The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-14 00:00:00

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.

Immense success of Haine's New Village Tragedy, " The Life
of a Woman," which is rapidly approaching the summit of
popularity. New Tragic Drama, in which Mr. Elton will
perform. Three interesting Dramas in one Evening.
THIS EVENING, NAY 14,
Will be acteclthe New Village Tragedy, entitled
THE LIFE OF A WOMAN; OR, THE CURATE'S

DAUGHTER.
Rea&tation of Hogarth's celebrated " Harlot's Progress.
After --hich tine New Tragic Drama entitled
DON JOHN OF ARRAGON.
In which Mr. Elton will perform.
To conclude with,
THE FUGITIVE OF THOLWITZ.

ROYAL SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
ERUPTION OF HECLA !
MORE SPLENDID THAN EVER !

Tito earnest and unceasing endeavours which have been made
during the winter, to increase still further the magnificence
of this unparalleled Spectacle have been crowned with the most
complete success, as was fully demonstrated on Thursday
Evening (the first Public Exhibition), by the unanimous and
enthusiastic delight with which each portion of the gorgeous
display was hailed as it proceeded by the thousands assembled
en that occasion. In compliance with the expressed wishes
of great numbers of the visitors, it will be repeated on Mon-
day and Thuutitley, May 11th and 14th, commencing shortly
before desk. The Panoramic Model, Al Fresco. of Mount
Heela, entirely reproduced by Mr. Danson, the original Artist,
it exhibiting daily from ten till dusk, with the Menagerie,
which is now in the finest order, and has lately received many
important additions.
Feedinyz Hour, 5 o'clock. Admission One Shilling.

MUM WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE TO-MORROW,
Morning 19 minutes alter 0 I Evening minutes alter O.

- • -.--
Tito Publication of the Evening Edition of THE SUN cot .
meneed at 10 minutes after Three.

LONDON:
THURSgsAY, MAY 14, 1840.

The Pliers did not meet yesterday.
The Commons at for a short time, but did no-
thing exeept receive petitions, only one of which
deserves any notice. It was from Sheffield,
signed by 16,000 inhabitants. It asked the House
address the Crown to dismiss the Ministers--
the Tories cheered vociferously)—to appoint
others who would make Universal Suffrage a Cabi-
net question--(the Tories were dumb)—to put an
nd to long speeches—(wise men)—to exclude
lawyers from the House—(wiser still)—to frame a
new code of laws, and abolish the old laws—(the
Commons will do no such thing)—to exclude heirs
of Peers from the House o 1 Commons, and to pass
an Act of Amnety for all political offences. Hon.
Members stared when they had heard the petition to
the end. The hard and clear-headed men of Shef-
field told them what they are little accustomed to
hear. If such petitions be got up in other large
towns—if they speak any thing like the unbiased
sentiments of the people, as we believe they do—
for the people are goaded by Corn-laws and other
devilry, eut of all respect for Nie law and the Consti-
tution—will the Tories, who persist in main-
taining a heap of unjust laws, please to
inform the public how society is to be go-
verned ? That it can be governed by a con-
nitution of which'the masses speak as the men of
Sheffield have spoken, is as impossible as that each
man of these masses should cut ofF his own nose.
The Sheffield petition demands public attention,
and it will find an echo in many places.
A little conversation took place about a petition
presented from a Mr. FOSTER, complaining of an
injustice, and which Lord STANLEY seemed to
think might perchance calumniate some individuals•
lis Lordsh►p only calumniates a nation, and he is
safe. Nothing was done with the petition, but it ,

was intimated that publishing such petitions might
bring disgrace on the privileges of the House.
It was Fettled that the writ for Ludlow is to come
on the first thing to-day, and then the House ad.
journed.

" From every species of punishment that has
hitherto been devised (says Dr. PA L E Y), from im-
prisonment and exile, from pain and infamy, ma-
lefactors return more hardened in their crimes and
more instructed. If there be any thing which
shakos the stint of a confirmed villain, it is the ex-
pectation of approaching death." It is now up-
wards of half a century since this paesage was writ-
ten., and experie has amply confirmed every word
of it, exceipt the last seutence. In writing that,
Dr. PALEY obviously drew on his imagination ;
he expounded a theory which has turned out not
true ; in t4e other sentences he states facts. After
a confirnied villain is apprehended, when he is ironed
. and shut up in gaol, the infamous death which he
sus net fac ff may shake his soul. But as far as
example is eoricerned, and as far as deterring from
crime is concerned, it is too late to be of use. He
has already committed the crime ; and that hundreds
annually placed themselves in a similar situation,
when our sanguinary laws doomed men to death for
offences against property, is a decisive proof that
Dr. PALEY was mistaken in supposing—if he did
suppose—that capital punishment deters men from
• douunitting crimes. The last proposition being ex-
: plained or refuted, we repeat that all our experience
since Dr. PALEY wrote, upwards of half a century
ago., has amply confirmed the first part of his state-
ment.
. Since that period a great deal of time has been
divOted to this subject, and a great deal of ingc-
'nuity employed, in devising new punishments, be-
cause the old punishments were proved to be inef-
feadal. The nation has had, or has, the soli-
tary system, the silent system, imprisonment with
labour, and imprisonment in idleness, the tread-
wheel for disoulerlies, working in chain-gangs for
life for the hardened and very wicked, penitentiaries
where men and women might possibly re cover a
little self-esteem, and promiscuous gaols where cor-
ption is steamed into new life. We are far from

denying that individual. cases .may be found of each
and all these punishments having been carried into
execution against those who have subsequently re-
pented and improved. Amidst the mass of cri-
minals, these must be many to wholn increasing
years would bring contrition and sorrow, with better
behaviour, whether subjected to punishment or not.
But admitting the existence of examples of indivi-
dual improvement, we contend, looking at the mat-
ter on a large scale, that Dr. PALEY'S observa-
tion of the inefficacy of the punishments existing
in his time, is equally true of all the punishments
that have since been devised.

What is the eternal and just complaint ? That
there is a great increase of criminality. What is
continually done ? Do we not build churches and
qmploy more parsons because the people are more
criminal ? Have we not Summary Conviction
Bills, and Juvenile Prisons Bills now in progress ?
Has it not been thought necessary, within a year
or two, to build a separate goal for little boys and
;girls
building—greatly to the advantage of the architects
and contractors, whoever else may profit by it—be-
cause all our prisons hitherto built are considered in-
efficient ? At the same time,while these preparations
are making to prevent or punish crime, the land is well
stocked with churches and meeting-houses ; large
gaols rear their magnificent heads in every county
town ; a rural constabulary has been found neces-
sary, organized on a military footing ; and, with a
similar 'organization, an army of policemen is fixed
in almost every town of the empire. Our precau-
tions against crime are gigantic and most costly ;
but nobody can say, with the recent murders fresh
in our reoollection, with property continually sub-
jected to 'depredations, that either life or property
is rendered safe by punishment. Taking this
general view, therefore, which seems to us
more explicit and correct than enumerating
a great multitude of statistical facts, the va-
lue of which it is difficult to appreciate, and
the bearings of each of which require much con
sideration, we conclude that the common complaint
of the increase of crime, and the general practice of
augmenting the means of putting down crime
which occupies the Legislature every session, are
satisfactory proofs that crimes have increased, and
that Dr PALEY's ob;ervation is as correct now as
it was half a century ago.
When the murder of a man of high rank has
attracted attention universally to the subject of cri-
minal jurisprudence, it seems proper to take the
opportunity of calling public attention to its de-
fects. Were it not vicious in principle, it could
not be so inefficient. Were it founded in nature and
truth, it could not perennially mock the hopes
of statesmen and philanthropists. Its failure (for
it is a most decided
.failure) should make legis-
lators ashamed, and excite reflection. Other men,
when they found themselves perpetually at fault,
having to renew their efforts continually, and
always without success, would pause and ask them-
selves whether they were going in the right road ?
A bungling apprentice would not go always on
trying to make what never answered his expecta-
tions. Only a succession of ninnies or bunglers, who
profit not by other men's experience, do that. But
that is what our legislators seem to us to be doing.
They have instituted cruel punishments, they have
wasted the national resources in providing an appa-
ratus for repressing and punishing crime, and the
result is, that crime, as far as they are concerned,
is more rife than ever. We shall have done enough
at present, if we should have generated a single
doubt of the truth of the principles now acted on.
If time and circumstances allow us, we may, per.
haps, return to the subject.

The Morning Post has found a new oracle in
a Mr. CARGILL, of Newcastle, who has found
out that our foreign trade has altogether gone to
decay because Lord PALMERSTON is in Downing-
street. We have seen some of Mr. CARGILL'S
pamphlets, and less instructive books we have not
' often read. He boasts of being a great merchant,
having " occupations daily with every country,
from St. Petersburgh to India—(he does not say
by which route)—and from the western portions
of Europe to the shores of the Pacific." In
carrying on these multifarious communications, Mr.
CARGILL seems to have suffered pecuniary losses,
which of course, in order to escape self-condemna-
tion, he accuses Lord PALMERSTON of having
caused. Judging of Mr. CARGILL'S talents by his
published works, we wonder not at his losses, if he
have engaged so extensively in trade as he says.
We admire English merchants as much as any
one, but we protest against their discontent at
losses being reckoned as a critne in the Ministers. We
admit that the Government ought to protect trade,
so far as that is compatible with giving equal pro-
tection to other interests ; but the Government is
not constituted, as some merchants seem to sup-
pose, exclusively to enrich them. We admit,
further, that where it can, by negotiation or other-
wise—not inflicting, at the same time, any injury
on, or sacrificing the rest of the community--
open up new channels of commerce, it is bound to
do so, but it must not be charged with every inter•
ruption to our trade which the policy of other
nations may cause. We would recommend the
merchants not to think of making the Government
an instrument exclusively for their purposes, or
tha other classes may require that the merchants

I pay all its expenses.
Our trade is inter:uptcd, if at all, by our ow❑
suicidal Corn-laws. They exclude us from many
ports, and make the whole trading world our rivals
or our onemies. They disturb the commercial corn.
mwdeation of the civilized world. They cut us
off from Norway ; they limit our trade with Rus-
sia ; they impede and lessen our commerce with
Germany ; and they curtail our business with
Turkey, Spain, and the United States. As almost
every country supplies food, there is scarcely one
where they do not inflict an injury on our mer-
chants ; and it would be more creditable to Mr.
CARGILL and• his assoc►ates to join the Anti-
Corn-law League, and try to put down the Corn •
laws, than to rail against Lord PA LMERSTON and
the Whigs because the French blockade Mexico
and the Russians have acquired the sea-board of
Circassia.

The House of Lords has deserted the Tories
and the tee-totallers upon the opium question. For
once common sense has obtained a legitimate
triumph in the assembly of the if Incurables."
The Duke of WELLINGTON, always great when
the he rises superior to chicaneries of faction, of
which it is to be lamentedtol
manfully
at
faut
1137
defended
dseudffetrhede
conduit of the
himself to be made th
JAMESGovernment,o GRAIIANI'S other leaving to Sir RO-
BERT PEEL and Sir
supporters in the House of Commons what com-
fort they may derive from their factious endeavour
to oust the Ministry upon the Chinese War ques-
tion. The Noble Duke, at the very
he wouldry-comtnenncoe-t
ment of his speech, declared that ,
take upon himself the responsibility of advising her
MAJESTY and the country to submit to an insult
and to injuries such as he believed had never before
been inflicted on this country." A few sentences
after, the Noble Duke, with his characteristic good
sense when not yoked in the Tory harness, ob.

served :
It was perfectly true that the opium trade was carried
on contrary to the laws of China, but it was carried on
with the knowledge of the local authorities upon the spot.
They rzeeived large payments by way of bribes or duties,
ct possibly both, on the importation of opium for admis-
sion into the ports of China. This fact appeared by the
%luminous and very able report upon their Lordships' ta-

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