The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-05 00:00:00

THE SUN,

organization in its stead of a general system of extra-
mural interment, at least until the middle of the'next
session. Such a delay it was intimated must prove
most detrimental to the interests of the population,
and most injurious to the health of the inhabitants
of the metropolis. Now, any reasoning of
this kind appears to us to be of a moat
suspicious tendency. It strikes us as being
equivalent to saying, " Make haste with the present.
measure, harry through with it, no matter bow ob-
jectionable its clauses, or how dubious the nature of
its provisions—better to blunder into a rapid altera-
tion of the existing arrangements than to tarry ano-
ther month, or it may be another year, in the work
of sanitary amelioration." Advice of this description
and to such advice the speeches of the Prime Minister
and of the Home Secretary necessarily re-
solve themselves, appears to our thinking
very discreditable both to the judgments
and to the principles of our Legislators.
Any delay, in abort, is preferable to a precipitation
by which, according to the very judicious opinion of
Lord DUDLEY STUART, the dogmas of political eco-
nomy might be set at naught, and the laws of con-
stitutional freedom be, in several important instances,
abrogated. We appreciate to the full the wit of the
remark made by Sir ROBERT PEEL—to the effect
that the transmission of the Bill to a Select Commit-
tee, would be one of the most extraordinary cases
of extramural interment ever heard of—a humorous
phrase which naturally gave rise to a considerable
amount of laughter—but we cannot in the smallest
particular coincide with the Right Hon. Baronet in
the opinion that the House itself was the most com-
petent authority to decide upon the questionable
clauses of the proposed enactment. The extreme im-
patience evinced by the Members almost immediately
after that assertion was made, by the ex-Premier suffi-
ciently indicated that, in the opinion of several
of its Members, the arrival of the dinner hour
was, in their mind, of far greater importance than
, the scrutiny of a. Bill by which the popular privileges
might be very injuriously affected. In fact, the
readiness evinced late in the evening to hurry as
fast as possible over the most intolerable of all the
many intolerable clauses in the Ministerial measure
sufficiently showed that the mass of the representa-
tives present were not the best qualified persons to de-
cide upon a proceeding requiring so much earnest
attention and scrupulous deliberation. So hopeless
appeared the labour of opposition, in consequence of
this most culpable indifference, that even Mr. Dux.
COMBE, a man not very easily disheartened, was com-
pelled at the very outset to throw aside his series of
objections and amendments.
Petitions were presented prior to the commence-
ment of the discussion on Monday night, and speeches
in accordance with those petitions were delivered
strongly in condemnation of the centralizing tendency
of the Bill and of the shameful and shameless con-
cessions made in it to the clergy of the Establishment.
The measure was opposed by Lord DUDLEY STUART
and by Sir BENJAMIN HALL—those two Members
thus giving expression to the sentiments entertained
by their constituency of Marylebone. Mr. LUSRING•
TON and Sir DE LACY Everss, in the name of their
constituents of Westminster, opposed it ; Mr.
B emcee OSBORNE, the Member for Middle-
sex, opposed it ; Mr. MASTERMAN, the Mem.
ber for the city of London, opposed it ;
Mr. Thomas DUZiCOMISE and Mr. TROMAS
WAREBY, the Members for Finsbury, opposed it;
Mr. D'EYNCOURT, the Member for Lambeth, opposed
it—all of them energetically. Only Sir WILLIAM
CLAY, the representative of the Tower Hamlets, and
Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR, the Member for Mid-
dlesex, were found, amongst all the metropolitan
Members, to come forward with very qua-
lified commendations of the proposed enact-
ment. Disagreeing somewhat in the rather droll
opinion expressed by Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE, to the
effect that the health of the people was a matter of
greater importance than their morality, we coincide
most thoroughly in all the other observations con-
tained in the speech delivered on Monday evening by
that Liberal and Gallant Representative. One part
of his observations, in short, appears to us to be de-
serving of a very attentive reconsideration, and of a
very sedulous remembrance. It was where he
said—

" He gave credit to the Government for the principle
of the measure, but he mus t object to most of the de-
tails ; and he would take the present opportunity of
stating that there was one man who bad been treated
most infamously in connexion with this matter—a man
who had devoted fifteen years of his life, and much of
his property, to the protection of the object aimed at in
the Bill—he meant Mr. Walker.—(Hear, hear.) An-
other individual, Mr. Chadwick, got the whole credit,
while Mr. Walker, tha original pioneer in this question.
was coolly thrown overboard.--(Dear, hear.) lie would
say, however, that if they were to have a commission
at all, he did not see a man better fitted to servo upon it
than Mr. Walker; but he (Mr. Osborne) was fortified in
the view he took of the Bill, by the fact tbat that gen-
tlemen regarded it as in many respects a very objection-
able measure.—(Hear, hear, and cheers.")

Nor would it seem that the disrelish of the pro-
jected enactment entertained by Mr. WALKER,
is without the cordial sympathy of that very
large and very influential portion of the com-
munity—the Dissenters. Turning for informa-
tion upon this head to the able monthly organ of the
Dissenters, the Eclectic Review, we find in the cur-
rent number of that periodical a very careful
analysis of the Government Interments Bill, in which
the objectionable clause (already so often referred to
and specified in our own columns), are severally par-
ticularized and commented upon in terms of stern
and resolute indignation. So earnest indeed is this
indignation on the part of the organ of the Dissenters,
that the last article in the last number of the Eclectic
Review is thus emphatically brought to a conclusion :
" The only mitigation of our disgust lies in the fact
that, while the Established Church meets us as a stolid
obstacle in every path of moral, political, and spiritual
progress, so every subject on which thinking men
ponder, leads them, like CATO of old, to the monster
evil. Delenda et Carthago. The State Church
must be destroyed.' Such is the character of the
opposition roused by this most injudicious scheme of
the Administration; an injudicious scheme, as inju-
diciously approved by the Parliament. We have al-
ready explicitly revealed our own sentiments upon
the measure. We shall now watch for its conse-
quences.

It is by no means surprising that the landed pro-
prietors of Ireland should feel discontented and dis-
satisfied at the working of the several Acts for the
relief of the destitute poor in that country. How-
ever essential these just and salutary enactments
might be to the great body of the people, to the pre-
servation of the lives of the thousands and tens of
thousands, we fear we might add millions, who must
have perished miserably but for the assistance
to which they thereby became entitled, they un
questionably pressed with great severity upon
the owners of real estate. For three centuries they
had been exempted from the burden to which their
English brethren had been liable under the 43d
Elizabeth, c. 2. The aged and helpless pauper had
no claims to subsistence out of the land on which he
was born, and in the Cultivation of which he bad
been exclusively engaged while in the. enjoyment of
health and strength.
wretched exigence, deriving; might linger out his
od' the
pr6speveltnag: a
charity
weorfeprecarious sub-
sistence from
those whose
condition a
bnuot
certain
littletai n
own ; but he had
shelter better
tot resortisto in his utmost extremity. There
were none from whom he could demand as a right,
and
the assistance which his advanced
years
strength so urgently demanded. e declining
might starve
in a Christian country without any man,
men, being responsible for his melancholyfate.
o r body of
In 1836 this blot upon the national character was
partially removed. An Act was passed for the reliefs
of helpless infancy and infirm age. But this enactment
was of the most limited character ; it prohibited
assistance under any circumstances of suffering or of
sickness, however urgent, except within the walls of
the union workhouse. Although willing to give his
only capital—his labour—for the scantiest support,
the able-bodied pauper could receive no relief. He was
excluded from the benefit of the law, which, so far
as he was concerned, was practically a dead letter.
The rates collected under the Ist and 2d Victoria, c.
;.16, were, comparatively, not amounting to an average
of sd. in the pound on the real property of the country,
one moiety of which felt upon tine occupiers and the
other on
the landlords. Such a law might have
proved sufficient under ordinary circumstances,
although
many philanthropists protested from the

LONDON,

very outset against the stringent restrictions which
prevented the beneficial operation of the new law.
But when an extraordinary exigency arrived, when,
through the mysterious visitation of PROVIDENCE,
there was a failure of the potato—the staple produc-
tion of the country, which has been well described
as " at once the food and the currency of the people"—
the deficiency of the existing law became but too
painfully apparent. Under such circumstances the
Imperial Parliament and the inhabitants of this more
favoured island came nobly to the rescue. They did
not desert their afflicted and suffering brethren in the
dark hour of distress, but voted from the national
Exchequer, and collected by private subscriptions,
sums which nothing but the extent of the emer-
gency could justify. Thera was a total disregard
of self, a lavish prodigality, which, under other cir-
cumstances, might be censured, but which will render
the account of the proceedings during the " Irish
crisis" the brightest page in the history of Great
Britain.

When the first pressing difficulty was thus over-
come, it became manifest that some large and com-
prehensive measure should be carried sufficient to pre-
vent the probability of the recurrence of similar
events. The Poor-law Extension Act of 1847 was
alike demanded by justice and expediency. It was
happily described, we believe, by Mr. POULETT
SCROFE as " a just and righteous attempt to secure
a sufficient share of the land's produce for, at least, the
bare subsistence of the poorer classes of the popula-
tion." It declared that the " poverty of the country
should be a charge upon its property," that the poor
of Ireland should thereafterbe supported permanently
by the land. This salutary law had, as we have
stated, been in operation for nearly three cen-
turies in this part of the United Kingdom,
and it still bore heavily on some parts of it,
but in Ireland it pressed with peculiar weight on
those who had for the first time to sustain an enor-
mous burden, greatly aggravated by the peculiar
state of affairs. It increased the difficulties with
which the owners and occupiers of land had to con-
tend, preventing the former from providing for the
heavy encumbrances fur which he was liable, and
diminishing the means of the latter to satisfy his
rent and ordinary rates and taxes. No adequate
steps were taken to mitigate or diminish the burden,
and the New Poor-law was regarded by many as
the " last straw that broke the camel's back."

The Act of last year (12 and 13 Vic., c. 104) ef-
fected some slight improvements, but its principal fea-
ture, that which limited the amount that could be
levied on any property, was unfortunately rejected by
the House of Lords, and in some localities—those
which Era termed par excellence " the distressed
unions"—the charge was still sufficient to absorb the
entire produce of the soil.
Under such circumstances, then, we cannot
feel astonished at the motion last night
brought forward by the Honourable Gen-
tleman the Member for Roscommon, calling upon
the House to return to the principle of the Aet of

1838, and condemning some of the details of the
system under which what has been felt as a serious
grievance by the landlord class had occurred. . The
motion was rejected—justly and properly rejected,
but every allowance must be made for the irritation
of those who endeavoured to reduce the amount of
the burdens under which they are sinking. The
Poor-law Act in Ireland is, however, an im-
perative necessity. There can be no retrograde
movement. We are no admirers of " out-door relief,"
but the power of affording it should be granted
whenever the exigencies of the case demand
such a step, and also the power of appointing
"vice-guardians" whenever the more constitutional
bodies, the elected and ex-officio guardians, neglect or
refuse to discharge their important duties. Let the
friends of the Irish proprietors then exert themselves
in procuring for these parties the means
of enabling them to meet their responsibilities and
fulfil the obligations imposed on them by la*. In
that attempt they will be sustained by the voice of
public opinion, and receive the sympathy and assist-
ance of all classes of the people. But let them not
enter upon the hopeless task of seeking to repudiate
a liability to which they are justly subjected by
Divine and human law, or of striving to induce the
Imperial Parliament to sanction a retrograde and re-
actionary policy.

GRAND INSPECTION OF THE HOUSEHOLD TROOPS.
—An inspection of the Coldstream, Scots Fusilier, and Gre-
nadier Guards took place this morning on the Grand Parade
facing the Horse Guards. Shortly after ten o'clock the
ground was taken, and the troops were minutely in-
spected by the Colonels of the different regiments. The
inspection was ordered to afford the Nepaulese Princes an op-
portunity of witnessing the appearance of the British troops
in review order. His Highness the Nepaulese General was
delighted with the appearance of the Guards, and at the
conclusion of the inspection desired his thanks to be con-
veyed to the officers tor their kindness, and his admiration
at the precision with which the men went through their
movements.

REVIEW OF THE 2D LIFE GUARDS IN HYDE-
PA —( THIS DAY.)—This morning, at eleven o'clock, the
2d regiment of Life Guards, three hundred strong, marched
from the Albany-street Barracks, to Hyde-park, for a field-
day. The Marquis of Londonderry, the Colonel of the
regiment ; accompanied by his Royal; Highness Prince
George of Cambridge, Major-General Brotherton, Inspector-
General of Cavalry; attended by his Aide-de-Camp, Captain
Ibbetson ; and many officers •f the Household Brigade
mounted, arrived on the ground at half-past eleven, and the
Prince was received by the band playing the National
Anthem. The members of the Nepaselese Embassy, in full
uniform, were present in an open carriage, and attracted ge-
neral attention. Colonel McDouall then put the regiment
through the usual cavalry movements, which they executed
with great precision. One man in the first squadron was
thrown and slightly hurt. The review terminated at a
quarter to one, when the regiment returned to barracks.
The Marquis of Londonderry will give a grand dinner to the
officers this evening.

REPP.ESENT.ITION OF CORK.—RETIRIEMENT OF MR.
FAGAN.—The Cork Examiner announces the intended re-
tirement of Mr. Fagan, the Member for Cork, from the re-
presentation of that city, as soon as the new Franchise Bill
shall become law. The Cork Examiner adds—" We think
that Mr. Fagan ought to be asked to •reconsider the sufli-
ciem-y of the reasons which have led to the resolution in
question, and that such a demonstration of opinion should be
made upon the subject that, if be adhere to his determina-
tion, and withdraw from Parliament, it will not be for want
of an enthusiastic and honourable appreciation of his services
and independence. Mr. Fagan has proved, perhaps, the best
of all the Irish Members.

GRAND SWIMMING MATCH.—Last evening a grand
swimming match between two members of the Ilelborn
Swimming Club came off, in the presence of a numerous and
fashionable company, at the National Baths, High Holborn.
The race was six times the length of the bath, and for 35/.
aside. At starting, owing to the betting being nearly even,
the. greatest excitement prevailed. Of the two candidates,
however, Mr. David Young, who has been in training for
some time past, under Mr. George Pewtress, the champion
of England, was slightly preferred, and some of his backers
dared to bet sto 4 that he would come in winner. Mr.
Harold Kenworthy acted as umpire, assisted by Sir. Heclg-
man, the worthy proprietor of these excellent swimming
baths. The start being effected both set off in gallant style,
Mr. Davenport for the first two lengths slightly keeping the
lead. At the third turn, however, Mr. Young, amid loud
cheers, shot ahead, and came in an easy winner. Mr. George
Pewtress and Sir. H. Kenworthy then entered the water and
exhibited their extraordinary evolutions to a delighted as-
sembly.

LETTERS AND NEWSPAPERS FOR CUBA. VIA THE
UNITED STATES.—The following notice was issued yester-
day at the General Post-office :—" Information having been
received from the Postmaster-General of the United States
of the establishment of a regular communication by packet
between Charlestown and Havannah, letters and newspapers
for Cuba may be forwarded from this country to the United
States and thence to Havannah, by the United States
packets, if specially so addressed. The postage upon letters
sent via the United States to Cuba will be is. 4d. when not
.
exceeding half an ounce weight, 2s. Bd. when above half
an ounce and not exceeding one ounce, and so on according
to the scale for charging inland letters, and newspapers will
be liable to a charge of 2d. each. The postage upon both
letters and newspapers must be paid in advance. All cor-
respondence for Cuba not specially addressed to be sent via
the United States will continue to be dispatched by the West
India packet of the 2d of each month."
The Duke and Duchess of Montrose embarked at
the St. Katharine's Wharf this morning, on board the Ge_
neral Steam Navigation Company's steam-ship Triton, for
Ostend.

The Countess Borche and suite embarked at Lon-
(l9n-bridge Wharf this morning, on board the General Steam
Navigation Company's steam-ship Seine, for Boulogne.

AND SIX CHILDREN' ON 7s. A poor man, with
the appropriate name of Bones, was summoned for allowingce
A MAN SUMMONED FOR NOT MAINTAINING A WIFE
the guardians of the Wormingford union to maintain three
children of his wife by a former husband. In defence, the
man said that him earnings were only 7s. a week, and he
found it impossible to maintain eight people on that sum.
He had been nearly starved in the attempt, and at last took
three of the children to the union and left them there. The
workhouse had been offered to himself and family, but he
declined to go into it. The Rev. J. R. Smythies said that
the parishioners of Wormingford ought to pay better wages
than those of any other parish, because the land in it was so
superior. The fact of the man having a dislike to go
into the union was a proof to him (Mr. S.) that he was an
honest and industrious man ; as to his supporting eight people
on 7s. a week, it could not be done, and he would never sign
the man's conviction except unon mandamus. The case was
then dismissed.—E'ssex Herald.
TUE WEA.TIII3R.—The mean daily reading of the
barometer at the Royal Observatory. Greenwich, was above
30 in. on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, on which last
day it was 30'179 in.; the mean of the week was 29 895.
The mean temperature in the week was 58 deg. 2 mia., rather
higher than in the same week on an average of seven years.
On Thursday it was lower than the average, and on the two
folleWing.days it was respectively 5 deg. and 2 deg. above it.