The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-02 00:00:00

ebtrb Etittion

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and some others—penalties threefold greater in
duration, end tenfold more severe in all their
circumstances, than those imposed upon Mr.
O'Connell and his fellow-prisoners—were almost
excessive. The Lancashire conspirators comtem-
plated no great or enduring evil as a means
or as an end, but the utmost extravagance
of charity would fail to acquit the repeal con-
spirators of resorting to criminal means for the
attainment of a criminal end. What are the
means, of employing which they have been dis-
tinctly convicted, not upon doubtful evidence, but
upon evidence supplied by themselves ? These
means were by speeches and writings exciting hatred
between different classes of the people, exciting
hatred also against the laws and the Government,
superseding the authority of the Government by the
establishment of rival courts of justice, endea-
vnuring to destroy the power of the Govern-
ment, by debauching the military from their duty,
collecting vast multitudes of the most ignorant and
excitable of the population, frequently in military
array, for the purpose of alarming the Govern-
ment and the well-affected, and encouraging the
disloyal by an illusion of their irresistable strength.
These were the means contemplated—not con-
templated only, but put into extensive action, and
not put into this extensive action upon a single
occasion, as happened at Manchester, but constantly
and frequently, and for a succession of years.
And to what end were these means directed ? To
extort a repeal of the union by intimidation, the Re-
pealers themselves say; or, perhaps, scarcely less than
high treason ; but common sense discovers another,
and, if possible, a much more criminal end—the
wresting of Ireland from the British Crown. These
are facts so obvious and familiar, that it would be but
twaddle to recur to them, if it was not for their im-
portant bearing upon the particular character of the
prosecution, which, unlike former legal attempts to
achieve the peace of Ireland, really embraced the
moral merits and the equity, if we may so speak, of
the great question in issue.

.
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Brazilian Bonds B4M Prussian, 5 per Cent —
Buenos Ayres, 6 per Cent... IRussian, 5 per Cent..„ —
Chlliant 6 per Cent — ;Ditto, Metallic ..... ..... . .....
Colombian, 8 per Cent
Ditto, 1824 ........ ...... .......... Ditto, 9 per Cent 33%
Cuba Bonds, 6 per Cent — Ditto, Deferred.....„ ........ ...
Danish, 3 per Cent
Greek, 18.5, 5 per Cent...... Exchange —f. —c.
Mexican, 5 per Cent ..... 35U French, 3 per Cent —f.
Ditto, 6 per Cent., 1837........ Dutch, 2% per Cent 6l
Peruvian, 1825, 6 per Cent... .: . Ditto, 5 per Cent lOO%

SHARES.
Bristol and Gloucester, 30 paid
Great Western (75 paid)
Ditto Filths 12 paid
London and ilackwall (161. 13s. 4d.) 6%
London and Brighton (50 paid)
London and Croydon (Trunk) ... ... 18%
Lynn and Ely, 11A paid
Manchester and Leeds (70 paid)
Manchester and Birmingham
Newcastle and Darlingron Junction, 21 paid 46
South Eastern and Dover (33 25 4d paid)
Ditto New Shares, 4 paid
Thamei and Medway, Zl9 53 8d paid p
Yarmouth and Norwich (18 paid)
York and Scarborough Branch (2) paid)
Paris and Orleans (20 paid) -,7
Paris and Rouen. 20 paid
Rouen and Havre, 10 paid lB

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—War and police are necessary evils ;
but there are aggravations of war and police, which
the first free country in the world ought to be the
first to abandon. Two of the worst of these aggra-
vations, post-office espionage, and privateering, have
most unexpectedly found apologists at this period of
the nineteenth century—the one in a French Prince
of the Blood -the other in two Committees of the
British Parliament. We need not say that our refe-
rence is to the privateering Naval Essay of his Royal
Highness the Prince de Joinville, and to the Reports
of the Secret Committees of Lords and Commons, on
the Secret Opening of Letters at the Post-office.
We hold that the English and French public have
each their duty to perform in this matter. They have
each to disclaim and repudiate the doctrines thus ad-
vanced in the highest quarters. We should be puz-
zled to which to award the bad eminence of superior
barbarism. If England had not recognised in her
Home-office the morals of Vidocq, while France
adopted as her banner the black flag of Paul Jones
(so far as the avowals of high official authorities can
commit either nation), the one would have sunk her-
self, by her apathy or connivance, to an immeasur-
able depth below the moral rank held by the other.
Perphaps it was previdentially ordered that France
and England should disgrace themselves, at the
same moment, in the same style ; lest either
should feel itself to have lost. that -comparative
level in self-esteem, the loss of which would have
driven it to war with the other pour avoir
de la con.cideration. Our attention is recalled to these
subjects by articles in the Westminster Review and
Spectator. The former adduces more evidence than
we had yet seen of the unworthy participation in the
worst vices of the police of foreign countries, into
which our rulers have been led by permitting them-
selves to be made the instruments of the vengeance of
foreign Governments—without a motive—and with
an aggravation--the aggravation of secrecy and per-
fidy. Perfidy is impossible on the part of those Go-
vernments to their malcontent subjects ; because these
malcontents know them too well to repose any confi-
dence in their treatment. But in England every
one is free in everything but breach of the laws, and
every one thinks himself safe. It is, therefore, we re-
peat, perfidious in this Government to break the
confidence reposed in its freedom ; and having first,
by that freedom, encouraged foreigners who resort to
our shore to commit themselves, in words and in
writing, by di-closures they never would have ven-
tured elsewhere—it is most perfidious to spy secretly
into those disclosures for the purpose of transmitting
them to the Governments whose vengeance the exiles
have fled from—to whose vengeance their connexions
are still exposed. We do not mean to say that our
Government should take part with the exiles
of other States—or even that it should not arrest
machinations commenced in this country to dis-
turb them. England does not profess herself
a rsfugium peccatorum for all manner of plotters
—an Archimedean standing room, from which they
may move the world with revolutionary enginery.
But is there no medium between this connivance
with foreign enterprises making our shores their
starting-point —is there no medium between
leaving conspirators and their Governments ig-
norant that such things are detected (and therefore
putting each on their guard—the one to desist, and
the other to be vigilant)—is there no medium be-
tween this permission of plots and armaments against
friendly neighbours, and the secret communication to
foreign Powers of the secrets of other men—without
warning those men of a danger they could not have
feared in a free country ? This is even something
worse than the old fame of Venice, and her lion's
mouth. It is inveigling men to criminate themselves,
and others, in the confidence of correspondence. It
is leaving them, unwarned, to proceed from wild
words to overt acts, and handing them over, as they
leave our shores—or their friends and connexions on
their own—to the secular arm of their irritated Go-
vernments, whom we have taken into our secret con-
fidence.
STANDARD.—The Morning Chronicle has to-
day a long article upon the Writ of Error—an article
full of misrepresentation and malice, but probably
containing no passage more false or malicious than
the following :—" The recognition of this Irish-judge-
made-law of conspiracy, by the court of ultimate ap
peal, would be the establishment of a principle with
which none of the usual modes of political activity in
England could exist. Political societies would be-
come ipso facto conspiracies. Public meetings would be
almost as unsafe as associations, and even parish ves-
tries would have to bridle their ton4ues. These results,
it would be more proper to say, would happen, if the
Irish conspiracy law could be not only sanc-
tioned but enforced in England. But everybody
knows that it could not be enforced, and that no Mi-
nister would dare to make the attempt. The oppor-
tunity for doing so has been open here as well as at
the other side of the Channel. The Anti-Corn-law
League is quite as much of a conspiracy as the Re-
peal Association. In one sense it is a more formidable
body, inasmuch as, if permitted to exist, it will cer-
tainly effect its object, which the Irish League is not
likely to do. Moreover, the jury which convicted
Mr. O'Connell would most certainly have convicted
Mr. Cobden, if he could only be brought before them.
But, for all this, nobody has seriously thought of in-
dicting Mr. Cobden, nor is it likely that any
one will, even if the decision of the House of
Lords should be such as to encourage the design."
The answer to this statement lies in a single word ;
it is not for the use of any of the usual modes
of political activity in England, but for the abuse
of nearly all these modes that Mr. O'Connell
and his accomplices have been prosecuted and con-
victed, upon the principle of law, " abusus non tollit
usum," it is obvious that the modes of political ac-
tivity, if innocently and legally resorted to, are wholly
unaffected by the decision in the case of these parties.
Whether the Anti-Corn-law League have or have not
transgressed the legal limits of political activity may
be a question ; but it would appear that the law ad-
visers of the Crown think differently, for it is un-
true that a British Government would not in like cir-
cumstances act as the Government of Ireland has
acted. Witness the prosecution of Henry Hunt and
others, twenty-four years ago; and the more recent
prosecutions of Mr. Feargus O'Connor by the Whig-
Radical Ministers. But whatever may be the posi-
tion of the Leaguers in this respect, it is quite indis-
lutable that the limits of legal political activity were
argely transgressed by Mr. 0 Connell and his con-
victed associates. We may admit that the law allows
men to organise political societies to hold multi-
tudinous assemblies of the people, and to express their
political opinions freely and boldly, but it cannot be
pretended that these
privileges are ot qualified, as the
exercise of all the privileges
of freemen are qualified,
by the condition thateo they shall not be exercised to
mm
the injury of the community, or so as to endanger the
established order oflaw
and
government. Now
it will hardly be denied by the Morning Chronicle
itself, that the practices of Mr. O'Connell, sad
the other Repealers, in the last year, and for
many preceding years, grossly violated this con-
dition—the injury occasioned by the unrestrained
repeal agitation is proved more strikingly by nothing
than by the happy change in the social state of Ire-
land, which followed its suppression almost with the
rapidity of a charm. The danger of the agitation
to the established law of order and government was
the daily theme of complaint with all the Whig-
Radical journals and statesmen during the session of
1843. Here, then, we have distinctly marked the
differentia between " modes of political activity"
generally, and " the political conspiracy prosecuted
at the State Trials in Dublin. " Modes of political
activity" may be harmless or otherwise; but when
they become mischievous and dangerous they be-
come criminal conspiracies. It is, however, to
be conceded, that in a free country " modes
of political activity" that are undesignedly in-
jurious are to be regarded with tenderness, and we
cannot help thinking that the Lancashire conspirators
of 1819 had hard measure, as, notwithstanding the
dangerous tendency of their proceedings, it is diffi-
cult to believe that they designed any permanent
evil. It was certainly right to suppress their con-
but the penalties inflicted upon Mr. Hunt,

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENINEC SEPTEMBER 2. 1844.

Mr. COTTINGHAM said that he should commit the
prisoner on the three first charges, and that he should
be brought up again on Wednesday, and that probably
when publicity was given of the examination in the
newspapers, other parties who had been robbed would
attend.
The prisoner requested the return of a prayer-book
found in his possession when he was taken into
custody.
The application for its restoration was opposed by
the publican, who stated that since the prisoner was
taken into custody he had ascertained that several rob-
beries had been committed in Dublin by a man an-
swering the prisoner's description, and that he had
reason for believing that the prayer-book would be
found to have been part of the produce of one of them.
The prisoner, who seemed very depressed in spirits,
was then conveyed back to the county gaol.
CROYDON.

SINGULAR CASE.—Mr. Richard Lacey, a gentleman
of fortune, residing at Chelsham, and George Standen,
his groom, attended before Messrs. Reid, Adams,
Lucas, Sutherland, and Barclay, the presiding magis-
trates, the latter to answer a charge of having un-
lawfully shot at and wounded a setter dog, the pro-
perty of Mr. W. Russell, a farmer at Chelsham, and
the former with aiding and abetting his servant to
commit the act, for which offence, by an Act of Par-
liament passel in the 7th and Bth years of the reign
of George IV., they had incurred a penalty of 405.,
besides the value of the dog.
Mr. Richards, solicitor, of Croydon, attended to
support the complaint.
It appeared, from the testimony of several wit-
nesses, that on Tuesday, the 20th of August, about
eight o'clock in the evening, the complainant's setter
dog strayed into Mr. Lacey's premises, and he was
heard to give instructions to the other defendant to get
the gun and shoot him, and directly afterwards the report
of a gun was heard, and the animal was seen to run
limping
w seriously oaunsdl
yinjured, it
s
eventually appeared that he had
been very o much so as to render
him utterly useless for the present shooting season.
a
Mr. Russell, in answer to questions from the Bench,
said the dog was a very excellent one, and at this
period was worth at least 101.
Mr. ADAMS inquired whether the animal was at all
mischievous, or whether there was any reason for the
defendant's attempt to destroy him ? Mr. Russell said
he was a remarkably quiet, inoffensive dog, and he
could not conceive what motive there could be, except
that of mischief; to, destroy him.
The defendant, Standen, in answer to the charge,
admitted that he shot the dog, and said the reason he
did so was because he thought he was a dog who had
frequently come howling about the premises at night.
Mr. Lacey said the family had been very much an-
noyed by the dog's noise, and he certainly gave di-
rections that means should be taken to get rid of him,
but he denied, positively, that he told Standen to
shoot him.
Mr. ADAMS said he supposed he only told him to
keep the dog quiet, and he had certainly taken effec •
tual means to endeavour to do so.----(A laugh.)
The Magistrates, after a short deliberation, ex-
pressed an opinion that the charge had been made out,
and they adjudged Mr. Lacey to pay a fine of 403.,
with 31., the value of the dog, and 12s. costs. The
other defendant, who appeared only to have acted
under the orders of his master, they fined 20s.
Mr. Lacey said he should not pay the fine.
The Bench replied that if he did not, he would be
committed for fourteen days.
Mr. Lacey said very well, he would go to prison. .
In a short time, however, he appeared to think
better of it, and he requested the Magistrates to allow
the matter to stand over for a few days to give him
an opportunity of producing evidence to show that
the dog was not so much injured as was represented,
and the Bench granted his application, upon the un-
derstanding that if he failed in doing what he sug-
gested, the original decision would be enforced.
The same defendants were then charged upon
another information with having unlawfully killed a
terrier dog, the property of Mr. John Brown.
It appeared in this case that the dog in question
was missed from Mr. Brown's premises on the morn-
ing of Wednesday week, and the same day it was
seen in Mr. Lacey's, caught by the leg in a large rat-
trap, and shortly afterwards the animal was shot by
the defendant Standen, and then buried in the dung-
hill. A search-warrant was obtained, which was
executed by a constable named Tappen ; and on his
questioning the defendants, they at first denied all
knowledge of the dog, but when he found it in the
dung, Mr. Lacey said to Standen, " Never mind,
George, don't be afraid, they cannot hurt us."
Mr. Lacey, in answer to the complaint, with great
earnestness declared upon his word that he knew
nothing about the dog being shot, and said he was
ready to take his oath of it, if the Bench would allow
him. He wished the Magistrates to question his
servant, and he said he would clear him.
The Magistrates said they had no right to ques-
tion a defendant, but Standen was at liberty to make
any statement he pleased.
Standen then, evidently much to the astonishment
of Mr. Lacey, said the truth was that his master
knew all about it, for that when he told him the dog
was in the trap he gave him the gun and told him to
shoot it.
The Magistrates said they had no doubt that this
statement was correct, and they expressed their sur-
prise that a person in the station of Mr. Lacey should
have pledged his word, and have offered to swear to
the truth of that which he knew to be false.
Mr. Lacy still asserted that he knew nothing about
the dog being shot.
Mr. ADAMS said he did not believe him, and he
thought his conduct had been very disgraceful.
The other Magistrates said that they quite con-
curred in what had been stated by Mr. Adams, and
they only regretted that the evidence was not suffi-
cient to warrant them in convicting him, without the
statement of his co-defendant upon which they could
not act, and they should certainly in that case have
inflicted the full penalty.
The information against Mr. Lacey was then dis-
missed, and the other defendant was fined in the
mitigate'. penalty of 20s.
CHARGE or ARSON.—A man named John Nay
was examined on Saturday, before J. W. Suther-
land, Esq., and other Justices sitting in Petty
Session, upon a charge of having wilfully and ma-
liciously set fire to and destroyed a stack of hay, at
the parish of Sutton, the property of Francis Gosling,
Esq., the banker. It appeared that the fire took place
about four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, and be-
fore it was got under, upwards of ten loads of hay
were entirely consumed. The evidence against the
prisoner was that, just before the fire broke out, he
was seen by a little boy, named Chapman, sitting
upon a gate close to the stack, and on his looking
round a minute or two afterwards the prisoner was
gone, and he then heard a " whiz," and at the
same moment the stack burst into flames. The
prisoner was met by a young woman, coming
in a direction from the stack, and it appeared
that he gave an alarm, and assisted to extinguish the
fire. On his being questioned by Mr. Gosling's
gardener, he said that he was the first at the fire, and
on the gardener telling him that could not be for that
the gate was locked, and that he had been obliged to
get over it, and fell down in doing so, and that at this
time there was no one near the stack, the prisoner re-
plied, " There you have done me I'll allow—you
have beat me there." After a very careful inquiry
the Magistrate said there was a very strong case of
suspicion, but they did not think the evidence suffi-
cient to warrent them in committing the prisoner to
take his trial. He would therefore be discharged,
but they should require him to enter into his own re-
cognizance to appear on a future occasion to answer
any complaint that might be preferred against him.