The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-24 00:00:00

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.

Mr. Sheridan Knowles for one more night, and Mr. Hackett's
last Five Nights of performing in England.
THIS EVENING, FEB. 24.
Will be performed
HENRY THE FOURTH.
Falstaff, Mr. Hackett ; Hotspur, Mr. Saville.
To conclude with
THE HUNCHBACK.

Master alter, Mr. Sheridan Knowles; Fathom, Mr. Smith;
Julia, Mrs. Vining ; Helen, Miss Grant.

NEW STRAND THEATRE.

The extraordinary marvels, performed nightly by the
GREAT WIZARD of the NORTH, are of a nature so myste-
rious and truly wonderful, that, notwithstanding the march of
intellect, there is a general exclamation, " Is this extraordi-
nary being Mortal or Supernatural?"
On THIS EVENING (MONDAY), FEB. 24, 1940, and
during the week, the GREAT WIZARD of the NORTH will
'perform his extraordinary Mysteries a la Magique—proving that
he has the power to make the " eyes the fools o the other
senses," concluding with the paralysing
GUN TRICK,
Boxes, 2s. 6d.—Pit, Is. 6d —Gallery, 6d.
Doors open at Half-past Six—commencing at half-past Seven.

THE ROYAL
"WEDDING SUN"

OF MOI•TDAY, 10TH INST.,

CONTAINS TWO BEAUTIFUL
MEDALLION PORTRAITS

OF

THE QUEEN
AND

PRINCE ALBERT,
EXECUTED IN THE VERY FIRST
STYLE OF THE ART. THE LIKE-
NESSES ARE PRONOUNCED BY
COMPETENT JUDGES TO BE AD-
MIRABLE.

THE EXPENSE OF PRODUCING
THESE PORTRAITS HAS BEEN
VERY GREAT; BUT THE CHARGE
IS ONLY ONE SHILLING.

THE SUN, CONTAINING THESE
PORTRAITS, MAY BE RECEIVED
BY POST IN ALL PARTS OF THE
KINGDOM. PARTIES IN REMOTE
PLACES CAN REMIT A SHILLING
OR TWO, HALF A SOVEREIGN, OR
A SOVEREIGN,-FOR ONE PENNY
BY THE POST ; AND THEIR OR-
DERS WILL BE PUNCTUALLY AT-
TENDED TO.
THE SUN ALSO CONTAINS A FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE AUGUST CERE-
MONY, WITH ALL PARTICULARS
APPERTAINING TO SO INTERES-
TING AN OCCASION.

ORDERS FOR THE " ROYAL WED-
DING SUN" WILL BE RECEIVED
BY ALL NEWS-AGENTS AND POST-
MASTERS THROUGHOUT THE
KINGDOM, AND AT " THE SUN"
OFFICE, 112, STRAND, LONDON.

WATZU AT LONDON BRIDON TO-MORROW.
5S minutes after 0 I Evening 27 minutes after 7.

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4

LONDON: -
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1840.

A meeting is to be held this day the purpose
of forming in the metropolis an Anti.c
, Association. Several other facts are mentiornnedlwn
the provincial papers, and in letters from our Cor-
respondents, which show that the people are
pain-
fully alive to this important subject. It is
impos-
sible it should be otherwise. Every profession is
overdone with candidates for employment, every
business is overstocked with competing claimants
for custom. Socialism has grown up in part from
the intenseness of competition in a limited commu-
nity, -Which cannot extend its territory at pleasure,
and cannot bring food, which is equivalent to an
extension of territory, from other countries. Na-
- ture hems us in by the ocean ; and when the skill,
•courage,, and "perseverance of our people have con-
verted that into a great highway of communication,
opening the whole world to supply the wants
of our people, then the law steps in and pre-
vents the people from prating by their exertions in
. Overcoming the difficulties which nature has placed
in their way. Our ancestors, under the influer.ce of
a strong necessity, overran different countries to ex-

tend the sphere from which they could obtain food ;
while this generation, acting on the prejudice de-
rived from that period, continue to honour the qua-
lities w hien were then useful, and erect statues to
conquering Generals, and at the same time, by a
Corn-law, prohibit, in fact, that virtual extension of
our territory, for which conquest alone was and is
valuable. Our Saxon progenitors had some reason,
in their want of food, to spread themselves over the
world as far as they could ; but we have no reason
for our conquests, or establishing our colonies, since
we at the same time stop our people from getting
food, which is equivalent to conquering countries,
from other parts of the world. Our states-
men are at once short-sighted and inconsistent, for
they cannot foresee the ruin to their system which
time is bringing forward, and which they hasten to
promote by colonization, while they seek to pre-
vent it by impeding the. importation of food. On
the ono hand, they are at great expense to establish
and maintain new homes for our circumscribed
people, and, on the other, they do all they
can to limit their resources to this narrow island.
It is this latter part of their conduct which makes
our people too numerous for the comparatively few
employments to which they are thus limited.
Those who are now about to discuss the influence
of the Corn-laws, will, we hope, take an enlarged
view of the question, and, forsaking the narrow
ground of the injuriousness of the Corn-laws to the
manufacturers,will attempt to show that it is an enact-
ment as much in opposition to the natural course of
society now as would have been a law in the second
century to confine the; German tribes to their
original homes ; that it iSpernicious, accordingly, to
the whole community, and is the main cause for
that difficulty, which all classes and condi-
tions now feel, to obtain a suitable reward for
their labours or provide for their families. We are
duly sensible of the :injury the Cern-law does to
our manufactures ; but that is only one part of the
enormous evils they inflict on the community,
while other persons are taught to suppose, by that
single consideration being pressed on the public,
that other classes would be injured by the same
chant e. It will be wise, therefore, in those who
are now taking the lead in this measure, to extend
their views, and seek :to obtain the repeal of the
Corn-laws, on account of their general, not their
local or partial mischief-

Our readers must have been much amused by the
proceedings at the Freemason's Tavern on Friday.
The Tories called the meeting, and intended to
pass strong resolutions against the claims of the
Commons on the subje,et of Privilege. They were,
however, forestalled, and disappointed. The Libe-
rals laid their plans well, and took possession of
the chair and the meeting before the Tories
had collected. Mr. Under-Sheriff FRANCE took
on himself, when he :arrived, to claim the chair,
to which he had about as much right as any other
attorney who is employed by the Sheriff. His
presumption in reading the Riot Act in a room,
because his claims were -resisted, and his own friends
had kicked up a row, is an unexampled piece of ar-
rogance. We presume that the Tories will not call
a public meeting of any kind after this example of
their inability to control such a meeting, even on
the supposed popular questio❑ of opposing the pri-
vileges of the House of Commons.

Press of matter has hitherto prevented us from
adverting at length to the debate on Mr. DUN.
COMER'S motion for the release of JOHN THO-
ROGOOD, and the exemption of conscientious
Dissenters from the payment of Church-rates.
If the result was unsuccessful as to the main
object of the motion, the discussion which
preceded it cannot fail to open the eyes of
the Dissenting comm_unity to the real state of
their cause, to the faults they have committed; and
to the course they have to pursue, in order to im-
press the Legislature with a proper sense both of
their importance and of the necessity of granting
their just demands.
That the Dissenters have been losing ground of
late cannot admit of a doubt. The House of Com-
mons, which used to treat them with respect, if not
with deference, now turns up its nose at them,
and almost kicks their petitions under the
table. Yet it is but a short time—not
quite three vears—sinee the House ordered
a Bill to be brought in for abolishing
Church-rates, and supporting the Church entirely
out of its own funds. Last year, the House
passed a resolution which, while it showed a consi-
derable deduction from the amount of zeal formerly
exhibited on the Church-rate question, evinced an
apparent desire to relieve the Dissenters from the
grievous burden of which they complained at an
early period of the following Session.
The resolution to which we refer evaS couched in
the following words : " That it will be the duty of
the Legislature, at the earliest possible period of
ae next Session of Parliament, to make such
alter ttions in the existing laws for levying Church-
rates as should prevent the recurrence of a like
violence (the imprisonment of THOROGOOD) being
ever again inflicted on that portion of her
MAJESTY'S subjects who conscientiously dissent
from the rites or doctrines of the Established
Church." The question is brought before the
House again this Session, and again we find a
further fall of the barometer. In 1840 the
Dissenters are _ told by her MAJESTY'S
Leader of the House of Commons, that the victim
of Ecclesiastical vengeance, for whom the House
had last year expressed its sympathy,, whom it
acknowledged by its vote to have been subjected to
violence, and through whose sufferings it had been
induced to pledge itself that it would take speedy
measures to prevent the " recurrence of the like
violence"—the Dissenters are told by Lord JOHN
RUSSELL that this persecuted': man is deserving
of no sympathy, because he ought. not to have al-
lowed his scruples of conscienceseligious scruples,
mind—to get the better of his _!*ramount duty to
obey the Church-rate law ; that, moreover, the
said law, which compels Dissenters to give their
money to the maintenance of`: a: religious system
which they hold to be highly gen:mental to the in-
terests of Christianity, is founded-op a wise, fair, and
just principle ; and that all .he will consent to
do, in the way of relief to the;Dissenters, is to
transfer—not the burden to the shoulders which
ought to bear it, but—the duty of enforcing
the payment of the conscience-oppressing
tax from one Court to anotherfrom a Court
which cannot get at the property of the
recusant, to one that shall have_no difficulty in
bringing it instanter to the hammer. A grand mea-
sure of relief truly And what says " the House"
on this subject ? Just 62 Members out of the
whole 658 are found disposed to relieve the Dis-
senters from the greatest of their still too numerous
grievances !
But it is the, easiest thing in the world to ac-
count for this backsliding on the part of Honour-
able Gentlemen. The Dissenters three years ago
were "up and doing." They were hearty in their
own cause—full of energy and activity. They held
public meetings, made speeches, sent delegates
from all parts of the country to the metropolis,
loaded the table of the House with their petitions ;
they showed, in short, that they were in earnest.
That is the whole secret of the Church-rate Abo.
lition Bill being brought in.
temp and t
h at time,
ivery
,
tehvearrn sacitsesneht:t:ep.reusvrietl ra'ov few aebsnetelh)nuu tsgi araas mdtue.
ally cooling down,
until they have arrived at the point of torpidity.
They feel, or—which is the same thing—they
seem to Teel, no interest in their own concerns, but
have handed them over to others whose prejudices
are opposed to Dissent, or whose interests lie in a
different direction from theirs. They put their
trust in Cabipet Ministers, in humbug Societies,
in time-serving Patriots, when they ought to
trust only to themselves. They are become
" quiet," and the Times now tells them that quiet-
ness is a title to " respectabilit
Let them look into their . own history, and tell
us what they have ever got by
being qu e
but the pity of their friends andthecOn
their enemies ? Those degrading badges of contempt
a\ tp‘i