The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
TlMES.—There is nothing more praiseworthy in public
or private life than a well-timed economy. To a Minister of
State no less than to the father of a family, it is a matter of
grave importance to avoid all unnecessary expense, and dis-
courage every approach to prodigality. And as there is no-
thing in the intercourse of private life where delicacy is so
much required as in those admonitions by which a wary and
considerate friendship attempts to check the career of heed-
less extravagance, so in political discussion there is nothing
demands the exercise of tact and discretion more than the
character of a friend to retrenchment and economy. But if
in the former case men are at once annoyed and disgusted by
the impertinent interference of garrulous busybodies, they
have an equal right to condemn and disavow the gratuitous
platitudes of political quacks. It is bad enough to have a
friend who tells one that you are going to the dogs at a fear-
ful pace—that this expense is unnecessary, that scandalous,
and a third ruinous--who pulls a long face, and bids one
think of one's wife and children, when he hears of a newly
purchased horse, or a projected amusement. A friend of this
kind is a bore, and is accordingly sent to Coventry. All
doors are closed against him—all confidence is denied him.
But to what place ought those indefatigable croakers to be
consigned, who make the necessary expenses of the nation
their staple of reprobation, and the House of Commons the
victim of their querulousness ? They cannot all be sent to
Coventry ; and if they could be, this might only make them
worse. Seriously, we think that the ultra-economical prin-
ciples periodically developed by certain Honourable Members
are hardly saved by their absurdity from being both offensive
and injurious : and were any moderate man to sit down and
analyse the recent debates on the Army and Navy Estimates,
he would be at a loss to explain the language and the senti-
ments of those who advocated retrenchment by any other
hypothesis than that the speakers did not mean what they
said, or if they did mean it, that they have but a poor notion
of their duty as the representatives of a great nation. Re-
duce ! reduce! reduce ! was the reiterated, but attenuated,
cry of the very few gentlemen on whose shoulders devolves
the self-imposed office of carping at the two establishments.
" They are too large," screamed one ; " They are too costly,"
groaned a second; "They are unconstitutional," murmured
a third ; and if the prevalent opinions of this small party
could be interpreted into the exposition of a popular belief,
any intelligent foreigner sitting in the gallery might have
interred that the only occupation of our soldiers was to collect
taxes at the point of the bayonet ; and :that the English
army was the grand instrument whereby a despotic
Ministry plundered a defenceless and unresisting
people. There is luckily leas mischief than folly in
thusodearying and, endeavouring to impair the effi-
ciency of two important services. People know
too well what' the real state of the case is to
think of being terrified by the antiquated bugbear of a
standing army and an unconstitutional force. They know,
that so far from exceeding the exigencies of the empire, our
military force is hardly sufficient to meet the demands of our
distant and extensive dependencies; they know that both in
Australia and at the Cape the number of troops is insufficient
to cope with any sudden difficulty, or to perform any ar-
duous expedition; and they also know, that owing to the
disproportion of our regiments to the service expected from
them, many have been detained in remote and unhealthy
colonies far beyond the period which a regard either to their
sanatory condition or to the fair distribution of service might
have justified. They know, that owing to the pressure of
events in other parts of our empire, more than one regiment
has been kept in India for upwards of twenty years. But,
though this sort of popularity-courting cant is more foolish
than mischievous, it is not without its ill effects. It tends to
keep alive in minds susceptible of grievances a morbid irrita-
tion against the just and complete integrity of two establish-
ments, whose unimpaired efficiency is absolutely indispensable
for the preservation of our national dignity and power, and it
acts, through the medium of grievance-mongers, on the minds
of cautious Ministers. It has acted this year in a manner which
whilst we regret to observe it now, we may have occasion to
deplore hereafter—in effecting the reduction of our navy es-
timates to an extent which will require a practical abandon-
ment of our maritime supremacy. It would be useless to en-
large on the dangers of such a course ; but should disasters
ensue, it will be no consolation to be told that a retrench-
ment so hazardous as this is has been made to gratify the
Radical section of the community. Economy is a very good
thing; but parsimony is more ruinous than extravagance.
National stinginess always punishes itself and its abettors by
after-years of fruitless expenditure. Those who would pare
down our regiments and dismantle our ships should recollect,
that as a great nation cannot have a little war, so it cannot
afford to possess a petty army and a puny fleet—that power,
honour, and possessions must be retained by the same means
by which they were won. It is, doubtless, a fine thing to
save a few thousand pounds by the disbanding of a regiment
or the dismantling of a frigate in time of peace, but should
you find yourselves precipitated into a war, your troops un-
trained and undisciplined, your ships rotting in your har-
bours, and your sailors forced, by want of employment at
home, into the service of another Power--how kindly will
you feel to those who preached up the doctrine of " frugal
establishments" in the House of Commons !
ADVERTISER.—Lord Worsley has obtained leave to
bring in a Bill for the inclosure of commons, and lands held
in common, which he stated he had framed with a due re-
gard to the rights of the poor as well as to the owners of the
property. By this Bill a Commissioner, on consent of two-
thirds of the parties interested, is to be sent down to examine
and take into consideration the expediency of inclosing com-
mon land. The Inclosing Commissioners are to be the same
parties as the Tithe Commissioners, before whom claims and
objections are to be laid. In its nature it is, therefore, no-
thing less than a general Inclosureßill. We have repeatedly
expressed our objection to the practice of inclosing commons
and wastes, by which the people, the natural lords of the
land, are despoiled of their birthright, not for the general
benefit, but for the advantage of a. few wealthy landowners.
The facility with which appropriation and inclosure Bills
pass through Parliament, is one of the numerous
proofs that exist of a defective representation of
the people ; for it is not to be supposed for a
moment, that if their voice had its due weight in the
Legislature, their individual and collective interests
would be sacrificed to gratify the covetousness of individuals.
There is something insiduous in the principle of the present
Bill, which, though it acknowledges the _right of the com-
moners to compensation, leaves the mode and amount to
the decision of Commissioners, who are to be appointed by
Parliament. As the right to compensation can be founded
only on a previous right of ownerships the question at issue in
every case of inclosure under this Bill, lies between the actual
owners and the persons who desire to possess their property.
The value of such property, it is evident, ought,
since there is no individual owner, to be esti-
mated by arbitrators, equally agreed upon: by a majority
of the owners and the parties intending to ap-
propriate the land. In this case, should the Bill

pass into a law, the latter will be said to be the country at
large, but until the people are fairly represented, these parties
will in reality be the members of the Legislature ; and thits,
the very persons who desire to make the inclosures are to
have the sole power of choosing the arbitrators. The Com-
missioners may be very upright men, but it is equally possible
that they may be the reverse ; and whether so or not, it is
certain that as delegates of the landowners constituting the
legislative class, they will have a bias in favour of those from
whom they derive their official existence, and receive salaries.
We have looked through this Bill anxiously, in order
to discover any means by which the common pro-
prietors may be assured of impartial justice ; but the
main provision on this point is such as we have described it.
The Bill takes no care whatever to secure to the commoner
his just compensation. The Commissioners are to be ap-
pointed by Parliament, and maintained at the public charge •
but who is to advocate the rights of the poor man before this
tribunal? We object to all general Inclesure Acts, on ac-
count of the directness of their tendency to abridge the com-
forts of the poor, and to remove their means of healthful re-
creation. By converting commons into corn-fields, the pea-
sant is deprived of pasture for his cow, his sheep, or his
horse, and thus pauperism is increased. Pasturage of this
description is not less valuable to him than the comrfield is to
his wealthy neighbour ; and by what pretext can the seizure
of this common property be justified? Certainly not on the
condition that the terms of compensation shall be fixed and
awarded by the agents of the virtual seizers I As the means
of affording healthful recreation to the rustic populace, com-
mons are even more valuable than many descriptions of cul-
tivated ground, and therefore every resistance ought to be
made to proposals like Lord Worsley's, of which the ultimate
object is to sustain the corn-laws —to keep up the
present high prices of food, by shutting out foreign com-
petition in agricultural produce, on the plea that we grow
enough of our own. There is no other motive at the
bottom of this attack upon the rights of poor com-
moners, and we do not hesitate to affirm that, if agri-
cultural produce were suffered to find its own level in the
general market, the absence of any just pretence for inclos-
ing commons and wastes would be manifested by the abun-
dance and cheapness of all the necessaries of life. On the
following specific grounds it behoves every man, whether
holding a direct interest in commons and wastes, or not, to
oppose this Bill in all its stages ; that, on no proof of neces-
sity, it will deprive the poor of their pastures and play-
grounds, without giving them assurance, or hope, of equitable
compensation, supposing that any pecuniary consideration
can be a sufficient equivalent ; that, in turning all our open
plains into closes, the public will be precluded from all places
of recreation in the air, except the high roads ; that, through
its operation, large tracts of land, now valuable to the com-
moners, will be converted into severalties, or be each ad-
joined to an estate, for the purpose of cultivation, under
circumstances in which further cultivation is neither neces-
sary nor desirable ; and that the covert object of the mea-
sure is to promote the interests of the agricultural classes
exclusively, and to uphold the landlords in their present
exaction of high rents, at the expense of every other class of
the community.

ASSEMBLY AT MANCHESTER HOUSE.—Madame de
St. Aulaire held her first assembly for this season last even-
ing. It was attended by her Royal Highness the Duchess of
Cambridge, Prince Castelcicala, the Turkish Ambassador, the
Austrian, Prussian, Dutch, Sardinian, Belgian, Danish,
Bavarian, Swedish, Hanoverian, and Russian Ministers.
Dukes—Wellington, Buccleuch. Duchess of Buccleuch.
Marquises—Ailesbury, Headfort, Lansdowne, Normanby,
Douro. Marchionesses—Ailesbury, Sligo. Earls--Jersey,
Lincoln, Rosebery, Aberdeen. Countesses--Mansfield, Tan-
kerville, Jersey, Reventlow, Haddington, Euston, Bjornst-
jerna, Rosebery. Lords—Foley, Harry Vane, Lovaine, C.
Wellesley, Mahon, Jocelyn, Palmerston, Canning, Eliot,
Alexander Lennox, Pollington, Ernest Bruce, Hawarden.
Ladies—Macdonald, Murray (two), Taylour (two), Dillon,
C. Maxse, Sandon, Ponsonby, Jocelyn, Ashley, Palmerston,
Mary Stanley, Canning, G. Seymour, Pollington, E. Egerton,
Shelley, L. Churchill, E. Bruce, Primrose (two), A. Beckett,
Hawarden. Barons—Gersdorff, Thule, Koller, Lebzeltern,
Knesebeck. Baronesses—Brunnow, Alsfeldt. Sirs—George
Clerk, Robert Chester, Robert Otway, George Seymour, John
Shelley, Henry Mildmay, John Beckett. Mad. D'Este.
Colonels—Maberly, Montagu; and other persons of rank
and fashion.

The following details, connected with the recent
murder in the Rue de Londres, are given by the Droll :—Mr.
Ward, who was seventy-four years of age, resided alone, and
had only a man-servant, who lodged out. Engaged to dine
out, and not arriving at the appointed hour, his friends sent
several times to remind him ; but the messenger having
knocked and rung repeatedly without receiving any answer,
it was concluded that he had gone elsewhere. On Friday
morning, when the servant came, he found his master dressed
and lying dead on the floor, with a log of wood by his side,
that had been used as the instrument of death, by striking
him on the back of the head, beating in a portion of the
skull. A inan in a blouse was seen to go into the apartment
in the course of Thursday, but was not observed to go out
again. The deceased expected a remittance of money, and
this probably was known to the murderer; but he was dis-
appointed of his booty, for, in his pocket-book, Mr. Ward
had made a memorandum of having, only a few days before,
borrowed a small sum, to be returned on receiving this re-
mittance, which, in fact, did arrive the day after his death.
Several persons have been arrested on suspicion. A report
has been spread about that the concierges of the house were
among them, but this is erroneous. They had been only a
week m the house, and came with the most respectable tes-
timonials to their integrity.
THEATRICALS AT BRIGHTON.—On Monday even-
ing, the house opened to fifteen persons in the pit, two in the
boxes, and two in the gallery. There was no performaAce,
and the money was returned to the audience,