The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-27 00:00:00

STATE OF THE POOR.

(From the Leeds Times.)
From the report made by Mr. Muggeridge, one o
the Hand-loom Commissioners, it appears that the
average earnings of the best hand-loom weavers was
eight shillings and sevenpence-halfpenny weekly ; but
from this there falls to be deducted about three
shillings and fivepence as necessary expenses for
loom rent, winding, &c.—leaving five shillings and
twopence-halfpenny a week for supply of the phy-
sical necessities of the working man ! What a pic-
ture of misery and suffering is this simple fact 1 But
it is not yet complete. The wages of the hand-
loom weavers have been considerably diminished since
this report was made ; the masters sending their
work to Ireland, where it is done some ten per cent.
cheaper. But even allowing that the hand-loom weavers
were in full employment (which they are not), and that
they received their full complement of wages (which
they do not), or about .ss. 2id. sterling—what a miser-
able pittance is this ! Deduct 2s. for house-rent or
lodging, and there is left little more than 3s. (certainly
not 45.) a week, for food, fuel, and clothing ! And this
with bread at 9d. the four-pound loaf (of good quality) ;
and every necessary of life dear in the same proportion.
Nor are the other artisans in our large manufac-
turing towns in much better condition than the hand-
loom weavers. In Manchester, as stated last week,
about 900 families were visited, whose average weekly
earnings were only thirteen-pence farthing a weak per
head I In Preston and Bolton the average earnings of
artisans are somewhat about six shillings a week. But
employment, even at those wages, is scarcely to be had
and the consequence is, that the workmen and their
families are starving. In the manufacturing villages in
our own neighbourhood, the present average weekly
earnings of the operatives do not amount to more than
five_ or aim shillings ; a large proportion of them being
altogether destitute, and subsisting 'upon the contribu-
tions of the charitable.
The following extractfrom a communication forwarded
to us on Thursday, from a fancy-weaver near Hudders-
field, exhibits the condition to which the operatives in
that neighbourhood are now reduced :
" I take the liberty (says our correspondent) of
troubling you with a very brief sketch of my own condi-
tion, which you may take as a fair specimen of that of the
fancy weavers generally. Our family consists of seven
individuals. We have four weavers. Myself and ano-
ther of our family were employed by a firm that was
connected in the Bill Scheme, with a worsted establish-
ment in Leeds ; in consequence of whose defalcations
they have failed. I have had short of seven shillings'
worth of work for my loom since the middle of last De-
cember. The other loom employed by the same firm
has had about the same. The other two looms are em-
ployed by two different firms. Each loom has averaged
about two and a half days' work per week for the last
ten weeks. Out of the four looms we have but one
in work at present. and that one is only partially
employed. We have often been one whole day without
food, and more than once we have been two days and have
had nothing exepting a little gruel, without even a morsel
of bread. We have no other source of living but by going
to the Guardians; but I have determined to die rather
than go there, or become a parish pauper, and there are
many more here of the same mind with myself."
Such a simple tale as this is enough to make the
heart sick. And it is no fiction, but a sad reality—
painful from the very minuteness of detail in which it is
drawn. We know the honest man well who has sent it,
and who is himself the principal sufferer. Its truth, in
every particular, may be relied on.—Leeds Times.

REPORT
Presented to both Houses of Parliament by the Nations

Vaccine Establishment.

TO THE RIGHT 110 N. THE MARQUIS OP NORMANBY, PRINC
PAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE 1101 HE DEPARTMENT.
January 23, 1840.

MI Loan,—The experience of another year has con-
firmed our conviction of the efficiency of vaccination as
the best security and protoctioa against small-pox, and
has afforded us, moreover, proofs of the propriety, in the
present state of our knowledge, of preferring vaccine
matter, the produce of the original virus furnished by Dr.
Jenner, which has now passed happily through succes-
sive generations of subjects in the course of forty-three
years, and which forms the principal source of our supply,
to any which may have been taken recently from the
cow. We admit that it is sometimes stated to us by our
correspondents that the supply which we had sent them
has failed, but the same post has generally brought us in-
telligence that the material supplied from the very same
source had succeeded elsewhere, and that it was found
efficacious in Sotaersetshire when it was said to be in-
efficient in Wiltshire. We have concluded, therefore, either
that it had been injured somehow in its transmission, or
that the patients submitted to it were not in a fit condition
to receive its influence, in consequence of some eruptive
disease having pre-occupied their constitution, or of some
prevailing epidemic disorder having rendered them insus-
ceptible of another and a new excitement for a time.
The number of patients dead of small-pox within the
bills of mortality, if we can trust them, has been less this
year than any one since vaccination has been practised,
and we are justified, by a careful retrospect of several
years, in stating that 4000 lives on an average are saved
every year, within the district of the bills only, by vacci-
nation having superseded so largely the practice of in-
oculation.

We have vaccinated, at our several stations, 13,144 per-
sons, and have sent out 165,395 charges of vaccine lymph
since our last report to Parliament in 1839.
HENkY HALFORD,
President of the Royal College of Physicians,
President of the Board.
ROBERT REATH,
President of the Royal College of Surgeons.
TJIO lAs MAYO,
Senior Censor of the Royal College of Physicians.
CLEMENT HUE, M.D., Registrar.

VIOLENT OUTRAGE.—About one o'clock, on
Tuesday morning the 11th inst., three persons violently at-
tempted to force the door of the Greyhound public-house, in
the parish of Llantrissent, within two miles of Usk, kept by a
widow of the name of Jones, one of whose sons being dis.
Curbed, he got up and went to the window, desiring them to go
about their business. On closing the casement, a shot was
instantly fired, and a ball lodged in the ceiling, immediately
above his head. In a short time another shot was heard, and a
ball, with a piece of cartridge paper attached to it, was found
in front of tie house. Two of Mrs. Jones's sons went in pur-
suit, on the road leading to Usk, where they were deliberately
shot at by two persons ; a ball was heard, by one of them-,
striking the hedge within a yard of him. The persons then
took the direction of Usk. Two soldiers of the
Usk9th RHeogut's;
erleo'moala.rnehdaeisd
been
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str stationedatesCorrection,oa nt Usr kiod,nay lanamedst asuspicion,nd Murrayialary anwngadrdL beenaokf
red
by Government to any person who will give such information
as shall lead to the conviction of the persons concerned in the
said outrage, and a free pardon grantedto any accomplice (ex-
cepting the person who fired into the house) who shall give the
informationlike information and evidence.—Merlin.

COURT OF CHANCERY, Frs. 26.
The LARD CHANCELLOR sat in Lincoln's Inu Hall to-day.
ILLINGWORTH V. THE MANCHESTER AND LEEDS RAILWAY.
The arguments in this part heard case were resumed
to-day. The case became before his Lordship upon ap-
peal from his Honour the Vice. Chancellor, who had
granted an injunction against the defendants, restraining
them from proceeding to turn the course of the river Calder,
and from altering a road called Jacob's Road, leading to the
plaintiff's mill. The plaintiffs were the proprietors of dyeing
and scribbling mills, which required a constant stream of
clear water, and if the plan proposed by the Railway Com-
pany was to be carried into effect, it would create such im-
pediments on the road leading to the mill, as would divert
the course of the water of the Calder, and render the pre-
mises of the plaintiff useless.
The arguments not having concluded when his Lord.
ship rose, they were postponed to Friday.

VICE-CHANCELLOR'S COURT, Fax 26.
The VICE CHANCELLOR took causes to-day, but in con-
sequence of the absence of Mr. K. Bruce and Mr. Jacob,
who were engaged in the Lord Chancellor's Court, his
Honour rose shortly before two o'clock.

JUDGES' CHAMBERS, FEL 26.
PRIVILEGE.—STOCKDALE V. HANSARD.
It having been understood that Counsel would attend for
the purpose of having the order of Mr. Justice Williams,
staying the writ of inquiry till treat term, rescinded, great
interest was excited, and at one o'clock, when the Learned
Counsel and the parties had arrived, the gentlemen re-
porting for the press were, for the first time, by the
courtesy of the Learned Judge, allowed to be present.
The proceedings at Chambers are generally understood
not to be public. Mr. Under-Sheriff France and Mr.
l3urchell were present; and on the part of Mr. Stockdale
a young gentleman named Russell professed to attend.
Mr. PLATT said, iu applying to have the order rescinded,
he would first submit that the effect-of the order being to
inhibit the execution of the Queen's writ, a single Judge
at Chambers had no power to make such an order;
the result of it would be most injurious to the
plaintiff, as it would necessarily keep him out of
his money for soma tumults. An application for
a similar order having been wade in the last action to
Mr. Justice Littledale, that Learned Judge, after hearing
an argument of two days, simply said there is no ground
for the application, treating it as it ought to have been
treated, when there was any unwarrantable interference
of any public body in the execution of the law—an inter-
ference which it was the bounden duty of every Judge to
reject with indignation. Mr. Howard had made an affidavit,
stating that owing to himself and his clerks having been in
Newgate, he was prevented from making so full an opposition
to the granting of the order as he might have done, as no
persons could see him to receive instructions from him till
the following day after the notice was given. There had
been no irregularity here, and when a plaintiff had arrived
regularly at a certain stage of the proceedings, was he to
be stopped from receiving the fruit of his action because
the House of Commons had made certain resolutions
which were clearly illegal—for the House of Commons
had no more power to interfere in the administration of
the law than the parish vestry ? Besides, the Court
could not protect its officers ; at this moment the
Sheriff was in custody, and, by a technical device on the
part of those who framed the warrant of the House, the
Court, which could not look beyond the face of the war-
rant, had been precluded from releasing him, and could
not interfere. What benefit, therefore, could accrue to the
Sheriff or to any human being by delaying the writ of
inquiry? It would only put off the difficulty. But he
(Mr. Platt) had yet to learn that he had anything
to do in this case with the benefit of the Sheriff.
The plaintiff had regularly arrived at a certain
point at which, by law, he was entitled to have his
damages assessed, and it was for the Sheriff to do his duty
firmly, and take upon himself the responsibility. If, in-
deed, the Court could not protect him, cadet questio, but
he hoped they were not yet come to that point, and that
the Judges would do their duty also without flinching.
Upon the grounds, therefore, that the Learned Judge had
no authority, and that there was no precedent for the
order ; that it would be most unreasonable, because it
would interpose delay without benefit to any party, he
submitted that this order shoutd be rescinded.
Mr. RICHARDS, on the part of the Sheriffs, cited the
case of Philips and Weymen, 2d Chitty, to prove that
unless any new grounds had arisen, the decision of a Judge
at Chambers, could not he canvassed, except before a
superior tribunal. Not only had no new facts been stated by
his Learned Friend, but no new argument, and, in truth,
he had spoken merely in the same words as Mr. Chadwick
Jones had against the granting of the order, though
with greater warmth, lie was surprised to bear his
Learned Friend talk about a single Judge having
no authority to meke such an order. Why, his Learned
Friend must have moved some hundreds of such motions ;
fur instance, under the Irrterpleader Act, where the Judges
were constantly in the habit of indulging the Sheriffs, by
extending the time for the return of the writ. The
around of the application for the order had been this,
that the new rules placed the Sheriff in a difficulty hi
which he would not otherwise have been placed, for under
the old rules the writ of inquiry would not have been re-
turnable till the 4th day of next term. There was a great
difference between this case and that decided upon by
Mr. Justice Littledale. In the former case there had been
no order actually served ern the Sheriffs, but merely a
declaration by a Mr. Parkes, the solicitor of the Messrs.
flaasard ; but in this case the resolutions of the House
had been notified to the Sheriffs ; he ( Mr. Richards) would
assume that what his Learned Friend had stated about the
illegality of those resolutions was correct, but with that he
had nothing now to do. It was enough for him that if this
writ was executed the Under Sheriff must go to prison,
and then what would become of the business of the coun-
try ? That was an argiameirt founded on the public con-
venience, and then the Sheriffs ware certainly entitled per-
sonally to the protection of the Court of Qeeen's Bench,
and all that was asked was, that they might have time to
apply to the Court few that protection before they were
committed.
Mr. PLATT, in reply, declared, as his Learned Friend
had talked about his warmth, that he could not approach
the subject without indignation. His Learned Friend
thought, in this case, a notice had been served by the
order of the House. Well, in the former case, the notice
was on Mr. Parkes, who, in this instance, had just as much
potency as the House of Commons. The cases cited by
his Learned Friend had been cases in which the writs had
been executed, and its which the return only had been de-
layed ; whereas, the writ of inquiry was only to inquire
and assess, and the effect of this order would be to prevent
the writ being obeyed altogether. What was the use of
postponing the contest that must ultimately arrive? Sup-
posing the Court of queen's Bench issued an attachment
against the parties who attempted to stop the execution
of the writ? The House would commit the per-
sons executing the attachment, and the Court could
not interfere. The very serving of these reso-
lutions on the Sheriffs was a ground of an attach-
ment from the Curt the resolutions being a fla-
, grant breach of the law. If any inconvenience arose from
the committal of the Under- Sheriff, the blame must Le
laid to the rash proceedings of the House of Commons.
Mr. Justice WILLIAMS said, as to consequences, with
them he had nothing to do, he had merely to decide on this
summons. Now Mr. Howard stated in his affidavit that
he had been prevented from showing full cause against the
order when it was granted. Now if that had been stated
at the time he would instantly have postponed the hearing,
Ataying the writ for a few days only ; and in the mean-
time he would have taken the opinion of his Learned
Brethren, who would, perhaps, have all come down to
decide at once upon the whole of the case ; but that
had not been stated, and he bad no alternative but to de-
cide at once whether the writ should be stayed or not.
There were two distinct questions—first, whether or not,
upon new facts, there was a ground of application to the
Court; and next, whether he ...hould give time fot making
the application. He distinctly disclaimed entertaining or
expressing any opinion on the first ; but as to the second,
he had consulted his Learned Brethren, and they agreed,
with the exception of Mr. Jineice Coleridge, who was on
the Circuit, that the order ought to stand upon this single
ground, that an opportunity ought to be afforded to the
Sheriffs to make an application to the Court. As to there
being a new state of facts, he considered that decided)
there was, on the ground of the resolutions of the House
having been in this ease served upon the Sheriffs by order
of the House. Undoubtedly there was hardship on the
plaintiff, but there would be greater on the Sheriffs, unless
the writ was stayed.
Mr. PLATT declared
that he would lay the venue of R
new writ of inquiry in another county.
Mr. Ractiaans—Yes ; and as the -House will not plead,
wait for replication.—Order confirmed.
you need not w

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.