The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-02 00:00:00

tore taxes than Scotland, the whole of the fel tile
land of which would hardly make one good Irish
county ?—Cunning Isaac ! But cunning some-
times over-reaches itself. Whnt, for instance,
do Englishmen who have lived in Ireland say
One and all say, that the improvements in Ire-
land, by which land can be made productive, are
out of the question. Parkinson, an experimental
English farmer, who lived on the beautiful estate of
the Marquis of Conyngham, tells us, in his volume
on Irish Farming, that he could keep nothing in
Ireland. " The English Farmer, (he says) will
scarcely imagine what I mean, nor can lie form an
idea of the many sorts of thieving that are practised.
There is nothing in the farm that they were not apt
to steal if opportunity offered The
stealing of turnips is so common, that few people
dare even to sow any on that account.
Generally speaking, the people who inhabit the
cabins are all thieves; but as their crimes are of a
trifling nature, such as stealing the stubble from the
laud, turnips, hay, straw, &c. they mostly get off
with impunity I have known from
twenty to thirty such robberies committed in a day ;
and I used to remark its singularity if a day passed
without them. f housands of these people have no
fuel to burn nor money to buy any with. . . . .
1 cannot avoid mentioning one species of theft that
was new to me, namely, pulling the wool off the
sheeps' backs when alive in the field. They will
also take regularly from the land both cow-dung and
sheep dun;; the former to burn, the latter tinder
the pretence .that it is waisted for scouring of thread.
And it is a farther trait in the character of these people,
that they never betray their fellows, but will readily
take an oath to clear one another of the petty depre-
dations I have mentioned." The Irish irr England
do not pilfer, but live by their industry ; they pilfer
in Ireland, because they must live. But is that
a state of things in which a country can be impro-
ved ? Who would settle in a country in which
there is a general conspiracy against property ?--
"It is cerviinly,' observes Parkinson, " a great
deal better for the community at large that a man
should earn much and spend much; for if the lower
sort of people could by Any means contrive to live on
a penny a day, and should endeavour to earn no more,
it would be the ruin of the country in which it took
place. Nor do I think it policy, in another respect,
for the lower orders of people live at little expence ;
for I have. observed in the people in question, that
when they have got their potatoes in, and have paid
for them, a feeling of independence and a habit of in-
dolence comes on, as if they thought having food for the
year, they might keep holiday fora while." The Earl of
Limerick will not have the Poor Laws in Ireland,
but he would very generously throw the Irish Poor
for support on England. "Among other matters
(said he) Earl Darnley had spoken of emigration
from Ireland to England. Did the Noble Earl mean
to say, that the Irish were not permitted to seek
employment in this country ? Was the unhappy
wretch to be stopt on his first landing, and tent
back again ? Were the parish officers to tell him,
you eakry want and misery on your front, but you
must not come here to pollute our shores—go back.' "
There would be no inhumanity in Irish Landholders
breeding paupers to be maintained in England: but
there would be great inhumanity in rescuing the
English labourers from the poverty which threatens
them from Irish immigration. It would be most in-
human to take a pittance from the rent of the Irish
Landowner for the support of those from whose
Litmus he derives his luxuries and tornforts; bat it
would act be inhuman to reduce the English la-
bourer to the level of Irish wretchedness. This is
the morality of an Irish aristocrat ! Humanity !
douce humanite. He would continue the wretehedi
ness of one nation, and reduce another to the same
wretchedness—et tout pour la trope. The Duke of
Wellington justly observed, that " the Poor Laws
of this country are applied,. and the great burthen
which attends that part of the lass is, that it re-
quires work shall be furnished to the able-bodied.
The reason why this system must be pursued in
Ireland if the Poor Laws are once established there,
is not merely that these persons retittire ettiphi\-therit
anti rc,a, but in truth if work is not furnished and
food given to these able-bodied persons, they will
immediately fall sick ; and I beg your Lordships to
look to this, that if this is a burthen on the landed
property of Ireland, you must suffer, for if it is ad-
mitted to be necessary to give food to the sick while
it is refused to the able-bodier4 the consequence will
be, that half Cie population will claim them, for no-
body will work, and when they fall sick they will
come on the rates." No doubt. But in order to
die establishment of Poor Laws, some concomitant
measures should be attempted at the expence of the
nation, in order not to throw the whole burden on
the Irish landholder at once. However, the question
is shortly this—shall Ireland remain For ever a great
lazar house, and allow her capabilities to be unpro-
fited by—or shall some great effort be made to give
security to property, that industry may find a re-
ward ? As long as the poor shall be suffered to re-
main in their present hopeless state, Ireland must
be without law, and property the offspring of se-
curity.—Morning Chronicle.
The condition of that most afflicted class of human
beings, the pauper lunatics, has long been a disgrace
to this enlightened and Christian country. Among
the charities with which England abounds there was
no establishment affording refuge, protection, and
the means of cure, to-those persons who, labouring
under the two•fold visitation of pauperism and the
loss of reason, are, of all the children of misfortune,
the most pitiable objects of human sympathy. The
places that went by the name of Lunatic Asylums
were, in too many instances, places of lunatic torture
—places where ignorance and cruelty combined to
inflict upon their helpless 'victims the greatest pos-
sible quantity of suffering and degradation, The
heart sickens at the details of the odious and dis-,
gusting treatment to which pauper lunatics have
been subjected, as such treatment has been described
on different occasions, by Committees of Inquiry.
The Bill now in the House of Lords relative to
this subject, called the Pauper Lunatics' Asylum
Bill, will, we trust, have the effect of pre-
venting the• recurrence of scenes se painful to
humanity. The enabling counties to erect Pauper
Lunatic Asylirrins, under proper regulations, will
be the means of taking those unfortunate persons
'auf of the 'hands of ignorant, pretending, and
rapacious quacks, who often speculated upon making
fortunes by driving a loathsome traffic in the misery
of those wretched people, and who regarded their
situation in no other light than as it could be Made
a means of ministering to their cupidity. At the
same time, while we advocate the principle, we
think it not unnecessary to entreat the Legislature
to make such provisions fn tht gin as sisal! prevent
county lunatic asylums from being made the subject
of county,jobs—a thing that cannot be too severely
guarded against, as the history of too many public
and charitable institutions abundantly proves. The
other principle which the Bill embraces—that of not
only affording refuge and support to the inmates of
those asylums, but the means of curing them—can-
not be too highly commended. A kind and judi-
cious moral treatment has been proved to be suc-
cessful in restoring the inestimable blessing of rea-
son in cases which the advocates of coercion and
cruelty have pronounced hopeless. The Lunatics'
Regulation Bill, which is also before the House of
Lords, contains sonic beneficial provisions, one of
which is the removal of the power of granting
licenses to persons to keep lunatic asylums from the
Royal College of Physicians, by whom such licenses
were too often granted to improper persons, as ex-
perience testifies. Another is the requiring more
satisfactory evidence than before of the insanity of
a person intended to be placed in a lunatic asylum ;
though ori this point the Bill has riot yet gone far
enough, and ought to be amended.—Morn. Herald.
'eci,

Under the 10th of Nlarch, letters from St.
Jago de Cuba state, that the coffee crop did not promise to
be abundant this season. Freights for Antwerp alone
seemed to be in requisition, and 41. 165., with 10 per cent.,
were offered.