The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-08 00:00:00

Pit mint( /nn.

LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1844.

The present aspect of parties in Ireland is the most
grotesque and eccentric it is possible to conceive. All
is chaos and bewilderment—doubt—stupeeaction—
mingled hope and despondency. No one appears to
know himself, but to entertain a sort of hazy, im-
perfect consciousness that he is somebody else. A few
years ago two Irishmen met on Westminster-bridge.
" How d'ye do, Flannaghan ?" said the one; " pretty
well, I thank you, Mahoney," replied the other
" My name's nut Mahoney !" rejoined the former.
" And my name's not Flannaghan," retorted the
latter. " So we looked at each other," adds the
narrator of the anecdote, " and we found it was
neither of us !" Now we strongly suspect that if, at
the present crisis, an Orangeman were to meet a
Repealer in Dublin or elsewhere, and each were to
look at the other, each would have occasion to exclaim
with his countryman on the bridge, " we found it
was neither of us." The former, on being saluted as
an Orangeman, would, most likely, protest that he
was no longer a strict Orangeman, but was something
else—what, he did not exactly know ; while the
latter, equally at a loss for a definite answer, would
say that he was not a Repealer, but, to the best of his
belief, he was a Federalist, or something of that sort!
While thus parties are in such a state of glorious con-
fusion that no one knows what he is, or what
system of Irish policy he may be induced to
advocate six months hence, forth steps Mr.
Salmi O'BRIEN to increase the general perplexity
by these extraordinary remarks. " I care not by
what name a fellow-countryman may denote himself.
Let him cling to the designation, ill-omened though
it be, of Orangeman. Let him adopt the new and
undefined appellative of Federalist. If he love Ire-
land—if he labour to promote its welfare—if he
cherish its glory as he prizes his own personal honour
—that man is our brother. His interests and ours
are the same—n common success will reward our
united efforts. I sincerely feel that nothing is re-
quired except internal union." It would appear
from the above passage that Ireland's welfare
may be promoted by the Orangemen equally
as well as by the Federalists—that, in fact,
there is no earthly difference between them except
as regards mere name, and that, therefore,
they are bound to combine their energies in support of
their common country. But what are they to combine
for? Is it for Federalism ?—is it for Repeal ?—or is
it for a restoration of the old Protestant ascendancy
system ? lhe Orangeman, if he still calls himself an
Orangeman—to which, by the bye, Mr. O'BRIEN has
not the slightest objection—will scarcely agitate
.for
the two former crotchets ; while the Repealer si ill
scarcely struggle to revive the days of the SAURINS,
the NORRURYS, the LEFROYS, &C. ! What then, we re-
peat, are they to combine for ? This is a question more
easily asked than answered. At any rate we, who are
DAVIIS, not CEDIMUS can
strenuous
no satisfactoryh reply ,
to it. Mr. O'BRIEN'S' eexffecotrtaftiohn.s to
union increases not a little the richs
of
union,is re-
marks. What possible chance can there be°
when Mr. O'CornvELL has just sown the seeds of
dis-
sension among the Repealers by introducing his half-
way
project of Federalism, and split them into two
distinct factions, each of whom in a short time
will begin to regard the other with the same

placid feelings of charity with which a High-Church
Bishop regards a stiff-necked Dissenter ? What
chance can there be of union, when the
Protestant party are all at sixes and sevens—one
portion of them calling themselves Orangemen,
another rejoicing in the title of Conservatives, and
both agreeing in nothing but their hatred of Repeal
and their distrust of Federalism ? When oil lovingly
amalgamates with vinegar—when the Bishop of
LONDON hob-a-nobs with Mr. Fox, the Unitarian, at
Fulham Palace—when Dr. PHILLPOTTS ceases to
bewail the loss of his rich Rectory of Stan-
hope when these impossibilities shall come
to pass, then—but not till then—we will be-
lieve that there will be a union among all
parties in Ireland for the furtherance of the cause
of Repeal ! We grant that of late the Orange-
men have evinced more moderation and liberality of
sentiment than is usual with them, and that the Re-
realers, in the hope of bringing them fully round to
their own views, are administering to them " soft
solder" in pretty copious doses ; still, for all this, there
is less chance of a real, hearty union among parties than
ever ; and we will add, too, that so far from advancing,
the question of a Repeal of the Union has been daily
retrograding for the last three months and upwards,
and will not survive a year longer—except as the
mere clamour of a small faction—if Sir R. PEEL
will only make up his mind to come forward with
such remedial measures for Ireland as she has a right
to anticipate from the Imperial Government.

It is not without great regret that we feel our-
selves again compelled to advert to a subject which
unhappily supplies but too frequent a text for cen-
sure and disgust. The treatment of the poor of this
country is a matter to which it is idle for some fas-
tidious and short-sighted persons to complain that the
Press is in the habit of devoting too large a share of

its attention. There is no question lying so closely

at the very root of our domestic prosperity. There
is no principle of decay which, if not eradicated, or
at least reduced and controlled in time, can operate
more certainly or awfully to the destruction of the
magnificent social edifice that free and equal institu-
tions have been the chief agents in erecting. By these
its bases have been laid and consolidated. Our vast

commercial opulence has but extended and enriched

the superstructure, and if still further to beautify
and protect this latter we diminish the supports
which have been provided for the poor—in the original

Ulan of the fabric, and the additions subsequently
made to it—we diminish in proportion the stability
-ind safety of the whole work. Now, the tendency
of all our modern legislation, and the administration
of magisterial justice, too palpably incline to the

vindication of the rights of property, and the protec-
tion of wealth at a large sacrifice of that tenderness
Ind sympathy for the position, the privations, the

feelings, and, above all, the personal liberty of the
poor, which a more humane, and therefore en-
lightened policy, would studiously manifest on all
)ccasions.

In our paper of Tuesday evening we gave reports
,f two cases in which this habitual disregard of the
reelings and position of the poor was remarkably ex-
emplified. They furnished a fitting pendant to those
examples of Game-law good sense and humanity to
which we have so recently directed public attention.

On Monday last the Coroner for Middlesex held an
nquest on the body of the poor man who had long

,ccupied a small cobbler's shop at the corner of South

Molton-lane, Davies-street, where, after having car-
ied on the business in former years, on a large scale,
of a boot and shoemaker, he earned, in the decline of

his life, a precarious but honest subsistence. Here,
inhappily, he had fallen into arrear for a few weeks'
'ent, for which his landlord, some Whitechapel
broker, on one day last week came to distrain. If
he report is to be relied on, the broker must have
4een a ruffianly specimen even of his discreditable

fraternity. "He not only took what small amount
of goods the deceased had, but actually tore his
apron off from him, took his tools, and even the job
he was at work upon out of his hands, and his spec-
tacles from his face. This broker also took away his
'oat, but subsequently returned it, on the deceased
consenting to give up the key." The sequel is soon
told. Stung to madness by the illegal and brutal
violence and cruelty of the broker, the poor, broken-
!own tradesman, who had borne up manfully
tgainst all the previous reverses which had ensued
upon his "better days "—brooded for a whole day
o►er this last overwhelming calamity, and—hanged
himself!

We fear this case is but one of a class. We desire
o know how it is that the authorities in whom such
appointments are, conceive themselves justified in
ranting licenses liable to such extensive and in-
.olerable abuses, to men of a class in society so
generally degraded both in character and calling as
lese brokers ? Thciy are the " obscene harpies" of
he most dirty and noisome purlieus of the law, in
is worst perversions from the guardianship of right

uid justice to the perpetration of all violence and
'raud. If the rich were to have been the probable
►hjects of the attentions of these distraining brokers,

.loes any man suppose that legislation would not
have provided much more ample grounds and securi-
ties for the protection of their property and rights,

)y committing such powers to very different hands
nrom those which are trusted with the right of
tearing the poor ?" Mr. WAKLEY recommended

the son of the deceased to bring his action against the
man SKINNER, who had distrained on his father.
llas! what are the probabilities that this action can
he sustained by the son or his friends, in the absence
of funds for such a purpose ?
At the last Special Session of the Justices of the

Bromley Division, a number of the most destitute of
rate-payers were charged with the offence of not

having paid up their rates, amounting, respectively,
to 35., 45., 55., and 6s. In all these cases, the parties,
-ome aged and infirm women, who had previously
p lid for many years rates and taxes, were directed
to be proceeded against by distress warrant, although
the appeals they made are grounded on facts esta-
blishing, most irresistibly, their utter destitution and

misery. Some are reproved for being householders,
a% a rate of 61. or 71., since their rates were in arrear.
Others were charitably told by the Magistrates that
they had no business" to be living in such expensive
tenements as these little arrears had accumulated

upon. In all the cases, there was but one deci-
ei,ion—" pay in so many days, or a distress warrant
must issue against you, and you will be sold up."
Now, really, if gentlemen who sit at special sessions
would but reflect on the amount of misery which has
preceded the fact of the arrears, and the incalculable
ad.litional misery these ready and prompt issues of
warrants inflict, they would not only pause in their
decisions, but, out of hand, as large landed proprietors,
discharge, for the more frugal and deserving, the
amount of their claim upon them. What does the
parish or district gain by proceeding against these
unfortunates ? If their goods yield anything, they

barely pay the costs. If nothing, costs are incurred
which the rate-payers generally are burdened with in
addition to their rates. Besides, the cost of a vane or
belfry to one of the huge union poor-houses would
well defray the whole aggregate of these petty but
ii4ressing remedies. When will property be taught
the wisdom of liberality, even beyond the mere letter
of the law.

Madrid journals of the 30th ult. have been received.
Preparations were in progress for the trial of PRIM •
he had on the 29th been committed to the barracks of
the Body Guard and confined in the tower. The
trial was expected to commence on the 2d inst. Ge-
neral SHELLY, assisted by two barristers, named
SIVRENT and MORENO, were to conduct the defence.
The Chamber of Deputies on the 30th resumed the
discussion on the Address. After a speech from
Senor DIAs against the Ministerial plan of reform,
the Minister of the Interior announced his intention
of retiring from office if the proposed Bill should be
rejected. The Moderado party, he said, did not wish
to destroy the Constitution but merely to improve it.
Reform was necessary, because the Constitution con-
tained dangerous principles, such as that of the sove-
reignty of the people, which was absurd and imprac-
ticable. It was time to establish the Constitution on
positive principles ; and so general was the wish of
the nation in that respect, that in most of the elec-
toral colleges the candidates for the Deputation and
Senate had been obliged to pledge themselves to vote
forks reform.

Barcelona papers of the 30th ult. announce the
arrest of Brigadier DE CELLS, in consequence of an
order from Madrid. They state, also, that four of
the individuals
arrested on the 27th had been tried

and sentenced to death, and ordered for execution FLANDERS MAIL.
within twenty-four hours. I BRUSSELS, Nov. 4.—The Chamber of Represen-
On the Madrid Bourse the Funds continued firm, tatives met to-day. It voted definitively, by a ma-
the Three per Cents. being done at 27i for cash, and jority of 43 to 9, the project of law relative to the
28 27i at 60 days ; the Five per Cents. at 201 at 60 settlement and relief of the poor. It then resumed
days ; the Floating Debt at 65i at 60 days ; the I, the general debate on the project of law relative to the
Coupons at 261 for cash; and the Debt without In- augmentation of the salaries of the members of the
terest at 61 at 60 days.

The Paris papers still continue to give long ex-
tracts of letters from Madrid, with comments on the
late pretended conspiracy, and all the writers who
speak conscientiously declare that the affair at Madrid
as well as that at Barcelona, were plots formed, not
by the discontented people, but by the Government
_ _

itself. The Constitutionnel states that PRIM does not
deny the share he has taken in endeavouring to get
up an opposition to the plan for destroying the Con-
stitution, but to call that a plot or conspiracy is an
utter perversion of terms. He and his party are in
favour of that Constitution to which almost every
public man in Spain has sworn allegiance. The real
conspirators are NARVAEZ, CHRISTINA, and Co. "It
was reported yesterday," says that journal, "at the
Bourse that General PRIM had been shot. We have
made inquiries on the subject, and it appears certain
that nothing of the kind has been mentioned in the
dispatches which have reached Paris. According to
the intelligence communicated by the Government to
the Spanish Legation, it appears that General PRIM
is implicated, not in the plot formed against NARVABZ,
but.in a conspiracy to produce a pronunciainiento of
all Spain against the Ministry. Amongst the papers
seized at his residence was the copy of a letter written
to one of the ex-Ministers of the REGENT, in which
he expressed his regret at having contributed to the
restoration of the Moderado party in his country.
The reply was also found amongst his papers. It ap.
pears that PRIM does not deny his participation in a
new conspiracy, and that he declares he will always
act in the same way against powers hostile to the
Constitution."

The Madrid correspondence of the National thus
describes the mock conspiracy :

magistracy. This debate turned chiefly on the
ne-
cessity of suppressing, or of retaining, the 4th class
of tribunals. No decision was come to, and the de-
bate was adjourned until to-morrow.
At the commencement of the sitting, the Minister
of Justice presented a project of law for establishing
a new mode for the sanction and promulgation of the
laws and royal degrees.
King William 11. has just granted pensions to all
the persons formerly employed in the care of
his dominions in Belgium. From the directions to the
iniividuals filling the lowest offices, all are to retain
their salaries under the title of pensions. This act of
royal munificence will enable the Government to fill
up the vacancies.
An amateur has just discovered, amongst the
collection of a dealer in antiquities in this city,
twenty-one copper plates, forming a gallery
of portraits of Princes of the House of Nassau, be-
ginning with William I. and ending with William V.,
Prince of Orange. It comprehends, also, several
other persons. The dates are from 1747 to 1755.
These portraits are engraved after Mieveldt, by
Tense Ilonbraken, and other artists of the school of
Brunswick. Above each portrait there is an episode
of the life of the person represented. The plates are
in a perfect state of preservation, and the engravings
are of the greatest beauty.
BELGIAN FUNDS.—Batmasts, Net 4.
Actua Debt, 5% per Cent.,
Rothschild's Loan, Five per Cent.*.....
Loan of Thirty Millions, Four per Cent 98%
Three per
mK Thirty-seven Minims, ditto .....
(1840) lO4
1R44 .. . ... ••••••••• •••- •" •••••••••••••••••••• 1044
Loan of City, 1543, Vour per Cent. 102%
Society of Commerce, Four and a Half per Cent.
Bank of Belgium. Five per Cent OO%

" The men who had been at first the most struck with
the pretended snare laid for Narvaez, begin at present
to recognise that this odious affair was prepared and
combined beforehand by that General himself; and his
right hand, Aviraneta. There are in all this history
details so clumsy, such a shocking want of consistency,
that no person can be longer deceived by it. It will be
always easy to the head of a police to find in a great
city instruments for the most perverse designs, and if
Signor Aviraneta should take it into his head to get up
an infernal machine, he will only have to search his
pocket to pull out the plan and its mode of execution.
Narvaez turns the incident to account with the greatest
eagerness, and as if the grand conspiracy was not suffi-
cient for him, he employs his agents in the Cortes to
operate on the timid Deputies, who were disposed to op-
pose the project of reform. Signor Quinto, Director-
General of the Post-office, has been saluted as the prin-
cipal agent in this wretched farce. He declared at first
that he was opposed to the destruction of the Constitu-
tion, and then gave in his resignation, that he might, he
said, have more liberty of action. To-day, in address•
ing the Ministers on the pretended attempt of assassina-
tion, he gave vent to protestations of devotedness, and
indulged in violent declamations against the revolu-
tionists! It follows, of course, thanks to the terror•
disseminated in the Cortes, that the destruction of the
Constitution will pass by a large majority. In terror
Narvae: is suite a prodigal, and I know positively that
some Deputies, imbued with a little fancy of opposition,
have received anonymous letters, containing the most
frightfnl threats._That means were not required to make
the cowards give way. Public opinion in Madrid and
the provinces is becoming more excited from day to day
at the sight of what passes already, and at the prospect
of what is being prepared. What will happen after the
Cortes shall have sanctioned the ruin of the Constitu-
tion ? What will happen if Prim be shot, as the mad-
men announce openly? It is always a perilous matter
to prophecy, particularly respecting Spain, where two
and two do not make four."

—Brussels Papers. Nov. 5.
AUSTRIAN FUNDS.—Artembra, Om 30.
Five per Cents. Metalhques
Four par Cents. lOO%
Three per Cents,
Bank Shares
Allgemeine Zeitung, Nov. 2.

The only domestic intelligence in these papers is
the reconciliation of the Paris bar with M. SEGUIEB,
President of the Cour Royale. At the meeting of
the Court, on the 4th, the Procureur-Generil, after
alluding to the unfortunate differences which had
caused such confusion, expressed a hope that all
parties would show a conciliatory spirit, and give
each other mutual assistance in the difficult duties
falling to the lot of each of them. The President SE.•
OUIJER said a few words in reply, in which he ex-
pressed his great respect for the bar, and the pleasure
it gave him that they should again meet in unison,
and determined, as magistrates and counsel, to labour
in their several vocations for the service of the KING
and the good of the people. This was considered
satisfactory; and the bar, after a brief consultation,
resumed their labours. The following is the latest
intelligence from the army in Algeria
the 27th Marshal Bugeaud proceeded to the Tleta
of 4e Flissas-el-Bahar, on the spot where the affair took
place.with General Coueman. The Flissas did not wait
for our troups, but abandoned all the villages, taking
with them their wives, children, and flocks, but leaving
all their corn and provisions. The village of Tezerara
was taken, and immense quantities of corn and dried
figs were found there. The Flissas-el-Bahar are terri-
fied ; they have sent to the Marshal as a flag of truce a
cadi of the Isser, who resides with them. On the 28th
the Marshal left for the neighbouring mountains, on the
side of Beni Djanad. An engagement took place bet • n
the column which he commands and 3,000 to 4,06 •a-
byles. The enemy were placed in a strong positio , .ut
they were attacked with so much spirit and energy that
they soon gavo way, and were pursued to a distance of
four leagues from the field of battle. They lost a great
number of men, but we had only eight or ten put hors de
combat. The Flissas-el-Bahar took no part in the con-
flict, and came on the 29th and offered their full and un-
conditional submission. It is to be presumed that the
Beni Djenads will do the same."
THE BOURSE- —TUMDAY, Nov. 5.