The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-11 00:00:00

TO TIIE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sin,—l perceive by the altnanack that the Quarter
Sessions throughout England and Wales will be held
this year in the last week of December, consequently
there will be five quarter sessions in one year! This
is very irregular and most inconvenient, as it takes
away the magistrates and others from their occupa-
tions in the middle of the Christmas holidays. It
would be very desirable if some Member of Parliament
would muve, in the ensuing session, to repeal this Act,
and bring back the Quarter Sessions to the time at
which they were held for a series of years, viz , the
first week after the Epiphany.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
AN ACTING MAGISTRATE.

London, Dec. 10.

NAVAL INTELLICiENCE.
Colonel Irvine arrived at Devonport on the night
of the 6th on an official visit. On the 7th, in the

morning, he inspected the new works at Keyham and
the new I)sin in the dockyard.
The Constance, 50, Captain Courtenay, was paid
off on the 7:1 inst., at Devonport
The Penguin packet, Lieut. Leslie, went out of De-
vonport harbour on Friday, and sailed on Saturday
for Falmouth.

The cin'grant ship Glentanner having touched the
ground on her way from London, she is expected to
be taken into dock for axaminatiun in Devonport
dockyard.

Vie Lucifer steamer, after undergoing various re-
pairs, was to be taken out of dock at Devonpurt on
Saturday.
DEVONPORT.—In the Sound, Stromboli. In har-
bour—lmpregnable, Agincourt, indefatigable, Luci-
fer, Expres7,, Nautilus, Sylph, Fearless, Myrtle,
Camel, Ilatnoaze, and Tortoise lighters, and Confiance

steam tug.
The Chatham, yacht, and Duck, lighter, have been
taken into dock at Chatham to be examined. Their

bottoms were examined, and they were put out on
Friday.
The Royal Standard has been hoisted half-mast at
the flag-staff at the Queen's stairs, Chatham, and on
board the Poictiers ; and all the ships in the river
have their flags half-mast high, on account of the death
of the Queen Dowager.
WooLwicti, DEC. 10.—The Tiger steam-sloop
was towed from Chatham to the East India Docks by
the Advice and Adder steam-vessels, and passed
Woolwich at eight o'clock, .x.sx , yesterday, on her
way up the river. It is doubtful if she will get into
dock before the spring-tides at the end of the week.
She is to be fitted with engines by Seaward and Co.,
of the City Canal Works.
Lieutenant Robertson and Mr. Casey, with
engineers and stokers of Captain Austin's steam
department, returned to Woolwich yesterday evening,
from Sheerness, after being engaged i❑ trying the
steaming qualities of the Amphion, 30, steam-frigate
with engines of 300-horse power for four successive
days, in the deep water between the Nore and Nob
channel. The trials lasted on each day from daylight
in the morning until dusk in the evening, anchoring
each evening so as to be ready to start at an early hour
on the following morning. The result of the trials
gave an advantage over those previously made, the
speed being, on the average of four runs at the nice-
_

silted distance betwixt the Nore and Mouse lights,
very nearly 61 knots per hour; the engines making
about 48 revolutions per minute with a pressure of
steam of about 9lbs. The draught of water was 17
feet ten inches forward, and 18 feet 9 inches aft, and
the diameter of the screw 16 feet, with a pitch of 21
feet. New india-rubber valves have been supplied,
and they worked well during the trials.
The Minx steam vessel has her steam up to-day,
to try her disc engines, preparatory to another expe-
rimont being made with her down the river. The
public are misled when they are informed that the
experiments in the Minx and Ariel steam-vessels
entail a great expense to the Admiralty. On the
nontrary, the inventors or owners of the patents in
both instances not only employ and pay their own
men, but also for every particle of coal consumed in
the trials. The Government certainly allows the
Monkey, or any other steam-vessel disengaged at
the time, to be present at the trials, but they take
care that inventors do not interfere in the least
with the other duties of the tugs.
The Monkey steam-vessel, Master- Commander
Bryant, was employed at an early hour this morn-
ing in assisting to take the Archer steam-sloop out
of the basin into the harbour, and then came
alongside the wharf-wall of the dockyard to take on
board several hundred fathoms of powerful mooring
chains to moor the convict ships, now removed to
their former station opposite the Royal Arsenal.
Intelligence was received on Saturday that Mark
Thompson, one of the convicts who recently escaped
from the Royal Arsenal, has been captured in
Scotland.
An express messenger arrived at Woolwich shortly
after eleven o'clock, A ill., to-day, with an order from
the Admiralty that the Enterprise and Investigator,
the vessels recently returned from the Arctic regions,
should be immediately coppered and expedited with
the grcatest dispatch. It is evident, from this order,
that it has been decided to dispatch these vessels as
early as they can be got ready, and that they will
proceed round Cape Horn to Bhering'a Straits, as it
would have been superfluous to have them coppered
had it been intended to send them again in the
spring direct to the North St a in the direction of
Davis' Straits. This arrangement is considered by
those who have been engaged in the recent Arctic
expedition as the most advisable to be adopted, rs
the direction of Lancaster Sound, Barrow's
Straits, and Prince Leopold's Inlet, is now
amply supplied with provisions and means of
cooking them, should Captain Sir John Franklin's
party return by that route, one of Redpath's im-
proved boat-stoves having been left with the provi-
sions. It is made of copper, and not liable to injury
from the weather ; and although only 561bs. in weight
capable of cooking for twenty men, besides having a
teakettle, a baking and frying pan in operation at the
same time, with an excellent oven. Every one in-
terested in the safety of the enterprising navigators

will be gratified to learn that the Admiralty had such
forethought in so perfectly providing for the absent
officers and crews of the Erebus and Terror, and
that they now intend using the means in their power
in another direction.

The Archer steam•sloop has taken 125 tons of
coals on board, and is now in the harbour ready to
be taken to Devonport on the arrival of the
Sampson steam-frigate. It is understood the Archer
will be immediately commitsioned on her arrival at
Devonport.

APPOINTMENTS.
Mate—Afountford Stephen Lovicle Peile (1849) to
the Phaeton, 50 gun frigate, Sheerness ; Augustui
Thomas John Bullock (1849) to the Terrible sWam-
frigate, at Woolwich.

iNlidshipmen—John 0. Kidd to the Impregnable
flag ship at Devonport ; Wellesley Gregory to the
Contest at Portsmouth.

NAval Cadets—Sidney Shore to the Fisguard
frigate flag ship at Woolwich ; John Gifford to the
Stromboli steam-sloop ; and George W. Bloxsome to
the Phaeton.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
CHRONICLE—The regulation of the private
expenditure of individuals is a subject in regard to
which the doctrines of political economy and the
rules of social morality require to be adjusted with
seine discrimination. It is impossible to dispute the
position of Mr. Sidney Herbert, that people will, as a
general rule, buy where they can buy cheapest—and
it were idle to expect that the mass of mankind should
do otherwise. The law of competition is a natural,
and in the long run, beyond all doubt, a wholesome
law. But, like other good things in this imperfect
state, it has its drawbacks and its abuses—evils which
are incidental to it, although not of its essence ;
whereas those of the opposite system—monopolv—are
the natural and inherent vices of a false principle. A
free outlet for surplus producers is the true antidote
for an excess of competition—the necessary safety-
valve for a redundant labour-market. Here, in Eng-
land, at the present day, the harvest is relatively
small, and the labourers are too many. We must
send them forth to a field where the harvest is more
abundant, and where the hands to reap it are still
too few. This is the corrective which a sound
political economy prescribes—the true social
remedy for a social disease. But so long as that
disease exists (and it is clearly one which it will
require time to cure), there are obligations of a
private kind which humanity and justice impose upon
individuals—inasmuch as by the disposal of their
private expenditure, in one way or another, it is in
their power, in no small degree, either to aggravate or
to assuage those terrible calamities which grind down
the victims of an intense and unlimited competition.
We believe that the commercial reputation of this
country, and the principles of justice to the public and
of mercy to the poor, have been grievously compro-
mised, within the last few years, by that rage for buy-
ing and selling articles below their honest and
intrinsic value, the visible signs of which are so
obtrusive in this metropolis. Let us not be misun-
derstood. The cheapness that arises from abundant
supply and unrestricted markets is a great blessing;
but there is a fictitious and bastard cheapness which
is but another name for extortion and oppression. The
system of " puffing," with all its modern excrescences
and refinements—its elaborate apparatus of advertising
vans, processions, and placards—its lying legends of
" Extensive Bankruptcies," " Tremendous Sacrifices,"
and " Selling under Prime Cost"—with all the other
tricks, " dodges," and evasions which an uncon-
scionable cupidity gives rise to—this system, we say,
while it has made the fortunes of a few unscrupulous
individuals, has gone far to deteriorate the standard
of mercantile honesty. and relax the strictness of
private dealings. To buy waistcoats or shirts "for
the million" at a price which can neither cover the
value of an honest article nor yield a subsistence to
the miserable being who has produced it, can never
be really an advantageous, nor is it, if strictly weighed,
an equitable transaction. In the first place, enormous
puffing is extremely costly, and must, as a matter of
course, be charged on the customer. But the difference
between the price paid and the real value of the
commodity which the seller professes to supply is
infalliby compensated—aye, and much more than com-
pensated—by the inferiority of the material, and by
those numerous artifices which ingenuity has devised
for giving to vamped-up and counterfeit merchandize
the aspect of a genuine and valuable article. To
meet the desire for cheapness thus stimulated, the
manufec!urer, in his turn, is led to debase his produc-
tions—and the demand of the retail ae.i—ro
spurious wares, " made to sell," deteriorates the
fabrics and damages the character of our provincial
marts of industry. It is a common complaint, that
many staple articles of domestic manufacture are not
made now of as good quality as they used to he in
former days. And no wonder.—if the public are no
longer willing to pay a remunerative price for them.
The wholesale market naturally follows the demands
of the retail; and the "devil's dust" of the factory
towes is the natural correlative of the "cheap out-
fitting shops" of the metropolis. But another mode
by which these mushroom establishments are enabled
to cat ry on their system is, beyond all doubt, that of
screwing down to the lowest point the wages
of those who work for them All the evi-
dence which our Special Correspondents have
elicited proves this fact. To enable the "cheap
shops"' to run their gambling and mischievous
career—underbidding one another, ruining the honest
tradesman, and frequently, in the end, themselves
also—the miserable weavers, tailors, and in
are compelled to take less and less, until the impulse
of self-preservation drives them to crime or prostitu-
tion. It would be well if the purchaser of the tick-
eted velvet mantle or the flashy satin waistcoat which
perplex all calculation by their cheapness, would re-
flect sometimes at what a fearful cost of body and
soul to the spirit- broken artisan their under-priced
finery has been obtained. 'We are quite aware that
the buyer of cheap goods of the more common de-
scription is, not unfrequently, himself almost as much
the victim of necessity as the unfortunate beings
whose labour has produced them. The extreme re-
duction of prices which prevails is, to a great extent,
the consequence of that very pressure of the times
which has contracted so greatly the means of pur-
chasers. Those who are under the alternative of
buying cheap, or else of going without the necessa-
ries of their station, must not be judged too harshly.
But there is a love of bargain- making for its
own sake, which carries away some persons who have
not the apology of necessity. Men may be found—
and we fear we must add women also—free and self-
indulgent enough in their personal expenditure, to
%how, nevertheless, the achievement of a " surprising
bargain" is an object of indefatigable pursuit and of
unbounded self congratulation. For the sake of this
paltry triumph, which flatters their vanity more than
it saves their purse, they will stoop to many mean
shifts, and they will often undergo no trifling sacrifice
of self respect. They will forsake the established
and well reputed tradesman of the neighbourhood,
who has a moral claim on their support, and will run
after any reckless adventurer, without capital or
character, who only undersells his honest rival by
plundering his creditors. They will make themselves
accessaries before the fact to fraudulent bankruptcies,
or participants in the still greater wrong of depress-
ing the wages of industry below subsistence point.
These things, we know, are often done in utter
ignorance, or from mere want of reflection ; but it
is high time that, in matters which involve the condi-
tion of the working classes of England, ignorance
and thoughtlessness should prevail no longer. The
ignorance we are ourselves doing all that in us lies to
dispel—the thoughtlessness we would fain arouse by
the remarks which we now offer, in the hope of
exciting some, who may be self convicted of their
truth, to a juster consideration of what they owe to
their fellow-creatures. " Live and let live," rightly
understood, is a golden maxim—the spirit of which
requires that we should take no advantage of the
necessitous, and be no partakers with the overreach-
ing ; that we should be content with an honest profit
fur what we sell, and be willing to give a remunera-
tive price for what we buy. There is no discordance
between these moral duties and the conclusions of
sound political economy, which are, in other phrase,
the laws of nature. We may buy in the cheapest
market, but we must still have a conscience in our
dealings. We may guard ourselves against the
exactions of monopoly, but we must not avail our-
selves of the abuses of competition.

SOUTII-WESTERN RAILWAY. The secretary
has intimated, by circular, to the shareholders, that at
the approaching special meetitig every opportunity will
be afforded them of instituting the fullest and freezt
inquiry into the charge brought against the directors,
adding, that the charge in question is founded on a total
misapprehension of the circumstances.
DEATII OF DOWAGER LADY FFRENCIL—We have
this day to record the death of the Dowager Lacly
Ffrencb, which event took place on Friday, the 7th inst.,
at her residence in Cvienltte, near ;his town, in the 83d
year of her age. Iler Ladyship was daughter of the
late Thomas llcdington, Esq., of Met:nice, and nunt
of Thomas N. Itedingtoo, Eq., Under-Secretary for
Ireland. The last thirty years of her Ladyship's life
have been devoted to the alleviation of the wants of the
poor, to whom she was an unbounded boiefactress.
Charity the most extensive, with all the other Christian
virtues, were the last thoughts of this benevolent and
much regretted lady.—Galway Vindicator.
SERIOUS FIRE IN MANCHESTER.—A serious fire
took place on Sunday afternoon, at the works of Mestra.
Lillie and Sons, millwrights and machine-makers, Store-
street. The whole of the building wss almost de-
stroyed, and upwards of 400 pt ople will be thrown out
of employment by this sad event. The fire originated
in the top story of the building, but no one has yet
been able to ascertain the origin of it. The loss is
stated to be upwards of 23,0001., and the property is
insured in the Atlas and %Vest of England Fire-offices
for 8,2001. It is expected that there will be some sal-
vage, as a portion of the outside walls, with some
machines and a 30-horse engine, Las been save "from
the general yr reek.