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

111 titian
4.safe

LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1844.

A meeting of the freeholders, landowners, and te-
nants of Somersetshire, was held at Bridgewater on
Friday, on a requisition to the High Sheriff, for the
purpose of opposing the machinations of the League.
They met to curse COBDEN and BRIGHT, and Earl
Frrzwilissm, and Earl SPENCER, and the Marquis
Of WESTMINSTER, and the inhabitants of every large
and influential town in the United Kingdom, and the
scene ended like that between the King of AfoAn and
the prophet BALAAm—they " altogether blessed them
three times." Great preparations had been made for
this demonstration; the people gathered far and near,
to the ;10,mber of five thousvmd; the leading men
et the country roistered in great numbers; the

Trarsons, of course, were among-the mctley 'crowd
but the voice of monopoly was raised in vain, and
oornmon sense and justice prevailed. Th High
Sheriff had the honesty and courage to remain to the
last, and put a question to the vote, which he knew
would be against his party. He did not, like some
others, dissolve the meeting, and retire to some hole
and corner to pass resolutions ; he listened to the
speeches on both sides, and, like a man of honour,
gave a fiiir decision. The speeches we will tot ad-
vert to separately, though, from the strange mixture
of blind prejudice, ignorance, and political animosity,
on the one hand, and sound reasoning, and clear
views, on the other, they form a fit subject for com-
ment. We will leave our readers to judge for them-
selves. One fact is evident from this meeting, that
the labours of the Anti-Corn-law League have taken
effect in quarters where but two years ago any
attempt to make an impression would have been re-
garded as an act of madness. We do not speak of the
farm-labourers and the small tenants, but of men
holding large property, and tenants renting land
from 5001. to 1,0001. a year. Even these men begin
to see that there is no safety for them under the
present ambiguous system. The declaration of Sir
ROBERT PEEL has left things precisely as they were.
No man will yet take a lease ; tile-draining and all
other draining is at a dead stand ; farm-steads will
remain in the same dilapidated state, and landlords
and tenants will alike wait till the League have ob-
tained their object, or a compromise take place which
will assure all those interested that the question is
definitively settled. All these county meetings, for
the purpose of cheering on the Minister, are
vain exhibitions ; they are what WELLINGTON
called them, " a farce ;" they settle nothing, they
argue nothing ; they merely display the ignorance,
'bigotry, and selfishness of a particular class, and
make all men of knowledge and experience wonder
that for the last two hundred years (we will not go
farther back) the Houses of Parliament, in other
words, the destiny of this empire, has been under the
control of such a race. Much has been done within the
last fourteen years. Some of the most obnoxious mono-
polies and most wicked class laws have been abolished,
but no thanks to the performers in the farce. They
were to a man against them, and they will be against
every similar improvement till the voice of the
country and the spread of intelligence compels them
to yield. Sir ROBERT PEEL knows that well, and he
is only biding his time. Still, however, this delay
is sadly ruinous to the country, not to speak
of our foreign relations, and especially those with the
United States, which the sliding-scale renders every
year of less value ; not more than two-thirds of Eng-
land is under cultivation, and in general that is of the
most expensive and rude description. Why ? Be-
cause no tenant has any security for his outlay. This
subject has been well treated by Sir HARRY VERNEY,
formerly Member for Buckingham,in a letter addressed
to the farmers of Buckinghamshire, and published
by RIDG WAY. He is, we believe, a large landholder
himself, and may therefore be taken as an authority.
Nothing, he says, but an assurance of a permanency
of tenure, will enable farmers to reap, the fruit of
any capital they may embark in the cul-
tivation of,: the soil. And what man will
embark capital in farming under the > present
corn-laws ? He would as soon trust it 'to
the repudiating Yankees, or to the insol-
vent Spaniards. "Is it right," says Sir HARRY
"that, with our rapidly increasing population, such a
state of things should remain ? Is it right that such
a system should be persevered in, that prevents, or,
at any rate, that has not forwarded and effected, to
the extent that the country demands, an augmenta-
tion of produce ? Look at the bad condition of farm-
hoises and buildings in many parts of the country.
See how constantly four or even five horses are used in
a plough, when two would suffice ; and eonsider
that whole districts are cultivated with very small ,
return, although cultivated at an expense unnecessa-
rily great. Why are manure heaps left in the field,
where they lose their richness and fertilising qua-
lities ? . Why is the refuse from the farm-yard and
dwelling-house allowed to escape into the common
ditches, and to produce a rank crop of noxious
weeds, instead of adding to the richness of the
land? Why do we see ponderous four-horse wag-
gons doing work, for which two horses with light
carts are sufficient ? Why is farming expensive in
particulars, in which cheaper cultivation would bring
more produce ? And why is there such unwilling-
ness to expend capital, where that ens."-' -- aid give
an ample return ? The answer, I 4, imper-
feet farming encouraged by unwise legislation."

The monopolists anxious, as it would seem, to make
up for lost t;me, are at length beginning to bestir
themselves in right earnest. At a meeting which
took place at the Duke of RICHMOND'S on Saturday,
it was resolved that vigorous measures should imme-
diately be taken to counteract the agitation of the
Anti-Corn-law League, with which view a proposal
was made, and agreed to, for the formation of a
" Metropolitan Society for the Protection of British
Agriculture," of which his Grace of RICHMOND was
to be president, and his congenial Grace of BUCK-
I NGHAM, vice-president. There was a goodly exhibition
of Lords at this meeting, and country Baronets were
as numerous as prize oxen at a Christmas cattle-show ;
moreover, there was a stray Colonel or two, and a
pretty considerable drove of M.P.s, among whom
BUSFEILD FEagAzin—the celebrated discoverer of
mares' nests —was not the least conspicuous. We
infer from this numerous attendance of monopolists
that the squad are bent on doing great things in the
way of agitation, and are determined on tt). point
that, whether willingly or unwillingly, Sir ROBERT
PEEL shall be made as desperate an Anti-Free-trader
as themselves. As the Herald, which announces the
meeting, is considerate enough to spare the speeches
—an act of generous forbearance on our Contem-
porary's part for which we can never be suffi-
ciently grateful—we can only form a guess as
to their temper and import ; they were pro-
bably violent enough, and the arguments trite
and hacknied to a degree bordering on the
miraculous ; peradventure also there was some small
bullying manifested in them, intended for the express
solace and edification of the Premier, whom, we greatly
fear, the monopolists do not hold in the most exalted
reverence as a political apostle. Be this, however, as
it may, they are resolved, it is evident, to make him
their mouth-piece in Parliament; to set him up as
their scare-crow to frighten away the Leaguers from
the corn-fields ; and wring from his timidity,
what they despair of obtaining from his con-
viction. Well, let them do so. They are perfectly
welcome to make what use they please of Sir R.
PEEL, for we are quite sure that—notoriously vacil-
lating and inconsistent as the whole 'kingdom knows
him to be—he can do them no great good, but, on
the contrary, can only serve as a sort of wet blanket
to damp their ardour. Besides, they will not have
him long among them. Let but two bad harvests
follow in succession—let but another fierce cry of
distress come up from the manufacturing districts—
and away will go the Velocipede Premier—
off like a shot in the direction of free
trade—and though the monopolists may bawl
out " Stop thief !" till they are hoarse, they
will never be able to catch himl in his exceeding
hurry to throw himself into the outstretched arms of
the affectionate and forgiving Member for Stockport.
Trust to Sir ROBERT PEEL ! Rely on him for con-
tinuous and lasting support! The monopolists may
just as well trust to the steadiness of an April day; or
believe in the truth of an epitaph which re-
cords the virtues of some defunct Saint, who swin-
dled his creditors six days in the week, and
got as drunk as a lord on the seventh. The Pre-
mier is one of those accommodating statesmen
'whose favourite maxim it is to be strong on the
strongest side, and cry " Long life to the Conqueror,"
no matter whether he be the devil himself. He is
not one to play a losing game, or volunteer to head a
Forlorn Hope. The idol of his worship—the goddess
of his love, is Expediency. Just now, he is all for
the monopolists, because he sees that the current of
Parliamentary opinion rims in that direction, and
that a hurricane is getting up among the landholders;
but let circumstances change, and we shall
find him—as we observed • f
jus. Bow—openly
siding with the Leaguers. Meanwhile, as a set-off
to the new " Metropolitan Protection Society," with
the Duke of RICHMOND at its head and Mr. FERN]
at its tail,
we may adduce the admirable letter ad-
dressed by the Duke of Surraitwasp—a nobleman
whose political influence is not less remarkable than
his political sagacity to his agent at Dun-

robin, wherein his G race emphatically
re-
marks My own feeling is in favour of
the frie current of national industry...-. of un-
fettered commerce---of purchase and sale gene-
rally—without excepting any trade on which the
sustenance of the people depends." While we have
such intelligent and influential men as the Duke of
SUTHERLAND, Lord WESTMINSTER, and Lord
SPENCER on our side, we need not, in the long run,
greatly fear the opposition of the " Metropolitan
Protection Society," even though it be honoured by
the support of Sir R. PEEL.

It is some time since we called the attention of our
readers to the unseemly and contumacious conduct of
the incumbent of a large parish in Hertfordshire—
not very far from Ware—in persisting, against the
remonstrances of the great majority of his parish-
ioners, and the repeated intervention of the church-
wardens, in some of those obsolete mummeries which
the Tractarian disciples of Dr. PUSEY'S school uphold
with such insane, but offensive pertinacity. We
advisedly apply the old ecclesiastical censure of "con-
tumacy" to such preposterous deportment in any
clergyman of the Established Church, albeit exhibited
to laymen. It involves an insult, and it professes
an indifference (on the part of the officiating
minister) to the prejudices, as he calls them—to the
opinions, as they entitle them—of his congregation,
not to be tolerated by the members of that Reformed
Anglican Church, whose clergy should respect in its
laity the same hostility to all mere ceremonial worship,
which, after all, is the great charter of their own re-
cognised status, in separation from the see of Rome.
Incessant genuflexions and theatrical obeisances—the
revival of long-forgotten observances at the altar or
in the reading-desk—strange and absurd, or supere-
rogatory gesticulation, recruited and equipped from
the most dusty of the canons, or the most obliterated
directions of the Rubric ;—these, it is true, are forms,
morally and religiously speaking, of utter indifference.
But to insist on their. practice —to " Romanize," even
to the furniture and dressing of the Com. -
munion-table--to display, in the most remarkable
manner, the least conciliatory pretensions of the elder
" High Church," in acts bespeaking a sort of diviner
nature and condition for the minister than that of his
auditors ;—all these are symptomatic of a studied
desire, in a section of our own Church, once more
to assert pretensions of infallible superiority in its
clergy, which the good sense of the English people
had long ago indignantly discarded. We must now
refer, with sorrow, to a new ebullition of this PusEY
mania, which is vexing the suburban orthodoxy of a
parish in Essex—namely, Great Ilford.
The minister of Great Ilford, like him of whom
we wrote formerly, has the happiness to acknowledge
the Bishop of LONDON for his diocesan. The corre-
spondence between this Diocesan and the church-
wardens of Great Ilford is a curiosity in its
way ; and, on the part both of Prelate and
parson, is marked, emphatically enough, by the true
" superbia prelatica " of those times, the return of
which both of them so fondly desiderate ; for the
sleek and pharisaical Bishop of LONDON must be con-
tent to be adjudged a Puseyite, since he so manifestly
affects, on all occasions, their colours and their cause !
Not that we mean to affirm the competency of the
Right. Rev. Lord of Fulham House to adopt, even
in this controversial warfare, a course which he can
hold without trimming. It was amusing, some three
or four years ago, toobserve the desperate munificence
he found himself irresistibly propelled into, by the
sarcastic epistle of the Rev. SIDNEY SMITH, in which
the Prebendary read to the Bishop his memorable
homily, touching the disingenuousness of denouncing
the "large incomes of Deans and Chapters" as fitting
objects for new appropriation, whilst preserving
a religious silence in respect of the sacred
revenues of opulent bishoprics. To stifle the
laughter of the public at detected inconsistency, the
Right Rev. Prelate, as it seemed to us, diffused his
subscriptiveness over twenty or thirty church en-
dowment and church-building propositons, at one
and the same time ; yet, a few months afterwards, he
was engaged in another epistolary squabble with Dr.
Hume, of Hanwell, about the Doctor's right to sink
gravel-pits, on his copyhold, without a sort of
Peter's-pence payment to the Ecclesiastical manor
Lord—" CHARLES LONDON." At present, how-
ever, the Bishop, clearly enough, abets our Pu-
seyite parson. In December last, he apprised the
churchwardens that he had been informed by the
Rev. FOLLIOTT BAueu, that a vestry meeting of the
"parishioners of Great Ilford has been summoned for
the purpose of considering the question of the side
table placed within the rails at the eastern end of the
church, the determination of which rests with them-
selves, as churchwardens, subject to his Lordship's
directions."

lie requested that they would take no steps for the
removal of such table till he had had time to make
all necessary previous inquiries, and to further in-
struct them. At a subsequent meeting, summoned
to consider this letter, and at which the Rev. Mr.
BAUGH himself presided, that Reverend Gentleman
" admitted that he had informed the Bishop that it
was only a faction of his parishioners who had got up
this opposition to the present mode of performing
Divine service at Great Ilford." On the veracity of
this information, we shall offer a word presently.
Certain resolutions being agreed to before the close of
this meeting, they were communicated in due form by
the churchwardens to the Bishop of LONDON. The
,Bishop, in his reply, admits that he had learned
that the oftl2nsive alterations (turning the aspect of
the reading desk, and setting up a slab, or " table of
,credence," at the altar place), although effected twelve
'months before with the knowledge of the then church-
; warden,. had been so made " without his express
,permission." Yet his Lordship adds, in defiance of
the respectful requests of a populous parish, and very
large congregation, "As no objection was made
at the time, I do not think it necessary now
to authorise the removal of the slab, or the re-
storation of the reading-desk to its original form."
This was consistent to be sure ! The reading-desk
had been deliberately turned, so as to indulge more
than three-fourths of Mr. BauGn's parishioners with
the sight of his back instead of his face, at prayers
The Right. Rev. Bishop could do no less than rump
the remonstrating churchwardens. The most amus-
ing pretension is to come, and we hasten to make
room for it. " With respect to the other parts of the
resolutions, I will content myself with expressing my
regret that the concession which Mr. BAUGII has
made to the wishes of the Select Vestry, in discon-
tinuing the weekly offertory, has not been met by
them in a kinder spirit."
" Concesion," truly ! The withdrawal of an offensive,
impertinent observance, calculated to insult all sincere
Churchmen, by challenging associations and recol-
lections connected with the worst usages of sangui-
nary superstition and priestly intolerance. But perhaps
our readers may imagine that, after all, the Puseyite
practices in which the incumbent of Great Ilford in-
dulged were harmless as to consequences. They
may be thinking of his assurances to his Bishop,
that the remonstrants composed only a "faction of his
parishioners." Alas! our experience of Puseyite
doctrine, Puseyite clergy, and Puseyite corres-
pondence, have impressed us with no lofty notion of
their love of truth or accuracy. Now, what is the
testimony of the report from whence we have ex-
tracted the facts of this case ? That the very large
congregation which used to attend Great Ilford
Church has diminished, in consequence of the Rev.
Gentleman's caprices, to an attendance of 40 or 50
'persons only, for some time past ; and that very re-
cently it consisted of but nine people! What a
fine prospect for the " unity and welfare" of that
Church whereof it is just possible that the spiritual
humility of the Right Reverend Bishop not seldom
contemplates the possibility of his becoming, at some
future day, the ecclesiastical head—afforded by the
progress of the innovations which his Lordship thus
sanctions, and the coincident defection of outraged
flocks from the pastors who adopt them!

The "Fifth Annual Report" of the Registrar-Ge-
neral of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England,
dated 14th August, 1843, brings under the notice of
the public some remarkable contributions to these
important branches of statistical inquiry. The whole
of the annual abstracts which it comprises are for the
year 1841 ; prepared (as we collect) with reference
to the Population Census, which was taken about the
middle 1 that year. The first division of the docu-
ment before us is appropriated to a comparison of
marriages, births, and deaths ; a statement of mar-
riages of 100,000, living in eleven diviqous of the