The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1840.

measures to support their practice of religion. It is dis-
graceful to them.—( Hear, hear.) I wish some arrange-
! meat could) e made, to out an end to the contention on
this subject; but, if that is not done, they may rely upon
it that the spirit of Englishmen will never be subdued.
There are scattered through the country men who love
their religion too well to submit to this tyranny, men who
would stand by it, even to the death, should they be called
upon to do so.—( Hear, hear.) We tell the Bishops and
Clergy that they may persecute us, that they may steal
our goods, but never will we quietly submit to be coerced
for the support of their established religion.---( Cheers.)
I feel sorry that any collision should have taken place with
the police ; but I do not wish to say anything exciting,
either on the one part or the other. I regret if the police,
in the discharge of what they considered their duty, have
come into contact with the people. Such things are
always to be regretted.—( A voice—" Wright ought to be
turned out. He ought to have waited for orders from Mr.
Inspector before he struck.")
Mr. SEAL.—I feel proud to BCC such a spirited opposition
to such a cause.—( Cheers.) I feel convinced that if such
meetings as these were to take place in all the principal
towns, we should soon shake the Law-Church to its very
centre.—( Cheers.) We arc on the eve of a great moral
revolution, and such scenes as these will serve to promote it.
The Chartists then gave three cheers for the Charter ;
and three dismal groans were given ;by the meeting for the
auctioneer ; after which the people dispersed, the proceed-
ings having occupied three hours.
The man who was taken into custody was released im-
mediately after the meeting.
On Wednesday the auctioneer and a policeman were en-
gaged the greater part of the day in disposing of the goods
by application from house to house, but met with great dif-
ficulty in selling them, persons who knew what they were,
refusing to buy.
The following is the letter transmitted to the Bishops,
with the stockings purchaFed for that purpose :
Mv LORD Bisnor,—Within these few days, a very se-
vere blow has been struck at the reputation of that Church
of which your Lordship is reported to be so bright an orna-
ment.

In this particular instance my Lord, twelve respectable
tradesmen and others submitted to have their warehouses
and dwelling-houses plundered according to law for the
snpport of a Church from which they conscientiously dissent.
On Tuesday last, my Lord, this legalized plunder wits
publicly exposed for sate, and nearly the whole of which
was either returned unsold or much damaged by an incensed
and indignant multitude.
One small portion of it, however, my Lord, was secured
and your lordship is here presented with the inclosed
stocking—one of the twelve seized for Church-rates, from
Mr. 13.-Pochin, of Cank-street, St. Martin's, Leicester, in
commemoration of this great event—for be assured my
Lord, that meetings such as this, and for a similar purpose
in most of the large towns in the United Kingdom, in ad-
dition to the very valuable assistance which your Lordship,
your colleagues, and supporters, are giving to public opi-
nion on this subject, that it is the serious as well as the
firm and decided conviction of thousands, that one of the
greatest moral revolutions in relation to the Law-Church
Establishment of this country is rapidly progressing, that
has been witnessed since the time of Henry the Eighth.
Hoping that your Lordship may live and enjoy health
and strength to witness this great event is the sincere de-
sire
of, my Lord,
A SINCERE FRIEND TO TRUE CHRISTIANITY,
But a decided opponent to a bayonet-supported Law-
Church Establishment.

To the Lord Bishop of
Leicester, April 30, 1840.

The above was sent to the following—being 12 in num-
ber instead of six, (the style being varied in those for the
Archbishops and the Vicar) :—The Archbishops of Can-
terbury and York; the Bishops of Exeter, London, Lin-
coln, Winchester, Gloucester, Chester, Oxford, Roches-
ter, and Worcester ; and the Hon. and Rev. H. D. Ers-
kine, Vicar of the parish in which the seizure and sale
took place.

IMPROVEMENT OF THE WORK-
ING CLASSES.

The celebrated Dr. Charming, of Boston, corn-
posed at the commencement of the year two Lec-
tures, to be delivered at meetings of mechanics and
apprentices, but which were, in consequence of his
want of strength, delivered only at the former.
The object he proposed to himself was to teach his
auditors how to elevate themselves in the social
scale. These two Lectures have been republished
at Bristol in a cheap form, and from them have been
extracted so me passages which of late have given
rise to the commentaries of some of the Liberal
Papers. Towards the end of his labour Dr. Chan-
ning, deeply impressed, apparently, by the good
order and intelligence of the class he had been ad-
dressing, and equally impressed with the accounts
of the very terrible condition of the population of
Europe, particularly of Ireland and England, whidi
so frequently appear in our newspapers—one set
magnifying the crimes of the Irish, and the others
the destitution of the English, to suit their party
purposes, and both too often overlooking the many
advantages enjoyed, if not by all, yet by consider-
able portions of the population of Europe,—Dr.
Charming, deeply impressed apparently by these
contrary series of circumstances, made the fo!lowing
observations. After adverting to the project of
running steam packets from Liverpool to Boston,
he continued :-
4. I would ask, what is to be the effect of bringing the
labouring. classes of Europe twice as near to us as they
now are? Is there no danger of a competition that is
to depress the labouring classes here ? Can the work-
man here stand his ground against the half famished
ignorant workmen of Europe, who will toil for any wages,
and who never think of redeeming an hour for personal
improvement ? Is there no danger, that with increasing
intercourse with Europe, we shall import the striking,
fearful contrasts which there divide one people into
separate nations ? Sooner than that our labouring
class should become a European populace, -a good man
would almost wish that perpetual hurriCanes, driving
every ship from tho ocean, should sever wholly
the two hemispheres from each other. Heaven preserve
us from the anticipated benefits of nearer conncction with
Europe, if with these must come the degradation which
we see or read of among the squalid poor of her great
cities, among the over-worked operatives of her manufac-
tories, among her ignorant and half-brutalised peasants.
Anything, everything should be done to save us from the
social evils which deform the old world, and to build up
here an intelligent, right-minded, self-respecting popula-
tion. If this end should require us to change our present
modes of life, to narrow our foreign connections, to desist
from the race of commercial and manufacturing competition
with Europe; if it should require that our great cities
should cease to grow, and that a large portion of our
trading population should return to labour, these requisi-
tions ought to be obeyed.
Throe metropolitan journals, the MorningChroni-
de, the Colonial Gazette, and the Globe, have
taken hold of this passage, which is evidently more
the offspring of momentarily-excited feeling, than of
sage reflection, and, wholly forgetting to inform their
readers of the noble object contemplated by Dr.
Charming, have used it to serve some purpose of
their own. One hangs on it an argument against
our own Corn-laws; another quotes examples of dis-
tress and suffering in the United States to show
that they already possess no advantage over
Europe ; and the third to point out that
Dr. Channing's ideas of improving the
people are impracticable. We should complain of
our Contemporaries, were we not well aware that
the great business of most critics is to find fault,
to twist and turn every thing that comes before
them to their own purposes, and very seldom to
bring into prominent notice the good and the grand
undertakings of individuals. On this occasion, at
least, we decline to imitate them, and having placed
the passage of the lectures before our readers,
which has excited our Contemporaries' animadver-
sion, we must give some account of Dr. Chan-
ning's undertaking.
It is nothing new that benevolent and enlight-
ened men should endeavour to improve the work-
ing classes. For seventeen years a Mechanics'
Institution has been established in the Metropolis
for this end, and from here similar institutions
have spread over the country. But the proper
motive for establishing such institutions has by no
person been so well expressed as by Dr. Chan-
ning. 44 I have no partiality," he says, "r to
the labouring classes, considered merely as
labourers. My mind is attracted to them be-
cause they constitute the majority of .the. ;human
race. My great interest is in tiurnan-7vatere,
and in the working classes as its most numerous
representative." In Europe the reverse of thiadoc-
trme is generally entertained, and our laws are
made, our colleges are maintained, our high schools
are endowed, our churches are built, for the purpose
of promoting the high civilization of the least nu-
merous class. All our institutions, and almost all
our ideas, tend to favour a few, and for their
behoof to sacrifice the many. The labour-
ers are degraded in Europe into hewers of
wood and drawers of water ; there still
cleaves to them the degradation of the slavery of
which their ancestors were the victims ; and at-
tempts to elevate them because they are the multi-
tude, and really constitute the mass Of society, are
derided as hopeless, or frowned down as mischievous
by the aristocracy of wealth and rank, and their
retainers. Well may Dr. Channing, contem-
plating our European society from a high elevation
on the other side of the Atlantic, say-
-44 The present civilization of the Christian world pre-
sents much to awaken doubt and apprehension. It stands
in direct hostility to the great ideas of Christianity. It is
selfish, mercenary, sensual. Such a civilization cannot,
must not, endure for ever. How it is to be supplanted I
know not ; I hope, however, that it is not doomed, like
the old Roman civilization, to be quenched in blood.
I trust that the works of ages are not to be laid low by vio-
lence, rapine, and the all-devouring sword."
Such apprehensions arc not confined to Dr.
Channing ; they are shared at least by Mr. Carlyle
and other deep thinkers of his school, who see the
great multitude under an aristocracy, which governs
not and cannot govern, and connected with a priest-
hood which teaches not and cannot teach. If what he
and others apprehend is not to take place, the
means must be found of reconciling the working
classes with the middle and upper classes, which
is the great problem for statesmanship, if it
be worth anything, now to solve. The civili-
zation of old Rome was quenched in blood
by the invasion of some barbarous hordes,
aided by the multitude of slaves who were located in
its territory. We know not where any barbarous
hordes are now to come from to overthrow European
civilization; but in the neglected, despised, and much
too often ill-treated, multitude oflabourers in Europe,
now completely sepArated from the upper and middle
classes, having pursuits, ideas, schemes, a press of
their own, we sec some resemblance to the myriads of
slaves in the Roman empire, who had no part in its
civilization except its burdens; and it is probable that
the labourers may succeed, they already avow that
they will try, to subvert a.system of which they do
not perceive the advantages. It is under this aspect
that we consider those men, who, like Dr. Chan-

fling in America, Dr. Birkbeck in London,
and Mr. Heywood in Manchester, zealously endea-
vour to elevate and improve the minds of the la-
bouring classes, as amongst the greatest, and at
present most needed, benefactors of the human
race.

" Among the changes," says Dr. Channing, "to which I
look for the salvation of the moral world, one of the chief
the intellectual and moral elevation of the working
classes. The impulses which are to reform and quicken
society are probably to come not from its more conspicuous
but ins obscurer divisions; and amongst these I see with
joy new principles and aspirations beginning to unfold
themselves."
It grieves us for the honour of our country, for
the sake of truth, the love of which, as Dr. Chan-
mug says,
and all intellectual and moral greatness, that a hook
is the great element of right thinking
composed with the object of elevating the minds of
the labourers--that lectures conceived and executed
in the most benevolent spirit, should have been re-
ceived here with something like carping criticism, and
nothing seen in it worthy of notice except a little
ebullition of feeling. We certainly do not class our-
selves with those who approve of all Dr. Charming's
philosophical principles, but differing from him, as
we shall perhaps take occasion to explain, on many
points, we recognize in his
present production the
purest and most elevated views, and can but ap-
plaud his efforts, as now tending to accomplish
that which the general security demands—the
civilization of the great multitude.

MENDICITY IN FRANCE.—The French Go-
vernment having, with a view to the preparation of a new has
relative to mendicity, collected information from foreign coun-
tries on this question, and being desirous of completing its re-
searches by returns from the different departments of France,
the Minister of the Interior has addressed a circular to the
Prefects, calling for information.
Amongst the ancient Hebrews there was an ante-
honey mcon, which preceded the marriage of parties ; the
custom was, that when a young man salutes ,he object of his
affections, he was obliged to give " a month's notice" of his
intention before the celebration of his nuptials,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM TIIE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
The intelligent middle classes of the country will do well
to watch the conduct of the Tories with reference to this
question of registration. The imperfections of the present
system are manifest and notorious. The remedy pro-
posed by Lord John Russell is simple and efficacious.
There can be but one objection to it—that it is a popular
measure, a measure calculated to enlarge constituencies,
and make the Reform Bill a reality—a measure conceived
in no narrow and grudging spirit of mistrust, but in an en-
larged and generous confidence in the principle of popu-
lar representation. Will the Tot ies oppose it on this
ground? Their organs are accusiomed to boast that the
voice of England is with them. If so, they have no reason
to fear a measure which gives that voice a fuller and
fairer representation—no reason to perpetuate a system
which, under one frivolous pretext or another, disfranchises
a large proportion of the most independent constituencies
if Protestant England. Still less can it be supposed, that
a party who have all at once been smitten with such an
exceeding zeal for the purity of the franchise, can object to
a measure for abolishing those scandalous and acknow-
ledged frauds, which have reduced at least haif a dozen of
the smaller counties of Scotland to the condition of rotten
boroughs in the hands of a few Tory proprietors. What-
ever may he the fate of the excellent measures announced
he Lord John Russell, they will at least produce one good
effect, that of testing the sincerity of Tory professions.
( From the Morning Advertiser.)
Were the pa-sons one half so zealous in the cause ef
religion as they are in that of tithes and Church.rates, the
Establishment might yet for years flourish in unquestioned
ascendancy. But the means adopted fer securing the re-
venue are precisely those best calculated to overthrow the
religion in the pretended support of which that revenue is
levied. It is the excess of oppression and wrong which
most successfully provoke the resistance necessary to their
annihilation. Parsons may strain the law to its most op-
pressive intensity; but the more vindictively they enforce
their legal powers, the more certain will public opinion in-
sist on the abrogation of laws founded on religious intole-
rance, and intended only to perpetuate the exactions of the
Church, in violation of every principle of justice and every
sentiment of morality. The scandalous broils which have
marked the making and levying of Church-rates are a dis-
grace to the age and country. Were the Parsons influ-
enced by a regard for common decency, to say nothing of
the Christian doctrines they profess to teach, they could
never have become parties to the infamous proceedings by
which the Church has been of late years desecrated,
(From the Morning Post.)
The Ministerialists dilate not only upon the difficulty,
but the danger also, of interfering with churchmen in
Church matters, relating to the imerrial government of
their churches. Let the difficulty and the danger be
granted, are these any reasons why the Government should
shrink from the task ? We know how ready the present
indolent, and we fear we must add careless, Government
is to be scared by difficulty, and to recoil from danger ;
but a Government worthy of the name should consider
only what is its duty, and be ready to encounter any
difficulty, and incur any danger, which the discharge of
that duty may render inevitable. The present disturbance
in the Church of Scotland is by no means of a purely
ecclesiastical character. It is mixed up with civil rights,
and in fact the dissension lies between the highest Civil
Court, backed by the House of Lords, whose decision is
resisted, and the Ecclesiastical Courts, which make the
resistance on what they consider spiritual grounds. Par.
Bement is called upon to interfere, both for the support of
the law and the preservation of the peace, which is vio-
lated in the collision between conflicting authorities.
(From the Times.)
At the close of the second day after the commission of
a barbarous murder in the house of a Nobleman in a re-
spectable and populous part of London, it appears that the
police are without any clue that can lead to the discovery
and apprehension of the murderer. During no previous
period of the modern history of London have five cruel
mur 'ers been committed within two years without some of
the perpetrators having been brought to justice. We feel
convinced that it is not from any absence of abhorrence at
the crime, that it is not from any desire to screen or aid the
escape of the offenders, that justice has been defeated,
hut merely from the inadequacy of the means employed
to discover the guilty parties. In stating this opinion,
it must not be considered that we are disposed to
blame the metropolitan police. On the contrary, from its
first formation we have always approved of the system,
and maintained that the public have derived great benefit
from its operation. It is, however, impossible not to per-
ceive that the excellence of the metropolitan police consists
chiefly in the general protection it affords to the commu-
nity, and in its prevention of crime by the constant display
of its power and vigilance. The semi-military nature of
the regulations by which it is governed, the duties re-
quired of its members in continually patrolling their re-
spective districts, render it almost incapable of engaging
in such inquiries as can alone lead to the discovery of of-
fenders.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The success of Lord Stanley's Bill will, to a great
extent, rectify the evils of the Emancipation Act- It be-
hoves, therefore, every Conservative to struggle to the
uttermost for the ultimate triumph of that great measure.
Above all is it important, that the miserable policy of
" concession" to the deadly enemies of England, and of
Protestantism, should be henceforward, and for ever,
abandoned. To " concede" the Municipal Corporation
Bill would be. to a great extent, to repeat the fatal error
cf. Snell a... concession" would be set down by the
Popish party, simply as theretult of fear. It would dis-
arm no hostility. It would induce the abandonment of
no treasonable project. The policy of the last ten years
has appeared to have for its object the severance of Ire-
land from the British empire. The interests of Protes-
tantism have been systematically betrayed. The designs
of Popery have been, in all respects, aided.

THE GREAT WIZARD OF THE

NORTH.

This great man is preparing to conclude an exceed-
ngly successful season in the metropolis, having during
pis visit drawn immense crowds to the Strand Theatre.
He on Wednesday gave the second of a series of morn-
ing performances to accommodate a portion of his friends
whose engagements rendered it. inconvenient to be pre-
sent in th evening. His assumption of the cognomen
of" The Wizard" is with him more a merry conceit
than an attempt at mystification, because he never omits
on commencing his proceedings to abjure all alliance with
supernatural agents, and modestly designates his mecha-
nical and manipulatical illusions " natural magic," and
informs his audience that he depends entirely on his
dexterity of management for the facility with which
he can deceive them. That he does fulfil his part of
the contract there can be little doubt ; and most ef-
fectually makes most efficient friends by the very means
that other people would make enemies, namely, by
most thoroughly deceiving every one who condescends
to patronize him. Perhaps the strongest evidence of
his superiority as a professor of the cnce-styled " oc-
cult art," is, that in London, where such exhibitions
have been frequent for many years, and where illustri-
ous names in the same profession are still preserved in
legendary lore among the catalogue of wonders that
have been, in times long gone past, mid of modern pro-
fessors who have more recently fretted their hour
within the magic circle, that the Wizard has excited a
greater sensation in town than any other performer on
seeord in the same line. His style of demeanour and
..,:siness of carriage, while he works his wondrous feats,
e great general recommendations to him ; and his
candid disavowal of confederacy or assistance from the
original reputed agent in the " black art." fits his per-
formances for the best of society, and makes them such
as to overcome the prejudicea of the most morally scru-
pulous, be they sectarians or whatever denomination
they may have espoused. His paraphernalia surpasses
all that have gone before him on the score of extensive-
ness and magnificence, and the massiveness and tasteful-
ness of the design of the workmanship of the
multitudinous implements which he uses in the
way of his craft conveys altogether the nursery
notion we may have entertained of a grand saloon
in the palace of a famous enchanter. Many of the
illusory acts that he does are familiar to us as having
been done by others ; but he has succeeded in applying
to them new adaptations, and giving to them a freshness
approaching to originality, whereby he virtually makes
them his own. The great masters in the line of the
olden school enjoyed individually distinct characteristics
of celebrity. Pinnete, Breslaw, Katerfelto, and the
Hungarian Trumpeter, &c., the one pleased, and the
other made wonder and so forth, and on much the same
scale of estimation have those of modern dates been
held in the many Sieurs, Signeurs, and Kings and
Emperors of Conjurors, &e., &e., that have followed ;
but it would seem that the Wizard has skilfully culled
from the whole school, ancient and modern, and com-
bined the every quality transferable into his own prac-
tice, so as to leave entirely in the shade all his com-
peers, and surpassing even the credulous expectation of
the most simple in belief, as well as overtopping the
carping incredulity of those who would be desirous to
find fault, or, if they could, would lay open his secrets.
His various changes, his various conveyances and trans-
mutations, his seeming possession actually of the gift of
divination, and the manner in which he trifles
with the senses and plays upon the conscious-
ness of judgment of his auditors, are so perfect and so
cleverly effected, that not knowing how they can be
dune, it becomes almost an act of wisdom, in self-defence,
and to aroid bewilderment, that we take it for granted
all we seem to see done is done in reality, and that he
is only in jest when he denies the certain personage's
assistance. His automatons arc as good as any of the
kind we have ever seen. The manner in which he has
got up what he calls the " Gun Delusion" is exceed-
jelly curious, and has the great recommendation of
being totally harmless. With other practitioners it has
generally happened repeatedly in their lives that they
have suffered accident from this trick ; but the Wizard's
method is matchless, and is proof against miscarriage ;
it may be witnessed without apprehension by the most
timid and sensitive individuals. While other names may
still continue to be referred to as.those that have been,
we firmly believe that the Wizard of the North of our
own day will be as much spoken of while he lives, and
his feats as long remembered when ho is gene to the
rest of his fathers as any of them—the most famous in
story on the list of the illustrious masters of the caba-
listical.

All the Members of Parliament without pairs in
Paris quitted that capital for Lord Stanley's Registration Bill.
The ship is said to have been urgent. Sir Thomas Cochrane
remains in Paris, having paired oft till the 9th instant.