The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-30 00:00:00

POLITICAL SUMMARY OF THE

MORNING JOURNALS.

The Morning Chronicle of yesterday observes, in the course
of a leading article on the parochial law of Scotland :—" We
have always maintained that a country can never be in a
healthy condition in which there is not a compulsory provision
for the poor. The owners of the soil ought to be made to feel
themselves responsible for the people reared on their lands, and
self-interest in that case will lead them to attend to the pro-
portion between the numbers of the people and the means for
maintaining them. At present this duty is utterly neglected
by the landlords in the Highlands, who are the great breeders
of paupers, and coolly propose the removal of multitudes at
the expense of the nation A better proof of the badness of
the system now prevailing in Scotland cannot be afforded than
this, than while the towns are in this disgraceful state,
the country is advancing rapidly in prosperity—is in
fact at this time the most thriving part of the island."
The Morning Post, speaking of the official orders issued by
the New Poor-law Commissioners, says:—" The fault may
possibly not be so much with the Commissioners who give the
orders as with the secretary who reduces them to form, and
communicates to them his peculiar style. But, wherever the
fault may be, there is undoubtedly the fault of an offensive
'dictatorial manner, as if the Commissioners could not be
ceherwise than exactly right, and every one who differed with
them unquestionably in the wrong. It seems to he the opi-
nion of the person who prepares the writings which issue
from the Po w-law Commission, that it is very proper to treat
the commonly-received notions of kindness and humanity
with contempt. This is deserving of the gravest censure."
The Morning Herald states. in allusion to some recent amend-
ments in the new Poor-law Bill :—" May we not infer that the
cause of humanity is on the advance in the Cabinet, as well
in the House ? That ar last the voice of the poor will be
favourably beard, ha ref,reneo to their appals f-om many of
the most grinibng and obnoxious clauses of the existing Poor-
law?"—The Times, referring to the new Poor-law question,
remarks as follows :--" We have never been, and we will never
affect to be, advocates of the union system, and we utterly dis-
like the constitution of boards of guardian=. If the Poor-law
Commission were abolishel, we should place no confidence in
them, and w., have no doubt whatever that many gross cases
of oppression would then, as now, arise out of their mismanage-
ment.'

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)
The recent debate on Lord Mahon's motion respect-
ing the employment of convicts under sentence of
transportation, at the hulks, is useful as directing pub-
lic attention once more to a subject of such immense
social importance as the administration of secondary
punishments. Like all questions which inv Ave a
var'ety of suborjinate considerations, that of trans-
portation, and secondary punishments in general, never
fails to elicit a curious medley of individual opinions.
Each man has his rnance to propose : Archbishop
What, 1-, for instance, would retain all convicts in
penitentiaries at home ; Lord Alahor, on the con-

trary, would entirely abolish this mode of puoishment.
The Noble Lord, as far as w! uuderstand his meaning,
would return to the old system of convict assignment in
the colonies, and send abroad as many as possible of
those setoenced to short terms of punishment. He
sets off the evils, sanatory and moral, of the hulks,
against the colobial esorrnities of transported con-
victs. Ti;,; Committee on secondary punishments of
1835 is r)tted against that on transportation in 1838-9.
We think Lord Mahon's motion was premature, yet we
canna say that we are sanguine as to the working of
the Hulks and Penitent;ary in distinction from the
transportation system. Still less did we coincide with
the Report of the Transportation Committee, whose
main argument was a deduction from the crimes com-
mitted in the convict colonies, of the vicious system
under which they had arisen. Overlooking the
dreadful d.fEculties to be encountered when you
have felons for the staple of your community, the
li port dwelt on their depravity as conclusive
against the maintenance of a system which had
at least a flourishirg cobny to show in its favour.
But the evidence collected by the Transportation
Committee is most valuable ; it is a dark page from the
hook of human nature, but one most useful for legis-
lators to study, and, as containing the history of a co-
lony unique in the annals of mankind, it belongs to the
dom .in of general history. Our own conviction, sup-
ported by the opinions of many who are practically
acquainted with the working of the present system, is
favour of the transportation of convicted criminals ;
we think it favourable to the morals of the mother

country to remove from it those who have disgraced it
by their crimes ; we think also, that it would, under
proper regulation, afford at least an equal chance, nay,
a greater one, of individual reformation.

(From the Courier.)
Whilst on all hands the New Poor• law officials of So-
merset House are challenged with harsh and heartless
administration of a law essentially harsh and heartless
in its principles as in its provisions, it is not a little
strange to find the accusers who bring the proof, and the
Judges who pass the sentence, with fussy flourish and
contradictory compliment labouring to bleach their own
black-made Ethiop white again, with sundry lip salve
raro'e evidence to individual character, which, if
admissible at all, establishes the fact at once that
they are al', " all honourable men," whose hu-
manity, theoretically may not be impeached, how-
ever in practical working the " hardness of heart "
alone is transparent. We, however, are unequal to the
apprehension of that humanity which interprets and
administers a cruel law with a rigour beyond the law,
except, indeed, upon the Draconian principle of hu-
manity which impels the executioner coolly to shorten
the agony of his victims by an extra twist of the noose,
or a supplementary tug at the legs. The Commis-
sioners may be, and are, doubtless, very respectable gen-
tlemen and kind hearted in the relations of private life
within their own circle ; but of their humanity in
the I irger sense towards kind, towards the
poor, we may be pardoned for incredulity, seeing that
the overt demonstrations lie all the other way. The
party really chargeable with new Poor-law barbarism
and new Poor-law official bluster may be, as the Morn-
ing Post would seem to say, none other than the of
Secretary, once well known as one of that pennj-R.
lining class whom a Rev. Mr. Spencer, somewhere
about Bath, iu a furious pa nphlet just published in
assertion of the Christian tendencies of new Poor-
law oppression, energetically stigmatises as the pests of
the Press and society. In behalf of that zealous func-
tionary we must, however, repudiate the apologetic
plea ; for in logic as law the axiom holds equally good,
qui facit per alias, facit per se, and, so long as the agent
is neither rebuked nor removed, his acts, vicariously per-
formed though they be, are but the emanation, and must
be charged to the responsibility, of a superior will.

(From the SEandard.)

We have observed with great regret that some difficul-
ties have occurred in the opulent borough of Marylehone,
which are likely to interfere at toe next general election
with the return of its present upright and excellent re-
presentative, Lord Teignrnouth. We perceive that
these difficulties ere entirely of a pecuniary kind, wis-
ing from the indisposition on the part of the Con-
servatives to raise an adequate fund for the
eor.test. We are quite sure tint the Con
servatives of Marylebone are actuated by too
liberal a spirit, and are too anxious to pre-
serve the p3sition in Parliament which they have so
nobly won, to allow themselves to lose the ser-
vices of a Member who does them so much credit as
the Noble Lord who now represents them, and we can-
not help feeling satisfied that when they consir'er the
sacrifices that Noble Lord has made, and the inde-
pendent spirit and ability with which he bas represented
them in Parliament, they will yet combine with an ac-
tive and vigorous exertion to secure his services in the
next Parliament.

THE WEATHER,

ROYAL GALLERY OF SCIENCE, ADELAIDE-
STREET.

NOON, MARCH 29.
Barometer 29'96 In.
Thermometer
Highest . 58
Lowest
Wind S. W. by W.—Freezing Point 32 Dog.

--giZPlta':'tNvcriek GbyAßirolockeNsi: s
thing fashionable
house was too smalland for
hung with blue, buff,
dirty, but the coup-
question were there
muiic or anytt ine.
handsosme il
fR Inlet, shield end lanCe, 1 Club,A great gala was
Ltoonadocni:owdprho:
oeiv,eerray.
the company, The boxes were
i,ceirfid silver. The floor extremely
A rte. P.e07,1e of both sides of the
After vcrlain-
K two hours, without
red and bplue, with a green
lously dressed as 131?itatn4 i on, Mrs. Siddons, rificu-
occasiir,addres.sed to the le'er'Ritied a
of York, wno stood before
Town,end, on being asked :vhat
rich suit, said, " It was probably the
father's strait waistcoat."—Swinburne°%u°
pit:ful ode on the
belonginggiotofthe prince,*
ventured
ibrece of Wales and the Duke
rhein
tchou
of mail. Lord
({)f Europe.
to his
MA RIE A NITONIETTE.—.4
words of consolation, hinting that times ii a few
pro , happiness would
restored. She shook ILir head. We were alone, 'kr be
ving and that her popularity and • were now im-
proving,
not bow I was worked up to it, or had courage to mare
the proposal ; but I did so—that if she thought herself
in danger, my services were at her command, and that
she could come with me to England in the disguise of my
maid, whom I could easily dispose of by sending her
under some prctaxt to her friends at St. Germain. She
thanked me, and smiled faintly, but sad nothing would
induce her to leave hi r family. She added that she had
refused other offers of the same sort. " Besides"—.and
she looked round—" si ja voulais, eels re se pourrail pas;
if y a trop d'espions." I took leave of her with regret and
affection.—Strinburne's Courts of Europe.
SUICIDE. UNPRECEDENTED CASE. —An
Inquest was held on Thursday last, at the Ship and Last
public-house, Greenwich, before Mr. Cartar, upon the
body of a woman aged abut 50 years, who was found
dead in an euih)use in Church street, Greenwich, on Weil-
nesday. Toe body was chimed by a woman to whom a sinis-
ter purpose is supposed to attach, far it of erwards turned
out she was not any relation of deceased, but the wife of
a man named Oliver. The Jury returned a Verdict—
d"eTsithroabttitob: dbyecestarsaenda,uAlantnionC,labrukte,thbearde
wcaosmmniotteevdidesenlefe-
to prove her state of mind at the erne • " and the Coroner
issued his warrant for the interment, at' the parish expense.
And here, as the Coroner observed, a difficulty 3,00 ae se The warrant had been issued for the burial of
.a_pe-1.
sworn to be Ann Clark, and would bt• registered
The Coroner said the case
iwas one of as such.
v..,eh a singular
nature that he must consuli7i
Justice in the matter befolre, r'iEPt.i' i"
of
the Lora Chief
The Coroner handed over ‘ vut'. t, ik 311 ''t cno7r, tsilteiyhtiturtilableorf'
Oliver.
...