The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1844.

The first acniversary dinner of the Governesses'
Benevolent Institution took place on Saturday last
at the City of London Tavern. The object of this
Society is three-fold—first, to assist governesses in
temporary difficulties; secondly, to place money in
the funds, from the interest:of which permanent an-
nuities may be granted to aged governesses; and
thirdly, to assist them in purchasing annuities for
themselves. These objects, based as they are, on the
truest principles of charity, cannot be too warmly
commended ; nor are we acquainted with any public
institution which puts forth more urgent claims on
the support of all thoughtful, considerate, and liberal-
minded individuals. Justly and feelingly observed
Mr. CSARLEs DICKENS, who was present at the
dinner, " he knew no member of society
more useful or more honourable than the imparter
of knowledge; at the same time he knew none who
was so generally despised, and whose talents were so
ill-rewarded. Now, if this were true in general
with what peculiar
_force did it apply to those 447,

I kind, ungenerous slights which ' patient merit of the
unworthy takes' in the person of governesses ? It
was very well to say that ' knowledge is power,' but
how often did they forget that it was the source of
weakness too ! Knowledge had not its right place in
society, and he believed that it did not obtain a just
recognition and reward anywhere." This is notori-
ously the fact in the case of governesses, Who, though
from the peculiar character of their very delicate and
difficult vocation, they must necessarily be intelli-
gent, accomplished, and well versed in the art of
imparting useful instruction, are but too often treated
with contempt and indifference, and regarded in no
higher light than that of a sort of upper servant. And yet
the unfortunate individuals thus cavalierly dealt with,
are many of them—as we see by the daily advertise-
ments—sprung from good families ; have known what
it was in early youth to enjoy the luxuries of life and
the pleasures of society; have been the objects of
consideration, respect, and affection ; but having
"fallen from their high estate," by the improvidence,
or it may be, the ill-luck of their parents or guar-
dians, have been compelled to make those accom-
plishments administer to their necessities, which in
better and happier days, were cultivated only for the
sake of the refined, intellectual pleasure they af-
forded. Any institution which has for its object the
improvement of the condition of these ill-starred in-
dividuals, deserves the cordial support of every real
gentleman and every real lady.

In advocating, as we have lately done, and as we
shall still continue to do, the Ten Hours' Factory
Bill—that righteous and equitable measure, which
Lord ASHLEY has thought fit to surrender, if not in
so many express words, at least in effect—we have
been influenced solely by a strong sense of humanity;
and should deem that we were performing only half
our duty, were we not, from the same vigilant regard
to the rights of humanity to, advocate also the total
and unqualified repeal of the accursed corn-laws—
those laws, which for the enrichment, or
fancied enrichment, of the Few, impoverish
the Many ; which indirectly, if not directly,
narrow the field of enterprise ; which cripple
the powers of industry, and hang like a mill-stone
round the neck of the people, bowing their energies
to the earth. It is in vain to hope that the situation
of the poor operative and his toil-worn family can ever
be materially or permanently improved till these
laws, which are the disgrace of the Statute-book, are
wholly abolished. A Ten Hours' Bill may do some-
thing towards ameliorating the sufferings of his lot in
the manufacturing districts, anlii therefore it has our cor-
dial support—for we regard it as a sort of instalment of a
great debt owing by the rich to the poor—but, after
all, it is to the total abolition of the corn-laws only,
that the oppressed and destitute operatives must look
for substantial and lasting relief. We call, then, on
all those who from motives of kindly and humane
feeling have advocated the ultra-discreet Lord
ASHLEY'S Bill, from the same generous motives,
to come forward and support the unqualified
abrogation of the food-tax, when the question is next
mooted in the House of Commons. The same sense
of duty which induces them to support the one mea-
sure, should induce them also to support the other; for
we cannot at all understand, or sympathise with, a
one-sided humanity, which can strain at such a gnat
as a Ten Hours' Bill, while it can contrive to swal-
low such a camel as the corn-laws.

Among the essential distinctions that give to the
hostilities of party in England a very different aspect
from that which they assume in the United States,
(and certainly a much better and more decorous one,)
the tone of respect and forbearance adopted towards
the judges in this country, is of the most remarkable.
There can be no doubt that this feeling of deference
for our judges arises in part from the tendencies of
our education. One of the first principles inculcated
in the minds of our youth, is a profound veneration
for the law. One of the first duties of the adult citi-
zen is to protect, with a jealous vigilance, the inde.
pendence and official inviolability of those who are
chosen to expound and administer it. But the reve-
rence with which the judges are habitually regarded,
by all ranks of the British people, arises chiefly (much
to the honour of those functionaries be it sai•.i) from
the high feeling, the impartial judgment, the learning,
and the constitutional spirit which they bring to the
practical discharge of their duties, so responsible, so
solemn, as they are. The faet that, against the com-
petition of such a bar as we can boast, they should
have attained to the dignity of the bench, is, in
itself, a certain guarantee for their personal integrity,
their general deportment in private life, and the con-
scientious propriety with which they will fulfil the
duties devolved upon them by the confidence of the
Crown. It happens, therefore, that infirmity of tem-
per is rarely to he objected to our judges. They
have already passed through a long ordeal of pro-
fessional education and business, in which the exi-
gencies of their position have come in aid of obvious
merit and social considerations, so as to have accus-
tomed them to the discipline of that beautiful self•
control which is indispensable on the judgment seat.
True it is, that from time to time we have had
great judges who have manifested little petulances;
but these petulances have been, for the last half cen-
tury, the full extent to which objections to the de •
meanour of our judges in court could fairly be
stated. With the essential purity, the scarce less
essential dignity, of justice, has been maintained.
We have had, certainly, on a recent occasion, to re
mark upon a very premature development, in a high
law officer—(not a judge, however)—of bellicose
propensities. But this was a mere lusus nature —or,
in the parlance of our provincial journals, " another
proof of the extraordinary mildness of the season."
One Mr. Attorney-General Salmi no more indicates
the professional morale of functionaries in general
occupying such an office, than a single swallow
establishes the approach of summer. Such excep-
tions only illustrate and corroborate the rule of that
contrary course of things which, as we con-
tend, obtains in our judicial system. In
the United States we fear that these mat-A
ters fall out very differently. The judges there,
do not seem to be more remarkable, as a body, for
the exalted professional qualifications we have touched
upon, than individuals among them are for exem-
plary morality, decorum, or propriety in private.
What more common than to read—and especially of
late—in American papers, of sanguinary duels, the re-
sult of disgraceful brawls and miserable squabbles, be-
tween "honourable' judges, or some such func-
tionaries ? The scales of justice appear to be thrown
down very unceremoniously when there is some
private feud to be revenged by those who hold
them. The sword of the law is abandoned, without
even a decent show of regret or compunction, for the
rifle or the bowie-knife. Scandals like these sound
as impossible absurdities in an English ear. Never-
theless, they are but too frequent in America, and
are, we fancy, as much the result of education there,
,as with us are the worthier notions and associations
that we attach to the judicial office, character, and
bearing.

But we are compelled to own that a recent case,
in which a native born American citizen was capi-
tally indicted in one of the Courts of South Carolina,
tried, convicted, and condemned, for the offence of
aiding the escape of a female negro slave from her
" owner," has elicited a written statement from a
judge of appeal (!)—a judge of the free United
States,--the vaunted home, the so-called " cradle,"
the professed refuge of Liberty (! 0, which is twenty
times
.more disgraceful to the writer, the judicature
to which he belongs, and to the Government under
which it is established, than twenty such atrocities,
even, as those we incidentally noticed in The Sun
LE,
the 9th of March (the caning L
of a Judge Tnßvi
of Nashville, and the murder of Judge HORSFORD, at
Texas), and the 16th instant (the-murder of the Hon
BENJAMIN MAJOR, a Senator and Judge of Missouri).
We need go no further back, as we could multiply
these melancholy examples. On this last case of JOSIN
BROWN, of Fairfield district, sentenced to be hanged
for the offence we have described, under an old Caro-
lina statute of 1754, a public meeting, it seems, had
been called at Pittsburgh ; and certain resolutions
were agreed to, such as a body of freemen, nobly
alive to the natural rights of their fellow-creatures,
might be supposed to come to. Thfse resolutions
were forwarded to the functionary, whose coarse and
brutal mode of expressing himself at the trial will be
fresh in the recolletior, of many of our readeri—a
certain Judge O'NEAL!.
" Stung," says the editor of the Pittsburgh Emanci-
pator, "by the severity of the remark); made, the