The Sun.
London, England, 1831-05-27 00:00:00

THE TALLY SYSTEM.

Petitions to Parliament are to be immediately
got up against the tally system in the city. The
trade is carried on by persons who deal in almost
every article of domestic economy, from the cradle
to the coffin—tea, coals, linen, Sheffield goods, silks,
lace, &c. &c. They keep in their employment per-
sons who travel through the working neighbour-
hoods, hawking from house to house samples of their
various goods, with the tempting offer of taking
payment by the low instalment of Is. 6d. and 2s.
per week. Their customers are generally of the
female sex, whom they persuade to purchase by the
argument that the trifle can never be missed from
their weekly earnings. The payment goes on well,
enough while the husband (who knows nothing at
all about the matter) continues at work ; but his
employment failing, he is hunted after and harassed
by rascals who live by summoning to the several
Courts, on the terms of " No cure, no pay, and
never cease till they succeed in locking him up in
gaol, where the expense of his subsistence costs,
in most cases, more than the whole amount of the
debt, during his twenty or forty days of confine-
ment. One of these limbs of the law has been
known to summon for one tally-man above thirty
persons in one day, and has received the sum of
forty pounds out of Court at one time, paid in by
the unfortunate debtors. The truth of this state-
ment can be confirmed at the different prisons which
receive Court of Request debtors. It is said that at the
Debtors' prison, WhitecrosE-street, during the last
twelve months, upwards of 100 persons have been
committed at the suit of tally-shopkeepers alone,
arid that thirty of that number were arrested by one
man. But the misery is not confined to those who
purchase. It is the practice of tally shopkeepers to
get hold of others by way of security, and thus two
are often confined for the same debt. If the wife of
a poor man is given to drink, she gratifies her pro-
pensity by pledging the tally articles. The pawn-
brokers, however, now, in most instances, refuse to
lend on such commodities, as the day of redemption
seldom arrives, and they are consequently the suf-
ferers along with the original victims. One of that
body declared that he had forty pledges from one
woman, all, he believed, got from various tally-shops,
and without the knowledge of the husband. The
injury is not confined to the poorer classes. The
dressy wives of respectable shopkeepers deck them-
selves from the tally-shops for monthly instalments
to a large extent, and the first intimation the husbands
receive is from a strip of parchment. It is, in fact,
impossible to describe the misery entailed on whole
families by tints mischievous method of trading.
So convinced are the Commissioners of the great
distress to which it gives rise, that in very few cases
they order no more than sixpence per week to be
paid into the Court in liquidation of the debts.
With regard to the quality and description of the
articles sold in the tally trade, they are generally of
the very worst kind, being, for the most part, ob-
tained at sales of bankrupts' effects, and the stale
and refuse stock of warehouses—stock not saleable
by the fair trader. The progress of the evil within
the last few years has been enormous, and the cor-
rection of it will, it is hoped, go hand in hand with
that of the vile truck system, which it rivals in its
pernicious consequences. Alderman Wood and Mi.

Hume were prevented from taking up the subject
iu Parliament last Session, by the sudden close of
the business; but they are determined to call the
attention of the House of Commons to it as soon as
possible in the ensuing Session.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

(From the Tyn'e Ahreury of May 24.)

The majority in favour of the Ministerial plan
continues to increase. The boroughmongers them-
selves, while they argue against the Bill, confess
that there is now no hope of their prolonged exist-
ence. Without entering here into any statement of
results which the reader will find sufficiently deve-
loped in another part of this paper, and avoiding the
oft-repeated details of occurrences at elections, which
most of our readers must have already seen, we
shall proceed in the course we have lately adopted,
of discussing some of the strongest of the positions
taken by the self-entitled moderateßeformers against
the Bill. We are informed that it is a manufactured
Constitution, and that our former Constitution was
the growth of ages, and formed by the habits
and passions, the conflicts, and contending interests
of the people. The argument intended to be con-
veyed by this is, that the Bill must be totally unfit
for the people, and that it will inevitably be fol-
lowed by rebellion and revolution—as great a non
sequitur as that because the Bill is printed with
black ink, the printer must have emigrated from
Sierra Leone. It is needless here to refer to consti-
tutions in ancient histcry framed and promulgated
by individuals, and which " worked well," and lasted
at least for five or six centuries. We have a con-
stitution framed in modern times, that of the United
States, which seems to render utterly nugatory and
ridiculous the terrors of our Anti-Reformers respect-
ing this point in their opposition. Besides what is
there in the argument if the Constitution is best
suited to the present condition of the people ? That
the Bill is in some sort a manufactured Constitution
we admit, but it is not made in ignorance or in madness
or without deliberation, without the ablest lawyers of
the age having been consulted, without the experience
of the growth of our past Constitution having been
deeply considered, without the evils which its de-
fects have occasioned having been carefully examined
—without a due regard having been paid to pro-
perty, representation, and an ample enquiry into the
demands and necessities of the people. The Anti-
Reformers call the House of Commons the repre-
sentatives of the people. The Bill does nothing
more than make that House in reality what it is
now only in profession. The House of Com-
mons, as at present constituted, has been the
cause of the enormous debt, and the consequent
heavy taxation ; and if it had continued as at pre-
sent constituted, a single turn of the political wheel
might have brought back all the profuse expen-
diture, all corrupt patronage, all the abominable in-
fluence which the present Ministry have abolished,
and the recurrence of which they intend to render
totally impossible. Is this the way to, or the high-
road from, a revolution ? The fundholders will be
satisfied that their property will be infinitely more
secure than before, because they will know that no
more profuse wars—no more crusades against the
liberties of mankind will again take place. They
will be satisfied that the frugality of Government
will be the best guarantee for the integrity of their
transactions. And can this lead to evil results
even with so much a reformed—so almost new
made a Constitution? Mankind are not in the
habit of finding fault with any description of ma-
chinery, because it is new and has not been liable to
the friction and the wear arid tear of centuries; neither
do we believe are they particularly fond of old laws;
why then so much delighted with old constitutions ?
The code of Justinian was not a patchwork of by-
gone ages, neither was the code of Napoleon—
neither is there any real importance or value what-
ever in a Constitution that has grown up in a thou-
sand years any more than one made in a few weeks.
The truth is not that the Constitution has matured
one excellence after another by reason of its age;
but that there have been soundness of principle,
correctness of political equipoise, anti self-preserv-
ing solidity of the component parts about it,
which make it estimable in spite of the unwork-
man-like repairs, decayed timbers, and filthy,
stopped-up common sewers about the building,
and all the noisome pestilential vegetation of
neglect which it is surrounded. But our re-
spect for the old house is 110 reason why we
should not repair it as it ought to be, cleanse it
thoroughly, modetn;ze it to suit present feelings
and necessities, and improve the adjacent pre-
mises. It is the principle which the Constitu-
tion contained, which enabled it to exist to this day;
that principle is sufficiently known, and open to the
whole world, not secret and hidden from the eyes of
me)) ; that principle wants extension); time, the great
Reformer of the corruptionists, would never have
extended it; Ministers arc effecting what time and
the comruptionists could not and would not effect;
and in so doing they are maintaining the greatness,
and rendering durable the prosperity and glory of
their country. We are told that counties are to be
laid prostate at the feet of the aristocracy, by their
being divided into districts, so that the votes may be
taken in the shortest possible time. The poor trem-
bling boroughmongers surely imagine the counties are
to be really cut and carved into so many smaller coun-
ties; and that it is actually divide et impera with
the Ministry—thatiit is making the counties into
boroughs ! The counties are to he divided into dis-
tricts, for the purpose of taking the votes, but no
more; one district is not to send one Member, and
another another, but the whole county is to send
the two or four, or as many as there are to be sent„
as in former times. Time whole sentiments of the
whole county will be just as well known as now ;
the feeling will be just as much united as now, for
the candidates and the friends, by personal visits,
and through the Press, will take especial care
that such shall be time case. Morever, we con-
ceive that a man always votes most honestly
when he is amongst people that know him—when
he sees his relatives, friends, acquaintance, and de-
pendents, watching his conduct. Then the opponents
of theßill say the Government are establishing a down-
right despotism in allowing a Committee of the Privy
Council to decide what shall be the extent of the

boroughs. Of all others this is the most silly and
contemptible ground of opposition we ever heard of.
Almost every town in England has villages and
suburbs around it which have hitherto voted for the
neighbouring counties, and which under the Bill are
to be brought into the town representation, as in
justice they ought, for they clearly possess a
town interest and not a county interest. But
who is to settle what shall belong to each town ?
It must be a Committee of some kind. Is it to be
a Committee of the town itself? They would, per-
haps, take in half the county, or not enough of the
nighbourhood, just as local interests would guide
them! We cannot see on what more independent
or respectable persons than the Privy Council this
duty could have been conferred. They will have
fewer prejudices or feelings of favo►►ritism than any
other body of men. Be it observed, also, the al-
leged tyranny is in the Privy Council being loosely
designated as the men who are to say what shall
constitute a town, as if the boroughmongers would
have us believe they would cut down any place
whatever to one-half its size, whereas the power is
given them to annex such townships as are conti-
guous—to find, in reality, how much larger every
town may be made—how many more voters it may
obtain.

We have much pleasure in announcing a fact
•o honourable to the friends of Refortn in Kent, that the
Members for the county, THOMAS LAW lionGirs and
THOMAS RIDER, Esqrs., have been returned free of any
expense whatever. The Central Reform Committee de-
frayed the whole of the charges at Maidstone, including
even the Sheriff's return, &c. ; and the different Local
Committees have each, in their departments, paid all ex-
penses of canvassing, printing, and the customary adver-
tisements of the worthy candidates. This is as it should
he,—.Maidstorie Journal.