The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-19 00:00:00

41
irrntng Alit

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1844.

In the House of Lords the Detached Parts of the
Counties Bill was read a second time.

Lord CAMPBELL presented a petition from CHARLES
HENRY RUSSELL, praying that he might be heard by
counsel against the
,Race-course Gaming Bill, and
gave notice that, on the order of the day being read
for the committal of the Bill, counsel shoull be heard
against it.

Lord BROUGHAM, in reference to the Aliens Bill,
biftnight up from the other House, called the attention
of their Lordships to the anomalous and unjust posi-
tion in which foreigners were placed in this country
as regarded the acquisition of property and the per-
formance of civil duties. In no other country was a
foreigner so ill treated as in England. Even a natu-
ralised foreigner could not hold the humblest office
under the Crown, while a foreigner might, accord-
ing to the Act of Settlement, be chosen as the hus-
band of the QUEEN, and be endowed with all
British privileges. It did not appear that the Bill
stood for discussion that evening, and no other Lord
spoke on the subject.
On the motion of Lord MONTEAGLE the Art-
Unions Bill was read a second time.

The LORD CHANCELLOR gave notice that he would
move the second reading of the Sudbury Disfran-
chisement Bill on Monday, and move that counsel be
'2tettrd again3t the Bill.
On the motion of the Duke of RICHMOND, counsel
against the Horse-Racing Bill were ordered to be
heard this day at four o'clock, and the House ad-
journed at half•past seven.

The Commons met at one o'clock, and went into

Committee on the Poor-law Amendment Bill. A
number of clauses were adopted, and on clause 60
being read, Sir JAMES GRAHAM moved that the
Chairman report progress, and the House resumed.
After several petitions had been presented, Mr.
THOMAS S. DUNCOMBE called the attention
of the House to the proceedings before the Com-
mittee appointed to inquire into the system of open-
ing letters at the Post-office. The Hon. Member
made an excellent speech on the occasion, and gave
an amusing account of the way in which the inquiry
was conducted. 'He had been called as a witness, and
requested to produce a list of the witnesses who could
confirm him in his statements made in the House,
but he declined to give the list, except on the condi-
tion that he should be present to hear the witnesses
examined. The Committee referred the point to the
House.

Lord Sem:lox, Chairman of the Committee, and
Mr. HUME rose together to speak, when the SPEAKER
said there was no question before the House, upon
which Mr. DUNCOMBE moved that it be an instruc-
tion to the Committee that be be present at the:exami-
nation of the witnesses he might call. Lord SANDON
said the Committee had no objection to Mr. Dux-
COMBS being present to examine the witnesses, but
he should be present as a member, and incur the re-
sponsibility of the other members. After remarks
from Sir R. PEEL, Mr. NUMB, Mr. LABoucnERE, and
others, the motion of Mr. DUNCOMBE was put to the
vote, and on a division, it was rejected
by a majority of 90, there being for
the motion 51, and against it 141. Mr. DUNCOMBE
made an excellent speech on introducing the subject,
and in all the speeches that followed no substantial
reason was given for excluding him from the Com-
mittee. Will Sir JAMES GRAHAM, thus burk
the inquiry, by appointing a Secret Committee to
inquire into the practice of opening letters, and ex-
cluding the very man who could bring the delinquents
to justice ?
On the order of the day being read for the third
reading of the Unlawful Oaths (Ireland) Bill, Mr.
MORE OTERRALL opposed it, and moved that the'Bill
be read a third time that day six months.
Lord ELIOT opposed the amendment, and after a
lengthened discu,seiim the amendment was withdrawn,
a d the Bill was read a third time and passed.

The House then went into Committee on the Poor-
law Amendment Bill, and several clauses were added,
at the suggestion of Sir J. GRAHAM. • _

Mr. liiYoRKE moved a clause to restrain the
Commissioners from enforcing the indiscriminate se-
paration of man and wife, but it was rejected by a
majority of 90, their being only six votes in favour
of it.

Mr. BURROUGHE9 proposed the addition of a clause
relating to illegitimate children, which was opposed
by Sir J. GRAHAM, but eventually carried by a ma-
jority of one.

The remaining clauses passed through Committee,
and the House resumed.

The House adjourned at a Quarter to Two o'Clock,

The House of Commons is surely, affecting a
return to the good old times of its puritanism and its
prudery ! We see nightly indications of the "Crom-
wellian" facility which carried the decisions of the
Parliament of the Protector always one way—
namely, that which had been previously indicated to
it as the course which "his Highness" would have this
or that particular question or business to follow—ac-
cording to the communications vouchsafed by one of
his Secretaries of State or Chief Commissioners of the
Treasury. This practice has been accurately fol-
lowed by the majorities of the present House in dealing
with such matters at the "Factories Labour Bill" and
the " Sugar Duties." When the head of her
MAJESTY'S Administration remonstrated with the
" collective wisdom" of the country on the injudi-
cious determinations they had recorded, by important
majorities against the Government propositions re•
specting those measures, the majorities we speak of
listened and waxed penitent. But when " his High-
ness," with all the gravity and plausibility of the
Protector, and with not one atom Aess of that arbi-
trary stateman's well-known truthfulness and sin-
cerity, protested that if they did not rescind their
determinations he was determined to expose
the empire to the calamity of his retirement
from office, the obsequious parties to such
unpalatable exhibitions of independent judgments,
submitted themselves to his. They unvoted, by
equally important majorities, what they had voted
and so enabled the Minister to carry his points—
points which it seems " to have repented them" to
have ever thwarted. But the House of Commons of
1844, carrying its rage of imitation to a period some
ten years earlier than the Cromwellian Parliament, is
evidently bent, on rivalling its predecessor of 1644 in
its abnegation of all " self-glorifying pretensions.'
It might have already passed the most " self-denying
ordinance" which a Chamber of Conventiclers or
Covenanters could have devised for the expression of
their humiliation, were we at liberty to form our own
conclusions from the tone of the debate of last night,
on Mr. ThOMAS DUNCOMBE'S motion. Constitutional
firmness, public dignity, and self-respect, appear to be
properties that are becoming obsolete in the House of
Commons even in theory ; and in practice, or vindi-
cation, to have fallen into as utter desuetude as half
of its own " standing orders."
Mr. DUNCOMBE complained that the " Post-office
Committee," recently appointed, could not, as at pre-
sent constituted, carry out its inquiries in a proper
and efficient manner; that unless he were permitted
to be present at the examination of witnesses, they,
either from fear of ultimate consequences to them-
selves, or from other causes, would not depose to all,
or to the most important, facts, which they would
otherwise speak to. lie concluded his speech by
moving that he should be " present at the examination
of such witnesses as he might think proper to produce
in support of the charge which had been made by
him." To this motion an amendment was subse-
quently moved, "that the names of Mr. DUNCOMBE
and Mr. MANNERS SUTTON be added to the Commit-
tee." This proposition was lost on a division. It
was supported by 51, opposed by 141 ; and rejected,
therefore, by a majority of 91.
But 'the important feature of the debate was this.
In complaining that the Committee "had not made
searching inquiry into " facts of which he himself
was fully cognizant," he took occasion to ask Sir
JAMES GRAHAM "whether any letters of his (Mr.
T. DuszcomnE) had been opened by the Right Hon.
Baronet's orders ? This was a question justified by
his oath of allegiance, as a Member of that House.
If his letters had not been opened by order of the
Right Hon. Baronet, they had been pryed into by
other persons, and therefore it was doubly incumbent
on that House to investigate the circumstances, and

to place the facts on record." This was a most serious
question to be propounded thus solemnly to a Minister
of the Crown. All we can say upon the "justification"
to be adduced for it, is, that we should think an outrage
Upon the public confidence so gross and scandalous as

the violation of a sealed letter, is one upon which the
meanest or most insignificant member of the commu-
nity has ss indefeasible a right to complain, and in
terms, too, of indignation and displeasure even the
very strongest—As the highest personage in the
country. We have not the most remote doubt, that
the little being who absorbs so signal a share of the
attentions and caresses of royalty and of the aristo
cracy in this country—the soi-disant General TOM
THUMB himself—would have a good action to-morrow
against all or any of the higher Post-office authorities
for any fact of letter-breaking which he might prove
to have occurred in the case of a billet addressed to his
own imperceptibility. But in an assembly of English
gentlemen—in the presence of the assembled represen-
tatives of the Commons of the United Kingdom, such
a charge, brought by one of their own body in respect
of his own letters—against a public functionary, sitting
there in the double capacity, as it were, of a delegate
from the people and a Minister of the Crown; must be
allowed to have a character of grave and fearful
responsibility about it, which it is impossible to ex-
aggerate. Any man in the situation of Sir JAMES
GRAHAM, Secretary of State for the Horn& Depart-
ment, it might be imagined, would have responded to
it under a full and deep perception of this responsi-
bility. But how did he meet the question? By (in
the first place) a Nag..ue (and surely an unmeaning)
compliment to Minguiccomat on his little proneness

" tovapouring." Vapouring, forsooth ! As if to com-
plain , loudly, on the assumption of having been:the object
of a base, a scurvy, a dishonest system of trickery and
fraud, unknown to the spirit and genius of English deal-

ing in public or private business, were a mere ad
captancium exhibition of bullying ! gar Jar pro-

ceeded thus :—" At the same time he could not re ti
-
frain from reminding the Hon. Member that he had
put a question to him which he was already aware
could not, consistently with the avowed and known
sense of duty entertained by him (Sir J.GRAHAm), be
answered by him." Well ;—we do protest that the
serene assurance of the Right Hon. Baronet in ven-
turing to talk of what his "sense of duty" will prompt
him to—and in taking credit for it, too, with the
House—in the face of his yet unforgotten, and never-
to-be-forgiven tampering beforehand with re-
porters for the public press, on his private missions
to Clontarf or to Donnybrook, or anywhere else,
where Repeal agitation meetings were likely to be
held, at which Repealers could be caught tripping,
by some "chiel among them taking notes ;"—this as-
surance, we say, though from the Home Secre-
tary, overcomes our gravity, and shocks even
our large allowances for his adventurous mo-
desty ! Nevertheless, what follows is better.
"He had already stated to the Hon. Gentleman, on a
former occasion, that the sense of public duty which
he entertained forbade him to give any answer to the
question put by him.—(Hear.) He (Sir J. GRAHAM)
was alone the judge of that sense of duty, and he,
acting under that judgment, said, that he could not,
and would not, give any reply to the Hon. Member's

question.
If Mr. DUNCOMBE cannot rely in" unhesitating con-
fidence" on Sir J. GRAHAM'S " sense of duty," he can't
have generous simplicity enough to trust a Jew pedlar
with his gold watch, on the man's assurance that his
"sense of duty" will make him return it to him next
day, when he has ascertained what it is worth. That
Sir JAMES should be so sanguine about other people's
appreciation of his " sense of public duty," is droll
enough. That the House of Commons; should con-
firm him in his calculations on its credulity is all
but incredible, though the fact is before our eyes I

We are quite of their opinion, who hold the pro-
gress of incendiarism in the rural districts to be an
evidence of the fearful depreciation of moral cha-
racter which, somehow or other, is taking place but
too palpably among certain classes of our industrial
population. It is too true that this inauspicious
symptom is most developed in our agricultural dis-
tricts, but it cannot be said that our manufacturing
localities are free from it. The frequency of the
crime, and the class of the victims against whom its
visitations are always directed in the former cases,
tell their own tale. A little consideration would
enable us, we fear, to trace the " fire-raisings" in
the latter to the same spirit of indiscriminating resent-
ment which is ever prepared to sacrifice all considera-
tions of prudence and forecast—all, providence for the
future, all regard for the present—to the instant gra-
tification of one passion—reckless of all conse-
quences, indifferent to all ties, sympathies, or affec-
tions. It is only, we suspect, a keen sense of into-
lerable wrong, acting with the concentrated energy
of despair, which can thus incite the hideous revenge
of hopeless poverty against the possessors of pro-
perty, in which their own war of destruction must
inevitably prevent them from participating. If we
desire our readers—if we call upon members of the
Legislature, in particular—to examine into the motives
of this revenge, we need hardly guard ourselves be-
forehand against the suspicion of attempting to
extenuate the guilt, or palliate the infamy of this
crime of arson. On the contrary, we shall ever de-
nounce it as the most contemptible, as well as the
most cowardly,—the basest, as it is also the most
ferocious, outrage:which any individual can commit
against social property and the rights and security of
his fellow-citizens. It is the most dangerous of all
the delinquencies that private malice (by whatever
extremity of wrong incited), can be guilty, against
the unsuspecting confidence of the community, or any
of the individual members who compose that commu-
nity. Common 'Taw, therefore, and the analogy of all
criminal impulses must lead us to suppose that an
offence of such a character as this cannot become, in
some sections of the kingdom—we blush to write it—
common, and the subject of constant alarm and agi-
tation among their peaceably disposed population,
without predisposing causes of great intensity. These
must have existed, too (it may be safely assumed),
for some time past ; for no maxim is more generally
true than that men do not rush headlong, on the first
suggestion or prompting of their evil natures, into
the last excesses of criminal atrocity. Now the pre-
valence of incendiary fires in Essex, in Suffolk, in
in Norfolk, in Kent, and other counties, is a " social
evil " but too easily explicable, we fear, on princi-
ples, the action of which will be found to confirm
this view of the subject.
Mr. WonenousE, of Norfolk, we see, made a very
lame and very unfortunate effort to repudiate, on the
part of the county with which he is immedi-
ately connected, the guilt of being eminently a
theatre for the exhibition of these incendiary out-
rages. We have no desire to dwell upon the
unbecoming personalities into which this foolish at-
tempt had betrayed ,him, because the party, who
with justice complained of them, must have felt him-
self fully satisfied by the fair and ample apology
which Mr. WanEnousE, to his honour, tendered for
them. But why will Mr. WonEuousE, and those
other Hon. Members who are so clamorous for " pro-
tection" to home agriculture, that they turn a deaf
ear to the clamour for home subsistence, refuse to
grant the boon of cheap bread to the perishing
hundreds of thousands from whose desolate hovels
it is that the hunger-pinched incendiary steals to his
secret work of suicidal conflagration ? Did it never
occur to Mr. WODEHOUSE—is it a fact which, though
its notoriety have passed into a proverb, is still
unknown, to, the landed interest,—" that famine and
destitution will drive wise men mad ?" Is it so dif-
ficult to conceive that a broken-hearted, un-
employed, or ill-fed • labourer, goaded to in-
toleKable. distraction by the monstrous con-
templation of his dismantled hovel (the furniture
of which has been, perhaps, already seized and sold
under distraint, to discharge his landlord's demand
for rent), and of his pining children, who vainly,
but incessantly ask hitn for "bread," which is too
dear for him to buy' out of the fractional wages he
receives—that such a being should turn in his frenzy,
to the destruction of the very roof to which he should
have looked for shelter, and the very granaries from
which his supply of bread 'is to be drawn ? Alas!
these are not the limits within which a desperate man
can be brought to circumscribe his reasoning—(if
such a term could be applied to, the mere ebullitions
of passionate indignation). He only knows that he
starves in the midst of plenty: his children
are dying for want under the shadow- of the well-
stored homested, in which are garnered all the super-
fluous production and . stores which represent the
wealth of him from whom he can obtain either no
employment at all, or employment at a rate of remu-
neration which will not procure fur him and his
family the common necessaries of life. His own
wretchedness, their distress, his abject misery and
their helplessness, are constantly contrasted in his
jaundiced and distorted meditations, by the abun-
dance, the competency, and occasionally even by the
affluence of the more fortunate possessor of well-
stored harvests, fine stock, and farming offices, who
is either the landlord or the tenant-farmer of the pro-
perty on which he works. If the former, he insists
on rents from the latter which alone can support him
in the dignified ease of his position ; and, in order to
pay these rents, the latter can afford to pay
only such diminished wages to his labourers
as are inadequate to the demands of the
poorest measure of subsistence for himself and
family. In the meanwhile, the vicious habits of
thinking, generated by a long course of vicious legis-
lation, induce both the land owner and the tenant-
farmer to concur in the scheme for keeping up an
unnatural high price of bread ; and no amount of
suffering among the poor, but industrious, agricul-
tural labourers who surround them can appeal with
sufficient force to their good feelings, or their good
sense, their sympathy or their discernment, to induce
them to concur in forcing the repeal of laws which
thus artificially aggravate the cost of the first neces-
sary of life, and which are the primary element of a
monopoly system, fatal alike to the true interests of
home and foreign trade. The wretch who seex all
this beyond the walls of his melancholy hut, and feels
all this so bitterly within them, becomes a maniac,
and devotes to wasting ruin the abundance, from the
benefits of which he is thus shut out, and the shelter
of a home, the comforts of which are almost ostenta-
tiously arrayed before their unhappy producer, as if
to madden him by their tantalizing unapproachability
for him !

Between this poverty At Some and this talent•