The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER, 317 1840.

of Parliament to interfere in their behalf, will form a
prominent topic of discussion.
There was very little doing in the Railway Shares to-
day, but Grunt Western advanced to 26:1 ; the New
to 12 ; the B;rmin,,;ham to 82 ; and the South Western
to 17-g- premium.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC' JOURNALS,

(FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.)
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
're-day we take our final leave of eighteen hundred
and forty, who departs to join his ancestors ‘.‘ with the
years'beyond the Flood." Another day brings another
annual date. May the old year part in peace ! If we
have Seen some better, there have been many worse. To
the Sovereign of these realms it has been an eventful
year ; a life-colouring, and, we trust, a life-blessing
period. Her prospects of a happy existence, as well a'
of au honourable reign, have augmented, to the satis-
faction of all hones: heart's. The promise of direct suc-
cession afforded by the birth of the Princess Royal is
calculated to still something of the activity •f faction by
abating its hopelessness. 'The predictions of evil omen,
which some dared to utter, have beer. felicitously lalsi
fled. A Hanoverian succession has gone down in the
doctrine of chances. The Royal infant is a living Act
of S,Atlement. And thus do national consideration•

create a halo of public interest around the, deeper and
tenderer emotions of Royal mother and her illustrious
consort. In reference to her Majesty, the year has
taught decency to Tory tongues. The achievement re-
flects credit on old Anno Domines powers as a school.
master. The gross and virulent abuse by which Con•
servative festivals had been characterised, is discon-
tinued. Restraint has been imposed upon the elo-
quence of the Bradshaws, Robys, and other " wine-
warmed individuals." The party found that it would
not do. They have learned what Tom Crib told a
pupil was " the best attitude of defence," viz., " to
keep a civil tongue in their heads." Even Prince
Albert's Protestantism has ceased to be a subject

of V public v anxiety. Demonstrations have been
scarce during the recess. The tone of faction
is tamer than last year. I:lreatenings to turn out
Nviu;sters upon the first division have dwindled to
the bet of " a poncy" upon a change by next Easter.
The path of progressive reform is evidently open
to such general union amongst Reformers as is re-
quired to take advantage of opportunities. Symp-
toms of an advance towards union have increased ; and if,
even •under all the evils of apathy and schism produced
by the disappointment of numbers at the imperfect
working of the Reform Bill, the Tories have still been
kept in opposition, what may not be obtained, of re-
lief and of right, by the hearty co-operation which sin-
cere Reformers desiderate and anticipate? The benc-
' ficent measure of a cheap postage, and the multiplied
and multiplying facilities of locomotion afforded by tie
extension of railways, have bee❑ silently carrying on
some of the best of all reforms and improvements

throughout the year. Of the benefits of either, it is not
to be expected that the public generally should have a
prompt and full appreciation. Such changes work like
the rains of Heaven upon the springing corn ; no one
actually sees the growth, but the harvest comes. 'rho
amount of communication by letter has been more than
doubled, and it will be more than doubled again. Per-
sonal communication between the inhabitants of different
districts has been multiplied at a far greater rate. How
much is implied of pecuniary profit, of cheapening en-
joyment, of mental stimulus, and even of moral good !
By the continuance and enlargement of these agencies,
the whole island will approximate towards possessing the
social advantages of an immense town, without any of
the attendant nuisances. The sun of the year sinks
peacefully below the horizon. The clouds that seemed
to forebode a storm have parted, and are bright with
the reflected beams of success. The apprehensions are
dissipated of that heaviest and fearfullest of all calami-
ties—an European war. May the new year have no-
thing pugnacious in his juvenility, but leave the world
even quieter than he found it, and more earnestly dis-
posed to make the most for humanity of the means of
well-being by which we are surrounded !
(From the Times.)

When gentlemen of the Whig-Radical persuasion,

or perhaps we ought rather to say profession, are
obliged to attend a meeting of the dupes who return
them to Parliament, they should endeavour to keep
their orations out of the newspapers : not that they
have in general much credit to lose in their own per-
sons, but they expose their party—they help to show
up the Ministers. Even such a slip has been made at
Caper, in Fifeshire, by the offspring of the most skil-
ful backstairsman of the age—by the son of the Right
Hon. Edward Ellice. Mr. Ellice, jun., has blabbed to
the Reformers the composition of the Whig party ; he
has let them know that the Whigs are utterly power-

less for the objects which they pretend to advance ; in
short, that their whole policy is a pretence, with
no one practical object except to keep the Tories
out, or, in plainer English, to keep themselves in,
" The Government." he said! might
so fast as many of their friends could wish ; but
great allowances must be made for them under the
present difficult circumstances of their position. It
should be remembered that their majority in the
Commons was extremely small; that the majority
against them in the Lords was overwhelming ; that
many of their lukewarm supporters in- the House of
Commons would desert then: the moment they proposed
any of those measures which would add extensively to
the direct influence if the people upon the Government
of the country ; and that their small majority was even
then daily decreasing, from the influence of watt),
power, and station which the aristocracy had brought
to bear upon the constituencies." In every point of
view this passage is remarkable. In the first place, it
admits not only that the Ministerial majority is an
"extremely small" one, but that many of its constituent
members are " lukewarm supporters" of the Adminis-
tration, and that its slender amount is even " daily de-
creasing." From almost any of the Whig vassals an ac-
knowledgment like this would have been important, es-
pecially in immediate sequence after Mr. Gishorne's
significant admission at the Manchester dinner. But
it comes with an especial weight from the mouth of
Mr. Edward Ellice's son, because the whole compo-
sition of the Whig Radical force, its character, or
want of character, its schisms, its reconcilements, the
screws that coerce it, the blandishments that cajole it,
all its history, even the inmost secrets of each successive
Secretary to the Treasury, and of each assistant• whip.
per-in, every note or message in any way referable to
the business of voting, or to the still more delicate af-
fair of pairing, however " private, confidential, and im-
mediate"—all these things have been known to the
orator's Right Hon. Parent, from the very beginning of
the Whig dynasty, down to the present month of De-
cember, 1840 ; insomuch that by this time, in so well-
trusted and clever a functionary, for such undoubtedly
he has been approved—
" -- Long experience sloth attain
" To something like prophetic strain."
It is from the son of that consummate authority that
we now receive a fresh intimation of the decayed and
still decaying state of the Whig forces and of the Whig
prospects; and if the Ellices don't know the state
of the party, there is no intelligence left among
mankind. But what a strange, unblushing avowal,
does the before-quoted passage involve of Whig chi-
canery and humbug The Whigs ridiculously inferior
to their rivals as men of business, and lamentably
overmatched be them in Parliamentary talent, have
yet been supported by the party of the movement,
in the expectation and on the promise of progressive
reform. Year after year has rolled away, and the
poor gapint; Radicals have still been fooled with apo-
logies and assurances—apologies for the nothing
that is past, and assurances of the much that is to
come. Meanwhile the march of liberality has taken
the line of the crab ; agitation hits become distasteful ;
Ministerial majorities have dwindled from hundreds
to units ; and now, a regular and well-taught Whig-
ling proclaims the Government to be utterly bank-
rupt—ay, notoriously unable to redeem any one
of its pledges of popular reform, lest it should be
deserted in that very moment by its lukewarm sup-
porters ! If that be so, was there ever anything
half so shameless as such a Ministry's continuance
in office, or anything half so stupid as the continu-
ance of the Radical support to such a Ministry ? It
is the history of the appropriation clauses, re-acted.
They came into office to distribute the property
of the Protestant Church among the Papists
and agitators, and they versed, by all that was sacred
and all that was profane, to accomplish that object
or lay down their existence. They relinquished the
object, hut they clung to the existence. They had
now found out something else to live for—the exten-
sion of the people's rights. It was the Whig Admi-
nistration, and the Whig Administration alone, which
would achieve this great and new design—this super-
sedeas of the settlement which but eight years ago it
had held out to the country as final. The Whig Ad-
ministration alone had the means of uniting all classes
of Reformers, and forcing freedom against a reluctant
aristocracy. More years elapse, and the little trades-
men begin to think that they have given credit enough,
and arc entitled at least to something on account. But
when any of then: mentions any little bill of long stand-
ing, and humbly hopes that something will be forthcom-
ing after Christmas, the fine gentlemen who form the
committee of direction for Old England resolve that the
request is outer raason, or out of season, and that if they
were to attempt such a thing as the discharge of their lia-
bilities they would be rained that very moment—" the
moment they proposed any of those measures, their luke-
warm supporters would desert them." So says Mr. Ellice,
jun., one of the connections of the firm. Will none of the
parties whom theyhave so long been putting off with empty
promises, get up and ask them why they entered into
engagements which they are thus forced to own them-
selves incapable of fulfilling ? They have their answer
resdy :—" To keep out the Tories." And thus says
Mr. Ellice, jun., with perfect gravity, to the patriots
of Capar—" Granting that they had merely kept out
the Tories, I would still contend they have promoted
the interests of the people." The argument is most
satisfactory,-and runs thus:—You must help us to keep
out the Tories, because we shall carry a series of re-
i forms which a Tory Goverment would stifle. Well

but when you confess that you cannot, end dare not
try to carry out any of these reforms, why should wt.
be helping you any longer to keep out the Tories ? Oil.
because—because by your help we do keep out the
Tories. This sort of reasoning has gone down pretty
well with the R.tdicals to the south of the border but

the men of Cupar, though stupid gnough to be Ridi.

eels, are still Seotchmen, and must have some satis-
faction upon the question of gain or kiss. If we are to
gain nothing by keeping in..the Whigs, can you show
us that we lose anything by letting in the Tories?
"To be sure," says Mr. Ellice, jun. "Do you
think your meetings about Corn-la*s, Universal Suf-
frage, and other popular topics, would be tolerated ?
Even the salutary moral influence of the masses over
elections would be effectually crushed ; for would there
not be a troop of re-established yeomanry at every
polling-place to keep down what the Tories call the
rabble ? I do not mean to say that such a state 0!
things would be long endured ; but it would only be by
some popular convulsion, which would endanger the
well-being of society, that it would be got rid of." So
then this gentleman wishes the poor people at Cupar to
believe that Sir Robert Peel's Government would tole-
rate no more meetings upon popular topics, and would
attempt to crush the opinion of the country by an
overawing force of cavalry at the elections ! Does
Mr. Ellice, jun., believe this himself? If he does
believe it, what shall we think of his understanding ?

If he does not believe it, and yet says it, the alterna-
tive is one which we will not complete. But Mr.
Ellica, in avowing his opinion that the merit of keep-
ing out the Tories would of itself be a sufficient one,
takes credit, however, to his friends the Whigs, for
" the support in some instances, the countenance in all,
which Government have given to the Ballot, the alters•
Lion of the Corn-laws, the establishment of a popular
system of education, and other measures of a similar
tendency." Of their education system, the country.
may say what the patient did to the interrogation of the
apothecary, whose physic be bad left unswallowed :
" The draught did good ?
" It did no harm ; for yonder it bath stood."
But upon the otier two subjects, Ballot and Corn-
laws, was ever assumption so ludicrously unlucky ?
Why, if there -were two subjects in the world wliich
it was most desirable for the Whigs to huddle out

of sight—two subjects exposing above all others, their

characteristic shaubiness, those two subjects are their

two "open questions" of Ballot and Corn-laws. They
dare not promote either of those changes as u Govern-
►nent, hecAuse a defeat upon a vital question would be
the loss of office ; they dare not, as a Government,
oppose either, bee::.use divers of their Radical allies
would, in that case, be ejected from Parliament at the
next election ; they pursue therefore the course most
safe for themselves, but most dangerous to the country,

by leaving those two important matters wholly and
perniciously unsettled ; and this shirking on one side,
and shrinking on the other, is extolled by their Ellice.3
as an evidence of public virtue, and received by the

Cuparites as an instalment of reform !
(From the Morning Post.)
The authority of M. de Tocqueville having been
frequently quoted of late by some Journals called
" Liberal" in support of democratic theories, we took
the trouble of showing some days ago that when M. de

Tocqueville describes-the circumstances which actually
exist under the most potent democracy in the world, he

depicts a state of frightful and disgusting tyranny. A
confident and very shallow writer in a Ministerial print
of yesterday says :
" And those who so continually quote de Tocqueville
for particular instances of the m6chiefs of democracy might
learn some respect for his general conclusion, that the
tendencies of society are towards democracy."
.We have not observed any want of respect for the
conclusion above stated. But that which honest :Alb-

jects of the British monarchy can have no respect for is
the theory that because the present tendencies of society
are towards democracy they should go with the tide, and
beeome democrats. This is the fatal and (as we regard
it) the cowardly mistake which so many people make.
We (10 not dispute that the tendencies of society
are towards democracy ; but the more palpable this
tendency becomes the more incumbent is it upon duti-
ful subjects of monarchical Governments to resist that
tendency, and to be upon their guard lest they should
be in any degree carried away by the stream of tendency
from that point where it is their duty to stand fast.
The tendency of society is towards democracy ; but
who can read the deliberate and careful statements of
M. do Tocqueville 'coocerning the state of society in
America without perceiving that this tendency of so-
ciety is a tendency towards an extremely bad thing ?
Our business is to resist this progress towards evil as
much as we can. We may be but partially success-
ful—we may utterly fail ; but at all events, while we
are resisting as-much as we can we shall be doing our
duty. The tendency of the nature of man ever since
the fall of Adam has undoubtedly been to sinfulness.
Will any man pretend that it is, therefore, right to
promote sin and to further depravity ? No ; but. the
ease_ _eatiteisee..„ Because the tendency_ of
what it is, the mere see--we ueut..l always to be watch-
ful in resistance, and to counteract the tendency which
we continually acknowledge and lament.
( From tLe Morning _Herald.)
The impression becomes stronger, from day to day,
in this country, that the Ministry of M. Guizot cannot
stand. The war party, it is believed, will crc long prove
too powerful for him. The objects of the war party arc
not, at first sight, very obvious ; yet to those who are
familiar with the structure of French society, there can
exist little difficulty in diseermng the causes which pro-
mise to overwhelm the Administration of M. Guizot.
The war party in France comprehends many who
have no particular desire that France should embroil
herself in quarrels with other nations ; but who look
upon war as the direct road to revolution, and who,
therefore, oppose themselves most strenuously to the
continuance in office of Ministers whose policy is
pacific. The war party, strictly so called, numbers
in its ranks the few surviving Bonapartists, and a
considerable number of the less violent republicans.
These men dream of foreign conquest—and pant for
vengeance on those " natural enemies," who checked
the growth of the French republic, and who, subse-
quently, blighted the glories of the French imperial.
dynasty. But the greatest number of the anti-peace
Administration party is made up of men imbued with
the doctrines of Robespierrianism—under the more
modern titles of Socialism, or St. Sintionianism. Tim
St. Simooians constitute a far more extensive portion
of the French people than is generally supposed. Not
that all the tenets of the sect are embraced by many
persons—still less that those tenets are avowed by all
who really, although it may be only partially, hold
them ; but however it may be lost sight of, no fact
can be less disputable, than that anti•property doctrines
lend their colouring to the convictions of scores of
thousands of active-minded Frenchmen. These arc the
men who constitute the most formidable portion of
what is denominated the French war party. These
men care little for foreign conquest. Their aim is, a
vast social revolution; When the revolution of 1789
broke out in Paris, the doctrines promulgated by the
leaders of the popular movements were subversive of
the rights and privileges of the monarchy, the oobility,
and the Church. At that point, however, the original
directors of the revolution stopped. A small section of
" Reformers" soon outbad them in the competition for
popularity. Robespierre and his supporters laughed to
scorn the notion, that mere equality of political rights
could ever confer permanent benefits on mankind.
Such a result, they maintained, could be secured only
by "social equality"—by the imparting to all men, in
equal shares, all the advantages which society can cull
into existence. But of all the institutions of society,
Property is the most remarkable—and in the benefits
of that institution, Robespierre and his followers con-
(coded thAt all men are equally entitled to participate.
Community of property was, in fact, the great dogma
of the faith which Robespierre laboured to promulgate.
T. root out from the .minds of men the ideas which
arc represented by the words nzeton and tuum was the
object at which he professed to aim. Ho protested
against the tyranny" of kings, and nobles, and priests ;
bat he maintained that so long as the tyranny of the
Purse should be tolerated, mankind would only
by each successive revolution, exchange one
despotism for another still more grinding. Ro-
bespierre, together with the bloody despotism
which he, in his turn, contrived to establish, have passed
have not di
away ; but the notions to which he gave currency
Lion of the
French peoplepearc oin
dfrofrnt the
mindschniindof of athtit sgseacto
siaen:
more especially. which affects to represent the thinking
principle among our neighbours. The middle classes
succeeded, fifty years ago, in overthrowing the nionarchi-
eel and aristocratical systems of France. The privi-
leges of the middle classes themselves arc now ex-
posed to dangers, scarcely less imminent than those
which threatened the principle of monarchy in the per-
son of Louis the Sixteenth. All power in France radi-
aces now from the Bourse, and from behind the counters
'of Paris ; and the people who rose in re-
bellion against the prescriptive privileges of a King,
and a territorial aristocracy, are little likely to
submit patiently to the despotism of usurers and loan-
jabbers. England is hated by the anti-property party in
France ; because England is the centre whence is de-
rived the whole strength of the system of stocksjob-
bing, and of commercial gambling in all its varieties.
England is hated by the republic and Bonapartist fac-
tions, because, as themselves avow, Crecy and Water-
loo, dis7ant as the events represented by these words
may ha from each other in point of time,—the feelings
which these words excite, can never (lie in the bosoms
of a large class of Frenchmen. It is urged, that the
war party in France must be mad to dream of en-
countering Europe in arms. It might be so, perhaps,
if the war party in France did really anticipate a junc-
tion against France on the part of the other great Euro-
pean powers ; but the French are somewhat s,!eptical
us to the cordiality of that alliance which at thts mo-
ment appears to unite England with Russia. Tho in-
terests of Russia are, in all things, diametrically opposed
to the interests of Great Britain ; and no alliaoce between
these countries can, in the nature of things, be of long
duration. Russia is much more likely, in the long
run, to unite with France, than with England. Eng-
. lima io• to 1)4 .ml object of deeper dislike, and of

. .
stronger envy, than each is to the other. Russia long,
to possess European Turkey. France sighs for Egypt.
Russia casts an eye of affection towards our lwliart
possessions. France covets supremacy in the Aleditcr-
rancan. England is the great obstacle to the triumph
of Russian, as well as of French ambition. The wa,
party in France does not fear to reckon Russia among
the number of the foes of France ; and if Russia should
reuhtin neutral—or should aid France—the war party
in that country might risk less by hostilities, than, at the
present moment seems probable.

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)
Were the defects of the amended Poor-law equal in
number, and in imputed injurious results, to the sweep-
ing denunciations hurled against it in the columns of the
Times and the Herald, there would still remain, as a
reproach to all such accusers of the Whigs, as exclusively
the authors and apps overs of the measure, the incon-
testable fact, that it was introduced and consummated
by the concurrence and assistance of all parties, who
saw in the continued operation of the old law the cer-
tain demoralization of the labouring classes, whose ra-
pidly increasing pauperism, produced by the vicioussystern
of relief afforded to the applicants, and the yet more
vicious administration of the law, was rapidly destroy-
ing the springs of industry, by giving a bounty to in-
dolence, and prostrating the independence of the able.
bodied labourer before the parish pay-table. Whether
the absence of those qualities, essential to the efficient
administration of the new law in any instance, has
wrought injury to thcrate-payers, or neglect and op-
pression to the poor, these furnish no legitimate ground
of argument against the law, unless it ca❑ he proved
that sonic defect in its construction, of sonic positive
oppression in its provisions, create or sanction these
evils. Under the .old law the
.instance of tnal-adminis-
tratio❑ were more numerous and injurious—peculation,
extravagance, corruption in all the various forms in
winch long practices had rendered it familiar to paro-
chial officers, from the beadles, strutting at the head
of the procession of parochial officers, bedizened with
gold lace, and bearing the mysterious silver-headed
staves, to the churchwardens, " with fair round belly,
with good capon lined," their countenances be-purpled
with port, charged in the yearly account as " sacra-
mental wine," but the quantity of which, if used exclu-
sively for such pious purposes, must have rendered each
communicant a receptacle of at least two bottles on
every occasion on which the sacrament was administered.
We are not drawing an imaginary picture. On auditing
the accounts of a large parish in the metropolis, the
churchwardens' acaount for " Wine for the Church"
attracted the attention of an auditor, who considered it
to be within his duty to dissect as well as pass the ac-
counts. The result of the investigation into this item
gave the result we have described.
(From the Standard.)
It is, indeed, rather late in the day for the Morning
Chronicle to tell us that the power of the Romish
priests in Ireland rests upon opinion in any other
sense than the power of Mehemet Ali, or the
Emperor of China, may be said to rest upon
opinion. Doubtless all power rests upon opinion
of some kind or other. Mehemet's power rested
upon the opinion, not of the unfortunate Fel-
labs, upon whom it was so cruelly exercised, ex-
cept as they were of opinion that resistance was
vain, but upon the opinion of his mercenary
Arnauts, who were of opinion that his service was
profitable, and the exercise of a derivative tyranny a
pleasant thing. Such is the power of the Irish Ito-'
manist priests, they have their fanatical familiars, and
their militia of Ribbonmen, to punish all who disobey
them, as has been sufficiently proved by what followed
the Carlow election. Superstition and ignorance pre-
vent, perhaps, that general and combined resistance by
which only a people can cast off such a tyranny as that
of the Irish priests ; but in the acts by which the
unhappy people prove their submission, they ex-
ercise as little of the right of opinion as the
French people did under the reign of Robes-
pierre. The case of Carlow, and fifty other cases,
prove that the power exercised by the priests is " not
in opinion merely, but in external terror ;" and
how would the ballot cure this? The elector's vote
would be known to the priest through the confessional ;
and the priest would not want the opportunity of em-
ploying external means of punishment for an adverse
vote, as the penitent must be well aware. Of all the
falsehoods of the Romanist system, the pretended se-
cresy of the confessional is the most gross. Whatever
may be the form of election in a country circumstanced
like the United Kingdom, the great majority of elec-
tors must take their opinions front other men, if they
vote honestly, in reliance upon the good disposition and
sound views of those by whom they summit to be in-
structed.

(From the Courser.)
One great good may ultimately flow even from the
excesses of Chartism and the heartlessness of New
:r .hati -bc stio MIPISIIS. fur

caking the attention of putolie men more strongly al
earnestly to the actual condition of the great masses of
the community, not in the political sense as vulgarly un-
derstood and acted on by clap-trap agitators of the reform
school still engaged in purveying the materials for a capi-
tal stock of public discontent on which to trade for their
own special aggrandisement, but in the physical and reli-
gious acceptation, so as to restore a healthy state of cor-
poreal action simultaneously with that mental improve-
ment, the ascot sana in coyorc sano, which it were vain
to hope for the establishment of in the body politi-
under any other combination. The extraordinary and
lamentable revolution in the temper and habits of the
working classes for many years past could not of course
escape the notice of those endowed with the capacity
and the leisure, as invested with the obligation for in
vestigation into its causes, which ascertained, a fair ap,
preciation of the consequences ought to have followed
with the suggestion and Application of such remedies as
might assuage if they could not eradicate evils preg-
nant with peril to the peade and order of society. It
was, as it is, acknowledged on all hands that the social
system, so far as the lower orders, was one mass of
irritable humours, which could not fail of violent out-
breaks in particular cases of excitement, to the jeo-
pardy of all classes in contact with the corruption
fermenting around. But though the doctors were
agreed on the diagnostics of the disease and the des-
peration of the crisis, all, or nearly all, agreed to
differ as to the methods of cure and the medicines or
medicaments to be specially exhibited. The cry of
one party was for reform in Parliament as the un-
doubted panacea for the inward or external wound,
and they succeeded in inoculating the poor patient in
hand so fiercely with faiih in the wonder-wo:king
powers of this mighty speeific, that to this day
his ravings are ever, of more plenteous dons still—
for more copious draughts of reform in the shape of
Chartism, although prostrate and exhausted under the
searching purgation of the Reform Bill, the blessings of
hick he has experienced only in the form of new Poor-
law rigours and Poor•law manacles. To the working
classes the Reform Bill has vaguely communicated the
extension of political rights, rather abstract than prac-
tical, and therefore ornamental rather than useful ; but
whilst with one hand it thus concedes a boon, unser-
viceable, because almost unavailable, it has with the
other rigorously excised him of rights most substantial,
dear as his household gods of home and hearth, and
handed down to him and cherished as unalienable and
irrevocable. Such, and its enactments, is the new Poor-
law, by which the Elizabethan charter of the poor has
been abrogated and superseded.