The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-09 00:00:00

and-e-Halt per Cent. Stock, to which we have al-
ready adverted.

Mr. F. BARING, Sir dorm RAE " REID, Mr. P. M.
STEWART, and several Members on the Opposition
benches, expressed their hearty approbation of the
measure, which was gratefully acknowledged by the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
On the itotion of Mr. EWART a discussion took
place on the disputes between Buenos Ayres and
Monte Video, and all parties seemed to agree in the
necessity of putting a stop to such an unseemly
contest.

On the motion for going into a Committee of Sup-
ply, Mr. S. CRAWFORD stated his intention of giving
no farther opposition to the granting of supplies, on
the ground of want of proper support both in and out
of the House.

The Army and Ordnance Estimates were then
proceeded with, and a great many votes were agreed
to, one of which gave rise to a discussion on the re-
fusal of a pension to the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel
FAWCETT.

No other question of interest came on in the course
of the evening, and the House adjourned it a Quarter-
past Eleven o'Clock.

We have just cast our eye over the Bill to "facili-
tate the Inclosure and Improvement of Commons and
Lands held in common ; the Exchange of Lands, and
the Division of Intermixed Lands"—to quote the
formal language of the Preamble—and anything more
perplexing than this same Bill we have not perused
for many a long day. To say nothing of its extend-
ing to sixty-eight folio pages, it is so full of verbiage,
vague, technical jargon, and quaint, sprawling paren-
theses interweaved one within the other, so as to pro-
duce the most distracting state of entanglement, that
we are almost tempted to come to the conclusion
that it was drawn up for no other purpose than to
throw dust in the eyes of its readers, and conceal its
real object from all who may be interested in the mat-
ter. If so, its framers have most happily succeeded
in their intention, and may congratulate themselves
on having produced an enigma which it requires all
the ingenuity of an (EmPus toe. If we -were
called on to define the character of this Bill—and far
be it from us to speak irreverently of so striking
a production—we should be apt to say it was
one to take from those who have little or
nothing, and give to those who have much—
in other words, to benefit those who have
means, at the expense of those who have none.
One fact at any rate is evident—namely, that the
working out of the measure will be attended with no
little expense, for whole swarms of salaried commis-
sioners, assistant-commissioners, juries, valuers, as-
sessors, &c., are pressed into the service of the Bill,
and, as a matter of course, attorneys also are mixed
up with it, who, like locusts in a rice-ground, cows in a
clover-field, or aldermen at a turtle feast, will take
care to make the most of their delectable position, and
gorge themselves to within an ace of suffocation.

ere is a pretty little inventory of charges which we
find inserted under the modest head of " Expenses of
Inclosures :"—" And be it enacted, that the allowances
and payments to he made to and by the valuer, and
all other the expenses of every inclosure, except the
allowances and salaries to the assistant-commissioners,
secretary, assistant-secretaries, clerks, messengers, and
officers of the commissioners, and the travelling and
other expenses of the commissioners and assistant
commissioners, and, except any expenses which the
commissioner or assistant-commissioner, or any
Court under the power of this Act, shall order to be
otherwise paid, shall be borne and defrayed by the
several persons interested in the land to be inclosed."
The, only Clause that we can find in the Bill,
which seems in the slightest degree to consult
the interests of the poor, is the following :
"And be it enacted, that the valuer, in making the
several allotments hereby directed, shall have
due regard as well to the situation of the respective
houses or homesteads of the persons interested in the
land to be inclosed, as to the quantity and quality of
the land to be allotted to them respectively, so far as
may be consistent with the general convenience of
such persons ; and that such valuer in making the
allotments shall have particular regard to the
convenience of the persons interested in respect
of the smallest estates in the land subjected
to be inclosed under this Act." This is
but a sorry crumb of comfort, but—so far as
we can discover—it is all that the poor are likely to
get from the present measure; for though the Bill
states that they may, if they please, enter a protest
against any attempt to inclose their common lands,
yet we can gather, from significant indications that
peep out in many of the Clauses, that their protest
will be unheeded, and their opposition neutralised, by
the more influential residents in the neighbourhood.
As for presenting them with an allotment in lieu of
their old right to feed their ducks, geese, sheep, pigs,
and donkeys on the waste lands in their vicinity, this
appears to us at best but a doubtful compensation ;
the more so as it will be forced on them, whether
they like it or not. Under no possible cir-
cumstances can we bring ourselves to regard
a project for inclosing common-lands—that is to say,
the only lands that still remain to the poor—with ap •
probation ; and accordingly we shall watch the pro-
gress of this very equivocal Bill with the utmost jea-
lousy, for though it professes to be founded on prin-
ciples of justice.and humanity, yet, if we mistake not,
it contains the seeds of serious injury to the interests
of the poorer and more defenceless classes of the com-
munity. We cannot believe that the respectable
Members who prepared and brought in the Bill have
any design to rob the poor cottager of his right, but
can they control the machinery of this Commissijn
when once set agoing ?

Whenever a topic arises of angry discussion be-
ween our Government and that of the United States.
:and it is to be deeply lamented that of late years,
such topics multiply both in number and in gravity),
the American Press, we observe, is prone to become
excessively didactic. Like the " Gineral FLADDOCK,"
so happily described by CHARLES DICKENS, it expa-
tiates on the " inconceivable conventionalities " of
" those a-mazing Europeans," and gravely lectures
on the follies and the crimes which they give rise to
among us, but from which the social communities in
which they live are (if you will believe them)
eminently free. Let an American journalist once be
set a-going, by any pitch-note which will allow of
his striking into his favourite and never-ending
theme, the moral beauty and political perfection of all
American institutions, domestic or civil ; the virtues
and the morality of all American citizens, native or
domicilated ; and, till he is weary, let no man hope
for rest or change. Like the boy with the barrel-
organ, who is a fixture at the corner of your street
throughout the live-long day—or so much of it as
you wish 'to devote to uninterrupted study—he grinds
" Happy land ! happy, land ! " till you wish him
swamped and drowned, full fifty fathom deep, in the
Bay of Fundy or the Gulf of Florida. On this side
of the Channel, it has occurred to us to note, how-
ever, such periodical and regular announcements of
excesses, crimes, and outrages committed in American
communities in defiance of all laws, divine or
human,—of all restraints, legislative or muni-
cipal,—that we have been sometimes tempted
to suppose they could only have happened from
being tolerated by the " conventionalities " of
American " society," and the unrestricted freedom of
self-will which the citizen of the United States is
given to exercise as his undoubted birth-right. The
unpunished crimes that stain, in a single year, some
of the southern States for example—the scandalous
and hideous vindictivenesss of " Lynch law ;" the
flogging and torture of negro slaves, their punish-
ment, even to death, for the most trivial offences
against property, under the eyes of the most brutal
masters ; or the edifying assassination-duels and as-
saults which diversify the commercial monotony of
New Orleans. These are matters, the frequency of
which are perfectly appalling; the impunity of which,
5° far as any visitation of the law is concerned, is
perfectly notorious. The bowie-knife and the rifle
have largely anticipated, it is true, the tar-and-feather
process, but we do not cease to hear of slaves
being hanged and burnt—or of native born subjects
of the United States being doomed to die for the
offence of conniving at the attempt of the slave to
escape from a servitude in which he is liable to be
the victim of suchenormities. We lament to observe,
from the private correspondence published a day or
two ago by one of our Morning Contemporaries, that
our own compatriots seem affected by the general
dissolution of all religious and moral ties, and of the
salutary decorum and-observances which, among us