The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-30 00:00:00

SECON D EDITION.

THE FUNDS-(CLOSING PRICES.)

BRITISH FUNDS.

Bank Stock ... l37if i India Stock ......... ..• ••
3 per Cent. Red BBZi Ditto Bonds .. .
3 per Cent Cons ...... .. Ditto Old Annuities -
3 per Cent Red ...... .. 97i Ditto New Annuities —
New 3i per Cent .. ... Ex. Bills, 1,000/....21d '2 pm
New 5 per Cent ... ...... Ditto 500/ 4pm
Long Annuities to expire Ditto Small 6pm
Jan. 1860. l3 Bank Stock for Acct ...
Oct 1859... l2 13-16 India Stock for Acct ...
Jan. 1860 . . —
___. _
__Consols for Opg B,t+i

FOREIGN FUNDS.
A astrian, 5 per cent Portuguese, 5 per cent.
Belgian, 5 per cent Ditto, New Ditto.... .
Brazilian Bonus ..
BuenosAyres, 6 per cent Russian, 5 per cent....
Chilian, 6 per csnt
Colombian, t; per cent... Spanish, 5 per cent •, Ii
Ditto, 1824 24 Ditto, Deferred .. 12i
Danish, 3 per cent..... French,s per cent... —f. —c.
Greek, 1825, 5 percent. Exchange ..
Mexican, 5 per cent.... 281, French, 3 per cent —l. —e.
Ditto, 6 per cent, 1825. Dutch, 24 per cent 5ll
Peruvian,lB2s, 6 per ct. Ditto, 5 per cent..... 971
SHARES.
Great Western Railway (65 paid) 904
Ditto New Shares (40 paid) ...... ... 52
Ditto Fifths ( 4 paid) ... 1011
London and Brighton Railway (50 paid) ... 43&
London and Birmingham Railway (90 pd) 172
Ditto New Shares (24 paid)
London and Greenwich Railway :(20 paid)
Ditto Scrip. ( 2 paid). ,n
London and South Western Railway ... ...... 56i

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

IRON THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(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 o! the
Timex and the Herald, there would still remain, as a
reproach to all such accusers of the Whigs, as exclusively
the authors and approvers 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 vicioussy stem
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 the rate-payers, or neglect and op-
pression to the poor, these furnish no legitimate ground
of argument against the law, unless it can be proved
that some defect in its construction, or some positive
oppression in its provisions, create or sancton these
evils. Under the old law the instance of maladminis-
tration were more numerous and injurious—peculation,
extravagance, corruption in all the various forms in
which 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' account for " \Vine 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 illorning
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-
lahs, 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 Ro-
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 ail 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
hike the United Kingdom, the great majority of elec-
tors must take their opinions from 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
Poor-law Administration, if it shall be the means for
calling the attention of public men more strongly and
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
awn special aggrandisement, but in the physical and reli-
giou a acceptation, so as to restore a healthy state of cor-
poreal action cmultaneously with that mental improve-
ment, the men: sang in corporc 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 peace 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 er external wound,
and they succeeded in inoculating the poor patient in
hand so fiercely with faith in the wonder-working
powers of this mighty specific, that to this day
his ravings are ever of more plenteous doses 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
which be 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 prne-
tict!l, 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-
la w, by which the Elizabethan charter of the poor has
been abrogated and superseded.

STATE OF TRADE.

(From the Manchester Guardian.)

MANCIIE4TET.— Yesterday being the market intervening
between Christmas and New Year's Day, there was as
usual very little business done ; and the trifling demand
which might be expected at this season was checked by the
advance ri quired by the spinners and manufactiirors, or,
almost all descriptions of goods and yarn. This ad-
vance buyers did not seem much disposed to givp ;
bu• senors were firm, and the little business transacted was
either at advanced prices, or the very full rates of the
previous week.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, DEC. 29.—Thero have
been very ft w buyers in the market to-day, and "II
little business of any kind has been done. Indeed, at
the markets which fall between Christmas-day and the
•' new market," very few attend. The new market is
always held on the first Monday after Old Christmas Day
(or the 6th of January). In the prico of flannels there
has been no change, and the wool market continues dull,
with prices firm.

11CDDERsrIELD MARKET, FRIDAY, DEC. 29. This
market was unusually animated for the last in the year.
The amount of goods sold was not heavy, but the pros-
pect of a good spring trade seems to animate the spirits
Of all parties. Priecs remain firm in all new goods, awl
the raw material. Orders for shipping arc tolerably
heavy, which keep the operatives employed. A fair busi-
nrss is doing in the warehouses.