The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-29 00:00:00

CRIMINAL COURT.—(THIS DAY.)
(Continued from our Afternoon Edition.)"
NEW COURT.
Moses Hunt was indicted for stealing, and John Row-
land for receiving, with a guilty knowledge, two nose-
bags, containing a quantity of oats, the property of Tho-
mas Johnson.
The prisoner Rowland pleaded guilty.
The property was missed by the prosecutor, and he
suspecting the prisoners, had their houses searched, and
the bags and corn were found upon the premises.
The Jury at once found the prisoners Guilty.
The two prisoners were then severally sentenced to
five months' imprisonment and hard labour.

ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION

NEAR TIPTON, STAFFORDSHIRE.

BIRMINGHAM, SATURDAY EVENING.—Last night, be-
tween eight and nine o'clock, as Mr. John Prince, of
Tipton, in the County of Stafford, was returning home,
he was met near to his residence by a man named Ed-
ward Bridgewater, licensed victualler, of this town, with
whom he had had some money transactions, who pre-
sented a pistol at him. Mr. Prince struck him on the
arm and the pistol fell upon the ground. Bridgewater
then drew another pistol from his pocket and fired it at
Mr. Prince, which happily did not take effect. Bridge-
water made his escape and returned to Birmingham.
This evening he was apprehended, and will be brought
up for examination before the Magistrates, at Bilston, on
Tuesday morning. Mr. Prince is an extensive coal mer-
chant.

SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE
CORN-LAWS.-PROGRESS OF INQUIRY.

We learn that Sir Robert Peel has sent agents to the
Continent for the purpose of collecting detaild informa-
tion relative to the average rates of wages, the prices of
food, and other circumstances bearing on the condition
of the humbler classes. Judging from the characters of
the gentlemen to whom this mission has been entrusted,
there would appear to be every disposition on the part
of the Right Hon. Baronet to obtain accurate and un-
biassed information. To what use he may hereafter
be disposed to turn that information, time only can show.
He has been raised to his present exalted position by
an alliance of all the monopolists with all who have, or
who believe they have, an interest in the maintenance of
corruption. Such alliances have occurred in earlier
periods of the Right Hon. Baronet's history, and the
world need scarcely be reminded of the fact, that, after
using such alliances as means towards the attainment of
power, the Right Hon. Baronet has abandoned the im-
practicable policy of a party held together by such ties,
and has, with the assistance of his political opponents,
carried out measures to which he had throughout his
whole previous career, declared the most irreconcileable
hostility.
The fact, that agents have been sent abroad to collect
the information to which we have alluded, indicates a
wish on the part of Sir Robert Peel to be prepared to
choose his own course in the storm which he sees gather-
ing. We do not give him credit for any broad statesman-
like views on the great question of the Corn-laws ; we
do not suspect him of a wish to break up a party, bound
by no sympathy but the love of corruption ; but when
we contemplate his previous career, and find him in the
most important acts of his public life, avowedly ready
to sacrifice principle to expediency, and party 'predilec
tions to political convenience, we are naturally led to at-
tach some signification to the private missions of which
the knowledge has reached us within the last few days.
Of one thing Sir R. Peel may rest assured. The same
disinterested support from the Liberal party, by which he
and the Duke of Wellington were enabled to convert
the abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts into a
Government measure—the same cordial co-opera-
tion without which it would have been impossible for
them to carry Catholic Emancipation—will be given to
them, should they come forward in the ensuing Session,
and call upon Parliament to unshackle the trade of the
country, and remove those barbarous restrictions which
create famine when abundance is within reach, by con-
demning thousands and tens of thousands to idleness
and hunger, while food and employment are courting
their acceptance, and are placed beyond their reach
only by the selfish grasping conduct of a tyrannical oli-
garchy.
In the meantime, we may, perhaps, anticipate some of
. .

the information which Sir R. Peel looks to obtain through
the medium of his agents. The statements we have
published for some time past relative to the prices of food
abroad and at home, have been extremely distasteful
to those who advocate the continuance of our present
famine laws. For that we were prepared. Our facts
have been occasionally carped at, but having been cau-
tious in our assertions, our opponents, with the best will
in the world, have not been able to convict us of one
material inaccuracy. The only resource which remained
for them, was a vague assertion, that if food was dearer
in England than elsewhere, wages at least were higher.
We denied this from the first, but we were not prepared
with details ; we felt the necessity, however, of demolish-
ing the last hold in which the advocates of dear food had
entrenched themselves, and lost no time in setting inqui-
ries on foot in different parts of the Continent, as to the
current rates of wages, and the prices of those articles of
food usually consumed by the working classes. To some
of these inquiries we have obtained replies, and though
we hope, before long, to collect more complete materials,
we think we are already in possession of sufficient infor-
mation to justify our laying a portion of it before our
readers. In the statements we are about to make we

shall confine ourselves to Germany.
From all parts, then, of Germany to which we have
addressed our inquiries, we have been assured, in the
first place, that employment is readily to be had by
those wish to obtain it, Nowhere do we hear of large
bodies of well-disposed workmen being out of work.
This we were prepared for. There are no Corn-laws in
Germany, and on that very account there are fewer fluc-
tuations in trade. Their foreign commerce is less ex-
tensive than ours, but more regular, their merchants not
being obliged every now and then, like our merchants,
by the capricious operation of a sliding scale, to with-
draw their capital from its customary employment. This
subject, however, would lead us too far for our present
purpose. We have facts and figures to deal with, and
will abstain for a while from more general questions.
Let us see, then, what the wages are in Germany. In
Hamburgh we find the current wages of able-bodied
workmen from 9s. to 14s. a week. These are not the
wages of skilful mechanics, nor of men employed at
piecework or for a few weeks now and then, but men

employed all the year round at fixed wages. In sugar
refineries in Hamburgh, all workmen receive their board
and lodging, and about 6s. a week in addition. In Ham-
burgh, let it be remembered, we have stated, more than
once, that meat costs about half what it costs in London.
Our correspondent assures us we have rather overstated
the Hambugh price. The rye bread, which German
labourers eat in preference to wheaten bread, costs in
Hamburgh lid per lb. The wheaten bread is for the
most part very nearly as dear in Germany as in England.
This is because the people at large consume but little of
it, and what is consumed there is mostly sold in the
form of what in this country would be called fancy bread.
In the interior of Germany we find provisions cheaper
and wages lower. At Berlin, rye bread is sold at Id. a
pound ; the best wheaten bread at 21-d. a pound ; beef
at 4d. ; mutton at 31d. ; and the wages of able-bodied
men range from 7s. 6d. to 9s. a week.
At Leipsic 7s. 6d. are the average wages of able-bodied
labourers, and the prices of flood are nearly the same as
at Berlin.

We have returns likewise from Kiel, Breslau, Konigs-
berg, and Hanover, at which places the average wages
are a trifle lower than at Leipsic, but food of every de-
scription considerably cheaper.
It is not only bread and meat that are cheaper, but all
the little luxuries of the poor, such as tea, coffee, sugar,
tobacco, &c., are incomparably cheaper. The prices of
these articles sent us from Hamburgh are the wholesale
prices at which they are bought by the shopkeepers, so
that some addition must be made for the retailer's profit.
Brazil coffee sells at from 3d. to 5-id. a pound ; Havan-
nab, 4d. to 64d. ; white Brazil sugar at from 4id. to
6d. a pound ; brown at 3d. to 4td. Bohea tea at Is. 7id.
a pound, Congou at 2s. to 2s. 20., Hyson at 2s. 31d. to
3s. 7id. a pound. American leaf tobacco at 2d. to kid.
a pound, St. Domingo at sd. to llid. a pound.
Yet Hamburgh, take it all in all, is not a lightly taxed
State ; but the taxes are not thrown almost exclusively
upon the food and comforts of the poor. Herrings and
sprats, if caught by foreign fishermen, are not rigorously
excluded from the provision market, while lobsters and
turbots are admitted duty free. The Hamburgh mer-
chant is allowed to buy his wheat and rye wherever he
can buy it on the best terms, and the cheapest oxen and
sheep are those which the Hamburgh butcher purchase,
let them come from his own neighbourhood, from Prussia,
or from Hanover.—Morning Chronicle.

Sir James Graham left town last night by the
nine o'clock London and Birmingham train for Netherby
Hall, Cumberland.
Lord Bexley and the Rev. Mr. Millman had an
interview with Mr. Phillips, at the Home Office this
Majesty morning, relating to the presentation of the addresses
agreed to by the parish of
St. Margaret's, Westminster,
to her and Prince Albert, on the birth of a
Prince.

A few mornings • since a military execution
took place at Marseilles.
nt-M ea ajA sergeant named Lemoine,
beans-Major who had killed his se or by discharging his
musket close
Co o his biz
urt-Martial t , was shotyinand had been condemned by
rison. He died repentant,praensednce. of the whole gar-
giving the platoon appointed to shoot the great firmness,
fire with his own mouth. The Pharo on which
to
exe-
cution took place was crowded with speetathorsh the g
iThe following from Geneva, of the 19th inst.,
is given by the Debats .—" The Council of State
s.'
a
sembled to-day, and wishing to anticipate the demands
of public opinion, resolved to make the followinges
changes :—A reduction in the numbers of the members
of the Council ; a partition of the initiative between
the two Councils ; an acknowledgment of the right of
petitioning ; a repeal of the second paragraph of the
Constitution, by which no alteration can be made in tho
constitutional Charter without the assent of a majority of
two-thirds in the two Councils. These amendments are
said to have been voted, after a long and animated
debate, by two-thirds of the members of the Conncil.
It is, however, doubted whether this measure will
calm the agitation which is increasing ; it being
feared that the people will consider the conces-
sions as calculated to put out of their minds the
two chief reformations demanded by the Association
of March 3, viz., a wide reform in the electoral law, and
a general municipal law for the whole canton. However
this may be, it is now certain that the Constitution of
1814 will be modified. We are assured that the Council
of State, anticipating the legal period for the convoca-
tion of the legislative body, has fixed its meeting for
llonday, the 22d inst.