The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-09 00:00:00

THE BREAD FRUIT TREE.
A TALE OF THE SANDWICH ISLES.

(From the Times.)
I'll tell you a tale of the Southern Seas,
You may laugh at, 6r cry at—just as you please.
Scant was the growth of Che kresd,fruit Tree
On the beautiful Isle of Owhyhee,
While, gift of Heaven ! it richly grew
O'er the sunny fields of Woahoo ;
And it seem'd es Nature had placed these isles
In reach of each othee'e verdant smiles,
That whate'er was wantin; on either shore,
From the other might swift be wafted o'er ;
The Woahooan nymphs array'd
In trinkets by Owhyheeans made ;
While Owhyhee well fed should be
By Woahoo's sweet Bread-fruit Tree.
But, alas, even happy isles like these
Have a people upon them called Grandees,
And where there are lords, I need not say
Things will go on in a lordly way.
• • •
Heard you that cry, whose withering sound
Saddens the sunny prospect round ?
From a million of voices it rings on high,
" We starve, we starve !" their fearful cry !
Know you what, 'midst such fertile seem!,
That awful voice of Famine means?
Oh, list to me—in Owhyhee
There were Lords and Squires of high degree,
Who in Bread-fruit held large property,
And, of all afiictions, ills, and vices,
Thought none so dreadful as low prices.
Wherefore they held it just and meet
That the world should not too cheaply eat;
Nay, deem'd it radical insolence
To wish to dine at a small expense,
And swore, for sake of themselves and heirs,
That, happen what might with other wares,
No bread should be less dear than theirs.
In vain the Owbyeeans said
" My Lords, we much respect your bread,
" But, with all due a everence for your Graces,
" Would rather have cheaper from other places.
In vain, from the Woahooan shore,
Barks, ftti'd with bread- fruit, wing'd them o'er;—
'Twas vulgarly cheap, and tax'd must be
Before 'twas fit for good company;
Nor must the poor devils swallow a bit,
Unless they swallow a tax with it.
And what said the Lords of Owhyhee,
And the Owhyheean Squirearchy,
In defence of their joint gentility?
Why, they said that they and their sires before 'em
Had shone in the Senate, Camp, and Quorum,—
Had all been rich,—had manag'd to get,
As became their station, deep in debt ;
And thought it hard that men of reading,
Who had cost, themselves, so much in breeding,
Should now fall victims to cheap feeding,—
Shorn of their beams of wealth and state,
To help low fellows to masticate ;
" How little," said they, " the thoughtless poor
"Can know what the suffering rich endure,
" In bringing up dozens of young Grandees,—
" In paying off horrible mortgagees,—
" To say nothing of assignees, lessees,
" And an endless quantity more of these
" Uneasy things that end in ees.
" And,—though (as honest Figaro says)
" if a gentleman owes, and never pays,*
" 'Tis just the same, be it groat or small,
"As if be, in fact, owed nothing at all,—
" Yet, somehow, unless one sometimes pays,
" Lenders are shy of one, nowadays."
In short, if the bread-tax once was gone,
These Lords and Gentlemen " couldn't get on
And they even hinted, awfully,
That if e'er, in the Isle of Owhyhee,
Bread-pudding in price should humbled be,
All was o'er with the Aristocracy ;
One penny, saved by clods who dine,
Being sure to bring all Nobles to nindt
Meanwhile, that cry, that dreadful cry,
" We starve, we starve," rose loud and high,
Till what was the upshot all shall see
In the Second Canto of Owhyhee.
* Quand on dolt, et qu'on ne paye pas, c'est comme si on lie
devoit rien.
f According to the old arithmetical process of " bringing
nobles to ninepence."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL

The recent prosccut'ions of the press, and
;he law and " practice" of libel, have lately
occupied an unusual share of public attention.
After the respite of the " long vacation," a
legal monsoon generally sets in, and the lawyers
are at work in their vocation. But the syste-
matic course of libellous calumny and slander
pursued against apganitiolstamLie
rrimivpaltye
ta,end caupuseblttc iiactliNaroabetleer.
man enviably placed himself between the Tories
and the people—and hi 3 Lordship's legal pro-
ceedings have more particularly excited attention
to the existing state of the law. Our own
~.
opinions have been too often, and too precisely
stated, to require any further corroboration of
our jealousy on behalf of the real liberty of the
press. The subject, however, continues to be
discussed by our contemporaries, and a few
plain observations on the points really at issue
may assist to prevent the public mind being
misled by crafty and confused perversions of the
argument. We are confident, from the ho-
nourable tone of the country papers, that
the better classes of society detest the habit
of political misrepresentation and personal
vituperation wiiich has lately prevailed iii
certain metropolitan and I;yovincial quarters.
We also sincerely believe that th.si vulgar and
despicable spirit of slander and personality finds
favour with but few persons in addition ,*(3. the
original liars and the party clique, who willit;sly.
promote the multiplication and circulation af
libels from interested and malignant motives. It
is not a little curious, however, that some of the
journals which indulge in wilful libel, are those
most loudly groaning against " the persecution
of the press," and most fiercely denouncing the
defects of the law ; that is to say, they desire
more impunity than our jurisprudence at present
even allows. Now there are two grievous evils
resulting from the present law of libel ; first, that
the individuals wilfully calumniated and libelled
have no sufficient means of legal redress—of
cheap and effective remedy ; secondly, that the
law outrages all rational distinctions between the
original libeller and the accidental propagator—
allows of prosecutions from unjust and sinister
motives—and, in many instances, prohibits in
effect that indisputable right of justification (by
proof of truth) which doubtless ought to be
allowed to the prosecuted. We lately proved
how frequently and utterly inadequate is the civil
remedy by action ; and the criminal proceeding
by indictment or by information is equally;
in many cases, evaded and avoided. The
English Law of Libel, in its origin and
progress, is crude and imperfect as is the
greater portion of our common law and statute
law. It is a nauseous mixture of " natural"
law, Roman law, and British law—never refined
by modern legislators, and unsuited to the pre-
sent age. The principle of the common law
that " there shall be no wrong without a
remedy," is a national superstition that there is
a remedy for every wrong ; and " no/unatis legeg
Anglier mutari" has been a proverb forming an
impregnable barrier against the advancement of
the science of jurisprudence in this country.
All our legal writers proclaim that where a man
has sustained a temporal loss or damage, by the
wrong of another, he shall have an action " on
the case" to be repaired in damages. If a
plaintiff succeeds his costs are " taxed," by a
scale of reduction fifty and even seventy-five per
cent. below the real expense incurred by the
client. Thus, in the matter of pecuniary redress,
the money verdict in favour of the plaintiff is
absorbed by the barristers and attorneys ; and if
the defendant defeats the action, he also has the
luxury of generally losing the same per tentage
of the price of his success. This scandalous
state of the law should be remedied. If con-
victed libellers by the Judge or Jury were
made to discharge bona fide the whole reason-
.e. able costs and damages of the plaintiffs, and
e4,24e,000 if abusers of the law who brought sham actions
5,354,000
.20,600,000 or vexatious and unfounded legal proceed-
- ings, were compelled to pay the Lull mulct of
'
s,OOOOO their injuries, great good would result. This
moo principle would operate not only as cure but
„--000 prevention. A host of libellers, and gangs of'
5,1") felonious prosecutors, would be put down by
-7,000
the wholesome terrors of the revised law. And
'7,74 if the delinquent party could not pay the penalty
eaT-00 of their " civil" offences in coin, the Jaw should
!vice - secure its payment through their persons. The
78.000 leprosy of the press, and the gross appetite of
',°,1,°°:0070 thev,viac:(o,:lenaalltlwonelaroisesn in legal plunder, would soon be
Pao cured by this simple improvement of English
,000
~--,r,—,,, law. We should rarely hear in Staple Inn or
Chancery-lane of " sporting actions" or " mali-
ime
Imo cious prosecutions." Most of our readers will
),000 recollect the foundation of the " Constitutional
3,,,,75,,,-23,713-1,700
pArsoseolaciimateiodnt,'h'etirheobmjeecmt btoerbseotfh
ewin'uienbislsiomieemntnolyf
a wicked
printed
designing issued by
7,905,000
.galsineleitolo,,d, sandenNif,hlooy
of the law of libel, which law they said
feilooliuli:inded on " a principle sanctioned alike by
cr770,0,070 _ ‘dp:veoasstsiihgt
1,0'1)
:000 morality and religion—that no individual should
ow injure the reputation of another." Many of the
000 leading and noble subscribers were at that time,
,0--0--,'" and now are, the most industrious and practised
Sunday and quarterly libellers I But in this
Imo
1,000 country there is no disguise so successful as the
mask of a hypocrite, and no creed so lucrative as
„me— the public profession of belief that " the law of
~000 the land is nothinghuom leil
sya;i
eaen!
isdeeac
1ue,1.1 butsn
itl, perfectilgdi
yer defamation,
mirseialatisinongnn
t.,
-,0
00
%tioerne, atnhdecawl
15,000
7,(7—e polize the market,they formed a society or" Trades'
1-7000 Union" which partly subsists to this day. Club
could
it
ah
‘ev,,
loriginirbeeald jurisprudence,
ao nrdwr
ite_ foundationand v
v beforeho e'
lt ourotutl
the
7-:700:0: ainbsotriitguit,itoanl
o ancestorsftrit)unwaelsrefosrlarneddereresds
oofrccivailluminin.uii
06070 ar
it
ee
sd, —t
hfeo rn
al
ti
ibveel
ss
physicallyvi' e were confined cofined
punished t
silrniedsets:
in rece n t
sympathy cases which r 0 have a
desperatev e procured
offenders.so mu eh
'::4s'li Conservativee'lr'she early Britons " took the law into their own
000 or Jury ;"
1,,,041 hands." We are loth to recommend the prac-
c—uou Lice of this summary procedure without " Judge
v)o±,o allowed but this we predict, that if the law is
naturallyt o continue
revive
ev ive thusthe defective,aneien t
practice.the
n.
Z, deed, Franklin, with admirable humour and
1,000— good sense, recommended' it in Pennsylvania,
when the libel law of the mother country
unhappily transplanted to that State proved
inadequate to the reformation of hardened li-
press gang
li-
bellers. This practical philosopher, disgusted with
the growing
hundredth part part of the
private character—engendered by the defect of
the law—publicly denounced in the Federal
cGoanzsetit
tt
ue
te(dl2othf
iNi,:hgoth e
Hired o other theSo :t'
t)4t fie9::9llbieir)ira:triptils'ed7n
pens
t a
itd their
i:)'rdmepeTisotesrhetaa' essocyu:
forre,
habit of calumniating public and
citizens who assuined (with the motto " liberty
of the press") the privilege of accusing and.
aabnilus
that purpose. Reflecting on this canting abuse
of a sacred privilege, Franklin observes that the