The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1835.

Chamber of Peers requiring their attendance is illegal,
and consequently that they can incur no penalties by
disobeying it. They have agreed to inform the Pre-
sident of the Court of Peers of the determination to
which they have come, and abide the consequences.

FRENCH FUNDS —PARIS, APRIL 7.
Five p.'r Cents., leaf. 50c. 65c.
Four and a 11:.lf per Cent, 101 f.
Four per Cents.
Three per Cents., 81f. 10c. Ec.
Bank Actions, 1,905 f. 1,910 f.
Rente do Naples, 96f. sc. 10c.
Roman Five per Cents., 101%.
Rente d'Espagne, Five per Cents., 49 %3;.
Rente d'Espagne, Three per Cents., 30%.
Rova; Spanish Loan, 4834% ,Z•
Rente Perpet. d'Espagne, Five per Cent, 48N %N.
Portuguese Loan, Five per Cents., 97 96% 95;4%74.
Ditto, Six per Cents, 103.
Haytian Loan, 382 f 50c. 385 f.
EXCHANGE ON LONDON.
One month, paper, 251 45c. ; money, —f. —c.
Three months, paper, 25f. 3234 c. ; money, 25f. 3234 c.
o,rs Autlzentique.

BOURSE, THREE o'CLocE.—The Rentes have remained sta-
tionary ; they opened at 81f. 22ic., and are now at 81f. 25c.,
sellers. A great number of reports have been in circulation at the
Bourse. Portuguese stock has fallen considerably, but Spanish
stock remains stationary.
BOURSE, QUARTER TO FOUR.—Five per Cents, 107 f. 80c. ;
3 per Cents., 81f. 30c. ; 5 per Cent. Spanish, 481 ; 3 per Cent.
ditto, 30i ; Cortes, 49i ; Coupons, 291; Guebhards, 48& ; Dif-
fers, 24 to 24i ; New Loan, 691. ; Ducats, 98 30 ; Romans, 1011 ;
Pedros, 97i ; Miguels, 26 ; Haytians, 38f. ; Brabant Bank, 211.

The Dutch Papers of the 6th and 7th April have
not arrived. They are on board the Batavier steam
vessel, which has got aground on the Bare shoal in
the Kell, between Rotterdam and Helvoetsluys.

THE HAGUE, APRIL 6.—His Royal Highness the Prince of
Orange returned to this town from the army this afternoon.
To-morrow the sections of the Second Chamber will exa-
mine the proposal of M. Van Dar King on the depressed state
of agriculture.
It is understood that the discussion of the Budget will com-
mence next week.
DUTCH FUNDS—AMSTERDAM, APRIL 7.
Money. Bills.
Actual Debt, 2% per Cent. 55% 55'4
A inort Syndic, 4 y.„', per cent 95 95,4
Ditto, ditto, :3% per cent. 79% B)yi
Loan (1830) 5 per cent.
Ditto (i,3.2 and 18.33) 5 per cent.
Commercial Company, 4,, per cnt IO6U ItAN
Exchange on London, One month l2 123 g.
Two months
Dutch Papers, April 8

Brussels and German papers have been received,
but their contents are of little interest. It is stated in
letters from Corfu that the Turkish fleet is almost in a
state of open mutiny, for want of pay. The advices
from Greece, contained in these journals, will be found
in another column.

Madrid Papers to the 30th of March have been re-
ceived. Ministers have been defeated a second time
on the pension list. The QUEEN'S army in the North
exceeds 60,000 men, all well armed and provided with
the proper necessaries for a long campaign. We regret
to learn that the cruelties exercised by General MINA
have been commanded by the Government.

Mr. JOHN LESLIE, a Governor and Director of the
poor of the parish of St. George's, Hanover-square,
has published a very clever and ingenious pamphlet,
illustrating the beneficial operafion of the Poor Law
Amendment Act in that parish for the year just ended.
We have carefully examined this brief but very inte-
resting exposition of the working of the improved sys-
tem, not with a sole view to a pecuniary saving, but
likewise with a proper Christian regard to the best in-
terests of humanity, morality, and religion ; and we
assert, with confidence, that it will be found to
realize some of the most sanguine hopes of the
advocates of the recent changes in the law for the re-
lief of the suffering and indigent poor. The ignorant
and senseless cry raised against the recent Act by
certain political adventurers was intended to excite
animosities between the poor and their guardians, and
as far as possible to disturb the peace of society. The
pitiful authors of that cry panted to place themselves
at the head of mob deputations, and to inundate the
country with a flood of beer-shop eloquence and tap-
room legislation. Happily, the good sense of the
working men of England was opposed to the success
of this scheme ; and the croakers
tion and infanficide, were obliged to a rest their
claims to superior intelligence on the fulfilment of
prophecies, which the authors well knew must
fall to the ground, if the poor people conducted
themselves in an orderly manner. The result, as
shewn in the case of a large metropolitan parish,
with an immense pauper population, is most satis-
factory. The poor are not only better fed, better
lodged, and better clothed under the operation
of the improved system, but their moral cha-
racter has greatly improved ; whilst bastardy has
diminished to an extent that may well be considered
miraculous in so short a time. And yet this has all
been effected without subjecting paupers to any un-
necessary humiliation. As the bastardy clauses in the
New Act have been more generally condemned among
the poor as cruel and unnatural, we take the liberty of
quoting Mr. LESLIE'S very sensible remarks on their
present operation :

" A pregnant single woman presents herself to the parochial
authorities for relief ; she states she has been betrayed under
false promises, and has been seduced from the paths of virtue ;
that, in consequence of her loss of character, all her friends
shun her, and she is in circumstances of destitution. _

Taking the applicant's statement as true—and we have
chosen this example as being the most favourable case that can
present itself for parochial aid—the plan now adopted by the
governors and directors of the poor with such a case is this.
She is told—You say you have lost your character, your friends
have turned their backs upon you, and you are in destitute cir-
cumstances :—we will receive you into the workhouse, you
will be immediately provided with such work as your present
condition will allow you to perform ; you shall be furnished
with every necessary medical and other attendance ; you will
there also receive the daily consolations which religious in-
struction can afford you : that as you are the proper source of
nurture for the infant you are about to bring into the world,
you must remain in the workhouse to suckle your child; and
that, as you recover from your confinement, you will gradually
be set to work for the twofold purpose of assisting to pay the
expense the rate payers will be put to in supporting yourself
and child, and to prepare you, when you quit the workhouse,
to commence a course of beneficial occupation to maintain
yourself and child. _ _ _

" In opposition to the cry of cruelty to the poor, we submit
that in this plan there is every thing which the most humane
can desire—a shelter is given to the outcast from society;
protection afforded to her in the hour of nature's sorrow ; and
the daily advantage of religious instruction by a conscientious
Minister of the Gospel, at a season when the mind is deeply
susceptible of consolation and instruction. But there is no
pecuniary temptation offered to the woman as an example to
others to imitate her conduct.

" It must be remembered, that in the adoption of this plan,
there will be found in every parish a whole host of interested
parties to raise a clamour against it. It abolishes all fees and
expenses of overseers' jouri,.2,-s into the country to apprehend
reputed fathers : it also abolishes the expenses of journeys into
the country to collect the money from reputed fathers ; but as
a compensation for these abolitions of the perquisites of office,
it is a plan which preserves the virtue and integrity of female
character."
These observations appear to us extremely just and
reasonable. They certainly inculcate a sounder mo-
rality, and a purer religion, than the old system of
publicly and ostentatiously rewarding vice, by out-
door pensions, as a boon for female profligacy. So-
ciety is likewise benefitted, by being relieved from the
unnatural spectacle of young unmarried pregnant
women exposing their persons in public, to the scandal
and corruption of the rising generation.
The New Poor Law is, however, far from perfect.
Some remedy must be provided for the evils arising
out of the removal of paupers from parish to parish.
The following exposition of the more obvious of these
evils is worthy of public attention :-
4, That medical men and midwives create pauperism may ap-
pear a startling assertion to the uninitiated in the horrors which
the late administration of the poor laws have occasioned to the
poor. We therefore place before the reader a plain statement
of facts to bear out the position, and to the truth of which
thousands and thousands of paupers at this day, by painful ex-
perience, can testify
A mechanic or labouring man, his wife or his children, fall
ill, and require medical attendance. Application is made to
the overseer of the place, and a " doctor's order" is given :
the overseer, having taken the man's examination as to his
place of legal settlement, ascertains him to be a non-parish-
ioner—that he belongs to a parish some 200 or 300 miles distant.
The man says, " I want but a temporary assistance from you,
I can maintain myself, and have borne a good character." No
matter, there are two parties now engaged in the transaction
who have a direct interest in the ruin of the poor man and his
family, viz., the medical attendant and the overseer. The ,

following is the manner in which the outrage upon humanity
was and still is legally inflicted :
" The medical officer, in a great majority of instances, con-
tracts with the parish to attend all the paupers belonging to
the parish during the year for a fixed small amount of remu-
neration, reserving to himself the right (and the parochial
authorities consenting to transactions of such a character) to
make whatever charge he pleases for every non-parishioner he
may attend by order of the overseer ; and to such a frightful
extent has this practice proceeded, that the charge in frequent
instances for the medical attendance on one non-parishioner
patient has greatly exceeded the amount of the contract for
the year's attendance on the whole of the pauper patients of
the parish ; and by such means the parishes shift from them-
selves the burden of medical attendance on their own poor by
obi.,,ining the contract for so much less, in consideration of the
probable prosts the medical man may obtain from his attend-
ance on non-parishicners. This exhorbitant charge for medi- '
cal attendance can only be obtained by the actual removal of
the man to the parish to which he belongs.
" The overseer's turn in the affair comes next. He fore-
sees a long journey with a family, and a long bill of costs.
He applies for an order of removal for the family : the magis-
trates sign the same; but, on account of the illness of tlia
man, his wife, or his children, as the case may be, the removal
is suspended. The medical attendant has by this process now
obtained a legal document to enforce his demand, and he con-
sequently pays the utmost attention to his own interest in the
affair; and what with draughts every three hours, mixtures,
and boluses, he contrives to make out a frightful demandon the
parish to which the unfortunate man belongs. The man, in
spite of the drugs he has swallowed, recovers ; the doctor's
charges are paid, the magistrates withdraw the suspension of
the removal, and the overseer commences his share of the
plunder—proceeds with the family the two or three hundred
miles, as the case may be ; personally delivers the unfortunate
family to the parish to which they belong, and receives the
amount of his demand,* including the exorbitant charge for
the medical man's attendance. On his return home, he re-im-
burses himself out of the poor-rates of his own parish for all
the expenses of himself and the family during the journey."

We refer to the pamphlet itself for tables of the
parochial expenditure, the decrease of poor rates, to-
gether with the system for administering the Poor Law
adopted by the parish authorities.
* By 35 Geo. 3, c. 101, s. 2, if the demand does not exceed
20/. there is no appeal against the sum charged.