The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-02 00:00:00

EVENING SUN

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ARISTOCRA-
TIC LAW-MAKING.
40rP
-

- -
" The cause of the general distress will be found in ,
selfishness and misgovernment springing from the great mon-
st
er evil, the monopoly. of legislation."
Nonconformist, No. XVIII.
We select from the daily papers, immediately suc-
ceeding our remarks upon the aristocratic principle, the
following illustrations of the misery flowing from the
system of hereditary legislation—the germ of all mono-
polies,
and the well-spring of selfishness :
" At the Guildhall yesterday, no leSs than four indi-
viduals were brought before Mr. Alderman Kelly, who
committed offences for the mere purpose of gaining the
temporary shelter of a station house, and the chance of a
crust of bread. Crime, therefore, is better off in Eng•
land titan poverty. - To be entitled to protection, shelter,
and food, a man must be a criminal.. Such a fact, though
there' were only one in a year, instead of crowding upon -
us four in a day, would be an unerring indication that
our legislation requires revision.
" The process of debasement and degradation seems to
be this ; scarcity of employment and scarcity of food, as
they are felt in class after class, make one class press
down on the other, and squeeze out the lowest to utter
destitution. Amongst the humble classes there is a
great deal of charity ; they help each other ; but when
all find it difficult to live, they are obliged to deny succour
to the most distressed, who are driven to commit offences
that they may drag out their miserable existence a feW-
days or weeks longer. We are much afraid that the
misery which thus forces itself into public notice, bears .
only a very small proportion to that which hides itself,
and perishes in obscurity. We are much afraid, too,
that reckless despair instead of blithe and careful hope,
is becoming, from continual disappintment, the prQva-
lent 'disposition of our people ; and that those who deny
them bread and a fair field-for their exertions, will have
to answer, not only for starving many Out of existence,
but for the moral debasement of all."—Sun, Aug. 12.
The people are fast getting to know that forcible re-
sistance to the law is absurd, for the aristocracy have
provided, and can provide against this—they can starve
a sufficient number of the poor into ignorance and en-
listment as soldierS, and arm them to keep down the rest,
and make them pay the instruments. Whilst the mass
are foolish enough to be incited to force and rebellion,
and the aristocracy can vote themselves secret service .
money, they will never want for spies to incite the igno-
rant, and gibbet them as terrible examples at once of •
folly, fraud, and bitterness. Both sections, too have con- •
curved in drilling and organizing a police soldiery that
could he made more effectual for both purposes. If they '
would win equal laws the people must not resort to vio-
lence. If the practice of seeking a prison instead of the
• union should generally obtain among the starving and
roofless that they may obtain food and shelter, the aristo-
cracy will find it a more difficult thing to deal with than.
an outbreak of physical violence.
TWo men were tried during the present assizes far kill-
ing a sheep, not with any felonious intent,. but that .
they might be transported—the aristocracy having most
benevolently enacted that the act, irrespective of the
motive, shall be so punished ; and these_ poor wretches,
desiring to be sent out of this happy country, gave in-
formation
against themselves, that they might avail them- . .
selves of the wretched provisions of this blind law, made
by the " Corinthian pillars of polished society." It is
not only blind, but merciless, for the Judge said he had
no discretion.

Would such a law, with such a punishment, exist if
poor men were represented in Parliament? Thus society
is suffering the natural consequence of .converting the
new unic'n-houses into a prison, and of evading the
claims of the wretched upon technical points, whilst the.
poor grow desperate from want of food, clothing, and
shelter. There is now, we fear, but little difference be-
tween the two shelters, except that relief is secured at
once in the one case, and is protracted in the other. By
this absurd law our wretched poor have now the power
to compel the country to pay the expense of their emi-
gration to a place where they may be better off, and can-
not be worse. We proceed with our extracts:—
" CAUSE AND EPTECT.—The uneasy. state of the
public mind in Ireland, produced by the prospect of a
Tory Government., has induced her Majesty's representa-
tive to recommend that an addition be made to the mili-
tary force in that country. We have, of late years, had
the pleasure of reporting- a reduction in the army sta-
tioned there: We have now the unpleasant duty of
stating that a regiment of cavalry is ordered to proceed
to Ireland forthwith, to be followed by two infantry re-
giments."—Sun.
This is quite consistent with Lord John's intimation to
the electors of London—which the Morning Chronicle
called a state paper.
In the outset of that pledge-myself-to-nothing docu-
ment, he volunteered this intimation to his _'..fory
cousins :

" It would be inconsistent with my notions of public
duty to harass the Government of the day by vexatious
opposition, still less to deny to the Crown the means of
maintaining the reputation of the country abroad, and in-
ternal quiet at home."
Lord Ebrington, a pet Whig, is carrying out the hint,
—if the section cannot give good measures, they can
make the people submit to bad ones. The passage,
being translated, means, " It would be inconsistent with
my notions of duty to my order to deny to the ' order'
the means of compelling the people to submit to laws in-
volving their starvation."
'lead again the paragraph—he falsely assumes that
some one uad asked him to harass the Government by a
• vexatious opposition, and to denyto the Queen the means
of maintaining the reputation and peace of the country.
Men resort to false assumptions lb veil dishonest or indi-
rect purposes—his purpose was to tell the people that he
considered the interests of his " order" more important
than theirs ; and that though he was going out protest-
ing in words against the prohibition-of-food lawz, he
meant that the Tories should have the soldiery to com-
pel them to submit. to those laws. He well knew there
was no other cause for apprehension at home, and that
the Crown was never more popular. Contrast the-
Queen's present visiting tour with the apprehension
as to the late King's visiting the citizens. We do not
object to the purpose; but we point out the anxious and
Unnecessary volunteering of the information, to show that
the love of " the order" is paramount to the love of the
country ; that is, as we use the word, of the interests of
the people. With the aristocracy it is the class first,
and then the people ; but the class at all events—it must
be so whilst we have privileged classes irrespective of
living merit.
We proceed with our illustrations of the effects of.
aristocratic selfishness and its spirit :
"GAME PRESERVES.—The extent to which the system
of game-preserving is carried is almost incredible ; for
not alone in the ranks of our proud and overbearing
aristocracy are game-preservers to be found—the 'mania
extends to tradesmen,—aye, to Liverpool tradesmen too,
—and we are bound to say that the proceedings of the
latter class are often characterised by a spirit of petty
vindictiveness and spleen generally unknown amongst
despots of a more elevated grade. We spoke of Lord
Stanley preserving lands not his own ; the same remark
will apply, in an equal degree, to the Earl of
Sefton. The latter Nobleman commences with
his preserves at Croxteth, and extends it through Kirby
Simmonswood, Aintree, Sefton, Thornton (a township in
which he scarcely owns an acre of land), Altcar, to the
sea—a space, as the crow flies, of some twelve miles in
length, and averaging two miles in width. Lord Sefton
should not put the county to expense for punishing tres-
passers on twenty-four square miles of laud. Some years
ago his lordship's keeper, Joseph Warner, of Altcar, was,
left for dead by some poachers, who were transported
for the crime ; but the expenses of the prosecution were
borne by. the county. Within our recollection one of
Lord Skehnersdale's keepers in Latham, was shot dead
by a poacher, who was never taken. In Anglesea, the
convict Chub now lies under sentence of death for the
murder of a gamekeeper. We 'repeats then, game pre-
servers should dip into their own pockets, and not into
those of the public to pay for their whims."—Liverpool
Albion.

It is not only the expense to society, but the moral
destruction of the men, and their unfortunate, and from
thenceforth miserable, wives and ;families. From that
time, too, the bereaved wife may be. shut up in a new
union, if she cannot drag up her helplesschildren, though
able to maintain herself—in this way women are constantly
the victims of bad laws, and of the temptations of dis-
tress and misery into which they are plunged by the
prisonminti
~and transportation of their fathers, 11u6"
bands, and sons.

" A FREE-TRADE .MISSIONARY FROM THE UNITED
_ _
_
STATES.--An address was. delivered on Tuesch_il_ywri eve.if"w
ing to the members of the Manchester Anti
Association, by J. Curtis, Esq., of Ohio,
upon the capabilities Of that country
authorised the •
and provisions. He stated that he was .a_othing
public voice in the United States to stahtuenttn nothing
was exchange
was more desired by his countrymen
than
of Eng-
their agricultural produce for the mant
interestl whilst he
Eng-
land. He was listened lo with gret:!owing
to su North
by the
the rich re-
sources
went into a great variety of factl,ain
the close of his ad-
dresssrtinously tendered to him
of the great west,'
a vote of thanks was unatud
thetowns of the king-don' •
Mr. Curtis intends to
by the meeting. We understand
capabilities of the
make a tour through the
for the purpose of explamt
deficiency of food for our
United States to supply the ,
Bread-tax Circular.
population."—flub-Bread-tax
that if cur aristocratic legis-
Can any economist, doubt
in America to pay the im-
mense-qators permitted our )
b , their flour, that 'our mer-
sums they owe us .
prinenipa?
d tkeir debts, and our work-
menchants would have been pi
kept in employ'
Now, mark how these gew-gaw titles seduce those who
once were generous, and in some degree disposed to equal
rights and equal laws :-
9, we hear it rumoured that Sir Francis Burdett is at
Drayton Manor, fishing for a Peerage."--Sun. .
This plague spirit runs away with every thing that is
generous and noble in men's nature. It ii not alone the..
renegades
and the demented whom the law of primogeni-
tare, and the folly of hereditary titles seduce from the
nobility of nature, and convert into subservient cringing
idlers ; but those who have been great and useful, when
they get dry and shrivelled, are made Lords„and become.
the parents of idle and useless men and women, despising
work and promoting corruption and patronage, that they
may be placed or pensioned upon society. The stippres-'
sive effects of hereditary titles are more injurious than
the positive, and they are blighting and destroying. It
is the black jaundice of the body social.

CURIOUS AND IMPORTANT INVENTION,--,
Messrs. Young and Delcambre, of London, are said to
hare constructed an ingenious machine, which will place
the moveable types used in printing, in the sauw posi -
tion, with regard to the spilling of words, as they are ..
now placed by the compositor. By means pf this ma-
chine, a column of a newspaper, containing 12,000 types,
is composed, including what-is technically called " justi- •
fication," and putting into lines, in tivt) hours, which is •
six hours less than an expert compositor will accomplish
the task by hand. .
•