The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-06 00:00:00

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[PRICE 4D. STAMPED SD•

crissio.ns, one of which took place at the station-
house in the presence of the sergeant. Mr. Shad-
well offered to comproinise the felony, and not
press the criminal charge, if 11/. were handed to
him. Parkfr's wife paid to Mr. Shadwell 51. out-
side the station-house door, and subsequently bor-
rowed 61., which she gave to him. These two
sums, tpgether with the balance due on the
wages, brought up the amount to 17/. 10s., the
value of the missing plate. In the course of his
cross-examination Mr. Shadwell was asked when
he first believed the man was guilty of felony.
His reply we give verbatim :—" On' the 2d of April
I had consulted the inspector. lam cerain be
stole the plate now, and I was quite certain when
I took the money. I believed him to be a felon.
I gave him a- character." Now, it is not to the
question of compromising the felony to which we
would now call attention, but how is it that Mr.
Shadwell believed the man to be a felon, and yet
gave him a character ? .

The case is, we believe, a remarkable one, though
it does but illustrate in a somewhat stronger way
than usual the evil custom which prevails among
employers with reference to the characters of ser-
vants. Let us at least be true to each other. Good
servants will gain as much as we shall in the end by
our rigid adherence to truth in so important a par-
ticular.

THE LONDON ,SEASON-THE RICH AND

POOR.

Last Tuesday witnessed the first instalment of the
great annual migration of the upper English classes
of society to London. , The business of the nation
brings up the first division, fashion will in due
course bring up the rest, and round the nucleus
of Parliament will grow up that great system of
pleasure, elegance, luxury, and social ambition
called the London season. Is this great world
before its annual gathering inclined to hear a lec-
ture ? If it is, it may hear it in the speeches of the
Bishop of London and Mr. Gladstone in the Step-
ney SChoolroom. The subject of those speeches is
almost too suitable for this great occasion,
and is open to the criticism of bringing
unwelcome news too early before the gathering
fashion of the country. The burden of the
lecture is to remind the West of London of the
East, the rich of the poor, "the great cities on the
North and the South of Hyde Park, with their
splendid streets, spacious squares, and richly-embel-
lished .kops," f the poverty and struggling life o
these eastern districts, "removed out of sight, and
unhappily, out of mind," which. that 'very western
luxury has called into life. " East" goes side by
side with " West," as Mr. Gladstone remarks, by a
natural law ; no great accumulation of luxury and
wealth can ever be formed without a corresponding
growth of a laborious and struggling class of poor
to sustain and minister to it.

It is rather hard that in proportien as a great
class is useful to us, we should be disposed to forget
its claims on our gratitude. But this has always
been the case with respect to the claims of the
poorer classes. Their very usefulness as instruments
and machines for the creation of luxury and wealth
has occasioned the tendency in all ages and in all
states of society to look upon these classes simply as
instruments and machines. The harder they have
worked the more they have seemed born for work,
and nothing else ; that has appeared their proper
lot-, and in fulfilling it they have seemed to do no-
thing more than what every tool does that answers
its proper use. hence the almost total division of
the classes of rich and poor in classical times. The
existence of an oppressed and ground-down class,
deprived of the main comforts and pleasures of exist-
ence, was not the slightest difficulty to an ancient
philosopher; it was no more an obstacle to him than
the existence of stone or iron, or any other neces-
sary material which we use for our purposes. This
class was the machinery which nature provided for
Ili to supply our physical and social wants, and,
when the classical division of mankind into slave
and free was over, human pride had still the me-
diaeval aristocratical system to repo3e upon—a sys-
tem which substantially regarded the lower classes
as different beings from the upper, incapable of
ever rising to their level, and separated by an
impassable barrier of nature from their communion.
This structure of pride, which was as really opposed
to Christianity -Itt theilinddo division of castes or
any other idolatrous creation, has happily long
passed away, at le,st in this country, and if a feeble,
sickly son or daughter of fashion here and there
retains a relic of it, they have to keep it to them-
selves ; the hothouse sentiment has to stay at home ;
it cannot come out into open day and be publicly
acknowledged • a sincere respect for the great work-
ing class of modern society in all its gradations is
the understanding on which every English states-
man holds his place.—Times.

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