The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The ally of the Times, Mr. Whittle Harvey, has
been getting up 'a meeting of certain of the discon-
tented guardians of the parish of St. George, in South-
wark. We have received information as to the ma-
chinery of this meeting from correspondents of respec-
tability, from whom we have received assurances that
no reliance whatever can be placed either on the co-
lourings of the speakers, or upon the reports of the
meeting, as given in the Times. The abrupt com-
mencement of the report in the Times of Thursday,
Meeting in the Borough," without the usual state-
ment as to the numbers who attended, or as to the
place where the meeting was held, is a concealment of
the real character of a public-house society, held in a
dirty obscure court in a low neighbourhood, in a place
where the Rev. Robert • Taylor once held forth, and
where but two or three hundred inhabitants of the pa-
rish (containing a population of about forty thousand)
could by possibility attend. The meeting was of
the character of other clique meetings, to which we
alluded the other day. No doubt we shall have
other meetings got up by the same influences, and
where the Times possesses exclusive information, they
will be paraded as " Meetings at Shoreditch," with
the omissions of the numbers, and with assertions of
the high respectability of casual assemblages who un-
dertake to represent the opinions of the great body of
the rate-payers. The meeting at which Mr. Harvey
presided was distinguished by the circumstance of three
of the guardians, who had gained office as candidates
undertaking to perform their duties, and who, as offi-
cers, were bound to carry into execution the new Act,
having been among the most intemperate of the
speakers. We are informed that these personages,
who contended so vehemently for the discretionary
power of the guardians, omitted to specify, as one of
the acts of interference of the Commissioners with the.
self-government, that they, or rather their assistant
Commissioner; Mr. Mott, the other day disallowed
charges for the feeding of these said guardians at the
workhouse, at the expense of the parish. The speakers
when dilating on the necessity of keeping up an out-
door expenditure, omitted also to state, that, whilst
the Commissioners, after their mode of interfering
with the self-government and discretion of the guar-
dians, had ordered that supplies should be obtained
by open contract, they (the guardians) had en-
deavoured to thwart the order, by providing that the
paupers should be relieved by tickets for the pur-
chase of bread from the bakers in the neighbourhood.
In many other respects the statements of these officers
were equally incomplete; and a judgment may be
formed of the spirit of truth which presided from
the declaration of the Chairman, that " never had a
measure been introduced with more studied secrecy, or
carried through with more studied caution." The
studied secrecy of the only great measure that has
ever been preceded by complete expositions of all its
principles, of which upwards of 20,000 copies were
circulated throughout the country ! ! Whether the
circumstances of these meetings, and of the petitions
and memorials which have been got up on the sub-
ject, have been made in studied secrecy or not, we will
not pretend to say ; but we do say, it would be useful
if they were communicated, and mole generally made
known. For example, the Learned Member's speech
in the House of Commons in support of Mr.
Walter's motion against the Commissioners' order
made upon a local board of farmers acting as
guardians, for the discontinuance of the allowance
system, was founded upon a petition from. this
board of guardians in Southwark, whose incipient
practice of taking refreshments at the workhouse was
at once disallowed. That board consists of eighteen
members ; some of the most respectable of whom, we
are assured, disapprove of these practices, and are de-
sirous of carrying into full effect the provisions of the
Act. We have before us a statement from a corres-
pondent, who represent that this petition was sud-
denly proposed at a meeting at which nine only of the
guardians were present. The meeting was held at
night. At half-past ten o'clock two pots of ale were
ordered in, of which most of them partook, and the
Chairman and another guardian took out their cigars
and began smoking. One of the guardians soon after-
wards moved that the further consideration of the peti-
tion be adjourned sine die, and the result was as fol-
lows :

For the presentation of the petition
For the adjournment
Did not vote..
The objectino, guardian then moved, on account of
the lateness of the hour (eleven o'clock), that the
further consideration of the petition should be ad-
journed until that day week. The division was the
same on this question as on the last. The objecting
guardian observed that he thought that when cigars
were introduced it was time to leave off' business. We
suppose the petition was wanted, and it was certainly
presented immediately afterwards in the Hon. Mem-
ber's magniloquent style, in which he declaimed against
the Commissioners and the principles of the Bill as an
interference with self-government, and asked why the
rate-payers should not be left to manage their own
affairs ? From the remissness of the rate-payers in
another Board of Guardians there are members who
have been known to go there " fresh" after the day's
business, or, in other words, drunk. It is appre-
hended that the Commissioners, to prevent these
scenes, will order the meetings to be held in the day
time. This, we learn, has excited offence ; and a
meeting will be held at which the harsh operation of
the Act upon the poor, and especially a remonstrance
against the reduction of the parochial dietary, will be
the subject of debate. We do not know how it happens
that in all these instances, where there is so strong
a dread of interference, the dread is solely on ac-
count of the poor. A memorial was a short time ago
presented from the parish of St. Peter, Cornhill,
" professing" to be from inhabitants of the parish,
and drawn up out of concern for those who were
infirm and past labour, who were perfectly satisfied
with the administration of the poor-laws by their fel-
low.parishioners. A few days ago, however, at one of
the vestry meetings, a rude hand was laid upon this
self-government by one of the parishioners, who, on
investigating the accounts, found exemplifications of
the self-management, of the character contained in the
subjoined bills :--

" ST. PETER'S-UPON-CORNHILL.
" LONDON TAVERN.

Dinners
Port... ......................................... .
ClSherry ............................ ...........
aret ...................
Champagne ..................
Burgundy .................
Brandy
Waxlights
Waiters

0 10 6
............. 0 6 0

Total ....... ...... .£l2 6 0
We believe there were six persons here to partici-
pate in this self-management.
,‘ ST. PETER'S-UPON-CORNHILL.
" PLOUGH INN, BLACKWALL.

Dinners

Port
Sherry
Champagne
Claret
Brandy
Tea and Coffee Oa

£3 12 0

Besides coach-hire for six persons."
Now, if we have been misinformed as to any of these
items, or of any of the facts we have stated, we shall,
upon receiving corrections, properly authenticated, in-
sert them, without followinc, the practice of a Con-
temporary, and charging forb. them as advertisements.
If the parish officers of St. Peter's send them to us,
we will insert (gratis) the particulars of their last pic-
nic at the. Woolpack tavern. The statements of the
cases of alleged cruelty of the operation of the new
law we have no doubt •will be found to be about as
trustworthy as the statements referred to in the copy
of the letter inserted from the vice-chairman of the
Gloucester union. The guardians generally are pos-
sessed of a wide discretion—a discretion, indeed, far
too wide not to be often improperly exercised in the
way of profusion. For, the most part these guardians
consist of the most eminent of the rate-payers. Their dis-
position to profusion in the expenditure of otherpeople's
money, and to undue indulgence, which was the vice of
the old system, can scarcely be at once changed. It is
not in human nature. The rules of the Commis-
sioners, which ought to be strict, for they may be sure


in the execution of their stringency will not be in-
creased, are in reality the most indulgent to the infirm
where indulgence is needed ; and the aged and infirm
pauper receives much more comfort in the new work-
houses than could be obtained in the cottage by the
parents of the poorer rate-payers. But on this subject
we have not time to enter. We would guard the re-
spectable rate-payers against allowing themselves to be
misrepresented by pot-house juntas, and against giving
credence to proceedings got up by, factious agents.
We think some blame is due to parties who see the
truth who do not come forward and manfully develope
the proceedings and motives of the assailants of the
measure. A large proportion of the boards of guar-
dians, both in town and country, might profit by the
example set by the Weymouth board of guardians ;
nor ought the Commissioners to allow the public to
be misled.—Morning Chronicle.
We supposed, and not unreasonably we think, that
the Ministerial writers would have given us an oppor-
tunity of noticing more of those by-blows to Protest-
antism in Ireland which they dealt after the example of
the "great blow" of their master, the Prime Minister,
and which we parried yesterday in noticing their cri-
tique on " the opening" of the Popish Cathedral at
Tuam. That representation, however, it seems, is not
worth a second notice ; and it has been allowed to dis-
appear from the stage like a condemned farce, or the
decided failure of " a first appearance." But the de-
duction from the exhibition, got up, we suppose, for
the aid and edification of Ministers ? What has be-
come of the deduction, which was, that the Irish Pro-
testant clergy had neglected their duty, with a covert
insinuation that, after all, Popery was better than
Protestantism ? Alas ! that, too, has gone the way of
all fiction, without even a Whig-Radical Swiss with
an onion to his eye to seem to weep over it. For our-
selves, however, we cannot pass over so lightly this
disgraceful attempt to degrade Protestantism and to ca-
lumniate at the dictation of Ministers that clergy which
has already been robbed with connivance of the Govern-
ment. The charge against the Irish clergy is, that had
they not neglected their duty, there would have been more
Protestants in Ireland than there are now. Our an-
swer has been, and is, very plain. Test the accuracy
of the charge by the extent of the way the State has
been able to make, and comparing the progress of the
Government of the King with the advancement of the
religion of the Church, it will be certainly seen, that
whatever blame may attach to Great Britain, our fel-
low countrymen in Ireland have chiefly to thank them-
selves for the fact that they are not more faithful sub-
jects and better christians than we hope one day yet to
see them, notwithstanding the machinations of the
Whigs. We showed yesterday how disturbed and
troubled had been the condition of Ireland from the
conquest of the country until the Union; every one re-
collects, unhappily, what its state has been since ; and
no man, however warped by irreligion or radicalism,
can fail to see that if the State, with all its appliances,
could hardly maintain itself, the parochial clergy, with-
out protection for their persons, and for that .pit-
tance which was and is, almost insultingly, called
their " property," could not possibly prosecute their
sacred calling, except at a degree of danger which
rendered what they have done a glory to them, while
the reproach that they have done no more covers those
who make the reproach with dishonour, and brings into
fuller and better light the services the clergy have ren-
dered, by forcing an investigation into the trials, suf-
ferings, and labours they Lave undergone in the pro-
secution of their perilous, but we are sorry to say,
their thankless ini.:esion, at least, thankless in quarters
where it should be Lest appreciated. Do people talk
of the ignorant peasants of Ireland disregarding tire
mire faith of Protestantism as a thing of wonider ?
Let them look at a Protestant Prime Minister bringing
in a Bill, which he confesses to be a Bill " to give a
heavy blow and a great discouragement to Protestantism
in Ireland ;" let them watch the labours of this Mi-
nister in the disgraceful work of undervaluing, libel-
ling, and slandering the ministers of the Protestant
faith in that country. We have indeed fallen on evil
days when such a Minister is not, on the moment,
hurled from the eminence he dishonours and disgraces
(as assuredly he will be at last), and when the expecting
placemen and pensioners at his beck and call dare to join
in ribald chorus to the song of triumph their master sings,
not only over the oppressed ministers of the national faith,
but over the false and fleeting prospect his distempered
and destructive dreams have fashioned to his view of
the subversion of the faith itself. The case of Ireland
is so simple and so plain, that he who runs may read
it. With regard to the State, there is the " repeal of
the Union,"—in abeyance for the present, it is true,
but upon what condition ? Why, upon this condition
—that such power shall be given to the demagogues
as will enable them to effect the repeal of the Union
virtually now, so that after the lapse of a few years
they will merely have to go through the form of dis-
memberment with ease and with impunity. They tell
the Government plainly, that if it will not concede
this power by instalments, the cry of the Repeal of
the Union shall be raised at once, and the dis-
memberment of the empire effected without delay.
The ultimate object is not—never has been—con-
cealed. The whole and sole question is, whether
Government will enable the Repealers to effect that
object by degrees, slowly but surely ; or whether,
superior to threats, and plucking up honesty enough
to declare the truth, and Act as the emergency requires,
it will refuse to put weapons into the hands of those
who proclaim before they receive them that they will
use them against the idiots who furnish them ? So
is it also with regard to the Church. It is pretended
that, for the present, the Papists will be satisfied with
robbing it of 70,0001. or 80,000/. ; but both in Par-
liament and out of Parliament their organs have over
and over again explained that they will be contented
with nothing short of the utter abolition of tithes—
that is to say, of the total destruction of the Church.
They say, that if you will not suffer them to plunder
the Church piecemeal by the sanction of law, they will
lay violent hands on its revenues in spite of the law.
Thus, both spiritually and temporally, the party which
Government fosters and supports in Ireland proclaims
rebellion, not reform. We shall be told, of course,
that Government will satisfy the demands of this dis-
loyal faction to a certain extent only. We answer
that they will yield enough to make the expul-.
sion of their King and of the Church, which is
impossible at present, not only practicable, but easy,
by and by ; and that they will do this wilfully, with
malice prepense, with the foresight and knowledge
of the consequence of their treasonable concessions.
As a specimen of the open manner in which the de-
signs of the Irish Destructives are proclaimed, take
the following passage of the last letter addressed by
Mr. Sharman Crawford to his constituents on the sub-
ject of the Irish Tithe Bill :—" If the late Bill would
really have satisfied the demands of the people of
Ireland, then, indeed, they would have been right to
accept it. If they only wanted the surplus, this point
was acknowledged by the Bill; but recollect what the
surplus means—that every single Protestant must first
be provided with a clergyman out of the tithes. If you
want total relief, I will put it to the candour of any
one of you,whether this Bill would not have been a bar-
rier
against your future demands ? If you had ac-
cepted this Bill this year, would your petitions for
total extinction have received the smallest respect
next year ; and if not next year, what interval of time
is to elapse
you would
'
before your contract would expire, before
again become free agents, to insist upon
your rights ?--Times.

We were not wrong
when we yesterday said that the
claims of the Polish refugees w
fore a British public in
have already taken up
the 111. Our Contemporaries
subject,ud not be brought be-
as the sure prelude of a displ
half of these poor starving foreigners, v.o
and that we reaard
ay of benevolence on°be-
ners, commensurate
with the exigencies of the case. Where the great in-
terests of humanity are involved, the people of Eng-
land, infinitely to their credit, know no distinctions of
party or political feeling. Wherever they see real dis-
tress, they hasten, under the influence of the noblest
emotions, to administer relief. In the present case,
however, over and above the abstract claims, which, as
human beings, these famishing Poles have on our sym-
pathy and aid, they have the peculiar claim of being
sufferers in a most righteous cause. Why are these
men in England at this moment ? 'What induced them
to quit their own country, where all of them had comfort-
able homes, and where many of them moved in exalted

and affluent spheres of life ? What but their noble
and resolute resistance to one of the most grinding and
debasing systems of tyranny recorded in the annals
of modern Europe. Had they submitted to bear the
brand of slavery on their foreheads ; had they consented
to walk in chains ; had they crouched beneath the
frown of. their Imperial Oppressor ; had they, in one
word, ignobly agreed to compromise the character of
their country, and committted treason against the great
rights of mankind ;—had they done this when required
to do it by the" despot of St. Petersburg, then they
would not, at this moment, have stood in need of relief
from the people of Great Britain ; they would have
been still in their own country, enjoying all the
necessaries, and, in many cases, the luxuries of life.
And have not people, who could make such noble
sacrifices for their rights and liberties, as these unfor-
tunate Poles have done,—have not such men peculiar
claims on the generous aid, in the hour of their need,
of the English nation? We share with them that ardent
love of freedom which prompted the noble resistance
they offered to the Northern Nero when he marched
his serfs into their country, -to trample them-
selves and their Constitution under foot. We have
often- at public meetings, and in the intercourse of
private life, given expression to our admiration of their
conduct. Let not that expression be confined to words
merely—let it be given in action also, when it not only
asserts a great principle—the principle, namely, that
a nation ought to resist the will of a tyrant—but in-
volves in it the discharge of the most sacred obliga-
tions of humanity. What is wanted is a beginning in
the good work. Let only a few individuals head the
subscription list, and the example will, beyond all
question, be immediately followed by people of all
shades of politics throughout the empire. It cannot
be that these poor creatures, for want of a little timely
relief, shall be suffered to perish in our streets. That,
indeed, would be a lasting stain on our character both
as men and as Britons. But such a thing can never
happen. In a few days, we are confident, we shall
have the grateful task of recording the commencement
of a subscription on behalf of these noble-minded,
though unfortunate, Polish refugees, which will in a
few days more be sufficiently large to secure them from
the horrors of starvation.—Moriiing Advertiser.
The friends of Poland have published a manifesto
against Lord Melbourne and Mr. Spring Rice, imput-
ing to those Ministers cruel and unfeeling parsimony
towards a certain class of the Polish refugees in this
country—a parsimony which they deem the less ex-
cusable that it is in manifest repugnance to the inten-
tions of the House of Commons, which, during the
Session just concluded, granted to his Majesty a sum
of ten thousand pounds, " for the relief of the Polish
refugees now in this country," without distinction.
Lord Melbourne and Mr. Spring Rice refuse, it ap-
pears, to admit to any participation in this benevolent
fund such of the refugees as have arrived in this coun-
try subsequently to the date, not of the vote of the last
Session, but of a similar vote passed in the Session
before the last ; and by this refusal the humanity of
the'country and the intentions of Parliament are frus-
trated with respect to about 100 of these ill. used and
wretched persons. And what is the pretence for this bar-
barous economy ? Not the insufficiency of the fund.
No such excuse is alleged ; and the Committee of the
friends of Poland expressly say, that the fund
is not insufficient. What then ? The apprehension
entertained by Lord Melbourne and Mr. Spring Rice
that the extension of the national charity to such Poles
as have arrived since the original grant " may act as
an invitation to Poles to flock here from every part of
Europe." Our readers will ;mite with us in admira-
tion of these generous and liberal-minded Statesmen,
when they are informed what the scale of allowance is
which they "apprehend may prove so irresistibly at-
tractive. A Polish General receives the magnificent
pension of 15s. per week ; an officer of inferior rank
gets 10s. per week; and the private Polish soldier is
permitted to luxuriate on the abundant revenue of
ss. 3d. per week. These inducements "to flock here
from all parts of Europe" it must have been impos-
sible to withstand, and the British people can never
be sufficiently grateful to Lord Melbourne and Mr.
Spring Rice, for the statesmanlike caution, foresight,
sagacity, and vigilance which they have displayed
upon this important occasion, and by which they
have protected the country from being overrun and
impoverished by foreigners—especially by foreigners
so very foolish, as to have expected that Liberals
—in possession of power arid wealth—would mani-
fest any sympathy with Liberals in,:poFerty and
exile. The anxious care of -Lord Melbourne and Mr.
S. Rice to protect the country from the apprehended
swarm of hungry invaders is the more meritorious that
no circumstance had arisen peculiarly calculated to
excite their patriotic alarm. At the period of the
grant of last year there were four hundred Polish re-
fugees in England, and the increase in their number,
notwithstanding the powerful attraction thus presented
to them " to flock from all parts of Europe," amounted
to one hundred at the utmost ; and of these, the
greater part, with a magnanimity and disinterestedness
which must appear wholly preternatural to Lord Mel-
bourne and Mr. S. Rice, seem entirely to have over-
looked the dazzling temptations of the Parliamentary
grant. The Committee positively assert that these
one hundred new refugees were forced here against
their will—some by the French Government, which
seems to share the liberality and prudence of Lord
Melbourne and Mr. S. Rice, and some by the Govern-
ments of Prussia and Austria. The Committee be-
lieve this statement, no doubt ; but Lord Melbourne
and Mr. S. Rice regard the matter with the keener
glance of wise and experienced Statesmen. It would
not have been proper, it would not have been charac-
teristic, in them to indulge in such generous and
romantic credulity. How could they have answered it
to the country had they foolishly permitted themselves
to be seduced into the persuasion that the several sums
of 155., 10s., and ss. 3d. per week had not " acted as
an invitation ?" Everybody knows that Mr. Spring
Rice is a man of principle, and in this affair of the
Polish refugees he has given another splendid proof of
it. On being pressed upon the question, whether the
hundred refugees last arrived were to starve, he said,
and said most truly, that " it was a question of prin-
ciple," modestly adding, " it must be referred to Lord
Melbourne." Who that knows the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman can fail to imagine the air of philosophic gravity,
the show of official deference to his official superior,
the condescending tones and attitudes of conscious im-
portance, the smirk of entire self-satisfaction with which
he pronounced the words, " Gentlemen, this is a ques-
tion of principle, and must be referred to Lord Mel-
bourne. Upon great and vital questions of national
policy, upon "questions of principle," it is fit that the
First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer should think alike ; and accordingly it was
found that in this matter Lord Melbourne and Mr. S.
Rice were entirely of one mind—they concurred "upon
principle" in the decision that the- hundred Poles
should be left to starve. It is, we must admit, a great
thing for the British people to have men of such en-
larged views, of such stern integrity, and of such un-
bending firmness, at the head of their affairs. We
entirely concur, therefore, in the tribute of praise to
Mr. Spring Rice with which the Polish Committee
conclude their statement, regretting only that they have
not included in their compliment the equally meritorious
Lord Melbourne. " Such," say they, "is the policy
of a Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and great,
doubtless, will be the gratitude of the natron when it
finds that by starving 100 Poles he has enriched it to
the amount of something like a quarter of his own sa-
lary."—Morning Post.

The Quadruple Treaty and English interference
have borne glorious fruits in Spain ! From the mo-
ment that Lord Pahnerston intermeddled in Spanish
affairs, for the support of the juste milieu system of
Christina's Government, we predicted its doom. It
had enough to contend with in the vigorous hostility
of the Carlists ; but the officious friendship of our Fo-
reign Secretary was still more ruinous. The juste
milieu has vanished like a " bubble," that has burst.

The standard of the revolutionary principle has been
carried from Malaga to Madrid, and floats over the
cradle of the innocent Isabel. A grim idol, miscalled
" Liberty," besmeared with gore, is set up to be wor-
shipped with the horrid orgies of a drunken and fero-
cious populace. The Queen-Regent, torn from the
side of her paramour, Munoz, has been compelled to
prostrate herself before it, and to try, by thus honour-