The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-19 00:00:00

TIM SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY it, 1R44,

THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.

" Leaguers meet in theatres," said the Home Secre.
Lary, in his speech of fu .sday evening. They do, sir
James. 'They met in Covent-garden last night ; and
they will continue to meet at short intervals here and
throughout the country, until all occasion for meeting
shall have ceased. The League is no .ephemeral body.
It has all the elements of permanency about it. Its
duration will be co-existent with that of the odious
monopole which it has been established to put down.
Both will stand or fall together. The League has given
many proofs of its vitality. It has proved itself to be
something more than an abstraction. There is an at-
mosphere of practicability about it, which the monopo-
lists are at length compelled to acknowledge. There
must be -,omething tangible in a body which -has spread
terror and dismay amidst the ranks of the monopolists.
That cannot be a non-entity which has forced the land-
lords and the clergy of a State Church to form them-
selves into a wide-spread confederacy, to resist what
they call the aggressions of the League. That cannot
be a mere airy nothing which has wrung from the hard
grasp of an avaricious oligarchy some 15,0001. or
20,0001. in the hope—vain hope !—of opposing the fur-
ther progress of the League, which has been truly de-
signated " a Great fact."
Let the monopolists go on as they are doing. Let
them combine and contribute to their hearts' content.
The League glories in collision. The League courts
a conflict with the champions of the landed interest.
Conflict is, with the League, but another name for con-
quest. The free-traders have challenged the monopo-
lists to the combat times without number. The challenge
has been hitherto declined. It is now accepted, and the
opposing powers are marshalling their respective forces
for a decisive battle. The grand conflict is on the eve
of commencing. Of the issue there can be no doubt ;
nor can there be a question that the engagement, though
severe, will be but a short one.
Never did the League appear in better spirits than
they did last night. How could it be otherwise ? The
attendance was, if possible, greater than ever ; and cer-
tainly, intense as was the enthusiasm at former meetings,
the enthusiasm displayed last night exceeded anything
of the kind ever before witnessed. No one who was in
Covent-garden last night can any longer entertain a
doubt, however sceptical he may have hitherto been,
that the days of the monster monopoly are numbered.
We wish that all those oligarchists, titled and untitled,
who have of late been planking down their 1001, 501.,
20/., 10/., SL, &c., for the purpose of perpetuating the
corn-laws, had formed a part of the vast audience.
If they had, they would have learned at least one
important lessson. They would have been taught the
utter hopelessness of averting, or even much longer de-
ferring, the destruction of the bread monopoly. And
this conviction would necessarily have been followed by
another, namely, the folly of contributing their money
to prevent a catastrophe which is inevitable. There are
none, says the proverb, so blind as those who will not
see. Some of the landlords are in this predicament.
Though everybody else clearly discerns the impending
extinction of the corn-laws, there is a section of the
monopolists who shut their eyes and refuse to be en-
lightened.

The delusion may be a pleasant one while it lasts.
And were it likely to last for fifteen or twenty years, we
c‘iuld understand the conduct of those monopolists by
whom it is so fondly cherished. Human nature
shrinks from the contemplation of distant evils. No
one likes to torment hims4f before the time. It
only when evils are known to be at hand, that they
force themselves on men's attention. Those landlords
to whom we refer are unwilling to learn how near
its doom their favourite monopoly is. 1 hey
not only wii not come to the light ; but they will n.,t
let us bring the light to them. '1 heir conduct would be
intelligible could their ignorance avi.rt the coming cala-
mity. But it cannot—no more than the ostrich, who
thrusts i.s head into the sand when closely pursued,
thereby escapes the destruction to which it is doomed.
But if many of the monopolists are determ;ned not to
see, they must be made to feel. If they will not now
believe that their craft is in danger—the craft by which
they have so long swindled and plundered the public—
they must be :nude to believe it, by bringing the threat-
ened ruin abolit their ears. _

• ssa %ay,. ,• •
Theaa proceedings of last night were well adapted to
accelerate this e%ent. Mr. Hume was sinuularly happy
in his re'erences to the humiliating position in which the
Pr&-mier has suffered himself to be placed. Never did
Minister appear in so pitiable a plight. Last year he
proclaimed h's determination not to be dictated to by
the Richmonds and Buckinghams, who head the mono-
list confederacy. Those who differed from him admired
what they considered the manliness of the declaration.
But how has he acted up to it ? Let his announcement
the other night, that he will consent to no alteration in
the corn-laws, answer the question. In that announce-
ment he stands the self-confessed minion of the oligarchy.
He has been cowed by the menaces of dismissal from
office, which the Duke of Richmond has held over his
head. He has been compelled to eat the leek, and by
doing so has irredeemably disgraced himself in the e,ti-
mation of all honourable men—even in that of the very
aristtcrats whose livery he has consented to wear, and
whose obsequious lacquey he has agreed to become.
To the speeches of Mr. Christie and Mr. Fox we have
not space to advert. Both were effective—that of the
latter was particularly so. We shall probably take oc-
casion to recur to it, and direct attention to some of its
more prominent points.—Advertiser.

LORD LYNDHURST'S CIIARGE TO
THE FYX JURY.

(FROM OUR OWN REPORTER.)
A Committee of the Goldsmiths' Company, appointed
to try the coinage, assembled at the Privy Council
Chamber, when the Lord Chancellor addressed them
nearly as follows :
" Gentlemen,—You are assembled here to-day to try
the value of the coinage ; and, as the coal-merchant is
said to have remarked that Coals is coals,' it will be
for you to say if money is really money.
" Gentlemen, there is no pleasure in life without some
alloy, and money. which is one of the greatest of earthly
delights, has also its alloy ; but you will have to take
care there is not too much of it. Formerly, every gold
watch weighed so many carats, from which it became
usual to call a silver watch a turnip ; but this will not,
at present, form a branch of your inquiry. Troy weight.
gentlemen,wederived from the heavy responsibility the
habit of tossing up their coins in the pre-
sencere under
to th •
eir creditors. The Romans
°itinwerrein theosf the legions, and if a piece of money went
highere
Gentlemen, will not be
q
uired to do this. It will be sufficient if you ring the
money on the mahogany dining •table that you will find
ra above
en
the tip
sotf i n theda r ensign's
o Iyu
prepared for you.
" The early Italians used cattle instead of coin, and a
person would sometimes send for change for a thousand
pound bullock, when he would receive twenty five-pound
sheep, or perhaps, if he wanted very small change,
there would be a few lamps amongst them. The incon-
venience of keeping a flock of sheep at one's banker's,
or paying in a short-hornel heifer to one's private ac-
count, led to the introduction of bullion.
"To return, however, Gentlemen, to the duty that
will devolve upon yourselves. You will be called upon
to examine into the unhealthy custom of sweating sove-
reigns; and, with regard to this point, will do well to re-
cnllect that Charles 1. was, perhaps, the e.trlie-t sove-
reign who was sweated to such an extent that his imme-
diate successor, Charles: 11., became one of the lightest
sovereigns ever known in this country.
" With these remarks, Gentlemen, I leave you to the
discharge of your important duties. There are weights
and scales in the next room; and while British honesty
holds the beam, I am sure that British wealth can never
suffer ; for it is the boast of our blessed nation, that the
merchant may hold his head as high as the noble—(aside)
if his washerwoman has put sufficient starch in his shirt-
collar." (The Learned Lord's speech was so much ap-
plauded when he arrived at the beautiful little figure of
the merchant and the noble, that the concluding words,
spoken aside, were not audible.)
The Foreman of the Pyx Jury, in the enthusiasm of
the moment, asked the whole of the Privy Council to a
banquet, to be given the same evening in the Hall of the
Goldsmiths' Company.
The Lord Chancellor, in the name of the Privy
Council, observed, that they were all indisposed. and
that their medical attendants had said, that by all means
they must all keep quiet, and therefore could not accept
the Pyx Jury's polite invitation. The Jury then amused
themselves by tossing up, weighing, breathing upon,
biting, and otherwise experimentalising with the coin of
the realm, which they declared to be honest and satis-
factory.—Punch.

Windmill-street.
DEATH FROM EATING SPRATS.—Mr. Baker held
tahni
rtiy7sui inquest
an yeosilteanrdadycoaltourinthean,Cohfesquoe.rss: Providence-row,
Finsbury-square, on the body of Mr. Thomas Wiley, aged
Samuel doggridge said he was a lodger in deceased's house.
He returned home from the London Docks on Tuesday night
last, and deceased invited him into the parlour to smoke a
pipe. Witness sat with him for about an hour, and at twelve
o'clock deceased parted with him, and went to bed. De-
ceased was then in perfect health. At four o'clock the next
morning the witness was awakened and told that deceased
was very ill. He got up and dressed himself as quickly as
possible, but upon reaching the bedside he found him dead.
Mr. John Cantling, surgeon, of No. 11, Finsbury-square, said
he was called to attend deceased, but found him dead.
Witness had since made a post mortem examination of the
body, and found that deceased had died from inflammation
of the stomach, caused by eating some sprats for supper on
the previous night. He was informed that deceased had
eaten very few, but his stomach was previously diseased,
poker given him by his wife, a
and the number was fully sufficient to aggravate the corn-
pgaint. Persons with weak stomachs could not be too
careful in eating sprats. Verdict " Died from the effects
of eati;:ig sprats, the stomach being previously in an unhealthy
state."
CHAHoit OF MURDER IN 17•.TORVVICH.-011 Thursday
woman or,
apparently on
his view
death
evening an is \quest was held at a public-house, the sign of
the Plough, i_Nt. Benedict's-street, before Mr. Wilde, City
Crone
by
that day in consequence, as was
re-
ported, of a blow with
.„. oct.;:albthoue
1 p
about bo:y.ofTJhoe parties kept one of thosehn Seeley, aped 65, who
came
infamous public-houses whoh abound in this city, the
Cooper's Arms, St. DfargareeP• The deceased Seeley, died
on Thursday afternoon, and .as rumours of his ill-treatment
by his wife had got abroad, g,eat excitement was occasioned.
A jury was summoned alm(ist immediately after; and an is-
quest. held about six o'clock; in the evening. During the in-
quiry
there was a great crowd ontiide the house. The wife
of the deceased, Mary Ann Seeley, was present, while the
inquest was going on, and often interrupted the witnesses ;
asserting that deceased hat 01 struck her, and that she never
used the poker at all. The i quest was adjourned till
—Norfolk Chronicle. •
GARWAL—One day lost week a fine large salmon
was caught in the trap at... Garway Mill, in the river Mon-
now. This noble fish must have leaped no less than seven
weirs, before arriving at Ow place where it was taken; and
the fact of a salmon being f mind in the Monnow is, we are
assured by a most experiauced disciple of lsaak Walton,
without procedent.-s-lierefttod Timer.
t