The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-04 00:00:00

ateninit ""ims

LONDON, TUESDAY. JUNE 4, 1850.

The advocates of Sunday stagnation have about
as much reason to exult over the probability of car-
rying their ideas, in regard to the Lord's Day, into
operation, as Mademoiselle AMARIS has of flying to
one of the planets. It were just as absurd fur the
former to dream of witnessing the acceptance of
their extravagant project by the Legislature, simply
because of the majority obtained by Lord ASHLEY,
in the miserably attended House, on Thursday evening,
as it would be for the latter to dream of floating off
to the moon, because she can suspend herself in the
sir, fur an instant, in the midst of her won
derful Terpsichorean movements. The reason
for the majority was the thinness of the
attendance in Parliament ; the thinness of the
attendance was attributable to the interest excited
among the representatives by the racing at Epsom ;
and that predilection on the part of so many
Members for the enjoyments of the race-course,
affords of itself, a sufficient guarantee that, when
put upon their mettle, or, in other words, when drawn
to a point by any serious movement on the part of
Lord ASHLEY and his associates, the Commons will
at once put a most effectual extinguisher upon the
Sabbatarians. The obvious reasonableness of these
reflections consequently sets aside forthwith and
altogether the notion that any importance should be
attached to the trivial success obtained the other
evening by the Noble Lord the representative of
Bath, a success attributable to no sympathy with his
last crochet of philanthropy, but rather to the cir-
cumstance of the superior fascinations of the great
national sporting season.
Scanning the improvements recently attempted by
Mr.
Row Latin HILL, scrutinising with the utmost
nicety the plans recently projected under his manage-
ment, we can only detect, in the agitation which has
been recently excited against himself, the inevitable
reward of any one who will be insane enough to make
any concessions whatever to the Sabbatarians. It is
notorious that Mr. HILL has been assailed, and abused,
and vilified as an abandoned person, irreligious in his
principles, and demoralising in his influence ; and yet,
when the scheme adopted at his suggestion by the
Postmaster-General are examined into, it only be-
come, evident that he has been striving might and
main, with his utmost possible ingenuity, to diminish
the amount of Sunday labour in the Post-office
department. Mr. HILL' has not only striven
hard to effect this diminution, but he has
actually accomplished it, insomuch that from
four to five thousand subordinate offi..ials through
out the country have been enabled to obtain
on all Sundays an amount of rest hitherto found to
be impracticable. Tne boon thus accorded to the
sticklers for a rigid observance of the Sunday appea, s,
however, so far from exciting their gratitude, to have
merely whetted their appetite for yet further en-
croachments, to have driven them in a paroxysm of
fanatical fury upon the unfortunate gentleman who
had wakened them from their previous quietude, to
have sent them next whining in miserable deputations
to the official residence of the Prime Minister in

Downing-street, and ultimately to have impelled them
to howl forth their lugubrious demands within the
very walls of Parliament. If they imagine that
such nonsense as they utter can affect the
judgment of the British Legislature we warrant them
they will speedily find themselves to have been very
wonderfully mistaken. If they fancy that the Eng-
lish multitude are to be gulled by such manifest
humbug and hypocrisy they will receive a hint to
the contrary that will wondrously soon convince
them to the contrary. The middle of the nineteenth
century—the age of steam-engines and electric tele-
graphs—is not exactly the time in which a people
yo f
atG trhe
ea t
bße
hrei tsat i n
of caa
gn
abneg eoxfpseacnt ecd-
lt iok eb
ot hwe
di no hwanb
at a
meets tks
timonious dreamers. Of all epochs this is surely the
very lust when anything at all like retrogression
can be expected in the way of obedience
to the mandates of an extravagant super-
stition. We are coolly asked to plunge our cjmmer-
cial relations into all kinds ofembarrassing difficulties,
and to sever the means of communicat:oa among our
domestic affections once every week for twenty-tour
hours' duration ; we are asked to do this, moreover,
in the name of Sabbatical observances, by highly mo-
ral and, indeed, saintly personages, who shudder at
the sinfulness of dropping a letter into the post- office,
or of hearing the postman's knock on Sundays, and
who, nevertheless, think nothing of driving to church
in very great state on those days, attended by their
retinue of flunkies, or of driving back in equal
" pride, pomp, and circumstance," to discuss the me-
rits of a hot dinner prepared for them with great
labour and assiduity by their chef-de-cuisine. We
presume that if the Post-office clerke and other mem-
bers of that department have souls to save, so also
have cooks, and scullery-maids, and coachmen, and
ladies' pages, and all the rest of their high mighti-
nesses (beloved by THOMAS CAELYLE), the princes
and peers of Pluukeydom. Yet these Sabbath
humbugs appear to think to the contrary ; they
appear to imagine that to the Post office officials
belongs the peculiar prerogative of preserving their
spiritual rectitude by a punctilious attention to certain
inexorable hours and certain arbitrary observances.
Why, as was intimated only the other evening by
one of her Aflame's Ministers, the affairs of the
nation, the duties of the Executive, could not by any
possibility be carried on, or, adequately performed,
without the attendance of clerks and secre-
taries on Sundays, as well as on weekdays, in
the official chambers at Downing-street—in the
departments of the Home Secretary, the Colonial
Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, and the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Why not insist upon the entan-
glement of the labours of the Government as well as
the embarrassment of the Yost-office department ?
Why not require all domestic as well as all public
toils to cease between the Saturday and Monday ?
Why not demand the relaxation from all duties on
Sundays of soldiers and policemen ? "Why not ?
Because any of these arrangements would be per-
sonally inconvenient to these Pharisees! They would
be inconvenient to them for inasmuch as their pro-
perty and, perhaps, their lives would not then be safe
inconvenient
for the Lord's Day. They would be
for inasmuch as the Sunday would be thereby ren-
dered the holiday of the burglar and the pickpocket.
But the arguments put forward by them in regard to
the cessation of Post-office labours on all Sundays
would
pwoorut
il
(dm beof infinitely tel y
community morea vast pro-
To many individuals it
inconvenient to
prove inevitably ruinous. To the commercial
houses at Liverpool, and Manchester, and Hull, and
Sheffield, and Birmingham, and similar localities, it
would be fraught with the most disastrous consequences,
tahsewaun.
was
obriefly, but einphatieallYl intimated last night by
Gentleman the Member for Montrose.
Against the entire proposition, therefore, it is essential
for the well-being and the very stability of the coun-
try that a resolute negative should be pronounced at
HUME,
GI" by the Government and the Legislature. Ace
cording Prime Minister, in reply to the inquiries of Mr.
to the acknowledgment made yesterday by
the
it would seem that the Cabinet have not

yet decided whether they are prepared to consent to
the appointment of a Committee to consider the pro-
ject by
which the House of Commons, on Thursday
evening, agreed to present an address to her
MAJESTY. At least, we may rest confident
that the Administration is definitively resolved to
withstand all these preposterous attempts to plunge
the mercantile affdirs of the United Kingdom into
inextricable difficulties for the sake 41 satisfying a
few diseased consciences—of pandering to a prurient
fanatadam—of conniving at the schemes of certain

sanctimonious hypocrites, or of yielding power to
bigotry, and predominance to superstition.

We had hoped that the discussion on the principle
of the new Savings' Bank Bill would have been long
since completed in the Howe of Commons. We have
already pointed out the vast importance of the subject
—an importance fully acknowledged by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, when, with the
full sanction of his official coadjutors, he
assigned a priority to the Bill over any other Govern-
ment measure. Four months have, however, elapsed,
and but little progress has been made. We are now
in June, two-thirds of the session have been con-
sumed, and yet the Bill has not yet been read a second
time in the popular branch of the Legislature. It is
true that it was fixed for yesterday, but so many im-
portant orders were placed before it that there could have
been but little chance of its being called on. The
delay that has taken place will, however, if not
absolutely fatal to the measure, have one good result.
It will enable those experienced in the management
of those valuable establishments to consider the ques-
tion coolly and dispassionately, without being biassed
or prejudiced by the extraordinary frauds that have
been brought to light, not only in Ireland, but at
Rochdale, Aylesbury, St. Helen's, Scarborough, and
Hull; and also to record their opinions on the
various details of the measure brought forward by Sir
CHARLES WOOD.

We readily admit that there are many valuable
features in the new Bill. If it be desirable to foster
a spirit of forethought and self-denial among the
working classes, and to induce them, when in full
work to lay aside a portion of their earnings as pro-
vision for a more unfavourable season, it is essential

that full security fur the amount of deposits should
be given, and that they should no longer be de-
prived of their property through the dis-
honesty of fraudulent officials, encouraged by the
negligence and apathy of irresponsible trustees. The
Government guarantee, in place of being merely
nominal, and applying only to the sums actually in-
vested with the Commissioners for the Reduction of
the National Debt, should affect every farthing
lodged with the recognised officers of these institu-
ione, in accordance with certain plain and simple
rules, which should be extensively circulated among
the labouring population and distinctly brought under
the notice of every individual depositor. If ordinary
precautions be taken, such as are at this moment en-
forced in the great majority of savings' banks
throughout the kingdom, frauds will be rendered
almost impossible, or, if attempted, will be speedily
discovered, and adequate punishment inflicted on the
guilty parties. It was the undue confidence reposed
in LYNCH of Tralee, in DUNN of Killarney, and in
HAWORTH of Rochdale, that enabled these delinquents
to carry on their nefarious depredations through
so many years without suspicion being excited, or
exposure being rendered inevitable. No real or effi-
cient control was maintained; the statements of the
parties were received without examination, although
there were matters appearing on the very face of the
accounts that should have led to immediate investiga-
tion. For instance, at Tralee, LYNCH reported to
the Commissioners in November, 1847, that the then
liabilities of the bank amounted to 5,1301.
4s. 6d., due upon 280 accounts, whereas,
at that very time, the liabilities exceeded 40,0001.,
on no less than 1,100 open accounts. How could
such statements have passed with any persons at ail
acquainted with the district, and disposed to take
the slightest trouble in the performance of the
honourable trust confided to their hands ? But even
this was not all : glaring inaccuracies on the very
face of the accounts were vouched as correct by two
trustees, and sanctioned by the Commissioners. For in-
stance, in 1844, four years before the discovery, it was
reported by LYNCH, that there was 2,409/. due to
twenty-six depositors of more than 1001. Similar
mistakes were made in the years 1845, 1846, and
1847. Indeed, in the last mentioned year, according
to his own showing, there must have been errors ex-
ceeding 4,0001., or nearly equal to the nominal liabi-
lities of the concern; and yet the palpably erroneous
statement was never questioned by the vigilant
trustees, who were supposed to have perused
it before certifying as to its accuracy,
or by the parties in the National Debt office, whose
duty it was to examine these accounts. In every one
of the frauds that have been brought to light an
inch-pendtnt and searching audit, and a periodical
comparison of the books of the individual depositors
with those of the establishment, by parties uncon-
nected with the officers, would have led to an imme-
diate exposure, and if the measure now before the
House ensured these desiderata, together with giving
real Government security, it would fully meet the
necessity of the case and the wishes of the country.'
But Sir CHARLES WOOD could not be satisfied
with a plain and straightforward proceeding. In
every case be has an eye to the profits to the public
exchequer, he does not see why the savings of the
less wealthy classes should not produce some addi-
tional funds to his department. His first object,
then, is to reduce the rates of interest allowed by
Government from 31. ss. to 31. per annum, or, in
other words, to gain one-quarter per cent. per annum
from each depositor, which, on the 30,000,0001.
sterling invested on account of savings' banks, will
amount to 75,0001. per annum. This is to supply a
loss of some 20,0001. or 30,0001. a year, now sus-
tained, or alleged to be sustained, by the Government;
whotto
withdraw
tohodk r
acoar ngego eo theird
m deposits,interest
w ila
mores
be
but it will manifestly be more than sufficient for the
purpose. This impolitic reduction will induce many
wceol
considerably
especiallys
iadsegoodray
as the expenses of m
security,
increased in consequence of the limitation of depo-
sits, which is henceforward to be stringently
enforced. The rate that can be allowed
will, therefore, be much lower than can be
eßidxdeucedetr
sl al
excellent
ns
tt
phazareopifianrtdoi
smpt:eifrrn isossoftor:toa,roticinooealn.noefopefe,rrechvaheenennaiunpuemjluibkasyes-
obtained in the public funds, or on the more valid
our
ren
present
i securities.
reser rs ece gno nta rs
sufficient to justify bim in inflicting a heavy blow
and great discouragement on the national habits of
providence and self-control. Will the public sup-
port him in this opinion ? We hope and believe that
they will not.

QUEEN'S BENCH.—(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings in Banco, before Lord CAMPBELL, and Jus
tices PATTER,,N, WIORTMAN, and ERLE.)
The Court at its sitting this morning gave judgmen
in the following cases:—

DOE DEM. HUBBARD V. HUBBARD.
The question in this case turned upon the construc-
tion of a clause in the will of one Thomas Hubbard, in
which be said—" I hereby give to my son, David Hub-
bard, all those two cottages or tenements, together with
the appurtenances thereunto belonging, the one occupied
by my son, John Hubbard, and the other occupied by
my grand-daughter, Elizabeth." The premises so occu-
pied by those two persona appeared to have been occu-
pied for years in severalty by them, having been parti-
tioned off from what originally constituted two larger
cottages, and divided into live residences.
Lord CAMPBELL was of opinion that the language in
the testator's Trio appeared to be insufficient to carry
the premises sought to be recovered in this action from
the heir•at•law. He conceived there might be two
cottages under the same roof, divided from each other
by an internal partition. He was of opinion that the rule
in this case should be discharged.
Mr. Justice PerrEsou was also of opinion that the
rule should be discharged. The words in the will were
to be taken in their popular and familiar sense. The two
original euttagos had certainly been divided into five
residences. He could not see why each of those
five residences might not be properly described as a cot-
tage or tenement.

Mr. Justice WIGHTISIAN concurred, and
Mr. Justice ERLE distsfnted.
The rule for a new trial was therefore discharged.
THE QUEEN V. WHITMARSH.
- _ _

- -
Lord CAMPBELL said the first question raised in this
demurrer wa-, whether the National Land Company
was a joint-stock company within the 7 and 8 Victoria,
c. 110, ate. 2. By that action the statute was applied to
severs! de•zeriptions Gf companies, and am,ng others to
companies established for the purposes of profit. It was
contended that this company was established for the
purposes of profit, both because the dii more were em-
ployed to sell land for profit, and also because the rent
charges would be a source of profit. But it appeared
to the Court that those grounds did not maintain the
proposition contended for, because the governing pur-
pose of the company, according to the provisions of the
deed, was the purchase of land and the division of such
land among the subscribers. Therefore the judgment
of the Court would be for the defenadlalnegt.ed infringementAstheopinion
he
of the Court was in favour of the defendant on that
point, it was unnect-ssary for them to decide the further
questionoethe stacompany,tute, whetherout st thhbeae
dgorobojruenc
otherwise.
i on t against the legality ot
the
Judgment for the defendant. '

DIMEB V. PETLEY.
The Court in this QUO pronounced' judgment for the
Plaintiff: