The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-03 00:00:00

silver spoons in their mouths—meaning good 1
fortune ; while others are endowed with nothing
better than a wooden one—meaning misfortune.
Prince JULES DE POLIGNAC must BEVIES..
tionably have entered existence with both. His
whole career was literally a succession of catastrophes,
attributable partially to an adverse destiny and
partially to the weakness and vacillation of his own
judgment. With many estimable qualities as a pri-
vate character, Prince JULES DE POLIGNAC had abso-
lutely no capacity for public administration beyond
that of yielding to the wishes of an incom-
petent Sovereign, of evincing the suavity of a
petit-maitre in the midst of the most perilous
junctures, and of participating in the most
wild and extravagant schemes when they pro-
mised the advancement of the apotheosised prin-
ciple of Legitimacy. In struggling to evidence his
loyalty to this principle, Prince JULES DE POLIGNAC
showed his willingness to violate the holiest emotions
of his heart and the purest impulses of his nature.
Legitimacy was to him what BAAL was to the
Eastern Idolators. He sacrificed to it everything ;
he sacrificed for it everything ; he sacrificed, through
the passionate reverence which it inspired in his
bosom, everything. For the sake of Legitimacy,
Prince JULES DE POLIGNAC was ready to forsake the
paths of honour for those of dishonesty ; to become
reckless, from being remarkable for his timid so-
briety ; to become cruel and ruthless, from having
been naturally generous and benignant. Are we
exaggerating the effects of this unfortunate infatua-
tion? History responds to this inquiry and she tells
us that Prince JULES DE POLIGNAC was implicated
in a murderous conspiracy against a wonderful man,
who had been summoned by national acclamation to
the throne of his country ; she tells us that for the
gratification of his diseased loyalty he leagued him-
self, in 1804, with cut-throats and brigands; that
for this flagrant dereliction of his duties as a Christian
and as a civilized man he suffered a captivity of several
years' duration; that, ultimately, in 1829, he was
principally instrumental in plunging his native land
into a brief but bloody revolution. History tells us
these things in an inexorable voice ; she brands the
monument of the dead statesman with the words IN-
TENDED ASSASSINATION and ABETTED DESPOTISM 1
As one among the accomplices of PiCHEGRU, and as
the last Minister of CHARLES X., Prince JULES DE
POLIGNAC gained notoriety rather than immortality.
The offspring of a venerable aristocracy, he has
blended his memory in the recollections of men with
the vices of ruffians and the triumph of the rabble.
Cradled in a luxurious court, he has perished in a
distasteful obscurity. The favourite of Princes, he
has ensured to his nano the contempt or the abhor-
rence of the people.
Throughout his life, however, there is one pal-
liation which must not be overlooked, in estimating
the qualities and actions of Prince JuLEs DE
POLIGNAC. He was the bigot of an erroneous loyalty;
he was the fanatic of kingly succession and kingly
irresponsibility. these sentiments were instilled
into his heart on the outburst of the revolution ;
they inoculated, they permeated his whole nature ;
they assumed in fine such an overweening pre-
dominancy that they resolved themselves into a moral
disease. And it was solely through the operation
of this monomaniacal devotion to Legitimacy that
Prince JULES DR POLIGNAC became politically
criminal, though privately virtuous. Within the do-
mestic circle he adorned himself with many social
graces ; upon the arena of public events he
either appeared as a contemptible scapegoat or as an
incontestable culprit. With this motley character,
with these contrasted lights and shades, with these
mingled colours of good and evil, Prince JULES DE
POLIGNAC has descended into the grave a perfect
Chiaroscuro of statesmanship. Among the glorious
figures grouped upon the political tableau of his epoch
he will appear to posterity as a fantastic intruder.

Notwithstanding the protests of the dissentient
Lords, the Irish poor-law may be regarded as virtu-
ally carried ; and although there are some points,
more particularly in the recently-introduced clauses,
which appear in some degree objectionable, the mea-
sure is calculated to confer the greatest benefits on
the country at large. Already its good effects are
becoming manifest in the increased exertion of the
landlords, many of whom are seeking to provide
profitable employment for the labouring popula-
tion, and thus to diminish the burden that must
otherwise press with extraordinary weight. If such
a course should be generally pursued—if the owners
and occupiers of land in Ireland would for once con-
sent to co-operate together for their mutual advan-
tage—the vast improvement in the social condition
of the people generally that would be the inevitable
result would be cheaply purchased by the misery
and wretchedness that has been borne by suffering

thousands—we might say, millions—during the pas\
winter. Then, indeed would Ireland be regenerated,
and assume her proper position in the scale of
nations ; her children would be contented and happy,
in the certainty of being enabled, by their exertion,
to procure the means of subsistence, and to obtain a fair
day's wages for a fair day's work, and the lands through-
out the entire island would be brought to the highest
pitch of cultivation and fertility. The British nation
would gladly render every possible assistance to those
who had set their own shoulders to the wheel, and
enable them to bring to light the latent resources of
the country.
The chief question of difference, respecting which
many good and conscientious men, strenuous ad-
vocates for a good and efficient poor-law, enter-
tained opinions of the most opposite character, was
respecting the area of taxation that should be adopted ;
some clamoured for a townland rating, that as nearly
as possible a single landlord, or two, or three at the
farthest, should have to maintain the poor of their
.estates ; and this proposition has certainly an
appearance of equity, as it is not consistent with
justice that those landlords who fully and efficiently
perform the duties incidental to their position—who
furnish employment to the able-bodied poor on their
estates, and ensure to every man who is able and
willing to earn his livelihood by honest industry, the
means of doing so, should be heavily taxed by reason
of the negligence, apathy, or improper conduct of
their immediate neighbours. Other reasons, how-
ever, existed why the area of taxation should not be
of so limited a character. It would hold out a pre-
mium to cruelty and hardness of heart, an inducement
to landlords to clear their estates, to drive out the
cottier tenants from their humble habitations, regard-
less of the fearful sufferings that would thereby be
produced. A man might be strong and industrious,
and well able to maintain his family, but
such a person would not he suffered to gain a footing
where he might be enabled to obtain good employ-
ment, because the rates might thereafter be increased.
The proposition, therefore, of another class, that a
union should be substituted for an electoral rate,
gained many influential supporters, while the Govern-
ment adopted a middle course between the extremes.
Now the great object would be, if practicable,
to introduce some plan by which the objections
to either plan would be obviated, and the ad-
vantages of both realised. On behalf of a union
or even a national rate, it might fairly be urged that
the poverty of the entire kingdom should be provided
for out of the property of the kingdom ; that it is un-
just that one proprietor should escape for 6d. or ls. in
the pound, while another' might be taxed to the ex-
tent of 7s. or Bs. for the same purpose. Much injury
would also be averted to which the seaport and other
towns are now subjected. The present measure gives
no right of removal or settlement, consequently those
naturally,tr whoe
tbhua
err e d
heartless
indeedi
o driven e n
must,from
thus
enabled to relieveone
deserving of the
a national rate then
of chargeableevesrtruck,
the kingdom, and coupled Jiere
entire real property , who would be
t themselves
classm cruelty mayof
greatest selves by a course of conduct
l:.ecensure. Why should not
i t:descriptionlb o autla provisionbe
allowed
throughouton
o wt
bheyde
which a drawback from that rat:
to every one who would be enabled
prop
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f employment manner
?h e hadSuch
ap
givenePrrsvn n aa
hiss
bi
ofiulll
only be bound to contribute his proportionuo
of the expense of maintaining the sick and the
infirm, the aged and the helpless, and those who are
unable by any means to work for their own support,
and also of the staff necessary for carrying out the
provisions of the law. By the adoption of this prin-
ciple every fitting encouragement would be given to