The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

We call the attention of our readers to our
Report of some proceedings yesterday at the
Old Bailey. They will perceive that war is
now regularly declared between the Judges,
Functionaries, and Barristers, at the Old Bailey,
and the Middlesex 'Magistrates. The former
complain that they are kept in idleness, while
the Grand Jury are finding bills for trials to be
proceeded in before the Middlesex Magistrates.
The Barristers accuse the Chairman and Ma-
gistrates of an inordinate desire of usurping on
the Judges. The evil might partly be remedied
by having two sets of Grand Jurors—one at the
Middlesex Sessions, and the other at the Old
Bailey. The Barristers also suggest the re-
medy of a new Commission in which none of
he old Magistrates shall be inserted. These
exhibitions will tend in time to shame the peo-
ple of England out of their apathy in all that
regards the absurdities of their judicial practices.
In the first place, Grand Juries are now alto-
gether a nuisance. * * * If a length of tune
elapsed between the inquiry of the Grand Jury
and the trial, the Grand Jury might be of be-
nefit in preventing the oppression of an innocent
man by unnecessary imprisonment. But the
trial follows immediately the inquest of the
Grand Jury, and the innocent gain no-
thing by the latter. But rogues gain by it ;
because it adds to their chances of escape. It
is notorious that the inquiries of Grand Juries
are often exceedingly partial, and that a bill is
thrown out on the hurried examination of one
or two witnesses merely, though, were the evi-
dence carefully gone into on a trial, a verdict of
guilty would be found. It is not for the interest
of the community that facilities for the escape of
guilt should be multiplied. Grand Juries, like
many other institutions, have had their day. In
former times, when it was dangerous to acquit in
the face of power, a Grand Jury was, no doubt,
a beneficial institution. It is now merely a
mischievous incumbrance. Attention was drawn
by Mr. Charles Phillips to the circumstance of
an accessary being now under transportation,
while the principal was acquitted. And it was
observed that it was new in the judicial annals
of the country for Justices of Peace to assume
to themselves the trial of such important cases as
were now tried by the Middlesex Magistrates.
It is no doubt true that Mr. Minter Hart
has the opinion of the Judges in his favour,
and the opinion of the Judges must be presumed
correct. The Criminal Law of England
being altogether without any connecting prin-
ciples or classification, and in as barbarous a
state as that of the laws of the Visigoths or
Repararians, every conceivable Criminal Act
must he committed before the law can be perfect.
We remember the difficulty in which the lawyers
were when a child was stolen. The stealing the
clothes alone made the act an offence ; so that if
the child had been carried away naked, the act
would have been no crime. The child was of
no value, and the stealing of it was nothing ; but
a calf or a pig being of value, the stealing of it
was a heinous crime. The consequence of this
want of classification in the English law is, that
a clever rogue, at any time, by paying a little
attention to the particular acts of villainy which
have been prohibited, may easily discover many
others not in that predicament, and he may
thus enrich the catalogue of crimes at the ex-
pense of the community. This evil will remain
without remedy so long as country gentlemen
and retired merchants and bankers, ignorant of
the first principles of legislation, are suffered to
occupy themselves with it, while lawyers degrade
their profession to a mere mechanical trade. With
respect to the complaint of an undue wish to
extend jurisdiction by the Middlesex Magis-
trates, we have only this to say :—ls it not a
mockery to boast of the qualification of our
.Judges, while nearly the whole criminal busi-
ness of the country is in the hands of Justices
of Peace, men not chosen on account of any
qualification, but merely because they are
possessed of an estate ? Justices of Peace may
now transport his Majesty's subjects, and do
transport them in great numbers. This is worse
than the Patrimonial Jurisdictions of the Con-
tinent ; because the owner of an estate possessing
such a jurisdiction is never allowed to exercise it
himself, but is bound to appoint a Judge who
has properly qualified himself. The whole ad-
ministration of justice in England is really_dis-
graceful. Nothing is fixed—everything is left to
discretion. The very first principles ofcriminal pro-
cedure remain yet uncertain. The last Lord Mayor,
a man ofsagacity, frightened the lawyers, by pro-
ceeding in his examinations in such a way as to
diminish the chances of escape to felons and
swindlers. The lawyers dread nothing so much
as that it should not be generally believed that
innocence is a less safe defence than their craft,
and they made a regular set against Sir Peter
Laurie. We prophesied that it would be long
before another Chief Magistrate would turn up,
possessed of courage to think for himself. The
present Magistrate is as obedient to the Bar as
the profession could possibly desire. It will
astonish us much if any gang of swindlers is
broken up during his mayoralty. But he will
have a peaceable time of it, and he will have the
good word of the lawyers.— Mornina Chronicle.
In our City Article some retnals are made
on the present state of our trading relations with
the island of Java, which are well worthy of at-
tention. In 1811 we captured that island from
the Dutch authorities, acting under the sove-
reignty of the French empire, or rather from the
Emperor of France, who had usurped the domi-
nions of the commonwealth of Holland. In
1815, on the restoration of the Dutch power,
we agreed to restore that part of the Dutch co-
lonies which we had captured in the east, and
therefore gave up Java with all its dependencies
to the King of the Netherlands. In becoming
again a Dutch colony, Java was of course sub-
jected to all the rules of colonial adminis-
tration. One of these is, that the colonial
trade is limited to the mother country, unless
the latter choose to admit as a favour, or to
receive for an equivalent, the ships of other
maritime Powers on equal terms. We have
not before us the conventions made for theregu-
lation of British intercourse with Java subsequent
to our surrender of that island to the Dutch,
but we have no doubt that they bear manifest
evidences of the school in which they were
framed. In our City article it is stated that the
effect of the convention in 1824 was to impose
alien duties to a large amount on British com-
pared with Dutch shipping. It was stipulated
to demand from the former double the amount
of duty on the cargoes imported in British
bottoms in cases where those in Dutch ships
paid any duty at all, and to require a duty of.
6 per cent. where the imports of the Dutch
mother country were entirely freed from custom-
house exaction. Nobody could dispute the
right of the Dutch Government to make such a
convention ; but when once made, it ought to
have been strictly observed. Yet we are told

that the Government of the Netherlands, before
the revolution of 1830, had infringed upon its
stipulations, by raising the alien duties on cargoes
imported in English ships to 25 per cent. above
those imposed on manufactured productions
imported from the kingdom of the Netherlands
in Dutch vessels. The cottons of Ghent,
and the woollens of Verviers, had thus a pre-
ference in the market of 25 per cent. over simi-
lar manufactured products from England. Both
those manufacturing districts are now in the
possession of the Belgic Government (for which
his Dutch Majesty professes no benevolent re-
gard), but still the unequal tax, or rather the
infraction of treaty, remains unexamined and
unredressed. In such circumstances, we freely
own that, in our opinion, we have a just right
to complain of our Dutch ally, though, in all
but the infraction of a treaty, we pursue a
similar policy ourselves respecting the supply of
our own colonies. The idea of continuing to
encourage the fabrics of Ghent and Verviers, at
the expense of those of Manchester or Leeds, is
now quite preposterous in his Dutch Majesty,
and the hope of raising a substitute for the
manufactures of either in the Dutch provinces
might be taken as the dream of insanity. We
therefore hope that the markets of Java will
again be opened to British enterprise on the old
footing, and that having transferred this magni-
ficent island to the Dutch, we shall not be the
only sufferers by our disinterestedness and ge-
' nerosity. We claim nothing as a right from the
Dutch but the due execution of their own
stipulations.
" The state of the trade with Java is a subject of
considerable anxiety with some of our leading mer-
chants, who earnestly desire that the attention of
the Ministry should he called to it. It is too late,
they feel, to complain of the improvident policy
wh ch, at the close of the last war, led to the ces-
sion of that island to the Dutch, but they consider
that they have a claim to he supported in such
treaties and engagements connected with the trade
of the island which were entered into subse-
quently to such cession. It should be borne
in mind that with a view probably to compen-
sate as far as practicable for the sacrifice then
made on the part of this country, Mr. Canning,
then Foreign Secretary, concluded a treaty in
1824, with the Dutch Government on the follow-
ing terms :—lt was stipulated that in no case
were goods imported in a British vessel into Java
to be charged with more than double the duty le-
vied when conveyed in a Dutch ship ; and in all
cases where goods were imported duty free under
the Dutch flag, the maximum of duty by a British
vessel was not to exceed 6 per cent. This treaty
however was, as it appears, only made to be broken.
It was soon after discovered that the manufactu-
rers of Ghent and of Verviers would be greatly
benefitted by having in some measure the exclusive
privilege of supplying Java with their cotton and
woollen cloths, and these were accordingly sdmitted
into the island free of duty, while twenty-five per
cent. was at the same time levied upon all such
foreign manufactures, and British goods under the
British flag have been subjected to this impost ever
since.

" Various representations have been made from
time to time by the merchants to procure redress
for this gross infraction of the treaty, but without
effect, and the abuse threatens, to all appearance,
to be perpetuated, unless Ministers take up the
question and act with a vigour corresponding with
the occasion. It is true that the manufacturers of
Verviers and Ghent no longer enjoy this privilege
of sending their goods free of duty to Java, but the
King of Holland is now, it seems, intent on trans-
ferring this benefit to his Dutch subjects, and al-
ready there are several manufacturing establishments
forming in Holland with that view. The fulfil-
tnent of the treaty is, therefore, an object of real
importance, and will be considered of much more
general interest when it is understood that Java
contains 5,000,000 of inhabitants, capable of con-
suming very large quantities of our manufactured
goods."— Times.

The Corporation of Maidstone has resolved
not to submit to the authority of the inquisitorial
prerogative Commissioners. An abstract of the
discussion in the Common Council of that
borough will be found in another column. We
noticed some days ago the sudden and unex-
pected postponement of the proceedings of the
Commissioners i❑ the city of London. It was
announced that they were to begin on Tuesday,
the 26th of November, and numerous sum-
monses or requests were issued, at the sugges-
tion, it is believed, of a Committee of Radicals,
to individuals who were supposed to be ready
to give their irresponsible evidence against the
Corporation and the various Trading Companies
of the City, inviting their attendance on that
day. Why, we should be glad to know,
did the Commissioners shrink from their
task ? Why did they disappoint their eager and
expectant friends ? Why did they change their
mind only two days before they should have
commenced their inquisitorial labours ? Why,
above all, have the Whig and Radical press
been so extremely silent upon the subject of
this mysterious and indefinite postponement ?
The truth we believe to be, that the Commis-
sioners saw grounds for expecting a reception in
the city which would have exposed the whole
affair to contempt and ridicule, and given a tone
to the corporations throughout the country,
which was in their judgment anything but
desirable. It was much better to lay still while
their more fortunate coadjutors, in the task of
illegal inquisition, were working their unresisted
way, among the timid and foolish corporations
of the provinces. We thank the Corporation
of Maidstone for defeating this mean and cun-
ning policy in their own case, and for thus
showing to the world, so far as their own con-
duct could show, that all the corporations of the
provinces are not timid and foolish.—Morning
Post.

The Corporation of Maidstone have decided
to resist the Commission by a majority of 73 to
49. Of course, they declare themselves to be
as pure as snow, notwithstanding the suspicious
circumstance of refusing to let their purity be
seen. It is perfectly ludicrous to hear those
people vaunting of their loyalty. If they are
loyal, we can only say that they have an odd way
of showing it. But it is not of disloyalty that
either we or the public suspect the recusant
Corporations. There are other offences which
regard the pocket more nearly, and it is of those
that we venture to suspect those pure and indig-
nant personages.—Morning Herald.
Scarcely had we completed the translation of
the passage from the fourth number of Le
Polonais, when the fifth was laid upon our
table, abounding in tales of persecution and
cruelty even more atrocious and revolting, if
possible, than any which we have hitherto enu-
merated. A letter dated from Warsaw, the
25th ult., mentions, that besides Dziewicki,who
poisoned himself, three of his companions have
been shot on the place where malefactors are
executed. They all fell, says it, with that cou-
rage, and that disregard of 'death, which they
hoped would one day prove beneficial to their
country. Olkowsko, above all, exhibited the
most admirable heroism and presence of mind.
When they were leading him to the place of
execution, he took up a handful of earth, and

exclaimed, " Look here—it is for this we
have fought—it is for this that we are
now going to suffer !!" The graves of
these youthful patriots and heroes have, not
unnaturally, become objects of religious regard
and veneration, and are daily covered with
flowers and strewed with garlands. A great
number of women have compromised themselves,
and suffered in consequence. Mademoiselle
Helen Nowakowska has been condemned to be
beaten with two hundred stripes of rods, on
account of having sent victuals to some unfor-
tunate insurgents who were dying of hunger
in the woods ! This brutal and atrocious sen-
tence was actually carried into effect in one of
the barracks of Lublin, accompanied with mi-
litary music, and in order that the martyrdom
of this young woman might be rendered
more horrible, her head was ordered to be
shaved, and herself to be shut up in a convent.
Madame Orlowska has also been condemned to
receive 500 stripes ! on account of having given
an asylum to some of her relatives. She prayed
to be allowed to undergo the punishment at
Warsaw, in order to keep up the courage of her
countrymen ; but this slight favour was refused
to her, and the day which was to have witnessed
her punishment found her bereft of life ! In
the absence of every other means of inflicting
death she pierced her bosom with pins ! Is it
necessary to make even one observation upon
such unheard of inhumanity and brutality ?
Morning Advertiser.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DEC. 4.

CROOK V. JADIS.

In this case, which was not concluded yesterday
when our paper went to press, the Jury found a
verdict for the plaintiff-1,0801.

KING V. BAKER, KNT., AND OTHERS.

This was an action in replevin brought against
the Treasurer of the county of Middlesex, and
others, forming the Committee for carrying into
effect the Act for building Staines Bridge.
The plaintiff, who some time ago kept the Bush
Inn at Staines, alleged that his goods were seized
by the defendants when no rent was due to them.
The defendants, in answer, said at the time the
goods were distrained there was a debt due to them
from Messrs. Ramsbottom and Lee, the brewers,
and that they seized for 931. The question was
whether the plaintiff had been let into possession of
the Bush Inn as the nominee of Ramsbuttom and
Lee, or whether he was a tenant under the Com-
missioners for making the road to the bridge, with a
previous knowledge that he was to get out at any
time when the Commissioners gave him fourteen
days' notice that they wanted delivery of the pre-
mises.

Several witnesses having proved the plaintiff's
case—

Sir J. SCARLETT, on the part of the trustees,
said there was no foundation for the action, and
The Jury, under all the bearings of the case,found
a verdict for the defendants.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER, DEC. 4.

TAYLOR V. MOSELEY.

This was an action brought to recover 1251., the
amount of a bill of exchange.
The plaintiff was holder of the bill in question, of
which the defendant was the acceptor. The plain-
tiff, a solicitor, received the bill, with four others,
from Mr. Knight, as security for 7001. which he
advanced to Mr. Knight. The defendant refused to
pay the bill, asserting that it was a forgery. It ap-
peared that a Mr. Thorn, a surgeon, had drawn the
bill on the defendant, who admitted the acceptance
and signature to be in his hand writing, but denied
that the sum of 125/. was written by him, or that
the words making the bill payable at Messrs. Cock-
burn and Co.'s were in his hand-writing.
Several witnesses were examined to prove the
defendant's hand-writing, but none of them could
positively swear that the sum mentioned in the
bill, was the same as that on the acceptance and
signature.

Mr. FOLLETT, for the defence, contended that,
even thou4h the bill had been duly accepted, and
that all was correct, yet as an alteration was made
in the bill without the concurrence of the acceptor,
this action could not be maintained.

The plaintiff's counsel was accordingly nonsuited.

JENNINGS 9. BLACKBURN.

This was an action brought by Mrs• Elizabeth
Jennings, a widow lady to recover from the defen-
dant, a gentleman of large fortune, certain arrears of
the rent of a furnished house, situated in Regent-
street, hired by defendant of her, about November,
1828, for one year, at the rent of 4401. When tak•
ing the house, the defendant agreed to make good
any damage done to the furniture, and, in addition
to the arrear of rent, the plaintiff sought to recover
on that account. The entire sum received by the
plaintiff on account of the rent was 2201., paid by
two checks on the bank of Messrs. Smith, Payne,
and Smith, and it was now sought to recover what-
ever balance it might be the opinion of the Jury
still remained due. To account for the length of
time between the occurring of the cause and the
bringing of the action, the learned counsel stated
that the defendant had left the house before the
full period of a year had expired, and during the
last five years had resided entirely on the Continent.
Mr. FOLLETT (for the defendant) proposed to
admit to the fullest extent the occupancy and the

agreement.
Mr. ALEXANDER—In that case I have nothing
more to do. That is the plaintiff's case.
Lord LYNDHURST—Now then, Mr. Follett, what
is your defence ?

Mr. FOLLETT—SimpIy, my Lord, that my client
has paid to the utmost farthing the entire demand the
Plaintiff alleges to have been due to her. The
Learned Counsel then proceeded to state the de-
'
fendarit's cas.l. He commenced by observing that
the present was the most barefaced attempt at
swindling' he ever remembered to have heard of.
The plaintiff had admitted that two quarters' rent
had been paid. She was prudent in so doing, for
his client chanced to have receipts in her own hand-
writing for the rent of two quarters, namely, the se-
cond and third of the defendant's occupancy. He
had not the receipt of the first quarter, but he
would be able to produce a check of the defendant's
on his banker, dated in February, 1829, just the
month after the defendant commenced his occu-
pancy, and draws in the name of the plaintiff. By
the production, then, of that check, of course
coupled with proof that it was paid at the banker's,
and by the production al,o of the plaintiff's receipts
for the second and third quarters of the year, he pro-
posed to prove that for nine months of the stipulated
term his client had faithfully discharged his obliga-
tions to the plaintiff. Then with regard to the last
quarter his defence was this :—At the time the de-
fendant took the plaintiff's house he found it neces-
sary to purchase certain articles of furniture to the
amount of 941. When quitting it, not having any
further occasion for these articles, he proposed to
the plaintiff to take them off his hands. This the
plaintiff, after much bargaining, agreed to do, at the
sum of 401., and on her doing so the defendant
handed her a check on his bankers for 701., thus
making up the sum of 1101., being the quarter's
rent. This check for 701. he would produce, and
at the same time give evidence of its having been
tphaeidfuarnsistsn'eriel at h
u'
s tofe theplaintiff's agreement to take
price of 401.
Three checks for sums of 1121. each, drawn by
the defendant upon his bankers, Messrs. Smith,
Payne, and Smith, and in favour of the plaintiff,
May, and August,
dlast2e9d, respectively
similari
check, dated in September
February,
the same year, for 701., were produced and proved
to have been paid.
Lord LYNDHURST—What do you say to those
documents, Mr. Alexander ?

Mr. ALEXANDER-1 am instructed to admit that
my client received the checks dated in February and
May for 1121. each, and also the check dated in
September for 70/.; but my client denies altogether
having been paid the check alleged to be drawn in
her favour in August, and we rest our case upon
that denial.

Mr. FOLLETT—Then I beg to hand my Learned
Friend a receipt in the hand-writing of the plaintiff
for 1181., being the amount of rent due by the de•
lendant for his third quarter's holding, as well as the
cost of certain articles broken while in his use. I

trust that will satisfy.
Mr. ALEXANDER (after reading the document)
It is a clear case. The plaintiff has not a claim for
a farthing against the defendant. She has been paid
her demands to the fullest extent.—The plaintiff
was accordingly nonsuited.