The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

LETTERS ON THE CORN-LAWS.
No.. XI.
(From the League.)
. -TO MESSRS. E. MOSES AND SON.
GENTLEMEN,—You are, unquestionably, the m- st
renowned slopsellers in Europe. The eye always ad-
verts to your advertisements. Your shop-mark is on
.the daily broad sheet of fame, as if it were only one of
your own blankets. The poetry of your puffs, and the
cheapness of your charges, are alike prodigious. Peel
and Russell rise and set with the session ; but you
are always above the horizon—the Ursa Major of the
_Minories. " Custom" cannot " stale your infinite
variety." You are, indeed, a " commercial pheno-
menon."

But rivalry is threatened, and you must submit to
a comparison of claims. You are an " establish-
ment," but my Lord Ashley dissents, and erects a
voluntary institution. His Lordship is a philantro-
pist ; and his love of man turns to hatred of Moses.
'He charges you with taking undue advantage of the
need of needlewomen. Meetings are melted by his
pictures of your oppressions. It is said that, although
Rrou rig the ragged, yet you starve the stitchers.
- The world cries out that you are too worldly.
The Queen Dowager heads the hostile slopshop;
and the lists are up for contention of charity with
cheapness.
Messrs. Moses, father 'and son, I know nothing of
you, but the public notoriety that you keep a very
cheap shop and pay very low wages. Doubtless
you act on the principle of the Premier ; and when he
has a principle, it ought to be acted upon ; and,
if not by himself, there is the greater need that it
should be acted upon by other people. Doubtless,
I say, you act on the principle of the Premier, to
"buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dear-
est." But you do not, like Lord Ashley with his
corn, legislate for rendering dearer the market in
• which you sell. You undersell your competitors,
.and pull do.,vn their prices. Ile oversells his com-
petitors, and keeps their prices up to the consumer,
by a tax. You make a cheap market cheaper by
, competition, and he makes a dear market dearer by
legislation. Thus far, Moses, your Judaism is more
merciful than his Christianity.
No, replies his Lordship, for cheapness is the root
of ali evil. At the Society for the Protection and
- Employment of Distressed Needlewomen, last week,
his Lordship " wished to impress upon the meet-
ing, for he felt it very deeply himself, the very great
evil arising in all_ directions from that constant
and unceasing effort to get every single thing,
not only the common trumperies of life, but
even the greatest necessaries, at the very minimum
of remuneration."—(2llorning Herald report.) The
assembly cheered, ladies and all ; and in the name of
consistency let no one of them ever try for a bargain
again, but always inquire after the highest price when
they make their purchases. The mischief is, however,
less, it seems, of bidding low for the " trumperies of
life," than for its " greatest necessaries." A curious
distinction. The wealthy, if their wealth be in land,
are the sellers of neccessaries and the buyers of trum-
peries. Pleasant doctrine for the fashionables of Willis's
Rooms, but hard measure for those who forego the trum-
peries of life, and, with a minimum of money, are advised
to he content with even less than a minimum of bread.
Moses, how dues this bear upon your customers?
Many of them must go with bare backs, did not you
cover them at the aforesaid" minimum of remunera-
tion." They must make shift without shirts, did not
you supply them cheaper thau his Lordship's charity
slopshop. Yours is the emporium for poverty-
stricken purchasers. It drives nakedness down a
degree lower in society. Sir Peter Laurie backs
Lord Ashley, and scolds people for buying cheap
shirts. 'lbis is cold work when the only alternative
is to remain uashirted. That must they do, unless
there were some such Refuge for the Destitute.
Your shop i 3 as good as a charity, with an associ-
ation, and a secretary and reports and patrons.
Much better, Moses. You clothe the naked with-
out making beggars of them. They pinch their
bellis for 'the sake of their backs; out of the daily
bread which Lord Ashley helps to tax, they screw
enough for two shillings worth of the " common
trumperies of life," foregoing a portion of its
." greatest necessaries," and walk away with an un-
subdued sense of independence, not less satisfied than
if clothed in purple and fine linen, but less disposed to
rate Lazarus for obtaining the rags that stanch his
sores at a " minimum of remuneration."
But, then, you only pay 61 for the making
of these 2s. shirts. Your needlewomen fsirnieh.
They wear out eyes and fingers, brain and heart.
Their privations are terrible. I will not blink that
part of the case. God forbid. No, nor will I for-
- getsethe fact that out of this fearfully earned 61.
a day Lord Ashley and the landowners take 2d. by
their bread-tax. The broad-acred philanthropishs
exact the 2.1., and you, whom they abuse, pay the 61.
It is " villainous low ;" but not so low as robbing
them of the 30 per cent. out of that miserable pittance.
That is by far the dirtier trick of the two, and the
most cold-hearted. They get little from you, those
_peor needlewomen ; but, vrere it not for you, would
they gee anything ? You have not cleared the coun-
try of cottages. You have net obstructed the progreas
of trade and commerce, and so diminished the amount
of empieyment. Ent have riot enhanced the price of
food,eind the terrors of the poorhouse. If you do but
'little in mitigation, and that little for the sake of
business, stn l it is a mitigation. Lord Ashley says
you ahauld do more. Let him and the hardier('
legislators do less, and your mitigation will grow
thereby. On what principle, and by what law, ;re
• Jewish slopsellers bound to feed the poor whom Bri-
flail landlords have impoverished for the benefit of
their own rent-roll ? Answer me that, ye aristo-
cratical man-milliners of philanthropy, who talk of
charity End vote for scarcity.
The professed object of Lord Ashley's Society is
to raise the needlewomen's wages to 6s. a week. If
accomplished, the needlewomen may be thankful she
not a Dorsetshire man : a, man, with a family, la-
bouring on a farm. But let us see how this charity
works. It promises to raise the cost of making a
shirt to the price for which you are now selling the
shirt. What, then, becomes of the poor purchaser
who, can afford no more ? The Society ought at least
to tattoo him gratis. He is driven out of the market,
victimised by benevolence, made an example of, for
being an accomplice, after the fact, to the " minimum
of remuneration." There is another sort of result
likely to happen. The Ashley slopshop only whit-
draws a third of the applicants from the general
- competition. That vacancy will soon be supplied by
a rush from the hovels of starvation and the dungeons
of the poorhouse. The numbers of the destitute will
keep d ,evn wages. The Queen Dowager might as well
he p itronesa of a society for suspending the law ofgra-
vitution. Not a voice less will the " Song of the Shirt"
have in its dismel chorus. There will he quite as
many to bear the burden. The ranks will la
promptly filled up by remorseless necessity. Still
will " most unwomanly rags" hang loose upon the
wasted form ; the insufficient pay tempt to fraud or
prostitution ; and famine or suicide close the dreary
scene. More work is the want. Proportionate abun-
dance of employment, and that alone, can ensnre-ade-
quecy of remuneration. The valley of the Missouri
would grow plenty of food for all the needle women
of Grant Britain; and the roughly clad growers have
' plenty of occasion for their services. My Lord Ash-
- ley cannot see his way to the repeal of the corn-laws.
- lie thinks Moses grinds the faces of the pootf and
keeps his own booted heel upon their stomachs. De-
liver us from our friends and save us from the selfiah-
ness of sentimental benevolence.
One word more, not peculiarly for yourselves, but
for the whole class of tradesmen to which you be-
long. There is no reason why any of that class
should be dispensers of charity in the disguise of
wages. Ignorant or hypocritical is the outcry
• against labour being purchased at its market price.
Individually, you must purchase it, or you may
shut up shop. What good would that be to the
poor needlewomen? But, Moses, remember you are
' men as Well as slop3allers. Those whose fingers ache
over your shirts are stitching their own shrouds.
Misery toils in your cheap factory. You ought
not to have dune with it, when you have pail
its wages. The employers of the poor are their
natural protectors. Unfairly have the tables been
turned rgeinst you ; but net altogether without fault
on your part. VYou should have been the foremost
to expose and denounce this state of things, and
the system by which it is produced. Your inert-
nese, your diareyeard of the wants and rights of the
toiling poor, ha allowed the authors of the wrong,
the taxers Of their fuo 1, the obstructors of employment,
to ,_:oore ferward as their patrons, and point towards
your heals the thunderbolt of public indignation fur
inhumanity, which should have fallen on their own.
You and they are thus juggled into the wrong places.
They should be in the duck, and you in the witness-
box. Why do you not tell Lord Ashley that he, and
his class .of monopolist legislators, have wrought
this shame in the land? Why were you not first in
the field clamouring- for justice ? Why did you
wait far the wretchedness, of which you had know-
ludgeato he found out and laid at your own door by
its tifiders and its makers? Why have you handed
over ..the poor to the care of courtly Cades and
daftly demagogues. Retrieve your blunder. Leave
. not this sore disease in the body politic to be tam-
peied with by legislative empiricism. Demand of
Loyd Ashley that he helps to untak the needle-
ayo:nen's bread. Claim emancipation for the giant
sZiustry, who, when free, will feed all his sons and
-:daughters. Bestir yourselves for such a demonstra-
,=tion of public opinion as will enforce a wiser policy
ta on the Government. Come forward, though late,
a for the sake of these who depend on vou, and make
amends for past indifference, whether real or only
Feernipz. Win the blessings of intelligent gratitude,
instead of the curses of misguided ignorance. By your
.zeal,:your votes, your remonstrances, ignorar.ce and
sufthrings, be earoest fur trade ; mere trade ; and all
whein trade feeds ; the widow and the orphan -whom
it•Kipplies with work and shields from starvation. It

ip the duty which belongs to your position in society.
between selfish lawmakers and injured millions. You
who make the lawmakers can unmake the misery,
Up to your duty, or both Jew and Gentile amongst
you must bear the curse of Meroz.
A NORWICH WEAVER BOY.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—We intimated last week that an anxious
wish prevailed among the Liberal members of the Ox-
ford Convocation, that in dealing with Mr. Ward and
his book, the heads of the University would avoid two
things. Conceding that it was due to truth and honesty
that some steps should be taken to mark with suitable
ignominyrthe attempts now making to reconcile subscrip-
tion to Protestant articles with the advancement of the in-
terests of priestcraft, we expressed a hope—first, that there
would be no repetition of the impropriety and folly of
submitting theological differences to the arbitration of
those sagacious critics, the majority of Convocation; and
secondly, that in vindicating its consistency, the Board
should avoid adopting extreme measures towards the un-
fortunate disciple of the Littlemore Pope—of whom we
may truly say, on his own confession, " non sponte "
We; have now before us the actual statute, which ap-
peared on Friday last, and which we understand was
assented to by a large majority of the Oxford Board of
Heads, and we think it has sufficiently guarded against
both the evils which some had apprehended. No at-
tempt to submit theological opinions to an incompetent
tribunal is made, nor is it proposed to deprive the author
of " The Ideal Church " of any pecuniary advantages
purchased by his non-natural profession of conformity.
The first of the two Statutes proposed, after reciting
certain passages of the work, in which (to quote the
authors own words) he proposes to show " how the
dry wording " (which Dr. Pusey would call the literal
sense) " may be divorced from the natural spirit" of the
Articles of the Church, " how their prima facie mean-
ing may be evaded, and the artifice of their inventor, be
thrown back and recoil on themselves," and after quoting
farther his avowal that " in sub scribing the Articles, he
renounced no one Roman doctrine," signing them in " a
non-natural sense, proceeds to remark, that whereas
the party notoriously reputed in the University and
believed to be the author, had obtained the degrees of
B.A. and M.A. on the faith of a subscription which he
cancels by his present avowals—he be required to an-
swer to the charge of having published passages incon-
sistent with good faith, and be degraded from the privi-
leges attached to those degrees. The second statute is of
more importance, and is rendered, it seems, necessary by
the following circumstance :—A statute is already in ex-
istence entitling the Vice-Chancellor to summon before
him a member accused of heresy, and to require him to
purify himself by subscribing to the 39 Articles. Most per-
sons will recollect the not very decent sarcasm of the Vicar
of Leeds in his Church Dictionary, when he stated that
an Archbishop of the Church of England had purified
himself from the suspicion of heresy by signing the
Articles on his appointment to his see. Dr. Hook,
however, was a good judge of Ms own friends; and so the
Hebdomadal Board seems to think—for the new statute
proposes to add to the subscription a declaration that the
party subscribing does so in the sense in which they
were "primitus editi," that is, in 1571, when the impo-
sition of the articles as tests was first made by the joint
authority of a Synod and of Parliament. This is a
plain and intelligible proposal. If you take a pledge,
take it without equivocation or mental reservation—
take it in the sense in which it is meant—in the sense
in which its imposers put it—or—support those by your
example of refusal who object to subscription altogether.
We have no time now for further remark, but shall
return to the subject, which, between this and the day of
Convocation (February the 13th), will, we anticipate,
engross much of public interest—and involve the recon-
sideration of the whole subject of tests. We hear that
the Tractarian section of the Oxford Convocation are
di,posed to abandon Mr. Ward to his fate—provided they
can eject the second statute, which provides a check to
their own practice.
STANDARD.—A great deal of noise has been
made about a few bags of Venezuelan sugar imported at
Liverpool. This noise has been made on the ground
that the sugar is slave-grown—with how much
reason the sugar is said to be slave-grown will appear
from the letter of our old and value correspondent,
Mr. M'Queen. Mr. M'Clio en, who has visited
Venezuela three times within the last ten years,
and who knows more of the commercial geography
and statistics of the tropical countries than any mail
alive, has brought home with him all the public docu-
ments of Venezuela, as well as of the other countries
that he has visited, and has been kind enough to place
the Venezuelan papers in our hands. We prefer,
however, to the labour of translating these voluminous
documents, to avail ourselves of Mr. M'Queen's own
letter. That letters tells that the territory of Venezuela
—a territory as large as France—has a population
under 900,000, of whom, notwithstanding that slavery
has been long abolished by law, about 30,000 (one in
thirty) are in a state of qualified slavery, for this sole
reason, that the Republic has been hitherto too poor to
buy out the liberty of all its slaves, though havingmade the
best provision it was able to do so. No slate, however, can
be born in Venezuela, for all are born free. No slave can
be imported; and even the remnant of the slave population
that lingers, notwithstanding large annual redemptions ;
and manumissions cannot be transferred from master to
master—the thirty thousand slaves—one in thirty of the
population, are thus almost necessarily employed as hou.e
servants, or in the cultivation of gardens and small farms,
and, from the nature of things. cannot be em-
ployed in sugar grounds. The Venezuelan sugar,
therefore, is neither slave-grown, nor the prodwe
of a country attached to slavery. All the world is
not as rich as Great Britain, and able, like her, to buy
the freedom of the negro; but the Venezuelans are doing
the ke,st they can to imitate our example, and therefore
deserve all the encouragement that we can give them.
Unfortunately, however, we have little opportunity
to encourage the sugar trade, for the country produces
little sugar, and it costs a dollar the hundred weight to
carry it to the coast. To compare Venezuela in any
respect with slave-trading countries, like Cuba and the
Brazils, would be the grossest folly as well as injustice

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
PRIVY COUNCIL, Dec. 16.
The Committee of the Privy Council for the affairs of
Guernsey and Jersey sat to-day in the Council-office,
Whitehall. The Lords present were the Lord Chancel-
lor, Sir James Graham, Mr. Baron Parke, the Chancel-
lor of the Duchy of Cornwall, (the Right Hon. Thomas
Pemberton Leigh), and the Judge of the Admiralty
Court.

THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF GUERNSEY.
The arguments in the petition of the bailiff and jurats
of the Royal Cuurt of Guernsey, complaining of the
course pursued by the Lieut(nant-Governor were re-
sumed.

Ur. ROEBUCK concluded his arguments on behalf of
the Crown, and in support of the course pursued by the
Lieutenant-Governor.

Mr. WADDINGTON followed on the same side, and not
having concluded at four o'clock, when their Lordships
rose, the further consideration of the case was adjourned
till Wednesday next, at ten o'clock.

VICE-CHANCELLOR'S COURT, Dee. 16.
(Before the VICE-CHANCELLOR of ENGLAND.)
The Vice-Chancellor of England sat in Lincoln's-Inn
to-day and heard cases, none of which possessed any
points of general interest.

(Before Sir J. WIGRAM.)
MALLALIEU U. MILLER.

The arguments in thil case on further directions which
have occupied several days, were concluded this morning,
his Honour reserving his judgment.

COURT O 1• QUEEN'S BENCH, Dec. 16.
:Sittings at Nisi Prius, at the Guildhall, before Lori
DENMAN and a London Special Jury.)
THE ARCHIMEDEAN SCREW—LOWE V. PENN AND

ANOTHER.
The plaintiff in this case, a smoke-jack maker, who in
the year 1838 had taken out a patent for :propelling
vessels, by means of a screw working under water at the
stern of the vessel, and the defendants are Messrs. Penn,
the celebrated steam-boat builders. The action was
brought for an infringement of the plaintiff's patent, by
applying his screw to the steam-boat " Infant Prince."
Mr. Sergeant Byles conducted the case for the plain-
tiff, and Mr. Platt, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Peacock ap-
peared for the defendants.

1 It appeared from the evidence for the plaintiff,
that he had taken out his patent in 1838,
and that in 1839 he had caused a number
of experiments to be tried on board a steam-boat called
the Wizard, the name of which was subsequently
changed to the Cygnet, and that, in consequence of
those experiments, he had caused various alterations to
be male- in the shape of his tcrews or propellers. It
appeared that Mr. Francis Smith, the proprietor of the
Archimedes, was present at some of those experiments, and
one of the persons who had assisted at the building of the
Archimedes, deposed that she had first of all been fitted
up with a whole screw, which occasioned a disagree-
able
vibration at the stern, but that subsequently .1
the whole screw had been changed for the sec-
tions of a screw, by which the vibration was got
rid of. A person had called on Smith for the Purpose of.
remonstrating with him, but Smith was not at home,
and it did nut appear that any further steps were tali( n
in the matter. It also appeared that the Government
had adopted the same principle in fitting up some of her
Majesty's ships, but it did not _appear what steps.
the plaintiff had adopted in consequence. When

the defendant was fitting up the steam-boat
Infant Prince and another boat with steam propellers,
they were waited on by Mr. curpmeal and Mr. Briggs,
a gentleman possessing 7-12ths of Lowe's patent, to re-
monstrate with him for using Lowe's patent propeller
without a license ; various interviews took place, at the
conclusion of which Messrs Penn refused to apply for a
license, and the present action was in consequence
brought.
For the defence it was contended that the invention was
not a new one—that it :iid not differ in principle from
Shorter's patent skulling machine, which was invented
in 1800—that it was identical in principle
and nearly in detail with Millington's propeller,
which was patented in 1816—that a Mr. Brown,
had invented and published, in 1825, a method of pro-
pelling vessels by means of vanes working under water.
and had published it to the world, ; and that as far back
as 1815, had invented a method of propelling vessels by
means of a worm screw, or a number of leaves plactd
obliquely round an axis; and that in Dec., 1829, a method
had been invented by Cummerow, of placing the screw pro-
peller between the stern-post.and the rudder-post.
The various patents andmodels having been put in, Mr.
Rennie, the engineer, gave it as his opinion that
the principle of Lowe's invention differed in
nothing from those already known, and that
the mode of propelling by means of curved blades
working under water, and providing for the pass-
ing away of the water without choking, had been in-ihe
before 1838. On his cross-examination, he stated that