The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

lire are of the number of those who conceive that
the .protection of property is an object of paramount
imporfairce, and that all invasions of property which
endangai its security demand the especial attentior
of men in authority, and ought to be met by ap-
propriate punishrnear. But great care is necessary
that the zeal foran;forciog the law be accompanied
by sound discretion, and that titv punishments be
not more severe, than in-the opinion of tic societ)
on which they are intended to operate as en example,
they ought to be. If the severity be such as to en-
list the feelheas cf the people on the side of the
guilty, then the object sought to be attained by pit-
nishntent—the protection of property—is weakened,
instead of being strengthened. I.Ve fear the Cain-
pro
•p, as • it has been called, in Hampshire and Wilt-
shire, has not tended to strengthen the reve-
rence of the people for the administration of justice.
We had our apprehensions before the commence-
xnent of the catnpaign, and it was on this ac-
count that we were so anxious that Lord Chief
Baron Alexander should make way for Lord Lynd-
hurst, that the services of the latter might be ob-
tained in the Special Commissions. Lord'Lyedhurst
is cool and discriminating, and under him the trial-
wculd have been conducted in such a manner as to
conciliate the approbation of the country, while the
severity of the sentence, where it was severe,
would have given rise to less animadversion. Thi
dissatisfaction of the public is caused partly by
the disproportionate severity of the law Figitifli, break-
ing machinery, and partly by the absence of that tem-
per On the Bench so necessary to satisfy the public
of the impartiality of the tribunal. For instance,
in the case of Isaac Looker, tried for writing a
threatening letter, reported in the Chronicle of yes-
terday, and found guilty, though it was afterwards
ascertained the prisoner did not write the letter, the
terms and tone of the charge of Mr. Justice Alder-
son have struck all readers of the, report with asto-
nishment. The sentence of transportation pro-
nouriced in this caie will not, we suppose, be carded
into execution ; but when, on conflicting evidence, a
Judge is seen to express himself so contitleetly
against a prisoner, who, after all, is found to be in-
nocent, reverence for the tribunal is not a little im-
paired. We have been hitherto averse to notice
these judicial proceedings, from an unwillingness, at
so critical a conjuncture as the present, to be at all
necessary to the arraying public opinion against the
administration of the law. But dissatisfaction has
manifested itself so universally, that it becomes im-
possible to be longer silent on the subject. Among
others who have petitioned on behalf of the unfor-
tunate men is the Council of the Birmingham Union.
The Council say, that " those unhappy individuals
have been goaded into such desperate proceedings,
under the excitement and phrenzy produced by a
long course of unparalleled sufferings and privations,
`inch
out of cruel and oppressive Nwe, some of
have been expressly intended to enhance the
aae'less
eseeeoeptice of bread, arid others of which have been
equally calculated to beat down the price of labour."
As in every country laws are made in the supposed
interest of the makers, it would be rather a dangerous
plea to allow general oppression under the law to just ify
individuals iu the violation of it. There is a some-
what better plea, in the general ignorance of these
people, that in breaking machinery they were com-
mitt:ng a crime punishable with death, and in the
language held by those to whom they looked up as
authorities. It is well known that Magistrates in
many places recommended farmers to break their
machines ; that the people imagined they had the
sanction of the Magistrates; at all events, that ma•
• chinery was an evil which ought to be put down.
They were not told by the Magistrate:; that break-
ing machinery was a crime punishable with death;
nil, indeed, so little was this known, that when the
Home Office published a placard containing a state-
ment of the law, it excited no small degree of asto-
nishment. That machinery ought to be protected
is what no reflecting man will deny. But the poor
have not been brought to consider the destruction
of machinery an evil. On the contrary, they be-
lieve that machinery is injurious to the working
classes. With such a belief, they will be but too
apt to consider the men who suffer the penalty of
the law as martyrs rather than criminals. How
often do we hear men, even of education, inveigh-
ing against machinery as the cause of the distress of
the labouring classes. Nay, did not Lord Wyn-
ford,. lately, in the House of Lords, attribute the
sufferings of the people to machinery ; and did not
Lord Eldon endeavour to set his Lordship right ?
While the higher ranks perplex the people in this
manner, some allowance ought surely to be made
for them. A case tried at the Worcester Sessions
exhibits a very different result. An out-going
tenant of Lord Northwick possessed a barn, ac-
cording to the cu-tom of the county, in which he
had a machine. A constable and five other in-
dividuals, under the directions of Lord North-
wick,, proceeded to the barn to destroy the
machine. Perhaps his Lordship was afraid that the
hostility to machinery might travel into Worcester-
shire: But his Lordship sat rot the Bench during
the trial of the six men, who were convicted, and
sentenced to pay certain fines. This case has, it is
said, been looked to with greet interest by the Yee-
manry of Worcestershire. Will the fines imposed
in such a case serve to deter from the commission
of a similar offence in future? So far from it, as
has been remarked, were the instructions to be re-
peater), they would be obeyed with readiness, pro-
bably by the same parties. In the case of tire men
under sentence of death, at Winchester, a petition
from that place, numerously signed, has been trans-
mitted to the Home Office. The influential people,
however, have generally refused to sign it, and the
Clergy urge, that whatever the law may be, so long
as it is law, it ought to be enforced. This would
be a good reason, were the law always enforced.—
But we know, that in cases where the law is well
known, the punishment of death, though often pro-
nounced, is so seldom enforced, that criminals cal-
culate on the chances of pardon as far outweighing
the chances of punishment. Have not the re-
formers of our Criminal Law been constantly urging
the substitution of mild anti certain punishments to
sanguinary hut uncertain punishments. file Clergy
of Hampshire may have received a new light since
the recent outrages ; they once had very different
notions regarding Penal Law,-111Orning Chronicle.
Our readers will find in another column a letter
from Mr. Charles Tennant, Member for St. Albans,
in which he ably exposes the absurdity of the argu-
ments urged in taveur of legislative interference with
the mode of paying labourers. \Ve are almost
tempted to believe there is something like trick in
throWing out illusory schemes for the relief of the
poor—that they are thrown out as a sort of tub to
the whale—to keep the people from attaining to a
serious knowledge of the causes of the evils from
aahich they stiffer. At one time the people are told
by the authorities of the country that the labourers
would be greatly benefited by the general adoption
of truck; at another, they are told that truck is
cutting them up root and branch ; the truth being,
that the whole matter is beside the question of how
the labourer is to be really benefited. In 1795,
when tine poor were suffering dreadfully from high
prices, t]es Magistrates, at their Quarter Sessions,
in order to keep the people patient, amused them
with tine benefits they were to derive from truck. In
a " Report on the Inquiry' into the General State
of the Poor," instituted by order of the Hampshire
Magistrates—a production which wag cried up at
the time by the local authorities all over the country
---we are told that economy is to supply the place
A3f. a rise of wages, and that—
" One' obvious way of masters promoting this great
point of economy in their servants is to lessen the objects
of it by leaving as little as possible to their own manage-
ment ; the more of their maintenance they receive in kind
and the les, to money the better, as, the less passes through
their own the less they can suffer by their own itn-
provdenee el! misapplication, or tine imposition of others;
the greatest degree of which arises tram their being
obliged to have recourse to little retail shops, at the
double disadvantage of paying the most for the worst corn-
z"dities. - .. . Every master should be