The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-19 00:00:00

MELANCHOLY SUICIDE OF A CHILD.—A
little boy called John Thomas Hill, and about 10 years
old. was discovered last Wednesday hanging to the branch
11( 4 tree in the roalest'ing to Townatall Church within
but a few minutes' walk of his home, and when taken down
was quite dead. It appears from the inquest held before
Mr. R. Anthony, Coroner, that the poor child had been
up to this time a most obedient and dutiful boy; but had,
from his schoolmaster's evidence, within a short time been
rather inattentive in coming to school. This little fellow
had of late often rPraarked that he was unfairly treated,
which it is supposed, I reying on his mind, was the cause of
his destroying himself. On the morning of the day on
which he committed the fatal deed, he had been absent
from school by his mother's permission, and had been a few
miles hi the country with another lad, who deposed at the
inquest that he noticed that the deceased was much less
talkative than usual. After coming home with this boy
he dined with the family as usual, and after dinner washed
his " fare and hands" and cutting the rope from a pair of
slings" used to carry milk-pails with, took it with him.
His mother supposed he was going to school, but alas ! it
was the last time that she was destined to see him alive.
He must have gone immediately and committed the rash
act. The opinion of the jury was that he did it whilst
labouring under a tit of temporary insanity.— IVestern
Luminary.

, o-
A SUNSET ON THE DANUBE.—On a fine
evening we ascended to the he igltb,,yond the palace
in order to see a sunset nn the Danube,
sight it way'. Faith, wood, and and a glorious
water
swim in one atmosphere ( f goldw seemed to
and topaz, and
30 magnificent a ~kv I never remember to have Ie
beld : we were absolutely blinded with splendsoeur; an'cl-
emed to
mountains
where
then suddenly turning. 'our faces caatward; w
he
e
have been transported into a new world. T
rose darkly against the deep purple horizon, save
they were touched by the beams of the moon, Which wa
pillowed for a time upon the crest of the highest of the
s
range; while her broad line of light, after touching the
topmost branches of the forest-trees at their base, streamed
down upon the bosom of the flood, and turned its tide to
silver. And all was so still upon that vine-covered hill !
The wind played languidly among the heavy grape-
leaves. awakening a low rustling, which served but to make
the silence more deeply felt; while the swift rushing of
the mighty river at our feet was a fitting accompaniment to
the scene en which we looked. I know not how long we
stood there. We took no note of time • ' but the golden
idories cf the sunset had deepened into dusk, and the
II °on had risen high into the star-gemmed vault of heaven,
"
',i4 g down in brightness upon the mountains against
which we had so lately
ste leant, ere we turned to retrace our
mtowards the city.—Miss Pardoe's City of the Magyar.
We regret to have to announce two other
failures in this n•t•gh)ourhood ; the one is an extensive
in ,
shipping house Greenock, the other is a Glasgow
house, in a different line of business, and has been brought
down by large accommodation paper transactions with a
ciVii;s:volenk.d....ia hGoluaasel,o!:
haiehir we
zarci!ticed as having failed this We cannot allow the great ceremony
NA:ol4ote3 aBhC to France, to pus

LONDON:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1840.

At present the weavers of Glasgow, Norwich,
Carlisle, and various other places, gain by the
hardest and most continuous labour from 7s. to Os.
a week. That is the utmost amount of their wages,
and that is not sufficient to support their families.
At this very time, however, these poor, hardwork-
ing, honest, and suffering men must pay, in order to
eat a morsel of bread, the sum of 265. Bd. per quar-
ter on wheat, that being the present amount of the
duty, to the rich, the idle, the dishonest, and wine-
drinking landlords. The same, or similar facts, are
true of all the industrious classes in the country, out
of whose wages, varying from Os., the pay of an
agricultural labourer, to 2/. 25., the pay of au en-
gine driver on the rail-roads, entrusted with the
lives of thousands of persons, is taken this enor-
mous tax of 263. Sil. on every quarter of corn they
consume, to swell the landlords' rent. But, as we
showed on Thursday, to deprive men of the neces-
sary quantity of food, which it is clear is the conse-
quence of such a tax, with wages at that rate, is to
deprive them of fuel, clothing, furniture, and com-
fortable dwellings, because all these arc and must
be sacrificed for food. On this most infamous tax
on the people's bread must be charged, there-
fore, their present want of food, fuel, clothing,
furniture, and comfortable dwellings. We repeat,
the scoundrel bread-tax is at this moment, while
the snow lies a foot deep on the ground, and while
all the sources of natural warmth are for the
moment frozen up—for in the suffering poor even
the blood actually stagnates—dooming thousands,
aye, even millions, to the worst extremities of want
and destitution, and to the most painful of all linger-
ing deaths, by hunger and cold.
Perhaps it may be said they may take refuee in
the workhouse ; but, before they do that, particu-
larly under the present Poor-law, they part with
all their goods. In fact, they must ; for, as long
as they have property, the parish will not support
them. Before they can reach that enviable abode,
therefore, their health is undermined, and they
have undergone most of the sufferings we have
mentioned. But they are intelligent beings, too
high-spirited to submit to the scanty, ill-supplied
parish relief, accompanied, as that now is, with ex-
treme degradation, and they submit to death rather
than go into the workhouse. Even if it were otherwise,
and the destitute poor crowded to that which they
call their bastile, what justification, what excuse
does that afford of a law, which beats down the in-
dustrious classes to that terrible degradation, by the
most severe privations and calamities ? No ; the
existence of workhouses to receive, in the last stage
of distress, the victims of the landowner's and the
endowed priest's rapacity, affords not the shadow
of a justification of the most unrighteous Corn-law.
Some of our Contemporaries, and even some
statesmen, frequently indulge in censure of the
people for not being sufficiently submissive arid
contented. Gracious GOD ! what would they
have ? Can submission be carried beyond that
which is now, and has long been, exhibited by peo-
ple who, unable to get food, yet quietly consent to
pay the landlords' tax Is there something worse
than death through starvation
trious can be called on to bear for the benefit of
the to them worthless owners of rent ? To guillotine
whole families—lovely women, and innocent chil-
dren, and virtuous men—or drown them, as was
done during the French Revolution (which horrid
deeds have since served, in the hands of our priests
and landlords, to buttress up their detestable
system) would be kindness and mercy compared to
withholding from them food,clothing, fuel, and doom-
ing them, as at present, to a slow, lingering, and wast-
ing death. There is no suffering, no degradation, no
misery, beyond that of being slowly starved out of
existence ; and the people who submit to the bar-
barous law which dooms them to it are as com-
pletely and horribly enslaved by law as the
poor wretches who are fettered on board a slave
ship, or who are whipped to death in the free States
of America. We arc not surprised at the discon-
tent of the people ; we are surprised at their long
and patient submission. They have displayed
more forbearance than human nature generally gets
credit for ; but that, instead of softening the hearts
of their obdurate, greedy, and hypocritical tyrants
(though when was scoundrel avarice softened ?),
hasCleinly given the landlords, the boasting nobility,
gentry,moanNdDsan( B
i of England, ATELBOURNES,
Ii c
UCK INGIIA MS, aye, even
WELLINGTONS, a sense of personal security—it
has convinced them that they might, by the aid,
and in the name of the law, practise the greatest
tyranny on the poor, and commit the most revolting
cruelty, without endangering their persons. The
humble but extreme submission of the people has
only encouraged the landlords to go forward in a
most profligate and inhuman career of aniltv

of restoring
by without