The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-13 00:00:00

CORPORA-T-I.ON JOBBERY.

To the Worshi(From the Sta7;ford Mercury.)
Worship the Mayor and Corporation of the City of
• -

"Lincoln.
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,—As I have not the honour of
being a Member of the Corporation, and, therefore, car, have
no voice in your Councils, I think the most becoming and
respectful way of calling your attention is through the medium
of the Public Press. lam aware that some of your Members
will be ready to censure the presumption of an enfranchised
man who dares to call in question any of your official mea-
sures; but if', to use the quaint phraseology of your Civic do-
cuments, I am only a foreigner, I am a resident freeholder
and householder, and as such have an interest as one of the
commonalty in the property of the City. You have recently
Published a resolution " to grant the Freehold and Inheri-
tance of the Properties held under you on Lease, to such of
the Lessees as may be desirous of taking such grants on the
following terms
44 For such properties as consist wholly or for the greater part
of land, twenty-five pounds per cent. on the gross value of
the freehold thereof.
" For such properties as consist wholly or for the greater part
of houses and buildings, twenty pounds per cent. on the
gross freehold value thereof."
This is a most important measure, as the property you are going to transfer from the public to the lessees is known to be
of very great value ; although it would be difficult to ascertain
at present what the premises would actually be worth if clear
of leases. It has been stated that one per cent. on the gross
value would produce a thousand pounds. That estimate I
think much too high. But, if the whole property be worth
sixty thousand pounds, it would form, under a fair adminis-
tration, a noble fund for the improvement of this decayed old
CitY• All the profits you have hitherto derived from this
estate, at least for public purposes, appear to have been from
a hundred to two hundred and fifty pounds per annum, by
reason of your indulgence to the tenants. To this it may be
replied, that the lessees, by building and other improvements,
have raised their premises to the present value. Such un-
doubtedly has been in part the case, although the progress of
improvement has been very slow, and much of the land is en-
tirely void of buildings. Whatever the equitable interests of
the several lessees may be, they ought to be respected, but more
cannot be granted without manifest injustice to the public. Is
there then no means of recompensing their improvements
short of giving them the freehold for a fourth or a fifth part
of its value? Do the owners of private estates act with
such extreme generosity towards their tenants ? I know that
IM old practice has been followed of granting new leases,
when the old ones were expiring, for very small fines and an-
nual rents; but this practice has always been at the will of
the lessors : the tenants never in fact possessed any right in
the premises beyond the existing terms of their leases : and
on that condition they stand at this day.* It is alleged, as a
reason for this proceeding, that the lessees have considered
their property as equally valuable with freehold ; and that
some of them have purchased at equal prices. Surely these
persons must have been very ill-advised, or be endowed with
very slender judgment, not to know the difference betwikt a
lease and a freehold ! We will hope the instances of such
fatuity have not been numerous ; but, at any rate, the
public ought not to lose their land in consequence of these
errors.
And how has it happened that the lessees should now be
Seized with a sudden alarm for the security of their property,
so humbly and piteously set forth in their memorial? And
why should the Corporation so hastily resolve to grant their
petition ? You, the lessors, and your lessees, have always
Istood in the same relative positions. Both these questions may,
, bee lieve, be readily solved by reference to what is now under
with
consideration of the Legislature : and whoever is acquainted
sub-
lessees sisith the intimate connections and identity of interests sub-
between a great proportion of the lessors and the
es, will have no difficulty in understanding the whole
affair,
competent
fetyour power to alienate this great property, I am not
To confine
to judge; though I think it liable to be disputed.t
i
queston, it is
'ln° my observations, however, to the moral and equitable
use and benefit; how tue of the evident that the property which you hold by vir-
't°v 1
a mere fraction' charters was granted to you for the public
for ow then can you alienate these estates for ever,
pi, trust? of
now strang their value, without violating your pub-
trust
the ,
The same e, too, are the terms of the proposed grants I
ss ,
holderprice is to be pai for the urchase of the fee-simple
twelve of a lease which wasp executed within the last
tenant
whose
for twenty-one or thirty-one years, as by the
i,... hose lease would expire within the present' year.
4" 1-;orporation are to receive no more in any case than
4 fourth
the or a fifth part of the value of the premises, and all
- remain,
lessees. !,,er is to be shared indiscriminately among the
of dealing triode ,ISY. what reasoning is it possible to reconcile this
hastily
, absurd. $ S with equity ? To me it appears utterly
been • erely, Gentlemen these Resolutions must have
adopted. Some sinister arts
' must have been
'employed
this strange
to gain a favourable opportunity for carrying
examined. measure, before its merits were thoroughly
But although you May deliberate and vote with
IrlOrs of
must become public.
lution
Letyour hall -closed, your acts
p ctable members. If
e' then, entreat you to re-consider this wasteful reso-
resse which has never been approved by some of your most
You will in • ers.
you persist in it, most certainly
sad cut the everlasting censure of posterity. It will be
~_, thing to stain your names with a charge of public injus-
ferzintg
_"_e_ ; and to leave it on record, that, instead of faithfully pre-
your trust, you stripped the city of its ancient inheri-
m ein favour of private interests.

I remain,
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,
Your obedient humble Servant,
Newport DWD. JAS. WILLSON.
, Li ncoln, 6th July E ,
1835.
4' The necessity of adopting a different course of management,
for the irliprovement of the rental, has been repeatedly debated in
the Qommon Council. On one occasion, the votes were 22 for
continuing the old practice, against 15. At a subsequent meeting,
the numbers of opposing votes were equal, when the Mayor de-
clined to give a casting vote.
j The Corporation is understood to be governed by the Charter
of Charles 1., granted in 1628 ; but its authority is thought to
ha.
ve been superseded by the subsequent one granted by Charles
PThat Charter was, in its turn resigned in the reign of James
IL, by whom a new one was given : which, after being used for
more than half a century, was found defective in some particulars
essential to its validity, and it has not been brought forward for
deserve
many yea
seriousars. The doubtful circumstances attending these Charters
consideration.
t Are not the purchasers concerned in the justice of this transac-
"On equally with the sellers ?—A shrewd old proverb might be
aptly quoted, but at present I have no wish to be facetious.

THE DISSENTERS AND THE
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.

TO THE EDITO1? OF THE SUN.
°lll,--The claims of the Dissenters to religious freedom are
P°stnoned for another year. The Leaders of the three den°.
Minati
4. ons have forbearingly expressed their assent to this
4arther procrastination.
Bitter experience has shewn, that legislation in England
travels at a rail-road pace, if it carries restrictions and imposes
penalties ; but if it is
to relieve from heavy burthens, or re-
ba°ve intolerant enactments, no session is long enough to
oornpass the journey.
sleepy the People are.to be relieved, it is matter of slow, nay
a •Ivended—if
11 consideration ; but if the Habeas Corpus Act is to be
" Six Acts" impositions are to be enacted—if a
sysgiteint of Poor Laws, which had existed for centuries, but
th u. if their repeal affected any injuriously, affected only
(L,ee,aged, the blind, the lame, the impotent, and the poor—if
." :things are to be done, then time is found "for consi-
Shortr ?o”—the usually long talks, the wordy nothings, are cut
th °Y an intimation from the " Leader of the. House ;" and
awe omnipotence of Parliament is shewn in its power to take
e 1.% rights and impose burthens—the power to secure rights
4,,,tnove restraints being, it would seem, its strange. work.
the'rine postponement of the Dissenters' Emancipation until... 4 ext Session, may, perhaps, have been necessary, cons!
Aeian.eng the changes in the Administration consequent upon his
th stY's variable—though unuestionably wise, conflicting—
vigh doubtless necessary, changes, the selection of his ad-
h'ers• • Yet, necessary as these changes indisputably must
-ye been, aaaiug. that Ws majesty telt-on wuet-o
1,1141 much as the judicious exercise of his individual preroga-
hi (so
fellow al cld) retarded the public busine of the millions of
-meen„ it for the longer conti-
",neace, even' for a session, of those relicts of the Star Chem-
"er—the Ecclesiastical Courts. They have been reported upon
Z•-they have been reported against—although the Commis-
iloners
upon t were threir fsinsriends, and had every motive to report
ghtly hei.
sßut if tl-e Courts themselves are to be tolerated another
ritar'-if the right to send men to gaol when the bitter animo-
Y of the Parsons of the Church of England sect think fit
teoaddn_d tie " Court Christian" as the whipper-in of their
tiyhmercies, is to be continued—surely it might become the
that S Secretary of State for the Home Department to see
16erre gaols, in addition to the privation of the personal
co,ttn?' of good men, are not made instrumental in adding the
cnns4.f solitary confinement as the means of imparting holy
Yet, and working a spiritual change.
supportto this is the state of things now. Pecuniary depletion
N.uii of a clergy, rich to repletion, is worked out by
r 'l,lles and solitary cells.
tghiestrpaotweseßri.otmoo Secretary has, if he chooses to exercise it,
control the gaol regulations made by the Ma-
The or. they are appointed by the Ministry.
indefinitaloagistrates are by law enabled to add, and they do add
dosed upon hy their merciless regulations, to the sentences
these P" the poor ; for upon them in the nature of things
Vne cas tend" visitations of the Squirearchy act in ninety-
'Lined hes l't of every hundred ; but the Magistrates are
he madeY the
tAlinistry, and, like all other thins created can
when 'i'vr°hY their creator. ,
g
for the sin of
J'5lM Childs was incarcerated in Ipswich Gaol
mof not resisting- the law—for being guilty of passive,
QCIET
Jveted to SOilt"MISSION;" he was for 17 hours out of 24 sub-
It i_ ary
finement.
tth'latts;eetZfeic,staly,
,c.erta.in the law was *not intended to work
its tta
..!uietion in such a case, yet is it equally certain
trator,
need Mitration wants reforming, or that the adrninis-
quickeniti changing- and that Home Secretaries need
Finding t° their d
mi.% t_ ut es
nary e '• needlessly oppressive and unjust imposition of
foll •• "firi letter Lord John •
taY S"'"--41‘,1 Northampton-square,ollf Say 21,' 1335.
;inad, /wt.. joi;nosaioidyi:morf liourodshyip. a_copy petition from
str.:,t,,,s new been ten days confined Ipswich goal upon a cou-
i i,;ic4c-:t.l-Empt it; relation to a Church-rate.
to resiit t;,ll34sohed'for not paying the tate, but for no.. appear-
it
Te - TheirnOtint is 17s. 6d. Parties .Prolnoting the suit had Ur po'wer t) titurnon him