The Sun.
London, England, 1828-09-06 00:00:00

sPiRIT OP Tilt LONDON JOURNALS.

The public must have been familiar, for a
fortnight past, with certain proceedings before
the Magistrates of Bow-street, in which a female,
bearing the name of Cooke or Sutton,—whether
real or fictitious, it matters very little,—appears
as the principal figurante. The case in ques-
tion is alleged to be one of highly aggravated
swindling. Some of the accusations, according
to a worshipful individual, go even to the length
of felony ; and, if we recollect right, there has
been a commitment 01 the above woman, or of
one or more members of z; numerous gang,
against whom,
as being conspirat•S'
rs with her,
the witnesses examined in the justice is;Pni gavegiven evidence,—a commitment, we say, to Pri-
son, in contemplation of her or their trial before
a jury, on the charge. Setting aside the consi-
deration whether these people haN • e been guilty
of the offence or not, it will not interfere with
the course of justice to assume that Captain
Pettinghall has been swindled out of his house-
' rout, and that the several tradesmen who have
conic forward have actually been cheated out of
their goods, by 30771 C gang of thieves or another.
We may go still further, and, dismissing the par-
ticulars of the present case from our memory, ask
the reader to tell us whether he cannot bring to
mind any former instances of strangers offering
themselves as tenants for houses,—of parties being,
referred to by them for characters, who, with plau-
sible appendages of house and apparent business,
were nothing but their colleagues in fraud,—
of well-dressed women, or neat-spoken gentle-
men, lounging into the shops of dress-makers,
jewellers, and sundry other tradesfoliss, giving
sleek promises in exchange for solid waress and
ending abruptly in a silent expedition to the con-
tinent, or, more tediously, in a formal migra-
tion to New Holland. The question may be
put more strongly still, viz., whether there is a
single reader of the English newspapers, who
turns his attention to the police reports, that call
point to one week during any of the last twenty
years, in which cases of gross fraud have not,
been recorded—fraud characterised by the parti-
cular feature of obtaining property and making
away with it, under a false claim to credit?
There is no country on the face of the globe
where this curse prevails to the same extent as in
England. We do not mean that there exists a
more inveterate spirit of roguery here than else-
where, but that the temptation is stronger, be-
cause the facility is so much more yalpable.
The practice of selling goods on credit in this
country differs, generally speaking, from the mode
of giving credit abroad, inasmuch as credit is the
rule with English dealers, while on the Conti-
nent it is the exception. None but men of kno,,vn
good character are trusted anywhere but in En,-
land, and they but for a short period : few in
England are compelled to pay money, except
those against whom some ground of suspicion
exists, and credit for the unsuspected has
scarcely any limits. Is it a wonder, then, that
so many plots are laid for getting hold of goods,
the opportunity of selling which at a price little
short of that at which they are fraudulently pur-.
chased, or rather kidnapped, is equal to time fa-
cility with which a skilful knave, recommended
by an accomplice, may in the first instance pro-
cure them ? In other countries it would be as
difficult for a stranger to get into possession of
a house on credit as to obtain a gold watch
on credit. It is a custom in Paris, of old
standing, to pay beforehand for a furnished
house. People, in speaking upon this subject,
attempt to identify the universality of deal-
ing on credit,—that is, upon promises, or
by granting loans without security, which is
a pretty fair description of the sale on goods
on trust, with the mercantile prosperity of Great
Britain ; and they assert that such a system is
inseparable from that of an eminent commercial
state. We are of no such opinion. It is pro-
bable that foreign commerce cannot be greatly
extended without credit, because even the barter of
one cargo of produce for another, from a distant
part of the world—supposing such a thing were
practicable without the intervention of bills of ex-
change—would still suppose that species and
degree of confidence between merchants which
is simply the meaning of credit. But need this
powerful instrument of commerce be perverted be
its indiscriminate application to the affairs o.t•
private families, and to articles of domestic use?
See what an encouragement it affords to impro-
vidence in the sanguine, and to dishonesty in
the cunning ! See to what risk it exposes the
tradesman who might he, of himself, inclined- Jo
deal for money, but who must do like other
' tradesmen, or be left altogether without cus-
tomers ! Again, is it not obvious that the dan-
ger of incurring bad debts must compel the
tradesman to- balance his frequent losses, by
en-
hancing his general prices, so as to make the
upright and prudent customer pay for the ro-
guish or extravagant defaulter? hence the
enormous cost of numerous articles made and
sold in England, above all calculation
' able profit, if bad debts were net to be insatia • • -• bl y
taken in as an important item in the estimate.
There is no doubt that this devouring mischief, ill
our usages between man and man, has increased
and prolonged beyond all measure by the stand-
ing, though perhaps compulsory, policy of the
Government, to encourage by every means, and
in all its associations, the system throughout
England. A Government spending money be-
yond its means, and borrowing in some shape
• or other to swell them, will naturally make a
borrowing-and-promise-living notion. The credit
required by such myriads of purchasers must in-
, volve the venders in the same necessity °lashing
credit from those wholesale dealers who furnish
their stock of goods: thus we trace the misery
importers of the
upwards to the raw material,
Ives o
who prop themse.
_n bills, discounted by
bankers; and downwards again to the
housekeeper, who takes a gown or a bracelet ff.;
his wife, a cask of wine for his cellar, or a side-
board for his dining-room, on credit. 'Tie
whole mass is diseased to
community exists 11 1
upon lope, not possession. A.
month by some, b •
y others a twelvemonth, is
mortgaged to supply the .
want, real or imaginary,
of the passing
hour : hence it is that England
has become the sole emporium in Europe of pe-
cuniary disappointments, vicissitudes, panics,
and ti • in. consequent revolutions (unconnected
with Politics), in
classes among the active members of society.
I'll
c dupery of a few hundred simpletons iii the
year, and the successful villainy of as many cheats,
may be looked upon but as an incident in the
body of the work. The principle of the system
is what we exclaim against—the monstrous mul-
tiplication of book-debtors and creditors throu'rh-
out England.—Times.
The internal tranquillity wjueli
England has
enjoyed, with little interruption, since the Re-
volution, has wonderfully promoted the
provement of the country ; and the inventions of
all kinds which have e • been made during th.&t
period sufficiently prove the keenness and activity

of the middle and lower orders of the nation.
But though the class of gentlemen, properly so
called, possess more generally now than at any
former period a power over the common-places
of language, and the animalfrom which Fielding
drew his 'Squire ffrestern is as much extinct
as the wolf, yet, notwithstanding this general
smoothness, this power of inditing a fashionable
Novel or Tour, we question if there be any
thing like the amount of talent in the higher
ranks which they possessed before the Revolu-
tion.
During the civil w?.rs, men were under
the necessity of inquirng into all subjecti ; and
the novelty of toe scenes in which they were
forced to a part, and in which the past
afforded:t.hem no safe guide, made it necessary
for them to exercise their judgments, and to
think for themselves. Hence the number of in-
genious publications by gentlemen of that day,
in morals and politics, many of which, though
little known now, and seldom named, abound
with evidence of talent of a very high order.
The Revolution, by placing the Crown and the
Democracy completely under the Aristocracy,
freed the latter from the necessity of exertion ; and
hence the history of the last century is little more
_ than a history of the imbecility of the higher
ranks. What little talent they possessed :seems
to
_have been of that description which enables
a man to appear to advantage in idle society. Mi-
serable debates in the two Houses about the Lord
knows what was undertaken for no intelligible
object, the advisers .having no principles of any
kind by which they could tell whether the ob-
ject would be advantageous or disadvantageous,
the laws and domestic institutions of the coun-
try remaining all the time in the most chaotic
state—such is the History of the English Aris-
tocracy since the Revolution. The Memoirs
and Letters of Horace Walpole, Bubb Dod-
dington, and others ; the Parliamentary History,
Pamphlets, and periodical writings of the day,
all lead to one conclusion—that it would be dif-
ficult to point out a period in the history of
mankind more conspicuous for imbecility in the
ruling classes. Such imbecility is the natural
fruit of the releasing the higher rrnks from all
dependence on the opinion_ of the people. The
share of popularsuffrage possessed by the nation
perhaps only served to aggravate the evil. Even
the nominally popular places returned not men
whose abilities or character commended them to
the people, but men whose purses enabled them
to stand a contest. Down even to our owe
times, the family of Northumberland and one
or two other families were supposed to
have the power of disposing of the B.epresen-
tation of the great City and Liberties of West-
minster. When the character of a Representation
is generally aristocratical, the few popular places
•form little exceptions to the general character ;
because the nation becomes accustomed to the
standard of wealth, and there seems even a sort of
impropriety in a man of small fortune consenting
to impair his means in order to obtain admission
into an assembly, the determinations of which
he cannot hope to influence. This state of
things will, however, last till some train of cir-
cumstances'produce a convulsion in the country.
The questions respecting Parliamentary Reform
are idle, as far as any result is expected under
the present state of things. The higher ranks
have the power completely in their hands ; and
there is no instance of any body of men, from
the beginning of the world to the present day,
consenting voluntarily to abandon power. Many
of thoSe men - Who. now vote for Parliamentary
Reform would not vote for it if they thought
their vote might lead to its being Orried, just as
we see the liberal Protestants of Ireland throw.'
ing off the mask, and rallying round tile banner
of intolerance, when. the system of awendaney
begins to be seriously endangered. But the
agitation of Parliamentary Reform is not the
less useful, because it cannot be carried ex-
cept under circumstances which, from their •
fearful nature, are not to be provoked with
impunity. It forecharges men with the ar-
cana of Government, lays open to them the
cause of the ignoranCe and insufficiOrcy of the
higher orders, and prepares them for availing
themselves with advantage of sueli favourable
opportunitieS as
.may present themselves for a tho-
rough improvement of the national institutions.
The internal peace we have enjoyed has led to a
wonderful improvement in all the arts of produc-
tion. But the legislative machine has not par-
taken of the improvements introduced into the
machinery of the
,country. Hence the nation
may be said to be without law or Courts for its
administration. A sort of public opinion pro-
tects the poor front the power which, in the ab-
sence of justice, the rich have over them. A rich
man that chooses to encounter that opinion may
do exactly what he pleases. The case of De
Tastet and others shows. that there is JlothiDg
which, in the present state of the law, a man may
not do if he chooses. If there bad been any ta-
lent in the higher ranks, beyond that of uttering
an occasional witticism, or declaiming a common-
place with a good accent and in good English,
would all that men expect from a legislature
have been left in this tnisatiSfactan y state so long ?
The much calumniated Parliaments of the time •
of the civil. war applied themselves seriously to
the improvement of the Institutions of the coun-
try. There was an honest desire in- many men
of that day to grapple with the evil. The con-
fessions in the late Police Reports of the
im-
provement which has taken place in the ecienee
of preying :on the public, while- the science of
grappling with it has not experienced a corres-
ponding improvement, and the dread indicated
throughout the examinations of Magistrates of
the grcOwing intelligence of the lower orders, are
favourable symptoms. The people caitnot be
brutified at the will of Magistrates ; and though
we see little chance of obtaining from such a
body as the House Of Lords (children of idle-
ness and frivolity) imprOvements adequate to the
evil, yet something will surely come of the
changes now going on.—Morning Chronicle.
The Gaol Committee of the Court of Alder-
mow, meet this day to hear evidence, and con-
sider the charges brought against the Governor
of Whitecross-street Prison. If' only one half
of the abuses that have been described as con-
nected with WhitecroSs-street. Prison be true, it
will still be one of the worst regulated prisons in
Great Britain. Why should ibis be', so ? It is
under the eye of as active and jneell&ient a body
of Magistrates as exist in the-' world, yet they
never look at it. If the-iGOvernor be.guilty, so
are they. Abuses have been allowed
~to grow
up ; and as it has.ss, SO
beet every man's business -
tbtaot
business to attend. it has been no man's
them. Lord Bacon very justly .remarks.
" measures without men are as dead images:"
The Court of Aldermen has provided "mea-
sures," in the shape -of laws and regula-
tions for the government of this prison ; but
not having provided men to see after the
due enforcement of such laws and regula-
tions, the measures are merely dead images. 7
By a Parliamentary return, it appears that there

' are upwards of 12,000 persons, male and le-
male, locked within die walls of the King's
Bench, the Fleet, and Whitecross-street Pri-
sons, every year. Taking one-third of these
; to be annually confined in the last mentioned
place, the Court of Aldermen will have no
fewer than' 4,000 human beings every -year,
convicted of no crime, suffering, more or
less, from the abuses which it has allowed
to exist. If these abuses have existed five
years, and some of them, we understand, claim
an earlier commencement, '20,000 persons have
been victims. Many of the abuses which have
been described by our correspondent may he
very easily investigated. There is the huddling
together of all who are committed in one room,
a. ward from whence there is. no egress to the
open air for 24, or even 48 hours, until it is
quite convenient to the surgeon of the prison to
visit, examine, and report tiler». There is the
treatment of the sick, including the annoyance
of sending the worst and most disagreeable of
the healthy prisoners to herd with them ; there
is the confinement of all sorts of women, of all
sorts of characters, in one room ; there is the
process of " tatting," about which so much has
been said ; there is the non-appropriation of
such monies as the destitute prisoners, who are
fi cemen of the city of London, are entitled to.
These charges are severally susceptible of proof.
The appointment of a new Governor is.a good
time to propose a new system, and to take care
that so long as the laws of arrest for debt are
allowed to remain, they shall be carried into
execution with as little injury to their victims as
possible.—Morning Herald.
The great evil of Ireland has at all times been
the violence of the opposite factions by which
she has been torn. These, whether Catholic cr
Protestant, have for the most part been headed,
as they apparently are to this day, by those who
have had no other object but their own personal
aggrandisement, through means of the excite-
ment which it has been their constant endeavour
to keep up. If there be any duty more incum-
bent than another upon those who hold the reins
of Government, it is to check and to discourage
a feeling, on whichever side fomented, which so
seriously impedes the public tranquillity and pro-
sperity. Accordingly this seems to have been
from the first the object of Lord Anglesea's Go-
vernment, who, being fortunately of no faction
himself, seems anxious, as far as in him lies, to
prevent other; from being so. In furtherance
of this object, it seems that his Excellency has
determined to suppress the use of all party tokens
among the agents of Government ; and his ad-
monition having been disregarded, he has
deemed it right to show himself in earnest, by
cashiering two of the constabulary who have
thought proper to wear ensigns of political par-
tisanship in defiance of an injunction to the con-
trary. The following is the order issued upon
the occasion :

MUNSTER eoNsTABuLmtv—GENERAL ORDER.

The Lord Lieutenant having received a report
attested by affidavits, establishing the fact that Con-
stable Geoghegan and Sub-constable Williams, sta,
tioned in Kerry, have infringed the regulations of
the establishment, which prohibited the use of party
emblems, the former by displaying a green leaf, and
the latter an orange lily, has been pleased to direct
that both individuals shall be dismissed from the con-
stabulary.
His Excellency has further been pleased to ob-
serve that, as the display of party colours or badges
is wholly inadmissible among the constabulary, those
who transgress so salutary a: regulation must abide
the consequences. _

The foregoing order is to be read to the constabu,
Lary by the district officer throughout the province.
W. MILLER, Inspector-General.

Clontnel, Aug. 16.

Now hat- just offence this can give to any
reasonable man, or what there is in it that
affixes any charge of partiality upon Lord Angle-
sea's Government, we are at a loss to perceive;
yet it has been assailed as an act of the grossest
political cowardice ; as an overt act of high trea-
son almost against the Orangemen of Ireland ;
while, for want of better reasons, one of its main
sins is—(guess, reader, if you can)—that it bears
date on the anniversary of the birth-day of the
late Duke of York !—lbid.

One of our Journals (the- New Times) de-
votes itself assiduously to the hopeless task of
persuading the public that the extinction of the
Small Note Circulation is likely to. be attended
with great distress and calamity. The nation,
however, obstinately refuses to take the alarm ;
and we have therefore no other Motive for ad-
verting to the subject than to show how com-
pletely the question of Currency is settled, from
the kind of arguments and of artifices
_to which
those who wish to open it afresh think it neces-
sary to resort. One of these artifices is to re-
present the country as already in a state not only
of alarm but of actual distress, arising from the
progressive diminution of one and two pound
notes, preparatory to. their final and complete ex-
tinction. If the state of the country were such
as it is described, no further inquiry would
be necessary to produce a universal con-
viction of the impolicy of the existing law. But
all persons who have provincial correspondents
not interested in deceiving them, know that the
assertion is utterly unfounded ; while the inhabi-
tants of the metropolis, who do not enjoy the
same advantage, and for whose exclusive benefit
we suppose the statement is intended, are at a
loss to conceive how much distress and alarm
can possibly exist in the provinces without some
degree of sympathetic feeling being manifested
here. Looking around them, and beholding only
a scene of tranquil confidence and advancing
Prosperity, they refuse their belief to a state-
ment which informs them in substance, .that Eng-
land realises at
,this moment the fable of Mezen-
Hue, and that London is the dead body, having
no feelings in common with the sentient and
trembling, provinces to which it is attached.—
Another artifice, which also fails to attract much
attention to the gloomy statements and melan-
choly forebodings of our contemporary, is to in-
sinuate that the subject has led to,differenees of
opinion among his Majesty's Ministers. The Duke
of Wellington and Mr. Secretary Peel are said to
entertain irrecoucileable opinions upon the ques- •
tion ; the former perceiving the necessity of aban-
doning the present course—the latter being fully
convinced of the expediency of adhering to it
firmly, and feeling that his political character is
irrevocably pledged to its completion. This we
fear can scarcely be considered as among the ex-
cusable artifices by which it may be attempted to
impart an adventitious interest to a dull or ex-
hausted subject. The story is equally devoid of
plausibility and truth. Every body knows that
the Duke of Wellington is as deeply pledged to
the maintenance of the system of currency now
established by law as Mr. Secretary Peel. It
is scarcely two months since the illustrious
Premier made a declaration in Parliament in
its favour, as express, decided, and unequivo-
cal, as was ever made by the .Right Honour-
able Secretary. The latter, it is true,. brought
in the Bill for the Resumption of Cash Payments

many years ago, but on that occasion (not being
one of his Majesty's Ministers) he of course
acted, not as the organ of GoVernment, but as
Chairman of a Committee of the .House of
Commons. How he can be considered indivi-
dually, more than any other of the King's Mi-
nisters, pledged •to the suppression of the small-
note circulation, merely because, as the Chairnian
of a Committee, he introduced the Bill which
bears his name, and of which the suppression of
small notes was not the principal object, is utterly
inconceivable. The arguments of our con-
temporary (the New Times) are not more sue-
cessfill than his manoeuvres. He gravely assumes
that the country bankers will no longer afford
adequate accommodation to their customers
when they are forbidden to issue one and two
pound notes, forgetting that before one or two
pound notes were known, all necessary accom-
modation was afforded, and believing apparently
that because since that time the aggregate of
transactions and the demand for currency are in-
creased, the relation between the different parts
.of the mechanism of commerce is therefore of
necessity disturbed, and that the motives by
which individuals were formerly actuated will
operate no longer. Another assumption con-
nected with that of the indisposition of the
country bankers. to render accommodation in
their neighbourhood is, that the transactions of
commerce will be impeded for want of an
adequate circulating medium. The one assump-
tion is as erroneous as the other. - It is known
that a sufficient supply of bullion exists in the
country to fill up by a metallic currency the
void gradually occasioned by the withdrawal
bf the small paper circulation. It is a fact
quay well I known, that this process has been
going on already to a very considerable ex-
tent. We are entitled to say, therefore, that
the whole expense and inconvenience, in
a national point of view, has already been
encountered, and we think it may be taken for
granted, that in no part of the country will per-
sons, who have either value or sufficient security
to give for currency, be at a loss to obtain it,
after the extinction of small notes, any more
than at present, even although the whole of the
existing country banks throughout England
should refuse to be the channels by which it is
to be diffused. Perhaps the trade of a country
banker may be less profitable than under the
former system of currency ; but it will, on the
other hand, be more agreeable and secure.—
The effect upon the country can only be in pro-
portion to the quantity of gold it is necessary to
import- to fill up the void in the circulation. If,
as we believe, no more is required for this pur-
pose than the country already possesses, the
whole amount of fictitious capital extinguished
in the form of small notes, will be compensated
by the real capital now dormant in the form of
bullion, which will then be called into activity. It
is a remarkable blunder of our contemporary ( The
New,Times) to ascribe the number ofsmall bills of
exchange in circulation in the county of Lancas-
ter to the absence of one and two pound notes,
and to anticipate that when the small notes are
generally suppressed, all England will be over-
run by this inferior description of currency.
These small bills of exchange are very rarely,
even in Lancashire, drawn for so low a stun as
51.; and how they can be considered in the light
of a substitute for one and two pound notes is
somewhat incomprehensible. The circumstance
of a small currency of gold or of paper, it is ob-
vious, can have nothing whatever to do with the
number of these bills. Lancashire and Middle-
sex would have at least as many of them as they
have now, if there was no such thing as a so-
vereign in either county. And other counties,
notwithstanding their small notes, would have
as many of them as Middlesex and Lancashire,
if their population were equally dense, and their
petty traffic equally active.—Morning Post.

FROM 3 ST NIGHT'S GAZETTE.

Wm- Office, Sept. 4,_1828.

43d Regiment of Foot—Lieut. Ebenezer Jones, from
the Royal Staff Corps, to be Lieutenant, vice George
Hoed, who retires upon half-pay Royal Staff Corps. Dated
August 21, Ib2B.
134th Ditto.—Lieuttnant Patrick Plunkett, from the
Ceylon Regiment, to be Lieutenant, vice Westly, promoted.
August 21.
Ceylon Regiment—Lieutenant Robert Marsh Westina-
cott, from the Royal Staff Corps, to be Lieutenant, vice
Plunkett, appointet: to the 84th Foot. Aug. 21.
UNATrA C En.—To be Ensigns, by purchase.

George Anderson, Gent. Sept. 5.
Vere Caldwell, Gent. Sept. 5.
MEMORA Nll um.—The undermentioned Officers have
been allowed to dispose of their half-pay :
Ensign Gregory Boraston, half-pay 92d Foot. Sep-
tember 3.
Cornet Richard Martin, half-pay 2:3d Light Dragoons.
September 5.

Whitehall, August 28.

The Lord Chancellor has appointed John Daft, of the
town of Nottingham, Gent. to be a Master Extraordinary
in the High Court of Chancery.

DECLARATION OF INSOLVENCY.
Conrail Manar, Gower-place, Euston-square, mer-
chant.

BANKRUPTCY ENLARGED.

George Jenne, James-street, Oxford-street, coach-iron-
monger, from Sept. 16 to Oct. 31.
BANKRUPTCY SUPERSEDED.
James Barker, Gloucester Coffee-house, Oxford-street,
coffee-house-keeper.