The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-29 00:00:00

THE POOR OF SCOTLAND.

If the opponents of the New Poor-law are charged
with a certain quantity of indignation and sympathy
which they must disburse, we earnestly beg of them to
let Scotland have a share of it before it is all gone.
Let them look to that end of the island, and they will
behold a legitimate subject for their compassionate elo-
quence. They will find that the provision for the poor
of Scotland isiees than a fifth part of what would be dis-
tributed among the same population under the new Eng-
lish Poor-law. They will find that, where the out-door
system prevals, the highest allowance given to indivi-
duals is a shilling a-week, while the lowest is a half-
penny. The letter statement will carry an air of vi-
sionary absurdity about it to English cars, but we have
before us a " %Tort by a Committee of the General
Assembly on the Management of the Poor of Scotland,"
in which the maximum and minimum allowance of each
parish irgravely set forth in knowing looking statistical
tables ; and among these we find that in the parish of
Criech, in the pfesbytery of Democh, the highest rate
of relief is as. a-year, and the lowest is Is. a-year
And though this be the lowest allowance which has
caught our eyc on hastily glancing over the table, it is
not in the least uncharacteristic : few of the northern
allowances reach a pound a-year, and the average of
them appears to be about 3e, Yet there is no part of
the country where rents have increased to so great a
proportion as i❑ the Highlands, and there is none where,
perhaps, since the late improvement in Ireland, so much
human misery can be found concentrated—misery not
created by excess or depravity, but occasioned by a
state of society which makes the distribution of the in-
dustrial and natural produce of the district peculiarly
disproportionate. We want no further words to de-
scribe the extent of this misery whe❑ we aro told, in the
report quoted above, that allowances such as we have
stated can only in many cases bo given to a select few,
and that there arc many competitors for such a benefit !
The primary evil of the system is in the law, which
declares, no doubt, that the poor shall be provided for,
but gives no machinery for enforcing the rule. A dis-
abled widow is entitled to be supported ; but to make
good her right she must prosecute in the Supreme
Court. The parochial authorities are virtually the im-
posers and appropriators of the tax, and in remote dis-
tricts there is one simple ruling principle on which they
act, as easily comprehended as it is efficacious in opera-
tion. It is that of .' keeping down the assessment."
In the town parishes, where the poor infest the streets,
this desirable object cannot be so well accomplished,
and public opinion there produces the shilling a-week
(in cases where there is a family of paupers there is
sometialos as much as 3s. a-week given) already men-
tioned. So munificent an allowance acts as a general
magnet through the country, and the wretched of the
rural parishes congregate in the towns, where, by a
three years' residence, a settlement is obtained. The
paupers bast provided for aro those in the workhouses,
which have only been established in Edinburgh, Glas-
gow, and Paisley. Of these the Edinburgh St. Cuth-
bert's workhouse gets the character of best performing
the functions for which it was established. We have
before us the rules of that institution, includ-
ing the dietary, which is as follows :—Break-
fast, 4 oz. oatmeal porridge and 2 gills butter-
milk ; dinner, broth made of 2 oz. ox head and
hough and 1 oz. barley, and 63- oz. bread ; sup-
per, the same as breakfast. There is no solid
animal food. This gives a weekly allowance of 5G oz.
oatmeal, 14 oz. ox head and hough for broth, 45:1-, oz.
bread, loi oz. barley, and 28 gills of butter milk. The
lowest of the scales issued by the Commissioners for
England shows a weekly allowance of bread, 84 oz. ;
meat, 15 oz. ; cheese, S oz. ; potatoes, 24 oz. ; suet
pudding 14 oz.; broth 9 pints ; gruel, 10i pints. The
amount of solid food in the former case is 101 i oz.—in
the letter, 145 oz. Yet to nine-tenths of the poor of
Scotland the provision of the St. Cuthbert's workhouse
would be a blessed change.
The most harrowing details of the sufferings of the
poor of Scotland under this system have been broug t
forward in the various pamphlets of Dr. Alison, in the
late discussion before the British Association, in two
elaborate articles in '!'nit's Magazine, in Chanzbers's
Journal, and otherwise ; but with the means of infor-
mation thus in their hands, the great champions of the
paupers in Parliament are dumb ; and why ?—because
the poor of Scotland are the really destitute, oppressed,
and needy, whose cause offers no better inducement for
its support than the great claims of humanity and so-
cial order. It affords no means of wielding a great en-
gine of political faction, and has therefore no charms
for the Wakleys and the Sibthorps. It is not asso•
ciated with physical force—it has not been the war-cry
of armed and torch-lit mobs; it would have in view the
feeding of the hungry and the clothing of the naked—
not the restoration of the sturdy labourer to his idle
ease. It will be when the hounding on of fierce pas-
sions, not the relief of destitution, is the object to be ob-
tained, that the poor of Scotland will receive cham-
pionship from such a quarter.— Examiner.

THE GALLANT CAPT. DOUGLAS.

At the Levee, on Wednesday last, Captain Douglas,
late Commander of the Cambridge, merchant ship, was
presented to the Queen by Viscount Palmerston, when
her Majesty was graciously pleased to confer on him ti,e
honour of knighthood. The case of Captain Douglas
is one of which this great maritime nation may well be
proud. He arrived at Singapore the peaceful master
of a merchant ship, but hearing there the condition in
which Captain Elliot and other British subjects in
China were then placed by the oppressive conduct of
the Chinese authorities at Canton, he at once got rid of
his cargo, purchased some 82-pounders, doubled his
crew, laid in a good store of ammunition, and gallantly
set sail for the Canton River ; and all this he did en-
tirely on his own personal responsibility. In his short
passage from Singapore not a moment was lost in work-
ing his willing crew at the guns. He entered the tar,
fon River, cleared for action, and gallantly took his
station inside the valuable fleet of British merchant
ships there lying at anchor. There happened to be no
vessel of war in the Canton River at that moment, but
Captain Douglas was alone sufficient to afford protec-
tion. He repelled all assaults, but he was unfortu-
tunately severely wounded in the attack upon the
Chinese junks at Kow Lune, on the sth of September,
1839. Well, when British vessels of war did arrive, it
necessarily followed that the gallant mission of Captain
Douglas was at an end ; but we have not yet done with
this Captain Douglas. Oa the arrival of the British
vessels of war he fell back into the merchant seaman,
and proposals were actually made to him by some
American captains for the purchase of his 32-peunders.
" No" (said Captain Douglas) ; " you want these guns
to sell them again to the Chinese, but I'd rather chuck
them overboard than sell you one of them."
We need scarcely add that Captain Douglas has
already been reimbursed for the expenses he incurred
in the public service, and we sincerely trust that there
is truth in the report that both he and his gallant crow
hare, moreover, received a handsome gratuity from her
Majesty's Government.—Observer.

TIIE MARY STUART.—From accounts re •
ceived yesterday it appears that this unfottunate vessel,
which, it will be recollee,ed, was nearly lost during the
gale on Monday last, off Portleaven, near Penzance, in
Cornwall, was got off on Thursday lest, through
assistance rendered by her Majesty's cutter Sylvia, under
the command of Lieutenant Brev, er, and the fishing-smack
belonging to Dartmouth, and was towed alongside off
Penzance pier. She, however, appears a perfect wreck.
In the course of Wednesday tic bodies of three of the
men who perished with Lieutenant Smith, in an attempt
to reach the wreck, were washed ashore. Seven were
drowned, and not five, as was stated in this journal on
Thursday last. Their names are Lieutenant Smith ;
Henry Wilspring, aged 42, chief'
widow and nine children; John Farrans, aged 27, second
boatman, who has left a
boatman, left a wife and five children Matthew a
Cantan on,
left a wife and four children ; John Mac Mahon, wife d
six children; William Simpson, aged 18; and John Val-
thauteau, aged 14. An inquest ha; been held on the
bodies of those found, and the Jury have returned a ver-
dict of " Accidental cleat)." The Mary Stuart is insured to
the extant of 1,7601.
Charles Gough, a solicitor's clerk, arrested
Friday in Fetter-lane, for assaulting a policemanon who
went to the assistance of the prisoner's wife,
course of the day, taken before Mr. Alderman iNnvotohde,
at Guildhall. The prisoner in his defence said, he desired
the policeman to leave his room, and cautioned him that
whatever happened he would be to blame ; that the police-
man rushed upon him and struck him with his truncheon
before lie used the poker ; that it was untrue that his wife
came out of the room, or that he had dote more to her
is;
regheeornone t slap
St. on
Batrlatie:o,ohrn,eeelkv.,s,
thhoaunsegsi
bone. The
Mr. Ormerod, the
were two incised wounds stated that there
en head, and one on the face.
pOenneetorfattehde twoouthndes the head extended two inches, and
but from such
policeman was not in dan-
ger,custted, The • wounds a state of danger sometimes
prisoner was • eel N
comma to ewgate.