The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-11 00:00:00

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eo‘,..erf
Patl92
Lions are thBete4 Info fult ho w lira.
who advanced the money, by way of loan, Is oom•
pletely paid off, but this payment of the loan does not
lessen the debt. Nay, the cost of the original road
was 12,0001., and 4,0001. was borrowed to complete
it, and this 4,000/. effectually discharged. Now comes the
juggle—the landowners, who have had poll deeds or
mortgages granted to them for double the value of the
land given up, and whose property has been posi-
tively increased in value by the new road, and whose
real interest would have been to have given the land,
and also those who have purchased poll deeds or
mortgages at perhaps half price, together with the
few original subscribers, are made claimants for the
amount of the arrear of interest from the very
first commencement of the original Act, and
granted fresh poll deeds or mortgages for
the whole amount of interest, so that, if there were
ten years' interest due, at 5 per cent, the debt which
was originally 12,0001., 4,0001. of which has been
paid off, then appears to be only 8,0001. ; but
when the new poll deeds are granted for the ten
years' arrear of interest, the debt instantly becomes
12,0001. again, the subscribers to the new line of road
are not told the rig, so these old parties come in for
an additional security by being entitled to share the
tolls, not only on the line for which they had advanced
their money, but also on the new line of road autho-
rised by the new Act. From this time, they obtain
interest upon interest. In some instances, I believe
it may be found that poll deeds have been granted to
the amount of compound interest from the advance of
money to the date of the new poll deed. Very curious
things would come out if Parliament were to appoint
a Commission of first-rate accountants, to investigate
the proceedings of Turnpike Act trustees. In too
many instances, no trustees attend any meeting but
those immediately interested.—l am, Sir, &c., &c.,
ONE BEHIND THE SCENES.

Agril 2, 1844.

THE DESTITUTE POOR.
One of the earliest, and not the least, prominent ef-
fects of the corn-laws, was a rapid increase in the
numbers of the permanently indigent, who are, at the
best of times, inseparable from a people exposes to the
vicissitudes of trade and commerce. The continued
operation of a tax, which opposes obstacles to interna•
tional communication, and professedly augments the
difficulty of obtaining subsistence in a dense papula-
tion, very soon rendered the additional increase a pro-
gressive one, with the starting point and every suc-
cessive step of the advance indelibly marked and con-
spicuously visible. We want nothing to complete the
history of the permanently indigent, who, for the last
few months, have painfully arrested public attention.
The comparatively few who are to be found while
trade was less restricted, and bread to be had at its
value, were easily disposed of under the poor-laws ;
but after the tax upon bread they became too legion-
ary to be manageable on the ancient principles of re-
lieving poverty, and a new system of poor-laws be-
came indispensable. Still the class of permanently
indigent continued to increase ; it had, indeed, become
so large almost immediately after the imposition of
the bread-tax, as to demand extraordinary measures
of relief. They perished in the fields, ditches, and
lanes of the country, and the streets of large towns,
under the accumulated miseries of hunger and expo-
sure to inclement weather. The enactment of the
corn-laws was almost immediately followed by the
establishment in London and Liverpool of asylums
for the reception of houseless wanderers, of which the
expenses were defrayed by private subscriptions.
From the books of one of these poor-houses extraor-
dinary, it appears that the vast mass of destitute peo-
ple received into them are artisans and agricultural
labourers belonging to distant parishes. These are
the classes who resort to the larger towns on the fail-
ure of the means of subsistence at their usual places
of abode, and the reason is obvious : they naturally
expect to find employment where numbers are con-
gregated, and relief where wealth most abounds.
They do not expect to be fed and lodged gratuitously;
they migrate in search of work, and, failing in that,
are plunged into misery and destitution in the very
midst of opulence and luxury. At last, these poor
wretches came between the wind and the nobility,
and "in the nostril smelled horrible."

A few months back the Tines awakened a univer-
sal sensation, too painful ever to be forgotten, by an-
nouncing in a powerful article, that it appeared
" from the report of the proceedings at Marlborough...
street Police-office, that there is an average number
of fifty human beings, of all ages, who huddle toge-
ther in the parks every night, having no other shelter
than what is supplied by the trees and hollows of the
embankments." This was in October, and in the fol-
lowing month the number of these destitute people
in the streets of London alone, had so prodigiously
increased, that the asylums for the houseless poor were
opened several weeks before their wonted time, and,
indeed, in contravention to a standing rule of the com-
mittee.

A curious instance of the faculty possessed by sonic
; philosophers, of erecting theories in opposition to fact,
and of employing the evidence for the existence of at
certain state of things to establish the contrary, has
just been furnished by Mr. D. W. Harvey, in his
"Report of the City Police Force, for the year 1843:"
This gentleman finds that the number of persons
charged with trivial offencei is very great, and
largely on the increase ; a fact which he thinks " may
be chiefly attributed to the inducements held out to
the idle and dissipated to flock to London from re-
mote parts of the country, under a fallacious impres-
sion that food and lodging are easily and gratuitously
to be obtained." Inducements of this kind cannot be
held out undesignedly, and without an active exertion.
The Commissioner of City Police should not make
loose and general accusations ; but perhaps the Police
Commissioner might bear in mind the design of Mr.
Harvey to establish a little speculation in a cheap
lodging-house for the almost destitute in the neigh-
bourhood of Brick-lane, which was abandoned in con-
sequence of the success of Lord Ranelagh and other
benevolent gentlemen in founding a gratuitous asylum
for the wholly destitute in Ogle-street.
The Commissioner of the City Police now discovers
what did not occur to Mr. Harvey, that there is an-
other evil attendant on inducing poor people to flock
to London. In the report he condemns generally
" the places now open for the relief of the houseless
and indigent," and observes that " there is something
obviously vicious in the system, and extremely ha-
zardous to the security of persons and property, which
inundates our streets every morning with hundreds of
persons, who prowl about in every form of affected
distress, seeking and seizing whatever may come in
their way."
It does not occur to the Police Commissioner that
the hundreds who inundate the streets in the morning,
must also have inundated them during the preceding
night, when property was less protected, had it not
been for the shelter afforded them by the asylums ;
and that had it not been for the allowance of food
which they receive in them, the propensity to steal,
which he assumes them to possess, would have been
sharpened by extreme hunger. We do not profess to
defend the system on which these charities are con-
ducted ; but we cannot forget that the starving have
no other resource, and the houseless no other homes
than are provided by them. Until a better system be
proposed, and approved by long experience,Tve have
no right to condemn institutions against which n0,0b..
jections are alleged, but such as want the corrohora•
tion of fact; and that is egregiously the defect under
which the strictures of the City Police Commissioner
are presented to the public.
The destitution which the present asylums par..
tially relieve is, nearly .all of it, the creationtheosetficttiht:e
corn-laws ; its amount is kept up, and annually in-
creased, solely by the legislative protection of artifi.
cial scarcity of food ; and thsylueocincsasiol‘n,hioefh
d u
people flocking. to London and other large towns, is
c„o,hmoele
a mndaetpieonndaelntof the asylums, a
Commissioner injudiciously arraigns' They had be-
disgrace,and an eyesore in the
parks, the streets, and all places of public resort in
town, long before the asylums were opened ; and
now that, on Monday next, these homes of the house-
less—these receptacles of humanity in the last stage
of helpless suffering and devouring famine—will be
closed for the summer months, a most serious and
most distressing reflection arises—what is to become
of these friendless wretches in the interim ? We do
not apprehend any additional crimes in consequence,
for notoriously depredators and violators of the peace
are not among those to whom a piece of bread and a
nightly shelter offer temptations; but we do fear for
the desolating consequences of hundreds of shelterless
human beings roaming about in every form of distress
without pity, and enduring every form of calamity
without a prospect of relief.--Advertiser.

GEENWICII FAIR. —Yesterday the amusements, or
Easter Fair at Greenwich was brought to a close, after one
' of the best attended fairs which have taken place for many
seasons. The licensed victuallers, both in the town and in
Lee and Lewisham, have reaped a harvest, in consequence or
the prohibition of drinking booths on Blackheath. The
concourse of visitors exceeds calculation, and the general,
propriety of conduct can be pretty well arrived at by the few
charges at the police-court, which have not been one-tenth as
many as last year. The steam-boats have daily beenearlo mwodss
overburdened, and the someraiitatyaccoemompaninoydttaivoenl.tadThe
diffi-
culty in providing suffic
have been so dense at tho terminus, that many ladies were
glad to escape even with the loss of shawls, veils, slippers,
&c., which were trcdden under foot in the confusion.
JUNI,. or ENGLAND.—Yesterday a Special Court
of the Proprietors of Bank Stock was held by adjournment,
for the election of 2.4 Directors to serve for the. year ensuing.
Mr. John Cotton, the Governor, at the usual hour, took the
president's place, and the ballot in due course was come.
mowed. At four o'clock the balloting-glasses were closed, and soon afterwards the scrutineers reported the names in
the house list (all but ens as advertised having 98 votes, the
other having 97 votes) to have been elected as Directors.
Mr. Jolla Cook, nominated as a Director, having but one
Mite, was declared not to be elected. The minutes having
been read, the Court adjourned,
Madame Guy Stephan has obtained a new eng.Age
n t s,
ment at the Circo Theatre. It is said to be for ten
Tr:teh
and she is to have 6,000 piastres and two benefits...4o*i
Print of April 3.