The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1841.

the illum:nations Of " absolute wisdom" are not y:-:t

wholly withdrawn from the oracles of civic lie.
liorrentheque prueul secreta
Antrum immane, petit : "
(Yet he did not leave the Justice-room ;)-
44 Magnam cui mentem, aniaininque
" Delius inspirat vates
The worthy Magistrate rejected even the modified

• - 3
plication of Mr. hapallo to be placed under the cus-
tody of the City officere, an I decreed that accurately
to meet the peculiar exigencies of this very remarkable,
and very complicated, and very doubtful case, the only
course to he taken, with any degree of security, cer-
tainty, or legal accuracy was—to commit him to the
City Compter! But the. constitutional good nature of
a British sabjeut prevailing over the unconstitutional
precipitation of an Alderman who " takes sweet
counsel," he declared that he would limit his re-
mand only till to-morrow, and thus give the Go-
vernment, by t iking the re-hearing at twelve
o'clock this day, the opportunity to bring forward whar.

evidence it might have to substantiat...: the case against

Mr. Rapallo. v Nced we say that we feel no sympathy
with Mr. Rapallo, beyond that which our reverence for
the forms of law and the just weight of evidence de-
mands that we should show to any one whom we con-
sider, in the case brought before the bench, to have been
so horribly treated as this party unquestionably was `?

What answer was given to Mr. Lefroy's question,

_ .
where was the evidence of forgery ? None. And
why did not the Exchequer appear, if it meant to
insist upon the case, in the person of Lord Mont-
eagle himself, or of his deputy, or of some subordi-
nate functionary, with one (!i. THE bias charged to
be forged, fabricated, or fraudulently issued. The
prisoner's attestel statement—the bill—and Lord
Nfonteagle or his deputy's evidence to its fabrication or
forgery—would have supplied an abundant case to jus-
tify Rapallo's committal, even to Newgate. But then
the cross-examination! What a case would that have

supplied against the controlling management of the Ex-
chequer ! One or two facts that appear on the face of
Mr. Rapallo's statement bespeak a coolness in applying
for—a facility in granting—and a possibility of tiding
over, for years, undetected—supplies of paper convertible
into "bright shining mettle," which provoke—whilst, like
the wealth of that brewing concern which found a George
Robins in no less a personage than Dr. Johnson, " they may
" enrich, beyond—the dreams of avarice." Mr. RA..
pallo,—an Italian we believe, must have bean an
admirer of one of the most serene and consummate
creations of Shakspeare, when he coolly asked this Mr.
Smith, and Mr. Smith—absolutely without any appa-
rent corresponding inte:est in the affair as coolly con-
sents,—to give him the accommodation of eighty-one
bill 3 of 1,000/. each ; he seems to have laboured in the
very spirit of that reckless knight who said to his Prince
" Rob me the Exchequer, Hal !"
And in the emphasis with which he dwells on Mr.
Smith's tenacity and his own precision in replacing the
bills at the stipulated periods he had not forgotten the
other part of the injunction
" And do it with clean bands."
TIMES.—We observe in a Morning Journal of
Tuesday, a letter appealing to the public in favour of
the London compositors and pressmen, now, as it as-
serts, suffering under greater distress than has occurred
" during the lengthened period of the art of printing,"
i. e., " about four centuries ;" " and hundreds," it says,
" can attest the fact." The letter itself, as the extract
might lead one to surmise, is of true Radical calibre,
rather bold in its assertions, rather peculiar in its adap-

tation of conclusion to premises, not pointedly accurate
in its English, and even unusually stocked with " ra-
diant beams," " gates of knowledge," " suns of the mo-
ral system," " effulgent luminaries, " whirlwind moans
of distress," and so on. It states, however, that out
of 2,500 compositors now in London, upwards of 1,300
are out of work, and 500 are not earning more than
10s. a week ; and this, if it is not, like the " fact"
above quoted, a mere random assertion (and the writer
gives his name), must involve most heavy suffering in
the class, not always very provident, to which he be-
longs. It is with mixed feelings that we notice this
statement. Doubtless, if the distress exists as there
described, and we have no reason to doubt it, it has a
powerful claim on our charity ; and we are not unwilling
to hope that its mention in our columns may attract
towards it the notice of those who are able and willing
to assist the sufferers. But, on the other hand, it is
our duty, not lessened but increased by circumstances to
which we shall immediately allude, to caution those cha-
ritable persons against the particular channel through
which the letter in question proposes that the relief should
flow ; which is a committee of " the trade," i. e.,
the body of compositors and pressmen, organized
at a "general meeting" held at the Mechanics' Insti-
tution, Southampton-buildings. Now, of these "ge-
neral meetings of the trade at Southamption-buildings,"
we have had some little experience. We have before
us a paper issued by one of them a few years back,
containing 22 articles, drawn up to serve as a basis
for a general union of the trade, with objects which may
be gathered from the following paragraph :
" To give increased efficiency to the measures of this
body an extensive system of communication will be esta-
blished with the various societies in the country, so that
the measures of the different provincial societies may at
at all times be forwarded, by the co-operation of the
compositors of the metropolis ; and that the latter in
their turn, may not have (as hitherto) their views
Lirustrated by the inl,oduction qf strangers, unaware of
the causes of their disputes, and who are frequently
lured into engagements by the plausible misrepresenta-
tions of unworthy emploners."
And again—Article :
" That as the Trade Council is established for the
purpose of procuring for every compositor such a re-
muneration for his labour as the scale and acknow-
ledged custom warrants, they shall he empowered to
use all prudent and legal means to obtain the subscrip-
tion of every individual in the trade ; and shall endea-
your to secure compliance with their decisions, and to
prevent any other person from assuming the right of
deciding the prices of work, or of dictating what course
should be pursued in any dispute with the employers ;
but any subscription (nor permit any
toname) except such as have been
be they
levied lie
in notth
e levyitheir
previously agreed to by a general or delegated meeting
of the trade."
This union, which had long existed under another
form, was organized as far as London was concerned,
and proceeded to claim absolute jurisdiction in all mat-
ters between employers and employed, dictating to the
one what terms they should give, denouncing the others
if they acceded to any others, and establishing itself (as
we have seen) as leader and protector of such "strikes,"
partial or general, as it might deem advisable should
take place. Before it had been established two years
we were favoured with some little specimen of its
working, which we suppose may be taken as a
sample of the rest. Some twenty-five years previous the
noes had been disobedeint to some regulations or
ether of " the trade." On this had followed, first a
defeated strike, then a general anathemas of the office,
the consequence of which was, and is, that any who,
after having worked on our paper, return to the " book
trade," are, as the trade's own report words it, the sub-
jects of reproach and persecution. We ourselves, in-
deed, did not experience any great embarrassment or
discomfort from this scat,: of hostility, but it must have
operated rather severely upon that class for whose pro-
tection it was enforced, by excluding them from any
shame in an establishment considerably larger than any
of its kind in London, and, as the " Trade Council" did
not pretend to deny, notoriously liberal in its payments.
Notoriously liberal, we say, for the following was part
of the exordium of their own manifesto :
" The compositors of the pre;cnt day ale told that
the Times-office is considered unfair, and they know
that those who have worked on that paper are the
subjects of persecution ; but why it is closed, and they,
the men, are persecuted, is not known, perhaps, to more
than 200 persons in the whole trade. We have long
Leen accustomed to hear, at almost every turn, that the
men on the Times are liberally paid for their labour ;'
that hundreds doubt the justice of closing an establish-
ment which •employs more persons than any other daily
journal, and which to many has been represented as a
kind of Valley of Diatnonds, in which it is only neces-
sary to enter in order to secure an ample supply of pre-
sent necessaries, and a handsome competency for old.
age. . , • • .
" A tedious history," we still say, in the words of the
Council, "of the disputes of the Times-office is not
necessary for our purpose. * In 1810, the
Timesq:ffice was closed, and men anti boys were em-
ployed upon the paper fora few years, when at length the
house was again opened, and declared fair. But in
1816 the house was again closed, and has never since
been re-opened. Several internal complaints have
caused men at -carious times to leave, and it is nineteen
years since this house was under the influence of the
trade."
Now the said Trade Council, taking all these cir-
cumstances into its consideration, that the sacrifice
yeas so great to its own protege's, and the offence so
long past, thought it discreet, " in order that ieno-
ranee of the state and practices of the Times
newspaper should not be pleaded in extenuation
by those who hereafter may work upon that journal,
and in order to guide the trade io their decisions upon
the subject ; believing that a knowledge of the evil will
go far to effect a cure, and trusting that the trade will
believe that the efforts of the Trade Council in this
particular result from a sense of duty and love of jus-
tice.," to place before the trade the original cause of
quarrel, and pass resolutions denunciatory of those who
continued to work with us, after an " attempt at ad-
justment," to the followin, tune :
" RESOLUTIONS RESPECTING THE MODE
OF WORKING ON THE 'LIMES NEWS-
PAPER, AGREED TO ON THE 15TH OF
NOVEMBER, 1835.
" 1. That the division of labour on The Times news-
paper into day and nightworkis contrary to the long-esta-
blished practice of the business, and cannot be recog-
nized by the London Union of Compositors.
" 2. That the bookmen having, in 1793, joined with
the newsmen in ejecting
apprentices from newspapers,
present employment of them on the Times newspaper
cannot be recognised by the London Union of Com-
positors.