The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-02 00:00:00

PIETY AND STARVATION.

(From the Weekly Prue Sun.)
Iu the spring of last year a powerful and pathetic appeal
was made to metropolitan charity for therehef of thousands
of suff,rcrs, reduced to the brink of starvation in the
Highlands and Is'an•ls of Scotland. The appeal was
readily answered, the language of humanity superseded that
of politics in the Pre:s, the untiring energy of business re-
laxed a while in the City, a meeting was held at the
Mansion-Louse, thousands of pounds were subscribed, and a
Destitution Comrnittea was appointed to apply the re-
sources thus promptly afforded, and then the world rolled
round as usual, hugging to its chariralle 13)so:n the godlike
satlsfacti-m of beneficence.
A Daily Journal, which is " now no more," as Parlia-
mentary people s..y when they evoke wisdom from the
graves of departs 1 statesmen, ventured to sugg, st to the
humane donors of the means of food to our perishing
brethren in the North, whether subscritliag for the relief of
Scotch tenantry had not some connection with inquiry into
the relat:ve position of the Scotch landed proprietary ; and
that with the more genet al question of the dearness of food
and the laws or practices by which it is sustained. There
are evidently many ways of subscribing, nominally and in-
tentionally, on behalf of a starving tenantry that are vir-
tually, though not intentionally, only so many ways of sub-
scribing in behalf of a non-starving landlordry.
This tendency of donations to produce no lasting benefit
to the immediate object, but a substantial pecuniary ad-
vantage to a remote and uncontemplated object, was of
course set down to " the cold-heartedness of political eco.
nomy ;" as similar suggestions have often been when they
were occasioned by the periodical subscriptions against fa-
mine in Ireland, where the landlord gets all that is to be
got of a nominal high competition rent, while the tenant
vibrates amongst the diet gradations, from potatoe and
point down to seaweed.
Well, the Destitution Committee undertook the direc-
tion of the charity--the voice of lamentation abated—in
its stead arose the cry of political warfare, the general elec-
tion came, and the towns and counties of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland were at loggerheads about Whig and
Tory representatives. The conjectures of partizan were
soon brought to the test of facts. The ultimo Mule returns,
by their remoteness, and in the case of Orkneys and
Shetlands, where starvation had bean most rife, by the
length of the electoral operation, afforded most room for
speculation. Newspapers took a short cut. They calcu-
lated the landlords, and their calculations were verified. A
starving tenant is always a sure vote for his landlord. The
proprietor reaped the double harvest of rent and votes out
of the charitable relief.
And now the season is come round again, The Shet-
landers are once more in starvation. Authenticated ac-
counts are before the public of the bitterest suffering. The
following statement is from the minute of the Local Com-
mittee :—" The reports from every pati,h in Zetland show
that the destitution is so extensive that the 516 bolls of
meal expected from Aberdeen, cannot carry the starving
part of the population through more than one fortnight,
and if some means of obtaining extraneous aid for them be
not obtained till the rising crops are available, there ap-
pears no human probability that the lives of those will be
preserved who cannot subsist exclusively on gray-fish and
shell-fish, while the supply even of these must depend on the
state of the weather, and other circumstances over which
man has no control."
Is not this a fearful state of things, and that so soon after
a generous effort has been. made ? Even this supply from
Aberdeen, as we arc informed just afterwerds, "cannot
sustain the destitute among whom the meal must be di-
vided, longer than a fortnight." After that, the prospect
was of " nothing to mitigate the famine." And now
comes the most extraordinary part of the story. It is so
extraordinary that we must consider the statements made as
not final till the parties implicated have had full opportunity
for explanation.
Of the money contribilted for the relief of this Northern
starvation, a very considerable sum remains in the hands of
the Destitution Committee. Money in hand, and the
people perishing ! How is this ? We take the reply from
a leading article in the Morning Chronicle of Tuesday
last The Destitution Committee have given notice
that it is intended by them to appropriate the money sub-
scribed by the public for the relief of the starving popula-
tion of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland to the en-
dowment of a Hospital, and the Promotion of Scriptural
Education !" This is enough to make one exclaim with
Tinton, " give me breath." The Shetlanders have applied,
most earnestly and pressingly, to no purpose. In their des-
peration they are driving for a Treasury grant. They ask
1,000/, ; their cry is, " help us, or we perish ;" and the
Destitution Committee looks on, wishing they may get it,
and grasping hard its own thousands, " for the promotion
of Scriptural Education."

Hypocrisy is always offensive ; but there are many de-
grees of offensiveness before we come to the climax of un-
utterable disgust. There are people to be found, how-
ever, as it seems, who to ill help us to the top of the lad-
der. Where is the difference between asking for bread and
gi, ing a stone, and asking for bread and giving a Bible ?
)(CS, we big pardon, there is a difference. The first is
simply inhumanity ; the last is inhumanity with a garnish
of charitable and religious cant. The Bible must be a very
different book from what we take it to be, if the Destitution
Committee be not at least as lamentably destitute of a
Scriptural education themselves as the most ignorant of the
poor Shetlanders.
Against a public grant now, as against a public subscrip-
tion formerly, we have not a syllable to say, provided the
adininiitrat ion of temporary relief be combined with efficient
attention to the permanent causes of these periodical visi-
tations. It will not do to lay the whole affair at the door
of Providence. The seasons are regular enough. They
have no disposition to refuse justice to Ireland or justice
to Shetland. Everybody knows that every harvest is not
to be reckoned upon as an abundant one. Failing crops
are in the order of nature. But the landlords do not
starve. Their sphere is above these vicissitudes. They
perch on the top of the mountains, Scotch or Irish, and
" Though round its breast the rolling clouds arc spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
A more regular reflection of the sunshine below is
:the
want. They tell us that both are bound together in one
interest. The people below find that to be all moonshine.
It is as cold as the Scripture School project of the Desti-
tution Committee. The opponents of a poor law for Ire-
land have often told us to look to Scotland. So we do.
We see the same thing in both countries. The misery
of a helpless dependence upon the proprietary, and the
absolute necessity of further legal protection for the la-
bouring- class against the legislating class.
The famine should be mitigated; that is, practically,
the first thing, though it be done by a loan from the public
Treasury. The Destitutionists must be brought to book ;
that is the second thing; and compelled by the power of
opinion to postpone their pious purposes to the charitable
ones of the con ributors. And then comes the third
thing ; and that is for people to consider which side of
the alternative they will take ; the alternative being
either to wait for another famine, make another handsome
subscription, set up the Scotch lairds in a fresh stock of
rent and voters, and run the whole round of the old hum-
bug over again; or, to enforce on the Legislature the
universal tight of man to food at the cheapest possible rate
that the cost of its production will allow, whatever be-
comes of the present money worth of rent or tithe, taxes
or monopolies.

The following has just come to hand :—" Hiram
Mudger, who has been recently convicted of horse stealing at Vermont.
U.S.. is said to be so expert a practitioner in animal abduction, as to
have performed the rare feat of seducing away a horse on which its mas-
ter was riding without his (the rider not the horse) having any notion of
the matter. The report adds, that he walked fifty-feur miles at a sharp
trot, and only then discovered his horseless condition on walking into a
pond, to give, as he thought, his horse a drink, and finding himself up
to his ears in the cool element"
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.—The Hon. Secretary
and the cflicers of the" Animals' Friend Society," of Mark-lane, last
e eek caused Richard Spright to be fined at Gravesend by the Mayor
( Dichbourn, Esq.), and Mr. Bevan, for having beaten an ass till the
blood came; and George Whitehead to be imprisoned for seven days,
also for cruelty to an ass ;' and the Hon. Secretary caused the driver of
the omnibus 2,490 to be fined by Alderman Lainson, for having worked
a horse with nearly all the skin off its neck.
NEW DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA.—The spirit of
adventure and discovery, it appears, is as rife among our enterprising
countrymen as ever it was. The most recent result of that spirit is on
the point of being given to the world by Captain Alexander, who started
from the Cape in AugustlS36, on an expedition of discovery;in the interior
of Southern Africa, where, in less than twelve months, he traversed no
Ins this focr thousand miles of country which had never before been
visited by any Eul opean. The detailed results of such a Journey cannot
tail to excite the strongest interest and curiosity, especially as thojour.
ney was made under the express auspices of the British Government and
the Royal Geographical Society.
The 7e
Duchess of Orleans :—ln a conversation 'mPs attributes thteionfoaclltTeviii‘:,guer7es"beftooretthlsee
Coronation of the Queen of England, the subject was introduced of the
brilliant effect that would
I be pro Wsplendideed by the uniforms of the
'
t uric
thanun a i fo
those— the
the
Duchess
cos sn
eo of Mar.
'N' otlritahtesernill Courts.produe produce
a" T
greaterhere eiffse
Vaudois states that last year a
shat Souit." The event has justified her Royal Highness's prediction.
rsialplp'eealirieSdinear St. Maurice, in the Valais, and this year a
Thehild2Vd
similar event having also occurred, no trace of the children could be
been for some time observed in the neighbour-
f)o.ouunndgecieert a shoe and stocking of the one last lost; and the opinion
prevailed that some wild beast had destroyed them. Two eagles of enor-
hoed, and it was determined to watch them to find, if possible, their nest,
‘b.cert,hat of the golden e The old birds were
s
Aer long search it was discovered a few "e
agle.ince among some lofty
and
e hibaud,,,dhotwoe
but at the bottom of the nest, and on the rocks near
away at the time, and two fine eaglets, standing two feet high, were
rookiu ,
het ftrlorembiltanched bones and remains of the dresses V of the two poor
childrenbroug al ov e alluded to.

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GOVERNMENT STEAM-VESSELS.—An impor-
tant change has been (greeted in the service, in reference to engineers on
board her Majesty's steam. vessels. By an Order in Council, dated the
15th ultimo, engineers are in future to be placed on the footing of
warrant officers, and to take rank after carpenters.—GreenwicA Ad-
valuer.