The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-22 00:00:00

ObvivingflL

• part, we regard the one crotchet in precisely
the same light as we regard the other—that
is to say, we think them both equally imprac-
ticable, and if practicable, pregnant with hazard
not only to England but to Ireland also. Impressed
with this conviction, we are by no means too sorry to
see the Irish mind beginning to be divided between
the three visionary schemes of Triennial Parliaments,
Federalism, and a total Repeal of the Union, for by
such division the agitation for unconditional
Repeal will be greatly weakened, and the
question will cease to wear that alarming
aspect which it wore throughout the memo-
rable year of the monster meetings, when Ire-
land bade fair to be at length united on the subject
of the restoration of her domestic legislature. We
have said that we do not regret this division among
the Irish agitators ; we should add, however, that
in one respect it is to be regretted, inasmuch as it
will tend to impress Sir ROBERT PEEL with the belief
that the Repealers are not so united or so formidable
a body as he had imagined them to be, and conse-
quently furnish him with a plea for conceding less to
the sister country than he had previously determined
on, fer all the world knows that he is one of those
statesmen who yield nothing, except from the pressure
of necessity.

The report which we published on Thursday last
of the proceedings at the Maidstone Petty Sessions
involves a case, the importance of which is not to be
measured by the miserable amount of the property—
ten turnips valued at 4d.—for which the unfortunate
delinquent, charged with:the offence of stealing it,
was brought before a bench of Kentish magistrates.
Those magistrates, we at once admit, had no discre-
tion leit them in this case of SARAH GREENGROVR.
The prosecutor, a farmer named BAXTER, disregard-
ing the statement of the unhappy girl herself, who
acknowledged that she had taken up four turnips,
prompted by the cravings of fierce hunger—unmoved
by the simple but impressive appeal of the Chairman,
who recommended him not to press the charge, per-
sisted in his demand for " justice" (I); and the Bench
sentenced her to pay the value of the turnips and the
amount of the penalty and the costs. Now let us
examine the facts of this case a little more narrowly.
They may supply a key to the origin of prevalent
offences—aye, f prevalent crimes of a far deeper dye,
and of consequences infinitely more wasting and ter-
rible.

The girl, aged fifteen years only, was on her re-
am from Marden, where she had been hopping ;
and, exhausted with fatigue, thirst and hunger, she
was observed by a labourer in BAXTER'S service to
enter one of prosecutor's fields, and draw, not ten, but
four, turnips. The Chairman remarked on the posi-
tion he was placed in by her own admissions, sug-
gesting, however, that, as she did not appear to have
committed any depredations of this kind before, he
would leave it to Mr. BAXTER'S discretion whether
to proceed further or not. BAXTER, not be-
cause he disputed the fact of the girl's being
unimplicated in any former depredation, but
"because he had lost a great many turnips
by other offenders," and been subject to
several severe " depredations" lately on his farm—
insisted on pressing the charge against GREENOROVE.
The Chairman in vain pointed out the difference
between her case and that of the old offenders, of
whotn he was now speaking. BAXTER, who talked
as if it was a question of hungry rabbits, instead of
human beings, remarked that "he had a
great difficulty in catching them, and he
was determined to make an example"—not of them,
the " old offenders"—but "of the first one he could
lay hold of," old or new. The Chairman was thus
compelled to proceed in the discharge of his painful
duty. When he had delivered the sentence of the
Court, the wretched girl stated " she had no money."
With a degree of humanity, which it does not seem
that the prosecutor had the merit of originating, the
Court desired her to sit down ; and we can well ima-
gine the trembling anxiety with which she must have
awaited the making out of the order to commit her to
gaol in default of payment. Was she, though young
in years, old in crime ?—an experienced depredator?
—a regularly trained "depredator ?" Was she of
that character and those connexions which would
justify, in the opinion of some, the remorseless se-
verity of the farmer towards her ? Why, what
followed ? Let us judge of the probabilities by
the facts. A little boy entered the court crying
bitterly, approached the bench, and tendered the
amount " decreed and decerned against her," as the
Scotch lawyers woula say, which amount he had
raised by taking his shoes from off his own
feet and pawning them. This was the poor
delinquent's brother. Will any man undertake
to say that the girl can have been a depraved and ac-
customed thief, or her family one supported by field
" depredations," or other courses of habitual dis-
honesty, in the face of so touching an example of
disinterested affection as this subsisting between the
brother and the sister ? Is theirs a case with many
parallels in higher ranks and among relatives of much
ampler and loftier fortunes ? Do the records of our
courts of law, or our criminal judicature, supply many
such examplifications of that principle of pure affection
which prompts one individual to denude himself of
his own property to rescue another, his kinsman, from
the inability to meet the amercement of a criminal
court or the finding of a jury in a civil action F Be
it remembered that the boy's sacrifice was fully as
great in proportion as any which wealthier parties
could have made, to whatever amount they might
have carried theirs.
But now what shall we think of the landowner
legislation—of the landlord-made laws—which
enact such monstrous immorality and injustice
as are obviously illustrated by this very
case ? To steal turnips is an offence against
property, and must be repressed by certain pe-
nalties. Granted, if you will. But are there to be
no checks, no modifications, upon those penalties,
according to circumstances ? The value of the pro-
perty, here, is found—(on no lenient mitigating re-
presentation, observe, of a reluctant accuser, but on
the statement of a party, anxious, by his own showing,
to inflict, on the first offender " he can catch," his re-
sentment for the depredations committed by others)—
at fourpence. The bench, under the instructions of
the statute, award fourpence for the property. But
then the penalty ? How much, in such a trumpery
case, shall be the penalty to vindicate the offended
law ? Sixpence more. The sum of tenpence the poor
girl cannot pay-She hard-hearted prosecutor will not
relent. Of non-payment, imprisonment for a limited
period—nicely ascertained by a penal " sliding scale"
of terms of incarceration—is the assigned and only
alternative. Hard enough this on the delinquent. But
is this all ? No. Property and penalty are satisfied,
with tenpence : but costs—costs, that is to say, in the
shape of fees to the magistrates' clerk, or the clerk
of the peace, or some other small legal minnow of
insatiable office appetite ;—these amount to rather
more than four times the whole charge for penalty
and property ! Away, then, with the trumpery
pretence of vindicating law and property by such
arnercements. They are meant to feed the never,

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1844.

Mr. O'CONNELL'S new scheme of a Federal move-
ment, which was formally propounded in the last
manifesto issued from Derrynane, does not appear to
have been received so favourably by the Repeal agi-
tators as the Hon. and Learned} Gentleman antici-
pated. We say " anticipated," because there was a
confident tone in his communication on the subject,
which implied his belief that Federalism, on his puis-
sant recommendation, would be welcomed with
eagerness by his trusting countrymen, and occupy
their attention to the exclusion of total and unqua-
lified Repeal. But on this occasion Mr. O'CONNELL
scorns to have been somewhat out in his reckoning, and
to have over-estimated his own influence. Symptoms of
dissatisfaction are beginning to exhibit themselves
among the Repealers and their organs, who do not at
all relish the idea of being compelled to stop half-
way, when they had made active preparations for
going boldly on to their journey's end ; and more
than one journal has pretty openly intimated its
opinion that Federalism is little or no better than a
humbug, calculated only to amuse and divert the at-
tention of the people, without being productive of any
substantial, comprehensive, or permanent good. The
Belfast Vindicator, which seems nervously solicit-
ous to speak the truth in the gentlest and least
offensive manner possible, says with marked sig-
nificance—considering the peculiarly awkward
position in which it is placed—" There is
no concealing the fact that some discontent has been
expressed by many parties that Mr. O'CONNELL ap-
pears to have forced the adoption of the Federal prin-
ciples upon the people." Two of the principal Dublin
journals have expressed themselves to a similar effect;
and Mr. GAVAN DurrY, the sanguine and energetic
editor of the Nation—who, it may be remembered,
rushed from the undesired embraces of the Richmond
Penitentiary about the same time with his great leader
—thus records his opinion of Federalism in a respect-
ful, yiell-ritten letter to Mr. O'CONNELL :-" Fe-
der4sin;us it is interpreted by some of the soundest
men- of that.party, demands local Parliaments for the
three divisions of the empire, and an imperial
one in common. Now, if this principle be in-
sisted on, Federalism is an impracticability, for it
implies-arrestelgaiisatiOn of the British Constitution.
Apart from any other objection to it, it raises a new
and tremendous difficulty, which does not exist against
Repeal. We want to restore an institution of which
we have been robbed ; the Federalists, who insist on
pushing their principle as far as it will go, want a
reconstruction of the empire upon a new basis. If I
am not deceived in believing this to be the object of
the party, are we not wooing shipwreck if we embark
in the same boat with them ? Moreover, some of
the Federalists would give us a legislative council,
consisting of only one chamber. Here we have a
second innovation, and, of course, a second difficulty.
They ask a thing foreign to the British Consti-
tution, and a thing which, for that reason, would un-
doubtedly be. refused." In the above passage Mr.
DUPTY clearly proves, not only that Federalism is
an impracticability, but that it is an impossibility—
Repeal :itself not more so. His opinions are, at the
present'crisis, well worthy of attention ; for, as editor
of the Nation, he exercises an influence over a large
body of the more uncompromising Repeal agitators ;
and 11-!is influence it is pretty clear he will
be exceedingly reluctant to exert in favour
of Federalism. From these and other indica-
tions, it is manifest that Mr. O'Cosinnu,
will
have to encounter a more decided opposition
than he had calculated on, in his endeavour to substi-
tute Federalism for total Repeal ; and we should not
be at all surprised were his next manifesto from
Derrynane to announce his abandonment of the mea-

sure in deference to the popular wish. For our own

ending, everywhere planted, all-absorbing feelers of
the law staff, which in this country are the beginning
and the ending of all things. In the case of GREEN-
GROVE, a benevolent man sat as chairman, and doubt-
less his brother magistrates concurred in his feeling.
The money was refunded—by some one—to the
noble boy.
A word, now, to over severe farmers and landlord
legislators. Do they imagine (we put the case we
have been discussing out of the question, and speak of
a whole class, not of a solitary example)—do they
suppose that they will increase, in starving and pau-
perised labourers, respect for property, by overstrain-
ing the vengeance of the law against the most paltry
transgressions upon it ? Do they fancy that the
public cannot see through the flimsy disguise which
interposes itself between the ostensible object of petty
larceny and summary jurisdiction Acts of Parliament
such as we have alluded to, and the miserable, sordid
selfishness, which originates and passes them ? Do
they expect to extinguish the secret torch of the
prowling incendiary, by multiplying penalties upon
their devoted heads whom the desperation of hunger
has driven to a twopenny outrage on the products
of other men's fields ? Do they conceive that the best
course of securing the abstinence of wayfaring
paupers in search of work from pillage, and even
violence,—" is to lie perdue," as it were, " to catch
the first " and most helpless and most pitiable of-
fender? Do they persuade themselves that, to show
no pity for others, is to ensure respect for them-
selves ?

_______uum
Intelligence has been received from Lisbon to the
6th instant. The Minister for Foreign Affairs re-

TILE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY ErENIN&, OCTOBER 22, 1844.