The Sun.
London, England, 1824-03-15 00:00:00

the manufacture while I was at Lyons as possi-
ble ; and from the most accurate observation I
found that the very methods which the Spital-
fields Weavers had fifty or sixty years back, and
what are only in the recollection of the oldest
eavers, having been long exploded, are still ad-
hered to at Lyons. . . . The mschiner: of

cotton has certainly undergone very great im-
provements within the last 20 or 30 years, and
also in silk ; they have kept pace with each
other ; our cotton manufacture is the first in the
world, and I conceive our silk is also. If the
English manufacturer has an improved machinery,
and is relieved from the duty on silk, it is diffi-
cult to understand how free competition should
produce those calamitous results one and all of
the speakers anticipate from it. A writer in The
Scotrinan (Mr. M'Culloch), who has bestowed
the greatest attention on the subject, states, that
the price of labour is fully es low in this country
as in France. We are able to prove our assertion
that the average wages of labour are to the full as
low in this country as in France.—lf the ma-
chinery in this country is of an improved
description, if the price of labour is not higher,
and if the manufactures of both countries
start on equal terms, with respect to duty,
we are at a loss to understand how the result
should be unfavourable to the English manufac-
tures. The silk manufacturers are entitled to
call for the removal of the restrictions on the
trade in Corn, and that the freedom of trade
should not be partial but universal, and the
Spitalfields manufacturers in particular are en-
titled to be placed on an equal footing with the
manufacturers in other parts of the kingdom, but
to more they are certainly not entitled. If the
silk manufacture can only thrive by monopoly,
the sooner it is at an end the better."

[THE TIMES.I
It is not long since we were called upon to
exercise a wholesome partof our duty as journalists,
by remonstrating against a very mischievous and
very melancholy perversion of English feeling—
we allude to the case of the heinous murder in
Hertfordshire, perpetrated by the villain Thur-
tell. On that occasion a series of attempts was
made to excite in the breasts of a humane people
an interest in favour of that most atrocious mur-
derer; the direct tendency of which efforts was
to encourage guilt, to disarm honesty, and to
confound all just notions of the 'difference
between right and wrong. From mistaken
tenderness, perhaps, in some members of the
press,—in others, we fear, from 'a motive not
so good, this contagion was fostered assiduously,
and was rapidly spreading among those classes of
our countrymen who, when an appeal is made to
their compassion, are apt to receive it " not
wisely, but too well." The Times appealed in
its turn to the sound nerve and moral instinct of
Englishmen; the danger was exposed, and the
evil in a moment eradicated. We now again
protest—(and with no reasonable man will a se-
cond remonstrance on the present subj....t.b.e rn
co 4
are
necessary )—against the exertions. which
making to withdraw another criminal from the
grasp of public
justice. Patrick Connolly
found guilty
a few days ago by a Jury (who did
not hesitate five minutes about their verdict) of
a ferocious homicide, was sentenced by a Judge
whose observations on the case were forcible,
impartial, and instructive, to be transported out
of England for life. This verdict, if not openly
arraigned, has been piteously lamented ; this sell.
tence has been deprecated—nay, stigmatized,
by a certain portion of the press—" Poor Mr.'
Connolly I kind Mr. Connolly ! ill-used Mr.
Connolly l" It may suit the ends of individuals
thus to poison the springs of justice—they may.
feel a depraved alacrity to rescue the criminal
from punishment, at no higher price than that of
taking away from the innocent the natural pro-
tection of the laws ; but such a course, if benefi-
cial to thieves and cut-throats, their patrons or
associates, is ruinous to the interest of all other
classes of mankind. Here, as in the case of
Thurtell, We put in our cla'm to reprobate the
abuse of public confidence and credulity display-
ed by more than one of our cotemporary journals.
Why should this man, Connolly, be pardoned by
the Crown ? Was there ever conduct more cha-
racteristic of a fierce and ungovernable ruffian than
he has exhibited ? When officers of juiitice same to
arrest him for debt, he stabbed one, wounded
another, and after wounding, declared his wish
that he had killed him. When a third officer
came to take him prisoner for the assault, what
did Mr. Connolly ? He only shot him dead !
What then ? Suppose the arrest had been irre-
gular, is an informality, for which the law
provides redress, to be punished capitally, and
'by an individual not clothed with any legal
• power? Who, then, will accept the office of
constable, or be prevailed upon to execute a
search-warrant or writ of arrest ? Who may
not, who will not, hereafter blow a constable's
brains out, rather than be taken prisoner for
debt, if Mr. Connolly should now receive the
Royal pardon ? If Mr. Connolly he pardoned
for shooting a constable, who, we say, can here-
after be hanged or transported, without the most
flagrant and cruel partiality on the part of the
Executive Power? As for any difference of
danger in letting Thurtell, guilty of murder, or
Connolly, condemned (but that was no merit of
his) for manslaughter only, once more loose upon
society, we affirm, in the most solemn manner,that
Connolly would be an instrumentof more extensive
mischief: for a deliberate and calculatingmurderer
is less likely to shed blood than an outrageous
ruffian, who sacrifices whatever offends his pas-
sions ; whereas a man of Thurtell's frame of
mind would require the stimulus of some urgent
sense of interest before he attacked a fellow-
creature. Away, then, with this false and sickly
sensibility. We call upon the King's advisers
to do their duty, as the Judge and Jury have
set them the example.