The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-10 00:00:00

jug a widoWer for fourteen Years he married, in 1843, 1
SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
the daughter of the late Lee Steere Steere, Esq., of FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
Javeg, in Surrey.- Lady Abinger had previously been
STANDARD. The Three per Cent. Consols
:carried to the Itev. H. J. Ridley, of Ockley. were yesterday at par. One hundred pounds in stock
Lord Abinger retained the full use of his remarkable ii•
se mg /or one hundred gold sovereigns. This marks
and vigoreus.faculties down to the very day on which he
an epoch in our history which suggests many im-
was attacked with the fatal disease that terminated his
portant reflections. Ninety-fiVe
valuable existence. lie was one of the judges of the years have passed
Norfolk Circuit during the present assizes ; and being. since public credit occupied the same proud posi-
at Bury St. Edmund's he presided in Court on the see f tion ; the Three per Cent. Stock has not been at
cond- of this month up to the late hour of seven o'clock par since 1749, and in 1749 the public debt was
in the evening, going through the business of the day • little more than one-tenth of its present amount—
with the same clearness, precision, and skill which dis- namely, ahout seventy--eight millions sterling. The in-
tingeished him in the prime of life. Within two hours ; an equivocal proof of the
crease of the debt were but
from the adjournment of the court he was speechless, and, increase of the wealth, even of those to whom the debt
within the short space of live days, he breathed his last,
having. reached the advanced age of 78, and having ac- is due, and the revers' eof a proof of the increased
wealth of those by whom it is due, were it depreciated
aired, es a leading counsel at nisi pries, higher re-
wards in-fame and in wealth than have yet fallen to the in value ; but rising as it rises in price, it affords a
lot el' the most fortunate amongst his contemporaries. grati demonstration of the enormously aug-
fying
Hla eldest son, Robert Campbell Scarlett (now Lord merited affluence of both. The nation is now be-
Abihger), was born on the sth of September, 1794. on lieved----and. the belief is all in such a case—
the 19th of July, 1824, he married Sarah, the second as well able to meet engagements of 750
daughter of George Smith, Esq, Chief Justice of the millions, as it was believed able to meet 78 millions
Mauritius. • The issue of this marrittee was two sons of engagements in 1749. As regards the stock-
and two daughters. The present Lord Abinger was sholders, therefore, the capitalists in the country
called to the bar, and practised for a short time. I.le was have rndltiplied nearly tenfold in value in the
retunied to Parliament for Norwich in 1835, and for 4 95 years; and the wealth of their debtors must have
Horsham in 1841 ; and his elevation to the peerage will increased at least tenfold also; but this is not an
therefore occasion a vacancy in the representation of
adequate view of the subject. The improvement in
that borough. The second 'child of the deceased Peer
the price of stock is not the work of 95 ears;y it
is Lady Stratheden, the third is the widow of Sir Ed-
has been effected,
ward Currey, the fourth Colonel Scarlett, of the sth
and in a far greater degree, in
Dragoon Guards ; and his youngest son, whohad been i just half the period. At the commencement of 1798,
marshal and associate of the Noble and Learned Chief the price of the Three per Cents. was 47,
Baron in the Court of Exchequer, has been recently ap- ; less than half the price at par, the present price ;
pointed her Majesty's Secretary of Legation at the Court many millions of the stock, now worth its full
of Tuscany. price, was then, and for several years before and
after, bought at half, or less than half,
the price that • it would now bring. And
at that time the public debt—the amount, in fact,
of stock in the market—was little more than half
what it is at present, confining the market even
to the public stock ; not one-third, if we add the
various other stocks on sale—all as it were
bidding higher prices against the public stock. In
the year 1798, then, the market offering certainly less
than one-half the present amount of securities of all
kinds, more than one-half, in fact not one-half, the
present price could be obtained for the best among
them. It is true that 1798 was a year of
alarm. The French war was at the time at
its height ; and the rebellion in Ireland,
which the lately convicted conspirators have
been labouring to repeat, was impending ; but
the state of the stock market for -years before and
after 1798 prove that the effect of the immediate alarm
was not very considerable. The money was want-
ing ; the State wanted to borrow more than the people
had to lend. The people are now, however, able to
pay twofold what they borrowed 50 years ago.
Whoever lent the public 5001. in 1798 has had six
per cant. for his money for 46 years, and
may now receive 1,000/. This is to support public
credit, and public credit is strength and safety.
But credit is not strength and safety only. The
example which it has been our business to note this
day—the example of a nation whose securities stand
at par, after such augmentations of her debt, and such
dangers and difficulties as Great Britain has had to
struggle with during the last half century, this exam-
ple is a means of economy no less than of strength and
safety. In no possible adverse conjecture can
Great Britain ever again have to borrow at such a
disadvantage as in 1798. A Whig Government
could do much ; a Whig Government, in fact, not
only checked • the upward progress of the public
securities, but.even reduced the Three per Cents.
from 92 to 88, in the 11 years between . 1830 and
1841 ; but we may almost defy a Whig Govern-
ment even to reduce the price of securities again
much below 90. The ground has been- made good
so far ; the capital is in the country, and, what is not
less important, is shown to be in the country. It
must he employed, and this we must all have learned,
both by experience and by the discussions of the last
few years, that capital not only grows faster than the
population, but much faster than the means of profit-
ably employing it can grow, do all that we can by
industry and enterprise. This opens a view as to the
future—hitherto we have referred chiefly to the past.
The Three per Cent. Consols have risen to par from
88, during less than three years of Sir Robert Peel's
Administration ; and what is to be above all things
remembered, they have risen concurrently with
a prodigious outlay in railroads and other specula-
tions absorbent of wealth, and with a very great
improvement in commercial industry and enter-
prise, as the financial returns attest. Will the price
rest permanently at par ? We ask will the price
rest permanently at par, because we can imagine
many reasons that will operate to suspend the
upward progress for a season. But upon what
ground is it to be assumed that the elastic move-
ment which has raised the public securities 12 per
cent. in less than three years, will not continue its
force beyond the present point? We confess that we
can find- no such ground Capital will continue to
increase beyond the means of employing it, so long as
the commerce and manufactures of the country shall
prosper ; public credit, if capable of improvement,
will continue to improve, and the time may. thus be
brought on when men, unable to obtain two per cent.
upon any Other secure investment of money, will gladly
take two-and-a-half or even two-and-a-quarter,
through the purchase of public stock. Itis thus that the
"Eight hundred millions inscribed on the wall,"
so much an object of terror a few years ago, will be
effaced_ or regarded as an object of indifference.
Twenty years more of European peace and of moral
improvement at home would effect it all, and what are
twenty years in the life of a nation? Our readers
will scarcely think these reflections out of place when
they consider the occasion of them.
GLOBE.—It is no part of our duty to settle the
relative. value .of the Standard's "authorised," and
unauthorised," communications. Whether the
latter .or the former be most deserving of credence,
'or Whether they be alike worthless, may be safely
left to the discernment of the public,- aided by the
experience which our Contemporary has supplied in
the freqiient detections and exposures of his most
confidently-affirmed and reiterated statements.
The position which the Standard occupies with
referenee.:to the National Board of Education in Ire-
land—the Irish clergy—and Sir Robert Peel, is evi-
dently one of considerable embarrassment. It has
,been positively and repeatedly affirmed, and is
:generally believed, in Ireland, that Sir Robert
reel has 'nth-aged that preferment will be, in
„future, withheld 'from such "of the Irish clergy
as persist in opposing - and counteracting the
.operations,, of the national system of education in,
that country. The Standard positively affirmed, ,with
,111 the confidence of authority, that there was not
a single !word of truth in this statement. It now
1 sdmits that the contradiction, thus positively given,
was not supplied by authority ; but still persists in
i its truth: In the meanwhile the aspect of affairs
sin Ireland tends to confirm the belief that some
such determination has been come to by the Go-
vernment, and an explicit intimation thereof been
made to those whom it specially concerns to
comply , with it. The Parliamentary grant to the
Educational Board in Ireland is increased ; and the
'allowance from the Ectilesiastical Conaniisaion to the
parish clerks who act as schoolmasters in the schools,
set up by the clergy in opposition to the Government
schools, is withdrawn. But what is more remarkable,
as confirmatory of the report which is reiterated by
the Dublin Mail—the recognised, and generally ac-
' curately informed, organ of"-the Ultra-Protestant
party in Ireland, with which journal the statement
originated—is, thatthe Government organ (the Dublin
Pikiet) has-, ever since the report was published, em •
ployed its most persuasive powers to effect an acquies-
, cetlee by the clergy with the supposed determination
of the Government to maintain and extend the Na-
- tional System of Education. " A crisis has arrived
in the affairs of the Church. The time has come
when longer opposition to the National Schools
t will be not only useless, but mischievous. Make
, a virtue of necessity ; and submit with a good
grace to that which, if an evil, is inevitable.'
This, in substance, and almost in words, is
the advice which the leading journal of the
Irish Government addresses to, and urges upon,
the truculent clergy with reference to the system of
popular education they have endeavoured to counter-
act and destroy. In the last number of the Packet
Iwhich has reached this country, we find the same
subject discussed, and compliance with the Go-
vernment views. and purposes enforced, with increased
earnestness. A few sentences will illustrate the al-
tered state of circumstances which the Irish organ of
-the Ministry endeavours to impress on the clergy of
the Established Church in Ireland :
"Often as the subject of National Education has at
--
.4,TITIIDE.—An En• glish merchant, of tracted the public mind, never was such engrossing in-
CHINESE Gq terest
.fixed upon it as at the present moment. We are
the name of resided many years at Canton and deeply convinced that
Yacao, where a.'sitClden reverse of fortune reduced him now, and. that the welfare of the Church of Ireland very
there is a critical turning point
from a state of affluence to. -the greatest necessity. A
Chinese merchant, named c.lihinqua, to whom he had for- smellifeaht4telf*-f7a.creleasnd difficult juncture. We are anxious,
ends upon the manner in which she guides her-
therefore' merly rendered service, spat. fully offered him an im-
mediate loan Of ten thousand dollars, which the gentleman -
io-nestelofnsthaiss
and fearlessly to discharge our duty as public
monitor., to offer such practical suggestions
flow
accepte, and gave hii,bond for the amount ; this the from our' own most careful consideration mo-
immediatidy threw into the fire, saying " When nientous question."
you, my friend, fltsscame to China, I was a poor man, "it is seldom," says the wily inculcator of sub-
you took me by the-hand, and assisting my honest en- •
miss-. on to the will of the powers that be—" it is.
deavears, made Me :rich. Our destiny is new reversed ;
seesom, alas . that a public man can act merely on
1 ace you pour, while laM blessed with affluence." The
hystaiiders,i.ael the , abstract principles of what is best, per 4C.
-:snatchel'the bond from the flames ; One point
gentleman, tensibly affected "by • such werteresity pressed stems fixed—that Government will continue the
his Chinese friend to take .)
the eecurit which he did, ! National Board. All sides seem to agree on that.
and then effectually destroyed ,disciple of Con- Their resolution seems to gain force
The and fixedness."
fucius, beholdirr, oho
said, h iveitld accept of hie
distress it occasioned, Well, and what then ? Do systems change their
ac a memorial of eir or any little valuable, nature from evil to good as political parties rise and
media tel'Y presented his watcb,lP. The gentleman - fall? Does the policy whiehwas fraught with mischief
.nan.nd,,C2iinqua, in return,'
.to the interests of- Protestantism, when administered
gate him an old iron seal, say
eI
haitichiit
wed,
aoposisgses Take this seal, it is ; a Whig Government, become the source of blessing
- laut,'as yeti-tire going to 'lndia to lookoalfn.t'insic value' 'evlien acted upon by a Conservative Administration ?
,er your ow.
Aletrupikceeneerris, should fortune further Let us ponder well the suggestions of the Government
persecute you,• •
draw n:ton-me fur any further sum ofmoney sou may scribe, who advises the most sturdy of the clerical op-
stau,d,inneed of sign it with your own hand, •
and seal ponents of the National Board to consider their ways
it settlk Wes signet, and I will pay the money ."—I '
'• - • or es it and be
" . .
,
" but, perhaps-, some will cry.out `shame 1' What

FACTORIES BILL.

While we will yield to none in zeal and determi-
nation for a Ten Hours' Factory Bill, as a measure for
which the strongest case has been made out, and
which has become the plainest national duty, we
must, at the same time, be excused all the trammels
of partizanship. We will not and cannot deny that
the measure is attended with various risks; but only
are we as sure as of anything in this world, that the
performance of a national duty will not be followed
by irremediable and immitigable evils. Time alone
can show how far the measure will affect the profit-
able working-of the factories ; and time alone can show
how far it will necessarily involve a proportionate
or even more than proportionate reduction of wages.
Let us hope for the best. It is the act of a whole
nation that is called for; so all must expect to share
in the possible sacrifice. Perhaps the nation will
have to lighten the fiscal burdens of the manufac-
turer, the manufacturer to find himself not quite so
able to meet sudden bursts of demand, and the
operative's 'to be content with a rather lower scale of
wages, though sufficient, and probably less fluctuat-
ing than under the present system. Meanwhile we
will venture a few remarks, with a view to repress
too sanguine expectations, and to show the depth of
the question.
Apart from some unnecessary aggravations, the
must essential characteristic of factory labour—tedi-
ous mechanical drudgery—is as old as the world.
Employment of mere manual strength and skill, is
the portion of nearly all the human kind. There are
perhaps few who have net, on entering life, a chance
or two, an opportunity or two, of bettering their con-
dition and lifting their heads above the crowd. But
few, however, avail themselves of these openings, and
the mass subside into one great level of toil and sor-
row, which our'faith in the primeval curse compels us
to expect ,must ever remain. Legislation may alle-
viate the miseries of this class—if only by undoing,
in some instances, what it has done—but it cannot
cure them. Such is the general helplessness and im-
providence, and perhaps we ought to add perverseness
and degeneracy of mankind, that the mass will press
into any employment which affords a regular and suffi-
cient subsistence, however miserable the subsistence,
and miserable the employment.
Times never were and never will be very much
better in this respect. We will go hack to a very
simple, age, long before the days of steam—before
even the days of, the spinning-wheel. In the "Iliad"
there is a most touching description, which might
stand for the type of the wool-spinner to, the end of
the world. The two armies having come to a stand-
still at the Grecian camp, neither party either advan-
cing or giving way, the poet likens their position
to a woman, who works for daily wages and is true
and just in her dealings, holding a pair of scales. She
puts into them the weight and the wool she has spun,
which she adjusts till the two scales are equally
poised, that she may receive for her children the
miserable, hard, and shamefully scanty pay,—for
such is the force of the epithet employed. The in-
terest of this image is increased by a tradition men-
tioned in the most ancient life of Homer, that he is
here describing his own mother, and that the genius
which developed into the " Iliad" and the "Odyssey"
was first cherished on the miserable, hard, and shame-
fully scanty pay of a female woolspinner. The Latin
poet introduces another feature of the factory life in
his list of the omens of a coming storm ; the spark-
ling of the lamps, and the heads gathering on the
wicks, seen by the spinning girls at their night
work :

" Nee nocturna quidem carpentes pens puell
Nescivere
In the interior of Africa Mungo Park found the
woman of the house, with the greater part of her.
family, spinning cotton throughout a great part of
the night, and lightening their task with songs, one
of which is that extempore chant on the sad case off'
the white stranger.they had taken in. The labour of
grinding corn by the hand, imposed on females or on ,
captives, is uniformly described as being, what a de-
seription of the clurnsy process would certainly lead:
us. to expect, a most cruel drudgery. At the present
day, if we go into the villages of Buckinghamshire
and Northamptonshire, are shall often find nearly
half the female population at the lace pillow, twirl-
ing their bobbins for many hours of candle-light at
either end of the winter day.' The toil is so great,
that it is scarcely possible-fur-"
the ,younger hands to
sustain. it, .amid the..diversions_ and distractions of"!
home ; so they are. crowded into miserable little
schools," where the light of four or five eta's-
sumptive-looking '" dips" is economically. transmitted
and condensed thrOugh twenty glass bottle's to as.
Many. lacemakers. A girl of fifteen must work
hard to earn.half-a-crown a.week, and the sedentary
natore.of the employment is said to give an unhealthy)]
keenness to the appetite. In this case it is the-corn-
petition among the lacemakers themselves—the
mense increase in their number—much more; than 1
the.; use .of _Nottingham net or any other externatl
cause, which has lowered the remuneration` to that
starving point. The lacemukers of Normandy work'']
through a great part of the winter night -in .their'''
stables, among the cows, whose fragrant breath and.,
huge warns bodies serve them for stoves., et ah
this, we may say, is nature, at least a very slight:.
portion of art ingrafted on rural life, certainly not..
the result of any great tyranny—no mighty soCial
oppression--and almost utterly beyond the reach of.
legislation.
Why do we bring up' all this ? It" ri~ight; of
course, seem to tell against us; but we have 'no
fears on that head, and therefore only wished the
truth to be seen as widely and deeply as the most
unsparing research and the most self-denying 'can-
dour can make it. There are those who talls'en
the great legislative question before Parliarrient,ai if
all but continual drudgery was not the portion of man.
It is his portion, and would not be so if it were not
also his best and mo-t salutary portion. Nature: more
than art is continually chaining man to the plough
and the wheel : and nature works under a lord and
master. Philanthropists who close their eyes to this
great truth are sure, soon orlate, to defeat their
own objects. - But civilization does also introduce its
own evils, and those not the least. It is; then,
doubly incumbent on civilization' to mitigate, to
diminish, to.soften man's necessary lot of toiland sor-
row. Whenever we meet with an enormous mass of
sufrerin, brought to one head, with almost every eon,-
ceivable aggravation, -and that- in the midst of such
wealth and pots er and luxury as the world has nO-
, 'where hitherto witnessed, there surely may be re-
cognized_a plain dtsty of national interposition. The
"law cif surYtnring," as divines ha.V.e called it, may be
pleaded for the: consolation o':* the sufferers,—for the
oe.)asola:ion of nnauecessful benefactors,--but surely
not in excise of wealthy, powerful; and luxurious
apathy. What•we can do, we must
.do. More than
that is not Terired. 'Society shows- on its face a vast
. superfluity or wealth and liawer,—enciugh to squander,
enough to abuse; surely this- innntes- a possibility
of relieving :that mass poverty anti labour with
which it, Presents so Ofong, so strange a contrast.—
TiaaeS% ,

-