The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-14 00:00:00

ITtning 25u1

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1847.

The National Anti-Gold-law League is proceeding
vigorously and efficiently. The society last night
held its first public meeting, at the Crown and
Anchor Tavern, and the chairman there announced
the firm determination of the originators of the move-
ment not to relax their efforts until the fatal monetary
system, against which they have declared war, is
abolished, and measures introduced which will
permit the full development of the industrial
resources of the country. The members of
the League have adopted the course by which
success must ultimately he attained. They in-
vite discussion, and declare themselves ready to re-
cive all questions addressed to them in writing, and to
return an answer to every relevant question during the
discussion of the ensuing evening. This is a bold and
manly determination. It is casting down the gauntlet
to all comers. By such means the points of doubts
and difficulty by which well-meaning men are influ-
enced, and induced to withhold their assistance, to
refrain from co-operating in the arduous struggle
that has been commenced, will receive speedy solu-
tions. It is also intended to hold local meetings, the
first of which is to take place at the Lecture Hall,
Greenwich, on Friday next. The real objects of the
society will thus be fully explained in every district,
the public mind fully awakened to the vital import-
ance of the question, the magnitude of the interests at
stake, the effects of the present laws on our national
prosperity, the simplicity and safety of the measures
by which they may be replaced, and the stimulus
that would thereby be afforded to the productive
powers of the country.
No persons can possibly be blind to the present
evils to which the country is exposed, the gigantic
failures, the daily stouages of houses that formerly
commanded almost unbounded credit, and that at a
period when after the strictest investigation the sus•
Pended firms, or at least a large proportion of them,
are. round to be in a perfectly solvent condition, and
'') be possessed of ample assets, even at the present
depreciated
and to leave prices, to liquidate every engagement,
a consider able surplus for the principals ;
the general distress
and difficulty experienced by
the trading classes of every grade, and the extraor-
dinary sacrifices to which they are compelled to
submit, in order to theprocure 't
means necessary to
if
carry on their business,indeedthey can by any
exertion, or at any loss be enabledthep uhtloiedafusnod;s,thTehdreee-
preciation in the prices of
per Cent. Consols being yesterday sold at 81i or
more than 15 per cent. lower than they were little
n
more than a year since, and Four per Cent, below the
.
lowest point to which they receded during the panic
in April last, and a corresponding reduction in
the value of every other description of property_
but, above all, the general failure of employment,
by which our artizans and operatives, and all the la-
bouring classes, are reduced from a state of compa-
rative comfort and independence, the fruits of their
own honest industry, to the greatest poverty and
destitution, and that by no fault or misconduct of their
own—all attest the fearful character and extent of
the present emergency. Its existence, then, being
admitted (and who can be found bold enough to deny
it?) the next inquiry will naturally be as to the cause
or causes to which such lamentable results are ne-
cessarily ascribable. There cannot be much greater
difficulty in returning an answer to this question. We
find almost all the elements of the greatest prosperity
coexistent with the undoubted distress. We have
had,
happily, an abundant harvest ; there is
an ample supply of fixed for the people at fair and
reasonable prices. There is a considerable demand

for the products of our industry. Our manufacturers ,
have extensive orders for foreign markets. The gold
which last year found its way out of the country to
pay for the large quantity of food that was necessarily
imported, to supply the hiatus caused by the failure
of the potato crop, would, in the natural course of
things, be again exchanged for our manufactures, if
they were not fettered and impeded by some undue
restrictions. There are no large stocks on hand, the
result of over-speculation and over• production in
former years. The raw material can readily be
procured, and at rates by no means extravagant.
What, then, can be the cause that mars all those
fair prospects, and keeps us tossed upon a sea
of difficulty, with a propitious haven in sight ?
The want of a sufficiency of the circulating
medium, of the representative of capital, and the con-
sequent want of confidence that induces many to
hoard up their resources, in order that they may be
prepared for their own exigencies. If it can be
shown (and we believe it susceptible of the most
satisfactory and conclusive demonstration) that there
are no other probable causes at present existing that
could lead to these results, independent of the operation
of the currency laws, and that these are such that, in
the events that have happened, viz., a temporary drain
of gold, they not cnly might, but, in all human pro-
bability, would produce such effects, it will be
proved as fully as any question of the kind can pos-
sibly be, that those laws are the source and origin of
all our distresses, and that we can never hope for a
permanent remedy until the existing cause of the
disease be removed.

The next, the most difficult point in the investiga-
tion, will be the measures of reform, the nature and
character of the intended changes, of the new enact
ments that are to be substituted for those that have
been so justly and so generally condemned. There
will be many differences of opinion on
this topic, and it is to enlighten the
public mind with respect thereto, that the chief
energies of the Anti Gold-law League must be di-
rected. As we have already said, it will be easy
enough to establish the existence of the evils and
their cause ; but to furnish a substitute, to compile a
new currency code based on perfect security, so that
there can be no danger to the recipients of ultimate
loss, and which will, at the same time, affurd ample and
sufficient accommodation for the general purposes
of the country, and the necessary requirements of
our trade and commerce, and avoid that undue ;ex-
tension which, whatever apparent prosperity it may
lead to for the time being, is sure to end in over
speculation,-and to involve the entire country in the
deepest distress—llic labor hoc opus e.g. We believe
that the League are proceeding in the right direc-
tion ; they have entered on the pathway leading to the
goal. They have set out in a proper spirit. The old
adage hath it, "Dimidiumfacti qui cepit habct ;" and
if well founded, we may congratulate the National
Anti Gold-law Leagne on the progress they have
already made.

More brilliant institutions of a philanthropic cha-
racter have frequently been established than those
which are called Ragged Schools in England, and
indhstrial Schools in Scotland. There has never,
however, been one more worthy of commendation or
more calculated to diffuse happiness and prosperity
throughout the population, for—unlike all preceding
efforts of benevolence—it goes to the very root of
the national destitution, to the fountain-head of
popular depravity; it crushes the evils of want and
licentiousness in their germ, and prepares a broad and
substantial basis for the next and successive genera-
tions. Public Baths and Washhouses are unquestion-
ably most suitable for the convenience of such
operatives as are incapable of acquiring habits of
cleanliness from the exorbitant outlay it would
other wise entail, and whose avocations re-
quire the more frequent ablutions of their
bodies and the more careful purification of
their attire. Athenzeums and Reading-rooms are cer-
tain to prove most beneficial to prosperous and full-
grown mechanics, to such mechanics as have already
acquired for themselves a respectable position in the
community, end whose predilections are in favour of
scientific and literary investigations. Hospitals and
similar structures of an eleemolnary character have
in all ages and in all civilised countries been deemed
requisite for the prevention of contagion, and the
assuagement of the diseases of the poor. Madhouses,
supported 'ay shires or municipalities, have extended
the assistance of charity to those wretched beings
who in the midst of poverty are cursed with
the aberration of their intellects. The organi-
zation of Infant Schools has reflected ho-
nour upon its originator WILDERSPIN, and there
cannot be a moment's question but that these and the
before mentioned institutions have been conceived in
a wise, prudential, and economical spirit, with an
eye to the especial advantage of particular classes
and the gradual improvement and amelioration of the
general community. Compared with these, however,
the Ragged or Industrial Schools, are what the sowing
of good seed is when contrasted with the cultivation
of the chance crops which have fallen elsewhere than
on the reeks and among the brambles.
Previous to the assembling of a new Parliament
it is always most advisable that the people should
agitate by sober demonstration and rational discussion
for the removal by the Legislature of such abuses as are
found to be the most pernicious and the least endur-
able. It is a sense of the reasonableness of this prin-
ciple of action which has induced the more enter-
prising members of the commercial world to establish
the Anti-Gold-law League, and thereby direct the
attention of the Government in an especial man-
ner to the necessity which exists for the re-
adjustment of our present system of currency.
It has likewise kept alive the general anxiety
in regard to the details of the intended scheme of
National Education, and has preserved in the popular
recollection a vivid reminiscence of the exigencies of
an immediate introduction of a comprehensive Sanitary
enactment. We are rejoiced to perceive that the
merits of a plan which has so recently been called
into operation, and which received such an universal
approval as that of the Ragged or Industrial Schools,
are from time to time discussed in different parts
of the United Kingdom, and thus sustained in
the remembrance of the People and of the
Legislature. Dundee has witnessed the last of these
demonstrations, and Lords KINNAIRD and ASHLEY
have been the last advocates of these remarkable
and (morally speaking) most beautiful institu-
tions. We have coupled the Ragged and Industrial
Schools together advisedly, for notwithstanding their
original dissimilarity they have gradually become
almost identical both in working and appearance.
The Ragged Schools were the first established—the
Industrial Schools were suggested by that movement,
in behalf -of the very destitute, and were in some
measure an improvement upon the first crude idea, and
a development of the first immature arrangement.
To the advantages of mental and religious instruction
were added the blessings of food and clothing—to the
luxuries of intellectual tuition were conjoined the
necessaries of a physical existence. Besides fingering
the horn-book, the miserable scholars who had been
gathered in from the gutters and the bye-lanes were
made also to handle the spoon and the platter. And
by this generous and sagacious combination of ad-
vantages even the most callous and reprobate among
the unfortunate children were induced to become
students by the temptation of being enabled to satisfy
the cravings of their appetites. The fostering of a
spirit of mendicity has, however, been most sedulously
avoided throughout the whole of these benevolent
undertakings. The scholars of the Industrial Schools
have never received either victuals or raiment as a
gratuity, they have been taught to earn their daily
rations by cobblering, or tailoring, or net-wearing,
or by the exercise of some other handicraft; and
while they have been thus prevented from infesting
the streets like a species of human vermin, obtaining
nourishment by theft, and amusement from the
obscene spectacles of a penny theatre, they have been
acquiring, moreover, a relith for honest industry and
occupation, such as must assuredly prove their safe-
guard throughout life. That has been from their
very commencement the object which the founders
of the Industrial Schools have principally endeavoured
to accomplish, and the like is becoming more and
more every successive day the ulterior aspiration of
the promoters of the schools, called the Schools for
the Ragged. If it be recollected that the
individuals who are reclaimed at these institutions
are the most forlorn and miserable creatures
in the land, the spawn of felons and pickpockets,

beings nursed in the midst of filth and ignominy,
vice and privation, harshness and ignorance; that
their advance in years is only a retrogression in
depravity; that they lisp in the arms of the drunkard,
and prattle upon the knee of the blasphemer; that
their only emulation is one of cunning and illegality,—
we shall be enabled the more readily to appreciate the
benefits which must accrue from their transformation
into honest and industrious members of the com-
munity. It is literally the transmutation
of the grain of poison into corn and
wine, into a plentiful harvest and a fruitful
vintage. It is the discovery of a secret better
than that of the philosopher's stone, for it renders
possible the metamorphosis of an embryo felon into
an upright and laudable citizen, a metamorphosis
more astonishing and salutary than that of a dung-
heap into bullion. If the philanthropic efforts which
have been made during several past months be only
persisted in with the same earnestness as hereto-
fore, Dundee, and Aberdeen, and Westminster, will
no longer remain the isolated localities in which In-
dustrial Schools are flourishing. They will be emu-
lated in every town and city in these islands, and the
occupants of our hulks and penitentiaries must in
time be'sensibly diminished.

A letter from Berne of the 9th inst. says—

" A most serious incident threatens to accelerate
the explosion of hostilities between the two parties
which now divide Switzerland. You are aware that
the Federal Diet issued a decree on the 31st July
last, enjoining the cantons bordering on those of the
Sonderbund to seize all the arms and ammunition
passing through their territory on their way to those
states. You know, moreover, that several convoys
have been already stopped in Ticino, at Zurich, and
in Argau. But the most considerable of all, intended
for the canton of Friburg, had not yet been for-
warded by the French Government, which had un
dertaken to supply it. 6,000 muskets and four
pieces of artillery had been packed up in large cases,
but it was not known by what road they were to pro-
ceed in order to elude the vigilance of the Swiss
authorities. The canton of Neufchatel offered gua-
rantees to the Ultramontane party, its government,
entirely devoted to Prussia, desiring nothing better
than to assist the league. But in that canton the
number of patriots, partisans of liberal Switzerland,
is at least equal to that of its adversaries,
and the citizens took on themselves to intercept
the arms should they pass through their territory.
The Vorort had been informed for several days of the
departure of that convoy from the arsenal of Besan-
c,on, in two divisions, forwarded by different roads.
It had officially apprised the Government of Neuf-
chatel of the circumstance, both as the Vorort and
the Government of Berne, and requested it to execute
the decree of the Diet of the 31st of July. Finally,
it received last night by express a notice that several
French carmen had ventured to cross the frontier near
Pontarlier, with four waggon loads of muskets and
grape shot; that the convoy had safely reached
Fleurier, on the territory of Neufchatel, a distance of
two leagues from the frontier; that there the convoy
had been stopped by a number of citizens, who, after
vainly summoning the authorities to perform their
duty by seiz ng it, had, on their refusal, con-
ducted their prize to St. Croix, when they de-
livered it into the hands of the authorities of Vaud,
who sent it into Yverdun. This circumstance,
which sufficiently denoted the bad faith and
connivance of the Government of Neufchatel, in-
duced the Government of Vaud to seize the steamer
Industrial, which plies on the lake of Neufchatel, to
place on board a four-pounder and a detachment of
Carabineers, and station it on the southern bank of
the hike, to intercept all boats laden with arms and
ammunition intended for Friburg, whose territory is
washed by the lake on an extent of about two
leagues. In presence of all those facts the Vorort
hastened to delegate to Neufchatel the Councillor of
State Stockmar, as a federal commissioner, to summon
the Government of that canton to execute the orders
of the Diet, or obtain a formal refusal from it, in
order that the Vorort might adopt measures com-
manded by circumstances. M. Stockmar left this
morning, accompanied by a secretary and notary,
bearing the national colours; and the result of his
mission was the more anxiou,ly expected as the Go-
vernor of Neufchatel, the Prussian General Pfael, has
just arrived in the principality, where a collision ap-
pears to be imminent between the authorities of the
confederation and those of Prussia.

"The. Avoyer and Council of State of Lucerne
addressed on the Ist instant to the Federal Directory
the following reply to its injunction to execute the
decree of the Diet relative to the expulsion of the
Jesuits :

"By a circular of the 6th of September, the
decree adopted on the 3d of September by the Diet,
in the case of the Jesuits, was transmitted to us for
execution. We confine ourselves to return to it this
brief reply :-4 We deny a majority or minority of
confederated states any right whatsoever to interfere
in the religious afLirs of such or such cantons, and
coLsequently in those of the canton of Lucerne, and
we will never recognise or execute a decree or enact-
ment implying such an interference. The authorities
of the canton of Lucerne have appointed the Jesuits
to profess theology in the seminary, and the people,
by their veto, gave their adhesion to that appointment,
in virtue of a right of sovereignty inherent to the canton
of Lucerne. The state of Lucerne can alone augment
or diminish that right. A decision of twelve and two
half states annulling that state being unlawful and
unjust, is nowise obligatory for the state of Lucerne,
and it is the duty of the authorities not to comply
with a demand to recognise such a decision, and not
to renounce that right. To that declaration, made
without any reservation, we add the assurance of our
perfect consideration. "

We learn from Rome, by accounts dated the 2d,
that the motu proprio of the POPE on the organization
of the Municipal Council and the Senate of Rome
has just been published. It effects a great reform for
Rome, which has so long been deprived of the
municipal institutions which the other towns of the
Pontifical States possess This document is as
follows :

" When Divine Providence called us to govern the
Church and the State, our paternal cares were
directed to such of the populations submitted to the
Pontifical Government, and especially to this cele
crated capital, their eldest sister, to which it is sweet
to us to devote our labours and watchings. We feel
the obligation to have a special care for this
illustrious city, because we unite to the supreme
power of sovereign the power at which our heart
rejoices. And if it be sweet to us to extend our
affectionate solicitude over all our dear subjects, we
are still more happy to manifest it to the Romans,
whom we have continually before cur eyes, and who
do not cease to give, with extraordinary constancy,
new and excellent proofs of their filial respect to our
sacred person. What was especially important, and
what we think must be a subject of public joy, was
to restore to this dear city the ancient splendour of
communal representation, by according it a delibe-
rative council, a body of magistrates charged to cause
its deliberations to be executed, and revenues propor-
tioned to the charges which it has to sustain. It
caused joy to our heart to occupy ourselves with such
a project, and we are not alarmed at the grave diffi-
culties which unfortunately checked our predecessors
when they undertook this task. We gave to a most
honourable special commission the charge of drawing
up a series of regulations, which, in maintaining
intact the rights of the Holy See and the Sovereignty,
determine the rights and duties of the new communal
representation and administration of Rome. These
regulations having been carefully examined by us,
and found fully satisfactory, we have, by our motu
proprio, and by our supreme authority, ordained, and
do ordain what follows :"
Here follow the articles, which are 76 in number.
They declare that all representation and all jurisdic-
tion, whether administrative, judicial, or baronial, of
the Roman magistracy, which have been in vigour
till now, shall be abolished. Rome, and all the agro
Romano, are to be represented and administered, like
other districts of the state, by a deliberative council
and an administrative magistracy. The council is
to be composed of 100 members, of whom 64 are to
be landowners, 32 bankers, merchants, or members
of liberal professions, or colleges, or scientific, literary,
or artistic institutions, and four are to represent the
clergy and the charitable establishments. The nomi-
nation of the municipal councillors is to be made for
the first time by the Sovereign, afterwards by the
council itself, by thirds every two years, or according
to the new laws which are to be published on the
general organization of municipal councils in the
states of the Holy See. The municipal magistracy,
which is to be called the Senate of Rome, is to be
composed of a senator and eight conservators. The
privileges and duties of the council and the magis-
tracy are to be the same as those in the other towns
of the state. The 61st article enacts, that the muni-
cipality shall keep the register of births, marriages,
and deaths, whatever may be the religion of the per-
sons registered. This article is considered a very
liberal one.

Letters from Ferrara of the 4th instant state that
the Austrian troops were still in possession of the
town.
Disturbances took place at Leghorn in the after-
noon of the sth instant. The people congregated in
large numbers in the principal square, crying " Viva

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