The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-27 00:00:00

EVENING SUN

SECOND EDITION

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'clock.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
/11031 THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—The Whig Administration of 1306 was de-
risively taw med the Ministry of All the Talents. The
present is the Government of All the Fallacies. Per-
haps it is cis well that we should see all that sophistry
can oppa' ;e to practical and substantial measures of
relief to a nation, unfolded at full length—propounded
from sea is of authority—and backed up by official and
Parliamentary power. The malady of monopoly has
come to it head ; and a cure is more likely than when
it lurked n tore insidiously in the system. The party of
monopoly have appointed a Ministry to work their will,
and are b encefbrth directly responsible for whatever
that will lictatcs. They can no longer confine them-
selves to .obstruction, and special pleading ; they must
propound their own measures, instead of stifling those
of others -1-1 the birth. If we could not have such a ma-
jority as should carry out Commercial Reform, the neat
best thin: ; is that its enemies should have a majority to
aork, ors top work with. They must speak that we tnayknow
; the y can na longer deter silently a Government from
nee hung tJ me Corn-laws, as every Government has been
detetee. d 11 lately ; nor send mute representatives of
indoleent pm ejudices to vote down inquiry. The " Silent
:system," a nd the system of inarticulate sounds, have
been cartie the utmost ; and if a Government could
be " stran ; led by mutes," mutes cannot govern England
in their p. cc. Some sense of the decorum of his altered
position s ?pears to have suggested itself to Lord
Stanley, i f not to Sir Robert Peel. The Noble Lord is
always di posed to be more frank and explicit than his
leader; it is a good habit he retains from his Liberal
dep. but inconvenient in his present conne.xion. The
Noble Lc assumed, in his :ate speech at Lancaster, the
only grou c 3 (and offensive ground it is) that can be as-
sumed for • the Corn-laws. His leader evnuld postpone
assuming aey positive ground at all. He is actually- re-
duced to it stity what he calls his reserve, by adducing
the deretie: 4' the candidate of his own party—a distin-
guished ins ,mber of his own Government—at Man-
chester, ea t proof that Jo:reserve had been less
calculated ' obtain the suppert of the country. But
all that w:a proved by Sic Co( gge Murray's rejection.
at Macel e .tees eotuithetanding- hie eetremely Imre-
served pie fi a ions in favour Free Trade, was that the
Maneheen r • eople were too shrewd to believe the pro-
ft•ssions ci n eaudidate. It was the reserve or the
leader the t rendered the unreserve of the follower fruit-
less. Th s escaped Sir Robert. Peel in his 'wanness of
retort on .31v. Gibson. It escaped him that the Man-
chester e AQtrl fen was a sentence on his own duplicity !
Would -Ilan Chester have rejected a candidate likely to
b • able to :Jerre it interests so effectually as Sir George
Murray, if Manchester had believed the sincerity of Sir
Robert. Pee; 's intentions to act on his °Wu professed ge-
neeal principles ?—on the principles which Sir GeMarray
was sent to placard all over Manchester ?
sTAY)ARD.—We do not deny that England has en
advantage in being the first to-apply machinery to the
:spinning id' cotton, but this advantage, like every other
:arising from mere priority is no more than temporary.
Had it not been for protection, the manufacture had
long since passed to, and grown up in other hands.
'The materials of the cotton manufacture, as of every
dither manufacture, are capital, mechanical power,
:and human labour. Now, let the markets of Eng-
land, the great entrepot of the world, be once opened to
:foreign cetton goods, and what must follow ? Why, that
capital will wander to the Continent, where it will find
enechanical power at least as cheap, and human
labour much cheaper, than in England. We have coals,
it will be said, for our steam engines ; yes, but not to
se° further than the opposite shores of the straits, they
Lave very good coals in Belgium, coals quite good
43noogh for manufacturing purposes in 'Picardy and
Artois, excellent coals in Brittany, and the coast at
leant is open to coals from Englaml ; but our foreign
cempetitors would not be dependent upon coals—they
have abundance of water power, which is cheaper than
steam power in the proportion of five to twenty-four.
As to labour, Mr. Senior has shown that the
average of labour from the Scheidt to the' Seine
is but 6s. a-week. What, then, would there be to
prevent Mr. Cobden removing his capital to build mills
upon the opposite coast, if the protection •which
he enjoys were withdrawn, so as to avail him-
self of the increased profits afforded by cheaper
labour, and the increased sale by a free- inlet to the
Continent ? The transfer could not take place at
once, but it would take place very rapidly—all the
new rids would be built at the other side of the
Channel, and the new mills almost annually amount to
half the number of the old ones. Let the working manufac-
turers look to this. The day in which the cotton ma-
nufacture loses protection they may count upon their ser-
vices as no longer necessary. The mill-owners and their
money will depart for countries where they can have
labour at a less price ; but it must be idle to expect
that manufacturers can be protected many days after
agriculture shall have been stripped of all defence against
competition. The working manufacturers who now
lend themselves to the anti-Corn-law cry, are really la-
bouring to give to foreigners the power of manufacturing, I
not for themselves only, but for all the world, including
Great Britain and the British colonies.
COURIER—We have been somewhat amused of late
with particular recapitulations on various occasions of
all the great doings and measures of the late Ministry
in very special detail, or, as the booksellers would
say, in the shape of a catalogue raissonne. It
will he sufficient to dispose of this catalogue at
once by the assertion, which cannot be gainsaid, that
the merit of all such measures as really are of an ac-
knowledged beneficial tendency belongs almost exclu-
sively to the Conservative party and the Conservative
statesmen, of whose policy, the foundations of which were
laid and the superstructure in sound and gradual pro-
gress long before the advent of the late Whig Govern-
ment, they are but the necessary continuation. Even of
the class of measures of more questionable utility
in the form originated by the Whigs, it may be truly
said that in their present shape they are more peculiarly
the work of Conservative hands, by which the mis-
chievous fangs of the first proposed enactments were
drawn and substituted by more wholesome legislation,
and of the Conservative votes in both Houses of
Parliament, without which in the amended shape
in which they now appear in the Statute-
book, they never could have passed. This has
more exclusively been the case since 1835, when Con-
servatism may be said to have been the dominant
characteristic of both Houses, but even from 1830 to
1835 the controlling voice of the -Upper House alone
interposed an effectual barrier against the rash career
of Whig legislation, excepting in the single in-
stance of - the Reform Bill. But when the surpass-
ing achievements of the Whig Government in its
policy and legislation are so loudly trumpetted,
and their undivided honour so exclusively appro-
priated, we would simply ask their fawning retainers to
point out one, one only, original measure of acknow-
ledged importance and advantage nationally, which
passed the Legislature in its primitive form, or which had
not to be recast, licked into constitutional, intelligible,
and. practical proportions, and divested of an encum-
bering mass of substantial and even of technical blunders,
by Conservative skill, intelligence, and statesmanship?

COAL MARKE'.
Ships arrived since
. d. s. cl.
Adair's ...... ....... ....... .. ..... 15 u Walls End Killingworth ... 18 0
Carr's Hartley ... 18 0 W. E. liraddyll'slisttott ... C 033
East Wylam ............ ..„ ... 15 b Walls End Grange lb l.lolyweil Ma.n .................. 17 0 Wals!End Hetton 2l 0 Old Tantir Id ................... .. 15 0 Walls End Lambton
Ord's Itedhugh
Fontop Windsor
Town:ey... ••...
West Hartley ............. 15 6 Wall,.End Evenwood l6 9
...... We, t Wylarn .. ......... 1g 6 Walls End Hichardson'oTeesl7 6
Wylam
16 0 Walls End South Durham IS 6
Walls End dosfo:rh
16 5 Cowpcn
....... 18 9 Walls End Devonshire l7 U
ONIIMMINNII.••••••••••........_

'.-(THIS DAY.)
ast market day, 21.

MENT
(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.
The:LoRD CHANCELLOR took his seat on theffoolsack
at Five o'Clock.
The Duke of SOMERSET presented a petition from
a district of the metropolis, praying that the tolls might
be taken off the metropolitan bridges.
Lord HAYWARDEN presented a petition to the
same effect from the merchants, bankers, and traders of
London.

PRISONS.
Lord BRouGHAM rose to call the attention of their
Lordships
to rmotion which, as he understood it would
be opposed, he should do in as few words as possible.
slot
subject was „
one of great importance, and one in
The
which the Mouse
had always expressed the greatest
inte.''es"t
_h„ meant the management of the prisons of the
realm. Their
the Right Hon. Baronet
the Member for Taraworth
was First Minister, an
•
Act
was passed, the object of
which was to amend the
hws relating to the disci-
pline of prisons, and to make them, as far as was
practicable uniform throughout the country. He was
ready to admit that very great improvements had been
e nevertheless, some time
law but
effected by that ,
afterwards a Committee
was appointed to devise
further improvements of which the system was
\ A
evidently capable.—(lleac.) i Committee was
witnesses, among
accordingly appointed who examinedmade a very valuable
t
'whom were many prisoners, and
report to their Lordships. Out of that report pro-
teceded the Act of 1835, for the improvement of prison
discipline, by which very considerable alterations and
improvements were effected. The principal alteration
.
of State
in that. Act was giving the Secretary
and re-
leech larger powers of revising, approving,
the
local
re-
jecting the rules for prisons made by ,
of State .
the
Magiftrates ;' giving the Secretary Power also of making rules himself, and of inspecting
prisons by hirnself, or others appointed by him, and,
al:me :01—and that appeared to him the most im,
portant puint--giling him the power to appoint
inspectors, alto were authorised to examine the
state of the prisons, and to report to that House.
In con,:egtezne, of that t.ppointtlient, si.‘. Iteports, had
been !rade aunt:ally I,y the inspf ctors, :Ind the:,., Reports
contained a body of meful information not ordy to the
Government—the P
...orne Department, but those Re-
ports. poin!ing out from time to time breaches
of the rules of thc prisons, and . , suggesting a
variety of matter for the consideratien of the Home
Department, and also making a y.ar'ietv of complaints
against the different officers - din
. engage the manage-
ment of the different. prisans. The result had been,
that in a very great majority of instances,
the subject-mat ter
aint had been re-
moved -by the parties against whom the complaint had
been made, and those complaints no longer existed.
He (Lord Brougham) was far 'from thinking no
Food had been done by the Sappoint of these
inspectors ; on the contrary, he thought great good' had

been accomplished. It appeared to him that those officers
had most faithfully performed their duties. Thee had
had a most delicate and difficult task imposed upon
them; they had to hear the complaints of persons who were
officers of the prisons, and in some instances were against
Magistrates themselves, and also against those persons
who were entrusted with the management of prisons ;
nevertheless they had performed their duties in
a very satisfactory manner ; and no person could
read the latter reports (he alluded to the
4th, sth, and 6th) without being satisfied that the
complaints made on the Ist and 2d reports had the
effect of remedying the evil and correcting the abase.
In a vast majority of cases the evils complained of had
been corrected by the visits of the inspectors. In some
cases the evils had not been corrected, and the inspectors
had reported in vain, but in the generality of cases these
reports had been productive of the greatest good.
He was about to state a few instances to show the neces-
sity of further interference on the part of the Secretary
of State, and in calling their Lordships' attention to that
part of the subject he should avoid stating either the
names of individuals or even the names of the prisons re-
ferred to, and his reason for so acting was that at that late
period of the Session, those statements would be dissemi-
nated throughout the country, and a publicity would be
riven to them which it would be impossible for
any other persons to hope to :equal, and the conse-
quence would be that for the next three or four months,
those persons against whom their complaints might be
made would have no opportunity of being heard
in their defence, or even of offering any explanation of their
conduct with anything like the publicity' with which
those charges would have been disseminated. No doubt
it might be said that he was speaking of things
which . had already appeared in print in the
Inspector's report, but not one hundredth part of the
persons had read or would read them in those
reports, who would read what might be stated
on the subject in Parliament, more especially, it'
those statements contained charges against
For those reasons he should abstain from reentioningany
names, and content himself with laying before their Lord-
ships certain facts which he considered to be well worthy
their attention. lie had, in calling their Lordships at-
tention to the necessity that existed for repealing
certain dormant statutes, stated that no blame
attached to the magistrates for enforcing the
provisions of such statutes. His attention had been
drawn to those Reports in consequence of those cases to
which he had alluded ; and he found that, in what
he had said on that subject, he had rather under-
stated than overstated the case. He had stated, that if
the persons convicted in the penalty of ls. and costs for
having been absent from church for one Sunday without
reasonable eveuse—one had been in prison for sixty-one,
and another for sixty-three days ; but, on referring to
these reports, he found one person had been in confinment
ten weeks in consequence of being convicted in a penalty
of Is. with 14s. costs for having t from
Church for one Sunday with • le ex-
cuse. At the end of seventry days application was
made to the Secretary of State, when he was
pleased to recommend her Majesty to .pardon
this man for having been absent from church
for one Sunday, am: he was released, after having
suffered seventy days' imprisonment. He could hardly
trust himself to speak of such a case, but he would
say, that if adything could tend to the descretation
of the Sabbath, it was such conduct as that. He had been
informed that the informations had been laid against these
persons by a Magistrate, and he should expect that inquiry
should be made into the subject at the Home Department.
--(Hear, hear.) It was true that when an infor-
mation was proved before a Board of Justices,
they could not avoid convicting but if a Magistrate
had laid these informations before other justices, for the
purpose of awakening these dorment, he wished he
could say obsolete statutes, then he could not consider that
the Magistrate so laying the informations was without
blame. Then he had been told, by way of excuse, that
these people were persons of bad character, good-for-no-
thing people, who had been guilty of other excesses. and
that it was the purpose of punishing them for their
excesses that this dormant statute had been
awakened. Now, that appeared to him to be rather
an aggravation than an excuse—for every magistrate
ought to know that there was nothing more calculated
to bring the administration of justice into contempt,
than to convict a person of one offence and sentence him
for another. One great source of inconvenience was the
variety that existed in the management of these prisons.
In one prison a small portion of animal food was allowed
to the prisoners, while in another no animal food what-
ever was allowed. The diet allowed to persons sentenced
to hard labour was generally reported as too low, and
in one particular prison it was so low that many of the
prisoners were suffering from a disease, which he be-
lieved was now peculiar to prisons, although at one time
it had been prevalent in this country—he meant the
land scurvy. In the case alluded to it was clear that the
diet was below what it ought to be, and the report
of the medical men all went to show that low
diet was oae of the principal causes of the disease.
In that prison the proportion of persons in the hospital
amounted, at the time the Report was made, to ten per-
sons out of fifty, the total number of those in the prison ;'
thus, one-fifth of the inmates of the prison were in the
hospital, and the medical officer of the prison had
stated that such was the usual proportion. Now, it
was clear that there must be something wrong in the
management of the prison to give so large a propor-
tion as inmates of the hospital. He would not enter fur-
ther into particulars, as it was his intention to furnish
the Home Department with reference to the pages of
the Reports in which those particulars were stated, in
order that those evils might be remedied.—(Hear.)
There was another abuse, which it appeared to him re-
quired a remedy, and that was the gaoler having an in-
terest—a direct interest—in the supply of articles to the
prison. It was quite clear that he should have no hand
in these matters whatever. In the prison to which
he had adverted, the gaoler provided a great many
articles, and one of them he particularly recollected
was beer. The gaoler charged the Magistrates
ls. 4d. a gallon for the beer, but paid only
ls. the gallon himself It was clearly a very great abuse
that he should have any hand in the matter ' • and it
was a still greater abuse, that he should make that
extra charge. The attendance of the officers, also,
would very much, and more than he should have
supposed. In most prisons the chaplain did
his duty. He attended not merely on Sundays
and other days of public worship, but he visited
the prisoners in their cells, and gave them
spiritual advice. In the vast majority of the cases, then,
the duty was well performed ; but in the reports there,
were many exceptions ; it was most remarkably that
they occurred in the prisons, which were most
numerously filled, and where the salaries of the chap-
lains were most ample. The next queetion
to which he should refer was the punishment
of prisoners ; and it was greatly to be regretted that
personal pnnishment, flogging should be allowed. lee
did not mean to say that in no ease should it be in bht he thought the more sparingly it was resorted
to the better. Their Lordships would observe that the
punishment was inflicted publicly, and in order to deter
by example, but if their Lordships would look at the
Deport to which he was now referring they would find
that the example could not be said to be a wholsome one,
in that respect. Their Lordships were aware that the
keeper of a prison had the power of inflicting punish-
ments of a lesser description, and for ordinary offences—
he meant breaches of prison discipline. He had the power
of confinement, and one or two smaller matters of that sort.
But for any thing beyond that, he must go before the
visiting Judges. In the case to which he (Lord B.) al-
luded, the punishment was twelve dozen of lashes, in-
flicted upon the complaint of the keeper, against a
person who appeared to have been a very vi-
cious person indeed—who had been thirty times in
prison, but for offences connected with the game-
laws such as poaching. The individual was evidently
what must be called an incorrigible person. It did not
appear what the offence was for which that punishment
was given, but it seemed to be for generally refractory
and mutinous conduct, without any special act being
done to warrant the punishment. The person was
not only mutinous himself, but also encouraged
the other prisoners to violate the laws of the prison;
notwithstanding twelve cloven lashes ought not to be
given. Nothing could be more shocking in its effect on
the rest of the community than a Magistrate suffering
himself to be surprised into such conduct. A very great
variety had been found to exist in the discipline of differen t
prisons. He would state some instances of that variety,
because the matter appeared to him of great conse-
quence with regard to ends of justice. He would take
three couuties, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Hert-
fordshire, and he would show to their Lordships how great
amount of inflictions varied in the prisons of those coun-
tries. He took these counties merely because they were
contiguous. In Bucks the number of punishments for
breaches in prison discipline amounted to only one pu-
nishment for three persons, that was, there being 135 per-
sons as the average number of prisoners, the number of
punishments was 43. In the next county, Berks, let him
take one of the gaols, and he found that the punishments
were not on6e3toputhnrisehe
me persons, but three to twoh persons,4
greater as
telthan in the
andtisuintoing42 errouprit3s,o.
gaol in the same county of Berks, the propnosr,
Itnio-neiagnng(ogthue:r
to double, the punishments ents being three to one person.
Then in the count
rose still higher, for ther tyhere it foundNt%S.;s- proportions
for one person, which was twelve timeswerseputhuaistin imu e
thents
county of Bucks. Next, in the
then were, he found that in one county
in which they
of the prisons of the
City the proportion was
sons. In another prison, it was
punish-
merits to two persons ; and, in the threethird
prison,
in this city it was nine punishments to one
being six times greater than in the other prisonspo7stloinc same county, and twenty-seven times greater than
in the country. Now it was perfectly imp .
sible from the nature and the habits of
the
individuals that there should be such a (differ-
ence in the amount of punishment. Greater uni-
formity ought to be observed in the administration of the
prison rules, particularly as there was uniformity esta-
blished in the rules since 1835. He wished also to call
their Lordships' attention to the fact of untried
prisoners being confined in the same places with con-
victs, when there did not appear to be any necessity for
such from want of accommodation in the prison.
Several untried prisoners were also subjected to the
prison dress.—(Hear, :hear.) Now these were sub-
jects to which he wished to draw the notice
of the authorities at the Home Department.
There was one complaint to which he must allude of a
very extraordinary nature. A prisoner stated to the
Inspector that he had been illegally detained in custody,
having been committed for trial at the Sessions, and having,
after the lapse of some days, been called up by the keeper
and told by him that he had been summarily convicted
and adjudged to 12 months imprisonment. He (Lord
Brougham) thought that a very odd state of circum-
stances, for it looked to him very like the case of a per-
son who had been tried and sentenced to 12 months
imprisonment in his absence.—(Hein- hear.) The