The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-25 00:00:00

not the bosom of every working man in England
who may read the report of this police case,
swell with indignation when he sees that this poor
lad is sent to prison, not for obstructing the foot-
way, but because it is not convenient to hold him to
bail for selling the pamphlet ? The holding to bail
is, in the case of any poor boy, equivalent to a long
imprisonment. Would the offence of obstructing
the footway, not obstinately persisted in, if sum-
marily punished by the same Magistrate, who holds
to bail, be visited with one day's imprisonment?
We entreat the higher classes of our countrymen to
set their faces against these odious distinctions in
the execution of the laws between the poor and
rich, or we shall, ere long, have deep cause to lament
it. Do not let us aid the disseminators of pestifer-
ous doctrines, by supplying them with so many real
grievances to add to their catalogue of imaginary
ones. Let the poor have even-handed justice, and
the rich not more than even-handed justice. " Thou
shalt not have in thine house divers weights—a great
and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house
divers measures, a great and a small ;—for all that
do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an
abomination unto the Lord thy God." How ad-
mirably Mr. Bentham in his work on Judicial Esta-
blishments, exposes the evils of the sort of justice
which the people too often receive from Police Ma-
gistrates:—
" Tyranny and anarchy are never far asunder. Dearly,
indeed, must the laws pay for the mischief of which they
are thus made the instruments. The weakness they are
thus struck with does not confine itself to the peccant
spot, it spreads over the whole frame. The tainted parts
throw suspicion upon those that are yet sound. Who can
say which of them the disease has gained, whichof them
it has spared ? You open the statute book, and Iclok into
a clause ; does it belong to the sound part or to the rotten?
How can you say ? By what token are you to know ? A
man is not sate in trusting to his own eyes. You may
have the whole statute book by heart, and all the while
not know what ground you stand upon undr the law. It
pretends to fix your destiny ; and, after all, if you want to
know your destiny, you must learn it, not from the law,
but from the temper of the timrs. The temper of the
times did I say? you must know the temper of
every individual in the nation ; you must know
not only what it is at the present instant,
hut what it will be at every future one ; all this you must
know before you can lay your hand on your bosom and
say to yourself, lam safe. " 4 * What all this
while is the character and condition of the law ? Some-
times a bugbear, at other times a snare ; her threats in-
spire no efficient terror ; her promises no confidence.
* * All this mischief shows as nothing in the
eyes of the tyrant by whom this policy is upheld and pur-
sued, and whose blind and malignant passions it has for
its cause. 44 * His appetites receive that gratifi-
cation which the times allow of ; and in comparison with
that, what are laws or those for whose sake laws are
made? His enemies—that is, those whom it is his de-
light to treat as such—those weose enemy he has thought
fit to make himself—are his foot-stool ; their insecurity is
his comfort ; their sufferings are his enjoyments ; theit
abasement is his triumph."—Morning Chronicle.
We refer our readers to a full report of our pro-
ceedings at the Birmingham Union, on Tuesday last,
before it was known to them that a Proclamation
had been issued against their organization. Mr.
Joseph Parkes, not a member of the Union, suc-
ceeded in convincing them that the organization to 11
" act as an efficient body of police, in die mainte-
notice of the laws, in the protection of persons and
property," and in the appointment of Aldermen,
Tithing-men, &c. for the purposes otherwise pro- •
vided by law, would, at common law, be considered
a conspiracy to assume the powers and offices of the
law, and being against the law, Government would
be bound to put it down. Mr. Boscoe Attwood,
eldest son of Mr. Att wood, who followed Mr.
Parkes, moved the abandonment of the plan for the
orgiinitition of the members of the Union, and the
mot ion was seconded by Air. Charles J:'nee, Secretary
to the Committee appointed to draw tip the regulti-
tions for the organization, and the motion was carried
unanimously. The Members of the Council bar-
leg fortunately taken a week to consider of the plan
of organization, could then abandon it with a better
grace, on discovering its illegality, than if it had
been adopted by tht in. It is justice to Mr. Atr-
wood to admit, that from the first he has shown an
extraordinary anxiety to keep within the bounds of
the law ; and his moving the postponement of the
consideration of the plan for a week, was an addi-
tional proof of his anxiety to adopt no measure till
be could be certain of its legality. On obtaining a
knowledge of the proclamation, they would of
course at once have abandoned the organization,
even if it had been adopted ; but it is better that
they should have abandoned it of their own accord
before adoption—before the proclamation could
reach them. Mr. Parkes, in his excellent speech,
alluded to sonic circumstances of great weight with
reference to the question between the nation and the
boroughmongers.
" The boroughmongers (he said) could not overcome
nature and the new elements of society. More persens,
as was proved by the parish-registers of Birmingham, were
now born in one day than in a whole year at the last
settlement of the Constitution.' Only seventy years
since, Dr. Priestley established in Birmingham the first
voluntary association for popular instruction, and recently,
in December last, 422,000 males of the town and neigh-
bourhood signed, in their own legible hand-writing, the
Reform petitions. Let the boroughmoagers, if they could,
deal with these altered times, and try to deny altered in-
stitutions. Let their arch-Secretary, Mr. Croker, read
his Life of Johnson,' and see that ninety years since
there was but otie bookseller's shop in Birmingham. Mr.
Croker could not get us hark to that dark period."
Mr. Attwood gave the Duke of Wellington and
Sir Robert Peel credit for more fairness than they
may now like to hear of:—
" The Birmingham Union had (he said) received no
favours from Lord Grey's Administration. They neither
courted their favour nor feared their hatred—(Cheers)—
for their proceedings and objects had been so entirely just
and legal, that they felt strong in the power and confidence
of the country, and had no occasion either to court or to
fear the Ministers. The Ministers had shown them no
favour, nor in any way had the Ministers treated them with
more courtesy than they had received from Sir Robert
Peel, when the Duke of Wellington was at the head of the
Cabinet. The Union had gathered up its mighty strength
under the Administration of the Duke of Wellington.
Before the glorious French revolution broke out, they uum-
bered 7,000 subscribing members upon their hooks : and
in the month of October last year, they had held a dinner
of 3,700 persons in honour of the French revolution and
under the Administration of the Duke of Wellington. :It
was evident, therefore, that if any tacit patronage was ne-
cessary—which it was not—such patronage had been af-
forded quite as much by the Duke of Wellington as by
Earl Grey."—Morning Chronicle.
Some of the small fry of radicalism in the Surrey
suburbs of the metropolis have been for some time
concocting a " Union" to support the King Y. and
his Majesty's Ministers in carrying the Reform Bill.
On Wednesday night they had called a meeting at
Proctor's Hotel, Bridge-road, when the aristocracy
of the wharfs and the timber-yards of Lambeth
mustered in great strength, with the rules and laws
of their " Union" carefully cut and dried to suit
their own views. The Chair was taken by a Mr.
Moore; and Mr. Warburton, M.P. for the
scheduled borough of Bridport, came forward to
talk of his " peculiar interest in the welfare of
Lambeth." Thus far things went on swimmingly :
but when the first resolution had been moved and
seconded, a Mt. George rose, and moved as an
amendment, " That it is inexpedient to form any
such Union." This speaker and various others,
some of them known at the Rotunda, contended
that the Reftwm proposed by the Government was
calculated to monopolise political power in the
hands of the middle classes, to the exclusion of those
beneath them, who were much better entitled to
it. Upon a show of hands being taken the amend-
ment was carried, and the Unionists were conse-
quently defeated. We are informed that the par-
ties, thus signally humbled, have been, for their own
purposes, the habitual panders to the passions of
this very class of politicians before whom they are
now obliged to quail. Unfortunately for them they
cannot, like their " great original," Earl Grey, put
down the monster they have created by proclamation.
Every where at their public meetings and at their
vestries they are opposed and out-voted by the 101.
householder—for here we have the practical working