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

TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 11, 1849.

. PRECOCITY.
(From Eliza Cook's Journal )
• It was once said of a certain man; " that he had
, never been a boy." That was meant to point him
out ironically as a grand exception to the common
i race of mortals ; but what was the exception then
really seems to have become the rule now, and I am
tempted to think that the race of boys is fast becom-
ing utterly extinct, and being replaced by a race of
• mannikins, wanting alike in the grave power of
maturity and the light-hearted wildness of childhood.
I have seen upon the same apple tree fruit unripe
indeed, but full, and juicy, and promising luscious
mouthfuls when the sun should have matured them;
and close by a little, half-withered, prematurely-
. shrivelled thing, looking as if it had forgotten to
grow last year, and was not thought worth
gathering; and I could not help thinking
that that was to the other apples what mannikins are
to real boys ; and as I am fond of fruit, I only hope
the apple trees will not take to extensively imitating
the vagaries of us mortals. Solemnly and seriously,
I cannot help wondering sometimes whether those
old fairy tales are true about the mischievous sprites
changing human infants in their cradles for young
elves of their own species, and thinking that the race,
curtailed of their old dominions of forest and green-
wood, and thicket copse and barren waste, and scorn-
ing the doctrines of Malthus, are compelled to find
outlets for their superabundant and unemployed
population, and are exchanging with earthly
mothers and fathers on an extensive scale. The
supposition is, no doubt, a most extravagant
one, but how on earth else to account for
the wonderful increase of mannikins I do not know;
and, perhaps, when one is involved in a puzzle of
doubt and perplexity, without a chance of lighting '
upon a reasonable solution, an unreasonable one
is better than none at all. When I was a boy of
thirteen or fourteen, I think I was a fair specimen of
boys of my time and age. My father was an old
soldier, settled down after a life of hardship and war-
fare, into a country gentleman of some standing and
consideration in the village where we then lived, and
moving in at least as good society as Mr. Smithson,
a retired coal merchant I know at No. 4 in our Ter-
race ; yet I do not know two more entirely different
beings, than Master Smithson, now in his early teens,
and what I was then. I looked, as I recollect, like a
boy; there was no more of the man in me than
there is of the full-blown flower in the bud ; while
Master Smithson is a perfect mannikin—a good
specimen of his class; and if you were to look at
him through a powerful magnifying glass, and
imagine the whiskers, you might take him for an
exquisite of the first water.
What a difference there is in girls, too, compared
with what they used to be. Ido not think they haves
changed quite so much as boys ; in their hearts, per -
haps, they are more as they were. But I cannot help
comparing my own sisters with the modern misses I
occasionally meet, and contrasting the broad brimmed
straw hats, short frocks, pinafores, and romping of
the one, with the gauze bonnets, pelerines, beflounce.3
dresses, and rainbow parasols of the latter. I verily
believe if you had given my sisters, at ten years oldt,
the finest eylphide parasol that ever was bought or
sold in Regent street it would in a couple of hours
have been converted into a machine to catch butter-
flies, or something of the sort, and smashed beforb
the day was over; and thinking of this, I could not
help laughing at some little ladies, whose conversa-
tion I overheard a short time ago. Two were just
entering their teens, the third a little toddling thing-
of five or six, and they all had parasols. The two
elders carried theirs majestically upright, but the
younger performed with her some eccentric motions,
for which she was gravely reprimanded by one of th 4•
yOuthful dowagers, the other kindly excusing her by
the plea that she was "such a little thing, you know.
These may seem small matters; but I honestly confess
that I regard them with some interest, as indication s
of what the future people are to be, and I am old-
fashioned enough to like, in this respect at all eveptse,
what was better than what is. I should not object so
much to precocity in knowledge or power, but this is
a sort of precocity which seems to indicate that the
heart is getting old while the brain remains young;
that the sincerity of nature is fading away
before artificial forms ; that the fresh impulses of
soul are being withered by conventional ceremony;
that the gaiety of youth and its wild lightheartedness,
is being checked by arbitrary notions of propriety,
and its simplicity being corrupted by finery and
ostentation. I like men reallyto be men ; and in order
that that should come to pass, I think it necessary tha.t
children should really be children. Many may differ
from me, but in my opinion a fine manly character is,
better reared up out of the enthusiasm, the will
energy and ready sympathies, and earnest confident
simplicity of true childhood, than out of the premae
ture gravity, distrust, and decorum of the mannikin
tribe, and I shrink with nervous fear from that state
of society in which hearts shall grow old before
brain.% develope or forms expand, and the rising gene.-
ration lose the openness and candour of youth, and
acquire the duplicity and secrecy of old age, before
they even enter upon the real business of lite.
Depend upon it, the subject is well worthy of the
consideration of the mothers and fathers of England,
and it Kill be well for all if it seriously engage their
attention.

COURT CIRCULAR.
OSBORNE, MONDAY.
The Queen and Prince walked this morning in
Osborne grounds and Park.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and
younger members of the Royal Family, walked and
rode as usual. _

There was no addition to the royal dinner party
yesterday.

Captain Shippard had an interview with Earl Grey
yesterday at the Colonial-office.
Dispatches were sent off yesterday evening from the
Colonial-office for the Governor of the Cape of Good
Hope.

Mr. BUCKINGRAM's MODEL TOWN

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

•Stai —Having been for the last three months on a
tour through the Highlands and northern parts of
, Scotland, it was not until my arrival here that I had
~the opportunity of seeing your paper of Nov. 29, in
which you have given a review of my recent work
on" Natural Evils and Practical Remedies."

I avail myself, however, of the earliest opportunity
to thank you, which I do most sincerely, for the
frank and friendly manner in which you bestow your
approval on some portions of that volume, and express
your dissent from others. lithe exercise of criticism were
more frequently characterized by such fairness, and
dissent were generally expressed in so gentlemanly a
manner, the cause of literature and social improve-
ment would not be so frequently retarded, as it now
is, by strictures conveyed with so much bitterness
and asperity as to engender the worst feelings between
those who, being professedly engaged in the common
pursuit of truth, ought to regard each other only as
cooperators and friends.
It is highly gratifying to me that my views on
taxation and the redemption of the public debt, on
emigration and colonization, and on the substitution
of the intellectual for the property qualification in the
electoral franchise, should be approved by so zealous,
so able, and so faithful and consistent an advocate of
Liberal principles, as The Sun has ever been under
the direction of its present editor for a long series
of years, during which so many strange mutations
have taken place in other public journals of the day.
It is because I so highly value its judgment that I
am anxious to have the opportunity, which I have
no doubt you will readily afford me, of saying a
few words through your columns, to correct what
may lead some of your readers, perhaps, into a mis-
conception of one very important feature of my plan
for a model town and assohiated community.
I concur entirely in the soundness of your doctrine
that " the taxes forming a fund which is drawn from
all classes of the community, it is unjust to expend
that fund, or any portion °fit, for the exclusive benefit
of any section of the people, unless it can be shewn
that in so doing the whole community are benefited
by it. When this, however, can be proved to be the
case, such expenditure is fairly warranted; and
numerous precedents can be cited in which such
partial expenditure has received the sanction of the
nation at large. The twenty millions sterling given
to the owners of slaves as compensation for their sup-
posed loss in the services of those slaves, was paid out
of the public fund, to effect a great moral good, in
which it was believed the whole nation was or ought
to be interested, The annual expenditure of main-
taining the blockade on the coast of Africa to prevent
the slave-trade (had it been effectual in accomplishing
its end) would have been equally approved by the
nation ' • and it is only now questioned on the ground
of its failure to secure the object for which it was
maintained."

The public funds are expended to make parks and
public walks for the inhabitants of London, out of
taxes paid by residents in the country, who have no
share in their enjoyment; and surveys and other ex-
penses connected with the drainage, sewerage, and
sanitary improvement of the metropolis, as well as
medical precautionary measures in towns peculiarly
affected, are also all defrayed at the public cost, because
the whole country is benefited indirectly by the
health of every part. Famines in Ireland—great
fires at Barbadoes and Quebec—distress among the
manufacturers of Paisley and other towns—and desti-
tution in the Highlands—have all been thought fit
subjects for public relief, though- the funds were
raised from the whole community, and only certain
sections of them were benefited by their application,
At the present moment there is no problem of
greater or more pressing interest, demanding a speedy
and satisfactory solution than this.—How best to de-
minish crime and poverty among the lower classes of
society, so as not only to make them more virtuous
and more industrious, but also to relieve the honest
and hard-working part of the community from the
heavy burthen of maintaining the idle and the dis-
solute, who, whether they run into the ranks of
paupers or criminals, are equally maintained at the
expense of the public.
The successful solution of this problem, so as to
make all but the sick and infirm sell supporting,
would be cheaply purchased at a cost of twenty millions
sterling, because it would save the nation in the ex-
pense of criminals and paupers far more than that
sum yearly. And as it is not in the power of private
individuals, or even of corporate bodies, to try any
great experiment of the kind on a sufficiently large
scale, while the Government could do it with great
ease, and at a less cost than the expense of one
solitary war, whether against the Seikhs in India, or
the Kafirs at the Cape of Good Hope ; so I hold that
as the solution of this problem would be of the
greatest possible benefit to the whole community, it
would be quite just to apply the funds of the State to
such a purpose—the more especially as it is demon-
strably certain that by a proper experiment of asso-
ciated labour, every shilling of the money thus ex-
pended would be returned with ample interest, as
well as a great moral good be attained.
In my proposition for the formation of a model
town and associated community, :however, I do not
ci,k the aid of the Government in any way whatever,
beyond the granting of a charter of mcorpation
to such joint-stock company as 'might be disposed to
undertake the experiment on the voluntary principle
purely, and whose members shall advance the funds
for the purchase of 201. shares in such an undertak-
ing, as they would fur the formation of a railroad,
a canal, or mines, or dockg, or any similar operations
requiring the united funds of numbers to accomplish.
In this there is nothing incompatible with the more
" perfect liberty of action" on the part of the asso-
ciates. They might reside in the town, and conform
to its rules and regulations, or they might live else-
where under no rules but there own will, as they
saw fit—since provision is made for both their cases.
But those who became residents would all have a
voice in the election of their rulers—would all be
at liberty to assent to or dissent from any laws pro-
posed by them—and would all be eligible to become
rulers themselves, if their fellow-citizens chose to
elect them to that dignity—a degree of liberty not
yet enjoyed by any community that I have ever
seen or heard of; and as it is neither proposed nor
intended that any persons should join this associated
community but those who were perfectly willing to
conform to its discipline—just as every gentleman
entering a club, or any lady becoming a patroness or
subscriber to any fashionable assembly, readily con-
forms to the rules and regulations of each—or, as in
general society persons in all ranks of life conform
cheerfully to rules of conduct and courtesies of
custom, which the habits of their position in society
require; in like manner those who are so enamoured
of their own " personal liberty" as to prefer living in
a dirty dwelling to a clean one, to the enjoyments of
the tap-room or the gin-shop in preference to a
library or museum—to the fumes of tobacco rather
than fresh air and the perfume of flowers—to work-
ing three days a week for fourteen or sixteen hours a
day, and idling the other three, rather than sustain-
ing moderate labour only for each of the six days in
succession—of which, unhappily, there are too many
—might still remain in that condition, as there
would be no coercion used to bring them out of it ;
though the example of their happier fellow-country-
men might in the end persuade them to change.
For my own part, I believe that instead of the
inhabitants of such a well-regulated community
being, as is erroneously assumed, " the mere slaves,
however well fed, of any set of men," they would
enjoy more true liberty, and more rational pleasures,
than the freest of the free in any existing state of
society.
The limits of s letter forbid my saying more

than to repeat my thanks for your fairness and cour-
tesy, and to refer those who desire to judge for them-
selves on this subject to the pages of the work itself,
as there alone the details can be fully examined.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. S. BUCKINGHAM.
Aberdeen, Dec.lo.

A HUSBAND, WIPE, AND DAUGHTER KILLED.—
WEDNESBURY, STAFFORDSHIRE.—A terrible catastrophe,
of a singular character, involving the loss of three lives,
a father, mother, and daughter, has occurred here.
It appears that a person named John Pettifrr, with his
family, occupied a small house on the side of Pertwaye
road, belonging to Messrs. Adams and Richards, situ-
ated at the top of a large mound of earth, the refuse of
a pit hard by, but not at present in work. On Tuesday
evening last, the father sent his eldest daughter, named
Betsy, out on an errand, and not returning within a
reasonable time, he went out in search of her, but
neither of them returning, after the lapse of several
hours, the mother also went out to look for them, leav-
ing three young children in the care of a boy ten years
old. Shortly after the mother went out the boy fell
asleep, and did not awake till two o'clock the following
morning. lie then found that neither his father, mother,
Her sister had returned ; he, therefore, went out for
the purpose of knocking up a neighbour to go
with him to look for them. Whilst passing over the
pathway at the top of the mound of earth, he noticed a
great hole in the ground. Having passed at the side of
it, he went and informed one of the neighbours of what
he had seen. That person aceempenied him to the spot,
examined the breach, and found that the crowning in of
the pit had given way, and no doubt the three parties
missing had fallen ire Assistance was promptly pro
cured, and several men eommeneed digging nt the loose
sides; but no ene could descend on account of the accu-
mulation of foul air in the pit. The men were kept at
work until Thursday, when they succeeded in removing
sufficient earth. They then inserted pipes to draw off
the foul air. That having been done, a man was lowered
into the pit, a distance of nearly forty feet. He there
found, as was suspcc:ed, the lifeless bodies of Mr. Pot-
titer, his wife, and daughter. It is supposed that they
were sufTocated before they got to the bottom of the:pit
from foul air. The bodies were removed as quickly as
possible, and an inquest was appointed to be held.
The Chelmsford annual show of tat stock, we
understand, will be held in the Fair-field on Friday next,
when it is expected there will be a very large supply of
ern stook of descriptione.--Easex tiered.

THE POOR NEEDLEWOMEN.
TO THF, EDITOR OF THE SUN.

" lie who allows oppression shares the crime."

SlR,—Accident has prevented my offering to you
a few further remarks sooner on the above subject.
Allow we cordially to say that if I do nut entirely
coincide in every sentiment of your most admirable
article of Wednesday last, I am very glad to have eli-
cited in any journal such remarks as the following :
" Justice peremptorily forbids the employer from
abusing the necessity of the workman (to a certain
extent only we exonerate the sellers and buyers of
cheap goods from blame)." And "No man's con-
science should be at rest while he in any way counte-
nances a system of injustice."
Far would I be from discouraging the emigration
plan of the philanthropic Sidney Herbert, in your
honourable cotemporary the Chronicle, which might
remove much of this evil ; merely hoping to offer an
ob3ervation or two suitable to the present, or any future
contingency.
The idea of an employer offering three times the
amount of wages is, of course, an extreme one, for
argument's sake. Nor did I advocate " high" prices
—simply a fraction higher. An acquaintance, a
linendraper, of superier understanding, tells me he
thinks 25 per cent. (decreasing, no doubt, according to
advanced prices) would make all the difference. Ile
adds that starving the employed may be ultimately felt
in the poor-rates.
Then the argument assumes this shape—A sells to
B for ls. 3,1 what he ought not, as an honourable man,
to have offered at ls., and C, the poor work woman,
gets more than fourpence a day ! (as her labour would
well deserve eighteenpence) tor food, lodging, "under-
clothing in winter," and other necessaries. Now would
it not be a thousand times better for B, the public, to
willingly pay the odd threepence?
The blame, I consider, begins with A. He knows

the poor workwomen are starving. B may not, till
he or she is told. Then another responsibility begins.
Surely the men and " women of England" are not
generally heartless, would not wish to save a few
shillings, or even three or four pounds a year, at the
expense of the torment of the weaker sex.

How is it that farmers selling corn, or bakers
selling bread, do not grind their workmen down to
the lowest existence point, in order to undersell
others ? I will hope, in a great measure, from better
feelings. Otherwise they dare not. They would be
hooted, excommunicated from honourable society,
and those who dealt with them would be disgraced.
There would be strikes, processions, riots. But the
unfortunates here are women. When a man keeps a
horse, on the principle of " the greatest amount of
lab.'ur with the least amount of food," and the poor
animal falls down from exhaustion, causing a street
obstruction, he is considered a brute, and tined by a
most proper law. Alas ! how many female workers
fall down in secret, exemplifying all the miseries of
the " Song of the Shirt."
I hare here—being rather more of an "old Tory"
than a " Whig"—treated the "sorrow" more than the
"sin" ensuing. lam aware of the evils of prostitu-
tion, and even that wretched " business," it strikes
me forcible, will be " overstocked" from these drafts
upon it. But God will have mercy on those who are
driven to it by starvation, and visit his wrath on those
who knowingly drive them. "I was an hungered, and
ye gave me no meat-1 was naked, ye clothed me
not—depart from me, ye cursed."
I am, Sir, yours obediently,
A CAMBRIDGE MAN.
Dec. 10, 1849.
[We refer our correspondent to an article from the
Morning Chronicle, in another column, in which the
subject of the above letter is commented on in a just
and kindly spirit. 'We recommend the advice therein
given to the practical attention of buyers.and sellers.—
ED. Sun.]