The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-19 00:00:00

it, not the man whom he thinks the fittest, but
the man who is thrust on him by the possessors
of boroughs. if the heads be inefficient, the in-
feriors ,will not be effective. In the Report of
the Police Committee there is some good sense
mixed up with not a little twaddle about ardent
spirits, and so forth. The views, however, of
the Committee do not seem to extend much be-
yond palliatives. We once reco.nmended the
constitution of a Police establishment, in which
there should be a promotion according to merit,
from the lowest stations, and in which the heads
should be made more responsible for the state
of their districts. A system of promotion
by merit would prevent that evil which now
exists—namely, the nomination of Magistrates
from the Learned Profession. Were the ap-
pointment to lead to.any thing higher, able men
might be drawn from theeßar to the Police; but
as it does not lead to any thing higher, no man
who has any ambition will take it, and thus the
Police becomes a refuge for the -lazy and the in-
efficient men, who either are too indolent for
business, oc without the talents for succeeding.
Hence, with a few exceptions, the Police Ma-
gistrates are positively below the average of
Count!), Magistrates in point of sagacity and
understanding, notwithstanding the experience
which this great metropolis affords. There are
some excellent hints in Police matters to be found
in Mr. Tytler's " Considerations on the Present
Political State of India." He observes—" Re-
wards in money and land, and in promotion, are
attended with much benefit among the natives,
who are extremely greedy; and where such re-
wards are not given by Government, they will
seek for them from the dacoits (thieves). Be-
sides rewards to persons of the description
above mentioned, every Magistrate should have
a series of much higher rewards, founded on
promotion in his office, and which he should
from time to time distribute according to
the merits of his officers. There ought to be
a gradual rise in every office, for the mem-
bers of that office alone ; and strangers should
never be allowed admission unless to the lowest
ranks, and 'when the lowest ranks are promoted
in their turn. In the Thannahs (the Police
establishment of a Police officer), this system of
gradual promotion ought also to be made gene-
ral. Active Burkundauzes (an armed Police
runner) should be promoted to the situation of
fenmadars (the head of the runners), Jernina-
dars to the ylace of &Togas (the head Police
officer at a channah or Police Establishment)."
This is what we have always said. Do not
place interest and July in opposition to cash
other. The Officer of our Police Establish-
ments at present has an interest in crime; and
that he may yield to every temptation, he is left
poor, arid cut off from all advancement, the
hope of which might stimulate him to exertion,
and confirm him ict his principles. Give scope
to merit, and you will have it. Do not let the
country be disgraced with the spectacle of thiev-
ing being tLe most secure business in London in
the present day ; there having been fewer um,
successful speculators in this line, than perhaps
any'other. Look at the report of the trial at
.Maidstone the other day, and see how secure
the family men are. This could not be with an
efficient Police.—Morning Chronicle.
While despotism flatters itself with the extent
of its power, because that power is never openly
questioned, obedience to its mandates can hardly
ever be enforced. When the Empress Catherine
proceeded through her dominions, to view with
her own eyes what progress had been made in
erecting the towns and villages she had planned,
her whole journey was one combined deception
practised on her. The same frame-work of
edifices was regularly conveyed to one spot,
taken down,' and re-conveyed to another; and
thus her flatterers gladdened her Imperial Ma-
jesty's eyes at the various stages of her to4r, In
like manner, the Emperor Alexander, who ima,
gined that nothing escaped his penetration, was
constantly duped. According to Dr, Lyall, his
visits were always, somehow or other, anticipated,
and preparations made accordingly ; so that hos.
pitals, prisons, and all other institutions appeared
to his Imperial Majesty in quite a different con-
dition from that in which they appeared to every
one else. The same writer tells us that false
fronts of buildings were erected in Moscow to
persuade him that his orders for the re-edifica-
tion of that city after the conflagration, had been
complied with. An excellent' authority on
Spanish affairs states, that nothing can exceed
the deference to Majesty manifested by the dif-
ferent functionaries on receipt of a Government
Order ; but that the next step after the Mes-
senger has turned his back is to apply the order
to a certain vile use. In those parts of the
British possessions where despotism is established,
we behold the usual phenomena of despotism.
The Colonial Minister transmits a despatch to
the Proconsul; the Proconsul throws it aside
trusting to the impossibility of his ever being
called to account, and to the power of his con-
nexions in protecting him, should the Minister
of the time take it into his head to inquire whe-
ther his orders had been complyed with. In an
extract from the South African Advertiser, in
another column, we have a beautiful exeroplifi-
sation of this working of the Colonial sys.
tern. Mr. Fairbairn, the Editor of that paper,
having been informed by Mr. Huskisson, in
a Latter dated Downing-street, October I, 1328,
that " before he resumed the publication of a
newspaper, he should comply with whatever
order might be in force at the Cape for the
re-
gulatiun of that branch of the Press," on Ins
arrival at the Cape, naturally inquired what order
he was to comply with, when the Government
Secretary, a Mr. John 13e11, with the utmost
coolness and naivete, informed him, that indeed
the views entertained by his Majesty's Govern-
ment respecting the Colonial Press had been set
forth in a despatch by Mr. Huskisson's prede-
cessor," but that Mr. Huskisson was under a de-
lusion, when he supposed that effect had been
given to these views ; as, " for certain reasons,
that despatch had not been acted on, and conse-
quently the law of the Colony affecting the Press
remained unaltered, since the publication of that
newspaper he had now resumed;" that is, that the
Jaw was the Governor's will. What ! our Lord
Charleses, or Lord Johns, to yield obedience
to the orders of any man, whom the Aristocracy
at home select for
drudgerytne
i‘ir.
. Gareurglcreerlnarg
no, they are not so simp
that the despatch of Lord GoJerich must have
been at the Cape many months, as Lord Gode-
rich left the Colonial Office in August, /527.
He adds, that " the despatch directing the
Lieutenant-Governor to suppress the Advertiser
did not lie over so lons. His Hotiol4 acted
upon it within eight-and-forty hours, or these-
abouts." His Honour knew what he was about.
If Mr. Huskisson thought that arbitrary power
and a free Press could exist peaceably together,
like the lion and the lamb in Scripture, his
Honour the Lieutenant-Governor knew better.
'There is not a Governor tluougbo.ut tin whole

range of the possessionslorded over by the sprouts
of our aristocracy, whose instinct does not tell
him that the Press is a mortal enemy which he
must destroy per fizs ant ntjas. 'The only pos-
sessions which have thriven under us are those
which were left to themselves. Anarchy even is
better than despotism. The public voice is the
only means of guarding against abuse. Even in
this metropolis, the moment the Legislature
. gives a Select Vestry discretionary power, they
laugh at their fellow-citizens, whose money they
squander. Our colonial system is throughout
and entirely mischievous, preventing the deve-
lopement of what is good, and securing im-
punity to evil. We may be assured that the
Scions of Aristocracy and Military Bashaws,
whom we place over our Colonies, will always
resist to the uttermost the establishment of a
Free Press, and laugh at the injunction's they
receive from the Colonial Office at home.—lbid.
It is no wonder that, among the other "vast
improvements" of the present "age of intel-
lect," the alt of robbery should be carried to
the perfection it is, when the officers of police,
who are paid out of the public taxes to protect
men's property from thieves, actually realize a
profit by dealing in stolen goods. We have
given, from time to time, extracts from the
evidence taken before the Select Committee, to
inquire into the state of the Police of the Me-
tropolis, which abundantly prove that Bow-street
officers and others of that description are the re-
gular "go-betweens" in compounding felonies
relative to stolen bank-notes, and other
plunder, for a corrupt consideration. It ap-
pears, from an extract which we published
yesterday, that those "emissaries of justice"
are sometimes assisted in their laudable traffic
with thieves by attornies " learned in the
law ;" and, with such coadjutors in obtaining
a safe market for their plunder, the public ought
not to be surprised that the robbing of coaches
and other schemes of depredation are carried on
to the dangerous extent they are. In a tran-
saction of the above nature, alluded to by an at-
torney examined before the Select Committee,
which was the recovery of a parcel of bank-notes
stolen from a coach at the Gloucester Coffee-
house, the witness stated that the reward given
to one of the two officers employed to nego-
ciate with the thieves on that occasion was, as
well as he could recollect, 50/. ; and that the
officer was a long time before lie would accept
it. Was it because it was venal and illegal to
do so? Not at all. The reason was that
he did not think it sufficient. Now it
a Police-officer can, with perfect impunity,
make 501. or more by one job of this sort,
why should he trouble himself to inter-
ropt thieves in those avocations which turn
out so profitable to himself and his brethren ?
The Chinese, a people whom our literati are
accustomed to pity for their extreme simplicity,
have a police system ; and their police-officers
are so far advanced " the march of intellect"
as to be capable of doing things sometimes as
venal and corrupt as any of our own officers---
but, when detected, they undergo the painful
and ignominious punishment, of the bamboo
and the wooden collar ; and the measure 4 their
punishment is always more severe, and justly
so, than that of the thieves themselves. We
also have our laws against the scandalous and
dangerous traffic in compounding felonies re-
latiVe to property ; but the evil is, that those
laws are not ,carried into effect. The law says
that si every person who shall corruptly take
any money or reward, directly tav indirectly,
under pretence or on account of helping any
pe,rson to any chattel, money, valuable security,
or other property whatsoever, which shall by any
felony or nusdeu4Anour have been stolen, &c.,
shall (unless he cause tire offender to be appre-
hended end brought to • trial for the same) be
guilty of felony, And, being convicted thereof,
shall be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to
10e transported beyond the seas fir if fo, or fin-
ality term not less than seven years, or to be im-
prisoned for any term not exceeding four years;
and, if a male, to be onpe, twice, or thrice pub-
licly pr privately whipped, if the. Court shall so
think fit, in fyldition to such imprisonment:—
This is what the bw says ; but the constant
practice says otherwise. Kepee thieves are en-
couraged to pursue their employment, by ob-
taining security as well as great gains in the dis.
rg)sal cf stolen goods s while police-officers, and
a certain class of attorneys, share their honour-
able profits...-,Morning Herald.

WINTER 4,6 SIZES.

MAIDSTONE, DEC. le.
THE CASE OF MR. AUSTIN.

No less than 13 true bills were yesterday returned
by the Grand Jury against this gentleman, for em-
bezzling and secreting divers sums of money the pro-
perty of his Majesty, which sums had passed into
his hands by virtue of the office he then held of
Deputy Treasurer of Greenwich Hospital.
The charge is thus stated in the Kent calendar ;--

" Austin aged 55, brought by habeas corpus
from his Majesty's gaol of Newgate; committed the
3d of September, 1828, by Sir R. Birnie, Knight,
charged on the oaths of W. Paine and others, for
that he the said Thomas Austin being a clerk and ser-
vant to our sovereign Lord the King,—to wit, De-
puty Treasurer of o;..eenwieli Hospital,—did feloni-
ously steal and embezzle the sum of 12,843/. 12s. 6d.,
the ne.onies of our said Lord the King.
" Detalne4 further charged on the oaths of Wm.
Paine and others trith feloniously stealing and em-
bezzling the sum of 6W. bss. 7d., the monies of our
said L.crd.the King, at Greenwich?'
It was expected the prisoner would have been
tried on one or more of the indictments this morn-
to the witnesses for the prosecution not
ing, before Mr. Justice Hnlroyd ; but owing, as is
ruracuredt
being all in attendance, the trial was postponed, and
now stands fixed for eight o'clock to-morrow morn-
ing (Friday.)
Messrs. Bolland and Broderit:k have been retain-
ed for the prosecution, and have Pngaged in seve-
ral long consultations with the hospital
solicitor, Mr.
Bicknell, relative, as is said, to some legal difficulties
which the-cases are expected to present.
• Messrs, Adolphus, Law, and Clarkson, are to
conduct the defence, and are expected to raise a va_
riety of objections to the form of the indictments,
which are framed under Mr. P,e,el's late act, for
murk: gifectually punishing frauds and embezzlements
by servants. Among other objections, it is said, it
will be urged that ur. Austin was not a servant of
;the King,—that he held hit aippointnteut under the
treaurer of the hospital, to whom he gave
security,
who was respunsible for his acts, and by whom 14.0,P
he could be deprived pf his office; and, consequently,
if the servant of any one, be was.the servant of the
treasure?, And not of the King. The rase excites
very great ititei.:4 throughout the country, and Op
Court is likely to be very crowded.
kiJAGLARY.—CharIes Currey, Wm. Bennett, John
Jones, and Thos. Green, were charged with break-
ing into the house of Mr. William Amer, the sign
a the 'Two Brewers at Lewisham, and stealing
therein two guns, several Mottles of spirits, and
other articles.

Verdict--. Guilty. Sentence of death recorded.