact could be imagined more decisive than
another against the truth of such an assertion, it
would be the appointment of a Dictator, with
uncontroulled power, by those very persons from
whom no t:iergy or einteeity " was to be
hoped," If a faction of selfish aristocrats, indif-
f.arent to the public cause, and only solicitous for
themselves, had really got the power, they would
not have been so eager to transfer it to hands over
which they could have no controul, but by which they
must themselves, together with the whole nation,
be directed. No " chgarchy," which is the thing
here intended, would have shown such contempt for
all mean and interested objects. But the truth is,
that property is much divided in Poland; there is
now-a-days a numerous class of gentry of moderate
and middling, and not many of entailed or over-
grown estates. The landed interest is, speaking
generally, the representative of 19-20ths of the
Polish nation—if they had not come forward, there
could have been no resistance to Russia. The
establishment of the Polish army, according to
the letter of the law, ought not to have exceeded
26,000 men, but the foreign oppressor, in his blind-
ness to futurity, maintained it, against law, at more
than :35,000. Poland has now the benefit of the
illegal system. 'The eastern frontier of Poland,
marked by the parallel streams of the Duna and the
Dnieper, is defended by extensive morasses and
forests, highly favourable to enterprising, though
Ilaw raised troop, and to a system of irregular de-
fence'-..the most harrassing to an army of disciplined
invaders, little acquainted with the country. Po-
land, in this respect, does not greatly differ
from North America, so fatal to the massive in-
fantry of Great Britain, and invites the natives to
a wild, guerilla mode of war. The deep ravines,
formed by sudden meltings of the snow, are fre-
quent in Poland, towards the Russian frontier, and
form strong protections in defensive movements.
Zamoyski, whose name has been before alluded to,
was the prime mover of the insurrection which added
East Gallicia to the Duchy of Warsaw in the year
1800. Dzialynski, who has just joined with a regi-
ment from Polish Prussia, is a well-known patriot.
Chlopieki is described to have shown more character
since the present crisis than he was before suspected
of. So did Napoleon,--so did Cromwell,—so, on
the other hand, did Alfred and Gustavus Vasa ex-
hibit qualities which were only called into action by
each crisis as it arose. It is in the nature of great
emergencies to produce great moral impulse, and to
nerve and stimulate the intellectual powers. Great
men are rarely the growth of tranquil times. What
will Austria do ? Such would be the natural ques-
tion, were trot our experience of the reptile policy
of that Court and of her Minister a sufficient
assurance of the spirit by which they will now
be guided. Austria has long been afraid of
Russia,—terror-stricken at the approach of the
Tartar power to Vienna, from which the Russo-
Polish frontier is not more than a week's march
distant. What, then, would be the conduct
of a sagacious arid determined Government ?
Why, gallantly to surrender Gallicia to her parent
Poland, form a strict alliance with the Polish na-
tion, march her armies to support it against the
common enemy, and throw the Russian frontier
500 miles further back from Vienna. This would
be great, and sound, and consistent, arid Austria
%-i'vedd be hailed by Europe as a noble benefactress.
But will such a course be even whispered of, by
Austrian Statesmen of the present day ? No 1
Russia is dreaded; but far more dreaded is freedom.
Instead of being restored to Poland, Gallicia per-
chance will be dragged in chains to Hungary. In
that case Gallicia will revolt, and burst her fetters.
--'limes.

We invite public sympathy to the melancholy
proceedings by which the Special Commission at
Salisbury is concluded. 'We hope it may not be
yet too late to supplicate for mercy for the unhappy
men, who, if their offences were great, yet are their
terrors, penitence, and agony, now beyond all con-
ception. But in any case, we appeal to all the un-
happy men who have been engaged in like courses,

and may, perhaps, even now, he meditating similar
crimes, to take warning by their fate, to view their
terrible affliction, the anguish Of their souls, and
think of the risk they now 14en, be have run, of stand-
ing in their places, and of experiencing their feelings.
And ye others in a higher station—ye holders and
owners of land,—if the offences which have brought
your fellow-creatures to this unhappy stater have
been in any instance provoked by your hardness of
heart and eusterity,—if they have been goaded to a
breach of the law by penury at home in the wretched
cottages,—by starving wives and families,—by
scanty wages, and time.: parochial allowances,—what
have ye 'so answer for ? Blood lies at your doors!
0 yes ! we know the indignation which some of
you will feel at these reproaches. "We are incit-
ing to tumult : we are etirnelating the mob to ven-
geance!" No, tee are Urging those of you whom it
may Conteen to repentance; we are calling upon
you to alter your course, if it have beet'. tuth as we
fear ; to afford the indrastrieu labourer his due re-
muneration, er. to compensate, by your future
kindeess, for your past cruelty and injustice ; which,
though human laws can take no cognizance of them,
the divine will not fail to punish.—Tiniess.
It is no time, after the conviction of Carlile, to
reprobate his conduct or exaggerate his guilt.
Neither is such the object of these remark', but
rather extenuation. We have seen with regret both
this person and Cebbett urging a deluded multitude
to their rein. But Carlile has not the curse of
' I dying men upon him as has Colsbett, though both
have written and lectured with equal zeal ; neither
' would we cal? doseih legal vengeance even upon this
latter person. For the truth is, with respect to offences
of the press generally, that if men expect to live
free from mischievous exeiteneent wherever print-
ing is known and exercised as an art, they ex-
pect that which cannot take place. The advan-
tages of a free press are innumerable : with these
society must be content to take some concomitant
evils, which indeed are but as dust on the balance;
and the humblest classes ought to know, and do
know, that they are hot to coMpait every wrong
which they are moved and stimulated to commit by
wicked men, because the inflammatory matter is to
be read in print, or has been heard in a lecture-
room. When such writers urge on to the destruc-
tion of machinery, to temult, to arson, to murder;
the poor wr'teh who is prompted to these crimes
should ask himself,—and it is not requiring too much
of him to expect that he should ask himself—
" Will this writer be hatigedr or transported for me,
or with me ?" And then, reflectively, is it too
much tit eriminate writers and load them with the
guilt committed by a mob, as if the latter consisted
wholly of irrational beings, and the former were an-
swerable for all their exceeses. We have as ind-
mate a conviction of the influence of the press as
most men but it cannot move mountains. It is
unjust, therefore, to exaggerate its powers only to
supply a pretext for punishing more severely him
who may have directed them so as to give offence
to those who wield the steerd of the law.—Tinges.
A sound filiantir will never impose a tax that
must from its nature operate unequally with regard
to the community in general, and have an oppressive
effect on the interests of the poer. Such a tax is
the coal tax, than which no impost can be conceived
more at variance with the principles which consti-
tute what may be called the morality of taxation.
If thepresent Government intended to followup the
course of that penal justice which is now making its
melancholy progress through the recently disturbed
parts of the kingdom, by measures of relief to pre-
vent the recurrence of these paroxysms of misery
which are the fruitful soutce of crime, they will not
hesitate to abolish this tax, which makes fuel—
one of the prime necessaries of life—to become so
dear in some districts as to place it beyond the reach
of the industrious poor, We are glad to see that
meetings are beginning to be held in d4terent places
to petition Parliament for the repeal of the dirty
on sea-borne coals. At the meeting which the in-
habitatit householders of Bedford held the other day
on this subject, it was well observed by the Rev.
Dr. Hunt, a Magistrate of the minty, that he was
at a loss to conceive hew any House of Parliament,
professing to be the representative of the great body
of the people of Great Britain, could ever consent
to let a tax be levied on so necessary an article of
life as British coal, and on those only who already
paid more for it than others of their fellowe•ubjects.
It surely mutt have been smuggled through the
House) or the Statute must have been so artfully
Worded as to disguise its obvious injustice. Is it to be
supposed,for instance, that the Representatives inPar-
liament for Westminster, Middlesex, London, Hert-
.„. ._ . ..

fordshire, Bedfordshire, and other counties distant
from the coal-mines, would have consented that their
constituents should pay an oppressive tax for fuel,
while the inhabitants of Northumberland, Cumber-
land, Durham, &c., were to be exempt from such
duty, with coal-pits at their very doors, and without
any charge from merchants, shipping, or barges ? If
the Rev. Doctor chooses to be sarcastic on the acts
of the " collective wisdom" of the nation, he need
not want for the materials of sarcasm in our system
of finance, which contains absurdity and injustice
enough to make it difficult to be conceived how the
Statutes that sanctioned it could ever have received
the approbation of any assembly of men gifted with
the least portion of reason and reflection. As to
the representatives of Westminster and Middlesex,

they have been too lavish of their attention, for
many years past, to the theories of our repre-
sentation, to condescend to practical matters,
and guard the interests of their constituents
by a useful and laborious interference in the
actual business of Parliament. It is true Middlesex
has got one practical representative at present, who,
though sometimes wrong in his views of legislation
and national interests, cannot be accused of sleeping
at his post. We would recommend him to take up
this subject of the coal-tax, and if he succeed in ob-
taining its repeal, he will not only confer a great
obligation on his constituents, but on the nation at
large. We agree with Dr. Hunt, that if the exi-
gencies of the State require that some other tax
should be levied in its stead, it ought to be one
that will not trench upon the " limited comforts—
the necessary wants—the very existence of the poor,
who, already pay, and must continue to pay, not
only the price of coals to their owner, but the profits
of the broker, the ship-owner, the insurer, the
bargeman, the merchant, and perhaps the retailer or
huckster, from all which their fellow-countrymen in
the coal districts are, in a great measure, free." We
cannot too soon get rid of this unequal and immoral
tax, which by depriving the poor man of the com-
forts of his own fire-side, drives him to the alehouse
to waste his wages and his health, or tempts him to
supply his wants by crime !—!Morning Herald.
The cry for mercy in behalf of the poor, igno-
rant, and misguided men, who are now left for exe-
cution at Winchester, and for one of whom only a
respite has as yet been forwarded, is strong and
loud in all quarters ; and we confidently trust that
the Government will see the justice, as well as the
policy, of sparing their lives. A strong petition in
their favour has already been forwarded, as men-
tioned by us some days ago, to the Secretary of
State for the Home Department ; and a meeting,
at which the Lord Mayor is to preside, will be held
this day, for the same purpose. That the crime of
which they were convicted deserves punishment,
we have as little wish to deny as to encourage its
repetition by others ; but, considering the distress
to which the agricultural labourers have long been
a prey, and the hasty resolutions to which it was
calculated to give birth, as well as the critical state
of the country, we think there is much ground for
the exercise of the merciful prerogative of the
Crown, and that the general interests of the coun-
try would be promoted by its extension to the
misguided men.—Morning Advertiser.

SYDENHAM, OR MEMOIRS OF A MAN OF
THE Wora.n.—Tbis satirical novel is, we understand, in
the highest possible favour among a very powerful party
in the State, on account of the severe sketch included in
it of the whole life and political manoeuvres of a cele-
brated lawyer, who has lately succeeded in advancing him-
self to one of the most elevated stations in the Government.