The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS..
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Considerable dissatisfaction has been caused
by the course adopted by Mr. Broughton, one of the ma-
gistrates of Worship-street Police-office, in a case of
assault which a few days since came before him. The
circumstances were. peculiar ; and the magistrate's de-
cision was, in our view, a practical denial of justice to the
complainant. The assault was committed by the school,
mistress of Bethnal-green workhouse on a female child of
tender years, whom she had severely beaten for going
into the scullery for water to drink with her supper
water not being allowed in the meal-room, as it had
been occasionally spilt by the children on the table and
on the floor ; and the door leading to the place whence
the children were permitted to obtain it being locked.
The question fur the magistrate's decision did not hinges
upon the authority of the schoolmistress to inflict mode-
rate punishment, in proper • cases, upon the childra n
placed under her charge by the parish authorities ; nor
whether, fur the breach of the regulations of the
house, in the present instance, a trifling punishment
might not have been inflicted by the woman upon the
child. The real question was, whether such a punish-
ment, inflicted on a mere child; as blows of the fist
upon its face and back, causing bruises and discoloura-
Lion for scveral days, was justifiable under any circum-
stances ? The parents of the child were also inmates of
the workhouse. The mother appeared as complainant.
Tho violent treatment which her child had received at
the hands of the woman was proved beyond centre
versy. Mr. Broughton hilisself considered the case
as proved. He stated that, in his opinion, the punish-
merit was inordinately severe, and could not be justified.
This was, then, just such a case as called for the exer-
cise of the magistrate's power of summary jurisdiction.
The complainant was too poor to incur expense in pro-
secuting the defendant at the sessions, and therefore
had a strong claim on the magistrate for an imma-
;Hate adjudication. The position of the defendant agorequired that a check should be at once put upon the
Indulgence of those feelings which had occasioned
her attack upon the child. Yet in this case, which de-
manded immediate decision, the magistrate determined
on delay. Ile cal:ei upon the defendant to enter into•
recognisarces to meet the charge at the sessions, should
the complainant prefer a bill, and the grand jury return
it found. The master of the workhouse, who attended
to assist the defendant in meeting the charge before the
magistrate, exulted at this decision; while the poor woman
who complained of the ill-treatment of her child saw in it a
practical denial of justice. The formeri emarked, "That is
just what we wanted, Sir 1" To be sure it was. It was
tantamount to a dismissal of-the charge. It was like
sending the poor complainant to a tavern, telling her that
she might there obtain a delicious dinner, well know-
ing that she had not a penny in her pocket, and would
therefore-be sent empty away. The poor woman ven-
tured to expostulate. She had no money ; how then
could she go to the sessions, and take the necessary
steps to indict the schoolmistress for the vio-
lent treatment of her child ? This reasonable and
rorcible appeal was thus answered :—" Surely you
have friends who will assist you in the matter." A
pauper's friends ! The pauper-inmates of a workhouse
are not precisely the kind of people who have friends ca-
pable of furnishing them with money to pay the fees of
justice. The possession of such friends would preserve
them from seeking refuge in a workhouse—that last re-
fuge of the miserable. The poor woman retired from
the Court, with her child, sighing, "We have no
friends ;" and feeling that " the world was not
their friend, nor the world's law." On re-
turning to the workhouse, she was made to feel that to
appeal to the law's protection against the violence of
the authorities of the place, is not only useless, but
dangerous. Her children and herself were removed
from the wards they had previously occupied in
the house, and were placed in the " approbation ward;';
to which the applicants for reception to the house are
first introduced, previously to their regular admission.
The state of personal filthiness, and frequently of disease,
in which such persons generally are when they first en-
ter a workhouse, need not be described. The mother and
her child who had been punished with extreme severity
by the workhouse schoolmistress, were doubtless trans-
ferred to this ward to admonish others of the consequences
of preferring complaints. Whatever provocation to com-
plain may be supplied by those who have in their own
bands the means of retaliating, the sufferers had better
patiently endure wrong, than risk the consequences of
seeking redress. These poor people, unable to endure
the annoyance of being placed in such a ward, discharged
themselves from the house. The woman again attended
the police-office, and again complained of the treatment
she bad received, as a punishment for having com-
plained of the tyrannous and cruel treatment -of her
child. The magistrate had no power to interfere. The
poor creatures had no means of supporting themselves
outside the workhouse s and said they must return
thither, and henceforth submit -in silence to whatever
treatment they might there receive. Surely there is
some mode of redress, even for paupers, for wrongs
such as we have described. If the Board of Guardians
of the parish be supine or indifferent, the inabitants
should meet and require of the parish officers
an investigation into the general government
of their workhouse, and into the circumstances of
the case we have eescribed. If the facts really be as they
were sworn to, and uncontradicted, before the magis-
trate, the schoolmistress should be placed on her trial for
the assault, before the tiibunal to which the magistrate
I needlessly, and as we think improperly, referred it.
STAN LARD.—There is a growing disposition on
the part of certain pseudo-philanthropists to represent
the higher classes of society as more insensible to the
condition of the poor than they were wont to -be in,
what young Englanders are pleased to entitle, the "good
old times." Every casualty to the poor that may happen
to be recorded in the newspapers, is seized upon
by these modern philosophers, as a fresh illustration
of the correctness of their theory. One or more
suicides have recently occurred in the humblest
walks of life, arising, it is said, from extreme destitution,
and these catastrophes are referred to, ad nauseant,
asinstructive evidence of the insensibility of the
rich to the condition of the poor. No inference can
be less
_warranted. The columns of the daily press
must have convinced all readers of newspapers of
the fact, that no genuine case of distress is ever
recorded in their columns which does not command
instant and liberal relief. In the vast aggregate
of human misery which is to be found in large towns, the
most distressing cases of poverty and destitution are
often those which are most carefully concealed
from public observation ; and men of wealth, how-
ever benevolent, most of whom are liberal con-
tributors to public charitable institutions, have
often neither the leisure nor means of hunting
out such cases. We can affirm, however. with
the utmost confidence, that there is no. nation
on the face of the earth in which more of active charity
is to be found than in England, nor any city whatever
which exhibits so large an amount of sympathy for the suf-
ferings of our fellow-creatures, whether they have arisen
from penury or disease, than this same much-reviled
City of London. Persons whose knowledge of the extent
of public sympathy is derived from the columns of
some of our Contemporaries, must have long
ago inferred, that there is in England, and in London in
particular, a most unchristian disregard of the feelings
and comforts of the humbler classes. Yet is there hardly
a day in which meetings of its busiest inhabisants, of the
higher and middle orders, are not convened for the
purpose of forming permanent institutions for the r!-
lief of sufferers of all denominations. There is ins
London alone, and we challenge contradiction to the
fact, more money collected for the relief of the distressed
in one year, than is contributed for any similar objects
in
any other city in the world. There is hardly a
disease
which has not given rise to some valuable public insti-
tution, where the poor, could they divest themselves of
the prejudice which, unhappily, influences them -'a
many subjects, may have the benefit of greater skull
and more unceasing attention than can readily be
obtained by the wealthiest member of the Community at
home ; the combination of skill usually atforded gra-
tuitously in a public institution, and the Ligid sys-
tem of attendance which is provided, beings greatly
beyong the advantages which any private esia.bllsll-
ment of moderate extent could by any possibility
supply. Yet one of the most prevalent " .
rose " of the day is the prejudice arising fissna
ignorance, which exists amongst the destitute Poor;,
ins
this such establishments. • More than one suicide
v s, er •
ulgar
this class of society have recently been recorded by,
the daily newspapers, which profess to have been oc-
casioned by destitution ; the parties preferring ra-
ther to My in the face of their Maker, ralser
than avail themselves of the relief which Might
have been afforded them in an union workhouse.
Nor ought it to surprise any one, that the exacta"
rated accounts of such places of refuge, which havtP
been repeatedly supplied by an influential portion of the:
daily press, should have so- wrought on minds de-
pressed and weakened by painful personal privation..
We are no admirers of union workhouses, and are-
little disposed to eulogise the New Poor-law Bill, even-.
in its present improved and modified form; but we-
are quite satisfied that but for the factiously
exaggerated accounts of the treatment of the pee! under
that law, which have appeared in a contemporary ,iournal,
in w hick the union workhouse has been typified by
Dante's Hell, and its executive represented as so many
it
incarnate fiends, no such prejudices against as the-
distressing casualties to which our attention has.
been directed would seem to indicate, could have
existed. The conduct of a few persons cams( cted
with the administration of the New Poo r-law,—conduct
which, in the particular instances, it is •impossible to
reprobate too severely, has furnished an excuse for stig-
matizing the whole of its executive in terms calculated
to excite the deepest and most painful prejudice against.
it; and thus the poor are contest to suffer•
the most heart-rending privations rather than avail
themselves of relief from such a source; nay, in in-
stances, . some
they have, we are told, committed suicide rather
than accept of the relief it would afford them._ These
distressing cases have been reported insoa daily print Int
the most prominent. manner, as
..
r. many, fresh
proofs of . the . frightful unpopularity ,o.t- the,
New Poor-law Bill ; whereas they are more likely tap
have resulted from the exaggerated accounts which have
appeared from time to time in its columns of the alleged,
sufferings of the poor in union workouses, and its re-i
peated and unfounded assertion that a few examples oe
the misconduct of the authorities in such receptacles are
but the types of the entire system.

SIR HENRY POTTINGEIL—On Tuesday morning
Mr. Gilpin, master of the Merchant Tailors' Company,
introduced by Major-General Dyson' waited on Sir
' Ilenry Pottinger, to tender him the freedom of that Com-
pany, NI hick has been the first mark of mercantile appro-
bation bestowed on Sir Henry.' •
ARRESTS FOR ILLEGAL VOTING IN AMERICA.—
We learn from the Baltimore Patriot, that nearly seventy
persons have been arrested in that city for illegal voting
at the recent election. The Patriot estimates that where
one is arrested, ten escape; which would make the illegal
votes amount to 700.—New York Courier,