The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-13 00:00:00

LONDON, W EDNES DAY, JANrUARY 1:3, 1641.

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---
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than having a piece of wool in its place, by which the faintest
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defective VISION is brought to nature by toe use of newly-
invented SPECTACLE LENSES; immediately they are
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aware of it, he has therefore altered their name, by leaving eut
the word " Amber,' and calling them Patent Spectacles."
Those which he terms " Patent Spectacles" are no other than
those of amber ; the history and destructive use of that mate-
rial for Spectacles to imperfect vision is fully and most satis-
factorily explained by the undermentioned scientific authority:
Front the " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" of Andrew Ure,
M. 1)., F. R. S., &c., &c.

. ,
" Amber is an indurated vegetakle juice, and not produced
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such dreadful excited eleetries ; amber grows with lime, and is
apt to take fire, and is of such a soft nature when exposed to
warmth, that it swells, bubbles up, and will burn away with
flame. "

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THE NEW couan MEDICINE!!!

HOLLAND'S BALSAM OF SPRUCE,
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Medical Science is daily producing new wonders, and among
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Holland's Balsam of Spruce gives immediate ease in all
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R EPEAL—SIR W. HomAN. —Sir William
Jackson Homan, Bar;., of the county of Waterford, uncle
to Lord Stuart de Decies, has published a letter, in reply
to one from Mr. O'Connell, which enclosed the requisi.
tion for the Monster Repeal Meeting, and requested the
signature of Sir William thereto. Whilst expressing
admiration for the extraordinary talents and ability" of
Mr. O'Connell, Sir William declares his determination
not to join in the agitation for Repeal, and he states his
reasons at considerable length, thus concluding
should myself be a zealous Repealer at any sacrifice; but
convinced as I am that repeal and separation arcs one :inn
the same thing, which cannot be accomplished without
ruin, I do not say to one or other, but, without distinction,
to both countries, I cannot (though free to confess that
Irish affairs have been too often negligently or ignorantly
conducted) bring my mind to concur in the views of the
requisition, so far as it tclates to a repeal of the Legisla-
tive Union,"

We understand that the Mediterranean mail
steamers, the Liverpool and the Oriental will, in future,
start from and return to Southampton. In consequence of
this arrangement, the Oriental only will, after landing her
mails, come to this port.—Liverpool Albion.

ST. PETERSBURGII, DEC. 29.—The Grand
Duchess Helen, and her three daughters, did not arrive
in this city tilt Wednesday last. The severe cold had
greatly hindered their journey on this side Warsaw, and
delayed their arrival for several days,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(seem THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.)
. (From the Morning Post.)
Since the world began there never was offered to
public view a more gross example of inordinate greedi-
ness than that which certain manufacturing capitalists
display in their hostility to the Corn-laws. Never, even
in this money-making country, did any class of men
make such rapid fortunes as- the manufacturers have
tirade since the beginning of the present century ; but
nothing will satisfy them. With wealth Honing in
upon them, as though Pactolus itself rolled through
their smoky settlements of noise and toil, they cannot
bear that any but they should be prosperous. They
have no patience at the thoughts of landlords getting
good prices for their • land, while they are getting
more than Food prices for their manufactures.
This is tl.e lice of human nature. Pamper a nuts,
and he becomes cruel, grasping, greedy. He has
no law of self-command but selfishness. The (Pe!'
tion is whether our Legislature will minister to this
gross selfishness, or rather try to maintain a balance
of interests, and give protection to the capital of the
agriculturist ngatinst foreign competition. Some of
the manufacturers (we refer especial) to those of Co-
ventry) are quite as clamorous for the continuance of
protection to their own trade as they are for the aboli-
tion of all protection to agriculture. Others cry that
they want no protection, land, because they do not
want it, they insist that nobody else ought. to have it.
What amiable and very " liberal" persons! Because
they arc placed in circumstances of extraordinary ad.
vantage, they would not only enjoy the benefit thereof,
but hinder others whose circumstances are not so ad-
vantageous from such artificial help as it may be in the
power of the Legislature to afford. There is no part of
the United Kingdom in which the opposition to the
existing, protection of British agriculture is more Y'ru-
lent than it is in Glssgovr, and yet, of all cities in the
United Kingdom, there is not one where enterprise and
industry in manufacturing and commercial pursuits
have been more prosperous. We have been told by
persons well acquainted with that city that the instances
may be counted by hundreds of persons who had next
to nothing twenty years ago, and yet arc now in
affluence—spending large sums in luxury, and at the
same time annually adding to their capitals. And yet
these are the very persons who grudge to the landowner
and the farmer the comparatively small—very small—
returns which, under the protecting law, they derive
front their capital and their labour ! It is no unusual
thing for these manufacturers of articles, the exchange-
able value of which depends upon the fashion of the day,
to realise full fifty per cent. in the year upon the capital
they employ, and yet they burn with envy because
they cannot cut down those who rarely make more than
seven or eight per cent. to the level of continental
prices, which would yield them no income at all. With-
out taking into account the wondrous profits which
manufacturing people frequently make, the public can
scarcely estimate the shocking and shameful greedi-
ness which is the soul of their opposition to the Corn-
laws. We have spoken of tho fortunes made within
twenty years, but a recent important trial at Glasgow
shows the more prodigious pace at which these greedy
people go. We take from a Ministerial paper—one of
those which incessantly assails the lauded interest with
the most unmeasured alsuse on account of the Corn.
laws—the following particulars of the fate of the much-
injured manufacturers :
" A very important and interesting case was last week
tried before Mr. Sheriff Alison, in Glasgow, which threw
considerable light on the profits of the cotton trade. The
Trustees of the Clyde navigation had obtained an Act of
Parliament, in virtue of which they proposed to encroach
on or remove the works of Messrs. Todd and fliggenbo-
them, at Springfield. Mr. Todd, the original proprietor
of the works, is dead, and his representatives claimed fur
the land, from which they derived a feu (chief rent). in
addition to his share in the value of the works. Mr. Hig-
genbotham, who was formerly.an inhabitant of Manchester,
had attracted the notice of Mr. Todd by his business-like
habits, at a time when the latter was becoming infirm,
rather more than six years ago. So imperfect were Mr.
Higgeubothani's ideas of the value of the concern when
Mr. Todd ofE.red him a share to secure his services, that
he stipulated for a salary of 4001. per annum, secured, be •
fore he would remove. His modest ideas were destined to
no small surprise and expansion.
"The works at Springfield contained 16,000 spindles,
printing and Turkey-red dyeing works, and about 20 looms.
The manufacture was entirely fur the home market. The
total number of hands employed was 889. The averege
annual consumption of drugs and dye stuffs, from 1835 to
1840 inclusive, .was 29,2061. Average annual amount of
furnishings fur the same period was 4,5564 • The average
produce in the printing and dyeing department was '264,666
pieces of 25 yards each. Sales 264,252. Leaving a dif-
ference of only 414.
"In money the average annual sales amounted to
151,2041.
" In estimating the capital employed, we find that five
per cent. interest on the whole was deducted before the net
profits were taken, and in the year 1640 that interest
amounted to 5,400/., representing a capital of 108,000/.
This interest, and all charges, including Mr. fliggen-
botharti's 400/. per annum during the copartuery, being de-
ducted, the average annual net profits for the six years,
from 1835 to 1840, were 11,689/.
For this concern the. Clyde Trustees offered but
6,230/. ; but the jury, after having had the above par-
ticulars proved to them, awarded 43,733/. to Mr.
Higgenbotham, time surviving partner in it, and 8,1191.
to the heirs of
rent. Thus we find 52,000/, held to be equivalent to
Todd, as compensation for the head-
business profits of 11,689/. a year ; and a man who sti-
pulated six years ago for at least 400/. a year as his
compensation enriched with 43,733/. for his interest in
the concern ! Such matters, we believe, are not at all
remarkable in Glasgow, and vet in that place, and
among the very persons thus enriched, do we find a
clamour as though the
protection which enables agri-
culture to exist at all were a grievous and almost in-
supportable hardship upon them! It is a class of people
whose circumstances are thus prosperous, that pretend
they cannot sufficiently compete with foreign manufac-
turers, who obtain labour at a cheaper rate, because
food is cheaper. It is this class of people, with their
enormous profits, who desire to cut down the wages of
the manufacturing labourers, and to throw the agricul-
tural labourers out of employment is not this some-
thing monstrous to contemplate ? We admit the great
merits of these persons. We admire their ingenuity--
we applaud their perseverance—we rejoice in their prov-
perity, and we have no wish that it should be one jot
abated. But we:do think that they ought to be satis-
fied, that they should be content to let others lire while
they thrive, and that they should not look with so
jealous an eye upon the moderate profits yielded by
the land.

•
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
Kent is the county for charlatans. There " Sir
William Percy Honeywood Courtenny," alias Thom,
found believers in his Messiahship ; and his memory
has found a worthy eulogic,:t in the person of the Hon.
G. P. S. Smythe, who aspires to be the colleague of the
notorious Bradshaw in the representation of Canter-
bury. Mr. Smythe thinks that Thom had " glimmer-
ings of truth dawning on his mind," and was, after all,
net so much of a fanatic as Daniel O'Connell. There
is no accounting for tastes ; if there were, it would be
worth while inquiring into.the taste for quackery evinced
by the Tories of Canterbury. The oration of this new
aspirant is amongst the most signal specimens, of flip-
pancy, ignorance, and impudence, we have ever met
with. On the cause of Toryism at Canterbury there
rests an indelible stain. There it was that en assem•
bled faction, at its high festival, graced by the presence
of dignitaries of the Church, listener? with applause to
the calumnies and ribaldry of a " wine-warmed indivi-
dual" upon the character of a maiden Queen.
Those who assisted at that festival, for eve' dis-
honoured themselves as gentlemen, Christians, and
Englishmen. They showed themselves destitute of the
heart or the manners of one or the other. The policy
of party, then at its high tide of disloyalty, crested with
the foamy hope of a Hanoverian succession, has since
ebbed, and left Canterbury calumny aground. And
what says Mr. Smythe in recommendation of himself to
the people in this unfortunate predicament ? He has
the boundless effrontery to talk of " a venal and cor-
rupt press throughout the country calumniating the an-
client city of Canterbury," by " a speech %Odell (he
says) I firmly believe was never delivered, but was
trumpedu
ruy up with
h ciisltoh)ealtv)i,e; okti t( the
train; xing the citizens of
y,
the Canterbury
Tories, who heard the speech with their own ears, ap-
plauded the impudent denial as they had a-
pplauded the
disloyal calumny.; 0 that Heaven in its mercy would but
send us honest opponents in political controversy and make
i
it an honourable warfare ! Is Mr. Smythe ignorant
that this infamous speech first appeared in the
Tory county paper ? Is he ignorant that the editor
of that paper was present at its delivery, and was
himself toasted by the meeting as the representative of
the Conservative Press? Is he unaware that the com-
position of the printed :speech bears marks of greater
care and revision than usually characterise the works of
a provincial reporter ? Is he ignorant that its publica-
tion pa ssed without protest, and that, it re-appeared,
with approbatory comments, in the Tory journals of
the metropolis and elsewhere ? Is he aware that, in-
stead of being censured, it was praised and boasted of ;
and that the reprobation of the Liberal and loyal
papers was founded upon the reports and the laudations
of Tory journals ? Is he ignorant that Mr. Bradshaw
himself; instead of denying the speech, humbled him-
self to the dust on the
apology and recantation ?
If Mr. Smyth, be thus ignorant, where is the
knowledge ; and if he be not thus ignorant,
where is the honesty that should quality him JO:. a

, representative ? We mean, for a representative
of the people in Parliament. The representative of
a very unscrupulous fraction of a very unscrupu:ous
faction he certainly may be, very appropriately.
The professions of Tory loyalty to the person of
her Majesty come too late. They have recorded
their own shame. The columns of their journals of a
year ago and upwards, are laden with the foul false-
hoods which they now vainly dream of charging as in-
ventions upon their political opponents. While there
was a ray of hope in Hanover, they were disloyal.
While there was the supposed chance of (bullying
right Royal spirit into submission, they were disloyal.
While the recurrence of a long-remembered and deeply
deplored catastrophe was possible, they were disposed
to disloyalty. Was there a dinner-party at the Palace,
they talked of Royal orgies. Was the weapon of a—
sassination levelled, they were infinitely facetious upon
" pistol practice in the Park." Were able and honest
men, not of their professed doctrine, put into office,
they alluded to the forced abdication of the second
James. And now who so loyal as they ? Truly the
ancient city of Canterbury must be hard betted for
faithful subjects of Queen Victoria, if Mr. Smythe and
his supporters arc to pass muster under those colours.
Mr. Smythe couples most abundant abuse of the
Government with a declaration that Sir Robert
Peel and Lord Stanley vote more frequently with
Ministers than would his opponent, Mr. Wilson ; and
he intends to follow Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley.
And moreover, he abuses the Septennial Act as a Whig
measure, " a blue Act ;" yet he will resist its repeal.
After such precious specimens of logic and consistency.
it is hopeless for him to offer himself as the champion of
the intekigence of the country against Mr. O'Connell
or any other oppugner. The meeting that could tole-
rate'and applaud him, is sunk Mow all def. nee. In
his return, the stultification of Canterbury would be far
more palpable than its cathedral. These exhibitions are
very humbling to our national character. We could
almost find in our hearts to petition the Carlton Ciub
not to make our canntry the. laughing-stock and con-
tempt of Europe.. We would say to them, try the
nionoy power to its full extent, bribe to your hearts'
satisfaction, avail yourselves of every technicality that
the most rascally lawyers can turn to account in the
perversion of the Reform Act, uprear your Constitu•
tioa on the pedestal of the beer barrel, intimidate and
coerce every poor dependent creature whose occupation
brings him within your gripe—but have some tender-
ness for the intellectual reputation of a people which
has had " the start of the majestic world." Do not
fight your battles with shallow and brazen quacks.
Observe sonic decorum in your choice of champions,
and if you really be as sure of beating us as you pre-
tend, allow us to fall with decency, and make not your
own triumph a dishonour to the English mind. We
fear the petition would be in vain. The exigencies of
the party require it to be inexorable. Our only hope
is, that intellect and honesty are not extinct in Canter-
bury. Mr. Smythe, like our Contemporary the Stag-
(lard, objects to the Ballot, because " no scheme which
wit or human ingenuity can devise will ensure the ob-
ject of secresy." If the Tories believe this, why are
we not agreed upon its adoption ? They can well af-
ford the experiment which 9tters are desirous of try-
ing. Their corruption and coercion may still proceed
if the Ballot can give no secresy ; and what would they
have more ? Their insight into the vanity of all pre-
cautions against their own nefarious devices ought to
render them tolerant of the deluded believers in the
possibility of secret and independent voting. Either
their objection is dishonest, or they arc the most unreason-
able, churlish, and intolerant faction upon the face of the
earth. But the very strenuousness of their hostility
evinces their dread that protection would be realized.
And in the protection of honest opinion they rightly
forebode their own discomfiture.

(From the Times )

The character of this country is essentially Conserva-
tive. There arc always, indeed, mobs to be collected
by rogues, enthusiasts, or bigots, sometimes idle mobs,
and sometimes, we grieve to say, hungry mobs, all quite
ready to vote that everything they suffer from is every,
body's fault but their own ; and at indefinite periods
opce perhaps is ten or a dozen years, there arises some
general or panic excitement, which hurries along with
it a considerable portion of the more respectable
classes. But, except for these partial and casual ex-
cesses, the English are a sober-minded people, willing
to be guided by their natural leaders, and excesd-
ingly indifferent to theories of government. Of po-
litical liberty, indeed, they are very jealous ; but
they care little for political power. In their pocket
and in their religion they must not be harassed ;
and where any hardship or other abuse is exhibited,
especially if its pressure be on the weak, they will
have it redressed ; but their interposition seldom
seeks to go much further : for they have pretty
generally the good sense to perceive that few of us pos-
sess information or leisure sufficient to qualify us for
the incessant toil of politics : and that the best course
with respect to our political counsellors, as with respect
to our legal or our medical ones, is to choose our men with
care, and, having chosen them, to leave our case in
thelhands, and upon their responsibility. That is the
coMitutional principle of our government, and that is
the general inclination of our people. They are Con-
servative, not because they prefer one set of partisans to
another, but because their tendencies are to fixedness
rather than to change, and to recognized gradations of
power and rank, rather than to an uneasy straining after
impracticable equality. The Whigs, from the begin-
ning, have miscalculated the whole matter, and in no
one particular more grossly than in that of their Muni-
cipal Corporation Bill. They might have learned a les-
son from the working of their own Reform Act, but
they were too dull to take it. The general election in
January, 1835, being the second under the Reform Act,
had almost doubled the number of the Conservatives
in the House of Commons. To men at all capable of
being warned, that sudden increase from 150 to near
300 might well have been a warning. It might have
taught them that the popular feeling which had en-
abled them to carry the Reform Act was not a rest-
less itching for progressive and endless innovation, but
a single determination on the part of the people to
compel the redress of what they regarded as an in-
tolerable abu;e of their Representative Constitution.
Although the first election—that of 1832—had
brought upwards of 500 Whigs and Radicals into
Parliament, the next, in 1835, diminishing that aggre-
gate force by about 150, left the Whigs at the mercy
of Mr. O'Connell. Yet the Whigs conld not discern
in this any symptom of a Conservative tendency on
the part of the nation at large ; or, if they did, they
were so infatuated by their own selfishness as to fancy
that they could neutralize the mind of the British
people by a bit of Whig legislation—by a new elec-
tioneering job. If the drawing of the great lottery,
said they, has not been quite so profitable as we calcu-
lated, we will have a " little go" in aid of it ; and so
they resolved upon passing the measure now known by
the name of the Municipal Corporation Act. By that
enactment they promised themselves that they should
gain an accession of from 57 to 59 seats, and extinguish
the Conservatives for ever in a flood tide of popular en-
thusiasm which was never to have an ebb. Oa the 4th
of January, 1836, very shortly after the first general
town election under the new Act, we stated our reasons
for believing that, favontable as the election had been
to the Whigs, they would neither gain their expected
accession of seats in Parliament, nor long continue to
retain their influence even in the elections of corpora-
tors. We observed, that as all the Parliamentary no-
minations appertaining to the corporation system had
already been killed outright by the Reform Bill, there
were none of them left for the working of the Corpora-
tion Act to strangle. We showed that the disgust with
which the jobbing and roughriding of the Radical town-
councillors could not fail to inspire the burgesses must
bring back the popular feeling in the towns to the res-
pectable (which, with few exceptions, is the Conserva-
tive) class of inhabitants ; and that, in three or four
years, the municipal electors would finally restore their
confidence to a municipal administration of which pro-
perty and character should be the guarantees. Those
were our predictions in 18:16. In 1837, that part of
them which related to the Parliamentary elections was
verified by a large increase, instead of any diminution,
in the number of the Conservatives returned to the
House of Commons, and in 1840 the remainder of our
anticipations became realized by the overthrow of the
Whig and Radical candidates at almost every town elec-
tion, from the Tweed to the Tamar. From these facts,
these unequivocal and sustained. manifestations of the
public opinion, both in the Parliamentary and in the
municipal elections, it is possible to draw only one
conclusion, namely, that the tendency—the ha-
bitual tendency,—of thC English people ;is opposed
to the projects of perpetual change and to the
domination of vulgar adventurers. Mob autho-
rity is hated most when it comes nearest ;
and in this view, the Municipal Reform Act will really
have been a substantial benefit to the country. As long
as the election of democratical pretenders was only into
the House of Commons the perception of the evil was
lost in its distance and generality, no particular consti-
tuency having any opportunity to see it in its immediate
working. But when the Municipal Act let a herd of
hungry Liberals into the domestic administration of the
towns,the householders soon became awake to the true
character of these gentry. Their insolence, their ignor-
ance, their covetousness, their corruption, all those quali-
ties which signalize the beggar set on-horsebaek and speed
him to the proverbial termination of his journey, were then
seen and felt, and ere long resented, by the indignant
householders of the towns. From what they viewed
with their own eyes, they formed their judgment of
what was less immediately obvious ; and they came to