The Sun.
London, England, 1834-06-23 00:00:00

AItaIVALS OF

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Duke of We:in.6* and his political friends
lave, in our opinion, staked their existence (or,
vhidi is the same thing, their power) as a. party,
ipon an experiment of the most desperate kind,
:antely, upon the affirmative of the question wEe-
her the high church frenzy of Oxford does or nct
wevail throughout the majority of the English na-
ion ? There is truth in the assumption of Sir Re-
)ert Peel, in his speech on the Dissenters' Bill, that
he various measures for commuting and appropria-
-ing tithe, for dealing with church-rates, and .for re-
ieving dissenters from the restraints and disqualifi-
ntions imposed upon them•by the statutes of our
ancient Universities, ought to be looked at " as
parts of a whole ;" of which whole body of legisla-
tion, the aim and result would be to change, in
some important respects, the relations between the
stablished church and the entire lay community of
England. Sir Robert Peel much more than *im-
plies that the effect of such a change must be
injurious to the church. With all his shrewd
and speculating foresight, it appears on the face of
things that the right hon. baronet has fallen into the
trap which was laid for him by the zealots of the
conservative faction. He seems to have nailed thd
colours of the church of England to the rotten flag--
staff of her defects, and thrown overboard all tola-.
ranee of repair or improvement, however necessary..
So far as words go, he maintains the full integrity
of grievance and abuse, in spite of the wishes, the
judgment, and affections of an entire nation. That
Sir Robert Peel should have so compromised his
own freedom of action by such a course, and. oti
such grounds as these, is among the marvels of this
anxious hour : that he should have inistaken the
,yells of a hooded, gowned, and cloistered mob for
the downright voice of the English people, walld.
be incredible if we did not every day find proofs of
the degree to which personal ambition and party
clamour can disturb the most circumspect and sober
calculations. But to return to the Duke of Wel-
lington. The noble duke- was- celebrated, as a
Minister, for his ignorance of public opinion, We
should do him great injustice by saying that lAI de=
spised it. He did no such-thing. He was honestly an 4
profoundly in the dark as to almost every thing that
men thought and felt throughout the larger portion
of educated society, and he took the right method
to keep himself irretrievably misinformed, never
looking for intelligence beyond the circuit of Down-
ing-street and Whitehall, or listening to any sug-
gestions but those of flatterers among the coteries
of fashion. Unless we are much mistaken, the
duke has become partially convinced of the above
error in his ministerial policy, and of the influence
of his own blindness to the state of things around
him in producing the untimely downfall of his ad-
ministration. On one point, however, the Duke of
Wellington came to a sound conclusion. He had
the country with him in restoring the Catholics to
their rights ; and when we hear him taunted with
the " failure" of that great act of policy and justice,
it appears to us that an extraordinary oversight is
committed by the commentators on the noble
duke,—inasmuch as, if the Catholic agitators of
Ireland have since carried on a war of insubordi-
nation and violence, not merely against the King's
Government, but against the principles of all
settled and peaceful government, the ?wen of roperty
and gentry of the Catholic persuasion have, as a
body, and with few or no exceptions, been won over
to the British Crown. But we have recurred to the
Catholic Bill for the sake of a fact connected. with
it, which the circumstances of the present day have
rendered not a little remarkable. The University.
of Oxford was furious against the bill of emancipa-
tion. Had the Duke of Wellington shown himself
in the High-street of Oxford during the progress of
that great measure, was he not at the time con-
scious how he would have been received ? with
what denunciations ! with what curses, loud and
deep ! with what yells of hatred and abhorrence !
He did not go to Oxford ; but he knew it all. Ho
well understood the feelings which pervaded that
University against the removal of Catholic re-
strictions—that it was a bill for the establish-
ment of Popery, and for the total ruin of the
church of England.
.The_ outcries were as fierce.;
and tremendous against the bill of 18.29 as they now
are among the green and grey multitude of Oxford
against the various measures proposed by the King's
Government of 1834, for disburdening the Church
of her abuses. Yet the Duke of Wellington was
not at that time cheated by the overbearing clamour
of the University into a suspicion that Oxford spoke
the sentiments of the people of England. The
people cordially supported him in the policy which
the gowns of Oxford reprobated ; and of what avail
was the high Church opposition ? The Duke of
Wellington held it—most reasonably—in contempt.
He pursued and carried his national object in defi-
ance of it. Why, then, let us ask, if his Grace was
then alive to the total insignificance of the Oxford
ebullitions in their angriest and most fearful mood,
if lie would not listen to those grave maniacs when
they besieged the Crown, the Ministers, and Par-
liament with prophecies of ruin, and invocations
of punishment, and cries and wailings that the
Protestant religion was at an end—if the
Duke of Wellington then rejected the cleri-
cal follies which assailed him, and looked for
" public opinion" in far different quarters, even
across the Irish Channel, and acted confidently-1n
the teeth of Halls and Senate-houses, what, we
again ask, is it that has so far exalted the hurrahs
of the same Tory citadel in the estimation of the
brave and illustrious duke, that he now venerates
what he then treated with slight and contumacy,
and relies on the drunken acclamations of doctors
and freshmen, as affording .a popular, nay, a na-
tional, sanction to his vows of hostility against the
Dissenters' Bills and Church Reform Bills of the
present session, after holding the same acclamations
utterly cheap and worthless when they ran counter,
but five years ago, to his own predetermined mea-
sures ? The duke's friends boast for him, that if
he formerly-erred from an indifference to the voice
of " the people ;" " but lo! he has repented—he
has now appealed to the people ! the cream and
flower of the people !"—the sons and servants qf
the Tory aristocracy at atford—and they ex-
hort him to stand by Ike church ! Alas ! alas !
are pluralities, and stalls, and sinecures, " the
church ?" Perhaps they are so, almost as
much as Doctors of Divinty, and sophisters,
and gold gowns, are " the people." After all,
if, as
.we may • guess from the speeches of
Sir Robort Peel, Mr. Stanley, and even Lord Al-
thorp, a law has been passed by the Conservative
Club men, so to damnify the Dissenters' Bill, even
in the House of Commons, that it shall retain no-
thing of its original character worth preserving—
worth indeed the trouble of throwing it out in the
Lords ; and for the Irish Tithe Bill, if we may sur-
mise from the sum total of Conservative declara-
tions, that it is to be deformed by the intrusion of a
clause against any alienation of " the minutest.
fraction " of a surplus, should a surplus exist after
providing for the wants of the clergy, and thus that
the reproach of a sinecure church is to be made
perpetual against that of Ireland ; we do not think
that the Conservative leaders will, after a few weeks
have passed away, find much whereon to congratu-
late themselves in the condition to which they
have reduced this country. The false fire
of Oxford is already going out, and the echoes
of her orgies are to be heard no ;tenger.
But let us be just : the gross error into which the
Conservatives have fallen is a natural consequence
of the weakness, the variableness, the absurdities of
the government ; they are daily witnesses of a
course of management which makes every friend of
the ministers blush, and every foe rejoice ; and they
cannot be ignorant of the contempt, calm but pro-
found, which this management has produced
throughout the kingdom. But we can tell them,
that they will commit a greater political blender
than any impUtable to their opponents, if they con-
sider the unpopularity of the government a proof of
any desire of a return to the old anti-reform admi-
nistration. If indeed the Peel and Wellington
party would have the candour and magnanimity to

confess their fault in resisting the nation's demand
for a purification of her representative system,
many offences would be forgiven for the sake o 1; e-
curing a well-organized and well-disciplined cabinet;
but England is not prepared to go back to the
vomit of old abuses, nor to adopt as guides those
who wish to roll her again in the mire of political
corruption.— Times.

The emancipation of the Dissenters from poli-
tical disabilities of every kind and degree is nigh
at hand, and, if they will only have a little patience,
they must soon .obtain an equality of civil rights.
The bigots and fanatics of the High Church. party
may, for a short time, prevail in the Upper House
of Parliament, but the triumphant majority of 174,
on the second reading of the bill of Mr. G. W.
Wood for the admission of Dissenters to the
English universities—leaves no doubt of the opi-
nion of the country, and that opinion must soon
make itself felt in the House of Lords. The mea-
sure received the unanimous support of ministers,
and we must not too nicely criticise the remarks
'of Lord Althorp on the modification it ought to
receive in committee, as the liberal s'entiments of
his lOrdship are well known, and the Cabinet of
tord Grey is pledged to maintain the connection
between church and state. The argument of
the ‘debdte iirat by no means remarkable. Policy
.deference to prejudices and sinister interests—
'aprieatced to pervade all the speeches, except that
;01. Nlr. O'Connell, who placed the question on its
plain and simple merits. The objections of the
Tories were stale and utterly groundless. We are
at a loss to imagine how the admission of Dis,
senters to the English colleges should affect the
religious education of membrs of the 'establish-
ment, unless it be admitted that the doctrines of
the hierarchy are founded in error. The Uni-
versities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and
St. Andrews, admit indiscriminately students of all
religious persuasions—afford them equal access to
degrees and professorships—divinity excepted ; and,
:yet; notwitltanding, the Presbyterian Church con-
ttfnues ',:nenational establishment of Scotland. And
,:pon what possible principle can the • English uni-
versities he deemed the exclusive institutions of the
t'nglish hierarchy and clergy ? Were they Pro-
"testant in their foundation, or instituted exclusively
for the promotion of religion ? Certainly not. The
sinaksity of the Oxford colleges and halls may
'haVe been originally endowed by Ecclesiastics, but
'every foundation has received munificent contribu-1
tions from opulent and distinguished laymen. Re-
ligion, though a primary object of education, was
:ever taught exclusively. Science and art may, in-
deed, have lost ground, and suffered from the mo-
.nopoly of the clergy, but the range of-the Univer-
sities is much wider than the fanatics and clerical
nu nopolis'..s are willing to admit. The foundations
of Cambridge were chiefly formed by laymen ; and,
if the authority and antiquity of creeds are the
-iassports tO the enjoyment of the intellectual advan-
tages of Oxford and Cambridge, we should claim
for the Catholics the exclusiVe right of admission—
a privilege out of which, according to the argument
cif the minority against Mr. Wood, the Catholics
have been basely swindled. But the bigots do not
eon-tent themselves with proscribing Dissenters from
Oxfordand Cambridge ; they impudently seek to
_ _

prevent the establishment of Universities. for the ex-

eluded classes in London and other parts of England,
heir poition beiog, " W. will not educate you,
nol• shall you educate yourselves." We ' cannot
and language strong enough to express our con-
tempt and detestation of such disgusting illiberality
and persecution. We will not insult the under-
standing of the public by condescending to reply to
the sophistical defence of such glaring injustice, such
iolence to " the spirit of the age." We no longer
acknowledge any distinction between " civil" and
ecclesiastical toleration." We demand a full and
rwon diticnial restoration of the rights of the dis-
senters in their relation between God and man, and
are not disposed to discount a single claim, or to
urrender any Protestant principle. We are quite
aware that the House of Lords will reject any mea-
,,ine of relief, however modified. The strength of
the dose is its only chance of curing the patient.
The constitution of the Lords has not yet been
treated with specifics sufficiently astringent. We
hope that next session ministers will be pre-
liared with unqualified and substantial :mea-
sures for the redress of the practical grievances
of the dissenters, and we are glad to see that Mr.
William Brougham's measure of parochial re-
_

gistration has been adopted by the Government.
We are willing to make great allowances for the
difficulties and perplexities of the late Cabinet. Mf.
Stanley seems to have been an unwilling convert to
the opinions of his late colleagues, and begins
almost to repent of his declarations on the Cam-
bridge petition. But from the purified Ministry
the dissenters have a right to expect a bold and

manly policy on their behalf, neither can afford'to
lose the support of the other. We fully admit tho
past obligations of the Dissenters to Lord Grey, as
acknowledged in the Bristol memorial last week.
But altered times and a new distribution' of power
involve new claims. The Dissenters justly require
further relief, and, notwithstanding the sedative

recommendation Of the memorialists of Lewin's

Mead, the Dissenters must knock loudly and in-
ressantly at the door of the Cabinet and of the
House of Lords, or they will never gain admisSion
into the English Universities. The House of Corn-
mons is, however, open to them, and we doubt not
that they will speedily pass through that portal into
the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. All parties
will be gainers. It is by the collision of minds
that intellect is fully developed. The Universities
of the Continent have been long republics of i
letters in the true sense ; and when the Dissenters
and our starched clergy have come into closer con-
tact, the latter will form a truer estimate of the in-
tellect and power of the former. At present the
Oxford doctors of divinity speak of nonconformists
—of Pierce, Lardner, Priestley, and Robert Hall—
as Jamaica planters usually speak of their negroes.
This theological distinction between " whites and
blacks" in the Christian profession will soon be obli-
terated ; it was of Tory creation, for political pur-
poses. The Country now begin to understand who
are the Church robbers. The real spoliators are
the Tories, who have plundered the Dissenters of
their civil rights, and refuse restitution of the stolen
goods ; and the crime of sacrilege is the non-resi-
dence, the pluralism, the Church sinecurism, which
defrauds equally the laity and working clergy. If
the parsons much longer continue their cry of
" Church in danger," the liberal members of the

establishment will envy the English Dissenters and
the Scotch Presbyterians the privilege of choosing
their own ministers. Indeed we shall soon see the
establishment more violently assailed from within
than withotit. The Tory clergy are fast working
out their own salvation.—Morning Chronicle.
Ministers are now reaping the fruit of that dilato-
riness and want of method which, unfortunately for
the country, marks all their proceedings. Parlia-
ment has now been sitting four months, and has
arrived at the very verge of the dog-days, yet the
main business of the session remains still to be en-
tered upon—we mean the Budget, the promised
measures of agricultural relief, and the settlement
of the tithe question, both in England and Ireland;
nor should we be at all surprised if every one of
these vital questions were allowed to " stand over"
till another session ; the House of Commons du-
ring this inefficient period having sat probably more
hours, and the House of Lords fewer, than was
ever known. This latter circumstance accounts for
a great deal of the practical inertness of the session,
and is implied in that want of method and prear-
rangement to which we have adverted. Seeing that
the Prime Minister, and by far the greater number
of his colleagues, are members of the Upper House,
it seems quite obvious that it would have been both
wise and politic that the labour of initiating mea-
sures should have been equally divided between the
two houses, so that each might have been at work
bimultaneously, and easing each other's labours.-
et, with the exception of the Metropolitan Cri.-
minal Courts Bill, not a measure of any magnitude
or importance has proceeded from that house, where

the sterling mass of parliamentary talent is, after all, I
to be found, and which must, consequently, now be
compelled to slur over its duties, or postpone them,
greatly to the disadvantage of the country. This
state of things would have been avoided had Par-
lianient met, as it ought to have done, before
Christmas, had ministers then been prepared with
the measures which they meant to bring forward,
and had such of their number as are members of the
upper house taken charge of a fair portion of them.
But, perhaps, we shall be told in reply to this sug-
gestion that the House of Lords is not to be
trusted, and that it is absurd to expect that.mini-
sters would intrust their measures of reform to
them. We believe the country in general has of
late become 'very much disabused on this subject,
and that though there may be rather more of the
old leaven of anti-reform in that house than is quite
in accordance with " the spirit of the age," it is yet
to be proved that this branch of the legislature is,
as a body, opposed to any wholesome improvements
in any of our institutions, civil or spiritual, of which
the necessity and the consequences are made fairly
apparent. That there is a strong conservative feel-
ing in that house cannot be denied ; nor is it at all
to be regretted. It is of the very nature of our
constitution that each of its three estates should be
a check upon the others. 'to produce this cheek,
and render it effectual, the object, above all, desira-
ble is that the House of Commons should present
a true image of the feelings and opinions of the
people. This it was to have been hoped that re-
form would have brought about. We doubt whe-
ther it has yet done so, though it is to be hoped
that in time it may. In the meanwhile, the people
are not indifferent to the just influence of the other
two estates of the realm. Indeed, we are not sure
that they are not, at this moment, looking to them
in quite as full a confidence as to their own peculiar
branch of the legislature.—Morning Herald.
If any conclusion can be drawn from the present
tone of the Irish papers, it would indicate that the
agitation for the repeal of the Union is to be re-
sumed with great activity. The imbecile manage-
ment of the Secretary for Ireland certainly affords
Daniel O'Connell and Co. plenty of room for
the exercise of their powers of mischief. We are,
hpwever, pleased to observe that the Corporations
are taking up the question of the Established
Church in real earnest ; and the announcement of
a great Protestant meeting in Dublin, in the first
week of July, will be hailed with satisfaction by
all true friends of the Protestant Establishment in
Ireland. The Guild of Merchants has already
assembled for the purpose of preparing a petition
to the Throne and both' Houses of Parliament, to
preserve the United Church of Great Britain and
Ireland, as established at the Union. We promise
a querulous Contemporary many repetitions in
other places of what it is pleased to call the " poor
affair."—Morning Post.
Heartily do- we congratulate our readers upon
the Poor Laws' Amendment Bill having passed the
committee of the House of Commons, without al-
terations which would lessen the efficiency of any of
its great and leading principles. From the moment
that we first noticed this bill to our last article upon
it, we approved of it as a whole. We suggested
some modifications, which have, we are glad to say,
been carried into effect ; and although we do not
think that all the alterations the bill has received
are amendments, we are inclined to the opinion that
it is now, though not perfect as a piece of legisla-
tion, founded on just and sound principles, and car-
rying those principles into practice, better suited to
the present state of the country. We have no doubt
that in those journals which- have distinguished
themselves by the narrow and bigoted views they
have taken of this question, we shall read'again to-
day, as we have frequently read during the progress
of this bill, it will not be passed by the reformed
House of Commons. It is curious to see the Times
and Morning Post both opposing this great measure.
" Extremes," says an old proverb, "sometimes meet."
So it is in this instance. The Times fancies it has
great power—knows that when it has advo-
cated just views and principles, meetings have
sprung up apparently at its command, and measures,
we may almost say, have been carried by its advo-
cacy. It well knows that it lives upon such excite-
ment, and appears, in the fancied plenitude of its
power, to have thought that just or unjust weight
in using its power was the same, and that the-exist-
ence of a ministry as almost of the state itself, was
under its control. But what a lesson must have
been forced upon it lately. All the abusive
language, all the violent temper of the noble lord
who is generally supposed to influence the councils
of that paper, have not assisted either to check the
formation of a new ministry, or the rejection of this
bill. We say, had the Times in this instance been
guided by principle, and not by private and petty
feelings, how much good would have arisen, 'and
how much more satisfactory would the result have
been to the principles on which every journalist
ought to rest ! But we cannot say we are so much
surprised at the conduct of the Morning Post.
No measure of this government, however good—
no Whig minister, however honest—can expect to
receive its support. No wonder then that it
abuses this healing measure ; no wonder that it
disapproves of a bill which it must know will
raise the honest labourer in the scale of society—
which will prove education to be a blessing, and
thus give to the present Ministry and Government
a support, a sympathy, which will tend more to its
durability than perhaps any measure that could be
devised. We should not have devoted so much
space to the notice of the contemporary press, had
not articles appeared in those we have alluded to
which, we think, ought not to be passed over in
silence. In the Times of Friday, after some allu-
sions to the bastardy clause—" We wonder what
humane Christian it was that proposed to add this
cruel injury to_ the misery that must result to all
honest parents for having strumpets for their daugh-
ters. However, the clause is gone, and now the
public will, in almost every case, have to support
the illegitimate offspring of the lower orders, be-
cause such women as the bill is directed against
will hardly ever be able to support themselves,
much less themselves and their children." We
are almost inclined to ask, is such a scandalous
paragraph,—a paragraph containing misrepresen-
tations as regards the bill, misrepresentations
as regards the lower orders, they are pleased
to speak of, and a degree of vulgar feel-
ing which is almost intolerable, worth answer-
ing ? We say, however, that it is, and will
begin by replying to the first inquiry, that the
Christians who proposed to make the mother sup-
port her offspring are the Bishops of London and
Chester, Mr. Sturges Bourne, Mr. Senior, and the
other members of the Poor Law Commission, and
all the members of the House of Commons except
30. But this is an unimportant part of the article,
for they say, "the public will have to support the
bastards of the lower orders." In the first place,
whO suppoits the mother and the bastard now ?
What proportion of the cost of supporting them in
the country districts is received from the reputed
father ? And how often do the fathers of the
bastards in question belong to what the Times
would call the higher orders, and are sworn, by the
inducements of the present iniquitous system, to
working and labouring men ? And how often is a
labourer, by having a child so sworn, induced to
make an improvident marriage, and thus increase
the burdens of the parish? But, says the Times,
" the public will have to support the bastards."
Who supports them now ? Who supports the
host of illegitimate children in towns, the
mothers of whom cannot swear to a father ? It is
1 the rate-payers who support them, a large portion
of whom consist of industrious persons, supporting
families with difficulty, but still maintaining them
in independence, and these are the public upon
whom the Times wishes to perpetuate an injury un-
I exampled in the annals of any country. Who can
1 so well support—who, by the laws of God and man,
is so justly called upon to support a child as its
mother? We could, had we space, cite instances
from the commissioners' report where pregnant
women, to avoid being removed to their settlements,

previous to their confinement, have, by concealing
themselves, been subject to great privations and
distress, and this because they knew that, if sent to
a distant settlement, they must be confined in a
workhouse. We wish, and we have before ex-
pressed it, that the father could be punished ; but
as the punishment of a father must depend on the
oath of a woman who has already broken down.the
strongest of virtue's barriers, and as swearing the
child to a father involves the continuance of all the
iniquities which are now so prevalent, we are glad
that there is no provision which requires that an
oath of (generally speaking) an immoral woman
should be the sole ground for punishing frequently
an honest man, who is not allowed to,,indeed who
cannot, disprove the fact. Now for the Tory oppo-
sition. We quote from the Morning Post of
Saturday. We will not notice it after we have sub-
mitted the paragragh to our readers ; and only say,
that any journal which could admit such immo-
rality—any journal which could hope to obtain sup-
port to the cause it advocates by such means, must
be influenced by principles which ought to insure
its exclusion from the table of every family in the
kingdom. The paragraph we are going to extract
is certainly unfit for the young ladies who sip their
noonday coffee over this fashionable paper. The
following is the specimen of the language of the
correspondent of the Morning Post we have alluded
to :—" I beg to ask whether I am not entitled to
compensation for considerable expenses which I have
beefs put to in maintaining seven bastard children,
three girls and four boys, by different mothers Y"
Could any one have believed that such a letter would
have been admitted into a journal of the year. 1834?
We have now shown the extremities to which the
opponents of this measure are obliged to resort, and
we think that every unprejudiced reader will regret
that pique in the one case, and the malevolence of
party feeling in the other, could induce any one to
perpetrate so gross an injustice upon the virtuous
peasantry and industrious artisans of this country,
as to advocate the continuance of a system which
entails the support of the offspring of vice, not on
its parent, but upon the respectable rate-payers of
the country. We began this article by congratu-
lating our readers upon the bill having passed the
Committee of the House of Commons ; but another
subject for congratulation arises from the perusal of
the very able, eloquent, and we may almost say,
kind speech of the Lord Chancellor, in the House
of Lords on Friday. The effect upon the House
proves that there the Poor Law Bill will not meet
with much opposition. The benefits likely to arise
from the amendment of the poor laws have not been
more forcibly exposed by any writer than by the
Lord Chancellor in the speech we have alluded to,
and we shall conclude by giving it to our readers
more accurately than we were able to do on Satur-
day : - •
" Though many other counteracting influences to the
good effects of education suggested themselves he would
not now press them upon their lordships. Still there was
one which it was impossible to overlook—which operated
without intermission, and became worse and worse in every
effect which it produced—which extended its evil influence
farther and wider than any other course, and in some parts
of the country lowered the population to the .level of the
very brute, converting them, by its contaminating effects,
into common mendicants and sturdy beggars. The mon-
strous off-set to the advantages of education, the gigantic
counteracting agent which stilled the„clesire cf independ-
ence, and removed all prudential restraints, was to be found
it the poor laws, or the abuses which in later times had
' grown into them. .NN: hat mastered it that he and others
who laboured with him exerted themselves to diffue infor-
mation through the land=of what avail was it that central
schools had been established—what signified it that books
had been circulated, and knowledge rendered so cheap as
that there was none so poor who could not at the end of
twelve months make up, as it were, a library of those cheap
and valuable publications? But what signified all this?
It was but as a drop in the ocean; it was but the least
imaginable particle of antidote in a full tumbler glass of
prussic acid, compared with the power which it possessed to
remove the obnoxious and overwhelming influence of the
poor laws. But still he hoped he could say that this cause of
evil had now arrived at its worst, and that an effective re-
medy was now about to be applied. With these opposing
influences, with the vices of a population nearly doubled,
with the baleful and wide spread evils emanatinc, from bad
laws, and worst and most extensive of all, with the abuse
of the poor laws, education, whilst they existed, may as ef-
fectually endeavour to compass the good it was calculated to
produce, as a little cock-boat to ride Up against the Thames
' when the current rolled strongest. fhe effects of educa-
tion could only be seen when men were thrown upon their
own resources—when the abuses of the poor laws, which
raged like an epidemic, were done away with-when it no
longer made a rule of conduct by which men may be idle
or industrious at their pleasure, and the result be all the
same. Neither man.i.or fiend could devise a law so preg-
nant with evil, so calculated to remove all restraint upon
the passions, and destroy every motive to honest and
honourable industry., It was ordained that man should
earn his bread by the sweat of his brow ; but here was a
law which contravened this ordination—which said, whe-
ther your brow be parched with toil, or wet with indus-
try, or otherwise—whether you labour or are idle, no mat-
ter—though the veriest snail, or merest sluggard, you shall
eat up the provision of your industrious fellow -citizen, and
his labour shall pay the penalty of your idleness. This law
said in effect, do not take the trouble to be prudent ; never
mind how improvident may be the union into which you
enter ; do not care how you desecrate the matrimonial
rite, by plunging wives into distress, and bringing children
into the world for a heritage of misery and want ; never
consider these, for we prudent and painstaking men will
tax ourselves, and yield up the produce of our industry, to
support you in your lazy, self-gratifying courses, and pro-
long your idle existence out of the results of our earnings.
This was, in effect, the language which the poor laws, as
abused, spoke to those disinclined to labour. What could
be expected from education under such a system, which
opened the door to vice, and rendered the feelings of those
who availed themselves of its abuses callous to any touch
of virtue or better feeling ? Would the persons who were
thus practised to live upon the industry of others--to pick
their pockets indirectly—would they be less likely to do so
directly?"
As soon as the bill, with the amendment, is printed,
we shall return to the subject.—llforn. Advertiser.

-PRIVY COUNCIL, JUDICIAL COlll-

MITTEE, JUNE 20.

THE THETIS TREASURE-SALVAGE.

This was an appeal from a judgment of the late Sir
Christopher Robinson, in the Admiralty Court, in
respect to a question of salvage of a large amount of
treasure shipped on board his Majesty's frigate Thetis,
which was lost at Cape Frio in 1830, the greater part
of which treasure was recovered by Captain Dickin
son, of his Majesty's sloop Lightning, and the Hon.
Captain De Roos, of his Majesty's ship Algerine, both
under the orders of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Baker,
K. C. 8., Commander in Chief of the South Ameri-
can station.

The facts of the case have already been frequently
before the public.
After twelve hours' hearing,
The VICE-CHANCELLOR delivered the judgment of
their lordships. Without going through the facts of
the case, it was sufficient to say, their lordships were
unanimously of opinion that a sufficient reward had
not been awarded to Admiral Baker and Captain
Dickinson, his officers and crew, the only persons who
had appealed against the decree ; and that, considering
the length of the service, and the labour and exertions
of the sailors, it was not too much to allot to Admiral
Baker and Captain Dickinson, his officers and crew,
12,0001., in addition to the sum allotted in the decree
as it stood. Their lordships were, therefore, of opi-
nion that the decree, in point of form, must be re-
versed ; but they directed that the expenses of all the
proceedings should be deducted from the property, as
the Court below had directed ; that the further sum
of 12,0001. be added to the salvage already allotted to
Admiral Baker and Captain Dickinson, his officers
and crew, to be divided according to the order in
Council of 1827, the effect of which was to give Ad-
miral Baker one-eighth of the sum, Captain Dickin-
son two-eighths, and the remaining five-eighths to be
divided in the manner directed in the said order. Their
lordships were of opinion that not only did the length
and arduousness of the service justify this increase of
the sum which had been 'allotted, but that the giving
of the increased sum was very much in the spirit of
previous decisions, which had allotted one-third and
one-half in such cases. The amount recovered to the
underwriters for the owners was 157,000 The Ad-
miralty expenses were 13,800/. ; the expenses of
agency 12,000/. ; and 17,000/. the amount of salvage
already, allotted. These sums, together, made 42,800/. ;
adding thereto the sum now given, the whole would
be 54,0001. and'a fraction, which sum would be some-
what more than one-third of the gross treasure reco-
vered.