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

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 11, 1849.

The father of the young woman, a respectably-attired
man, said something must ha done for the protection of
his daughter, or her life would go in danger. He never
should have consented to the marriage had the prisoner
not protested in the most solemn manner that he would
throw himself off Battersea-bridge if he could not have
her, and, believing the prisoner was in earnest, he thought

it best to assent Co the match.
The prisoner admitted that he struck his wife, but it
was nut until she had provoked him to it by the intem-
perance of her tongue; but if it would be any satisfaction
to her or her father, he had no objection to part from
her, and allow her 6s. for her support. The fact was,
however, that his wife was the first aggressor, and she
not only abused, but threw a teapot at his heed, because
he would not redeem a dress she had pledged to enable
her to go out visiting.
Th 3 tither and wife being satisfied with his proposal,

Mr. HENRY consented to adjourn the case for two
months, and directed that should be again brought up
if in the m:antimc. he fui:td to keep his promise.

MARLBRO'-STREET-(THIS DAY.)

IMPUDENT STREET ROBBERY.—HiIary Ann Foley, a
woman of the town, was brought before Mr. Bing-
ham, chargt d with having stolen a silver watch
value 41., from the person of a gentleman named Ityton,
21, Villiers-street, Strand.
The prosecutor stated that on the previous night
about twelve o'clock, he was proceeding along Oxford-
street, when he was accosted by the prisoner, who
wished him to " stand " some gin. He told her that he
did not want anything to say to her, and eh clined ac-
ceding to her request. He then walked on for some dis-
tance followed by the prisoner, and when opposite a
dark court, the prisoner dragged him up the entry,
and persisted in his stopping and speaking to her.
Having an idea that she intended to rob
him, he kept a sharp eye upon her movements, and in
about a minute after he found her hand in his waistcoat
pocket tumbling for his watch. He immediately pushed
her from him, and at that moment a man came up and
asked witness the way to some street, and before witness
could reply to his question the prisoner rushed up=
him and snatched his watch from his waistcoat pocket
and ran off. Witness pursued her, and on overtaking
her she held out the watch, saying "for God's sake take
your watch, and let me go." He took the watch and
gave the prisoner in charge to a constable, who happened
at that moment to be passing.
The prisoner, who was recognised as an old offender,
was fully committed for trial.
HAYMARKET TIIEATRE.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean appeared here last
evening for the first time this season. The piece
chosen was Mr. Lovell's admirable play The TVife's
Secret, in which Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean sus-
tained their original characters with more than their
original intensity and power. Never was reception
more spontaneously enthusiastic than was the re-
ception of these great artiste:, last evening ; they
received the very heartiest of welcomes. The play
went off admirably, every point told well, and at the
close both Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean were called
before the curtain. The cast was very strong, and
the Jabez Sneed of Mr. Webster is perhaps the most
faultless and perfect piece of acting on the stage.
The house was crowded in every part. We perceive
that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean appear in a new
play on Monday, which report says is from the pen
of Mr. Mark Lemon.

DEATH- OF THE EARL OF CAR-

NARVON.

Henry John George Herbert, third Earl of Car-
narvon, expired yesterday morning, at seven o'clock,
at Ilighclere Castle, Hampshire. The disease which
has thus fatally terminated is supposed to have been
some affection of the spine.
The deceased Lord attained to considerable dis-
tinction in the course of the few years that his name
was before the world. A successful author, a well-
known traveller, a person of some note in the House
of Commons; even in the House of Lords, under all
the disadvantages of ill-health, he enjoyed a position
more prominent than is usually accorded to those
Peers who do not closely connect themselves with
party or submit to long official training; but when he
bore the title of Lord Porchester he was better
known than since he succeeded to the Earldom.
His father was Henry George, second Earl, and
his mother, Elizabeth Katherine, daughter and
heir of the late Colonel Acland, of hi!.
lerton, in Devonshire. The Noble Lord just
deceased was the eldest son of his father,
and was born at the town mansion of the family in
Grosvenor-square on the Bth of June, 1800 ; he has,
therefore, not lived to complete his 50:h year. At
an early age Lord Carnarvon—then bearing the title
of Lord Porchester—went to Eton, where he was
the contemporary of Lord Morpeth, of Mr. Disraeli,
and of other wits, poets, and orators less known to
fame. After quitting Eton he repaired to Christ-
church, Oxford, where he received the university por-
tion of his education ; and in the year 1820 pro-
ceeded to what may be called a fresh course of
instruction by entering upon an extended and well-
devised plan of travel. In Italy he witnessed the
revolutions which took place there during the year
1821 ; not long after wards he visited the I'eninsula,
and, having taken an active part in favour of
Don Carlos, fell into the hands of the opposite
party, with whom he remained for some time
a prisoner. But his Lordship's travels were not
limited to Spain or Portugal. Through Mo-
rocco and other parts of Africa, through a
considerable portion of Garmany, through the
Marnote country, and Athens his wanderings ex-
tended ; and by those who are familiar with his
writings, or have enjoyed the advantage of his con-
versation, the animated and picturesque descriptions
abounding in both have long been acknowledged and
admired. But it was not by "travellers' tales" alone
that he won distinction !lithe world of letters, for he
was a poet and a dramatist. "The Moor," a poem,
and "Don Pedro," a tragedy, have given him a place
in the roll of "Royal and noble authors ;" his appetite
for fame, however, was not sated with literary suc-
cess, and he had scarcely more than achieved a posi-
tion amongst the writers of the present century when
he took his seat in the House of Commons, where his
career was brief, certainly ; but, by his friends, con-
sidered brilliant. His large expectancies, his ancient
descent, his rank, his youth, his success as an author,
his adventures as a traveller, his sufferings, his cap-
tivity, and "hair-breadth 'stapes," imparted great
interest to the Parliamentary ddmt of him
who was heir to the Sydney s and the
Herberts, but whose mortal remains will now
prematurely repose amidst their honoured ashes. So
long as health was spared to him, Lord Porchester
in the House of Commons answered the expectations
even of his most partial friends. Amongst the
speeches that he delivered in that Assembly against
the Reform Bill—now the law we live under—there
was one so impressive and efficient that Sir Robert
Peel said he should be perfectly contented to rest the
whole cause at issue upon the arguments contained
in that single speech ; and the cheers which this
opinion elicited from both sides of the House left no
doubt that men of all parties shared the sentiments
entertained towards Lord Porchester by him who
was then the great Conservative leader. Unfortu-
nately for his fame as a public man, Lord Porchester
did not retain a seat in the House of Commons long
enough to establish a durable reputation in that
branch of the Legislature. His Lordship's father,
the second Earl, died on the 16th of April, 1833,
and the Noble Lord just deceased became of
course a member of the Upper House. The
period of his election as a Member of the
House of Commons is nearly coincident with that of
his marriage, which took place at Aldingbourne, in
Sussex, on the 4th of August, 1830, when he
espoused Henrietta Anna, eldest daughter of the late
Lord Flenry Molyneux Howard, and niece to the late
Duke of Norfolk: Of this marriage there has been
numerous issue, the eldest of whom, now in the 19th
year of his age, succeeds his father as fourth Earl of
Carnarvon. The period at which the late Lord entered
the House of Lords was one by no means favourable
to the rise and advancement of a man who, like him,
started from such a "'vantage ground." The politi-
cal condition of the country was excited and alarming;
great events were in progress; and if he had remained,
as Lord Porchester, in the Lower House during the
high and palmy days of Conservatism (as well in oppo-
sition as in power), he could not fail to have occupied
an eminent place amongst the orators and statesmen
of that party. But, transferred to the House of
Lords, a different field of action opened to his
view; one not very favourable to the commence-
ment of a fresh political career in an assembly where
he had acquired no practical experience; which con-
tained fur the most part the contemporaries of his
father, and which, in all respects, was composed of
elements utterly unlike those that enter into the
formation of a House of Commons. But, apart from
such considerations, the Lords were at that time
reduced to a subdued and restricted position ; little
was left for them to do, and they did that little with-
out much debating. In the discussions on the Muni-
cipal Reform Act, however, Lord Carnarvon took
an active part, and divided their Lordships, as he
had done the House of Commons, on the question of
Parliamentary reform. His labours were, however,
interrupted by occasional ill-health, by frequent
visits to the Continent, as well as by the manifold
duties which devolve on a great landed proprietor,
and the head ofan ancienthouse. Another object which
much occupied his attention was the restoration of
the old family seat, Highclere Castle, a work
commenced in the year 1441, and hardly yet
finished. This was certainly the indulgence
of rather an expensive taste, but the
undertaking has, from its commencement,
been regarded with much interest by antiquaries and
lovers of art. His Lordship was likewise a successful
cultivator on a great scale of the more curious and
beautiful American plants, of which his gardens
contain many of the finest specimens that have ever
been imported to England. In all respects he was,
as an earl should be, a country gentleman upon a
great scale. As a large landed proprietor he seemed
sufficiently jealous or his rights, and in the year
1844 his vindication of his rights gave rise to one of
the most curious actions to be found in the legal
history, at all events of the present century. It was
brought to establish a privilege called " free warren."
This privilege was introduced by our Norman rulers
for the protection of game, and it was one which
gave the grantee a sole and exclusive right of
killing such game, so far as his warren ex-
tended, provided he prevented others from killing
it. Lord Carnarvon claimed free warren over the
manors of Ilighclere and Burghclere ; the action
seas brought against Mr. Villebois, a copyholder in
Burghclere, for shooting game on his own copyhold ;
and it was one of the most extraordinary features of
the case that a grant of the time of henry 111. was
not deemed sufficiently ancient ; but that, from
amongst the muniments of the family, Mr. Parker,
his Lordship's solicitor, found it necessary to produce
evidence of a still earlier date for the purpose of show-
ing that the right of free warren passed to Lord
Curnarvon by ancient prescription, or usage, antece-
dent to the time of Richard I. It is not unworthy of
notice that a decision in favour of such a privilege
would probably have occasioned some discontent in
any county, if the successful suitor had been a man
less popular than Lord Carnarvon, but its effect was
directly the contrary, for intelligence of the event
was received amongst his neighbours and tenantry
with various manifestations of pleasure, perhaps of
triumph, and it may, without the least exaggeration,
be stated that very few even among the most popular
Members of the Upper House will close their lives
amidst feelings of more general regret than those
which attend the death of Lord Carnarvon.—Thies.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
TATTERSALL'S.—YESTERDAY.
METROPOLITAN STEEPLECHASE (TO -MORROW).
3 to 1 agst Sir Arthur
4 to 1 agst British Yeoman
5 to 1 agst Vain Hope
The following are the names of the probable starters
and riders:—British Yeoman (J. Mason)—Sir Arthur
(Ryan)—Chandler (Captain Little)—Hurleston gelding
(():liver)—Duke of Cornwall (Raekloy)--Maria Day
(Frisby)—Vain Hope (Archer)—Sarah Sykes—Young
Lottery (Butler).

PRECOCITY.
(From Eliza Cook's Journal )
It was once said of a certain roan, " that lie had
, never been a boy." That was meant to point him
out ironically as a grand exception to the common
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 lu:cious
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 kelp 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 lire 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. Ide not think they have
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, arid contrasting the broad brimmed
straw hats, short frocks, pinafores, and romping of
the one, with the gauss bonnets, pelerines, beflounced
dresses, and rainbow parasols of the latter. I verily
believe if you had given my sisters, at ten years old,
the finest sylphide 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 before
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 the
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 indications
of what the future people are to be, and I am old-
fashioned enough to like, in this respect at all events,
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 that
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 wild
energy and ready sympathies, and earnest confident
simplicity of true childhood, than out of the prema-
tureobfrtribe,asion cgs
andordat
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elt
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shrink
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oi distrust,nrkfforms
withrh asenaendrxet
pardavesnochudoa:rl ulaf
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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 life
Depend upon it, the subject is well worthy of the
consideration of the mothers and fathers of England,
and it will 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. B UCKIN G HAM's MODEL TOWN

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—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 ILmedies."

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
yourdissent 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 ail 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 ipportant feature of my plan
for a model town and associated 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 Alt, 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 he 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
❑ation 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) ivould 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 Barba'loes 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 self-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 li
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
ask the aid of the Government in any way whatevea
beyond the granting of a charter of incorpation
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 for the formation of a railroad,
a canal, or mines, or docks, or any similar operations
requiring the united funds of numbers to accomplish.
Iu 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 juin 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 a 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 itsell
as there alone the details can be fully examined.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. S. BUCKINGIIAM.
Aberdeen, Dec. 10.

A HUSBAND, WIVE, 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 Pettifer, with his
family, occupied a small house on the side of Portwaye
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. He then found that neither his father, mother,
nor 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 accompanied him to the spot,
examined the breach, and found that the crowning in of
the pit had give❑ way, and no doubt the three parties
missing had fallen in. Assistance was promptly pro.
cured, and several men commenced digging at the loose
sides; but no one 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 suspected, the lifeless bodies of Mr. Pet-
Lifer, his wife, and daughter. It is supposed that they
were suffocated before they get to the bottom of tha;pit
from foul air. The bodies were removed as quickly as
possible, mad an inquest was appointed t be held.
The Chelmsford annual show of fat 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
can stoo:i of all descriptions,—.Essex Herald,

THE POOR NEEDLEWO3IEN.
TO THE _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 me cordially to say that if I do not 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
observation 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 superior understanding, tells me he
thinks 25 per cent. (decreasing, no doubt, according to
advanced prices) would make all the difference. tie
adds that starving the employed may be ultimately felt
in the po3r•rates.
Then the argument assumes this shape—A sells to
B for ls. 3d. what he ought not, as an honourable man,
to have offered at ls., and C, the poor workwoman,
gets more than fourpenee a day ! (as her labour would
well deserve eighteenpence) for 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 pointi 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
labour with the least amount of food," and the poor
animal falls down from exhaustion, causing a street
obstruction, he is considered a brute, and fined 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 have 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 forcibly, will be " over•stocked" from these drafts
upon it. But God will
Shave 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—l 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.]