The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-08 00:00:00

THE JUDGE OF THE LIVERPOOL COUNTY
COURT AND MR. WHITTY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIE,—As a friend to free and impartial inquiry,
you will probably deem the remarks of this letter not
the less deserving of insertion in your columns, though
opposed to the present current of public opinion.
That the steps taken by Mr. Ramshay have been
of an extreme character, and that his language and
conduct have been injudicious, can scarcely be dis,
puted. But the questions still remain—ls Mr.
Whitty deserving of all the public sympathy that he
has received? Is it conducive to the high character
for gentlemanlike conduct of the leading members of
the English press, to make common cause with him,
and to hold him up as a blameless martyr ? This
question may best be answered by the solution of
another, viz., Are respectable English journals (whe-
ther in London or elsewhere) in the Paha of doing
what he did when he caused the name of Mr. Ram-
shay to be placarded on the walls of the town of
Liverpool, within a short distance of his court ?
In vindication of Mr. Whitty it has been said, this
placard was perfectly innocent ;:it merely announced
that his paper contained " Mr. Ramshay's opinion of
the people of Liverpool ;" and that opinion, it is
further urged, might have been quite complimentary.
Further, it has been suggested that in all this the
Liverpool journalist did no more towards Mr. Ram-
shay than the Times or the Examiner have done
towards Justice Talfourd or Baron Martin, viz., com-
ment freely on his decisions.
Now, with all due deference to those who adopt
such views, I may be allowed to observe that, in my
humble judgment, nothing but the excitement of the
present time time can account for the reception by
sensible and intelligent writers of sophistries so pal-
pable as these views involve. What manner of
analogy is there between a comment on the opinions
of judges confined to the columns of a public journal
and placarding their names in the public streets, in an
invidious and insulting manner, within a stone's throw
from the tribunal where they have to decide between
man and man ?To say that this hand-bill in ques-
tion might have implied that the judge had compli-
mented the people of the town is a very indifferent
defence—considering that the reverse was in truth the
fact, and considering also the mutual irritation and
hostile feelings that had long existed.
The true and fair parallel would occur were the
Times, the Examiner, or The Sun to send forth a
host of bill stickers to cover the walls of sergeant's
Inn, the Temple, and Parliament-street, in term time,
with placards announcing the intended publication
"in their next journal of Mr. Justice Talfourd's or
Mr. Baron Martin's opinion on criminal law, or of
Mr. Baron Platt's opinion on high sheriffs, &c."
I quite concur in all that has appeared from the
press, to the effect that Mr. Ramshay would have
acted more judiciously had he borne his late success
with dignified silence and forbearance, and treated in-
sults of this kind with passive contempt. But is the
conduct of those who take advantage of his irritability
(whether constitutional or from ill-health) to be passed
over without the censure it merits ? Nay, more, are
they to be made objects of public sympathy and
applause ?
No one can feel more deeply than the writer of this
letter the importance of maintaining the freedom and
influence of the public press; but the conductors of the
press will best advance this great object by strict im-
partiality—by employing reproof, and not sympathy,
towards a member of the body of journalists who has
pursued a questionable course of conduct.
I have no intimacy or communication with Mr.
Ramshay, and I think it unfortunate that the state of
feeling towards him should be what it is, and Mr.
Whitty I believe to be, personally, a respectable man.
The foregoing remarks have been suggested to me
solely by a view of the facts formed at a distance,
and on their merits.—l am Sir, &c.,
Oct. 4, 1851.

JURISCONSULTUS.

THE CHEAP LOAF.
TO THE EDTOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—I am one of those stupid persons who cannot
comprehend how producers of food and other neces-
saries of life, more especially the producers of bread,
are benefited by "a cheap loaf." By a cheap loaf I
mean a 41b. wheaten loaf, which exchanges for, or is
purchased by 2i grains of gold, expressed in our cur-
rency fivepence.
We are instructed by political economists that the
value of a commodity depends upon the labour be-
stowed upon it to prepare it for the use of the pur-
chaser ; to labour we are directed to look for a
measure of value. This admitted ; and if we admit,
also, the loaf is become fifty per cent. cheaper by
recent legislation, it follows from the precept of the
economists that the producer of loaves should pro-
duce three loaves with the same amount of labour
with which he heretofore produced two.
Now it is my misfortune to knoW that such is not
the fact. In my rural walks I have conversed with
many practical farmers and hard-working labourers,
and I am convinced from the ir.formation so obtained
that the loaf to them is no cheaper than it was, in re-
lation to the professed measure of value of the
economists.

I am too old to be won by, or amused even, by
frothy speeches ' • I am pleased only by words, whether
they be uttered by Peer or plebeian, that express
truths. Knowing as I do, that the husbandman doe
labour as hard as ever to produce a loaf, I am de-
sirous to learn whether there is any new system of
handicraft discovered by which the loaf can be pro-
duced by fifty per cent. less labour than it was some
ten years since.
Taking a common sense view of the matter, I am
n-

lot, however, without hope that the day of retribu-
don for the hard-toiling producers is at band—retri-
bution which will induce so complete a reformation
of our :commercial policy, and adjustment of our
Monetary system, that they, at any rate, will be justly
requited.
The economists tell us labour is the measure of
value ; their precept is at variance with their practice
for our monetary system is, in defiance of their asser-
tion, based not upon labour, but upon gold. When,
and I most fervently hope the day is not distant, we
shall have imports of gold reckoned by the hundred
weight instead of by the ounce,f the industrious sec-
tions of the community will be released from the
clutches of those who are now by lain permitted to
exact three measures of the products of their toil in-
stead of two only to which the legalised extortioner
is entitled. The bullionists will not merely be better
informed, but will ha compelled to honest conduct.
They will not, in all probability, be over delighted
with the celebrated definition of o. pound when they
find that the pound of 5 dwts. 3grs. weight of gold
will exchange only for a bushel, possibly a gallon, of
wheat instead of a sack ; the bullionists will then be
ready enough to accede to a just compromise; but
until then we must apparently endure, as we best can,
the strife and distraction now unhappily pervading
our social system.
Your obedient and obliged servant,
Oct. 7, 1851. J. H.

GLUT OF SILVER AT THE EXHIBITION.—Yesterday
it, was found necessary to have two cabs to convey to
lhreadneQdlo-street the accumulation of the previous day,
A4CI the weight of omit 4131plillted to Ris kg the J. 5