The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Other papers have drawn the notice of their
readers to the relations between this country and
Russia : one of them, with its inbred shallow-
ness and folly, seems to infer a fall of the funds
from the discussion of this political subject.
Two things, however, will be manifest to all
reflecting persons :-1, that if the-state of the
east of Europe be one of real interest and im-
portance to Great Britain, our ccuntrymen
ought not to be kept blindfolded with regard to
it ; 2, that if dal gem do really impend over
Europe from any given quarter, the certainty
that our Government sees, and is prepared for
them, ought, above all things, to strengthen
public credit, End raise men's confidence in the
securities of the state, instead of having a ten-
dency to disturb or lower them. Our own
thoughts upon this Russian question we have
no reason to conceal. We believe that, if not
prevented in due time, the Russian Autocrat
will accomplish schemes of aggrandizement, by
conquest or by political fraud, altogether incom-
patible with the safety and repose of Europe, as
well as both indirectly and immediately menacing
to the interests of Great Britain. It is said,
" What more natural than for Russia to desire
the run' of the Mediterranean and Adriatic,
and the ultimate command of all their coasts
and harbours ?" and thence, " What is there
criminal in any such desire ?" We answer,
that this nation has nothing to do with specula-
tive questions as to the morality of Russian
projects ; the point for us to consider, and to
act upon, is their practical influence upon out
own rights and welfare. If Russia sees nothing
immoral in her own policy, it is so much the
more certain (being the more natural) that site
should inexorably follow it up, and therefore the
more essential, that, supposing it to be detri-
mental to England, the British Government
should, with equal resolution, resist it. No-
thing might be more natural than for Russia to
covet the possession of the Sound and Belt, in
addition to the Dardanelles ; but is that a reason
why England should look on, while a Mus-
e wite armament seized and kept fast hold of
Copenhagen, for the sake of converting the
Baltic into what the Euxine bids fair to
be—a Russian lake ? It is our persuasion
that the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh, and
its menial Courts in the north and south of
Germany, have not long since sustained a rude
shock in the shape of a disappointment respect-
ing the determinations of the British Govern-
ment. A threatening note was lately delivered
by the Three Holy Alliance Powers to the King
of the French, based on the assumption, that
in case of their threats being succeeded by war,
Great Britain would remain neuter. His Ma-
jesty's Ministers have, we suspect, done some-
thing to correct this singular error, explaining
what their conduct would be under certain cir-
cumstances. This paper is said to-have been
strongly couched. What pacific effects may
have resulted from it a very short period must
develop. In the meanwhile, every hour that
passes shows England that she must be on the
alert. Russia, with timber, iron, and cheap
labour at command, floats down ships from St.
Petersburgh, where they are built, to Cronstadt,
by the machinery called a " camel." Her
crews, being frozen up in barracks during the
winter months, go out to sun themselves when
the ice breaks away, and are taught a kind of
lubberly seamanship so long as the Baltic re-
mains navigable. Unquestionably, it cannot be
agreeable to our merchants to know that in any
week, from May to November, 26 or 27 sail of
the line, though manned by no better than the
half-and-half creatures abovewentioned, but with
forty thousand soldiers to boot,were lying-to off
our eastern coast. If the question be now to
avert the evils threatened by such large arma-
ments on the part cf Russia, the way is easy—
be prepared for them.—Times.

The Standard, in commenting on an article
in the Chronicle of yesterday, observes :
" The proposition that dissent has been lately gaining
upon the Church, we utterly deny. We believe that
within the last twenty or thirty years, the Establishment
has gained prodigiously upon the dissenting sects. We
are sure that the Church of England, or any other
Christian Church, was never so efficient, tip so spiritually
prosperous, as the Establishment is at this moment.
Proofs of this may be seen in the very attempts made by
the disaffected Dissenters to vilify and overthrow her ;
more gratifying proofs, however, are visible in our crowded
places of public worship.—The Morning Chronicle is
obliged to go to the town of Nottingham for an example
of the relative number of Churchmen and Dissenters.
Why leave London ? Why go so far from the metropolis,
whee more than half a million of people---more than half
of the adult rpulation— partook of the Holy Communion
in the several Churches of the Establishment upon the
Fast-day in 1832 ? The selection of insulated and remote
examples is a practical confession of weakness."
We did not select insulated and remote ex-
amples ; but as we did not wish -to copy a whole
directory into our columns, we instanced several
large towns, in different counties of which ac-
counts 1141 been given, as a fair sample of the
ecclesiastical state of the country with reference to
the proportion of Dissenters to Catholics. Our
contemporary asks us why we go so far from
the metropolis? We have no objection to take
the metropolis. In the Congregational Magazine,
No. 96 (Dec. 1, 1832), there is a valuable article
on the ecclesiastical statistics of the city of
London and its adjacent boroughs, with ac-
companying maps. The author takes an ima-
ginary circle, drawn in the papers prefixed to
the population returns of 1831, printed by order
of the House of Commons, including the total
population of all the parishes whose churches
are situated within eight English miles from St.
Paul's cathedral, amounting, in 1831, to
1,776;556. This statement contains a list of
all the churches and chapels, specifying the dif-
ferent denominations within this circle—the re-
sult evidently of great labour. • The whole num-
ber of churches and chapels is 459. Of these
265 belong to Dissenters, and only 194 to the
Established Church. The Dissenters not only
have the greater number of congregations, but
their congregations are generally larger than those
of the episcopalians. " Before a new Church,"
says the writer, " can be consecrated, a certain
stipend is permanently secured for the clergy-
man ; and that done, with the help of Church
rates, &c., the forms of worship are preserved.
Though the people be not gathered,' the con-
strained attendance of the parish paupers and the
parish schools will keep up appearances. Not
so with the Dissenters. The very existence of
these places witnesses to its efficacy. The sup-
port of the minister, servants, and numerous in-
cidental expenses must be paid by the congre-
gation that assembles ; and, assuredly, it its
religious services are not acceptable, those who
have voluntarily taxed themselves for their main-
tenance will soon decline the burden. Thus is
is that a petty meeting-house has often a larger
adult congregation than will be found in the
spacious church hard by ; and we are disposed
to think that the average attendance at the
dissenting chapels will be found higher than the
average attendance at the London Episcopalian

churches, while the average measurement of the
former is very much below that of the edifices of
the establishment." This statistical account is
arranged in such a way as to exhibit the number
and denomination of churches and chapels in
each division of the metropolis; and assuredly
it does anything but bear out the position of the
Standard, that the Established Church has of
late been gaining on the Dissenters. A very
large proportion of the churches and chapels of
the Establishment are in rich neighbourhoods,
while in the poor and populous neighbourhoods,
in which the increase of the number of inhabi-
tants has been by far greatest of late years, there
are comparatively few churches and chapels of
the Establishment. This, too, seems to prove
something more ; that, while the professed
object of the Establishment paid by the
State is to provide religious instruction for
those who are unable to pay for it themselves,
it so happens that the rich chiefly avail them-
selves of the Established Churches, while the
poor supply themselves with churches. "It
is obvious," says the writer of the article, "that
the aggressive system is practised by the
Dissenters to a much greater extent than by
Churchmen. It may be their policy ; it may be
their party zeal ; call it their fanaticism, if that
term please ; but still here is the fact, that they
are mixing like leaven with the mighty mass of
London population, while their endowed bre-
thren touch only the surface of society. A single
fact will prove this. In the poorest of the
boroughs, the Tower Hamlets, in which are
only 22,187 houses assessed with the house
tax, out of 86,777 houses—in this poor dis•
trict there are sixty-eight Dissenting Chapels,
and hut twenty-two Churches, while in the city
of Westminster, the richest of the Metropolitan
districts, there are thirty Episcopalian Churches,
and but:seventeen Dissenting Chapels. It will
be tauntingly said, true, Dissenterism will not
suit the refined and wealthy portions of the
community, such as inhabit Westminster. It
may be so, but let us ask what is the professed
design of an Ecclesiastical Establishment ? Is
it to provide stately temples for religious fashion-
ables ? or rather, is it not to christianize the
bulk of the community ? Here it utterly fails.
Its costly temples are multiplied to meet the taste
of the sons of rank and fashion ; while those of
the anvil and the loom are left to the teaching
of the Sectarians—teaching which they value,
and which they support, too, while their
titled betters tax the community to uphold their
favoured priesthood." The estimate of our
Contemporary differs very materially from that of
the writer in question, as to the number of
persons availing themselves of the ministration
of the Establishment in the metropolis. Our
Contemporary talks of 500,000 persons having
communicated on one day in the church and
chapels of the Establishment ! The writer esti-
mates the congregations at 400, one with
another, and concludes that in the 194 episco=
pal places of worship, " there are not one
hundred thousand hearers present at any ordinary
service." Of the 194 churches and chapels of
the Establishment, 66 are in the City, of which
the whole population is only 122,395. The
congregations there are very small. In fact,
nine-tenths of the 194 churches are in neigh-
bourhoods of which the whole population, young
and old (to say nothing of Dissenters), does
not amount to 500,000. The estimate is ridi-
culous. All the churches and chapels, Episco-
palians and Dissenters, of the Metropolitan
boroughs would not hold 500,000 persons.
But, however this may be, any one who has
attended to the subject knows that the Dissent-
ing congregations are in general much more
numerous than those of the Church ; and as
the Dissenters have the greater number of con-
gregations, they are the most numerous.
" We have, as our readers may remember (says the
Standard), calculated this matter before ; and have
shown by data, furnished by Dissenters themselves, which
fixed the average of Dissenting congregations at about
250 each, that the whole number of Dissenters in Eng-
land does not exceed 2,000,000, and there are included
in this number the Wesleyan Methodists, who tire, in no
respect, hostile to the Establishment, or ambitious of any
temporal change. We are ready to go over the calcula-
tion again, ifthe Morning Chronicle thinks it necessary."
This calculation is worth just nothing at all.
Upon the principle of allowing 250 to a congre-
gation, we should have, out of the 1,700,000
inhabitants in the metropolitan districts, 48,500
persons belonging to the Established Church,
and 66,250 to the Dissenters. Whatever the
number of the congregation, that of course does
not include the whole number of Dissenters
connected with it. Admitting the existence of
8,000 congregations of Dissenters in England
and Wales, 250 to a congregation would give
two millions, and 400 to a congregation would
give three millions and a half. But no one cup-
poses that this is the whole Dissenting popula-
tion. But the Standard shall have farther par-
ticulars. The congregations of all denominations
in all the towns of any magnitude are known
pretty accurately. In consequence of the rank
and splendour of the metropolis, the result is
much more in favour of the establishment in it
than elsewhere. In all the populous manufac-
turing districts, the congregations of the Episco-
palians are seldom more titan one-fourth of the
Dissenters—never more than onethird.—Morn-
ing Chronicle.
The manifest of the Lord Blayney steamer,
which was so recently shipwrecked near Liver-
pool, has been published, and affords a fair spe-
cimen of the nature of the usual exports from
Ireland. Exclusive of the crew and passengers,
consisting of 47 human beings, all of whom pe-
rished, the cargo of the ill-fated vessel was as
follows :

5641 Casks of Butter
106 Bags of flour
26 Bags of Oatmeal
37 Bags of oats
8 Bags of wheat

2 Bales of linen

20 Crocks of butter

6 Boxes of eggs
4 Bags of potatoes
11 Hampers and bags of fowl
2 Hogsheads of oysters
13 Boxes and bags of quills
609 Pigs.

Now, taking this to lie, as we believe it to be,
a fair sample of the usual exports from Ireland,
what a picture does it present. While of what
was the staple manufacture of Ireland we have
only two bales, the whole of this cargo, with the
exception of a few quills (plucked possibly from
the hampers and bags of fowl), consists of
ar-
ticles of human sustenance, brought from a
country the bulk of the population of which
do not so much as know the taste of any but
one of the articles there enumerated : and this
to pay the rents of absentee landlords, the
enormous amounts of which keep in poverty and
destitution, or drive into exile, the cultivators of
the soil. We should
in be among the first to
rejoice at seeing Ireland in that state of prospe-
rity (to which, the absence of agitation and
misgovernment, she might soon arrive) which
would enable her to export to England, or else-
where, her surplus produce ; but a ,ystem which
compels the export of the first necessaries of life
from a people who are themselves left to languish
in misery and want is any thing but this, and
may safely be pronounced as vicious and un-
natural in the extreme. Looking upon it for

the present exclusively as an Irish question, we
do not wish so much as to notice the injury
done to the mother country by this unequal state
of the law, or, in other words, of the legal bur-
dens that in the latter attach to the land which
the former is entirely exempt from. We do not
wish to see the public attention distracted from
the simple to a complicated view of the ques-
tion. The simple view of it is comprised in
this plain question—Can it be just or right that
the common necessaries of life should be ex-
ported from a country, the inhabitants of which
are unable to partake of them ? Frcen all we
hear from our own intelligent Correspondents,
as well as elsewhere, of the state of the potatoe
crop, it is far from being improbable that long
before the next crop can be available, great part
of Ireland may be in a similar state of famine
to that which so effectually roused the sympathies
of England a few years ago. God forbid that
such should be the case ! But should it be so,
what a satire will it not form upon common
sense, common justice, and common humanity,
that, while the absentee landlord drains Ireland
of that which, thus drawn away, produces
famine, the wants of the suffering people shall
be supplied, as heretofore, from sources on which
they have no legitimate claim, but as fellow men
and fellow Christians !—Morning Herald.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY. - We understand
that within these few days explanations have
been demanded by Lord Palmerston from
Prince Lieven as to the views of his Government
with respect to Turkey. The closing of the
Dardanelles upon the demand of Russia has
been explained by the assurance that this demand
will not be capriciously made ; and this, we
believe, has been deemed satisfactory by the
Foreign Secretary. Other explanations haVe
been also received in the same spirit. Consi-
derable discussion has occurred respecting time
armament of Russia in the Black Sea. Upon
this and other points there is still much expla-
nation required. We know that, when the
Diplomatic Body met at Broadlands the week
before Christmas, Lord Palmerston and Prince
Lieven were frequently in private conference ;
but nothing was promulgated to the other repre-
sentatives of foreign Powers at the British
Court until within these few days. We have
reason to believe that Lord Palmerston declared
in the last interview with the Representa►ive of
Russia that if every unexplained point were not
immediately cleared up, a British fleet would
sail for the Mediterranean. Austria has an•
nounced, through her Representatives in Lon-
don, that she will take no part with Russia
in her present policy in the east of Europe.—
Morning Post.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.

The LORD MAYOR having observed the publica-
tion of an order is.ued by the Middlesex magistrates
fot the appropriation of a large vessel, to be moored
in ihe Thames, near Execution Dock, to the keep-
ing of Irish and Scotch paupers previously to their
removal from England to their several destination.,
sent for the harbour-master upon the subject, that
officer having appointed the station of the ship
which was to furnish such accommodation. His
Lordship requited to be informed by whose autho-
rity the harbour-master appointed a station 'n the
Thames for the vessel.

Captain Fisher had acted under the directions of
the navigation committee. The Middlesex magis-
trates had determined, as a means of diminishing
the many objectionable circumstances attending the
usual process of removing Irish and Scotch paupers,
to keila all persons of that description in a vessel of
about 300 tons in the Thames, until steam-vessel-
should be in readiness to take them away, and the
navigation committee had referred to him as har-
bour-master to select a station which might be con-
sistent with the regulations for the conservancy of
the Thames.
The LORD MAYOR said that the Committee bad
no right to give any authority for the station of any
vessel without his permission, as Conservator of the
River. He was bound, acting in that capacity, to
see that no obstruction should be permitted to re-
main in the Thames, and he must know that this
vessel for the keep of paupers would not be an oh-
struction before he could think of allowing it to be
stationed. There was another circumstance which
he was also anxious should be distinctly understood.
It might be presumed, if he did not publicly di•-avow
it, he sanctioned such a mode of disposing of Scotch
and Irish paupers. He was so decidedly opposed
to the new project, that he should take care that no
Irish or Scorch paupers whom it might be necessary
to pass from the City of London should be com-
pelled to take up their abode in the pauper-ship un-
til it might be convenient to send them away. He
did not question the motives of the Magistrates on
this occasion, but he really considered the plan as
one calculated to increase, rather than alleviate, the
miseries of the poor people who were to be removed.
It appeared to him that the ship appointed for such
a purpose as was professed would be nothing less
than a prison, in which the unfortunate paupers
would be confined for three or four weeks as com-
pletely as if they were locked up with felons in
Newgaie, their own crimes being confined to that
very general offence—poverty.
Mr. Hobler said he believed the Magistrates
were now about to try the experiment of sending
paupers away by water, as a more effectual and
economical way of getting rid of the enormous in-
flux of the poor of those countries. It was well
known that paupers passed from one parish to
another were in the habit of receiving relief from
two or three neighbouring parishes, and then re-
turning to the metropolis to increase the stock of
public m'sery, and it was natural to suppose that a
removal by water would, in a great degree, check so
great a nuisance.
Mr. Gill the passmaster to the city of London,
said, that in his experience the instances of the al-
most immediate return of paupers whom he passed
were very numerous. There existed a certain class
of beggars and imposers who contrived to live by
the system of passing. Whole families often re-
turned with some ingenious excuse or other.
The LORD MAYOR admitted the evils and incon-
veniences of the existing system, but was sure that
that system ought not to be substituted except by
one that was un.ieniably more advantageous. The
new plan of forcing Irish paupers Leland, where
every body ',mew distress abounded to a frightful
extent, did not accord with his view of the maxim
of " doing as we would be done by ;" end, it it were
not intended to use compulsion, was it not probable
that the paupers would, after being maintained in
the ship until the steam-vessels were ready to
transport them,refuse to go to a country where more
pressing difficulties were to be encountered ?

• The Harbour-Master said, that as for the appre-
hension that the navigation would be obstructed by
appointing the vessel to the station which he had
selectrd, it was quite needless to entertain the
slightest. The vessel should, with his Lordship's
consent, be placed near what was called the Gospel
Ship, in the immediate neighbouthood of the
Thames Police.

The LORD MAYOR desired that the harbour-
master would, in his communications with the Ma-
gistra•es, inform them that it was to be understood
that at the same time that he should not oprotAe the
stationing of the vessel in the Thames he did not
give his sanction to the use intended to be made of
that vessel.