The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-26 00:00:00

THE LORD MAYOR'S FOOL.

...
Richard Witie:s, Mr. Gardner; Mabel, Mrs. Howard; Mar-
garet, Ms Lee.
Boxes, ls.—Gallery, 6d. Half-price at Half-past
Eight.

ROYAL SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
Whit Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
SPLENDID AND EXTRAORDINARY NOVELTY!! !
THE first grand ROMAN FESTA, in imitation of the
rejoicin,4s whip h take place 41 Rome at the celebration of
" 11 giorno di S. Pie'ro," will be given on MONDAY, MAY
31st, when will be presented an exact fac-simile of the superb
GIRANDOLA from the Castle of St. Angelo, the greatest
and most magnificent display of Fireworks in the World, with
the ILLUMINATION of St PETER'S, when the whole of
this vast and glorious edifice is brilliantly lighted with count-
less fnyriads of lamps, presenting together a coup d'sail Lf in-
conceivable splendour hitherto unattempted out of Italy. The
unrivalled Band of this Establishment, conducted by lir. God-
frey. augmented by the addition of many performers of emi-
nence, will give the first Promenade ;Musicale et Champetre,
commencing at Six o'Clock.
The Menagerie, incluctin:_t the great male Orarg Outang,
and several other rarities, is exhibited daily, with Daoson's
Coloiftal Pictorial Model of Rome !
Open at Ten. Admis,ion One Shilling.

TO. CORRESPONDENTS.
We cannot give " AConstant Reader" any more specific in-
formatkm than that he must procure a ticket from some sub-
scriber Sc, an hospital.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY.
uunutas al:.sy 5 I Evening a minutes alba 6

he was not present when any violence was committed.
The number of persons sentenced to imprisonment had
been 444, and 398 had been released on account of bad
health. After a just and able exposure of the evils to
which these persons were subjected, and making a feel-
ing appeal to the House, Mr. DuxcomnE moved an Ad-
dress to her MAJESTY to extend her merciful considera-
tion to all persons at present confined for political of-
fences in England and Wales.
Mr. LEADER seconded the motion. Mr. Fox MAULE,
by virtue of his office, opposed it. He objected to the
proposed interference with the prerogative of the Crown,
adverted to the few persons now remaining in prison,
and put it to his Hon. Friend to withdraw his motion.

Mr. O'CONNELL announced his intention of voting
with Mr, DUNCOMBE if the motion was pressed to. a
division.

Mr. LEADER contended that several of the prisoners
had committed no moral offence, and he contrasted their
severe punishment with the slight punishment inflicted
on Lord WALDEGRAVE for a serious offence, who suf-
fered no other inconvenience than being unable to drive
his cab to Epsom races.
Mr. GILLON trusted much to the returning good sense
of the Chartists, and would give his vote for the motion.

Mr. HumE would not discuss the conduct of the Char-
tists, but the severity of the punishment inflicted on these
people; and he hoped Government would restore them to
liberty.
Mr. WARBURTON took the same side, and Mr. WAK-
LET taunted Sir R. PEEL into expressing his opinion.
Sir R. PEEL said, the real object of the motion was,
to release those prisoners, and he should vote, as he always
would on such cases, to leave the matter in the hands of
the Crown. He thought they would place the Crown in
an improper position if they took into their own hands
the power of showing indulgence to prisoners.

Mr. EASTHOPE, Sir DE LACY, ENANS, Sir B. HALL,
and Mr. AGLIONBY severally supported the motion.

Lord SANDON concurred with Sir R. PEEL.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL objected to tiia motion as inter-
fering with the prerogative of the Crown, and not likely
to promote the object proposed by the Hon. Member, for
it was proved by experience, that pardons granted even
when such motions were not pressed, were attributed,
not to the favour of the Crown, but to the House.

Colonel SXRTUORP opposed the motion, and Mr. WARD,
while he pressed on Ministers the propriety of par-
doning the prisoners, recommended his Hon. Friend not
to press his motion. Mr. DUNCOMBE, however, divided
the House, and the motion was lost by the casting vote
of the SPEAKER ; 58 being for, and 58 against. The
SPEAKER gave his vote in the negative.
Mr. EASTEOPE moved for leave to bring in a Bill to
put an end to Church-rates, and enable the Church-
wardens to let the pews of churches. We have not space
further to advert to the proceedings, but the motion was
agreed to.

Some other business was disposed of, including the
bringing in a Bill for the drainage of large towns, for
which Mr. MAULE obtained leave, and the House then
adjourned, at Half-past Twelve.

All the papers published in the manufacturing
districts—all the letters we have received from
those quarters—all the speakers at public meet-
ings held in those districts, who could be so easily
contradicted if they stated what is false, agree in
representing the people there as plunged in the
deepest distress, yet Lord ASHBURTON opposes
the repeal of the Corn-laws, lest the starving
people should be reduced to substitute black rye
bread, like such as the Germans eat, for no
bread at all. At a late meeting at Manches-
ter, for example, Mr. HEARNE, a Catholic priest,
told the following remarkable tale of some of his
own population :
"In his ministerial character among the people he had
witnessed the effects of a famine now and again, but he
would say that this was no temporary distress ; a famine
had been raging in the district where he lived since 1838,
which proved the evil could not be a passing one, and he
attributed it to nothing else but the low rate of wages—
(Hear, hear)—which scarcely afforded the poor labourer
the means of feeding himself and offspring. The meet-
ing could scarcely form a conception of the misery aad
destitution prevailing in the district, of which he was a
witness on this occasion. He went lately to administer
the consolation of religion to a poor dying woman. On
arriving at her bed-side she seemed to be alone. He
asked if she was. ' Johnny,' said she, and immediately
a sack in the corner of the room began to move, and then
another began to move, and out of these tumbled. the
poor woman's sons, their only bed being the inside of
sacks filled with shavings.—(Hear, hear.) He had about
20,000 of his flock living within half a mile of his chapel.
Scarcely a single Catholic, unless in cases of sudden
death, breathed his last without sending for the priest,
and of these, and he spoke from personal observation, at
leas tone-half died from starvation.—(Hear, hear.) Talk of
war ravaging a country !—better by far was he who died
by the sword than he who was stricken by famine.—
(hear, hear.) He could bear but too strong testimony
to the opinion expressed by Mr. M`Kerrow that men in
want of temporal comforts were but ill-fitted to receive
the consolations of religion—for he had found how diffi-
cult it was, when the poor man was dying, with his staff-
ing children around him, to stop the word of blasphemy
issuing from his lips, in his parting breath."
Yet, with this appalling distress, Lord
Asx-
BURTON refuses all relief, because rye bread is
black. At the same meeting the Chairman
stated—

" That in the township of Manchester, in 1836, there
were thirty-two empty warehouses; there are now 340.
In 1836 there were in Manchester 300 or 400 empty
houses ; there are now about 2,6oo.—(Hear, hear.) In
Stockport there are 2,000 empty houses ; in Oldham,
1,000 ; in Bolton, 1,200 ; in Bury, 1,20(1; and in Sal-
ford, 1,400; making, as Mr. Heyworth has stated, nearly
10,000 in the whole, in this neighbourhood."
Does any person hear of uninhabited houses,
deserted stores, and starving people in Germany ?
Lord ASHBURTON, however, is quite clear and po-
sitive that the abundance of Germany would be
fatal to the happiness of England. It might,
perchance, render the people somewhat more
independent, and less the submissive slaves of
the priests and the Peers, and Lord ASHBUR-
TON will not allow abundance.
Need we remind our readers of those harrow-
ing pictures of the deep-seated and almost uni-
versal distress of the labouring classes, which the
excellent representatives of Finsbury and Wol-
verhampton so recently brought before the
House of Commons, without, perhaps, tinging
the cheeks of the DARLINGTONS and the HAND..
LEYS with one blush of shame. It will suffice to
re-quote the following description of the happy
white-bread-eating English, which Mr. S. DUN-
COMBE quoted from one of Mr. OASTLER'S letters
from the Fleet :
" It is almost, nay, it is actually incredible ; but never-
theless, it is true—absolute fact—which can be proved
by incontrovertible evidence :—Not six miles from this
place, on the edge of the Moors, a cow dying of dysen-
wry, is considered by the poor weavers and their families
as a honey-fall—a God-send ! She is called by them a
green tail.' I will not trust my own description of this
horrid fact, I will merely transcribe the notes of a friend,
which notes I know are true. 'ln the course of our in-
--;rif into the state of the labourers, one of our questions
:ltow often do you get butchers' meat ?' In the
neighbourld of Dean Head and Scammonden the ge-
neral reply was, :.aever nobbut wen th' green tail butcher
gets a ka-ah' (cow). This expression, of course, re-
quired explanation, which was in the following terms :
When a farmer had gotten a ;.11—tering ka-ah, and wen
t' doctor sed shu'd dee, they sent for green tail butchei-,
to sell hur tull him ' .then a lad wor to drive her
past sick and sick hauses ; they all knew wat bit meant,
and then began to niak a collecshun i' their folds ; xn if
ss. cud be raised, a whole quarter wod be brought
t'fold, to be devided amang efoulk ; but if they cudent
raise ss. they tuk wat they hed, and gat a lump of bur
for thur brass.' Now.this was all the butchers' meat they
had tasted all the year round, except now and then, when
they could afford a few pence for melt' .to boil with their
pot'ates.' The landlord of the public-house (who had
not been long there) related the following anecdote. He
told us, That he had once allowed a green, tail' to be
killed in his mistall, but he would never allow another to
be killed on his premises, no, not for fifty pounds: He
said, the poor people could not wait until she was cold,
that they slapped' their knives' into her before she was
stiff—that they cut collopgoff, and held them a short time
before the fire, and actually devoured them before they
were half fried'—such savage work,' the landlord said,
he never saw before !' And is this a prosperous state
of trade? These are manufacturing_ labourers--hard-
working hafici-loom weavers. This is an English scene
—a scene in the thriving parish of Huddersfield.",

Mr. VILLIERS mentioned, amongst Otherfacts,
that the starving people, near Oldham had dis-
interred the carcass of an animal which had, died
of disease, and devoured it. We can conceive
only one greater horror to which the people may
be driven; but they will, perhapS. take another
remedy into their hands before they allow the
landowners to degrade them into cannibals.
Nevertheless, with these accumulated horrors
filling a great portion of the land, Lord ASHBUR:
TON in one House, Sir ROBERT PEEL in another,
and the bulk of the landlords, speak slightingly
of the people's sufferings, and will not abate one
jot of their lawful plunder to put even a morsel of
wholesome black bread into the mouths of the
famishing people. The calmest language we
can apply to such conduct is that it is a most
impudent aggravation of a foul legal robbery.
Were the tortured and half-famished. Multitude
to be driven into the last .degree of crimi-
nality, and embrue their hands in the blood