The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS Or THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—The mystery in which Sir Robert Peel
has thought proper to veil his plans for the future seems
to give the fullest satisfaction to the Tory press, which,
on the principle of accepting " omne ignotum pro mag-
nifica" is dealing out liberal praises on the wise reserve
that " the Great Unfathomable" continues to exercise.
Like the witch in Macbeth, Sir Robert leaves off by ex-
claiming, " I'll do, I'll do, I'll do,"—but leaves us to ex-
ercise our ingenuity as to what is to be the particular
nature of the extensive do which he contemplates. We
cannot believe it possible that the able persons who con-
duct some of the principal Tory Journals can really feel
all the admiration they pretend for a statesman who gives
no account of his views ; because, if silence as to the
future were so great a virtue, one might find that qua-
lity in the fullest perfection among the wax figures at
Madame Tussaud's ingenions exhibition. From these a
whole Cabinet of Statesmen, all ready dressed in the
robes of office, might be selected at a moment's notice,
against any of whom Sir Robert Peel might be matched
for smiling and simpering muteness, and the con-
test would probably end like that between the Chi-
nese Mandarin and the Dutch Ambassador, from which
the latter silently withdrew after a display fir several
hours of mutual dumbness and dignity. It may offend
the Conservative party to compare their leader to a lay
figure ; but when all that his warmest admirers can say
for him is, that he will not do this, he will not do that.
and he will not do the other—so long as his qualifica-
tions for the ministry are merely negative—so long as we
are told that "he will not rupture alliances," " he will
not plunge the country into wars," and "will not attempt
to reduce the House of Lords," we cannot refrain from
remarking. that in every one of these displays of in-
action, any of the great political characters in Madame
Tussaud's costly collection would be even more than a
match for him. The simile of Sir Robert Peel, in which
he compares the present state of political affairs to a case
for medical interference, leaves one question at issue,
namely, " Which are the quacks—the physicians now
in attendance, or the practitioner whose haste to be
regularly called in is avowed with most indecent
earnestness ?" This is a question that the ultimate
recovery of the patient will in a great measure decide :
but •in the meantime it will be admitted that the
quackery is most likely to be on the side of him whose
plan of operations can only be carried on beneath the
veil of mystery. Impostors of every description re-
quire obscurity for the success of their imposition ; and
a jargon of unmeaning sounds, which Sir Robert
seems disposed to improve into absolute silence, is the
ordinary accompaniment to the tricks 'of the conjuror.
STANDARD.—The Ministerial Journalists are still
busily employed in endeavouring to foment disturbances
in the manufacturing' districts. With the feeling that
seduced them into a premature expression of their
exultation at the prospect of a deficient harvest,
they have begun to be affected with the most
intense sympathy for the manufacturing classes. The
apologists for the New Poor-law are' suddenly over-
whelmed with pity for the unhappy condition of the
suffering poor in Manchester, Birmingham, and other of
our manufacturing districts ; who have, they tell us, been
" progressing downwards" during the last three years !
Men who have resolutely shut their eyes to the distresses
of their fellow-creatures, and who have applauded a
system which treats poverty as a crime, are now
so sensitively alive to the misery around them, that
they never dreamed of looking for it before ! An
anxious desire to maintain the O'Connell Ministry in
office has made philanthropists of them ! An " over-
whelming Conservative majority" has invested them
with a miscroscopic eye for human misery. They
are even quick-sighted enough to discover what they
and their patrons have themselves helped to
create ! We should hail this marvellous change
with greater satisfaction if we could believe it
to be sincere ; but the veil of philanthrophy is too
thin to conceal the rabid expression of countenance be-
neath it ; however, as hypocrisy is the homage which
vice renders to virtue, we must, we suppose, regard the
present demonstration as affording some slight indication
of improvement in the moral perceptions of our oppo-
nents. The Morning Chronicle, fortified by a brace of
extracts from the Leeds Mercury (Cobbett's " great
liar" of the north) and a Radical Manchester news-
paper, in an article headed " Alarming state of the
" Manufacturing Districts," assures us that the position
of affairs is such in the latter neighbourhood that the
Tory Noblemen of England are organising yeomanry
corps, with the view, " no doubt, of preventing the neces-
sity of making a large increase of the regular army;" and
(if we understand one of the Chronicle's authorities aright)
of" involving the whole country in a civil war!" The
Nobleman who is said to be taking the initiative in
this good work is Lord Francis Egerton—and his mo-
tive, that of securing his property against the inevitable
consequence of Tory misrule ! We presume that this
story may safely be left, like the sixteen and sixpenny
one of the Tamworth Boniface, without contradiction.
It affords, however, additional proof, if any were want-
ing, of the folly which is sometimes superinduced
by excessive anger. The assertion that Sir Robert Peel
" will find it necessary to make a large addition to the
army in Ireland," may seem more plausible, looking at
the success of the efforts of Mr. O'Connell and the Roman
Catholic priesthood on many recent occasions ; but it is
a fallacy, nevertheless.
COURlER.—Parliament, we take it for granted, as-
sembles on the 19th for the despatch of business, as we
cannot believe that the perfidy of the provisional
Ministry would carry them so far as to violate the
solemn pledge to that effect given by Lord John
Russell. Our confidence had been less assailable
on this point, were there any subterfuge, pre-
tence, or loophole left to the W pigs whereby they
could escape the fulfilment of their obligation ; but
the keenest ingenuity would be baffled to discover even
a colourable pretext for postponement. The question
than naturally arises, " What will the condemned Cabi-
net do ?" To what course of perfidious policy will they
resort for the consummation of their treason against
constitutional government, and consequently of their infa-
-Mous career ? The prints who affect so niuch indignation
'at Sir R. Peel's unavoidable reserve, and pretend such
ignorance of his principles and his character as to ex-
pect from him a prescription (to adopt his own apt il-
Ipstration) before he has had access to the patient, main-
tain a profound, but, perhaps in this case, a prudent
silence as to the course of paltry 'expedients and factious
frauds upon which their paymasters mean to rely in
order to face the new Parliament. Upon that subject
the country is left completely in the dark, with the ex-
ception of a few scattered and equivocal hints, which
with suspicious coincidence find their way into the
columns of the Whig press in the shape of correspon-
dence, but which smack strangely of the editorial
alembic. But-what do we gather from these ambiguous
inuendoes. What do these artfully put forth feelers
denote ? It is this, and we challenge the Whig
press to deny or gainsay it, that the Members
of the Melbourne Ministry individually and collectively
are determined by the most shameful and disloyal abuse
of the privileges of their position to place the Crown in
a relation of direct opposition, if not of open hostility, to
the constitutionally and emphatically expressed wishes
the people.

THE LONDON GAZETTE.

(THIS EVENING.)

DOWNING-STREET, AUG. 3, 1841.

The Queen has been pleased to appoint Sir Charles Au-
gustus Fitzßoy, Knt., to be Governor and Commander-in.
Chief of the Islands of Antigua, Montserrat and Barbuda, St.
Christopher, Nevis, Arguilla and the Virgin Islands, and
Dominica.

CROWN OFFICE, AUG. 3, 1841.