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

Ca' ening .7' Atits

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1849.

It is tur 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 mortajity has
been perceptibly increased, but that within It, com-
parativ el y brief interval so many of odt dis-
tinguished contemporaries have disaprared.
Heroic warriors of the military and mlritime
professions, distinguished legislatorso,afid—il-histrious
writers, individuals remarkable -f6f 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 SAMUEL MAUNDER, the author

of the " Treasuries of Literature," a demise which, it
will be remembered, took place as recently as
the 30th of April, several names familiar to the
multitude, and synonymous with gallantry, or genius,
or goodness, have appeared almost simultaneously in
the obituary. In Msk respect the ordinarily " merry
month of May" has leen suffused with an unusual
melancholy.

One of the brave soldiers of England, Sir JASPER
NrcoLLs, 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 Camperduwn, 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 escspe 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. ALBANS—
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 Twass 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 comp,tence, 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 his
brethren. Become a master himself through the
medium of his combined intelligence and industry, he
was still to the last at heart an artizsn. 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 artizans 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
HOME ! 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 gentleneis, 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 for the
sincerity of the late Member fur Oldham, or who will
not share, in some measure, the regret with which we
announce the death of JOHN FIELDEN.

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

The case of Mr. ROBERT COOK, the particulars of
which were contained in a letter which appeared in
our impression of Tuesday, is worthy cef the con-
sideration of those who are now calling on the &gig-
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 he 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. Coox, 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. Coo' 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 bona fide 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
ulain the wording of the adjudication, and
liordrgegedarynitew 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-
gated; and after the presiding Judge, upon full con-
sideration, had declared that he was entitled to his
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 rejected on two

occasions, in consequence of the absence of the pro-
fessional advisers to whose care he entrusted the
matter, the result of which was of such vital
importance. They were in fault, and he again
was the sufferer. They did not appear when
called 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 ail thus charitably bestowed is 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 fall 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 bis 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, satisfiel, as we are, that it will materially
forward the wishes of the Sanitary Commissioners
and of the Sanitary Association, namely, in placing
the views of their most distinguished members
prominently forward, and together! The digest of
Mr. SistrsoN, 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. ARNOTT 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.

1111 E FRENCH REPUBLIC

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
Thanks in the first place to the illegal conduct of
General CHANGARNIER, in the second place to the ob-
stinate pig-headedness of old M KERATRY, the Presi-
dent pro. tem. of the Legislative Assembly, and in
the third place to the "zeal without discretion" of the
very "moderate" gentlemen who sit on the right, the
Legislative Assembly was on Wednesday, for upwards
of three hours, the scene of an emeute which has not
been paralleled since the days when the majority of
the Chambre Introuvable, in 1815, excited the mas-
sacres of the Protestants in the south of France
(which, by-the-bye, were justified by M. de FAL-
LOUX on Friday last) refused to receive GREGOIN, and
not only expelled him but ejected MANUEL from the
Chamber vi et armis. Tue Presse thus speaks of the
disgraceful scene :
" We look back, and find nothing which can be com-
pared to the sitting of yesterday. In fact the Constituent
Assembly was a model of wisdom, of calm, and of tole-
rance, by the side of the Legislative Chamber, such as it
now conducts itself. We must go back to the time of•
our first revolution to find anything to compare with the
scene which for three hours was exhibited in our Parlia-
mentary arena.
" Unfortunately this is only the commencement.
Under the monarchy a sitting like that of yesterday
would have made an epoch. But we fear that they will
frequently occur. Polties are turned into a drama ; a
speech from the tribune smells of powder. Threats and
insults are hurled from the two sides of the Assembly as
from two hostile camps. We are returned to the Reds
and the Whites of sixty years since. It is on►y the
years which aro changed. The hatred and passions of
former days appear to be reanimated from beneath the
dust which covered them."

The scene originated in an illegal act by General
CUANGARNIER, who took advantage of the fact that
the Assembly was not yet constituted to remove
Colonel CAUVIN, who had since the 15th May, 1848,
held the command of the guard of the Chamber, and
to appoint to it some creature of his own. M. CLlA-
vots had called the attention of the Assembly to this
subject; General LEBRETON had stated that he had
resigned his office of Questor because he found that
the orders which he issued in that capacity to the
newly.sppointed commander of the guard were
habitually disobeyed, and M. LEDRU ROLLIN had
ascended the tribune, and was about to speak, when
old M. KERATRY, the temporary President (an ultra
Royalist and once a member of the old Chamber of
Peers), without any motion being made to that effect,
put the question on the order of the day for the evi-
dent purpose of preventing M. LEDRU ROLLIN from
addressing the Assembly. The Members of the Left
of course loudly protested against this attempt at
crushing the rights of the minority by depriving
them of liberty of speech, whereupon M. KERATRY,
ami.ist the frantic shouts of the reactionaries, put on
his hat and suspended the sitting. The sitting was
renewed after the lapse of a quarter of an hour,
and M. LEDRU ROLLIN again ascended the tribune
and commenced addressing the Assembly, as he had
a perfect right to do, and as he would
have done before, had any other than
"a foolish and a faded gentleman" occupied the Pre-
sidential chair. M. LEDRU ROLLIN was proceeding
to point out the manner in which General CIiAN
GARNIER had violated the constitution, and the decree
of the 11th of May, 1848, by interfering with the
of the guard of the Assembly, and to
show how such meddling might perhaps facili-
tate a violation of the Assembly, when the
President, whose vocation it is to preserve order and
tf o pr
from
r ewv
he
ineth M. l7l
tt ino n lit
0 eLaLnteNdmtaos
sp wardse ak nt
gh t
anr
di bsuani
de
eve tone n
nrns
to
u e
oh
lan
oua-rl o
sembly.' M. LEDRU—saRr"
elLati,ww,
Nah so youahtave
firstaviolated the
dhetAhis
absurd interruption with conparty,s
'tempt—but it was re-
peated three times within three minutes, and then,
Aa nsds
entno
ht untilly w
htaht e nh,addi doMe
e vatehnr,
the Assembly
applauded
rid and appeal to it for
LEDRU ROLLIN relate to the
protection. The Reactionaries,
that M. KERATRY should apologise to
and should retract his words. For more
than,
an hour the obstinate old man, encouraged by
the shouts of the Reactionaries, refused to
make any apology, and the four Secretaries advanced
and resigned their functions on the express ground
that they considered it disgraceful to sit near a Pre-
sident who could so misconduct himself; still the
old man continued obstinate, when the Left rose in
a body, and headed by Sergeants BOICIIGT and
demanded
vociferously, while the Left protested,ow
RATTIER, prepared to leave an Assembly in which
liberty of speech was no longer permitted, and of
which the Prtsident was the leader of disorder.
Alarmed by the firm attitude assumed by this large
minority, the majority at length became aware
that they had gone too far. They now tried to
soothe the irritated minority, and to induce them to
resume their seats, in which, however, they did not
succeed until M. KERATRY had stood up publicly

* " A Digest of Several Reports on Sanitary Reform;
containing the Views of E. Chadwick, Eq., C. 8.; Dr.
S. Smith, Dr. N. Arnott, Dr. K. Gavin, G. A. Walker,
Esq., surgeon, and others." By William Simpson, Esq.,
Surgeon. Bvo., pp. 24. Renshaw, London: 1849.