The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-03 00:00:00

ally indulged in the grossest excesses. In Ker's
" Life of Mr. William Smellie," we have the
following account of the Edinburgh mob, with
reference to some excesses committed in 1768,
alluded to in a letter to Mr. Smellie
" The person named Bowed, or Crooked Joseph, in
this letter, was a low blackguard cobbler, who, by dint
of fearless effrontery, lang led the Edinburgh mobs ; and
frequently excited or directed lawless excesses which would
not now he tolerated, and were then a dis_race to the
want of energy in the Magistratv. In these days, as
hinted at in this letter, the Scots printers trembled to
venture upon the slightest allu,ion that might be construed
into the smallest offence by those who held themselves to
be of the higher orders; yet mobs were then almost per-
mitted to do as they pleased. In our more modern days
of various improvement, these matters are fortunately
reversed ; the scandalous excesses of mobs are either not
heard of, or are repressed by the firm and temperate de-
termination and exertion of well-regulated civil authority;
and the Scots press is fast approximating (1811) to a full
participation of the liberties enjoyed in the sister kingdom
of England. The entire abolition of the undefined and
undefinable nubile officious, and the full introduction of
jury trials for all alleged misdemeanours or libels, would
consolidate the political independence of Scotland upon a
footing equal to that enjoyed in England ; for the time is
now happily gone by when the frown of the sub-deputy
agent of a party could control the freedom of literary or
constitutional discussion, and blast the sale of the efforts
of genius—Requiescat in pace !"
When provisions were dear, the mobs of that
period used to attack the shops, and help them-
selves on their own terms. A counterp srt to
this account of Bowed Joseph may be found in
many parts of England about the same period.
The change has been general throughout the
island. Millers and Bakers, once the object of
frequent attack, have long been unmolested by
any snob in England as well as Scotland. M.
Cuvier suggests that education should precede
the concession of political rights. But here we
are met in /indite by a difficulty—what if they
who withhold from the people their political
rights, should throw obstacles in the way of
education ? This is not an imaginary difficulty
—for the oppressors of the people, guided by a
sure instinct that education would put an end
to their usurpation, have generally exerted them-
selves to prevent education. No one can en-
tertain a doubt that the Tories and the Clergy,
their creatures, have always, till lately, been op-
posed, and been but too successful in resisting
education. Does any one doubt that if the
Church of England had seriously wished to in.
struct the people, good institutions for that pur-
pose might not have been established centuries
ago ? Who established the schools of Scotland?
The Clergy. They never relaxed in their exer-
tions till they extorted from the landowners a
provision in every parish for a schoolmaster ;
and whets the law establishing schools in
every parish in Scotland was established
some time before the Union, they had
been previously established, in fact, in all but a
few parishes, through the instrumentality of the
clergy. Doctor Chalmers tells us, in his evidence
on the state of the country before a Committee
of the Commons, that during the time Episco-
pacy became the established religion in Scotland
(between the Restoration and the Revolution),
the clergy partook of the spirit of their English
brethren, and exerted themselves to put clown
the schools and prevent education, which added
greatly to the difficulties of the Presbyterian
clergy after the revolution. But, be this as it
may, we cannot be wrong in affirming that the
English clergy seconded the views of the Tories
its opposing the instruction of the people. The
Scotch clergy never possessed with the Aristo-
cracy a tithe of the influence of the English
clergy ; and, therefore, if we had not the evidence
of positive facts on the subject, we should be
warranted in inferring, from the absence of in-
stitutions for the education of the people in
England, that the clergy were opposed to it. It
is true that after Sunday schools were generally
established by the Dissenters, and a number of

Ibenevolent men had succeeded in drawing the
attention of the nation to the importance of
education, the Tories and the clergy were in
some measure shamed out of their opposition.
When the Lord Chancellor first applied to the
clergy for information on the state of their
parishes with respect to education, their hostility
was evinced by the refusal to afford information.
But after an interval of some years, when he
applied a second time, his inquiries were
attended to. Instruction has been forced upon
the Aristocracy and the Clergy. They have
yielded to a power which they could not resist.
In this country, now that we have turned the
balance of the constitution in favour of the people
we may expect that the obstacles to instruction
will be speedily removed. In Mr. Fox's
Monthly Repository for September, there are
some excellent observations on this subject, on a
review of Mr. Bulwer's England and the
English. After mentioning some reforms
which ought to be effected, the writer says :
" The next point at which all good men should aim is
universal instruction; instruction by the press ; instruc-
tion by schools and institutes; instruction of all useful
kinds, and for all ranks and ages. Our ecclesiastical
apparatus should be made of some use for this good end.
No Church reform will be worth anything that does not
direct some of its power to this purpose. The old school
endowments, probably sufficient in themselves to provide for
the education of the community, should he rescued from the
shameless perversions and abuses which have made most of
them sinecures, and be rendered available for their proper ob-
jects ; for the objects of the donors, that is, interpreted, as
the legislature has a right to interpret them, in conformity
with the increased intelligence of the age. Reading rooms,
libraries, lectures, should be multiplied throughout the
country; and we must also, by discussion and rational
experiment, endeavour to mitigate that individual compe-
tition which so largely wastes the energy and vitiates the
feelings of society. It is not to be endured that the mil-

lions should continue the ceaseless toil, or the fierce rival

ries, by which now they win their bread. When:ver the
multitude obtain that political power wich it must obtain,

there will he wild and destructive schemes for the redue-

tion of this evil, unless a true and safe way first approve
itself to the public mind. That there is such a way, who
can doubt ? But speculation upon it is useless, until fur-
ther progress in political and intellectual reform have better
prepared us for such investigations."—Morhing Chronicle

The progress which Prussia is making in in-
ducing the minor German States to enter into
her project, called the Prusso-Hessian Commer-
cial Union, ought to make the commercial
classes of this country bestir themselves and take
some measures for the protection of their own
interest, to which the supineness of Government
is as injurious as the activity of our despotic
ally, to whom Government sent a present of a
toy not long ago, which was said to have cost
the nation 20,0001. Much better would it have
been that the money thus foolishly expended on
a model frigate for the King of Prussia, and on
the special embassy to present it, had been given
in aid of a fund to relieve and employ the thou-
sands of artisans who were driven out of employ-
ment by the absurd free trade system, into which
certain pseudo economists forced the country
without having removed the fiscal burdens which
press upon British industry, and without having,
by commercial treaties, procured from foreign
nations reciprocal advantages. The mode in
which Prussia proceeds in driving our manu-
fitetures from the markets of Germany is plau-
sible enough. She, too, adopts the watchword
of the economists, " free trade," but, not like
the English economists, she takes care to
make its adoption subservient to the advance-