The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-01 00:00:00

We may enable our readers to contrast the situa-
tion of Messrs. LOVETT and COLLINS with that
of Mr. FEARGUS O'CONNOR, by stating that the
former, after they had been six months in prison,
and were favourably treated, were allowed to have
sheets to their bed. Their actual dietary we else-
where publish, and must add that they were allowed
a bit of tin in the form of a knife to eat with. They
slept together in a narrow bed, while a convict
slept in another bed in the same cell, twelve
feet long by eight wide. All their money was
taken from them, as men so well provided for
by the county could not possibly want money. We
hope that the treatment these gentlemen and Mr.
O'CONNOR have received is not to be made the cri-
terion for hereafter treating all those who may offend
the Government by their political writings.
We must, in the cause of truth and morality,
protest against such indiscriminate punishments,
which tend to confound in the mind of the people
the most innocent with the most guilty actions. It
may even be supposed, by Sir Jourr HosiiousE
being now a Cabinet Minister, and Sir FRANCIS
BURDETT in high favour with the Tories, that
there is something meritorious in political libels,
for both these gentlemen were imprisoned for a
similar offence to that committed by Messrs.
LOVETT, COLLINS, and O'CoNmmt. At any
rate, however much there may be of mistake or
error in political libels, there is nothing im-
moral or degrading in the authorship of them.
Why, then, should society inflict gh irreparable
injury ; and, if not nobly self-sustained, a perma-
nent degradation on men in no sense degraded by
their own conduct ? To condemn such men to a
similar punishment to that inflicted for petty lar-
ceny or burglary, is to inflict a great injury on
society, by making no difference between Chose
who have never forfeited our respect and those who
are self-degraded.

We call attention to an atrocious act of tyranny
brought before the sitting Magistrate, at the Town-
hall, on Saturday. According to common report,
we live in a free country, but events are constantly
occurring which prove that under the semblance of
law and Constitutional Government many persons
are subjected to punishments, or rather persecutions,
which are not surpassed in the most despotic States
of Europe. The treatment of LOVETT, COLLINS,
and O'CONNOR warrants the assertion, and the
case to which we allude confirms it. That, how-
ever, is not a solitary case. We have noticed
others in the country papers ; and we confidently
trust that, in the Bill now before the House of
Commons for renewing the Poor-law Act, it will
not be enacted that a man shall be sent to prison
for refusing to support the illegitimate children of
his wife.

We borrow from the Carlisle Journal an ex-
ample of the diligence of the Anglican priesthood :
in seeking after truth and goodness ?—no but in
seeking after pelf. By the Bill before Parliament
to amend the Poor Laws, a fee of ss. is to be paid
out of the Poor-rates to the Clergyman of the
parish or district,' to whom such fees are usually
paid for every person buried by order of the guar..
diens of the poor. At Carlisle, the customary fee
for burials, including the clerk's fee, expense of dig-
ging the grave, &c. is only 3s. 6d. in one parish,
and 2s. 7-kd. in another, so that the Legislature is
about to give the priests a larger fee out of the
Poor-rates for the burial of a pauper, than the
friends are required to pay for the burial of a rich
man. The guardians of the Carlisle Union, who
petition against the measure, state, that it will be
an additional expense to their district of not less
than 1001. per year ; and the editor of the Carlisle
Journal estimates at 3,0001. the addition which
this clause, if it pass into a law, will make to the
revenues of the Church. However deficient the
clergyand their friends may be in the art of instruct-
ing and civilizing the people, it is impossible to deny
them the merit of being most skilful, if not always suc-
cessful, extortioners. In this case they may be dis-
appointed, for many Dissenters, it is thought, will
object to pay Poor-rates if out of them are to be
paid additional fees to the priesthood.

We have received the whole of the Paris Journals of
Friday and Saturday. The Monituer publishes the
continuation of the Marshal VALLEE'S despatch of the
22d ult., from Blida, interupted by night-fall, which
merely states that the Marshal left the troops in the
camp of Monzaia, where a large magazine of provisions
was collected. In the same official columns we find
another despatch from the Maritime Prefect of Toulon,
dated the 28th, thus laconically announcing the result
of another engagement :—" On the 14th an engage-
ment honourable for our troops took place in the neigh-
bourhood of Oran."
The Dukes of ORLEANS and d'Ausaar.E arrived at
Toulon on Saturday morning, and immediately went into
quarantine. Their Royal Highnesses' campaign in Africa
has been crowned with success ; nevertheless they appear
in extraordinary haste to quit the scenes of their mili-
tary glory. ADD-EL-KEDER is still in the field, and
positively threatens before the summer is over, to ren-
der the campaign of the Royal Dukes as barren of ulti-
mai.° utility as the celebrated ORLEANS expedition to
the Iron Gates. Let it not be supposed, however, that we
mean to sneer at the return of their Royal Highnesses ;
or that their longer residence in Africa was at all desir-
able. On the contrary, we deemed the appearance of
the Duke of ORLEANS in Africa as extremely judged, as it imposed upon Marshal VALLEE, in addi-
tion to his other onerous duties, an incessant
watchfulness over the personal safety of the
heir-apparent to the Throne of France. To
afford the DUKE the same opportunity of dis-
playing personal prowess as other officers of his
rank in the army, and, at the same time, never for an
instant to lose sight of his preservation, was a task too
onerous to impose upon the Commander of an army en-
gaged in an irregular warfare with the Arabs of the
Desert. Besides, it was not fair towards officers wh•
had, during five or six campaigns, endured all the hard-
ships nod privations inseparable from war in the arid
plains of Africa, to lift over their heads at the moment
of victory, a pair of Royal striplings and their Aides-
de-Camp, to snatch the laurels for which they had
been so long toiling, from their anxious grasp. We
have the greatest respect for the personal courage and
acquirements of the Princes of the ORLEANS family, and,
if left to fight their way to distinction, we doubt not
that they would achieve the highest military and naval
honours. But as promotion, in their case, cannot be
expected to depend upon merit only, it is the more ne-
cessary to avoid all occasions of professional odium, that
they appear not eager rather to appropriate than to
merit the glory which is only due to long and brilliant
services.!
The Chamber of Peers consurnzd Friday and Satur-
day in discussing the Bill for the conversion of the Five
per Cents. The Bill was supported by the Minister of
Finance, by the President of the Council, by the ex-

still stronger interest in the matter than the grocers.
There is scarcely a poor family in the kingdom
which does not consume sonic sweets, and, after the
starvation laws, we know no merely fiscal regulation
which is more injurious to them than the discrimi-
nating duties on sugar.

We insert Mr. FEARGUS O'CONNOR'S petition
at full length ; and hope that it will make a due
impression on the Legislature. It authenticates the
statements of his letter, and adds to them much
information concerning the mode of his treatment.
In the discussion on this subject, it seems to have been
overlooked, that Mr. O'CorrNoß, by his publica-
tion and his attacks on the Poor-laws, may have
made himself obnoxious to many of the Magistrates
of Yorkshire. We would fain hope that the Judges,
by sending him to York gaol, meant to do him a
service, by confining him in the neighbourhood of
the place where the Northern Star is published ;
but they have given an opportunity to his
enemies, if he have any amongst the Yorkshire
squires, to wreak their malice on him. We know
not whether this be actually the case, but it appears
to us a much more feasible account of the treat-
ment to which he has• been subjected, than to attri-
bute it to the Ministry, who were no otherwise
instrumental in the matter than by bringing him
to trial.
While we are on this subject, we must mention
that a Correspondent has written to us, to state that
we were in error in saying that Messrs. LOVETT
and COLLINS were the first persons convicted
of libel who were compelled to herd with
felons. Cur Correspondent quotes the case of a
much ill-used man of the name of COGSWELL who,
in 1833, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment
at Ilchester gaol, for selling a publication at Bath,
and who was kept in irons day and night, and was
fastened by the leg to an iron ring in the floor of
the prison, in company with 10 or 12 convicted
felons. His clothes were taken from him, and he
was treated in every respect like the housebreakers.
Such a case, and we are afraid there are many such
hidden in obscurity, may serve to explain the embit-
tered feelings of the lower classes. We are only pre-
vented from referring more at length to this painful
case by the length of time which has elapsed since
it occurred.