The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-19 00:00:00

illorlditff2/un.

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1844.

On Wednesday last, a public meeting, at which
the Earl of RADNOR presided, was held at llighworth,
for the purpose of taking into consideration the dis-
tress of the working classes. At this meeting several
stern home truths were told, which appeared to make
a deep impression on all who heard them ; and it was
further remarkable, as showing the keen sense which
the labourers entertain of their present forlorn con-
dition ; their perfect consciousness that they are not
treated as they should be, by their superiors ; and the
exemplary patience with which, notwithstanding this
conviction, they bear their privations. Occasionally,
however, a bitter feeling of indignation was exhibited
by, those of the humbler classes who attended the
meeting ; and when one of the speakers observed—
" The gentry ought to come forward and see to the poor
if their horse or their foxhound was ill, the doctor'
would be sent for, and the fine generous animal would be
cared for and physicked. But if men—men made in
the image of God, with wives and children, whose
cheeks met together from starvation—came to them,
they would not give them a bit of bread. They knew
that the people were starving, yet they would attend
to their horse or their dog, but they would do nothing
for the honest, industrious working-man ;"—when
we say, one of the speakers expressed himself in this
blunt, energetic manner, the indignant murmurs of
his hearers proved how strong was the conviction they
entertained of the truth and force of his remarks
For our own part, however, we are by no means dis-
posed to go the extreme lengths of Mr. EDRIDGE.
We do not acknowledge the strict justice of his cen-
sures upon the gentry. We do not believe that the
poor are treated by them with such callous, insulting
indifference as he would have us sup-
pose ; their treatment, indeed, is far—very
far - from what it should be ; still it is
more considerate and kindly than it has been for
many years past; and w• think we can detect grow-
ing symptoms, on the part of the higher and middle
classes, of an earnest wish to ameliorate the condition
of the humbler orders, and raise them in the social
scale. The spirit that prevailed at the late agricul-
tural meetings—the favour shown to the allotment
system by many of our great landowners—the
public subscriptions raised in some of our leading
provincial towns for the formation of public walks
and parks—. and still more, the active stir now making
by that compact band of zealous social Reformers,
who call themselves " Young England ;"—all these
are signs and tokens not to be mistaken, that the
nobility and gentry are at length awakening to
the necessity of improving the condition of the
ignorant and impoverished masses. The midnight
torch of S wing has, we suspect, assisted not a little to
bring them to a determination in this matter. When
the farmer's hay-rick is in a blaze, the thing is be-
coming too serious for mere superficial considera-
tion ; it assumes a direct personal importance—nam
faa res agitur paries cum proximus ardet—and this,
no doubt, is one of the many causes that have in-
duced the upper classes to investigate the condition
of the masses, with a view to see what can be done
for their improvement. However, he the motives of
the former what they may, we bail their present
altered tone as an omen of auspicious import; and
trust that the day is not far distant when the poor
and the oppressed shall no longer have occasion to
complain that they are neglected by the rich and
the influential.

In the Herald of yesterday appears some deli-
cious twaddle—quite a treat in its way—on the subject
of the sayings and doings of her MAJESTY and Prince
ALBERT at East Cowes. It seems that on Thurs-
day last—memorable day!—the illustrious couple
"strolled 4o the sea-side, which surrounds the grounds
attached to Osborne House," •and.there indulged them-
selves " in watching the sinuous course of the vessels
majestically gliding up the waters, or in exploring
the beach for curiosities." Our Contemporary does
not tell us what were the " curiosities" which the
QUEEN and the PRINCE expected to find on the sands;
but leaves us quite in the dark on the matter, which

7 is a pity, for it sets conjecture on the qui vice, only to
tantalize and disappoint it. While searching
for these annonymous " curiosities," her most
gracious MAJESTY unluckily got off " the hard
beach into the softer sand," the consequence
of which was—as the Herald quaintly assures
us—" that her feet up to the ancles became im-
beded." Shocked at this catastrophe, " his Royal
Highness was immediately by her MAJESTY'S
side ;" but she—greatly, as it appears, to the
astonishment and admiration of our Contemporary—
" making amusement of the occurrence, laughingly
retraced her steps." The Herald is particular in
telling his readers that the QUEEN laughed at the
calamity which had befallen her ancles, fearing that
otherwise their loyal sensibilities might have re-
ceived pain:from the belief that she had wept, and that
the PRINCE from sheer sympathy had mingled his
tears with hers. "Meanwhile," continues the Herald,
Colonel BOUVERIE came up, and to him, as to
others, it was a matter of surprise and remark that
the lady and gentleman, watching the sea arm-in-
arm on the strand, apparently two private persons,
should be the beloved Monarch of England, and
her illustrious Consort." We do not wonder at the
surprise of the gallant Colonel and his companions!
It was indeed a legitimate subject for astonishment,
to see the QUEEN and PRINCE, looking just like any
other people, and " watching the sea" just as any
other people might have done ! We wonder the be-
holders of this strange spectacle did not go off
in a swoon, out of the very excess of their wonder I
But the richest bit is to come. " Having got
on board the royal yacht, her MAJESTY ordered that
they should start on a short cruise, and during it a
shower of rain came on ; but it was received very
good-humouredly, and, as a matter of course."
Wonderful 1 Our Contemporary, no doubt, expected
that the QUERN would have been quite in-
dignant with the atmosphere for presuming to
rain upon Royalty, and duck the LORD'S Anointed,
instead of which—to his ineffable astonishment—she
took the drenching quite "as a matter of course"—
just as if she could not help it ! Really it is high
time that all this nonsensical twaddle about the daily
movements of the QUEEN should be put a stop to.
It cannot but be highly distasteful to her, desirous, as
she evidently is, to enjoy for a time the blessings o
privacy and retirement.

So lately as the sth instant it became our melan-
choly duty to call the attention of the public to the
catastrophe by which, only a day or two previously,
one hundred people had been sacrificed—in an instant
of time—at the Haswell Colliery ! With profound
regret we have since had to announce another dis-
aster of the same nature, though (fortunately) not
attended with the sacrifice of human life to the same

appalling extent as occurred at Haswell. But, on
the night of Monday last, at Coxlodge Colliery, near
ewcastle-upon-Tyne, an explosion took place, by
which five persons, within the workings, were se-
riously injured, of whom two are so much maimed
that no hopes can be reasonably entertained of their
recovery ; one of these (BAINBRIDGE) having been
blown against a tub, by the explosive force, with such
violence as to fracture his thigh bone; the other
(Commas) having been violently felled to the ground,
and remained there for no less than two hours, in an
atmosphere saturated with the deleterious " choke
damp"—that noxious and inflammable gas, the escape
of which is the grand agent of these terrible cala-
mities. From the best accounts hitherto obtained, it
would seem that, at the time this explosion took
place, there were, in the mine, seventy-nine men
and boys variously employed in the several districts
into which the " workings" are divided. " Shifters," as
they are called, had been engaged, in the morning
and afternoon, clearing away where the coal hewers
were to get to their work at night. Five of these
coal hewers were waiting, to commence these opera-
tions, till BROWN, the " deputy," should have ex-
amined the workings and reported " all right." Two of
the sufferers, ANDERSON and COLLINS, had concluded
their day's work as shifters, when they were re-
quested by the " deputy" to assist him in removing
iome tramway pieces out of the " goal," as "it was
likely to fall." This fact, and the one which follows,
are well calculated to excite a lively idea of the
fearful hazards to which these poor pitmen are ex-
posed. They went with the " deputy," but had to
return immediately, as the " goaf," or gallery, was
already " working," that is, creeping and heaving !
BROWN, the deputy, although these unfortunate
shifters had been working with proper safety lamps,
committed, it would seem, the unpardonable impru-
dence of carrying a naked candle to the "stenting,"
from whence, if from any point, the jet of gas would
come, "to see if the place," as he said, " was safe
for the hewers to operate upon, whom he had in
waiting, to put on." It never seems to have occurred

to him to consider what must be the consequence of
his action, should the place not prove safe. Although
expressly cautioned by ANDERSON to take his candle
back, "as there was danger, if the goaf fell," he per-
sisted in carrying it on to this stenting, where the
gas actually had formed, and now ignited with an explo-
sion which was felt throughout the entire mine, but
most providentially exhausted itself within a hundred
yards of the area of ventilation in the mine, from
whence the stream :of air is subdivided and distri-
buted through the different districts or flats of the
colliery. Had it travelled on to this place, says the
report, and blown down the erections by means of
which this distribution is effected, "every man in
the pit at the time would have been killed." As it
was, two of the coal hewers (ANDERSON and KENT),
who awaited BROWN'S return, were most seriously
injured, as already stated ; COLLINS, a shifter, was
severely burnt, and with BROWN, the deputy (al-
though this latter, after the gas had fired, ran away
so quickly as to reach the shaft in safety), is not ex-
pected to survive.

In a former article we quoted, at length, the
preamble of one of the burked Bills of last session,
called "A Bill for establishing District Registers of
all Mining Operations in -England and Wales." We
remarked, that had it happily have been passed into
law, there was every probability, that by means of
the scientific supervision which its clauses went to
provide, the Haswell casualty would not have oc-
curred. Precisely the same remark applies to the
unhappy accident we are now considering. The
Coxlodge Colliery belongs to Messrs. BELL, BRAND-
LANG, and Co., and has always been deemed a very
well ventilated one. But, if we may credit the state-

ment published, recenti facto, in the Miners' Advo-
cate, it would appear that the deputy, BELL, to whose
rashness or incompetency the disaster appears to have
been so mainly attributable, had been brought up to
the plough, and was neither accustomed, nor compe-
tent, to the due discharge of the responsible post he
filled. If this be so, a stronger case could not have
been raised to demonstrate the necessity for carrying
out the general propositions of the Bill in question, to
the full extent of their scope and spirit. It is evi-
dently indispensable that these mines should be con-
stantly visited by duly qualified members or officers
of a Commission, composed of scientific and practical
men, well acquainted with the natural laws which
regulate the generation, and the phenomena which
announce the presence, of these noxious vapours. It
is as evidently requisite, with a due regard to the de-
mands, in the first place, of a humane and provident
policy, and in the second, of the owners of capital
and property already sunk, or about to be invested, in
iuch extensive works, that a careful, accurate, and
periodically attested register of every preceding
week's operations should be organized and main-
tained, to be copied and deposited as Parliament may
direct, fur the purpose of supplying the information
thus recorded, to all interested parties, as generally as
may be practicable. We should then cease to hear of
"judds" being removed—of old workings being de-
stroyed, or new ones commenced—with all the liabili-
ties thus fatally attaching to such operations, when
not directed by scientific skill, or controlled by prac-
tical experience and sagacity. Where so large an
amount of human life, so valuable a supply of perilous
labour and intrepid enterprise are involved, as are vo-
luntarily entombed in our collieries and mines for
long protracted periods, it is the duty of the Legis-
lature to protect the workman against the avarice of
the master, on the one hand, or the incapacity of his
deputy on the other. We impute nothing like ava-
rice to the respected owners of Coxlodge. We have
no wish to press the presumption of misconduct
against their wounded servant, BROWN. But, as a
4eneral principle, the first object of Parliament
should be to economise the lives of the parties whose
labour alone gives value to the products of our mines;
its second, to apportion the charge of accomplishing

that beneficent end on the mining property of the
district within which it is to be accomplished.

The Madrid journals of the 11th are chiefly filled
with details respecting the opening of the Cortes, and
comments on the QUEEN'S speech. They possess,
however, no interest. A supplement of the Gazette
of the 11th announces to those interested in the public
stocks, that the junta named by the royal decree of
the 13th of March, 1837, as directors of the National
Sinking Fund, is prepared to burn and annul bonds
to the amount of 400,120,000 reels of the Five per
Cent. Stock, and giving thirty days' notice to parties
who may have any claims upon these bonds. The
Gazette then contains the following decree from the
Minister of Finance, for the conversion of the Float-
ing Debt of the Treasury into Three per Cent.
Stock :

" Art. 1. The conversion into consolidated Three per
Cent. Stock, ordered by royal decree of 26th June for
the holders of Government contracts, is hereby ex-
tended to the inscriptions of the floating debt of the
Treasury.
" Art. 2. The conversion is to be made at the rate of
forty per cent., or at the rate of 250 reels of nominal
value in bonds, for every 100 reals of inscriptions.
" Art. 3. The said inscriptions shall not be entitled to
the four per cent. interest, hitherto allowed after the Ist
July last.
" Art. 4. The produce of the salt and the stamp duties,
mortgaged for the payment of the Centralized Floating
Debt, shall enter into the public Treasury from the date
of the liquidations of the month of September last, and
shall be devoted to the payment of the obligations of the
State

" Art. 5. The holders of the inscriptions of the Float-
ing Centralised Debt shall be subject to all the other
conditions established by the decrees of the 26th June.

".art. 6. The Government will submit to the Cortes
the dispositions contained in this decree."

The following gossip about the young QUEEN is
given by a correspondent of the Journal des Debate
at Madrid:—

" The Queen is much grown, and though she is thin-.
ner, her constitution has evidently gained strength. Her
forehead, her eyes, her smiles, and, above all, her voice,
and also her deportment, are those of her mother, whom
she seeks to imitate. Since the unfortunate occurrence of
last year, her Majesty never transacts business with only
one of her Ministers being in the presence ; but two
of them always attend her in her cabinet. She is said to
display a great aptitude for business, conferring at length
with her Ministers, and almoSt always in important cases
requiring the papers to be left with her, that she may
consider them maturely before she comes to a decision.
She takes pride in showing courage and resolution. On
their return from Barcelona the two Queens having been
very ill, from the usual effects of a sea voyage, they, on
landing at Tarragona, determined to make the rest of the
journey by land, as far as Valencia. As their equipages
were not there, they set out incognito in one of the
diligences, accompanied only by General Narvaez and
Count Vista Allegria, Under Secretary to the Minister
of War. On passing at nightfall through Maestrargo,
the scene of one of the most terrible of Cabrera's ex-
ploits, General Narvaez perceived some horsemen in the
distance, whom he suspected might be a party of rebels,
who had recently infested the country. He and the Se-
cretary alighted-to examine them more closely. Hap-
pily, they proved to be only a band of muleteers. On
the Queen's return to Madrid, one of the grand officers
of her household asked her if she was not frightened at
Maestrargo ? 'Frightened exclaimed the Queen,
looking proudly at him, No ;I am like my mother, I
and never afraid Her Majesty has an excellent me-
mory, retaining the whole chronology of ancient and
modern history, of which she has given many remark-
able proofs in this respect as well as in others. She never
forgets the name of a person she has once known. She
is perhaps the only person in Spain who can repeat by
heart the whole of the Constitution of 1837, and also all
the rules and orders of the two Chambers, of which she
is a strict observant."

Accounts from France state that the KING arrived
at Eu on Tuesday evening, in excellent health. The
Paris journals, of Tuesday evening, publish the fol-
lowing telegraphic dispatches, announcing his safe
arrival in his own dominions
" CALAIS, OCT. 15, SEVEN A.M.—The weather has
not permitted the KING to embark at Portsmouth.
He came from that town to Dover by the railroad.
His MAJESTY arrived at Dover this morning at three
o'clock, and is to embark at noon for Calais."
" CALAIS, OCT. 15, HALF-PAST THREE P.M.—The
KING landed at three o'clock. He has reviewed the
National Guard, and received the civil and military
authorities. He was received with the most lively
enthusiasm by the entire population. His MAJESTY
has left for Eu."

The papers bring no news of importance. The
principal topic to which they advert, is still the
KING'S visit to England ; and as we hope the subject
is now nearly exhausted, and this may be regarded as
the winding up of the discussions on a very remarkable
event, a few more extracts from them will not be con-
sidered out of place. The Presse, a journal supposed

o be under the influence of Queen CHRISTINA

has had very few articles on the subject, though i
evidently had regarded the visit with jealousy. AI

last, however, it breaks forth in good earnest in these

words :—" The presentation of an address at Windsor
by the Corporation of the City of London, is certainly
a manifestation of great value, as a personal homage
rendered to the character of the former refugee at
Twickenham, the present KING of the FRENCH. But
to attribute to that manifestation, as is done this
morning by the Journal des Debats, an immense
political importance is to fall, according to usage, into
exaggeration and fawning. To keep within the
bounds of truth and prudence, it is necessary to dis-
tinguish between the sentiments which ally the two
SOVEREIGNS, the sentiments which draw the two
Cabinets together, and the rivalities which seperate
the two countries. These rivalities have existed at
all times, and henceforth cannot but increase. To
hope, or to suppOse, that they can be allayed by fine
speeches, would be a gross deception. What sen-
sible man could partake in the illusion, especially at

times when the constitution of the State were in
question, when the existence of Ministers is dependent
on the fluctuating voices of majorities, and when
the two Cabinets may very probably not be animated
with the same feelings as those which might continue
to exist between the two SOVEREIGNS. Unfortunately
the cordial and pacific phrases which have been ex-
changed at Portsmouth and Windsor, will not pre-
vent-the agents of the two countries, wherever they
may be together, from disagreeing and becoming
rivals. They will not diminish the and con-
tempt of the British navy. They will not prevent
the inveterate sentiments of hostility, the suspicious

jealousy, and the insolent disdain which we have re-
cently seen bursting forth at Otaheite and Gibraltar,

in the whole conduct of the Consuls PRITCHARD and
ROBERTWILSON, in the speeeh of Sir ROBERT PEEL
himself, and, to go back to 1840, in the insulting
propositions of Lord PALMERSTON, and in the diplo-
matic dispatches of Mr. BULWER, from being at
bottom the true sentiments of the English nation
with regard to us, as soon as she shall receive on our
part the smallest resistance or the most involuntary
opposition. Did the enthusiastic reception given to
Marshal SOULT in 1838 prevent the signature, two
years after, of the treaty of the 15th of July ? Yes,
there is one certain means of making the two countries
live in mutual peace, and to make their union cordial
and durable. It is to accept frankly the supremacy of
Great Britain, to content ourselves with the rank of
a second-rate power, to consider it quite right that
England, N‘hich has already snatched from us
Upper and Lower Canada, Acadia, Terra Nova,
Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Kitts, Tobago,
St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and New Zealand,
who has taken from Spain, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Cam-
peachy, Honduras, the Bahamas, Trinidad, and the
Falkland Islands ; from Holland, Demerara, Berbice,
Esequibo, and the Cape of Good Hope; from Turkey,
the lonian Islands; from the order of Malta, Malta
and Gozo, &c. &c., should also take exclusive pos-
session of all the other points on the globe, and all the
other markets which its navy or its commerce have
not yet got, that we should renounce all right to place
our flag on even the smallest islet, that we should
at its instigation bring confusion into our colonies,
while we at the same time retarded the day marked
out for the emancipation of the negroes, to reduce our
navy while we kept up an exorbitant and ruinous
army; to occasion every now and then to continental
Europe some fears respecting the continuance of
peace, and thereby retard the progress of industry,
and bring about commercial crises, and, in short, •to
give it every trouble in fomenting revolution, as it is
doing at the present moment in Spain. These are
the terms upon which it may be reckoned that the
understanding between the two countries will not be
less cordial than that between the two Sovereigns.
Let us 'cease to be rivals, and there will be no obstacle
to our being allies."

The Constitutionnel regards all the compliments
paid to the KING and the French people as mere imi-
tations of French politeness, meaning nothing. We
wish these haters of England would follow the
example in place of denouncing Englishmen as cut-

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