The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Some men are born to fame ;
others gradually work their way upward from
obscurity to distinction ; a few burst upon the
astonished vision of their contemporaries,
Mand
become the " observed of all observers." r.
Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs is of the latter
class. The fame of this worshipful and worthy
civic functionary has travelled far and wide. The
press has largely chronicled his feats. Punch has
burlesqued his punctuality, skill, and fidelity,
as a keeper of cash-accounts pertaining to public
busine,s. The Court of Chancery will shortly
record, if it do not confirm, his claims to
the unlimited and enduring respect and confi-
dence of the citizens of London, and exhibit him
as the model after which all public officers should
endeavour to form their habits. These, it is true,
are perishable records—memorials which may
be obliterated from the public mind by the
action of passing events upon it ; and thus
injustice be done to the now acknowledged
merits of Mr. Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs.
The Rev. Dr. Croly, the Rector of St. Ste-
phen's, Walbrook, the parish of which the
Alderman is Churchwarden, has prevented the
occurrence of au event so much to be deprecated.
The waters of Lethe would be inoperative in pro-
ducing obliviousness of Alderman-Churchwarden
Gibbs' name and achievements. Dr. Croly has
secured to this distinguished character immor-
tality among mortals. The man may die—the
memory of the functionary will survive the tomb.
Dr. Croly has rendered a monument unneces-
sary ; or, if the customary marble record of the
living merits be placed over his remains, the
most appropriate inscription would be in extracts
from the speech of the Reverend Doctor at
the. vestry meeting of yesterday. The mira-
culous achievement of " the select"—wrought
iu the presence of Dr. Croly, .on the 22d ult.
when they did the work of weeks in a few
minutes—is hit off with a felicity of description
truly graphic. The precautions taken against
interruption, by planting police-officers at the
church doors, and the Alderman's " foolish son
John" at the inner door, which was also locked •
against intruders; while the self-chosen and ap-
proved select assembled in the vestry-room,
with the sextoness standing without, her back
to and in contact with the locked door, 1
to defend the sanctorum of the self-con-
stituted body—the difficulties which the Rev.
Doctor encountered and- surmounted in gaining
entrance to this scene of parochial hocus pocus—
the endeavours lie used to convince the Wal-
brook Magi of the inutility of the performance
in which they were engaged—the rapid progresS
of the proceedings—and their gratifying result
to Mr. Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs—all these
are sketched by the hand of a master. They
constitute'bUt the back-ground of the picture—
the mere attendants on the chief personage; and
are introduced to give effect to the piece. A full-
length figure of the hero is exhibited—paintedin
a style of ; art which, for the fidelity of the likeness,
commands, and will obtain, general admiration.
The Rey: Doctor supplies a companion-picture to
that already given of Alderman Gibbs, in the
character of Trustee of St. George the Martyr
Apprenticeship legacy. The guinea legacy left
by some pious parishioner of days long since
joined to the years before the flood, to be paid to
the Minister of St. Stephen's for preaching a
sermon on Good Friday, had passed into Alder-
man Gibbs' keeping, as perpetual churchwarden;
whence, with considerable difficulty, it was
extricated, and the arrears of eight years—
the whole period of Dr. Croly's incumbency
—paid. Whether Doctor Croly's predeces-
sor was equally successful in obtaining the pious
legacy may •be doubted. Alderman-Church-
warden Gibbs' eighteen years' unaudited aecounts
with the" parish, when printed and published,
will probably give a satisfactory explanation of
this, and many other parochial mysteries, which
have been long concealed, but will be then made
manifest. Alluding to the worthy functionary's
skill in keeping the pariShioners out of their
church, Dr. Croly, by a flight of genius,
assumes that Alderman Gibbs would make an
excellent Governor of Newgate. His arrange-
ments for keeping the prisoners in gaol would,
it is thought, be as effectual as those employed
for keeping the parishioners out of church :
" He would make a capital Governor of New-
gate, with the wards as a provision for the minor
branches of his family, and, perhaps, the Trea-
surership of the Sheriffs' Fund (!) to complete
the recreations of his cell." The following allu-
sions are too plain to be mistaken, and too
admonitory to the body to which they are
addressed to fail of their effect :—" It is no
matter to me if the livery of London will
harness themselves to his chariot or his sledge—
if the Corporation hold out to him their embrace,
shape themselves into a select vestry, and make
him their perpetual church warden—(Laughte r)
—if the Board of Aldermen take him into their
boat, and take their chance of the navigation—
(Cheers)—if the Mansion-house feel the weight
of his footsteps, and place him in its tribunal—
(Cheers and laughter)—l care not. But when I
am told, ' VC by trouble yourself about so unim-
portant a personage ?' the true answer is, that he
is not an unimportant personage." We have said
that Dr. Croly by his speech of yesterday has
immortalised Mr. Alderman Gibbs. He has
done so ; but in a style which has effectually
barred his way to the attainment of higher civic
distinction. After such an exhibition of Mr.
Alderman Gibbs as Dr. Croly has supplied, the
Livery of London would be as likely to return
to the Court of Aldermen, as a fit and proper
person to fill the office of Lord Mayor for the
ensuing year, one who had been a " surveyor of
the pavements," as the Alderman who now stands
next upon the list. The thing is impossible.
STANDARD. -- The Times has to-day an
article upon the state and prospects of manu-
factures, with most of the propositions of
which, as well as
.with its general conclusion,
we entirely agree. It is quite true, as our Con-
temporary asserts, that " employment in the
great manufacturing business of this country is be-
coming more the staple employment of her people,
and the prosperity of her manufacture more and
inure the staple prosperity of the empire." No
less true, and much more gratifying, is it that at
present " the return of the state of manufactures
is not imply favourable but highly encouraging."
From these truths many useful and important
inferences may be drawn. First, that the pur-
suit. which thus advances in absorbing the
employment of the capital at the country—
for without absorbing the capital it cannot
engross the employment—has certainly suf-
fered no undue depression under the exist-
ing state of the law; secondly, we must add
with pain, that this progress of manuflic-
tures is not necessarily accompanied by any
improvement of the labouring classes, either
as its cause or its consequence. Indeed, we
see enough to demonstrate that even an infi-
nite increase of manufactures would not and
could not permanently improve the condition
of those classes ; it would merely lead to
larger investments of capital, and fiercer com-
petition among capitalists ; while the wages
and condition of the labourer must remain
the same, or, if possible, suffer a depression
from the influence of competition—for the profits
of capital must be returned, whoever is to be the
sufferer. One can imagine the ease of a society,
composed of a single employer, and a population
of slaves, employed in manufactures ; what
would the population of slaves gain by any
amount of increased demands upon the employer,
if it should not be increased toil ? But let
us advance a step further, and suppose three or
tour employers, with a like increase of demand,
what would the working population gain ?
Would they not be made worse, by the com-
petition of these three or four employers, each
arrxious to obtain as much of the increased
demand as possible, and each, therefore, trying
to underbid his competitors, which lie couid
do only by underpaying his labourers ? But
the number of employers is, with us, unlimited,
and in the event of a greater demand for
goods, it would increase in a ratio far
beyond the augmented demands, thus still
more severely grinding the working class; for it
cannot be too often repeated, that the competi-
tion which must ever exist in such a case will be
a competition to produce at the lowest price, i. e.,
at the lowest rate of wages. It must be, how-
ever, the less necessary to press this considera-
tion, because we have seen the experiment tried
by a thirty years' proof, and the result is, that
OD the whole wages decline as manufacturing ex-
ports multiply. The second inference Which we
draw from the premises furnished above by
the Times, is the precarious nature of the pros-
perity based upon manufacturing- success. The
present prospects of manufacturers are " not
simply favourable, but highly encouraging."
This is a relative commendation ; it implies
that lately the prospects of manufacturers were
not flivourable nor encouraging, but the reverse;
and, indeed, our Contemporary distinctly admits
as much in the introductory part of the sen-
tence partially quoted. • The prosperity of the
empire and the happiness of the people, how-
ever, are surely not safely . committed to a purs
suit subject to such violent fluctuations. As to
the labouring classes, indeed, their condition
varies but little, for the melancholy reason, that
scarcely at any time can it be made worse than
it is at all times. Our respected Contemporary
proceeds to ascribe the improved condition
of manufacturing industry to the operation of