The Sun.
London, England, 1825-11-08 00:00:00

[MORNING HERALD.]

We are glad to find that the objection we
threw out some time since to the conversion of
the fruit and vegetable market in Covent Garden
into a place for the sale of hardware, crockery,
&c., has received so high a sanction as that of
the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who
has nonsuited the lessee of the tolls on the
grounds of appropriating the market to. purposes
altogether foreign to those of its institution,
and thereby excluding the persons from whom
the tolls were demanded. The result, we hope,
will be the restoration of the whole space of the
market to something like its original destina-
tion ; and if something like cleanliness, or-
der, and arrangement, were at the same time
introduced into it, the business would very
much increase, and people of fashion would
be induced to frequent it in the fruit and flower
season much more than they do at. present.
Nothing would he easier than an arrangement
which would be equally ornamental and useful,
were his Grace the Duke of Bedford, or those
who act for him, out of the large receipts of the
market, to appoint one or two conservators
whose business it would be to see proper regula-
tions enforced,' And, we think, that were the
orange: merchants, to,: take their departure, more
room wol.q•be,lift'for 'native fruits and vege-
tables. We '46Uht, however, whether, even were
the Market divested of these, as. well as its in-
terposing litcumbratices of Locksmiths, tinmen,
teacup sellers, and 'bird cages, that it would be

found adequate to the increasing demands of this
overgrown metropolis ; and we should, therefore,
be glad to see an open space secured, while there
is yet time, for similar purposes, in the neigh-
bourhood of Bloomsbury, Tottenham-court-
road, or Mary-le-bone ; in which the coarser
kinds of vegetables, &c. might find room,
leaving Covent-garden to be still the scene
of early peas, and all the higher luxu-
ries of horticulture. But while we allude
to the articles which have intruded into this spot,
and which are now likely to be excluded from it,
we cannot help adverting to the severity with
which the law pursues the sellers of small wares
wherever it can meet with them. Many people
are not aware that to sell a tin kettle in the open
street of the Strand would subject a man to the
penalty of 101. or three months imprisonment,—
while doing the same thing in the chartered
market of the Duke of Bedford is no offence.—
While we are talking about free trade in larger
matters, our absurd laws relative to hawkers and
pedlars leave the lowest class of traders a prey
to mercenary informers, armed with penalties and
powers ruinous and vexatious in the extreme.
A tribe of hungry persons, under the name
of inspectors under the Commissioners of
Hackney Coaches, prowl daily and hourly
about the streets, ready to seize every
poor fellow who sells a ball of pack.
thread or a hearth-rug in the streets, with
the same kind of zeal that a thirsty beadle
pursues a miserable vendor of apples or oysters,
who cannot purchase his forbearance. This kind
of petty tyranny does infinite mischief. It is a
source of corruption to those who are to exer-
cise such laws, and of oppression to those who
are subject to them, which it requires some ex-
perience fully to appreciate, but the nature of
which may easily be peen and understood by all
who will give themselves the trouble to inquire
into it ; and as one of the first blessings of good
government consists in the attachment of all
classes of the community to the laws, so we
know of no more obvious way of producing that
attachment, than by correcting any partiality or
injustice which may have crept either into the
laws themselves or the mode of executing them.

........40.........
[MORNING CHRONICLE.]
A Morning Paper of yesterday, in an article
on the traffic in Shares, has the following obser-
vations :—" It would also be well if the lists
could be got at, and the names published of such
gentlemen of both the aristocratic and patriotic
press as had shares in such things, and in conse-
quence have been, from time to time, slyly in-
troducing interested paragraphs and fallacious
statements to puff the fraud and enable themselves
to sell out at a premium, and leave the gulled
purchasers in a serious responsibility for a con-
cern not worth a straw. Too many proprietors—
editors—city reporters, and even clerks of news-
papers, have lent the assistance which their
situations gave them to such nefarious projects,
and thereby brought no small odium and dis-
credit on the press. Some city reporters, in
particular, for what is called the patriotic part of
the press, have even made fortunes by puffing
those schemes. By giving a false confidence to
public opinion they w ere enabled to dispose of
their own shares at a high premium, and then retire
on comfortable little fortunes of about 10,0001.
each. We have heard of one instance of this
kind in particular. But there are more exalted
opinions of the corrupt avarice and follies of the
times. Noble Lords and Honourable Members
—the hereditary and elected Legislators of the
land—have been deeply implicated in Joint
Stock impositions. Anti, notwithstanding such
evidences of moral corruption, we call ourselves a
reformed nation—an enlightened nation—a Bible
and Tract-distributing nation—a nation blest
with education, Bethel Unions, and all sorts of
gifts from above—a promoter of the cause of
truth, and an abhorrer of the artifices and pre-
tended miracles of the Catholic Priests !
We call ourselves a pious generation." The
article concludes with the remark, that—" Unless
all ourindiguation and severity are directed against
small offenders, and the enormity of great crimes
appears to be something grand instead of detest-
able, there must be a rigorous investigation into
the whole machinery of imposture, by which the
Joint-stock mania was supported. Parliament is
called upon to vindicate its own character, and
restore the confidence of the country, by an in-
quiry as rigid as that adopted in the case of the
South-sea scheme, when several Members of the
Legislature were expelled for practices which were
not worse or more mischievous than many which at
the present day have had the sanction of exalted
names."—That Parliament, containing as it does in
its own bosom so many individuals who have stained
themselves with the worst description of traffic
in Shares, will dare to enter on an inquiry of the
nature of that alluded to, may be very well doubt-
ed. That an assembly of men possessed of even
a decent respect for honour and honesty, would
see the necessity of endeavouring to stem the tide
of knavery and corruption, by some searching mea-.
sures, cannot however bedoubted. If money alone
is to be worshipped, if successful villainy be ex-
empted from public reprobation, if poverty he the
only reproach which men need to dread—then we
say society is held together by a rope of sand.
To view the matter in the grossest light, what
security, we say, can any man have for his pro-
perty, in a country in which an honest man is
deemed synonimous with a fool, and honour is
a standing jest ? Hitherto a Puisne Judge, for
instance, who has discharged his laborious duty
with ability and uprightness, though possessed of
a moderate income, and living in seclusion, has
been deservedly held in higher estimation by the
community in general, than the mere possessor of
property to any amount. The attempt to vie in
outward shew and splendour the millionaries of
the day, would hitherto have lowered instead of
raising them in the public regard. " True
grandeur," says the Chancellor D'Aguesseau,
" suffers from the pomp which serves to dis-
guise it, and dreading to be confounded with
the vices which almost always accompany show
and luxury, it escapes from the bosom of abun-
dance to retire to the virtuous abode of medio-
► crity. There it delights in forming a heart
worthy of itself. Not contest with having

given to the Magistrate the internal purity which
is perfectly known only to God, it diffuses over
his exterior some rays of that light which is
within him. The simplicity of his heart, his
equanimity, the uniformity of his life, are virtues
which his modesty cannot conceal. A. mild and
majestic tranquillity, a visible authority not to
be mistaken, will always accompany him ; his
own greatness breaks forth in spite of himself,
and obtains for him the praise which he does not
covet."