The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—In the course of the last few days two
cases of a flagrant kind have been brought under the
notice of the Lord Mayor. The peculiar position of
t!-,e parties on whom the imposition was practised
ix
either case renders it the more odious. The pub-
licity given by the press to such attempts to screw
the hard-earned shilling from the industrious poor is
the surest guarantee against their recurrence. As
the two cases are in panz materiel, we unite them in a
single notice, and we trust that our repetition of the
facts may fall into the hands of many who might
otherwise have fallen victims to such attempts upon
their credulity. On Saturday last a man named 'Wil-
liam George Flynn was brought before the Lord
Mayor to answer the charge of two brothers—
George and James Cargyll, Such of our readers as
are in the habit of studying the advertisements must
frequently have seen announcements headed—
" The Sea, the Sea ;"
" Midshipmen Wanted ;"
" To Parents and Guardians," &c., intimating " that
vessels of the larger class, commaned by captains who
would attend to the moral and nautical education of
the parties entrusted to their care, were hi want of
apprentices." The 'manner in which this system is
worked, after the dupes have swallowed the bait, was
thus explained to the Lord Mayor :
" Mr. Pelham, who appeared gratuitously for the pro-
tection of the boys, stated, that for some time the news-
papers contained advertisements under the above heads,
and that numerous impositions had been practised by
persons who pretended to be authorised to engage ap-
prentices to be bound under the Merchant Seamen's
Act. Inquiries were to be made of certain parties, who,
it was found, employed a number of crimps to board
vessels in the docks and river and ascertain whether any
and what ships required apprentices, in accordance with
the number required by the 37th clause of the 7th and
Bth Victoria, chap. 112, which regulated the number
according to the tonnage. The next thing to be ascer-
twfthhraeaoiensmf
rebdedutemhsmwien2aaeflnsr.s
distteheonwded:aasosTa.o:noofedu
h,tnt
nhdt:
aeaowtptieheorpeouhrrvetrimhetaanddi
teust mhpdaw.retemhmtoTahi
nenandpmaaptwplwpiaaelaspidecpateonhahetrsteloidiunt tefiodt
answered,
were
kininstda.n"ce of
Tlefhtewpirtehsoeunttsahpippeaanrdedwittohohuet r
ae
nd r eosrsdoi
nf
aarnyy
the manner in which this system is carried out. The
two boys bad been abandoned on the town to rob or
to starve after having satisfied the requisitions of the
advertiser. They were the sons of a poor widow at
Leeds, who had seen the advertisement in the Leeds
paper, in which great inducements were held out to
apprentices, and reference was given to Flynn. The
sum of six guineas was paid to this person to procure
the proposed situations, necessaries were supplied to
the boys, and they were sent up to London. Here
they remained a length of time. Nothing was done
for them, and finally they were thrown upon the
town in a state of extreme destitution, as we have just
mentioned. Flynn, when called upon for his defence,
stated that he had obtained situations for the lads,
but they were unable to profit by them on account of
the want of outfits. He hoped the Lord Mayor would
take his ignorance of the law into consideration, and
not proceed to extremities with him. The Lord
Mayor commented in terms of deserved severity
upon Flynn's conduct, but, with the consent of Mr.
Pelham, an offer from him of complete restitution was
accepted, and he was dismissed the Court, with an in-
timation that for the future he would remain under
the .surveillance of the police. So much for " The
Sea, the Sea I " The next case is, if possible still
! worse. On Tuesday Lieutenant Lean, R.N., the
London agent of Government emigration, appeared at
the justice-room at the Mansion-house, on the part of
the authorities of the Colonial Land and Emigration-
office, to represent the following facts :—A person,
whose name was not mentioned, had attempted to
entrap three poor men who wished to emigrate to
Australia, into the payment of a sum of money, on
the pretence that the company he represented—but
which, it is believed, has no existence—were Go-
vernment emigration agents. The points to which
we chiefly wish to draw the attention of the public,
and more especially of the poorer emigrating public,
will best appear from the following short statement of
Lieutenant Lean, and from the order made by the
tCommissioners when the subject was brought under
heir notice. Lieutenant Lean stated :
" The pretence that the self-constituted emigration
agent set up was the more mischievous, as he required
payment nnder the plea of procuring for his victims that
which, if applied for at the Government Colonial and
Emigration office in Park-street, Westminster. would
have been given without any charge at all. The three
poor men who accompanied him to the Mansion-house.
had, upon the representations of the persons complained
of, sold off all their goods and prepared themselves to
emigrate to Australia. They had, however, fortunately
Called upon him and mentioned the extent of the trans-
action which had taken place, and he could arrive at no
other conclusion than that a most nefarious fraud was
meditated against them."
These poor men had sold off their furniture and
what little property they possessed in order to carry
out their laudable scheme of emigration. One of
them was to have paid the sum of 51. • another the
sum of 8/. 10s.; and the third the sum of 1 1/., and he
was placed under a strict injunction of secrecy to the
self-constituted agent, in order that he might not be
charged 11. more. When the matter was brought
under the notice of the Emigration Commissioners
they made the following order, to which we hope to
give additional publicity by our present notice :
" As it is stated that no money has yet been received
by , the Commissioners are of opinion that it would
not be possible to take any legal proceedings against
them. Nevertheless, as the practice which they have
adopted might lead to fraud, and might expose poor
that there is no agent in London
n to the fact
give
emigrantsid be
advisable to imposition,
that
the the
utmost
publicity Commissioners
should
thinkit
be
wou
necessary forms, may be
that all information, and the eoyne r r,
butact
forwarded gratis on application at this
l.n authorised
any
ether
way distribute t
or inb
behalfu t e forms o f othe
receive
cCommissioners,
affimi
office,
seni,
's chance of acceptance
either in increasing the emigrant and that
or otherwise."
will be gained by proceeding n any other way,
nothing
is their arrangement. Nothing
C"orem mkinsos iwo n enrost t ow hgaitv e steps
tpeupbsl ihcai tvye
thing more is necessary in order that the parties
couldt bo etehne fbtaaecktemnt hoabrteys uht chu.
he
mwhanoseeinadivnatnentatgioen,tohrisbearnreafincgieallnienntpir.sacitnitceen,dbelldtsshOoniufoeldr-
startled at the degree of ignorance prevailing
ihna v
Pe a
rkknowledges tre e of
tWestminster. the
le pursued at
have
ofttheen
amongstohfheee
been
startled
the humbler classes of the community upon points
which are so familiar to men of business that anything
like imposition with regard to them seems almost un-
intelligible. Hence it is they become such fine raw
material for the operations of impostors of all kinds
and denominations. The attempt to stem the current
at all points is, we know, sufficiently hopeless. We
cannot all at once enlighten the gullibility of a nation,
or put sense and circumspection into the heads of
those who, from want of opportunity or of business
knowledge, are more especially prone to fall victims
to their own credulity. These two cases, however, of
the sailor boys and the emigrants, are of so serious
a kind, that we would willingly make exertion to give
them all publicity, in order to put future victims on
their guard, especially as the Lord l\layor on Tues-
day invoked the aid of the press in their behalf.
CHRONICLE.—The intelligence received from
Vienna, down to the hour at which we write, is
scanty, and not very intelligiblo. The attack which,
at the date of our last advice; was deemed to be
impending, has been forborne, • and Jellachich re-
mains motionless, though occupying a position from
whence his artillery could, in a short space of time,
lay a great part of the city in ashes. The Emperor's
military advisers are, it is said, straining every nerve
to concentrate upon the metropolis all the forces at
their disposal; and it is probable that the Ban has
refrained from inflicting on the town the horrors of a
bombardment, in the hope of eventually reducing it
to submission by a display of strength imposing
enough to render resistance desperate. The Hun-
garian army is said to be still hovering on the fron-
tier. No very satisfactory explanation is given for
its keeping at a distance from the scene of action ;
but, unless the disorganization of their forces be
much more complete than we have reason to believe,
it can hardly be supposed that the Magyar leaders
will throw up the game without striking at
least one vigorous blow for the relief of the be-
leaguered city. Should it, however, be forced
to submit (as submit it must in default of
assistance from without), there is still much
reason to fear that its surrender will prove po more
than an episode in a contest, the duration of which
may be long, as its issue is unquestionably doubtful.
In truth the civil warfare, of which the neighbour-
hood of Vienna has now become the theatre, is
Ewu neledfomentedmecreasnnt atsn
fdbo,yor
mfacnadcuoosonmefls
the the
extent nature
andof
operationwhich we
of but
which half
astiovnagumeanaynd
and diverse,
idaenad.
gh
birtheitnh eerrtatolo
pt
hrl latent
eotseflpmnaetr
prosperity
w
uynaydbeur a surface apparently solid, of
m bi nine do rteo
tghi
avne
hndieheohnatsenhtrmokeen c
n,
outo at
one point within the dominions of t
the empire, and
which now blazes and roars around the metropolis
itself. Jealousies and mutual antipathies of blood
and race, which have, in bygone times, imparted a
deeper shade of ferocity to many an encounter on
many a battle-field in Europe and Asia, are here the
first agents and promoting causes of the strife. Whilst