The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC J
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF

0U RN ALS. once to render him useless and unnA
YESTERDAY. he does what Romans do. ITo ca;no

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tO
tf, I. 11-phouL raismg the character of the
falls himself to the general level. Let him be as strong
as Hercules in intellect, it is ten to one that he proves
himself feebler than a child in bringing it to bear upon
the land of his adoption. Nobody is safe who breathes
Irish air and treads Irish soil. The disease is endemic,
and affects all, high and low, rich and poor. Worse than
the plague of Egypt, it does not come and go, but it is
constant and abiding, as well as vernacular. We blame
no man for being affected with the evil. We do not re-
proach the Celt for a physical and mental weakness,
shared with the Saxon equally with himself as soon
as he sets foot in Ireland. Protestant and Ro-
manist are alike mad when the fit is on. Moral
force is as rabid as physical,. and the
Archbishop of Dublin quite as eccentric as
Father O'Driscoll. A form of prayer prepared by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and agreed upon by her
Majesty in Council, humbly imploring Almighty God
to avert from Ireland the impending calamity of famine,
is forwarded to Dr. Whately, that it may be read in his
diocese as well as in every other in the kingdom : and
his Grace, instead of obeying her Majesty's Council, at
once preaches a sermon, political and religious, denying
the constitutional right of the Council to issue their
command, and proving the visitation a direct judgment
from God, which it weuid be blasphemy to interfere
with. Was Sir Rabert Peel wrong when he pronounced
Ireland to be the great difficulty of the Ministers ; or,
would he not have been nearer the mark had he said
Irishmen, and those to whom the care of Irish matters,
political and spiritual, is entrusted ? When Shakspeare
spoke of " the anthropophagi, and men whose heads do
grow beneath their shoulders," he must surely have had
unhappy Ireland in his sagacious and far-seeing eye.
ADVERTISER.—Our readers will have seen an
advertisement in this journal a few days ago, announcing
that an address is to be delivered on Monday next, by
Mr. Charles Cochrane, in the Princess's Assembly
Rooms, Castle-street, Oxford-street. The object of the
address will be, to endeavour to create such a manifesta-
tion of public sympathy and anxiety for the sufferings
of the poorer classes throughout the country, as may
lead to the immt diate removal, by Government, of all
duties on every kind of food essential to human wants.
Mr. Cochrane is an earnest and enlightened pkilanthro-
i pist, and has already been instrumental in doing great
good to the lower classes of the community. His bene-
volence is not of a visionary kind: it is as practical in its
character as it is pure and praiseworthy in its aims. He
was the founder, and has hitherto, we believe, been the
,main supporter of the "Poor Man's Guardian Society," an
Institution whose claims to the countenance of the
charitable and humane, have, on repeated occasions,
been enforced in the columns of this journal. He will
confine himself to the remaining taxes on human food.
On this subject we have freely and frequently expressed
our opinions. Every day's post from Ireland brings us
accounts of new instances of the peasantry in that
country dying from want of food. And yet Lord John
Russell restricts the supply, and keeps up the price of
corn, by persisting in the maintenance of the existing
duties. A whole nation are enduring the horrors of
famine ;. and instant death, from the sheer lack of sus-
tenance, stares myriads in the face. Perish the harsh,
heartless theories, be they what they may, which inter-
pose between a people and their necessary food ! Lord
John Russell, in refusing to open the ports, is not only
guilty of cruelty, hut of the very quintescence of inhu-
manity. Nor is this all. A still graver charge lies at his
door. He is, more or less, morally responsible for the
death cf every miserable creature who perishes of want.
'tore than this ; if we comprehend the genius of our
Constitution, he is also constitutionally responsible. It
is idle to talk to us of an understanding among all parties
that the Corn Bill of last session was to be a final set-
tlement of the question. Away with all such " under-
standings," at a crisis like the present ! Let conven-
tionalisms, no matter what may be their nature, be flung
to the winds, when they would put a veto on the supply
of food to a nation perishing of want. It is the first
and paramount duty of Government to prevent any of
her Majesty's subjects dying of hunger. All other con-
siderations must give way to that. And the Minister
who allows a single human being within these realms to
perish for want of food, while any practicable effort
remains unmade to provide the means of sustenance, is
much more deserving of impeachment than many a
Minister who has had to stand, before now, before the
legislative bar.

not keep ; butchers' meat bee, Sil.:S tainted in tweii4-ivar
hours ; milk turns tour as soon as it is looked at ; a
seriously aggravated mortality indicates a want of pre-
servative power in the life both of man and beast; West-
minster bridge partakes of the general decay ; Kings'
promisrs and Parliamentary pledges are equally going
to the dogs ; parties have melted like snow in summer ;
interests have rotted ; Ministries have dissolved ; laws
have repealed themselves ; a law only two years old fell
to pieces this spring ; another Act, passed on its ruins,
is already waiting its quietus; a third measure for
Ireland has been unavoidably amplified, not to say super.
seded. by Government;—lastly, (we know it to our cost),
articles will not keep. By the second day a news-
paper article beconmes fit for nothing but a grocer's
shop, or a volume of posthumous remains, edited by
a very near relative. Having suffered ourselves by this
class of casualty, we have become rather keen and also
rather merciless to the disasters of our neighbours. A
quarterly review, however, has no claim whatever to our
pity. It can be written and printed in a fortnight; and
there is no reason why it should ever be more than a
fortnight past time. But here is our old friend the
Edinburgh opening with an article which might just as
well have been written by the decree of his imperious
Majesty King Nebuchadnezzar, as for the month and
year impressed on the Edinburgh's azure physiognomy.
The substance of the article is evidently as old as the
Edinburgh itself, though done imp afresh, with a few
modern dates and names. Think of a paper professing
to be a " Proposal for extending the Irish Poor-law,"
which does not make the remotest allusion to that fear-
ful crisis in the fortunes of Ireland which engages the
attention, the curiosity, and the sympathy of the whole
civilised world! At the foot of the last page, just after
a railway article, there comes the following curt apo-
logy:—

" NOTE to the First Article.
This article was wholly written and printed early in Au-
gust last, which is here mentioned to account for its not taking
notice of the subsequent proceedings of Parliament respecting

its subject."
There's impudence for you! We don't know what
stuff the readers of the Edinburgh are made of, but we
know very well how our own readers would take snch an
announcement. Let them just imagine their finding a
" leader," or a letter from our Spanish correspondent, or
a " City article," most perplexingly out of date, and by
the time they had mystified themselves hind part before,
having the luck to light upon a P.S. or an N.B. in an ob-
scure corner, infOrming that the said article was written
two months since, a circumstance which it was necessary
to meetion, because the article could not be expected to'
notice any of the numerous critical events which
had happened in that period ! They would
merely conclude the editor must be off his head,
and expect to see, in the next number, the
melancholy intelligence that he-had thrown himself from
Blackfriars-bridge. We don't know what makes the
Edinburgh or its readers an exception to general rules,
but it is very clear that an equal amount of sanity on the
one part, and surprise on the other, is not there ex-
pected. May we be permitted to ask how far their in-
difference to novelty extends ? Do they wear hair
powder and shorts ? Do they reject the fresh resources
of Newgate and Leadenhall markets for salt pork that
has gone twice round the world? When Covent-garden
renews its luscious display, do they still go on sickening
on fermented preserves ? But, besides this extraordi-
nary " note," the author of the article himself, writing
at his leisure, in August, with the whole quarter before
himself, with Parliament still going on sitting, and Acts
passing at the rate of twenty a day, and thus with every
opportunity and every inducement to keep up with the
progress of affairs, after all, willfully and deliberately,
of .malice prepense, makes no attempt whatever to
meet, we do not say this year's distress, but the
average state cf Ireland for the whole of this cen-
, His article is a stale and unprofitable one,
. only for October, 1846, but for August, 1846, and,
in fact, for the day of the creation itself, and for this
world altogether. After saying that the great Act of
Elizabeth will not do, and out-door relief and compul-
sory its-door relief will not do, and the labour-rate will
not do, and charities will not do, and mendicancy will
not do, and forbidding mendicancy will not do ; and,
finally, that nothing which man ever thought of will de,
he suddenly remembers that his readers, whatever their
gullibility, will at least, by the merest animal instinct,
revolt from a universal negative. So he proposes at last
—what does the realer imagine? It is the one palmare
expedient of the Edinburgh for the most desperate ma
lady the social state of man ever exhibited ; so it ought
to be something at any rate plausible. It is simply this,
—that all the charitable foundations, and all the funds
subscribed for charitable purposes, shall be forthwith
handed over bodily to the Poor-law Commissioners, to
be dealt with in strict conformity with their system.
After we hare stated this, our readers will ask a little
breathing time. So there, for the present, we stop.
CHRONICLE.—Of all the objections now urged
against opening the ports for the free admission of grain,
a fear that such a stop would be prejudicial to the re-
venue is—according to all recent experience—the most
groundless. If that experience has taught us one lesson
more distinctly than another, it is—that the net income
of the State is not to be calculated by the rates of duty
imposed on commodities—that taxes which, however in-
directly, interfere with commercial prosperity, are in-
variably reductions from, in place of additions to, the
entire receipts of the Exchequer. But this general obser-
vation may be said to refer to two distinct classes of unpro
fitable and wasteful imposts. The first, to the case where
the duties imposed are so excessive as to interfere mate-
rially with the consumption of the particular commodity
itself, so that the diminished quantity consumed at a
high duty does not yield so much as the increased quan-
tity which would be consumed at a toner duty and
a cheaper price; and the second is the case where duties
are so injudiciously imposed that they directly interfere
with commercial prosperity, and are the means of de-
stroying much more revenue indirectly than they them
selves yield directly. Of the first class of unprofitable
taxes now referred to we have recently had many
striking examples. It is but a week ago—when in
commenting upon the revenue returns for the last qnar-
ter—we showed that, notwithstanding the great reduc-
tions which have taken place in the duties upon many
important articles during the last two years, amounting
to no less than 2,818,0001, the actual loss to
the State, even in the first year, very little
exceeded 500,0001. ; and if we would seek for
examples of individual articles which furnish
striking illustrations of this principle, we have only
to turn to any of those which have been subjected
to this experiment. We have seen within a few
Years the duty on coffee reduced to one-third, and
the net revenue more than doubled—we have seen the
duty on cocoa reduced to rather less than one-sixth, and
the met revenue fully sustained. We have seen, within
the last eighteen months, the duty upon sugar reduced
from 245. to 145., and the consumption in the first year
rise from 207,000 tons to 245,000 tons. We have seen
the reduction of the timber duties increase the consump-
tion from 739,696 loads in the first eight months of
1844, to 1,142,633 loads in the same period of the pre-
sent year. In short, we have seen in almost every case
where duties have been reduced, before long, -the net
revenue increased. The second class of. duties to which
we have referred as unwise and unprofitable, does not
depend so much upon their being excessive, as upon their
being imposed at all ; and the benefit to the Exchequer
does not, therefore, depend upon the increased consumption
which a repeal of such duties never fails to afford, but
upon the influence which such a relief exerts.over other
branches of revenue. In this category we class all kinds Lounß '
OSSE S --OYSTER TELESCOPE.—A paragraph
of raw materials or manufactures—on the abundance
has gone the round of the papers stating that an attempt
and cheapness of which depends, to so great a degree,
was made by some fanatics, a few days ago, to "injure
the general prosperity of the great consuming classes ;
the speculum of Lord Rosse's monster telescope in the
and we may as certainly class the first articles of neces-
sity, the price of which determines what fund will be dis- Armagh Observatory." There is not the slightest
posable, not only for the consumption of all those articles foundation for the report ; we publish the paragraph to
show up the fabricator of such a story capable of menu-
which afford the largest income to the State, but also of
factoring mom ter falsehoods, and decking them out in a
our manufactured goods, which afford the means of sub-
somewhat plausible style. The whole fabrication is an
sisteace to so large a portion of the community. When
the cotton and the stool duties were roll: quished, rove
ingenious, but at the same time a flimsy hoax—Armagh
nue to the extent of nearly 800,000/, was apparently Sporti
CAng Chronicle.AN.—Yesterday morning Captain
sacrificed—gone completely and for ever. No matter
Elosken, R.N., the commander of the Great Britain, ar-
how much the consumption increased, the revenue
rived here, old Belfast, from Dundruin Bay. lie will
could not be compensated from that source. But is
remain, during his stay in Liverpool at the Ad elphi
hotel. there any ono so short-sighted as to fancy that thereby Yesterday he was waited upon by several mutt..
the net income of the Exchequsr has been lessened ?
cal tgentlemen, and today he will have an interview with
the reduced cost of cotton and wool gave to those great'
the agents of the vessel, Messrs. Gibbs, Bright, and Co.
branches of industry a greater prosperity, it is the
We believe that, after a brief stay here, he purposes
plainest conclusion in fiscal science that the revenue
would be benefited thereby. The additional demand, going to Bristol, to communicate personally With his
for foreign markets as well as for home censumption, for
directors.—Liverpool
such goods, only because they were cheaper, could Lot
THE'LATE FIRE IN i'SOUTHWAUK.—MODriIIy night, at
fail to promote such an extended use of all these articles eight o clock, Mr. J. Payne, the peputy Coroner, held
upon which the revenue mainly relies, as to secure a an inquest at Guy's Hospital, respecting the death of
quick and certain compensation to the Exchequer. The John tlantell, aged 21 years, who died from the effects of
building of new mills, the distribution ..f more wages, injuries received at the late explosion upon the premises
the reduction of public burthens, the increased profits of Mr. John Sharp, printer, of Kent-street, Southwark.
and the rapid accumulation of capital, seeking new than- It will be recollected that the deceased was an appren-
:lets of investment, promoting in its turn a new demand Lice, and on the night of Friday, the 9th instant, the de-
for labour, all tend to swell so much the consumption of ceased and two females were engaged in making -squibs
everything that yields revenue to the State, that the first for sale for the sth of Noveriaber, when a portion of the
reduction ultimately ends in a great positive gain. combustibles ignited by accident, whereby the deceased
HERALD.—There exists an evil influence in Ire. and the females were most frightfully burnt. Ellen
hind fatal to the carrying out of the simplest, and, else- Sharp, aged 18, was killed on the night in
nquheestzend;frlennit
where, most practicable undertakings. No man can the deceased lingered until Satunrodtabye,r
Idvhaue hter now lies
escape it. Beneath it., logic becomes grotesc,ue—the very dangerousg
state. The
the effects of the injuries.na A
natural relation of things is broken up, is lost sight of, in the above hospital,
Deteeratwhl.l,i,ch
At, the ethjeurysarmee-
and disappears. The English Channel is not the only
strip of water that separates our islatei from a strange theytCutr,rnoendear remarkedverdieuiftoain:thAiceccidaesiei
expressed their unanimous disapprobation
people. The differences that exist between out selves and
tim;ist tihe practice of allowing children to make fire-
the races inhabiting the land on the other side of St, works,ai more especially in such a crowded neighbourhood.
George's, are as violent as any marking the independent re,
..E.EMPERANCE MOVEMENT.—On Mone.sr evening,
origin of the denizens of Dover and Boulogne. If thef.
the ninth anniversary of the Walworth and Camber-
Frenchman speaks a foreign language, the inhabitant e
well Total Abstinence Society was celebrated by a public
the Emeral Isle acts upon thoughts and feelings equally
meeting, in the school-room, Queenhead-row, Newing-
strang2 and unaccountable. If it seem impossible to cot-
ton. The meeting was most numerously and respectably
legit a meaning from the quick gesticulations and quicker
attended. The Rev. W. W. Robinson, M.A., presided.
volubility of a people who speak as muchi with their
The report stated that 400 persons had joined the so-
hands as their tongues, it is equally ciety, and that amongst these were several of the most
congruity in the conduct of individual(siffiwehunit
actto now
inveterate inveterate drunkards in the district ; that 500,000per-
from impulse, by and by from rashness, never upodn. rule
sons
arid principle, generally acknowledged and r. Feive
no less than 60,000,0001.
swoe,roeoosp,oeonot annually nbuuaslhl ye
bushels
no
fi n
grainto sl -
do conscientiously believe, that if the patients of the
eating drinks ; and that
Flanwell Lunatic Asylum had been called upon by the
were usedh to manufacture them, and that at a period,
Government to undertake any matter whatever of public
too, Nl' en one of the great articles of human sustenance
duty, they would have conducted themselves far more
rati mallv than many of the gentlemen who have been had been destroyed, and thousands were on the verge of
,
requested to perform that certainly patriotic, but very famine. Resolutions to support the society, and pro-
easy duty. of spending money not their own, on (Meets mote the cause of total abstinence, were agreed to; after
in which they have an interest, exclusive and peculiar. ,Which the meeting separated.
"The extraordinary presentment sessions" for the barony IMMENSE TRAINS.--Two luggage trains passed by
of West Ala,kerry, held on Tuesday last in the Court- the Rugby station on Saturday
flast,.onti the London and
house of Macroom," was, in ,truth, au extraordinary North& eV et:teuiertan
presentment, in more senses than one. The proceedings, carriages,nearly 400 tons of
we are told, were 'condu.:tei in a manner that renders it by one of Ste hengsonne'aar ysix-wheenls engt SllgetWO
consduste.d turd
altogether imposs'ble to furnish a faithful report of others; the otherP train consisted of 84 carriages, and
them. No discussi,ll arose in which at least ten eerstained 384 tens of metchandise, &c.' drawn likewise
speakers did not im Ape-nate e an l simultretteausly take by three engines. The lengflieof the first train was nr
part, whilst at the same time the great body of spectators wards of a quarter of a mile.
in the Court were shouting with alltheir voice and strength."l Miss Martineau is about to 'Tweed, in comport,'
None but Irishmen should do Irish work. To take an I with some friends, to Egypt, where she promos to spend
En4lishman from his own country to perform it, is at the winter.--Liverpool Albion.

THE GREAT BRITAIN.
(From the Northrrn Whig of Saturday.)
"TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN WHIG.

" Dundrum, Oat. 16, 1846.
" Sir,—From the handsome and open-handed manner
in which you have espoused my proffered voluntary as-
sistarce towards the relief of the Great Britain, I feel
bounsl to comply with your request, in expressing my
opinions relative to her present position. There can be
no doubt in the minds of any scientific men but that she
may be saved, and that without trusting to the trea-
cherous spring tides. Every person who has visited
her has expressed his doubts as to her ultimate fate; and
the general opinion appearing to prevail is, that she may
be given up as a total loss. From the first moment I
was made acquainted with the exact position of the Great
Britain, I stated that she could be got off, since which
my opinion has not been altered one iota; and the more
I see the more I am convinced that if it is the general
wish of the parties concerned in her fate, she may be
again afloat.
" My plan of proceeding with respect to this ship is
founded on purely scientific principles. We well know
that we' have a large body to contend with, the dead
weight of which is upwards of 1,500 tons. To move this
ponderous mass by any other means than those of many
adjuncts is quite impossible. No power of traction could
be applied to any one point, and even if applied to dif-
ferent points would be as useless and futile as were the
attempts at the last spring tides. The ship's position is
as favourable as it can well be for any proceedings that
may be taken towards her rescue. The means applied to
her Majesty's steam-frigate Gorgon are, from their re-
sults, sufficient of themselves to recommend them; and
upon the same principles would I proceed in the case of
this ship. She has from seven to nine feet water along-
side at high water, quite sufficient to float her. Upon
the whole I do not consider her position so precarious as
is generally supposed. She is well secured by the head
and stern; but as to how she may weather the ensuing
six months' gales and seas, I should be sorry to venture
an opinion.

" I have been actuated to offer my services upon this
occasion merely from the fact of having the advantage
of practical and successful experience in similar cases,
and from which I form my opinions with respect to the
Great Britain. Many nautical and scientific gentlemen
have consulted with me, to whom I have explained my
plans; and 1 am happy to state they are all of one opi-
nion as to my success, if employed.
" Many and various rumours have got abroad, and are
daily gaining ground, not only in this neighbourhood,
but all over the country, and questions, some of
no slight difficulty to answer, are constantly being
put as to the ultimate intentions with respect to this
ship.
" I intend remaining in this neighbourhood for a few
days longer, in order to give the directors due time to
reply to my offers relative to the Great Britain, and
must conclude by quoting the old adage of ' Where
there's a will there's a way.
" Your mast obedient servant,
" THOMAS S. S. GABRIEL, R.N.''