The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-14 00:00:00

BY THE QUEEN-A PROCLAMATION.

VICTORIA R.—Whereas great numbers of evil-disposed and
disorderly persons have lately, in some parts of Great Britain,
assembled themselves together after Sunset, by torch-light, in
large bodies and in a tumultuous manner, with banners, flags,
and other ensigns, and have continued so assembled until a
late hour of the night, and during the time they were so as-
sembled have, by loud shouts and noises, and by the discharge
of fire-arms, and the display of weapons of offence, greatly
earned the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of such assem-
blies, and endangered the public peace : We, therefore, being
sensible of the mischievous consequences to be apprehended
from such illegal meetings, and of the dangerous tendency
hereof, not on;v to the peace of Our Kingdom, but to the
lives and properties of our subjects, do hereby warn and com-
mand all persons to desist from such assemblies at their peril ;
and do further command all Justices of Peace, Sheriffs, Con-
stables, and other Peace Officers to use their utmost endeavours
to prevent all such illegal assemblies, and to bring the offenders
to justice. _ _ _

Given at Our Court at Windsor, this twelfth day of De-
cember, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-eight,
and in the seeond year of Our Reign.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

We are glad to perceive that the Manchester people
continue their exertions to procure the repeal of the
Corn-laws, Yesterday the Chamber of Commerce
was to meet, and would no doubt agree to a strong
petition against the odious badge of slavery, which
the landlords hare fixed on the people. To them we
pay tribute in a tax on our bread. We have before
us also an excellent address of the Manchester Anti-
Corn-law Association, in which the consequences of
the Devil's laws in starving the people, stopping
trade, promoting foreign wars and intestine commo-
tion,—in deteriorating the condition of the labourer,
increasing crime, and making men thoroughly irre-
ligious, by bringing, through the wickedness of our
rulers, the goodness of GOD into question—are
well set forth and explained. We have not,
unfortunately, room for the whole of the address,
but we give, as a specimen of the fair and honest
spirit by which the manufacturers are animated, to
the shame of the unfair and dishonest landowners,
the following paragraph :
Nor do we seek for privileges or immunities at the expense
of other portions of the community. All that we ask is, that
the artisan may be emancipated from the shackles which con-
fine within arbitrary and unnatural limits the market of his
labour, and that his employer may enjoy the right of enlarg-
ing, with the increasing wealth and population of the globe,
the field of profitable employment for his capital. Whilst de-
manding the total repeal of a law which professes to protect
the agriculturist, we are bound in fairness to call for the re-
moval of all duties upon the manufactures of foreign countries
imposed for the purpose of affording protection to ourselves.
We desire neither to be benefited at the cost of the consumers
of cottons, silks, or woollens, nor injured for the benefit of the
proprietors of corn-fields and pastures. We do not seek to
depend for a languid and slothful existence upon the fostering
hand of monopoly or privilege. Far from holding out the
delusive prospects of advantages not purchased by the toil and
.industry of the people, we boldly tell our industrious country-
men that labour is the price at which every earthly boon must
be purchased ; and all that we seek in their behalf is that
freedom which shall secure to them a recompense, great or
small, in proportion to the extent of their exertions.

If such a spirit pervade their whole conduct, they
will certainly be successful, because that is the spirit
of right and justice, is agreeable to nature, and con-
formable to the will of GOD.

In continuation of their good exertions the Man-
chester men propose to have a great meeting imme-
diately after Christmas, and to invite to it the most
distinguished opponents of the Corn-laws.

The great interest now taken on the subject of
opening the Post-office on Sunday, the numerous
meetings which have taken place to oppose it, the
leading articles of the Journals written about it, and
the activity of the great body of the Saints to promote
a still more lugubrious and rigid observance of the
Sabbath than at present, compels us to return to this
subject. Amongst our extracts from the Journals is
one from the Morning Chronicle, which rather sur-
prises us, because we have been wont to consider that
Journal as the main opponent in the Daily Press
of every species of hypocrisy and cant. Now, like
the Herald, it opposes receiving and delivering
letters on Sunday in London, which is done throughout
religious Scotland, because that would be " an unne-
xessary desecration of the Sabbath." Since such a fit
ha s come over our Contemporary, we hope that he and
all tti.,e rest of the Morning Journals will in future keep
holy tli Sabbath, by not beginning to look at a letter or
a printer to work before twelve o'clock
setting
at night.
The desec.
-ation of the Sabbath, by beginning to
cla-
bour at four 'clock on the Sunday afternoon, is wholly
unnecessary, e--cePt as it saves the pockets of the
proprietors, and c‘.'ntributes to their emoluments. We
shall have some faitt; in the sincerity of our Morning
Contemporaries, who feprobate delivering letters on
Sunday when they cease
to receive
.nto a valley them,of and to con-
vert, as far as they can, " I
earth
tears, by yielding to the den?ands of short-sighted
avarice." We shall also have an equal faith in the since-
rity of those who now demand the rigid observance of the
Sabbath, when they refuse to participate in any enjoy-
ment, such as reading a Monday morning's newspstp
opening a letter which has been carried by a Sunday's
mail, or eating a well-cooked dinner, which is provided
for them by desecrating the Sabbath—till all per-
sons who object to opening the Post-office on Sunday
shall refrain from doing anything themselves on that
day, or participating in any enjoyment, the result of de-
secrating that day, we shall stigmatize them as arrant
hypocrites, and will not exclude from that class those
of our Morning Contemporaries who cant on the sub-
ject while they are habitually Sabbath-breakers.
We are well aware of the necessity of some persons
labouring on a Sunday as well as on other days, and ,

we find no fault with our Morning Contemporaries
for doing so ; we condemn only their miserable at-
tempt to prevent other persons from performing la-
bours at least as necessary as the production of a
Morning Journal. It fact it is a physical impossi-
bility in this commercial and complicated society to
observe one day hallowed from labour in the manner
it was ordained, but probably never practised, amongst
the anti-commercial and agricultural Jews. An im-
mense mass of confusion would ensue in this coun-
try were the Morning Papers not to be pre-
pared on Sunday, were no coaches to run, no
ships to sail, no furnaces to blaze, and no work to
be done on the Sabbath. We do not wish our Con-
temporaries to cease labouring on that day, but we
wish them and the public to place the question on its
true bases.

According to the Chronicle, the avarice of the
bankers and merchants, and others, would prompt them
to desecrate the Sabbath; and that avarice continuing
when it is for their interest or supposed interest, they
will desecrate the Sabbath, whether it be done by the
Post-office or not. In fact, they now do it to a con-
siderable extent, and as those occupations which must
be practised on a Sunday increase, the temptation to
bankers, merchants, and others •to labour on that
day will be strengthened. Those who find it for their
interest to write and send letters on Sundays will do
so, and the Post-office will lose the advantage of car-
rying them. Some of the merchants and bankers
doing this, would, on the Chronicle's showing, oblige
others to do it, and it will be therefore most for the
happiness and most for the interest of all parties—it
will put an end to the hypocrisy and cant which now
take place, and which, let us say, are crimes of no
small magnitude—that it should be done openly, le-
gally, and as far as is necessary by the public autho-
rities ; if it be not, the Puritans, encouraged by the
cant of the Press, will soon stop every mail coach at
twelve o'clock at night, as they propose, and
soon, by their dark superstition, which, with the
love of mammon divides their hearts, make the land
of England a " valley of tears."
It is incumbent on those who write on this subject
to discriminate between the demands of religion and
the demands of utility. The Chronicle says, that it is
of importance in a temporal point of view not to
profane the Sabbath by unnecessary labour. With the
Chronicle, we hold that a day of rest is essential to
the physical comfort of man, and even to his health.
In our society, too, in which the condition of the great
mass of the labourers depends in a great measure
on their competition with one another, for them
to labour an additional day would be an aggra-
vation of their toils, without an increase of emolu-
ment. There are, therefore, very powerful reasons
why a day of rest should be generally observed by the
labouring classes ; but, as we have shown, that can
no longer be in our society one day common to all.
Domestic servants, printers, editors, and sometimes re-
porters of Morning Papers, sailors, mail coachmen, &c.—
and why not letter-sorters and bankers' and merchants'
clerks ?—must work on Sunday, and take some other
day for rest, and repose, and recreation. In practice we
are compelled to depart from the mode in which the
ancient Jews observed the Sabbath, and why should
we not in theory acknowledge the fact ? Far from
such a rigid observance being ordered by religion, or in
accordance with Christianity, CHRIST did many
works on that day, and taught the propriety of doing
them. The rigid observance of the Sabbath is a
Mosaic but not a Christian ordinance. On that
day the Jews were commanded to read their
law in their temple, but CHRIST ordained that men
might worship without a temple, he being in the midst
of every two or three gathered together in his name ;
and he prescribed no code of laws to be read and
taught on the Sunday. It is little less, therefore, than
absurd in the Chronicle, which knows better, to describe
the observance of that day as the Puritans would
have it observed, and as it is not observed in any other
Christian country, as a Christian institution. We know
how much the observance of such a day is cherished by
those who have long enjoyed its repose ; we know how
deeply its desecration would be resented by those who
now have no other day of rest ; but their particular
attachment to its observance should not make them
confound that with religion, nor make them submit to
the total want of a day of rest, because some of the
persons employed in the Post-office are obliged, like
mail coachmen, and the editors and printers of the
Morning Journals, to labour on Sunday.
We meant, in conclusion, to have noticed a most
unwarrantable attack which was made yesterday, by
the Morning Herald, on Sir E. LEES, an excellent
public servant, for his evidence on the Post-office
question ; but the length of our remarks compels us at
present to stop.

The letters we are daily receiving on the subject of
insane institutions are a proof, among other things, that
the public mind is beginning to be awakened to the neces-
sity of reform in the prevailing system of treating men-
tal disease. The apathy with which the fate of those
who are deprived of reason has hitherto been regarded,
must be great indeed, if it be measured by
the provision which has been made either fur
their restoration to sanity, or for such en-
joyments as may be suited to their unfortunate
state. One would almost suppose, indeed, that in-
sanity was so rare an occurrence, that no person thinks
it within the limits of calculation that he should be
visited with that most dreadful of all human
maladies, and yet where is the individual who
can cast his eye even round the circle of his own
acquaintance, without seeing instances in which in-
tellects apparently as strong as his, and as unlikely to
be deranged, have been suddenly overclouded ? What
subject ought, then, to come more home to the mind
of every man than the treatment which awaits him
should this be his own doom ?

In the first place, the signature of any two men
within the wide sphere of the medical profession is all
that is required by law to deprive him of his liberty, and
consign him to a madhouse, where his the interest of the
party, to whose charge he is committed, to keep him.
When there, he is not merely a prisoner, he is abso-
lutely at the mercy of his keeper—entirely cut off
from all his civil and social privileges—dead, in short,
in the eye of the law, and an outcast from his kind.
Instead of being surrounded with persons of his own
class, he is subjected to the society and controul o
menials with whom he can have no sympathy, and
whose conduct, regulated by one unvarying plan of
coercion and violence, is much more calculated to in-
crease his disorder, than to promote his recovery.
There
may be, and doubtless there are, exceptions to
this general rule—at least in some points—for a good
man cannot help deviating into humanity, however he
may be circumstanced ; but the result of the system as
such, is, as Sir WILLIAM ELLis has expressed it,
that it is not the interest of the proprietor of a mad-
house that his patients should recover. We trust,
however, that another and a better system Will soon
be adopted. The law must be altered, and made to
thitsnodividuals
ismecpoonrdtanittsend, while the
contribute its part to this
will, we are
humane exertions
confident, not be wanting
efforts. The
great point to be gained is to establish not mereiy
medical, but a moralie b
l tae4tmentelong o
in retreats for
higherfor th c
eilnassasnese:
shouldTh
Society, capable
of skilfully watching the progress of
e invalid,
he strroifunded with an educated
couvaJ.etwence,
and of ministering to the wants of the disordered mind,

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1838.

something in the same way that the physician adapts
his treatment to the ever-varying forms of bodily
disease. This, all writers on insanity agree, is the
great desideratum, and it gives us pleasure to think
that an attempt has been made, in one instance at least,
to supply it—we allude to the Institution at Denham
Park.

At the meeting of the Corporation Reform Society,
held last night at the Guildhall Tavern, there was a
very animated discussion on the subject of the coal-
trade, as regulated by the City authorities. Mr.
HANNkN, and other leading Members, animadverted
with deserved severity on the course which has been
pursued by the Corporation from the year 1768, when
the tax of Bd. per ton was first imposed, to the present
time, with regard to the coal-trade, the result of 'which
has been to put millions into the coffers of the City
and into the pockets of the coal-monopolists, at the
expense of the citizens at large. There is, we fear,
too much truth in this statement, for after all that can
be said against the monopolists—who, of course, follow
the instincts of their nature in this as in other cases—
the blame must ultimately rest with those whose duty
it is to watch over and protect the interests of the
citizens, who are armed with ample power for that
purpose, but who, instead of using their power for
the general benefit, have virtually leagued with the
monopolists in a conspiracy to keep up the price of
one of the most urgent necessaries of life. What must
any person, who is capable of reflection, think of a
system of management by which Newcastle coals are
actually sold cheaper at Cadiz, and even at Athens
and Alexandria, than they are in London ? We tell
the citizens of London that they deserve this treatment
if they submit to it. Until they heartily join in the
demand for Corporation Reform, they will never see an
end either to the abuses in the coal trade, or to any of
the other numerous grievances of which they have so
much reason to complain.

LLOYD'S SHIPPING.-(THIS DAY.)

DEAL, DEC. 13.—Wind N.W.—Arrived the Ariadne,
M'Leod, from Calcutta. Arrived from the River and remain,
the Triumph, Green, for Bombay ; London, Gibson, Hobart
Town; Miranda, Quelch, St. Kitts.
PORTSMOUTH, DEC. 13.1—Wind variable.—Arrived the
Lord Vernon, Lachlan, from Cork ; H. M. Brig, Grecian,
Plymouth; Chili. Smirk, Limerick; Flora, Newton, Stock-
ton ; Susan, Bevis, Seaham ; Lord Vernon, Lachlan, Cork ;
Eclipse (steamer), Russell, Dalhousie. Sailed the Perseve-
rance, Saunders, for Poole ; Adder, Wells, St. Michael's ;
Eclipse (steamer), Russell, London.
PLYMOUTH, DEC. 12.—Wind variable.— Arrived the Beau
Ideal, Forbes, Scilly; Leeds (steamer), Dublin ; Merriced,
St. Moloes. Sailed the Argyle, Gattenby, for Sydney.
LIVERPOOL, DEC. 13.—Wind variable and light.—Arrived
the Elizabeth, from Miramichi. Off port the Murray, from
St. Andrew's, New Brunswick. Sailed the Syrian, Cun-
ningham. for Rio Janeiro ; Agenore, Pernambuco ; Ger-
trude, White, Lisbon; Argentina, Kelso, Monte Video;
Merry, Clark, Jamaica ; Ann Baldwin, Lima ; Japan, Stock-
holm ; Marquis, White, St. Vincent's ; Isabella, Barcelona ;
Wilson, Calcutta ; Phoenix, Port Messina ; Venus, Gotten-
burg : William Frederick, Constantinople; Cicely, Norman,
Newfoundland. The Catherine, from Monte Video, arrived
at Pernambuco, on the 3d ult., in twenty days, and reported
that the blockade of Buenos Ayres still continued.
FALMOUTH, DEC. 12.—Wind variable, light airs and cloudy.
—Arrived the Duke of Cambridge, Batty, and Sirius steamer,
from London. Sailed the Harriet, Hooper, for Boston ;
Eight, Stockholm.
MARGATE, DEC. 13.—Arrived off, the President, Chadwick,
from New York; Eleanor, Limerick.
POOLE, DEC. 13.—Arrived the Wilhelmina, Neustadt.
Dem.'s, DEC. 12.—Arrived the Two Sisters, Thomas,
from Ostend ; Elizabeth, Winter, London.
CORK, DEC. 11.— Arrived the Dart, Vitrey, and T. S.
Reeves, Bailey, from London. Sailed Bahiana steamer, Bahia.
CARNARVON, DEC. 12.—A pine balk has been washed on
shore near Dinas Dinlli, 41 feet long and about 20 inches
square, marked on each side "22 D E 11 S-17 ;" also a
bale of cotton in a coarse wrapper, torn very much, and mark
almost obliterated ; nothing but I 60 is to be distinguished.
HULL, DEC. 12.—Arrived the Judith, Keiser, from Riga;
Bee, Morrison, Quebec ; Bruce, Stevenson, do. ; Johanna,
Robinson, do; Frederick Wilhclms, Burnett, Neustadt; Prin-
cess Victoria (steamer), Antwerp ; George Marsden, Riga.
Sailed—Andromache, for Charleston.
YARMOUTH, DEC. 12.—Arrived the Jeune Gabriel, from
Dunkirk. 136.—Commercy, Rigdon, which was on shore
on Crosser beach, has been got off and brought in here.
ROADS, Dec. 12.—Ann Guthrie, Atkinson, Rotterdam. .

BRISTOL. DEC. 13. Arrived the Euphrosyne, from Miramichi.
DOVER, DEC. 13.—Sailed the Van Spyck, for Amsterdam ;
Guther, Hamburgh.
NEWPORT, DEC. 12.—Arrived the Edinard, from Rouen.
LIMERICK, DEC. 10.—A vessel, timber laden, was
wrecked on the 2d inst. near Sand Sting, and all on board
drowned. A piece of stern, with " Migara of Newcastle" on
it has been washed on shore.

Certain Journals, both in this country and in the
United States, infer from the conduct of the Presi-
dent of that Republic that he secretly abetted the
lawless invaders who have recently met a signal dis-
comfiture on the Canadian frontier, and urge as proofs
his tardiness in issuing the late proclamation, and the
open and unpunished proceedings of some revenue
officers in favour of the invasion. Though these cir-
cumstances furnish some grounds for the accusation,
no person who looks dispassionately at the situation of
the two countries can believe for a moment that VAN
BUREN is such a madman as to stir up a war for the
unjustifiable purpose of adding the Canadas to the
United States. A war with Great Britain for such
an object would inevitably lead to a separation between
the Northern and Southern States. Even during the
last American war the interests of the two divisions of
the country were found so incompatible, that the con-
clusion of peace alone saved them from separation.
And what change has taken place since ? In 1891,
six years after the peace, the importation of cotton
from the Southern States into the British dominions
was less than the half of the amount imported
in 1830. In 1836, only six years more, it had
nearly trebled—that is, it had increased six fold
in fifteen years, and at present the value of cotton
imported from nine of the Southern States alone
cannot fall short of sixteen millions sterling a-year.
This is a peace-bond too strong to be rent asunder by
Mr. VAN BUREN and all the Northern States toge-
ther, supposing them blinded, as these Journals assert,
by sympathy for the Canadians, or lust for Canadian
conquest. Perhaps in the whole range of history there
is no instance of two independent portions of the globe
so interested in preserving mutual peace as Great Bri-
tain and the ten cotton growing States of North
America are at the present moment. Even without
war the slave question is producing alienation between
the South and the North, which prudence and mutual
forbearance might in time remove, but which would be
rendered utterly incurable by any scheme to strengthen
the States opposed to slavery by the acquisition of the
Canadas, and is it likely that CLAY and WEBSTER,
and other leaders of great ability and good sense in
Congress, independent of the vast body of merchants
to whom war would be ruin, will join with the Sympa-
thizers in a wanton, unjustifiable, and underhand act,
which would present on the one hand a distant pros-
pect of a doubtful, and at best, a bloody possession of
a new territory, and on the other the certain loss of
the most valuable provinces of this great and united
Republic. It is true, however, that rulers have occa-
sionally committed suicidal acts. One of our sovereigns
exchanged three kingdoms for a mass, and the obsti-
nacy of another severed the American Colonies from
the mother country. VAN BUREN, too, has his ob-
stinate fits, as the sub-treasury scheme proves ; but if
he is half so foolish as some of the American Papers
represent, and encourage a scheme so dishonourable
and so opposed to the interests and wishes of the great
body of the nation, these republicans have a remedy,
and we advise them to treat their President as England
has treated some of her Kings, not by cutting off his
head, but by depriving him of power, and sending him
to this country to learn controul, and acquire salutary
discipline under a limited monarchy.

CONQUET, DEC. 7.—The Norwegian brig Joseph, timber
laden and abandoned, has been on shore on the coast of
Onessant—cargo saved.

The Annandale, Craig, arrived at Aberdeen the 10th inst.,
was on the 30th ult., while lying-to in a heavy gale from W.
to N. N. W., in lat. 53., long. 31., struck by a sea, which
broke the rudder, carried away the main topmast, all the boats,
some stanchions, and two of the deck beams.
The Cecilia, Henderson, from Greenock to Demerara, was
spoken with 11th December, off Rothsay, going in leaky, by
the Rawley, Alexander, arrived at Greenock from Quebec.
The Siluria, Watts, bound to St. Michael's, after being
a considerable way to the Westward, arrived at Scilly.
The Judith, bound to Valparaiso, put into Rio Janeiro in
distress, bound to Liverpool.

The French Papers of Wednesday have been duly
received. Of political news of interest they contain
nothing, with the exception of a letter from Galicia,
relative to warlike preparations making by
Russia,
published by the Commerce, which will be found in
another part of The Sun. The writer infers from the
unusual magnitude of the movements which he
describes, that Russia is either preparing to
defend
herself against an attack which she judges inevitable,
or she is on the eve of making one which shall asto-
nish Europe.
The KING, by a Royal ordinance, has appointed
Marshal GERARD Commandant of the National
Guards of Paris, in the room of Marshal Count
Lon MU, deceased.

oThe l
the
pa
rt
ee svt adc i
ousv
dayes from
the Madrid are
Deputies(
closed
he t
inst.
e
on the Address by the adoption of General SEOANE'S
amendment, in which her Majesty is implored to
adopt more energetic measures to put an end to the
civil war. When this amendment was finally put to
the vott, only 12 votes out of 139 were given
against it. This is one step towards clearing
the ground for the appointment of a strong, popular
administration. An amendment similar to General
SEOANE'S was moved in the Senate by Senor CALA-
TRAVA, and ordered to be taken into consideration.
From the aristocratical constitution of that assembly
yt, notwithstand-
ingsurround the
o
it is not likely that it will meet with much favour.
Spain
earnest
continuesesi
rwithouto
f t h
e a
QUEENMini Ministry, r
throne with responsible advisers. It Was generally
rumoured that the Marquis PE MITI4FLORE.S had
been prevailed upon to accept the Presidency of the
Council, with Generals ALAIX and VIGADET, and
Senors PITA PIZARRO and OLOZA GA. for his col-
leagues in office.
Advices from Saragossa of . the 6th inst., announce
that on the previous day an engagement took place be-
tween four divisions of the QUEEN'S troops under the
coinimoti of the Viceroy Don DIEGO DE LEON, and
eight divisions of C47lists. According to the Chris-
tino account, the enemy was route 4 01 points with
great slaughter ; whereas, a Carlist bulletin sets forth
tbg the Christinos fled before the standard of DON
CARLOS Fb !!!! before the wind. Whether one or
other, or both, or PDXlker of true accounts be true or
false, is of very little moment. p,s,t
skirmishes that the civil war will ever be brought tq
.3 910,K,