The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. O'Connell's letter to William Sharman Craw-
ford, Esq., on the subject of tithes, is calculated to
produce a considerable sensation in this country as well
as in Ireland. It has startled some of our contempo-
raries, who, though used to Mr. O'Connell's evolu-
tions, are yet not a little astonished at the pranks
he is now playing. It may be said of Mr. O'Con-
nell, as it was once, we believe, said of Mr. Cobbett,
he is too honest a man for this world. He is not the
only man to whom unjustifiable designs occasionally
suggest themselves ; but mot men, possessed of a
tithe of Mr. O'Connell's penetration, are cautious
how they give utterance to thoughts which must
`revolt all who listen to them. His directions as
to the manner in which Mr. Stanley's Tithe. Act may
be evaded, have been termed "a complete manual of
cheatery, and a code for the perpetration of wrong,
which deserves to be studied by every master petty-
fogger in the kingdom." Mr. Littleton's bill would
have relieved the parsons and lay-impropriators from
the difficulties in which they are involved by Mr.
Stanley's Act ; and Mr. O'Connell may almost be ex-
cused for the language he holds to the opponents of
that Bill. " Yet it was such a change, so favourable
to the parsons—so satisfactory to any men of meek and
Christian spirit, that an Archbishop of the hideous
name of Beresford, and the soft and smooth Recorder
of Dublin, kicked out, and consigned the author of it
to all manner of evil." Mr. O'Connell appeared to
be satisfied with the arrangements of Mr, Littleton's
Bill. He now, however, tells us that this is all a mis-
take, and he tells us also that the honest and reflecting
part of the Ministry must be of his opinion :
" The honest and reflecting part of the present Ministry
must, therefore, perceive that tithes must be abolished,—
totally, unequivocally abolished—abolished without delay or
condition.

" It may indeed be objected to me that I myself supported
and enforced a different plan—that I demanded and obtained
the suppressien of only two-fifths of the tithes--and that, there-
fore, I acquiesced in the continued and perpetual existence of
the remaining three-fifths.
" The facts were not accurately stated—the inference alto-
gether without foundation.
" It is quite true that I demanded for the present but a
partial reduction—it was three-fifths of the tithes. Why did
I ask for no more ? Why did I not demand the abolition of
the entire ? Because I had no chance, in the first instance,
of getting the entire abolished, and you perceive that I was
refused the extent which I asked, being three-fifths, and only
got from the House of Commons two-fifths. I ILI, there-
fore, not the least prospect or possibility of destroying the en-
tire; and because I am one of those who is and have been
always ready to accept of any instalment, however small, of
the debt of justice due to the people—the real national debt—.
I have been, and am ready to accept of any instalment of that
debt, determined to go on and look for the remainder as soon
as the first instalment should be completely realized.
" It is totally untrue that I acquiesced in the perpetual con-
tinuance of the remaining three-fifths of the tithes."
The arrangement " having," he says, " been frus-
trated by the folly and wickedness of the Orange Con-
servatives in and out of the House of Lords, I am
perfectly free from any of the trammels of that arrange-
ment ;" and he now thinks that "no compensation
should be made to any incumbent who has not Epis-
copalian Protestant parishioners, and then only in the
ratio of the comparative number of such parishioners."
That Mr. O'Connell's advice will be taken as to the
manner in which Mr. Stanley's Act may be evaded,
we have no doubt ; but is this to be wondered at, un-
der all the circumstances of the case ? The Standard
will have it that Mr. O'Connell is merely " the embo-
died spirit of Irish popery."
" An error, however, a gross and fatal error it is to suppose
that Mr. O'Connell is anything but the embodied spirit of Irish
popery ; that he is not an incarnation of the treachery as well
as of the ambition, of the falsehood as well as of the persecut-
ing spirit, of the greediness as well as the intolerance of his
sect. Let it be remembered that this man has not lately ex-
hibited himself to his brother Papists for the first time. His
falsehood and treachery have for years been obvious to every
Irish Papist ; and yet they have been not the occasion of any
loss of popularity amongst Papists, but in fact the passport to
their favour. The more he has betrayed, the more obvious has
been his contempt for truth, the more he has grown in estima-
tion with the Priests and their slaves. * * *

No ; the Roman Catholics did not participate in a sympathy
which Mr. O'Connell never entertained. But they partici-
pated in his falsehood, and sympathized in his desire to cheat !
And are we to be told that the people, who, with all the fla-
grant evidences of Mr. O'Connell's treachery and falsehood
shining for years before them, put this man forward as their
representative, confide in him as their leader, and pay him tri-
bute as their sovereign—are we to be told that they are not as
treacherous and false as he ?—that Mr. O'Connell is not Irish
Popery, and that Irish Popery is not Mr. O'Connell ?"
Is there a difference between Irish Popery and other
Popery,? If there be a difference, that difference of
course is in the qualities which the Irish people com-
municate to Popery. If Irish Popery be the same as
Popery in general, then we are required to believe that
all the Catholic nations of Europe are treacherous, am-
bitious, false, greedy, intolerant, &c. &c. What a
pity, then, that there was not more Church robbery in
Europe ; for then we should have had more of the
Reformation. Every tyro in history knows that the
Protestant Reformation spread with rapidity as long
as Princes obtained the spoils of the Church by be-
coming Protestants ; but that from the moment a treaty
was concluded for preventing Princes from seizing
Church lands and tithes on becoming Protestants, the
conversions to Protestantism instantly ceased, as if by
miracle.—Morning Chronicle.
A case at Marylebone Police-office on Saturday
shows how the new Poor Law may be turned to the
punishment of want, notwithstanding the arguments
to, the contrary of its best advocates. According to
the report—
" Three poor children, a girl and two boys, of very miserable
appearance, were charged with having been found crouched
together on the steps of a gentleman's door in Wimpole-street.
The children were taken into custody by a policeman, to whom
they stated that they had no home to go to, and that none of
them had tasted food for three days.
" Mr Twilley, the master of Marylebone poor-house, who
was present, stated that the prisoners had been all inmates of
the workhouse, but had thought proper to abscond from thence.
" The children admitted that such was the fact ; but not
liking the treatment they had received, they wandered out, in
hope of being able to procure some employment, but being dis-
appointed, they were reduced to the state of starvation in which
the policeman found them.
" .Mr. Shutt (to Mr. Twilley)—Take them into the work-
house again, keep them upon bread and water for a week, and
mind that you flog them severely; and if they don't behave
better, bring them to me, and I'll give them a month each at
the treadmill. You need not be afraid (added the magistrate),
the new Poor Law Local Act authorizes you to flog and im-
prison the paupers under your care, for m'sconduct, the same
as if they were in the House of Correction.
" Mr. Twilley then left the office with the children, pro-
mising to follow the worthy magistrate's advice."
The friends of the new Act protested that its seve-
rities were not intended to fall on helpless poverty, but
on those who had the ability but not the will to work,
and that the aged and impotent should have indulgent
treatment. The helplessness of childhood differs in
no essential respect from the helplessness of age, and
in the above instance we see it fall under the
rigours of the Act. The declared object of the
new law is to render the workhouse so irksome, that
none will live in it who can get bread out of it.
These poor children did precisely what it is the
policy of the new law to induce the children of a
larger growth to do. " Train up the child in the
way he should go," says' the wisest of men. Make
the workhouse so irksome that 'all may fly from
it, says the Legislature. Flog the child who flies from
it, says the Magistrate. This is a fine early lesson for
young paupers—that it is a very wicked thing to run
from the workhouse in search of employment. Young
people under such instruction should be fixed to the
workhouse for life. Habituated to the treatment, and
bearing in their early impressions the smart for flying
from it, why should they ever desire to quit the place?
.—or having quitted it, and found labour more irksome
than the privations to which they have been taught
submission, how readily they must be prepared to re-
turn. te Mind that you flog them severely," says the
humane Magistrate in the case of the little fugitives
from the Marylebone poor-house. " You need not be
afraid, the new Poor Law Act authorizes you to flog
and imprison the paupers under your care for miscon-
duct, the same as if they were in the House of Cor-
rection." And what is the misconduct for which they
are to be flogged severely? The flight in search of
employment. So the new act is turned to the pu-
nishment of the very effect which it tends to pro-
duce. To the man, " the masterful or valiant beg-
gar," in the old phrase, the Magistrate would say—
" It is a shame that you should come back to your
parish instead of seeking for employment." To the
child he says—." You little villain, I will teach you
not to run away from the poorhouse ; I will teach you
to be content with its fare and restraints ; I will teach-

yon" to live an bread and water, and to sigh for no-
thing more ; I will scourge all thoughts of work and
independence out of your head ; I will teach you
to sit down content with a pauper's lot until you
are a man able to earn a living by the toil of your
hands and the sweat of your brow, and then, the tree
growing as the twig's inclined, this very act which now
authorizes a severe scourging for the misconchict of
flying from the poor house,—this same act will teach
you, I say, to fly from the workhouse as you would
fly from wretchedness and degradation ; it will teach
you to be discontented with the pauper's fare and
privations ; it will teach you to go forth and hunger
rather than to live on the bitter bread of pauper-
ism, and to prefer any state to that of parochial
support ; it will divest idleness of all ease, and
make you fly to work and independence for refuge ;
it will teach you that pauper's lot is intolerable,
that it is the lowest, the most degraded, the most
comfortless state of human existence ; but this is the
lesson for your manhood : at present the business is
to flog you severely by authority of the aforesaid Act,
for flying from the poor-house in search of employ-
ment." The kingdom of Heaven should indeed he the
inheritance of the poor, seeing the lot laid out for
them in this world. In infancy the course of torment-
ing begins. The pauper child is scourged for seeking
labour and independence, the pauper man is ground,
and squeezed, and pinched, on suspicion of declining
labour and independence. To discover whether he is
a pauper of choice or of necessity, he is to be put to
the question, not by the thumb-screw, but by the belly-
screw, under the direction of the grand inquisitors at
the Central Board ; and under such pressure if he
yields, though guiltless of idleness, and say, " Fling
open your doors, and let me forth to live " as I may,"
should he yet lack employment, and lay his weary and
famished body under a hedge, then comes the law upon
him for sleeping in the open air as a vagabond, an overt
act of poverty, and he is committed to "grind in the prison-
house." Thus in the workhouse he is subjected to every
privation and irksome restraint, because it is sup-
posed that his poverty may be of choice, and that
he could procure the means of support if he would
labour for it ; but where an act of the last misery and
destitution puts it beyond a doubt that his hands can-
not help him, and that necessity has flung him to the
earth, then the law punishes him for the very evidence
of his extreme wretchedness under the name of va-
grancy. In the workhouse he is to be pinched and
vexed because he may be one of those who, if willing,
are able to support themselves by industry (for such
is the principle on which the new law designs a severe
treatment) ; but should he try and fail, he falls under
punishment, because, having tried and failed to get
employment, he is homeless and houseless. What a
work for the illustration of the saddest realities would
be the life of a pauper, including the vexatious inter-
ferences with the comforts and pleasures of the poor,
but mainly showing how he is made what he is, and
how he is dealt with by law, knocked about by poor
and vagrant acts, like a shuttlecock between battledores,
sent to the house of correction for the sign of the utter-
most poverty, and turned out again with the poverty
that caused him to be sent in uncorrected, and repro-
ductive of the same offence. "Do any thing but go
to the parish," says the policy of one law. "Go to
the parish rather than sleep in the open air, or you
shall be sent to prison," says the law in another voice.
" Out of the frying-pan into the fire" is indeed the
pauper's blessed lot. Under the new system, when,
by the excellence of the regulations, he is driven out
of the workhouse, unable longer to endure its priva-
tions and contrived irksomeness, he is punished as a
vagrant—that is, if he be a proper object for parochial
support, willing but unable to get work and a roof to
shelter him from the weather.—Times.

His association with the Whig Ministers of late has
not had the effect of improving the manners, temper,
or language of Mr. O'Connell ;—he is still the coarse
and violent demagogue—the boisterous political bully
—the implacable Romish bigot--the Thersites of Ire-
land's mobocracy, whose virulent haranges display the
Jesuit morality of St. Omer's, dressed out in all the
eloquence of Billingsgate. To look for facts and ar-
guments in his letters to his proteg, Lord Duncan-
non, or his infatuated dupes the Roman Catholic " peo-
ple of Ireland," is a vain labour. In the speeches and
writings of this child and champion of Romish into-
lerance, hardihood of assertion supplies the place of
fact, and a copious vocabulary of abuse does away with
all necessity for argument. Why need he take the
trouble of reasoning with his adversaries who can al-
ways denounce them ? Why need he try to convince
who hopes to be roon able to compel, if not to exter-
minate, with his seven millions of " hereditary bonds-
men" at his heels, ready to " strike the blow" when-
ever he finds courage enough to bid them do it ? Why
should he be very anxious or particular in making out a
strong case to justify incessant agitation, when his
strongest case is his ascendancy over an ignorant and
bigotted multitude, whose passions and prejudices he
must pamper to secure their obedience ? It is not
very long ago that this most virtuous and consistent pa-
triot attempted to wheedle the Orangemen of Ireland
into his designs touching the repeal of the union, and
the consequent separation of the two countries. If the
Orangemen, who are the descendants of those who at
the Boyne—at Aughrim, and the memorable siege of
Derry, overthrew the united forces of the French King
and the Irish branch of the Papacy, had been, so silly
as to have acceded to Mr. O'Connell's overtures, and
joined him in the crusade against English connection,
they would have found themselves in the condition of
the horse in the fable, which having allowed the man
to put a bridle in his mouth and a saddle on his back,
and mount him, booted and spurred, to hunt down the
obnoxious stag in the adjoining pasture, discovered
that when the hunt was over his own slavery had but
begun, and that though the stag was chased away his
crafty rider only rcpliedby vigorous applications of the
whip and spur to his attempts to shake him off. It
was at a season when the Orangemen were dissatisfied
with the English Government, and when they had
reason to be dissatisfied, that the repeal agitator made
his overtures, and even went so far as to attend
a civic dinner in Dublin, and drink the toast detested
by all Roman Catholics, of " the pious and immortal
memory." But though the Orangemen complained of
the treatment which they received from the government,
yet they stood firmly, as the Irish Protestants have
always done, by British connection—they rejected with
scorn the alliance of the repeal-demagogue, with whom
the Melbourne Ministry so lately fraternized, and now
provoked, and mortified by the rejection of his treach-
erous alliance, and their desperate fidelity to the British
connection and Constitution, how does he subscribe
them ? Here are his words :
.6 The Orange faction is certainly, in point of intellect or
understanding, the most deplorably degraded that ever excited
the contempt and scorn of mankind. The genuine atrocity
of bloody bigotry shines through the dismal nonsense of their
orations ; but they cannot enrich or even diversify them with
one sentiment, or even one phrase, showing taste, talent, or
information. Then as to their moral qualities, what are they ?
The preaching up of wholesale proscription, massacre, and
extermination. They call themselves Christians ; —they preach
up doctrines almost too bad for the eternal enemy of mankind
to suggest to human depravity. ' Bayonets and blood ! bay-
onets and blood 1' from their text and commentary. Their
laymen vie with their Parsons in ruthless atrocity, and it be-
comes doubtful which of the two are the more ready to preach
rapine, minder, and desolation. The infernal spirit of reli-
gious persecution reigns over the whole, and renders the Irish
Orangeists the most depraved as well as the most despicableof
the human race."

Now M. O'Connell had not less than thirty years'
personal and political experience of the Orangemen,
from the time of his entry into public life until that
period when he solicited their alliance, and endea-
voured, by the meanest artifices, to induce them to
fraternize with him ; but, having failed in that object,
he now describes them as " the most depraved as well
as the most despicable of the human race." Every
body will recollect that one of the " securities" for the
Protestant religion, which the Duke of Wellington
and Sir Robert Peel gave to the people of England
when they opened to Roman Catholic legislation the
doors of the Protestant Constitution, was that Roman
Catholic priests were not to assume the titles of Bi-
shops, &c. Never have those titles been more osten-
tatiously assumed than since the passing of the Act
which gave to Roman Catholics political power, and
more especially since the abolition of ten Protestant
Bishoprics in Ireland. In Mr. O'Connell's last letter
to " his people," speaking of working the Whig Ec-
clesiastical Commission against the Church by means

of the Irish priesthood, he says, " I take this method
also of respectfully appealing to my Lords the Ca-
tholic Bishops of the various dioceses to countenance
my request." Thus the exaltation of the Romish
system, and the ferocious denunciation of the Irish
Protestants, go on swimmingly together.—Morning
Herald.

In The Sun of Tuesday last there appeared-a letter
from a correspondent of that journal on the subject
" of Crimes and Punishments in the Army," and con-
taining also " Hints to the Military Commission."
We have transferred that letter to our columns of this
day, not on account of the soundness of its views, or
the weight of its arguments—for in both these respects
we reckon it to be somewhat deficient—but on account
of the facts stated in it, and the strong reasons which
they appear to us to furnish in favour of the total abo-
lition of corporal punishments. The author of the letter
considers, it will be seen, that the petition presented some
time ago by Mr. Tennyson to the House of Commons has
given the death-blow to that execrable system of flogging
to which the soldiers of the British army have hitherto
been subjected ; but although we agree with him that
public opinion has been so loudly and decidedly pro-
nounced against it, as to render it impossible that it
should be much longer upheld, we must warn both
him and others from deeming the victory secure until
it has actually been accomplished. There are still
individuals, we regret to confess it, both in and out
of the army, whose minds are so blinded by pre-
judice, or whose hearts are so steeled against the in-
dulgence of humane feelings, as to see no sound dis-
cipline but that which results from the use of the
lash—no means of punishment but that of torturing
the back of the soldier—no chance of reformation,
but from the infliction of bodily suffering—who see
in the soldier, only the most hardened, unfeeling
species of brute animal, wholly devoid of the finer
feelings of our nature, and alive only to those sensa-
tions which reach him through his bodily organs. Such
persons, we own, are not now so numerous as they
once were ; but unfortunately, they happen to oc-
cupy influential stations—they are ever ready to
defend the application of the lash,—for what they
lack in argument they make up in zeal—and hence,
notwithstanding that the public mind has long been
made upon the impolicy and brutalizing nature of
more corporal punishments, those who think with us
on the subject must not relax their efforts until the
enemy has been routed—the field been fairly won,
and the blood-stained flag been trampled in the dust.
But it is to the facts stated in the letter of the corre-
spondent of The Sun that we are most anxious to point
the attention of our readers ; and facts more confirma-
tory, on the one hand, of the view which we have al-
ways taken of the present system of military punish-
ments, or more condemnatory, on the other, of the ob-
stinacy of its advocates, it is scarcely possible to ima-
gine. " The lash," says the letter, "• is the thing for
insuring discipline among British soldiers ;" but what
kind of discipline ? Why, according to the statement
of Mr. Ellice, a discipline, which passes through
courts-martial, in the course of one year, no fewer
than a fifth of the whole British army !—that is to say,
out of about 87,000 men, no fewer than 18,000
were tried within the last year by courts-martial for
different breaches of discipline !" Whether they were
all found guilty or not signifies nothing—it is sufficient
for our purpose, because it furnishes sufficient proof
of the disorganization and want of discipline in the
army, that there were prima facie grounds for holding
so many courts-martial, and that all this want of disci-
pline, inattention to duty, and absence of due subordi-
nation, occurred, notwithstanding the unrestrained and
vigorous use of the lash. Can a stronger argument
be adduced against its future application ? In the
policy, as recommended by the correspondent of The
Sun, of mulcting the pay of the soldier, instead of
mulcting his back of its flesh and blood, as well
as in the establishment of condemned regiments,
for the reception of notorious and incorrigible
offenders, we cordially concur. We have no doubt
that even, recruited as regiments now generally are,
out of the least industrious and well-behaved classes of
the community, much good would result from the
adoption of a system—that the soldier would become
more careful of his conduct, and more attentive to his
duty—and that the dread of being banished to the
ranks of a condemned regiment, would effectually pre-
vent the commission of those greater crimes, of which
the British army occasionally exhibits some frightful
instances. We also agree with the writer of the letter,
that one of the best means of encouragement which
can be held out to a well-conducted soldier, is to
shorten the service which entitles him to his discharge
with a pension ; but it is neither the only nor the best
means of encouragement, and we are frank to own
that we despair of seeing the British army so efficient,
so orderly, so well-disciplined, and so respectable as it
ought and might be, until the purchase of commis-
sions has been wholly done away with, and the
honours and emoluments of the army be rendered free
and open to all who choose to enter it. This was the
system of Napoleon, and if it worked well under him,
why should it not also work well here ? At present
the British soldier has no encouragement to exert him.
self. The path of honourable ambition is fairly closed
against him. A private he enters, and a private he
must remain. He may have the virtues of a Turenne,
or the genius of a Napoleon—but they can avail him
nought. The shouldering of the musket is his occu-
pation, and beyond that occupation he cannot soar.
Is this as it should be ? May the path of honourable
ambition be safely open in all other walks of life, and
yet denied to the soldier who perils his life ? Or ra-
ther, is it not reasonable to infer, that if the British
soldier had the certainty of rising in his profession
through meritorious conduct, that certainty would ope-
rate the same beneficial effects upon him as it does
upon all others.—Morning Advertiser.

A match at cricket was played on the Manchester Ground on
the Ist instant between eleven members of the Club of that
town against the garrison of Manchester and the depot of the
64th Regiment now stationed at Stockport. This match ex-
cited considerable interest in consequence of the unrivalled
success the Manchester Club have had this season, which has
well earned them the name of the " Invincibles." The crowd
assembled at an early hour, when the splendour of the day and
the large attendance of the ladies produced a scene truly inte-
resting, and one which could not fail in exciting the most lively
emotions in the breast of -every admirer of this noble game.
Before the commencement of the game the betting was 4 to I
against the military, and at the termination of the first innings
of the Manchester Club 1 to 3 was freely taken that the Man-
chester won in one innings. The superior batting of Mr. Tra-
pand, of the 28th Regiment, and Allen of the 34th, excited
universal applause, and soon made the givers of the long odds
quake for their cause. The fielding of the military was truly
splendid, and that of the Manchester Club equally good. In
short, a finer day's sport was never seen on that ground, nor
was there ever a game better contested or played with greater
cordiality on both sides. The result was, that the garrison
beat the Manchester eleven by one over and eight wickets to go
down.

ROOKWOOD.—The second edition of this popular
and original Romance appears opportunely at the present time,
when the theatres are about to dramatise it. One of the
striking features of Rookwood is its variety in incident and
situation, some of its passages rival in fatal and mysterious
events the style of Maturin's best production, while the terror
is relieved by almost every degree of liveliness and comedy, as
exhibited in the reckless Irishman, the members of the gipsy
horde, the bold yet withal gentle highwayman Turpin, and
numerous minor lights that come and go while the main action
of the fearful story proceeds.

The following inscription has been placed on the
olub of Gaspard Hauser :

Hic jacet
Gasparus Hauser
zEnig,ma
Sui temporis
Ignota nativitas
Occulta mors
MDCCCXXX.M.

The failure of the house of Bentley, Dear, and
Co., has not been so fatal in its consequences amongst the
ribbon manufacturers as might have been expected, and the
fact proves that our trade is in a happy state of healthiness,
so far as the solvency of our manufacturers is concerned. It
also shows that a considerable degree of prudence prevails in
the manufacture—a quality which cannot be too highly appre-
ciated, for it is of the utmost value in order to prevent over-
trading, one of the greatest errorsinto which a man of busi-
ness can fall. If an individual should inadvertently place
himself in a situation in which he must make sales, the re-
sult is always injurious under every circumstance which can
arise, but it is most particularly ruinous in a market in which
the buyers are but few, as is the case in ours.—Coventry
Herald.

THREE WONDERS IN LESMAHAGOW.—The good
folks of this parish have been lately amused by having at one
time three virgin brides each fifty years of age I—two stage
coaches daily from Glasgow to Abbey Green 1 I—and a union
and strike by the beggars ! 11—Glasgow Courier.