The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-08 00:00:00

l'he present distress of Ireland he traces directly to
this cause.

Nowhere is this vicious diaribution more apparent than
in Ireland. Such men as the Duke of Devonshire, the
Marquis of Lan-AoWne, Earl Fitzwilliam, the Arclibishnp of
Armagh, with 17,670/.. a year, derive immense incomes from
that country; while the peasantry on their estates—in most
favourable seasons—have little else to live on than notatoes,
are lodged in miserable huts of one room, with no more fur-
niture than a kettle and a table, with no bed but straw, and
no clothing but rags. More destitute than the negroes—who
have plenty of food— and a climate which makes nakedness
and an airy dwelling luxuries, it is impossible that the::
should lose any of their possessions and continue to lira.
Lower in the scale of subsistence they cannot sink. At tine
best of times the bulk of the Irish have nothing to spa.re.
Now comes the potato rot, and deprives them of nearly all
their food. They have nothing wherewith to buy food, talc'
they must be fed, or perish. Interest and humanity alike
forbid the latter. Poor as they are, their toil gives value to
the nobleman's estate. Their labour pays his rent; allaw
them to perish, and rent will perish too. If humanity were
dead, interest would plead ; and duty, enforced by the pub-
lic voice, comes to the aid of still living humanity.
"Those who have monopolised the land are responsible
for the lives of the people. If they will not allow them t.)
have the land to feed themselves, they are bound to feed
them. The source of the obligation on the landowners and
the Governmbnt to sustain the people, denied by some on th e
ground that naturally one man is as able to provide food for
himself as another, is the monopoly by the Government and
the landowners of the whole soil. Throw it open to all;
throw even the waste and unoccupied land open ; give equf,l
freedom and equal rights to all; and the obligation—except
as an act of charity and love for a brother in distress—would
have no existence. The monopoly of the soil—the main
source of inequality of property—carries with it the obli-
gation to feed and save from starvation the habitually
oestitute peasantry of Ireland. It is only by fulfilling this
obligation, that the landlords can hope to be secured in
their possessions. Duty, humanity, and self-interest, all
combine to make the rich sacrifice their superfluity, and
lessen their own wealth to relieve the poor of Ireland. Be-
cause the destitute people can give up nothing more than
their lives, the potato rot inevitably carries with it a reduc-
tion of the wealth of the wealthy, and an approximation to
equality of property."
And the moral of the potato rot is, that if we wish to
avoid a constant recurrence of failure we must legislate
in accordance with the laws of nature, and encourage the
distribution rather than the accumulation of landed pro-
perty. This article is of great permanent value. We should
like to see it reprinted as a tract, and circulated
throughout the kingdom.

CHRISTOPHER TADPOLE. By Albtrt Smith.
Illustrated by John Leech. Port VII.
In the last number we left Sir Frederick and Mr.
Gudge retiring suddenly from the dinner-table of the
latter, frightened from their propriety by the unex-
pected appearance of Mrs. Hamper and her nephew—
the latter, a Mr. Ellis, is the brother of the mother of
Christopher ; hence the agitation of Sir Frederick.
He is, however, re-assured by Gudge, and rejoins the
company.
" The dinner was dull—dull as a standard comedy, or a
November twilight; or an amateur work, or a popular lec-
ture—dull as only a canveraional dinner can be, in other
circles besides Mr. Gudge's. For you must have recollected
many parties to which you have been asked, whose very
ghastliness almost made them amusing ; where several
dreary people had been cruelly collected together to get no-
thing comfortably ; and to all appearances, for no earthly
purpose but to be shown silver spoons and new-patterned
champagne glasses, and forced into the necessity of repeating
the same absurd ceremonies in their turn. We never yet
considered it a compliment to be asked to a dinner, were dis-
play was palpably the main cause of giving it; and the
whole attention had been directed to collecting showy things
on the table, which money could procure anywhere, rather
than agreeable persons round it. Whenever you hear indi-
viduals spoken of as great dinner people,' you may be cer-
tain they can shine in no other way but with the borrowed
lustre of their epergnes and hash-dishes. If pleasant feel-
ings and social en.;o3ments cannot be got off common
crockery and plain joints, they will never come from heavy
plate and chilled made dishes. On the contrary these have
a tendency to weigh down the lightest spirits.
" The gentlemen were not more lively when the ladies
had left than before. Mr. Snash amused himself with pitch-
ing into the Government generally ; attributing, however, all
the crimes and evils of the State to the Stamps and Tax_es.
The Baron wished to unfold to Sir Frederick a scheme he had
for emancipating Poland by a company with a capital of a
hundred millions to be raised in shares. and, it Sir Frederick's
name was down amongst the directors, would ensure its
success with enormous profits—' in salt, Sir; in the simple
domestic article of salt alone,' as he energetically informed
him, as he went off into a series of complicated saline statictics
that would have driven Cocker himself into Bedlam to have
ft flowed ; to all of which Sir Frederic bowed, but, for the
world, could not have told the next minute what lie had been
listening to. Mr. Gudge and Mr. Flack got up a little dismal
conversation about bills; and Mr. Ellis, who had been intro-
duced by Mrs. Hamper, not knowing anybody, sat by him-
self and appeared to wish that he was anywhere else.
"At length Christopher announced that tea was ready;
upon which Mr. (Judge did not wait, according to custom,
until the information had been repeated, but asked every-
body, at once, if they would have any more wine. And
as the manner in which the question was put ensured
an answer in the negative, he proposed that they
should join the ladies; which everybody appeared quite
ready to do except Sir Frederick Arden; and he slipped off
quietly, whilst Mr. Gudge waited behind hi the room to put
what wine remained in the glasses back into the decanters,
and lock them up."
Driven to desperation by the vulgar obtrusiveness of
Gudge, Sir Frederick determines to take off Christopher,
so as to free himself from the clutches of the unprin-
cipled attorney, and finding Christopher alone at Gudge's
chambers one evening, he induces the boy to enter his
cab, drives to some livery stables, engages a chaise,
hurries off to Weybridge, in which neighbourhood an
old servant of his keeps a beer-shop. He stops at
this place, and asks Andrews, the keeper, to take charge
of Christopher, and carry him safely to Southampton. A
navigator is sleeping on a bench, waiting for a canal
boat; he awakes, and Christopher, to his horror, recog-
nizes Hockey, who engages to see him safely delivered to
the address at Southampton, which Sir Frederick
gives him, and, notwithstanding the cries and entreaties
of poor Christopher, he is once more given into the grasp
of Hockey, and by him carried to the canal boat. Sir
Frederick then enters the chaise, and orders the rostboy
to return to town. In going over a high wooden
bridge which spans the junction of the canal with the
614 r Wey, the horses, frightened by a flash of lightning,
back against the parapet, and the chaise falls over,
the horses falling half across the flood-gates. The post-
boy escapes, but the chariot, with Sir Frederick in it,
falls into the deep water of the lock. The next chapter
brings us back to Sprouts and his friends. The
jolly man, Mr. Chirpey, makes an offer to
Miss Twits, and is accepted, and a grand supper
and ball is given in honour of the betrothal. This ball
and supper is most graphically described, and the whole
chapter is overflowing with good-humoured fun. Their
festivities are, however, interrupted by the appearance of
' Gudge, who has come to seek Skittler, who is in attend-
ance professionally as the fiddler, and whom he instantly
dispatches to Kingston in search of Christopher, as he
has ascertained that it was for Kingston Sir Frederick
had ordered the chaise at the livery stables.