The Sun.
London, England, 1826-07-12 00:00:00

THE LONDON JOURNALS.
DAILY EXTRACTS PROM THE MORNING PAPERS.

JULY 12, 1826.

LTHE MORNING HERALD.]
It would, appear that so far from there being any abate-
ment of distress in the manufacturing districts, it is rather
on the increase; and the applications to the Committee for
relief are daily becoming more numerous. We have seri-
ous ebjectioris to the mode in which relief is administered
in some instaiues, as well as to the mode of payment
adopted by some of the master manufacturers. In Scot-
land, for instance, a number of hand-loom weavers and
'others of a different description are still in employment,
but the wages are so small that: these unfortunate indivi-
duals are in as bad a situation as those in .some districts of
England who have no employment at all. The wages they
receive are quite inadequate for their support. What good
purpose can this system serve ? If there be no demand
for manufactured goods at such a price as will repay the,
workmanship, why produce them at all ? The only effect
it can have will be to continue the glut in the market,
and prolong an evil which otherwise could be only tempos.
rary. , We have great objection also to the system of
granting partial relief; either from subscriptions or pariah
funds, to those manufacturers who are not adequately
paid for their labour. This is, actually a bounty paid to
the masters; for when the prices rise, they only will en-
joy' the benefit. But there is stills a stronger. objection.
When the, great muss of the population of any district acs
apt of relief, without making any return to the communi-
ty, they begin to lose all sense of shame and independ-
ence ; no one eau reproach another with being a pauper,
because they are all on an equal footing ; and the conse-
quence must be to raise and continue the poor-rates
in the manufacturing districts to that frightful extent
which has produced such degradation and poverty in some
of the agricultural counties. If this system should ever
become permanent among the former class of inhabitants,
we may rest assured that its effects will be dangerous, and
even ruinous, in proportion as the morality of the manu-
facturing classes is inferior to that of the peasantry.
It
would be much better for the weavers, and the country at
large, if a stop were put to the manufacture of those goods
for ich there is no actual demand, and if the money
raised by subscription or otherwise, were paid to them for
making roads, cutting canals, breaking up commons, or in
other useful works, which might in time benefit the whole
nation. The subscriptiims received by the London Com-
mittee now amount to 125,073/.; but this sum has been
found so inadequate to the demands for relief, and the
distress is become so general, that it is said to be in con-
templation to. issue the Royal Letter to the Metropolitan
Bishops, for the purpose of extending the subscriptions to
every diocese in England, as was done for the relief of the
suffering Irish in 1822. Should this be the case,we trust
that the Committee will see the propriety of resisting
every measure that tends to increase the already enormous
quantity of our manufactured goods, and rather endeavour
to devise some new sources of employment which may
withdraw a portion of the surplus hands from those tie-
partments of labour which are already overstocked.' The
exigency of the times was urged, at first, as a reason for
granting parish relief to those agricultural labourers who
receive& only half wages from the farmers. The flame
reasons may be urged at present for the relief of the ma-
nufacturers ; but the fatal consequences resulting from it
in the former instance, will be a sufficient beacon, we
trust, to deter us from adopting it in the latter.

There hardly ever was a period when so many robberies
were -oe-sn:itted in shops and houses as at this time. The
Lonk7, ate ..i;resented to overfioW with critni-
L*; t:, re; are sr' ;; '; 41141 squares where at
teat e,, cry tenth boost. P191140(.4 in some way
or other, within the last t rr. ilTeat deal of
this, we are aware, iu dt. -mid so far
na
vigilance cf police ‘votdd it ar,4;tlrr,t a, slut the greater
part of it arises from o,:t Acy system, by
-which the lives and.propectier of tine !ieople are consigned
to the guardianship of a set of igi,,,trant, bigotted, self-
sufficient, irrekponsi.ble boobies, v‘i.;to make no other use
a their power but to abuse it. N't ;v' ir.ot a thopn
sand other ohjectious to these Dog carry Legislators, this
would be sufficient—vir. their total inaptitude to pro-
Ade a complete protection, either by day or night, to the
inhabitants, but whom they take care to to:: for that
which they do not recei,;'o. We are not very fond of
the term Police, or of the Government haying in its
bands more influence than can be avoided; but we do
think that the preservation of the public peace and the
guardianship of the lives and properties of thel King's
stibjects, ought to tie placed in responsible hands, and
not left to tb; controul of people, who have proved
themselves to be in all respects wholly unfit for it.
....Aire feel quite convinced too, that much of the
military expense end parade with which... the. country
is encumbered, the jealousy.and .beart-burnings
which the introduction of the military into civil con-
cell:0 give rise to, might be dispensed with, if the
day and night patrol of the metropolis' and etlier large
towns,towns,itpoli a revectable end efficient Tooting.
We do not wish to press hard upon the poor devils call-
ed watehmen, and would rather etpend, our wrath upon
their emplOyers; for one..balf of these wretched spectres
are only plaeed in the streets awsearecrows, for the pur-
pose of easing the poor-rates, or like dirty hackney-coachee
anti their lentern-ribbed nags, are sent to night-work
merely because they are.unprodueible by day. The system
olparleh-coustables, too (including, of course, Ida rover-
tome of the night), is equally objectionable. - It is, as now
constituted, an onerous office, which no respectable man
can or will undertake, and which therefore devolves for
the most part upon low ignorant people, who be away
their year of service greatly ni the 'annoyance !•heir
neighbours, and with little or no advantage to any one.--e
To be sure, the Alpe of constable May be called in one
sense " the cheap defence" of the nation, as Mr. Constable
belongs, like the Aldermen of London, to the much-ho-
noured fraternity of " the unpaid," though, like sonic higher
branches of that order, we suspect that he now fuel them makes
There
us good a thing of Iris office as if he were paid for it.
There is another ralltiO we for the crowde
wed state ofe our!.
prisons, to which we cannot but advert, mean thre
prehensible practice of comtnitting persons to prison for
trifling offences, thus introducing and inuring them to
erirne, besides inffictitig beiwier blorehand,
thk:l any .Couri.would lot found to pass upon them when
found guilty, Of this the present Hertford At sihee fur-
nish most striking evidenee, and which, we fear, exists but
tin m
too frequently, both in etoliotia anti other places
We do not mean to say that a child 'who pilfers a penny I
tart or a halfpenny, orange, or that the -Unfortunate being
who, compelled by hunger, filches a loaf from a baker's
basket, or a piece of hakon from the tempting shop-board
of a cheeeemouger, are biareaees; but to think of arraign-
ing, such persons at this bar of Court of Justice (and
'that While greater offences go andiseorered), betrays an
anxiety " de minintis," which we have been taught to Aup-
ose that the laws were indifferent about.. The' great ob-
ject of all Police should d'be prevention. Muh, we
lieve, has of late yearn been done toWards that object, but
it can never be effectually aecomplished, till the rooster-
key of the whole of,its machinto is placed in one direct.
ing hand, by which' it. may he brought to bear upon one
andobject, instead of boing, as it now is, half efficient
and half nugatory, and under the guidance of persons Iv
have neither time nor capacity for the duties they prolc,.,
to undertake:—/bid•

FTUE MORN W
ING CITRONLJ E
It is somewhat amusing. to bear '277 Couriep—no*Aat
the base cry of No Popery ha 3 excited an indignant (feting
in the Catholics of Ireland, to withhold •
their vot
ous froM
Candidates who declare their religion blitaphem and
idolati:ot, and de,.en't them unfit for the exams() of consti-
tutional rights—exclaiming, against the disgustine sytem