The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-15 00:00:00

CA ruing

LONDON, MONDAY, J7TLY 15, 1844.

The House of Commons met on Saturday, at
twelve o'clock, when Mr. GLADSTONE moved that
the Committee on the Railway Bill be postponed till
Thursday, as it, was his intention to propose certain
amendments.
The House went into Committee on the Poor-law
Amendment Bill, and several clauses were adopted.
In the course of the discussion on one clause, Mr.
WAKLEY made some remarks about incendiarism in
Nortblk and Suffolk, and seemed to attribute great
blame to the landlords and tenants for the nightly
conflagrations that were taking place in these
counties. This remark roused the ire of Mr. WODE.
MOUSE, who said the crime of incendiarism was as
common in other counties, and said no man was more
capable to give an opinion on incendiarism than Mr.
WAKLEY. This remark was not noticed at the time,
but on the motion that the Committee sit on Monday,
Mr. WAKLEY begged the attention of the House,
and adverted in language not to be misunderstood
to the imputations which public opinion had cast on
Ilia character., He knew well what Mr. WonE-
NOUSE meant by the remark—he had suffered much
from the imputation ; but never was any imputation
so unfounded. The case had been tried befoi-z,4 Sir
CHARLES ABBOTT (Lord TENTERDEN), the jury
returned a verdict for the whole amount claimed,
and the expeves were paid by his friends, and among
these was one !if the shareholders of the Fire In-
surance Company which had resisted the claim.
Mr. WonEuoUSE, on hearing this, apologised for
the attack he had made on Mr. WAKLEY, and the
Hooge adjourned.

The result of the Birmingham Election has sur-
prist-A ileAhee 0 big nor Tory. When it was known
that Mr. STCRGE would go to the poll, and set him-
self in opposition to the party with whom he had
bitherto,acted on all the great points of political im-
portance, no man had the slightest doubt that the
Tory candidate would be returned. Mr. SPOONER
owes his election to Mr. Sri:3mm. The town of Bir-
mingham, which obtained its franchise from a Liberal

Government, has now returned a Member who will
support the party that would not, but for the indomi-
table perseverance and moral, perhaps, also, physical
courage, of the inhabitants, have allowed one of the
most influential manufacturing towns of the kingdom
a vote in the Legislature. Birmingham had great merit
in • carrying the Reform Bilk No town did half
so much, and we should not be far wrong in stating
that all the towns together in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, did not make such an impression on the
House of Lords as Birmingham, when the inhabi-
tants, almost to a man,:assembled on New Hall-hill.
Now times are changed. Radical Birmingham re-
turns, a red hot Tory, and rejects a moderate Whig
and an ultra-Radical. Never had the Tories such
cause fur triumph. The men who call themselves
Liberals squabble with each other—they prefer per-
sonal interests to the good of their country—they
fight without any political national object, and allow
the remnants of a broken faction to seige the citadel
of Reform.

Sudbury is about to be disfranchised ; but
are there no other boroughs that deserve the same
fate ? Birmingham was the loudest for reform—it
obtained its object, and now turns round upon the
party that obtained for it a place among the repre-
sentative boroughs of England. Never was there
such political suicide. It is said that Mr. STURGE'S
party, when they found—and they knew the fact
from the beginning—that they had no chance, they
gave their votes to the Tories, because Mr. STURGE
considered himself ill-used. But are these the men
to rule the destinies of a country—men who throw
their principles to the wind to gratify some personal
pique or assert some miserable distinction, which
they cannot understand? The Tories say, and they
have good reason, that men like Mr. STURGE and
Mr. FEARGUS O'CoNNoR are their best friends ; they
divide the parties opposed to them, and of course the
Tories come in for the plunder. We will not add
another word of comment on this disgraceful pro-
ceeding. The result of the poll, and other circum-
stances, show that Mr. STURGE had not the slightest
chance of success, and that but for his party, a
Liberal candidate would have been returned.

In the discussion that took place in the House of
Commons, on Saturday last, on the subject of the
Poor-law• Amendment Bill, several remarks were made
respecting the necessity of educating the humbler
classes, which show that Hon. Members are at length
beginning to awake to a consciousness of the many
serious evils which are the inevitable results of popu-
lar ignorance. In this respect, Swing, it must be
confessed, has done some good, however unwittingly;
for had it not been for his alarming demon-
strations, we question much whether such a
House of Commons as we now possess—a House
elected for no other purpose, apparently, than
to promote the interest of the great landowners—
would not have allowed things to remain in
xtatu quo, and postponed the momentous question of
national education to the indefinite period of the
Greek Kalends. But Swing's vagaries are hints not
to be misinterpreted nor trifled with, and when the
agricultural Members find their tenants' barns blaz-
ing, they know not but it may be their cwn turn
next—" nam tua res agitur parks cum proximus
ardet." Hence we now find many of them full-
fraught with the discovery that the poorer classes,
more especially in the rural districts, are not quite so
illumined a 3 they had imagined them to be, and
professing their readiness to assist them to the
benefits of a cheap practical education. Alluding
to the benighted condition of these long-neglected
masses Mr. WAKLEY observed :—" The subject of the
education of the poor had always been postponed in
that House to other subjects, and, in consequence,
they now had the most ignorant population on the
face of the earth. They were a right-thinking and a
right-feeling people, but they had not the materials for
thought. If the people had been properly instructed,
would they have had the incendiarism which they
now had in Norfolk and Suffolk ? The moral, phy-
sical, and intellectual education of the masses had

been too long neglected. The religious question had
been made the great bone of contention, and the
poor children had been neglected." Severe as are
these animadversions, there is but too much

truth in them, as recent events have shown. We say
nothing of the midnight freaks of Swing, who,
with the destructive torch in his hand, may justly be
considered as the symbol of rustic ignorance ; but it

is not long since'it was proved beyond the possibility
of refutation, that of upwards of a hundred individuals
committed at the quarter sessions of two western
counties, at least two-thirds of them could neither
read nor write, and the remainder had had but the
scantiest possible share of education ! And yet, de-
spite these acknowledged and generally-known
facts, Colonel RUSHBROOKE had the folly to state
that the Honourable Member for Finsbury
was greatly mistaken when he ascribed the recent
incendiary fires to the deplorable ignorance of the
people ! If the fires in question do not originate
in ignorance, in what do they originate ?
In discontent, perhaps, induced by the pres-
sure of extreme poverty. Granted. We do not

for an instant deny the hypothesis ; but surely dis-
content would never have dreamed of manifesting
itself in such a manner, if it had not been for the
blank, besotted ignorance of the incendiaries! We do
not find Swing exhibiting his vagaries in the manu-
facturing districts, notwithstanding the deep and
general distress that has prevailed there with little
intermission for the last six years and upwards ? 'We
Rio not find him shaking his blazing torch over
the Scottish barns and hay-ricks. And why ? Because
in Scotland, as in the northern manufacturing coun-
tries, the humbler classes are, generally speaking, a far
better educated set of men than are to be met with in
the agricultural districts of England. But the question
is scarcely worth discussion, and admits not even
of a doubt. The plain truth is—and it is a truth
that cannot be too often or too earnestly insisted
on—that at least one-third, we might almost

go further, and say one-half, of the crimes com-
mitted by the poorer classes have their origin in
ignorance. As for the idea of Arcadian innocence

and simplicity—notwithstanding Mr. BANKES' asser-
tion that these virtues are still to be found vegetating

n full luxuriance in Dorsetshire, under the shadow of

his own park-walls—it is a mere delusion,—

a theme fit enough for poets, but not for

with the stern