The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-25 00:00:00

TO TILE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Bungay, Nov. 24. 1840.
SIR,---The Timex of Friday has been sent to me con-
taining an article on the alleged Bible monopoly.
In that article you have introduced my name in con-
nection with one or two assertions which are false, and
one or two allusions which are groundless.
1. You say you find me reported as present at a meet-
ing in Liverpool, where Mr. Campbell delivered a
speech, from which you give an extract.
I was at Bungay when that meeting took place, and
ignorant of its being held. It is very unlikely that my
name appeared in any report of that meeting.
and children at Bungay.
2. You speak of my " cheap establishment of women

I suppose it is customary in all printing offices to em-
ploy women for some parts of the warehouse work, and
boys for errands ; but it happens that only two women,
and but one person, male or female, so young as 16
years, is employed in my office ; while, if it were of the
least interest to the public how either of us conduct
our private business, I venture to affirm that in my
office would be found more men who have been em-
ployed there from twenty to forty years than would be
found in yours. But if it were as you state, what then ?
3. You strongly imply that I had an edition of the
Bible, which the patent prevented my selling in Eng-
land, and which I was anxious to sell in Scotland by
means of Dr. Thomson's benevolent plan.

I never did print any edition of the authorised version
of the Bible, either on my own account, or to the order
of any other person.
In 1831 I gave, in evidence before a Committee of
the House, a list of prices, far below those paid at the
time to the monopolists, at which Bibles and A eta of
Parliament might be produced.
These prices were demonstrated by the witnesses for
the monopolists to be utterly impracticable, below the
possible cost of production, and I was charged with all
possible bad motives for giving them in.
The Lords of the Treasury in the year 1833, showed
what value they assigned to the demonstrations of the
monopolists, for they directed that the future price of
Acts of Parliament should be half what it had been, or
a quarter lesr than I had stated, and this price Mr.
Spottiswoode, the Queen's printer, and your protege,
has been glad to take ever since.
Mr. Spottiswoode himse:f has also justified my evi-
dence respecting Bibles, by publishing in your paper a
list circulated by the officers of the Bible Society ; and
from this list it appears that the agitation of the subject
has, in nine years, knocked down tlie price of Bibles full
one quarter, and rendered the Monopolists in 1840 fain
to accept the prices which, in 1831, they denounced as
impossible.
I do not wonder that Mr. Spottiswoode hires you to
resist further agitatio❑ in this matter.

When the Scotch Bible printing was thrown open,
my frienl Dr. Thomson applied to me for estimates of
Bible stereotype plates.

I replied that I was indisposed to furnish plates for
the Scotch, as I had had experience of our opponents,
and was confident that they who before pronounced my
prices too low for any sine man to offer, would now
turn round and charge me with getting too much by
some private interest.

I added, that I te:Ould confirm my evidence by offer-
ing plates at the prices stated therein, but had no doubt
various considerations would lead printers on the spot to
put in tenders on still lower terms.
And I was right ; a most respectable house offered
Dr. Thomson, with a bond for correctness, a large edi-
tion of a Bible exactly like that which the Bible So-
ciety lately issued at a reduced price, and which is
vaunted as the cheapest ever purchased.
The price asked by the Scotch free trader was 25
per cent. under that paid by the Bible Society to the
monopolists.
The monopolists quarrelled with my prices in 1831,
and they will not greatly approve what I am now going
to say ; but I am prepared to prove that Acts of Par-
liament, for wl•lich the Queen's printer now gets 1 id. a
sheet, and for which he got 31. a sheet up to 1833,
ought to be furnished to the public at a penny, and that
the present price of Bibles ought to be still further re-
duced at least a quarter.
Mr. Spottiswoode is labouring hard to mix up the
Bible Society, and to conciliate it: friends, for the de-
fence of his lucrative but precarious patent. The friends
of that Society may judge of his zeal in their cause by
the following extract from your thundering article in
your paper of Friday :—" Whether the price of a
school Testament shall be 71d. or 81d., or that of a
large Bible 4s. 3d. or 4s. 6d., wo utterly deny to be a
matter worthy of the national attention,"

Permit me, Sir, to venture a word of admonition to
yourself and your colleagues. The Times has become
proverbial for its recklessness of assertion and its disre-
gard of truth, its articles manifesting an obliquity of
moral vision.
I ask the friends of the Bible, whether any principle
but that of enmity to its sacred truths would have de-
vised the following, your plea for restricting its circula-
tion :—" We do not wish to see the sacred writings so
far reduced in price as to be the cheapest thing the
Infidel or the Socialist could buy—for waste paper
purposes !"
To this remark, in its bearing worthy of the mono-
polist, and in its sentiment worthy of the Times, the
answer shall come from one of the respectable Secre-
taries
at one of its recent meetings illustrated the o
Scriptures
Rev. George Brown,
ipturn over the length
im-
portanceries of theof
spreading Bible Society, t
h e
s
end breadth of the land, by the following statement :--
He said a man going into a house of ill-fame, picked up
a bit of paper, which attracted his notice ; it was a NI--
tion of John's Gospel, alld a sentence arrested his att.
n-
oon, he was diverted from his unholy purpose, and that
stray leaf became, by the blessing of God, the means 01
his conversion.

The infidel would gladly check the circulation of the
Bible, even on the plea of keeping it from infidel hands,
end the monopolist would gladly maintain Ids price o❑
any plea.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant, __ _

JOHN CHILDS.

CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 23.

( From a Correspondent of the Chronicle.)
Great consternation was caused in this town this morning
by the announcement that Mr. Field Dunn Barker's bank
had suspended payment. Mr. Barker was the banker of the
Cambridge University Pitt Club, the funds of which were
. dedicated at the last two mock elections for the represen.
1 tation of this borough in Parliament, under the sanction of
1 the Reverend Fathers of the College, to the holy and whole-
some work of bribing the constituency. This is the
teeeisi
saonrese d.
second serious misfortune that has happened to the
, Pitt Club this week ; the first being the refusal of the
present Viee-Chancellor ( Dr. Graham, of Christ's) to
brought.abboyutsborny ethehaCsf-tadb°lzieshnmocfnthoisf
sanction their annual dinner, although it had been coun-
tenanced
club on the Vic ultra-Tory l t ra-T
Liberalor y p
clubr e d
ine
1
the Univer •
say,
' dred whiche..c boastshane, 1
laot
rpresentabout
aof fo, r at
nt i lgehats ts,i
nee
eh
,u nt
0-
1 members. A deputation, it seems, had waited from the
ask permission, according to the statute, to have a dinner.
The Vice-Chancellor having refused, he was obliged in all
consistency to deal in a similar manner with the deputa-
tion from the Pitt Club, which subsequently waited on him
for a similar Purpose Dr. Graham's good sense and
consistency arc strongly contrasted with the motives
which actuated his predecessors in countenancing the an-
nual dinner of the Pitt Club, whilst they invariably re-
fused the same privilege to a number of the young Liberals
of the university, whenever thev requested permission for
a Fox Club dinner. One of these worthy Vice-Chancel.
(ors, the Master of Downing, a name which ought to oc-
cupy the most luminous spot in our University annals, gave
it as a reason for his partiality on one of these occasions,
that Pitt was an historical character, and that Fox was not.
A propos of the failing of Mr. Barker's bank. I should
not omit to mention that this gentleman was chairman of
tho " Cambridge Conservative Mechanics' Association," a
society of gentlemen, whose monthly carousals, at which
they ate and drank to the tune of nothing to pay,
form one
of the most interesting features in the moral statistics of this
town. In private life Mr. Balker bad many friends of
both political parties.
Another banker here, the celebrated Mr. Banker Blue-
book Fisher, who figured before the Committee of the
House of Commons, who nullified Mr. Manners Sutton's
election last year, is the ne-v Conservative Mayor. In
honour of the election of this University Utensil to the
civic chair, not long since, the bells of St. Mary's
hellsran
triple-bob-majors for hours tooether. The
o public
which are always in requisition for all occasions
festivity, have not as yet rung forth one joyful
lews of an
the birth of the young Princess Royal.
which wouldi have
opposite and most melancholy event,
" 'll'anover to the
proclaimed the succession of the King of samef
note for
have caused no
surprise to those who have lied recent experience of the
t experien
Throne of these realms, arrived here yesterday, the ring-
ing of the joy bells in consequence would
new Tory order of things in this disgracefully priest-rid-
den borough.
- -

___ •
According to advices from the Levant, quoted
by the Moniteur Parisien, the light vessels and steamers
of the allied squadrons are to keep up the blockade and
surveillance of the Syrian coast, while a detachment of
five sail of the line and two frigates will blockade Alexan-
dria. The rest of the ships are to go, as has been already
announced, to the Bay of i‘larmorizza.