The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-05 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

wickedness of the proposer and his touter more

apparent.
Nothing is more certain than that all the im:
provements in arts which adorn modern society—
from the painting, poetry, architecture, and sculp-
ture of the age of the MEDICI, to railways and
vessels moved by Archimedian screws, are the off-
spring of cities. It is equally certain that the im-
provements
in morals which distinguish the mo-
derns from the ancients, have had the same source.
We know that it has been customary to
assert that they have come from the
scattered aristocracy and the priesthood, whose
education has been based on the cruelties Of
the classic Romans, or Greeks, or still more an-
cient Hebrews ; but the patience and forbearance,
which is inculcated by the conditions of their exis-
tence on tradesmen of towns anxious for customers,
dependent for their bread on the good opinion of
other persons, are the true sources of the humanity
and kindliness of modern life. In towns, division
of labour is carried to the greatest extent ; in towns,
therefore, the mutual dependence of men is extreme;
in towns, accordingly, people learn to be civil and
well-behaved, and from towns civility, forbearance,
and humanity, have spread over the rural districts.
Yet because the town population exhibits these vir-
tues,while they have to a considerable extent emanci-
pated themselves from the control of the priests, the
half of our towns are to be razed to restore the
dominion of those who are angry because the peo-
ple no longer believe that they are appointed by
GoD to be our masters and oppressors.
The Post and the Quarterly Review deride the
improvement of the age. Instead of drawing on
their imagination for rich pictures of Arcadian
bliss, in the good days of protection and obedience
and feudal tenures, let them consult history ;
and, whatever may be the vices of our
modern cities, they will find them sur-
passed in their chosen periods of rural
felicity. Not a century ago there yet remained in
Scotland the beau ideal of the Quarterly Re•
viewer's government. Feudal tenures existed—each
chieftain exercised a monarch's power over his
vassals, and what was the result ? Why these
rural kings were continually aiming at each others
lives, and employing their subjects to levy black
mail on the more civilized people of the neigh-
bouring towns and valleys. They were quarrel-
some assassins at home and robbers abroad. Two
centuries have yet scarcely elapsed when such a
state of society existed in the north of England,
and the Marches were then filled with ra-
pine and murder. Two centuries ago, when
such a feudal condition of society existed,
England was continually the prey of armed incur_
rections and civil war. Do the Quarterly Review
and the Post wish them restored? As our towns
have increased, the people have become peaceable,
and the inhabitants of our mercantile and commer-
cial cities, obtaining wealth and power by honest
industry, have tamed the plundering Barons and
the militant priests.
We quoted a few days back Mr. FARR'S un-
answerable observation, that the mortality in
towns had gradually lessened during the last 200
years, and, with that lessening mortality, th ere
has been a gradual increase in all the decencies
and virtues of life; yet simply because this
improvement has been accompanied by- a -pro-
per diminution of the power of the priests, it
is proposed to raze half our towns. The conceited,
arrogant heart in which the thought originated,
however gracefully it may be expressed, is fit for the
bosom of a NERO or a BORGIA. Only a rriest
stark mad, we think, with spiritual pride, could
have conceived the idea of razing to the earth half
the abodes of our intelligent artizans, of our men of
science. of our cultivated artists, of our poets, phi-
losophers, and politicians—for nearly all these
live in cities—and of making desolate their hearths,
around which are collected some of the most esti-
mable and excellent members of society. But
priests, so mad with spiritual pride, now demand do-
minion over the minds and hearts of their fellow-
creatures, and to establish that is the main design
of the Tory policy.