The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1848.

Often as we have had occasion to complain of that
most sgusting of all the various descriptions of cant
—trim @ant about the sanctification of the Sabbath—we
have never done so with more profound indignation
Than upon this sixteenth day of October. Our indig-
nation, Os may be at once conjectured, is attributable,
of course, to the brutal and most un-Christian
behaviour of the directors and the secretary of the
Scottish Central Railway, when, on Sunday, the nth
instant, they refused to allow her Grace the Duchess
of gUTHERLAND to travel a few miles along the line,
for illte purpose of reaching Castle Howard in time to
receive the farewell of her dying father, the late Earl
of Casiasnis. Those who do not happen to have al-
ready perused the particulars of this miserable incident
will certainly for the moment imagine that we are
waking either some preposterous blunder or some in-
decorous.misrepresentation.:A sentencealmost will be
sufficient to prove the accuracy of our allusion. Upon
the morning already mentioned, the Mistress of the
Robes arrived at the railway station at Perth, having
hastened thither from Montrose immediately her
Grace received the melancholy intelligence of the
fiatol illness of the Earl of CARLISLE. Almost at the
moment when the Ji)uchese of SUTHERLAND reached
tha Perth station the mail train for the south was
preparing for its departure ; but, to her Grace's
amusement, she was refused admission into one of
the carriages, being informed that it was contrary to
the regulation of the directors to allow any travelling
on a kalshath l A remonstrance was at once dispatched
to the secretary, representing the calamitous cause of
the journey, and the mail train was even delayed for
an interval to enable matters to be arranged satisfac-
torily. At length a final and peremptory answer was
received from the secretary. It was this—" No; the
rules of the company cannot be departed from." Im-
mediately afterwards the engine started, dragging
after it the mail-bags and a number of empty car-
riages, and leaving the Duchess of SUTHERLAND
upon the platform, weeping. The only alternative
was to post onwards as rapidly as possible. A steamer
was lifred—the streets of Edinburgh were reached—
and, by the time the mournful party from Dunrobin
Castle arrived at Castle Howard, in Yorkshire, the Earl
of CARLISLE had breathed his last, and a daughter
had been heartlessly ;deprived of a most solemn and
*ender consolation. Now we ask if this is not an
affecting testimony of the inhumanity resulting from
a very despicable and yet a very monstrous humbug?
We ask any man ',whose nerves have ever felt one
single thrill of natural sensibility if Each a system of
mock morality is not subversive of all the nobler
sentiments implanted in the bosom of man by his
CABATOU ? We ask if this pharisaical sobriety is to be

allowed to flourish with impunity ? We ask plainly
and bluntly at once if the persons who thus dare to
parody the sublime precepts of Religion are to be
permitted to outrage all public decency without punish-
ment ? Is the Legislature blind or deaf ? Are our
representatives dullards P Is there not one man among
the 658 who will demand the interposition of the Ex-
ecutive ? We reiterate our demands from the ear-
nestness of our solicitude to witness the abolition of a
custom which is at all times insufferable, but which,
in such cases as that of her Grace the Duchess of
SUTHERLAND, amounts to an infamous and un-
endurable cruelty. It must be remembered that we
are not uttering a few fluent words of indignation
upon a matter which has for a moment filled our
heart with a mingled sense of pain and irritation. We
are speaking of a grievance against which we have rea-
soned again and again with all the energy of an asto-
nishment confirmed and heightened by conviction. We
are reprobating a sy stem which is unhappily by no means
restricted to the management of the Scottish Central
Railway, but one which unfortunately extends along
a number of different ramifications. We appeal,
moreover, to the Government for its interposition,
not merely on the score of public decency, and out
of motives of a purely humane character, but because
we do regard such local prohibitions against travelling
on a Sunday as derogatory to the influence and in-
sulting to the principles of the sublime and elevated
philosophy of Christianity. In such dilemmas,
for example, as the one which occurred at the
Perth station on Sunday, the Bth of October,
in consequence of this silly and frivolous prohibition
—the effect would :most ;assuredly be that to the
lowly and ignorant the institution of a day of rest
like Sunday would be rather a curse than a blessing.
The multitude would be disposed to recoil from a
creed so repulsive in its operations, so stern and in-
exorable
in its sobriety, so wretchedly degenerated
from an instinct to a punctilio, from a dogma to a
form, from a holy and elevating faith, to a mean and
debasing ceremony. Let us crush this reptile hy-
pocrisy—this hypocrisy which is the most loath-
some of all, the hypocrisy of religion ! Away
with it. "Its offence is rank —it smells to
heaven !" When indulged in to excess, it excites a
daring wretch like the murderer TAWELL to poison
his leman in order that his character, forsooth, may
shine in unsullied purity in the estimation of his
neighbours. MOLIERE has pilloried the race,
dramatically, in the person of TARTUFFE. DICKENS
has crucified the same assumption of morality, again,
in the most elaborately defined and the most exqui-
sitely delineated of all the fictitious beings created by
his genius as a novelist. The hypocrisy of a TewiLL
is—thanks be to GOD !—but seldom witnessed. The
hypocrisy described by the dramatist and the ro-
mance-writer is of a domestic kind, which renders it,
comparatively speaking, harmless. But the hypocrisy,
of the enemies of Sunday trading and Sunday travel-
ling is becoming at last so wholly intolerable, that it
is the bounden duty of the Legislature to take the
grievance into its consideration. Something must be
done forthwith, or the religious feeling of Scotland
will appear in the eyes of the world as little better
than a miserable farce and most melancholy affectation

The Financial Reform Association continues its
useful labours. In the report just published, a copy
of which appeared in The Sun of Saturday, one of
the chief difficulties in the way of an efficient reform
is clearly indicated. It states " that at present it is
hardly possible to discover the actual expense of any
branch of the Government, for almost every one is
paid in three different ways—namely, out of the
Consolidated Fund, by annual Parliamentary grants,
and by fees." It was by the confusion thus occa-
sioned that many of the abuses that have descended
to us from the good old times of Tory government,
were originated and nurtured. Gullible as JOHN
BULL proverbially was, he would scarcely have re •
strained his indignation at finding subordinate, and
comparatively useless officers, receiving emoluments
for some trifling services (often performed entirely by
deputy) equivalent to those enjoyed by the most
meritorious and hardest worked servants of the
Crown. The system of payment partly by fees was
accordingly acted on, in order to disguise the extent
of the grievance, to prevent the discovery of the
amount annually extracted from the public purse,
and which was too frequently bestowed as the wages
of corruption, the reward of political dishonesty and
turpitude. By dividing the amount thus squandered
under different heads a certain degree of mystery
was produced. When the payment of a salary ap-
peared as a charge on the Consolidated Fund, it was
erroneously supposed that there was an end of the
transaction, at least so far as the particular office was
concerned ; and, although it might appear that the
office might be dispensed with, and a reduction
easily effected, it seemed a matter of compara-
tively little importance, the people grumbled and
paid, and matters went on in the most satisfactory
manner for the hordes of locusts that infested the
public offices, and fattened at the expense of the
nation.

On further investigation, however, it might have
been discovered that the charge on the Consolidated
Fund exhibited but a very imperfect view of the real
facts of the case. The same parties again figured in
the annual estimates, and immense sums were voted
almost sub silentio, to swell the emoluments
of these who were erroneously supposed to have
been more than sufficiently remunerated for their
labours by the amounts charged upon the Consoli-
dated Fund. But there were no Joseph Humes
in these days to catechise the Minister and insist
upon full and explicit information before the item
was submitted to the House. The representatives of
the people thought it a piece of vulgar impertinence
to inquire too closely into the expenditure sanctioned
by the Government, and perhaps the feeling might
possibly have lurked in the mind of even the most
strenuous and uncompromising member of the
Opposition that the time might perhaps arrive
when he too would participate in the good things
that were distributed so freely among the Minis-
terialists. By a sort of general assent the subject was
tabooed as one that should not be mentioned
to ears polite, and thus " jobs" were perpetrated,
which, if fully exposed, would have aroused a storm
of popular indignation from the Land's End to John.
o'- Groats.

This, however, was by no means the worst part of
the affair. The sums that appeared under these
heads at least consisted of definite amounts which
might have been ascertained if any person chose to
enter upon the inquiry. Anything that could be
effected in this manner fell incredibly short of the
amount of plunder obtained in the shape of fees. The
public offices became literally sinks of iniquity. No
business of any description could be transacted with-
out an extravagant system of bribery to the already
over-paid officials. Every officer, from the porter
at the gate to the head clerk, received a
gratuity, as civility money, fees for expe-
dition, or others of a similar character.
If the applicant expected to obtain his object,
crowds of harpies awaited him at every stage of his
progress, whom he was compelled to satisfy, and, in
return, he of course made the public, whenever prac-
ticable, recoup him in the amount thus disbursed.
The law officers were perhaps the worst of all, but
every department of the State was infested by classes
of sinecurists, whose constant and unceasing cry,
like that of the horse leech, was Give, give, give,
which was maintained without intermission. Of late
years much has been done to abate this nuisance.
Fees have been abolished in many departments, and
fixed salaries substituted for the fluctuating and vary-
ing emoluments derived therefrom. These salaries,
however, are, generally speaking, much higher than
should be paid, or than would have been at all tole-
rated, had they not been in some degree regulated
by the amounts received for similar services under
the old system. It should also be borne in mind
that they were settled before the Act of 1819
was passed, whe❑ a guinea readily sold for
Bs. or 9s. premium, and when every description of
cammodity sold at a much higher rate than that for
ich similar articles could now ba obtained—
when, in fact, war prices were universal. Under
these circumstances much larger incomes fwere ne-
cessary to maintain persons in a respectable station in
society than would now be required for that purpose.
But, although money has been made artificially dear
by the Acts of 1819 and 1844 ; though one pound
would now go further, and procure greater comforts
and luxuries than thirty shillings some forty years
ago, there has been but little reduction upon salaries

—the same amounts are still drawn from the national
Exchequer.

Under these circumstances, the recommendation of
the Financial Reform Association is most just and
equitable. It is suggested that there should be " a
general revision of all salaries in order that they
should be made suitable to the altered circumstances
of expense and condition of the country
at which they were originally fixed, and
in the course of such an examination, it
would be found advisable also to establish a
more uniform rata of payment for similar ser-
vices in different departments." The first step to-
wards the attainment of these desiderata will mani-
festly be the simplification of the public accounts, and
the total and immediate abolition of fees of every
description. An adequate salary should be paid to
every person employed in the public service ; and on
receiving that, he should neither seek for or obtain
more under any pretext whatsoever.

SPAIN.

Madrid Journals of the 9th have arrived.

It is said M. Ds LESSEPS, the French Minister,
had announced to the Spanish Government the fact
of the arrest on the French frontier of Senor PALACIO
DE LA EscosußA, and of Senor MORENA DE LAS
PENAS, and the discovery in their possession of cer-
tain papers, proving their connexion
,with some of
the French clubs, who are plotting the simul-
taneous overthrow of the French and the Spanish
Governments.

MADRID BOLSA, OCT. 9.—Threes, 18 15-16
Fives, 91.—Exchange on London, 48f. 35e.

PORTUGAL.

Advices from Lisbon to the 9th instant have been
received.

The only political intelligence they contain is a
rumour to which some degree of authority appears
to attach, to the effect that the Conde BE TOJAL would
be appointed Finance Minister in the room of Senor
FALCOA, who, together with the Minister at War,
retire from the Cabinet, in consequence of a dis-
agreement with their colleagues. COSTA CABRAL
has returned to Lisbon.

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