The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-09 00:00:00

vital question, the interests of its members, per-•
hap,s even some feeling of pique, or a sen-
timent of pride, will speedily lead them to be
just on many other points, and we shall
have, for the first time in the history of our Le-
gislature, or, perhaps, in the history of the world,
the law-makers throwing aside theory, expediency,
and selfishness, and doing justice to the bulk of
the people. When they once enter on that good
path, Chartism will receive its death-blow, for men
will never trouble themselves to change a Constitu-
tion, or leave their own bread-winning occupations,
to mend the State, when those who are al-
ready in authority do justice and love mercy. The
Anti-Corn-law Circular, then, in our opinion un-
der-rates the advantages of a total and uncondi-
tional repeal of the Corn-laws, and of the Legis-
lature acting on this one subject on the common
principles of common honesty.
Such being our opinion, we learn with regret
that it is in agitation to hold a meeting in the City
of London to petition for a fixed duty on corn in
lieu of the present fluctuating duty. We have
little to add on this question to the remarks of the
Anti-Corn-law Circular, and to the observations
which we have, from time to time, since Lord
BROUGHAM first talked of a fixed duty a year and
a half ago, made on the subject. A fixed duty is
certain death, a fluctuating scale lingering disease.
To the agriculturist a fixed duty, unless accompa-
nied by an equal bounty on exportation, renewing
the old objectionable and obnoxious system of
bounties, duties, and drawbacks, to equalise
what nature herself equalised, till the equa-
lity was disturbed by the meddling, mischievous,
law-maker—to the agriculturists, we repeat, as
we have before frequently said, a fixed duty, it
being to that extent a prohibition on exportation,
would be most injurious. Now, as nobody seeks to
injure the farmer, and no person acquainted with

the history of bounties and duties can wish to ex-
tend that monstrous system, we cannot conceive a
motive why the City of London should petition to
substitute one wrong fo'r another.
We believe that the monied classes and others of
the metropolis have a notion that by a fixed duty
they will prevent the depreciation of property which
they dread would be consequent on a repeal. But
at present, with our gold standard, as late events
have amply proved, our currency, and consequently
to a great extent our prices, are regulated by the
currency and the prices of the Continent. At the

same time, for want of an abundance of food, the
growth of population and enterprize is checked—
the healthy demand for property is diminished, and
its value deteriorated. The increase of the popu-
lation, and the demands for new undertakings con-
sequent thereon, would probably raise the
value of property quite as much as the
freest importation of corn, and all other
things, would lower it. Moreover there is no
hoarded supply of corn to come in ; it will take
two or three years to provide us with any great ad-
ditional quantity, and we therefore conceive that

the fears of the value of property being deteriorated
by the abolition of the Corn-laws, are greatly ex-
aggerated. The uncertainty that the law can be main-
tained, which is an essential characteristic ofevery law
so mo►►strously unjust as the Corn-law, depreciates
property far more than it would be depreciated by the
abolition. That would stimulate enterprize, and
encourage the increase of the people, and increase
the value of property.
It is not the business of those who are opposed
to the felon law to demand its partial repeal.
Founding on principle, they should demand the
total repeal, as an act of justice. If any persons,
being advocates of the law, come forward and
say " The abolition would inflict an injury on me ;
I gave 20,0001. for an estate, relying on the Corn-
law being continued, which will not be worth above
12,0001. if the law be abolished ;" we are far
from saying that such a case ought not to be taken
into consideration. If a furrier says he took a
lease for 10 years in 1837, and gave 30s. an acre
for the land on the virtual pledge of the Legislature
that the Corn-law should be continued, his case also
may be deserving compensation. We must, however,
have the individual injustice substantiated before
giving redress. In the meantime the whole commu-
nity is not to be grievously injured, people are not to
be starved, the public peace is not to be endangered
by discontent, property is not to be placed in
jeopardy by the roguery of the law-maker, because a
few who have placed their faith on the continuance of
. . .

injustice may, perchance, suffer a little by justice
being done to the public. The Legislature will exa-
mine such cases, we have no doubt, when they
are brought forward, and will be ready to consider
what compensation is due when it knows what
injury has been sustained. The Anti-Corn-law
party will even take a compromise into consider-
tion, when it is proposed by those who now will not
relax their gripe of our property ; but at present it is the
duty.of everyAnti-Corn-law man to demand the total
and unconditional repeal of the Devil's-laws. If the
citizens of London move in this matter they must
demand justice. It will be more disgraceful in
them humbly to supplicate the landlords to com-

_ __...
pound their own felony than to take no notice of
it. They should not forget their ancient reputation,
and now take the lead in rivetting the yoke of
the aristocracy on the neck of the nation. London
was wont to be the first in all good works, and it

must not now fall into the rear, and give the posl
of honour to Manchester or Glasgow.

A most extraordinary trial for bigamy, as Mr.
PHILLIPS called it, appears in another part of
The Sun. The person injured by the prisoner, the
second wife, made no complaint ; and the first wife,
whose only remedy for being deprived of his com-
pany is to be found, if at all, in Doctors' Com-
pmons, prosecuted him for his offence to the second,
apparently out of jealousy. The poor young
woman who had married him, knowing of his first
marriage, believing she might do so legally, who
has lived happily with him, who suffers by having
no legal title to the name of a wife, and whose child
by him is illegitimate, is still further punished by
the Court shutting up the man she had married, to
gratify some vindictiveness in the first wife. This
lady's legal claims and injuries, if she have any,
may be redressed by another Court.
It might be necessary to vindicate the law, as
the REcortnErt said, but we have to inquire whe-
ther the law be just ? A law to punish bigamy, is
intended, we presume, to protect young women from
being deceived and betrayed into marriage. But in
this case there appears to have bee
ever ; the second wife knew
o C no
firs(Tteemeiatrrlfi,aTet,-
and there was no betrayal. The husband is not pu-
nished for deserting his first wife but for intermarry-
ing with the second. The law, then, supposing its in-
tention to be what we have assigned it, is in fact com-
pletely perverted in order to be vindicated. It inflicts
a great injury on the second wife, to protect whom
the law was made.

Very often the laws are grievously unjust, but to
administer them blindly is sure to be a means
of mischief. In this case the RECORDER seems
to be without an excuse, because the Jury,
who could not do otherwise than find the man
guilty, recommended him to mercy. A no-
minal punishment, with a hint to the first wife to '
prosecute her claim to the company of her hus-
band, if she thought it advisable, in an Ecclesi•