The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
There is often a long leap from a general pri ciple, of
undeniable soundness, to the partisan purpose of a das for
which that principle is cited. Thus the limes vt ry justly
affirms that " the character of this country is essentially
Conservative." But a marvellous distance has to be tra-
velled over, and, as we apprehend, insurmountable ob-
stacles to be encountered, between that proposition and
the inference of the Times, that Toryism will find itself in
a majority at the next general election. That " the
character of this country is essentially Conservative", is
a truth, and it is also a truth that the people " are Co-
nservative, not because they prefer one set of partisans to
another, but because their tendencies are to fixedness
rather than to change." Neither of these facts will
help the Tories. Their fraudulent assumption of the
epithet `cConservative " does not snake them in-
heritors of the good that
i belongs to the prin-
ciple of conservation. The impudent adoption of a
family name makes no legal conveyance of the family
estate. One reason why the domination of Toryism be-
came intolerable, and why it never can be permanently
resumed is, that its character, on this very point, is at
mortal variance with the character of the English people.
Toryism is anti-Conservative; its whole history is that of
change ; and the necessity of progressive Reform (the
real Conservatism), has arisen out of the long progression
of its corruptions and abuses. Of not one national insti-
tution has Toryism ever proved itself a faithful and suc-
cessful conservator. It perilled the monarchy by pro-
mising absolutism. It abused popular representation into
mere nomination. It swamped the ancient Peerage by an
inundation of political and legal adventurers. The spiri-
tual character of the Church was sunk by it into an
offensive compound of worldliness and fanaticism.
With law it tampered until there was ne terror for
the rich and no remedy for the poor. It has not
been conservative even of its own concessions ; but
having apostatised into the enactment of Catholic Eman-
cipation, treated its own measure as a dead letter. And
when the people, as one man, demanded the reform,
which it opposed, there and there only, was the real Con-
servative principle. The Times represents the popular
feeling which obtained the Reform Act as " a single de-
termination," an isolated outbreak. This is very shallow
philosophy, and a most suicidal argument. Were it so,
the British would be demonstrably a most theoretical
people. They_ would be capable ,of intense: excite-
ment for a sheer abstraction. Everybody knows the re-
verse. The Reform agitation was anything but unprac-
tical. In its most formidable demonstrations it neither
sprung from, nor tended to any defined and coherent theory
of representation. !The old system was found not to
work well in the popular estimation. It accumulated
grievances. Seats were bought and sold, like the
cattle in Smithfield Market, and with them the
rights and interests of the community. The
House of Commons degenerated into a taxing-
machine, with whatever worse purposes the Minister
of the day might desire to accomplish. Among the mil-
lions whose mighty voice enforced the passing of the Re-
form Act, there were none who confined their views to a
mere change of forms. All contemplated results. Re-
presentation was desired for the sake of the consequences
of representation. Law that should protect, a Church
that should instruct, and taxation pressing lightly and
falling fairly; these were the ends, of Conservative
cha-
racter as to the spirit of our institutions, to which Reformers
looked, through the medium of a more equalized representa-
tion. They were not the idiots which the Times represents
them, regarding the means only, and resting there with-
out any ulterior purpose. They were true to the national
character. They hoped, as they desired, that anti- Conserva-
tive Toryism would be crushed by the reform. That agi-
tation was not, what the argument of the Times requires
it to have been, an irrational and singular effort, a por-
tentous aberration, an effect without a cause. In the
order of moral causation, it necessarily arose frem the col-
lision between the Conservative character of the nation
and the corruptions of Toryism. A wide-spread disap-
pointment has followed. Tho party resources of Toryism
had been miscalculated. Its sneaking perversion of the
spirit by means of the letter of the Reform Act—its relent-
less hostility to the rights, instruction, and improvement of
the people—its disgraceful pandering to every class
prejudice and sinister interest—and its sordid sacri-
fice of the very semblance of principle to the regain-
ing of place and profit, had been underrated. Hence
discontent with the authors of the Reform Act, and
with their disinclination to confirm their work by
such further organic changes as were needful to its
practical efficiency. Hence the unnatural apathy of
some; the schism of others ; and the co-operation (only
for the purposes of retaliatory annoyance) of others with
the anti-Conservative Tories themselves. And hence the
very phenomena to e hich the Times refers, for a very di&
f:. rent purpose. We mean the Tory successes in Parlia-
mentary and Municipal election!. They are very easily
accounted far by the foregoing statement. It could not
happen otherwise. But to take them as predictive f a
general and permanent support of Toryism by the nation,
is building their house upon the sand with a vengeance.
Let us see how the fact that " the character of this country
is essentially Conservative," acts upon the Cern-law ques-
tion. Is it Conservation to repress the regular growth of
that manufacturing sstcm by which the nation has been
enriched and aggrandiz-d ? Is it Conservation to deny work
and food to the mulidudittous population that is al-
ready brought into existence under this system? li it •
Conservation to annihilate our foreign markets, turn •
away our • foreign customers, and play the game of
our foreign competitors ? Is it Conservation to block up
the groa► and en.y outlet far the increasing surplus pcpu-
iation of our starving agricultural labourers? 16 it Con-
servation to rely, for the nation's food, on an agriculture
which in no one year grows a sufficient supply, even with
all the stimulus and advantages of an inhuman mono-
poly ? Is it Conservation to tax the non-agricultural
consumers of corn nine millions of pounds sterling per an-
trum for no earthly purpose but to keep run's up to
double a list till were a generation since, aid thus enable
bankrupt proprietors of lansi to cheat their mortgagees
and plunder the public? Such policy is Tory, but i: is
set Conservative. And this, as we have lately shown,
has now became, and will continue, the hustings' question.
It will have much more to do with the next election than all
the ward polling bAween Mr. Higgins and Mr. Wiggins
for a town councillorship. If the Tories could take oflii.e,
we would dare them to take it, and to appeal to the
country, as a Bread-Tax Administration. Even the
Times does not venture to put the question en that
ground. It smuggles a pretended proof of the popularity
of Toryism under the false colours of a perverted word.
It shuffl -s between national Conservatism, ishich is one
this-g, and a great reality, and 'fory Conservatism, which
is quite a different thing„ and a great humbug. Will our
Contemporary put the argument plainly, end then stick
to it ? Will he say, " the character of this country is
essentially taxed-bread eating ?" Will he prove that-the
English Constitution can only be nourished by taxed
bread ? Then there will be some basis for his prognos-
tications. Short of that he only plays a plausible game
with verbal counters. The first thing of which the people
arc conservative is of themselves. Whigs and Tories will
both find this as they come to the poll-booth. The par-
tisan catechism will be cut short. With the man in the ,
farce, to the question " What are you ?" they will awe er,
•I am hungry." Will all the word-jugglery of the
Times persuade them to be conservative of hunger? and
of bread-tax ?
(From the Morning Herald.)
Me. Powell, surveyor to the Waterloo Bridge Company,
denied, on the inquest held on the body of the unfortunate
Scott, that the deceased had been hired by the Company
to exhibit his dangerous tricks to a morbid, sight-hunting
gencration. Be it so ;we will concede that no bargain
was absolutely struck between the Company and Scott—
that uo terms were stipulated for the show ; we will allow
that the Company " did not meet until the 16th instant,"
and that, therefore, no express engagement could be en-
tered into between the parties. Scott, however, " had
had money made him a present by the Southwark Bridge
Company, and thought it likely the Waterloo Bridge
people would do the same." Such is the testimony of
Godfrey, Scott's landlord. Mr. Powell, however, would
give no express consent to the exhibition : " the Company
did not meet until the 16th instant," was his peremptory
reply. Now, what follows ? Scott, with a remembrance
of the liberality of the men of Southwark, has every con-
fidence in the gratitude of the men of Waterloo. He
says to G idfrey, " I have a scaffold; erect it." Upon
this, Godfrey takes the scaffold on the bridge, and, in his
own words, was " never interfered with." The scaffold
is put up, and stands the whole of Sunday, as most sig.
nthcant advertisement of the doings of Scott on the suc-
ceeding day. Thousands saw the scaffold—thousands read
the bills placarded at either end of the bridge, announcing
the tricks of the diver ; but somehow, the people connected
with the bridge—the people employed by the Company,
were so
.busy at the toll-places that they never beheld the
preparations " over the second arch of the east side" of the
structure—never read the advertisements narrating the
wonders of the show. We really were not aware that the
money-takers at toll places were such Arcadiants—such
guileless, unwordly people. Henceforth, we shall have
the loftiest notions of the innocence of all turnpikemen.
Let us, however, suppose that certain parties had erected
a scaffold, and with effective instruments for the mischief,
had wished for a whole day to employ themselves defacing
and injuring the bridge. Would the scaffold have been
suffered to remain, if loss, and not profit to the Company
had been the result of its erection? Let the truth be said.
Were not the servants of the Company too much rapt by
the prospect of an increase of pennies at the toll to eon-
s sider, as they ought to have considered, the scaffold at the
second arch?

FROU THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)

We have been glad to see our weekly Contemporaries
lately showing some tendency to assign a foremost place
to questions of practical and fiscal economy. We no-
ticed last week the Spectator's useful abridgment of the
Report on Import Duties ; and the Examiner has had
one er two able articles on a branch of the same subject
—the Reports of the Select Committees of both Houses
on the Petition of the East India Company. W e do
not mind the slight infusion of bitters in either Con-
temporary. The best friends of the Government must be
most desirous that subjects of this kind should be forced
on them by the utmost possible " pressure from with-
out." The Penny Postage was in this manner pressed
lioon official adoption. No measure has added more
Justly to the popularity of the present Government. Yet
no
Government could well have been expected to effect
such a thange, without the previous sanction of a
strongly
why announced public opinion. There is another
reasonincessant assaults on them on
these official strongholds must be stormed with big
blue books,
and the contents of those books,
se
ussuebdjeaestins—a-
tend for
and this is, that the thoughts and attention of men in
office are too much divided betwixt mere official routine
and mere petty warfare. They have little time or
energy left for any thing else.sin this
t,
s lande
The solo remedy for
iof faction,
i
ifon
what is otherwise rernediles
is, that the public should i, j on its own

material and substantial interests ; and they will
soon make parties and Ministers wage their offen-
sive and defensive warfare on that field. A popu-
lar Chamber of Legislature (whatever the elective
franchise) can never lag far behind an informed and
awakened public. If Parliament waste time in the
mere contests of faction, the fault must partly be in the
public, amongst whom factions can find auditors. The
moment the demand for other topics is manifest, the
supply will follow. Symptoms of this are already visible,
and oddly enough—some of them in the Lords. The
Lords' Committee on the India Petition have made a
Report, ascribed to Lord Ellenborough, which puts
forth just and enlightened views on Colonial policy—
" That no partialfavour should grant to one colony any
advantage over another, either in colonial ports or in
those of the United Kingdom ; still less that Parlia-
ment should partially secure for the produce and manu-
factures of the United Kingdom any advantage in any
colonial port over the competing produce and manufac-
tures of its own dependencies." This is a new and
notable start of hereditary wisdom ; though of course it
will find no favour in the eyes of the Standard.
(From the Standard.)
The excellent speech of the Hon. Mr. Smythe, at
Canterbury, has plainly told—the _Morning Chronicle
makes it the subject of an angry article this morning.
Our Contemporary commences its criticism by a❑ attack
upon the city of Canterbury, which we suppose will be
appreciated by the voters of that ancient city at the ensu-
ing election, and proceeds to fall foul of the Conservative
party and the Conservative press, deviating rather widely
from the truth in reference to the latter. The misreported
speech of Mr. Bradshaw supplies the pretext for both in-
vectives. Now, with reference to that speech, Mr. Brad-
shaw has distinctly disavowed it, and this is generally
considered enough among gentlemen when even the
most delicate point of honour is concerned ; but Mr.
Bradshaw has not merely disavowed the speech, and
deniesi that he ever entertained the sentiments which it
has been interpreted as ascribing to him—he has ex-
pressed regret that any language of his could bear such
misinterpretation ; and it is to be remembered that this
disavowal, this denial, and this expression of regret,
were ❑ot in any way extorted, or even solicited from the
Honourable Member for Canterbury, but came from
him as his own spontaneous act. This would be
something more than enough among gentle-
men ; however, the Morning, Chronicle writes for
those who are not gentlemen. Be it so ; our Contem-
porary at least writes in England, and therefore
writes for just and honourable men. Now, will any
just and honourable man so far trust to the hearsay of a
reporter—who may have been mistaken, and who has
acknowledged, we believe, that he was mistaken—
against the testimony of a gentleman of unimpeached
honour and veracity, who certainly must know better
what he said than the reporter of his speech, and against
the testimony of all the other hearers ? There might
he more difficulty in following the general rule of evi-
dence, if the words imputed to the speaker were so
clear and unequivocal, and so criminal in substance, as
to leave no choice between the conviction on the one
side that they were spoken as reported, or the other,
that the reporter was guilty of wilful misrepresentation.
Such, however, is not the case of the speech erroneously
ascribed to Mr. Bradshaw : take away some impropriety
of style and manner, and there was nothing in it which
any Englishman ought to be ashamed or afraid to say,
under the like circumstances.

(From the Courier.)
What are the public to think of the disgusting hy•
pocrisy with which ignorance was feigned of the actual
position of Frost and his companions, and of the mode
in which they had been dealt with by the Governor ?
It is clearly a shabby attempt to fix the responsibility of
this promotion and premium for crime upon that officer
in case of need, and accordingly we shall be amused in
Parliament, when the case is brought forward, with a
long yarn about the doctor's certificate of good con-
duct on the voyage out, which led Sir John Franklin,
in the innocence of his heart, to conceive the convicts
worthy of a better fate, and to patronize them accord-
ingly, when all the while Sir John was acting only
upon a foregone conclusion, and in pursuance of abso-
lute, however private, orders from his superiors at home.
It is unhappily the besetting sin of Lord John Rus-
sell's character, as of the acts of his Administration,
that between the straightforward and the tortuous
course he is too often seen to elect the latter, and to
prefer rather to accomplish ends by the little arts of
cunning and stratagem than by the fearless frankness
of a statesman who has weighed causes and conse-
quences, and is prepared manful), to justify and accept
the responsibility for what he has conscientiously re-
solved upon, whatever the risk of censure or the odium
contingent. We are not disposed to enact the part so
common and congenial with the office and habits of the
Whig Attorney-General, that is, to argue in aggrava-
vation of the punishment of Frost and his unhappy as-
sociates ; but neither are we insensible of the perilous
affront to loyalty, justice, and public morals, when
crime, and that of the deepest die in every shade
known to the Constitution, is not alone permitted to es-
cape its condign penalty, in one part of the empire out-
raged, but in another part exalted with honorary if not
lucrative marks of distinction above classes of crime
and criminals around of much more pardonable and
lover degrees of enormity. For it cannot be forgotten
that the crimes of which Frost and his co-mates stand
attainted were, not high treason alone, but treason and
murder. On their heads lie all the blood shed at
Newport, besides the sin of levying war against the
Sovereign and comp issing the overthrow of the institu-
tions of their country.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER, JAN. 13.

TIIF. SHEFFIELD, ASIITON UNDER.I.YNE, AND MANCIIESTF.P.

RAILWAY COMPANY V. WOODCOCK.

This was an action for calls which was tried before Mr.
Baron Rolfe at the last Liverpool assizes, when a ver .
was found for the plaintiff. A rule was obtained, on the
part of the defendant, for setting the verdict aside, on the
ground that no evidence was given of any resolutions
of the Directors fixing the time and place where the calls
were to be paid, and that they were made in ficturo ; that no
evidence was nffcred that the person signing the notices of
the calls was chairman of the Court.
Mr. WIGEITMAN now !,110:red cause against the rule, anti
contended that, according to the Act constituting the
Court, the Directors were not bound to prove any resolu-
tion for a call ; they had given the proper notice in the
newspapers, and in that they had fixed both time and place
where the calls were to be paid, and that he contended was
enough. As to the other objection, there was a resolution
entered into on the 13th March, that a call should be made
on the 30th March, to be payable in the following May ; he
contended that the call was good enough, it having been
really made on the 13th, all the words respecting the
30,11 was mere surplusage. The notice of the call was in
effect the call, and that did not appear till April. By
the Act that public notice was all that the Directors were
obliged to do, and the public and the shareholders were
not entitled to know anything of the resolutions of the
Directors. . .

Mr. V CRESS WELL, for the defendant, contended that
the call was perfected by the resolution of the Direc-
tors, and if so, then they were invalid, because the
resolutions making these two calls made no mention of
either time or place for the payment of the money. The
!mond objection applied to only one call, but he appre-
hended it was fatal so far as that call was concerned. It
was resolved on the 13th March that a call should be
made on the 30th. Now if the Directors could
make any call in, future, what was to preven► those who
went out by rotation making a call which would bind their
successors ? He obtained his rule upon another ground, to
which his Learned Friend had not adverted. He con-
tended that the Directors had not been legally elected.
Mr. WIGUTMAN hoped the Court would hear him upon
that new point, for he had clearly understood that it had
been overruled when the motion was made. Accurding to
the 146th section, the Directors named in the Act of Par-
liament were to remain in office till others were duly
elected, and the calls in question were signed by a full
quorum of the Directors so named in the Act. Their
powers were legal.
Mr. CRES3WELL argued that the Act required the Com-
pany should duly elect Directors at the first general meet-
ing of registered proprietors. At the time these gentle-
men were elected there was no scaled registry, and it had
been held that the registry was no registry until it was
scaled.

Mr. Dundas, Mr. Crumpton, and Mr. Cowling followed
on the same side.
The COURT took time to consider their judgment.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

GUILIIHALL.

John Croft, and Louisa, his daughter, were charged
before Mr. Alderman White, the latter with robbing
her employer, Mahommet Palouker, and the former
with fraudulently misrepresenting her character and re-
ceiving a portion of the stolen property.
The prosecutor (who was dressed in the Eastern cos-
tume and spoke English very fluently) said that he re-
sided in Sun-street, Bishopegate-street. About twelve.
months ago the female prisoner applied to him for a
situation, stating that as she was just come from the
country she could only refer to her father as to charac-
ter. Upon application to the male prisoner, he spoke
of her in such high terms that she was engaged, but
before she had been three days in the place various
suns of money were missed, and the woman having ac-
knowledged that she took them she was discharged.
Immediately after her departure he found that she had
taken two satin veils and a diamond pin, and he never
saw her afterwards until he met her in Holborn, when
he gave her into custody.
Police Constable 276 said that when the female was
searched at the station-house she acknowledged having
given the pin to her father.
Both the prisoners, who strongly protested their inno-
cence, were ordered to be brought up again to-morrow.

RUIVIOURF:4D DREADFUL

ACCIDENT.

UPWARDS OF ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

Rumours have been prevalent in this neighbourhood
that on Monday last a most serious calamity happened
on Whittlesey Mere—the ice breaking, and, it is said,
upwards of a h'indred lives being lost. From inquiries
we have made, we have reason to fear this rumour is
not without foundation, though various reports still
continue.—Cambridge Advertiser of yesterday.