The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-09 00:00:00

ply an extent of skilful arrangement and care which
there is no security or reasonable expectation ss ill be '
be applied to the work when conducted under ordinary
workhouse management :
That although, when the emanations are not highly
offensive, or where the bones are not in an active state
of decomposition, they may be housed or worked with
impunity, by healthy labourers, yet, on account of the
greater susceptibility of the sick and the weakly inmates,
no materials giving off such emanations ought to be
brought within the precincts of workhouses:
It is considered that the process of bone-crushing
ought not to be indiscriminately sanctioned as an eli-
gible mode of setting paupers to work.
But beyond the nature of the employment itself, the
terms on which it is recommended for adoption by Mr.
Tufnell, and by some of the guardians, if any dependence
is to be placed on the newspaper reports transmitted with
the documents, appear to imply mistakes as to the prin-
ciple of the law, and deviations in the practice, which re-
quire some observations.
The employment is recommended by Mr. Tufnell be.
cause "it is very hard work, and from their not being
accustomed to it, very disagreeable to paupers." One of
the guardians of the lloniton Board is reported to have
said that he thought bone-crushing might be advan-
tageously continued as " a test."
Now it may be questioned whether any part of the law
justifies the application of any process, simply and solely
as " a test."
Any poor person being in danger of perishing from
destitution, having no means to maintain him," that is,
having no work whatever, is, in the terms of the 43(1
Elizabeth, to be relieved by being "set on work" out of
the funds provided under the authority of that statute ;
the sort of work specified in the statute appears to be
ordinary and usual occupations on "necessary wares
and stuffs." In return for such work he receives relief,
and the condition on which such relief ought to be given
is thus stated in the report of the Commissioners of
Poor-law Inquiry:—
" The first and most essential of all conditions, a prin-
ciple
which we find universally admitted, even by those
whose practice is at variance with it, is that his situation
on the whole shall not be made really or apparently so
eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of
the lowest class. Throughout the evidence it is shown
that in proportion as the condition of any pauper class
is elevated above the condition of the independent
labourers, the condition of the independent class is de-
pressed, their industry is impaired, their employment
becomes unsteady, and its remuneration in wages is
diminished. Such persons are, therefore, under the strong-
est inducements to quit the less eligible class of labourers
and enter the more eligible class of paupers. The con-
verse is the effect when the pauper class is placed in its
proper position, below the condition of the independent
labuurer. Every penny bestowed that tends to render
the pauper's condition more eligible than that of the in-
dependent labourer is a bounty on indolence and vice."
All this is true, and yet if the applicant have " no
means" to maintain him, if he be in the position con-
templated by the statute of Elizabeth, however simple
the fare, and hard the task of ordinary and useful work,
being saved from the consequence of having " no means"
to maintain him, it is still relief which he receives, and
the provision is still a beneficent one.
In another part of the report of the inquiry, p. 264, it
is stated as an incident to the carrying out of this prin-
ciple, " that the offer of relief on the principle suggested
by us, wonld be a self-acting test' of the claim of the
applicant."
"It is shown throughout the evidence that it is de-
moralising and ruinous to offer to the able-bodied of the
best characters more than a simple subsistence. The
person of bad character, if he be allowed anything
could not be allowed less. By the means which we pro-
pose, the line between those who do, and those who do,
not need relief, is drawn, and drawn perfectly. If the
claimant does not comply with the terms on which relief
is given to the destitute, he gets nothing, and if he does
comply, the compliance proves the truth of the claim—
namely, his destitution."
The test is still the incident to the principle on which
the relief is administered, the pauper is still relieved by
being " set to work." All the examples of dispauperised
parishes cited by the Commissioners of Inquiry were by
setting the applicants on work, on ordinary and usual
work of the character of the work specified by the statute
of Elizabeth, but it appears to be going not only beyond
the terms of the comment of the Commissioners of In-
quiry, but beyond any terms of the law itself, to erect
the mere incident into the principal and sole objects of
the law. When used in such a manner as above recited,
and with such a process, the man is popularly under-
stood to be (and it is to be feared is often intended to
be) " tested, as a coin is tested by the application of
nitric acid, or aquafortis, and then put aside without any
further care if he stands the test. The law directs work
to be given as the inseparable condition of the benefit,
and as a relief, and not as " a test." But when it is stated
that that which is of little or no use as labour, is valu-
able, and to be retained as a "test," a course is taken to
bring the law into odium, to excite opposition against it,
and by the injudicious use of the word " test," justify
the declamation against its administration, that its real
intent is to " torment" the paupers.
To an idle and vicious man, any ivork such as an in-
dependent labourer executes with cheerfulness, may be
disagreeable, but it is only on the condition of his being
set on work, however disagreeable, that the statute of the
43d Elizabeth allows him to reedit relief. In prin-
ciple, and according to the fair interpretation of that
statute, the usual and ordinary work should be such as
may offer no temptations to an idle man, but present no
ground of fear to an industrious one, that if he take the
employment he will be subject to a fit of illness, or to
any severity that is to operate not as proper labour, but
simply and solely as a test. If the word were taken
from their report, which does not appear, the Commis-
sioners of Inquiry may fairly complain that no precau-
tion can protect any term from perversion, when a word
used as characterising an incident is coined into a
phrase, and used as above described in the face of such
illustrations as the following :
"A further advantage of extended districts, the
unions, say the Commissioners, arises from the com-
parative facility of providing for the paupers' useful
employment. Opportunities for such employment are
wanting in many parishes, in others exist in forms too
large to be undertaken, and in still more numerous in-
stances exist uselessly, in consequence of the jealousies
which always act most powerfully in small neighbour•
hoods. It appears that one of the first preliminary
measures must be the preparing for the able-bodied
more of this employment than we believe that they
will accept."

"Employment of some kind can indeed be always
provided, but it appears to us that it ought to be useful
employment. Parish officers, whilst they have had suf-
ficient labour of this description before their doors, in
their unwillingness or their inability to take upon them-
selves the trouble of superintendence, or to make any
immediate pecuniary sacrifice for the purpose of enforc-
ing the performance of that labour, have resorted to the
expedient of sending paupers on fictitious errands, with
baskets full of stones, or blank paper, directed as letters,
and other devices of the same nature, obviously intended
to torment them. Such contrivances are pernicious in
the revengeful feelings which they generate in the
minds of the paupers themselves, and they are also
pernicious in excitin., sympathy in behalf of the indo-
lent and vicious, and in the obstacles which they create
to the use of legitimate labour and salutary discipline ;
we believe that they ought to be carefully prevented.
Tho association of the utility of labour to both parties,
the employer as well as the employed, is one which we
consider it most important to preserve and strengthen,
and we deem everything mischievous which unneces-
sarily gives to it a repulsive aspect. At the same time
we believe that in extended districts the requisite
sources of employment will be easily found. The supply
of the articles consumed in workhouses and prisons will
afford a large outlet fur the manufactures carried on in
the house ; and with respect to out-door employment,
it is probable there are few districts to which such evi-
dence as that contained in the following extracts would
not be applicable."
..,.
.. .

The work exemplified is town drainage, and road
making and road repair. It may be asserted that, in
general, public work may be found within the district of
the union, possessing the qualities recommended, if the
3fficers Entrusted with the local administration of the
law exercise due diligence. The recommendation of
such a process as that in question, because it is easy of
. .

application, because it is efficient, that is to say, severe

, it
as test, may amount only to this, tnat saves the
union officers the trouble of providing and superintend-
ing useful and less objectionable stock, or materials on
which to tot the applicant on work, or, in other words,
pauperises the cfficer at the expense of the pauper.
The doctrine propounded, that no work should be
undertaken which interferes with private labour, is open
to much observation. Its application to the process in
question is mistaken in fact, as it will be seen from the
price current of measures, and their prices in London in
October last, given in Messrs. Johnson and Shaw's Agri-
cultural Almanac for this year, that bone-dust is a re-
gular article of manufacture and private commerce.

'UEL.-A letter from Munster states a duel took

place close to that town, under the sanction of one of the
tribunals of honour now established throughout the Russian
army. It appears that Baron de Denkhaus, a lieutenant of
the 11th regiment of Hussars, having, when playing billiards,
used some insulting expression to Lieut. de Bounhart, of the
13th Infantry, the latter brought the matter before the Tri-
bunal of Honour of the place. The Court endeavoured to
inducefind the offending party to retract the expression used, but
betwmegenthth is to be impossible, it authorised a duel e parties. The meeting took place near withthe sabrestown,
at three in the afternoon,ine
end presence of an immense crowd.
A stand was erected at
on
of the lists for the judges,
who took their seats,
dressed in full uniform. On the ar-
rival of the combatants a new attempt --,
reconciliation, but, on its proving une ewas me to effect a
were directed to choose out sabres wiettfull, the opponents
folded, and then, with head bare, and in thetihresirh"eyes blind.
commence the attack. They fought with great
tirct sleeve, to
tion, M. de Bounhart receiving two slight cuts onet
:IT i n a-
but soon after giving M. de Denkhaus a severe wound onarthe
thigh which prevented his standing. The fight was declared
at an end. After the first medical aid was given, the Judges
recommended the disputants to be reconciled, which they
consented to, and shook hands amidst the cheers of the multi-
tude. All the parties concerned then withdrew. This is the
first duel authorised by any tribunal of honour, reconcilia-
tion having been effected in all the other cases brought be
fore them.

ATTEMPTED AssAssnramorr.—On Thursday an at-
tempt was made to assassinate Mr. Charles Farrell, of Dalys-
town, justice of the peace, near Loughrea, in the county of
Galway. This gentleman observed a strange man at his
parlour window, looking in very intently. He asked his
business ? " Charity," replied the fellow. lie was told there
was nothing for him, whereupon he presented a paper to Mr.
Farrell, which he refused to look at. This movement was
evidently intended to arrest the attention of that gentleman,
for the fellow drew a pistol from his breast, and was in the
act of cocking it, when Mr. Farrell rushed towards him, call-
ing to his servants. The intended assassin was apprehended i
after a run of three miles across the country, and on his per- 1
son were found two ball cartridges, together with the loaded
pistol. He was identified at the gaul of Loughrea. His
namt is Burke, and had just been liberated after a six months
imprisonment for robbery.