The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-12 00:00:00

YORK: ArIUL lO.

STOOK ExcHArgom.—The transactions to-day were as fol.
low :—York, Newcastle, and Berwick, 1 t IA —East Lancashire,
ties, 714—Shetlield, Rotherham, and Goole, N. D., guaran-
teed 5 per cent., 171/—York and North Midland, Prefer-
ence, 61. Bs. gd. —orth British. Preference (guaranteed 6
per cant. for dye years, and 5 per cent. in perpetuity), 476.
GLASGOW, APRIL 9.

. ...
Srocir ExcriAlvoz.—The transactions to-day were as
follow: Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr. Halves (N0..2),
4 —Edinburgh and Glasgow, 52 Edinburgh and Bath-
gate, 53/4.

MONUMENT TO EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
The true-tempered men of Sheffield are about to do
a npw honour to themselves by honouring the memory
of Ebenezer Elliott, the man whose iron pen drew up
the indictment against that public robber Corn-law;
and never was indictment better drawn for conviction,
though a rare success attended the novel deed, for it
was only worded with common words, the words
themselves hot and glowing with bate of wrong
Elliott struck from his subject—as the blacksmith
strikes from the red iron—sparkles of burning light;
and where they fell they consumed. as homely in-
dignation was sublimed by the intensity of his honesty;
if his words were homely, they were made resistless
by the inexorable purpose that uttered them. But
the man had the true heart and soul of the poet, and
could love the simple and beautiful as passionately as
he denounced the selfish and the mean. He would
turn from the coronet of the corn-law landlord, the
thing he had hammered very small indeed, showing
with his best vehemence how very, very little was a
symbol of social rank when misused for social wrong ;
he would turn from the battered bauble, and then from
the heart of a hedge-flower extract the balm of beauty
and the spirit of love.
The Corn-law Rhymes did greatest service. They
were the earliest utterances of a people contending
with a sense of inarticulate suffering. They sup-
plied the words ; they gave a voice and meaning to
the labouring heart, and the true poet vindicated his
true mission by making his spirit pass into the spirits
of the many.
in the genius of the corn-law
Very secure, indeed,
were the lordly corn-law landlords. Contemptuously
serene the titled Triptolemnses. There was, to be
sure, a fitful noise—an impatient grunt of the swine
multitude; impatient of high-priced meal. Yet all
went gaily in the House ; yea, in both Houses of
Landlords. And at the time there was a plain,
strong, vulgar man, putting down certain syllables,
measuring out wordy lines—every line the sinew of
a Samson to pull down the heathen temple where
Monopoly sat enshrined. And these words went
abroad. They were Piing by workmen on their road
to labour—they were chanted at clubs; they Were
droned at the fireside. Wrong and indignation were
packed into verses, and made portable to the smallest
faculty. In the meanwhile, what cared the landlord
Commons—what the landlord Lords ?

Time rolled on, and Corn-law was condemned.
The indictment drawn by the poet was the draft after-
wards improved ; but Ebenezer Elliott was the first
drawer ; and honoured be the, men of Sheffield, who
seek to do monumental homage to their patriotic poet
We have plenty of modern statues to the sword. It
is full time we had one to the Pen.—Punch.