The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
STANDARD.—The debate on Lord Ashley's
Bill will be resumed to-night. Whatever the re-
sult of the present discussion, we regard the im-
mediate result as comparatively indifferent, because
the question of the fate of the ten hours' restric-
tion is merely a matter of time—earlier or later
the restriction will be adopted. Nine years ago
we said of the clauses respecting the illegitimate chil-
dren in the New Poor-law, and of the univer-
sal application of the workhouse test, that
they must be given up ; and we have lived to see
them both abandoned. With equal certainty do we
predict that the ten hours' restriction must be adopted
'sooner or later, and we found our prediction upon
the same grounds--the total absence of sound argument
in favour of prolonged labour, and the repugnance
of the universal feeling to such cruelty. The
present Parliament may give this cruelty a little
longer lease, but that is all ; it may make, as in the
case of the cruel clauses of the New Poor-law, a
temporary addition to the sum of human misery ; but
the addition can be but temporary, and finite. The
sentence has gone forth—the tyranny of prolonged
labour is doomed: . Cant—the cant of political eco-
nomy—which so long protected it, is dead and gone,
• and the arguments which it has been attempted to substi-
tute for cant give way to the gentlest breath of reason.
Mr. Bright says that an abridgement of the hours of
labour will reduce wages, and that it will also raise
prices. How can it do both? We believe, indeed,
that it will do both, but, in a very different sense
from what Mr. Bright threatens ; we believe that it will
reduce daily wages and greatly augment annual
wages, by giving constant employment in-
stead of monthly gushes to be followed by
half-yearly gluts; we believe that 'it will
raise prices, by restoring the character in the
market of British fabrics—for paste, starch, gypsum,
and devil's dust, will not be the resources of a
steady trade, . such as a short time Bill must ne-
cessarily enforce ; and so confident are we in
this respect, that we believe that nothing but a
short time Bill can save the manufacturers of
this country from early destruction ; but we shall
not go further until we hear, what we have
not yet heard, a plausible argument against
Lord Ashley's motion. By the way, we
omitted to notice on Saturday the finest thing
that has occurred in Parliament for many years—
Quaker Bright's attack upon Lord Ashley, and
Lord Ashley's reply. Nature seems to have
moulded the two men, in form as well as in mind,
to represent the extremes of the species ; within
a species no contrast was ever so strikingly complete.
The Quaker accused the nobleman of having acted with
generosity and courtesy towards a wretch who had
proved himself unworthy of credit ; and then, upon
the evidence of this his rotten witness, he made
a charge of subornation. Lord Ashley was compelled
to plead guilty to the charge of generosity and cour-
tesy (they who know the Noble Lord best know that
he is overwhelmed with such sins), but- showed that
he had never suborned the informer or used his
evidence. Thus the account stands—Quaker Bright
is innocent of generosity or courtesy, but he know-
ingly uses the testimony of a corrupt witness. s Of
generosity and courtesy to an unworthy person Lord
Ashley stands convicted; but of using, or intending
to use, the fellow's testimony, the Noble Lord is as
guiltless as the reader of these lines.
GLOBE.—The Standard doubts whether any
existing law, ecclesiastical or civil, will reach the
case, the recent self-exposure of which has conferred
unenviable notoriety on the Rev. Herbert Marsh.
We should have expected that this would have ex-
cited unqualified regret in a journal which pro-
fesses superior zeal for the stability and efficiency
of the National Church—results which depend, to a
very considerable extent, on the reputation of its
clergy in the estimation of the laity. This, however,
is not the case. Our Contemporary remarks :—" We
regret that the Church cannot be relieved of the un•
worthy Rector of Barnack ; but we own that our re-
gret is somewhat alleviated by the consideration that
the escape of that unworthy person spares the Bishop of
Peterborough a fine of 1,0001., and it might be 2,0001."
That the Chirch cannot be relieved of the unworthy
Rector of Barnack, is a subject of regret. But how much
more deep would be the sorrow, because so much
more would be the calamity, if the Church Discipline
Act took a wider range, and instead of limiting the in-
terference of the Bishop to offences committed within
two years, extended his episcopal powers over licen-
tious and profligate conduct in clergymen, belonging
to his diocese, to four or five years ! This would be
truly afflictive to the Bishops, and entitle them to
commiseration from all who love and venerate the
order ! We are not convinced by the reasoning
of our Contemporary of the fact which he
labours to establish that the pecuniary cost to
the Bishop, in prosecuting, and thus condignly
punishing, a flagrantly immoral clergyman,
would be a more serious infliction on the Pre-
late's purse, than to permit such a scandal to con-
tinue fastened on the Church itself. The stns of
Eli "made themselves vile." Their father—invested,
as High Priest, with the power of putting the pro-
fligates out of the priesthood, which they had pol-
luted and disgraced—suffered himself to be influenced
by parental affection, and merely expostulated,
when the strong arm of authority ought to have
arrested them, and punished their debaucheries.
Need the consequences be told ? It is bad enough
that the son of a Bishop, who was therefore placed
in possession of one of the richest benefices in the
kingdom, the patronage of which pertained to the see
of Peterborough, which his father held, with the addi-
tion of a canonry in his father's Cathedral church,
should thus debase himself and disgrace his order.
Elevated as he was in ecclesiastical station, and
enriched with worldly wealth, we say it is bad
enough for it to be made public, that de-
plorable depravity has been the habitual course
of a Church dignitary's life. But that his es-
cape from punishment should he regarded rather
as matter for congratulation than regret, and this
solely on such considerations as those stated by the
Standard, is not merely matter of surprise, but—
aside from all party distinctions—we unfeignedly
say, of surprise and sorrow. While the matter re-
mained concealed, the offence was limited in its
results to the individual. To his own conscience,
and to the solemn responsibilities of another state
of being, the guilty individual was alone ac-
countable. But when proclaimed abroad, as
• his conduct has been, the Church to which he
belongs becomes • subjected to the obloquy of
his offences against morality ; and, if she fail
to roll away the reproach, and to wash her hands
from the iniquity by thrusting the offenders from
her altars, the effect of such connivance, indifference,
or even inability, by defect in her laws, to reach a
case so fraught with scandal, cannot fail to be most
injurious to her character, if not perilous to her safety
as a national institution. Ths Standard asks—" Is
it politic thus to impose a penalty upon the Bishop's
vigilance, and to make it thus his in-
terest to connive at the offences of those
whom•he is appointed to superintend?" We think
the penalties arises out of the responsibilities which
every Bishop assumes when invested with the episco-
pate. If he be not vigilant, but dilatory in the dis-
charge of his duties—if instead of enforcing the disci-
pline of the Church against any immoral clergyman
whose delinquencies may be brought before him, he be
" thankful" for any loophole of escape from the impera-
tive obligation, and claim credit for having evinced a
" backwardness "to interfere—if, in fact, from any
merely personal considerations, he " connive at the
offences of those whom he is appointed to superin-
tend"—we think he becomes " a partaker of their
evil deeds." A Bishop's want of vigilance will give
a tacit encouragement to vice. He will thus not ,
only draw down upon his own head a fearful
weight of punishment ; he will expose the Church,
of which he is required to be a light and a
defence, to the dangers which result from
laXity of morals and impurity of life in those who
are appointed to the office of the ministry within her
pale.. Talk of' the hardship of exposing a Bishop,
with a revenue of several thousands a year, and Pa'
large extent of patronage, to the " penalty" of an
occasional pecuniary outlay, in the shape of costs, for
prosecuting and punishing a grossly immoral clergy-
man ! Will the Standard ascertain the " penalty"
to which a Bishop exposes himself for screening such
a clergyman from punishment ? Besides, if a Bishop
present an individual who is utterly unfit for his
office, ought there not to be a "penalty" for having
done so ? As the rectory of Barnack is a preferment
in the Bishop's gift, if the Bishop's predecessor, by
virtue of his right, presented an unfit person to the
living, his successor ought to be content with having
the presentation for the "penalty" of getting rid of the
nuisance. A half-year's stipend would more than cover
the costs of ejecting the "gallant, gay Lothario ;" who
might then take up his residence at Madame Lodon's
establishment, uninterrupted by the necessity of tak-
ing his turn in residence, as one of tle canons
of Peterborough, and undistracted by the duties
of the cure .of souls at Barnack. There is really
something appalling in the way in which the Bishop
of Peterborough explained what he could unques-
tionably do, under the circumstances of this pain-
ful case. He could procure from the Archbishop
a permission for him to be non-resident ! That
which would be refused to a poor rector, except for a
limited period, and then only under circumstances of
extreme necessity, might be obtained for an habitual
profligate, as the most ready way of getting rid of
him, and of his scandal ! A curate,, to whom he
would have to pay less than a tithe of his income,
would do all the duty; the rector might then vary,
at plea Sure, the scenes and the subjects of his guilty
amours. The revenues of the Church which he had
disgraced, and of the ministers he had dishonoured,
will supply the means!

. .
Mr. Dean Chairman of the Cu.stOins, had an interview
with the chtincBl.lor of the F4cheeporyeaterday.
•
t -

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
HOUSE OF LORDS, March 18.

Their Lordships sat to-day in a Committee for Privi-
leges. The Peers present were the Lord Chancellor, the
Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Kenyon, Lord Sondes,
Viscount Strangford, the Marquis Camden, and the
Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.

FITZWALTER BARONY.

"Witnesses were examined on the part of the claimant
to this Barony, and the further consideration of the claim
was adjourned till after Easter.

DRUMMOND V. WALDROND.
The further arguments in this part-heard appeal were
resumed, but not having concluded at four o'clock, the
further consideration of the case was adjourned till to-
morrow (this day.)

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
(YESTERDAY.)
MANSION-HOUSE.

TIM WILL FORGERlES.—Yesterday, William Sanders,
the brother-in-law of Mrs. Dorey, and the husband of the
woman who is supposed to have represented Emma
Slack, the counterfeit relation of Anne Slack, was
brought before the Lord Mayor, in the custody of John
Forrester the officer, charged with being concerned with
others in plundering the Government.
Mr. Freshfield,`the Solicitor to the Bank of England,
stated that the prisoner had been apprehended as an
agent in the case which was under investigation at the
Mansion-house, relative to the late will forgeries. It
was known to those employed for the prosecution, that
the prisoner, his wife, and Mrs. Dorey, the sister of the
prisoner's wife, were guilty agents in the transactions
which had been for some time under investigation at the
Mansion-house ; and John Forrester had been sent to
Bristol to take into custody any of those who were be-
lieved to have participated in the offence. It was im-
possible to give to the able officers, the two brothers
Forrester, too much credit for the manner ia which they
had been engaged in that matter. The prisoner and his
wife had decamped when the prosecutions in
which they' had been concerned were brought be-
fore the public, and John Forrester pursued them
from place to place, until he at last traced them to Edin-
burgh, where on Wednesday last he apprehended the
prisoner. The object of the prosecutors at
_present was
to give as much evidence as would justify the Lord
Mayor in remanding the prisoner- until the day on
which the other prisoners charged w ith having been
concerned in the conspiracy, are to be brought up for
final examination. The case on which the prisoner was
accused of having been concerned was, that in which
the relative of Mary Hunt was personated. Mary Hunt
it appeared, had had three sums of stock in the Bank of
England, at the time of her death. She died in the
year 1806. Her executors happened to claim no more
than two of these sums, and the third was handed over
to the Commissioners for the reduction of the national
debt. Joshua Fletcher became acquinted with that cir-
cumstance, and caused the prisoner to personate Thomas
Hunt, and to claim the amount under that name.
Mr. John William Seaton, produced the document
purporting to be the will of Mary Hunt. It was, he
said, proved on the 19th of November, 1806, and pur-
ported to be the wilt of Mary Hunt, of the city of
Bristol, widow, with two codicils.
The LORD MAYOR asked the prisoner whether he
wished to ask the witness any questions. -
The prisoner—I shall be prepared on the next day of
examination with a solicitor, and I decline asking any
question until that time.
Francis Joseph Green, of No. 35, Berwick-street,
stated that he had known the prisoner 13 years. The
prisoner's name was William Sanders, and he lodged at
witness's house. The prisoner's wife, and Georgina
Richards, and an old lady, the mother of Mrs. Sanders
and of Georgiana Richards, were lodging in the house
at the time. He believed that it was about nine years
ago since the transaction occurred.
Edmund Crawley of No. 11 n, Tottenham Court-road,
said that he knew the prisoner, to the best of his recol-
lection. The prisoner resided in his house in March or
May, 1842, for about three weeks, in the name of Tho-
mas Hunt. Understood that the prisoner came to town
from Quebec. The prisoner pretended that he had
business to transact in London, and he hoped he should
be able to return soon.
Mr. Thomas Anthony Thatcher, of Doctor's-com-
mons, stated that Mr. Barber came to him, accompanied
by another person, to prove a will. The person who ac-
companied Mr. Barber gave the name of Thomas Hunt.
Witness could not positively swear that the prisoner
was the identical man, but he was about the same height
and size.
Mr. George Wolf, clerk in the public drawing-office
of the Bank of England, stated that on the Ist of June,
1842, he paid to the order of Mary Hunt, in favour of
Thomas Hunt, the sum of 4251. 12s. To the best of his
belief the prisoner, whogave in his name as Thos. Hunt,
was the person.
The prisoner was then ordered to be remanded till the
day OR which the other prisoners should be brought up,
_ _

The LORD MAYOR said he had received a letteiwhic,

he should wish to be made public, in consequence of
the annoyance and embarrassment which the publication
would be calculated to prevent. It was as follows :
" MALAWNEY, ROUEN.
"My Lord,—l have been requested by Messrs.
M'Kenzie and Smelley to adopt some means of prevent-
ing, if possible, the continued ingress of English work-
men, who, it appears, have been induced by the repre-
sentations of certain interested individuals, to come over
to France in the hope of finding employment on the
Rouen and Havre Railway, and I have thought that
your Lordship would allow me to address you on the
subject, trusting that a notice from your Lordship on
the bench might give such publicity to the facts as would
prevent the evil which we have so much cause here to
regret.
"In consequence of some difficulty in the way of pro-
curing land, the works on the said railway cannot be
proceeded with to any extent for some weeks to come,
and although there are many men fully employed, hun-
dreds are actually starving from want of employment,
and through the benevolence of the above-mentioned
gentlemen, I have to-day, and for the last fourteen days,
supplied upwards of 120 poor men, who are wandering
about Rouen without work or any prospect of employ-
ment for some time to come, with food and other means
of support. Hoping your Lordship will excuse this
liberty with your time and attention, I have the honour
to remain, your Lordship's humble and devoted servant,
"SAMUEL TACKER.
" To the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor."
CLE.RKENWELL.
The number of charges for drunkenness and its con-
comitant offences, rioting and a'saults on the police, was
not Unusually great at this Court yesterday. The ex-
tensive and densely populated district over which this
Court has jurisdiction includes the worst parts of St.
Giles, Saffron-hill, and the low neighbourhoods adjacent
to Smithfield. All these localities are chiefly inhabited
by the lowest class of Irish, and before Father Mathew
commenced his labours they were, on St. Patrick's-day,
scenes of debauchery and uproar. On Sunday,
however, the shamrock was kept at low water
mark, and many a poor fellow who formerly
spent his St. Patrick's night at the station-house, on this
occasion slept quietly and soberly at home on Sunday
night. Among those charged with drunkenness was an
old weather-beaten seaman whose head was whitened
with the snows of at least 70 winters. He was found
lying insensibly drunk in Islington. The poor old fellow
appealed to Mr. Combe, the sitting magistrate, to discharge
him, on the ground that he had been wounded in two

naval engageinents, and had served for years in the ship
which the immortal Nelson commanded. The worthy
magistrate discharged -hm.
Mr. William Samell Roper, a surgeon, residing in
Gray's Inn-terrace was charged with having been drunk
and assaulting Police-constable Webb, 106 G, and also
Police-constable 110 G.

Webb saw the prisoner get out of a cab in Gray's Inn-
lane, at two o'oclock on that morning. Upon inquiry,
the cab-driver informed the officer that he had been
. .

driving the gentleman about for the last two hours, and
that he (the prisoner) did not seem to know where he
was going. The constable accompanied the prisoner to
his house, at which he knocked, and when the door was
opened refused to enter it, saying it was not his house.
He was in liquor, became very insolent, kicked Webb on
the shins, attempted to throw him on the pavement, and
broke his stick bystriking the other officer on the collar-
bone. The blow hurt him very much, the part having
been tender from the bone having been, at one time,
broken.

Mr. COMBE—What have yon to say to the charge ?
Prisoner—Well, really, I cannot recollect anything
about it.

Mr. COMBE—You must pay a fine of 1Z for the
assaults on the constables.

Prisoner—l decline paying any money.
Mr. COMBE—Then you must go to the House of Cor-
rection for three weeks.—The fine was paid at once.
Two lads, named Smith and Roland, were charged
with assaulting two constables of the E division.—Smith
was fined 55., and Roland discharged.
An old woman, named Anne Burrows, was brought
up on remand, charged with stealing a few pounds of
butter.

The prosecutor was not in attendance, and Webb, 106
G, the officer who had charge of the case, declared that
he believed the statement made by the prisoner on a
former occasion, that starvation forced her to commit
the offence, was literally true. 'He had been in her
lodging, a garret, in Tash-court, Gray's Inn• lane, and
had never before seen such squalid misery. There ii as
not an article of furniture in the place, nor a morsel of
food of any description. A few chips, strewn on the
floor in a corner of the room, served her for a bed, and
she had neither blanket, or sheet, or any other descrip-
tion of covering, except the rags she wore as wearing
apparel.
Mr. COMBE said he thought the best course was to
send her to the Holborn union workhouse.

The unfortunate prisoner embraced the proposal with
joyful gratitude, and was sent to the workhouse.
Stephen Anser was charged with deserting his three
children, whereby they became chargeable to Islington
parish.

_
The poor children were found wandering about the
street on Tuesday last. It was raining very fast at the
Lime, and the poor children, when asked where they
were going to, replied they did not know. They had
been turned out of doors. Their mother had likewise
abandoned them.
Mr. COMBE committed the prisoner for a fortnight.

- -
A dreadful accident occurred on the 13th in the
Commune of St. Prive, A female of that place had ascended
with her son to the fourth story of his windmill, situated at
St. Mesmin, and was standing near the edge, when the wind
carried her dress to an iron bar which was used to raise bags
by turning round. The dress got wound round this piece of
iron, and the bar was immediately put in motion, and carried
the victim round and round, notwithstanding all the efforts
of her son to prevent it. He then rushed down and stopped
-the-mill, but when he returned he found his mother literally
crushed to pieces, having been forced by each rotation against
the.ceiling. She breathed her last immediately after.