The Sun.
London, England, 1834-05-12 00:00:00

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LONDON,
MONDAY EVENING, MAY 12, 1834.

The majority of Friday night, the most over-
whelming by which
.any great measure of na-
tional improvement has been carried through
any of its more important stages within our
remembrance, places the fate of the Poor Laws'
Amendment Bill beyond all peril. And many
are the instructive lessons which a Ministry
capable of profiting by experience may derive
from this brilliant instance of successful daring.
Ministers have set themselves an admirable
example ; let us horric- that they will follow it ;
let it not be lost upon themselves, as it cer-
tainly will not upon others. The spirit in
which this measure was conceived forms a
most striking contrast to that of ordinary
politicians. They have been moved to
exertion by the mere magnitude of the
evil to be remedied, without waiting till
it was clamorously urged upon their no-
tice from without. Having resolved to do
something, they really gave their minds to
the consideration, not of the floating opinions
which they might be able to collect upon the
subject, but of the subject itself ; and asked
themselves, not what measure was most likely
to meet with general acceptance, but what re-
medy was best adapted to the nature and ex-
tent of the disease. Further (and to this, next
to the goodness of their cause, they are most
indebted for their success), while the subject
was still under investigation, they took mea-
sures for informing the public mind. The facts
and reasonings which were to form the basis of
their own conviction, they laid before the
nation at large, and supplied to all per-
sons who took an interest in the ques-
tion the means of acquiring a very com-
petent knowledge of it before they com-
menced legislating. Having thus laid the
foundation of what governments hitherto have
so seldom known the value of—a rational and
enlightened public judgment—they, with a
manly confidence in that judgment, dared to
propose all that they clearly saw to be indis-
pensable. They came forward with no truck-
ling half-measure, but threw themselves upon
the intelligence of the country, and claimed
support simply on the ground of deserving it,
and the result is the most signal triumph.
Let this be an example to them of what enters
so little into the calculations of vulgar statesmen
—the vast power, in the present state of the world,
of truth and reason. That power is singularly
underrated, which is the less astonishing as
it is so seldom tried. That knaves should not
know how to estimate it can surprise no one.
But the multitude of well-meaning persons
who prefer any means of influencing the
people rather than a direct appeal to their rea-
son, and place their trust anywhere rather than
in strong argument strongly stated, is wonderful
and lamentable. If the success of poor law
reform could cure either Whigs, Tories, or
Radicals, of this weakness, it would be the
beginning of a new era in the greatness of
England, and in the civilization of the world.
What is now of importance is, that Minis-
ters should stand firm, and resist any mutilation
of the measure in passing through the com-
mittee. There may be room for amendment in
some of the minor details ; and the great principles
of the measure may be considered as safe.
IThe only danger is, that under the appearance
I, of a trifling alteration in the details; the enemies
of the Bill may succeed in slipping in some-
! thing which may clog the main wheels of the
machinery.
I The point which it is of most importance to
I protect is the very one which has been most

assailed—the powers of the Central Board ; a
more ridiculous clamour than the outcry against
this Board, coming, as it does, from persons
who admit the existing evils to be unbearable,
we never remember to have met with. All at-
, tempts to reform the pauper system by laws,
without some person to look after their execu-
tion, is visionary. How did the abuses come
in ? Not for want of laws ; for it is notorious
that all the practices which have brought on
the present intolerable evils, were, from the
commencement, and have at all times been,
illegal. Declare them so once more, and
what will be the effect ? Perhaps another
hundred parishes in the whole country
will follow the example of the hundred, or
thereabouts, who have already reformed their
administration. In all the others the same mo-
tives which have introduced the abuses will
cause their continuance, and the progress of
ruin will scarcely be retarded, much less stopped.
Whatever laws you enact, if you wish them to
be obeyed, you must create a special authority,
with.power to examine whether they are obeyed
or not, and to enforce obedience, and this is
literally all the power which the bill confers
upon the Central Board. The discretionary au-
thority which has been so much declaimed
against goes to nothing but the power of tem-
pering in the application, or altogether dispensing
with, those rules, which, if there was no such
power, must be peremptorily enforced in all
places, and under all circumstances.
For instance, the fundamental principle of
all poor law reform is, that relief to the able-
bodied shall, except in peculiar cases, be given
only in the workhouse. The bill accordingly
says, that the Board may compel parishes to
enlarge their workhouses, and if they do not
voluntarily consent, may tax them to the extent
of one-tenth of one year's rates for that purpose.
Therefore we have an outcry as if heaven and
earth were coming together ; one journal talks
of " bashaws," another of the " star chamber."
Meanwhile, how stands the obvious reason of
the case ? That if the bill had not done this, it
must itself have ordained that every parish
must provide a workhouse adequate to con-
tain the whole of its pauper population.
The discretion of the Boardis positively nothing
but a power to mitigate those pecuniary and
other obligations which the law must otherwise
have imposed in their fullest extent upon the
whole kingdom, without any exception, or con-
sideration of local circumstances.

Again, the Board has power, by the provi-
sions of the bill, to determine whether any and
what relief shall be given to able-bodied persons
not resident in the workhouse. The necessity of
putting an end to out-door relief, as a general
rule, is so clearly demonstrated, both by
theory and experience, that the most violent
opponents of the .measure go no further than to
say that the rule ought not to be inflexible, and
that a latitude must be given. A latitude,
then, is given, but as the parish authorities
are altogether unfit to bdttrusted with it, the
legislature, supposing it to be at albin earnest
in desiring poor-law refornOolf there
were no Central_Boßrd, have: no'arsice bit to
prohibit out-door relief altogether. Yet. so
contemptibly ignorant is the clamour, that the
very persons who accuse the bill, even as it now
stands, of harshness, are the same 'The/ inveigh
against the, power created expressly for the
purpose of moderating its harsher provisions,
whenever it is not found necessary to.enforce
them strictly.
We trust the Ministry will not give ear to
Mr. HAWES'S suggestion of what he calls a tri-
bunal of appeal. Appeals are on questions of
fact, or on questions of law, not on questions of
expediency ; there cannot be an appeal against
a regulation. If a body were constituted with
power to review and set aside the regulations of
the Central Board, that body could only be ano-
ther Central Board, and instead of one " trium-
virate" there would be two, one to watch the
other. We have not two treasuries, or two
admiralties, one to act, and the other to look on
and stop the first when it does wrong. There
is no need of paying two sets of officers. to share
the responsibility between them. Responsibi-
lity to Parliament and public opinion is the
only check it is possible to have upon either,
and that check can only be weakened, or rather
annihilated, by being divided.

We understand that his Grace the Duke of
RICHMOND embarked on Saturday, with Lord
GEORGE LENNOX, for Boulogne, in the Ferret,
Captain HAMILTON, with the intention of
proceeding to Paris, to arrange definitively some
matters connected with the mails and post-
offices between the two countries. Any arrange-
ment that may tend to facilitate the intercourse
between France and England, cannot but be
attended with the most beneficial effects. It
cannot be in better hands than those of the
Duke of RICHMOND.

Lord ALTIIORP received the deputation of
Dissenters on Saturday. His Lordship ex-
pressed his regret that the measure he had pro-
posed did not meet the views of the deputation,
and promised to give their representations his
most serious consideration.

The onlyinfonnation of any public interest in the
German papers, received to-day, is the follow-
ing from Munich, April 30:—The Chamber of
Deputies, in its sitting of the 28th ult., adopted,
by a majority of 96 to 1, the proposed law for
granting to the inhabitants of the Greek Church
the same civil and political rights as are enjoyed
by the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists.

VIENNA, MAY 1.-Five per Cent., Metalliques, 99 ;
Four per Cent., 88.1 ; Bank Shares, I,26o.—Allge-
meine Zeitung, May 6.

The French papers of Saturday, and the
date of Sunday, and letters from Madras and
Constantinople, have reached town.
The Chamber of Peers are still engaged with
measures relative to the late disturbances.
Some trades' unionists, to the number of 22,
have been arrested and sent to prison. The

Patriot de la Cote d' Or gives the names of
fourteen sub-officers of the 52d Regiment who
have been disgraced and punished, in conse-
quence of their connection with republicans.
The Municipal Council of St. Amand, having
refused to vote money for the wounded soldiers
and the relief of the widows and orphans of
the soldiers killed in the late disturbances, has
been dissolved.

The Turkish squadron had not sailed from
Samos on the 15th.

The report of Don CARLOS' embarkation
for England is not confirmed by letters received
to the 3d. On the contrary, it was then re-
ported that Don CARLOS contemplated an in-
vasion of Spain on the south of the Tagus.
The loan had not been contracted for.

We have not room to-day for comments on
the proceedings of the Holy Alliance with re-
spect to Switzerland. The poor Poles are not
to be allowed to live in any part of Europe, if,
that can be prevented. If they were exter-
minated, would that ease the consciences of
those who have robbed them of their country ?

An express has arrived in the city from Ply-
mouth, with the news that the African steam-
boat has come from Lisbon with Government
despatches, announcing that Don MIGUEL
has accepted terms, and is coming to England
in the Stag frigate. All, therefore, is settled
in Portugal. The Portuguese Bonds have im-
proved 1 per cent.
_ _ _

Another correspondent states, that the Stag
frigate was preparing to take Don MIGUEL on
board.

A royal decree, dated the 22d of April, has
been issued at Aranjuez, appointing a com-
mission of ten bishops and four laymen to look
into the present state of the Spanish church,
and propose such reforms in it as have become
necessary, in consequence of its numerous and
long neglected abuses. This commission is
instructed to inquire into, and report on, the
ecclesiastical divisions and establishments of
Spain ; to state their numbers, their extent,
and the population in each ; to specify the per-
sons by whom they are served ; the duties
those persons have to perform ; the amount of
their revenues, whence derived, and how dis-
distributed : in short, to give the statistics of
the Spanish church. The object of the com-
mission is to improve the discipline of the
church, to enforce residence, to abolish sine-
cures, and put an end to pluralities. Every
clergyman is to have a suitable provision out of
the present income of the church, and though
no part of it, as far as we understand, is to be
applied to secular purposes, a portion is to be
devoted to the repair of churches, and to the
establishment and improvement of the semi-
naries destined for the education of ecclesiastics;
monasteries, agreeably to their original institu-
tion, are to be reserved as places of asylum for
the pious, learned, devout, recluse, and sincere.
penitents ; but the number of mendicant friars
is to be regulated, and novices are not to
be admitted into convents, whether of mendi-

can04.15r,.41;19nk5, without special permission.
From the diameter of the Commissioners, the
known sincerity of their religious opinions, and
from their earnestness and zeal for reform,
much benefit is expected froin'their appoint-
ment. Application will be made to the POPE
for such reforms as by the constitution of the
itipiish Church require his sanction and appro-
bation. Why have we still to say to the
Church of England, " Go thou and do likewise ?"
Some of her members might be better employed
in suggesting reforms within her walls than in
writing virulent pamphlets from Oxford, not
more abhorrent from the mildness, humility,
and charity Christianity was meant to incul-
cate, than disgraceful to their authors, for the
vain and besotted ignorance they betray on the
relation in which they stand to their masters.

Madame Tussaud terminates her season of
six months in a fortnight, at the Bazaar, Gray's Inn-
road, which during that period has been frequented by
thousands of admiring visiters. Those who have not
seen this exhibition can form no idea of its merits, as
wax figures in general convey any thing but pleasurable
emotions ; but in this particular the novelty is, that
Madame Tussaud has succeeded in rendering her col-
lection highly interesting to the lovers of the arts,
and, as a spectacle, one of the most magnificent in the
metropolis, and certainly the most instructive to youth.
The sentence of the courtmartial on Lieut.
Alcock, of the Royal Artillery, who was tried in Dub-
lin in February last, on charges connected with money
transactions, has just been promulgated, to the effect
that he is guilty on those charges, and the court ad-
judged that he be dismissed his Majesty's service ; but,
in consideration of his large family and destitute con-
dition, recommended him to his Majesty's considera-
tion. His Majesty, after confirming the sentence, in
accordance with the recommendation of the court, has
extended his pardon to the prisoner.

FEMALE TAILORS.-011 Saturday after-
noon the neighbourhood of Cheapside was crowded to
excess in consequence of the exhibition of a dress coat
at a tailor's shop opposite Bow Church, with a public
announcement that it had been made by a woman.
The curious in matters of this description pronounced
the workmanship to be excellent ; the collar in parti-
cular attracted the attention of the learned ; this part
of coat-making having been hitherto considered one of
those mysteries which could only be achieved by men
tailors. The coat was marked at a lower price than
ordinary ; and among the crowd several of the refrac-
tory tailors were observed, who appeared any thing
but satisfied with the exhibition.
THE TAILORS' STRIKE.—This monstrous
absurdity is fast dying a natural death, and it is
scarcely possible it can outlive the present week from
the impossibility of finding funds to keep the idlers
even in a state of bare existence. The allowance
first promised was los. per man, but it was with diffi-
culty this sum was raised even at the end of the first
week. The next week the allowance was reduced to
7s. 6d., and of this pittance only a moiety was paid on
the Saturday night, and the remainder in the course of
the week. Numbers, in consequence, seceded from
the Union, and very many more are only restrained
from so doing by a cowardly fear of being waylaid and
maltreated. In order to quiet the clamour the ruling
tyrants found it necessary so far to relax their rules as
to allow of the men working at home for their private
connections. This concession opens so wide a door
for collusion as to amount to almost a virtual abandon-
ment of the " strike." On last Saturday night not a
penny of the promised 75. 6d. was forthcoming,
although the men were kept waiting till half-past one
o'clock in the morning at their lodges. They were at
last dismissed with an assurance that there was plenty
of money, but it could not be got in till Monday, and
that on 'Tuesday they should all be paid. The scene
at the lodges was truly painful, wives with their chil-
dren waiting in anxious hope of getting a trifle to
market with.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE-THIS DAY.

(FROM LLOYD'S.)
DEAL, MAT 10 AND 11.-Wind S.W.—Arrived the
Rawlins, Marr, from Jamaica ; William and Alfred,
Drysdale, from Antigua ; Ruckers, from the West Indies ;
Woodbridge, from Sierra Leone; and the Dispatch, from
St. Michael's. From the river, the Fair Arcadian, for
Honduras ; Brilliant, for Rio Janeiro ; and the Recovery,
for Quebec.

PORTSMOUTH,MAY 10 AND 11.—WindW. to S. S. E.—
Arrived off port the Viundeu, Selby, from Sourabaya ; his
Majesty's ship Ariadne, from the West Indies and Ply-
mouth ; Dee steamer, from London, and sailed for Ply-
mouth, Cork, and Liverpool ; Hibernia, Gillies, and sailed
for Madras and Bengal.
PLYMOUTH, MAY 9 AND 10.—Wind N.E.—Arrived
off port the Tremede, Delmere, from St. Thomas, and
the Franklin, Baster, from Philadelphia.
FALMOUTH, MAY 9 AND 10.—Arrived off port the
Young Henry, Dickens, from St. Croix. Sailed his Ma-
jesty's ship Canopus, ,for the Mediteranean ; Lord Melville
packet, for Madeira and Brazils ; and his Majesty's ship
Nautilus, for Oporto and Lisbon. Arrived his Majesty's
ship Viper, from Portsmouth.
LIVERPOOL, MAY 10.-Arrived the Princess Charlotte,
M'Kean, from Bombay, sailed on the 4th of January ;
Fair Barbadian Trinidad packet, Griffiths ; and Harvest
Home, Brown, from Barbadoes ; Matilda, Nelson, from
St. Domingo ; Consbrooke, Barstow, Mary Chose,
Spiers,KileenlgrYore, Lord Henry
aand nd ,
theK
Alexander,endy North
from Star,
N e
w
Orleans ; Hector Williams, from Mobile ; Margaret, from
ery
Cochrane,Knew
Maracaibo • Helen, Butman, from New York ; King
George IV., Comeby Fayal, from Garonne ; Dick,
from Cadiz ; Havelin, Albrecht, from Dantzic. Off port
the Olive Branch, Dyer, from Savannah, and the Augusta,
Pepie, from Charleston.
WHITEHAVEN, MAY 10.—Arrived the Lady Shaw
Stewart, Hewitt, from Antigua.
GREENOCK, MAY 9.—Arrived the St. Vincent, Brown,
from Demerara ; Ariel, Nichols, from St. Vincent's ; Mar-
garet, Mann, from Grenada ; and Porteo, Clark, from
Charleston. _ _ _ .

DUBLIN, MAY 10.—Arrived the Maria, Doyle, from
Antigua ; Shepherdess, from Demerara ; and Richard and
Ann, Way, from London.
WATERFORD, MAY 9.—Arrived the Clonmel, Davis,
from London.

SLIGO, MAY 9.—Arrived the Duke of Braganza, Cyn-
tente, from St. Übe's.
RAMSGATE, MAY 11.— Arrived the Adahhna, Ayre, from
Sunderland, leaky and with damage, bound to Leghorn.
COWES, MAY 11.-Arrived the Cedira, Clapp, from
Rio Grande ; the Molly, Harms, from Yacmel ; Glade,
Blunt, from Matanzas ; and Pedraza, Whipple, from La
Guayra, with damage, and leaky.
DARTMOUTH, MAY 10.-Arrived the Hebe, Weeks,
from London, leaky, bound to Venice.