The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-10 00:00:00

k Ay`4 I„Lv

LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1844.

Mr. FERRAND is one of those men who with zeal,
energy, and perseverance, backed by good intentions,
make no way in public life, but decline rather than
rise in the estimation of the community at large, and
this in exact proportion to the efforts they make to
be useful. The reason of this ill-success on the part
of the Hon. Member for Knaresborough, is, we think,
sufficiently obvious. He has spirit, but not judg-
ment—ability, but not an atom of discretion—in
he boa ..•cry aortao but ecmmOl7 sense. In every
thing he says—in every question he takes up—he is
ever in extremes. Moderation and prudence of lan-
guage he scouts with contempt, as matters beneath
his consideration, and seems to think that the true
secret of eloquence--the art of making an im-
pression on the public mind consists in
hyperbole ani virulent declamation. The con-
sequence of this mistaken notion is, that
Mr. FERNAND'S speeches, whether within or without
the walls of Parliament, though they may startle for
the moment, produce not the slightest permanent
effect ; and after the first surprise is over, no one
thinks it worth his while to burden his memory with
the arguments, the sentiments, or the overcharged
statements, contained in them. The Hon. Gentle-
man, we see, has been recently edifying his Knares •
borough constituents with his opinions de omnibus
rebus, et quibusdam aliis, and in the course of the
fervid and incoherent harangue which he threw off
to them, after abusing all parties with nearly equal
heartiness, he assured them that it was his firm
persuasion that " England had become a nation
of humbugs." Now, has Mr. FERNAND, who
talker thus glibly about humbugs no, recol-
lection of having published a letter in the papers,
Wherein he
_stated, in no very equivocal terms, that
he owed his return to Parliament in a great degree
to the bribery that had been practised among his con-
stituents ? Our memory, we think, does not deceive
us in this matter ; we have an impression that we not
only read, but commented on the letter in question
at the time it appeared ; and we now ask Mr. FER•
RAND how—after having penned such a communica-
tion—he can have the face to come forward and launch
a wholesale charge of humbug against his country-
men, when he himself, on his own showing, stands
convicted of having practised the art in its highestper-
fection at his last election. But this is not the only
instance of rash, headstrong assertion contained in
the Hon. Member's address to his constituents at
Knaresborough. Speaking of the New Poor-law—
to some of whose provisionx, by the bye, .we fear no
greater good will remit than he does himself—he ob-
served :—" It is a remarkable coincidence, that since
this law was passed, England his never known what
it is to rest in peace. The New Poor-law has sown
the seeds of rebellion. In the northern districts strife
and dissension have reared their bold fronts, while the
south has been wrapped in flames by the incendiary."
What a reckless statement is this. The insurrection
in the manufacturing counties, some two or
three years since, had nothing on earth to do with the
New Poor-law, but originated solely in the depressed
state of trade, and the generdl strike among the
operatives for higher wages. As regards incendiarism
Mr. Faxitasin's remark is equally unfounded, for
this atrocious crime was first knOwn in England, and
was most generally perpetrated dn the autumn and
Winter of the 3 ear 1830, at which period the New
Poor-law was 14 in existence ! What reliance
can be placed on a politician who can make asser

tions like these with such an . utter disregard of
accuracy ! With the Ilonourable Member's quarrel
with Sir JAMES GILAHAM we do not interpose
=for th? Right Honourable Baronet is no fa-
vourite of ours, and we have not the slightest in-
elinationto fight his battles; but.when Mr. FEREAND

save of Sir RonEnr PEEL, "he will not hesitate, if
you keep him in office, to sacrifice the religion which
he professes; and I know full well that there is not

-
a Protestant in England but believes that he is

stealthily and furtively aiming a deadly blow at the
Protestant religion in Ireland," we must enter our

protest against his statement as a most unfounded
calumny. To break up the monopoly of the Dublin
University, and put education on a more rational
footing throughout Ireland, is not t,) destroy the Pro-
testant religion of that country, but on the contrary,
to strengthen its foundations, and increase its effi-
ciency. Though no very impassioned admirers of the
rremier, we deem it to be doing him no more than
i uitice to say, that there is not a public man in the
empire, not even the Bishops, who is more desirous to
maintain inviolate the interests of Protestantism than
Sir R. PEEL.

Among the chronicles ,if worthless follies perpe
trated by the aristocracy, whose fortunate destiny has

decreed to them an unlimited coffer land of the means
and the modes of personal enjoymea at, those which re-
cord their exploits against birds nnd hares, with double-
barrelled (MANTos's, or MOOT.E'S, or PURDY'S) pigeon
guns, are among the most er,sotisticl and nauseating.
It were well for a vast community of their fellow-
countrymen -if the results of this intense devotion to
sylvan slaughter, for we shall not designate the in-
dolent and facile amusements of which we speak as
" sporting"—a designation to which it has no legiti-
mate claim—it would be well, we say, if the results
were simplydistasteful—a chronic nuisance ;—a great
bore ;—a stupid farce. It would be well if the
only mischief provoked by impertinent announce-
ments, that on such a day his Royal Highness, or
his Grace, or the Earl of This, or Sir Robert That,
repairing at an early hour to a grand battu on the
Marquis of —'s preserves, or Lord —'s woods,
" which are known to be swarming with game, and, in
the short space of three hours, with only three guns
to the party "—brought down any imaginable num-
her of pheasants you please, or shot more hares than
could be carried away in all the keepers' carts. A
true sportsman, who feels no pleasure in killing unless
his game have had a fair chance, who would rather
fag a whole day over a broken country to bag half-a-
dozen brace of birds, which at the close of his work
he can look upon with quiet complacency at his own
skill and energy, than knock down in well preserved
covers, with double shots right and left, poor devils
who have not a chance of escape where men have two
eyes to look, and two barrels to shoot with ; and
whose fate is equally sealed, if, flying from the random
misses of Lord HENRY, they are exposed to a volley
from half-a-dozen Honourable Masters, whose guns,
however badly pointed, club one chance shot out of
their combined charges which finds the brain or the
heart of its bright-plumaged victim. Yet these six
" Honourable" bunglers, and their titled companions
of the cover, of corrector eye and steadier hand,
equally plume themselves on the wonders of their
prowess. The poor keepers and servants, the men
who load, and carry, and hand their pieces—the boys
who mark for them—the little, yaffling spaniels, who
run on and pick up the birds for them, and whose
contributions to the products of the day are surely
more important than their own comparatively stand-
still and mechanical operations—are never mentioned
in the grandiloquent paragraphs which announce to
an astonished world that Lord GEORGE shot the un-
heard-of number of 212 head of game with his
own gun.
In a morning paper of yesterday we find the fol-
lowing announcement, touching an illustrious gen-
tleman, who has acquired a high degree of pseudo-
reputation as " the farmer's friend," par excellence :
"The Duke of 'Becrusicuest, the Marquis of
CHANDOS, and a select shooting party, had some ex-
cellent sport during the last week. On Saturday
week the Noble Duke and party, with nine guns,
brought down three hundred head of game on the
Noble Duke's preserves at Upper Winchindon; and
on Monday the noble sportsmen shot over the
Westcott preseries (called Gipsey Bottom), and
with sixteen guns killed four hundred head of game.'
Here are two appeals to the obsequious admiration of
the uninitiated. The nine guns of his Grace and
friends in the Upper Winchindon preserves, dropped
300 head of game ; that is to say, 33 and one-third
(for the importance of such matters demands that we
should be particular to fractions) to each gun. On
a subsequent day, the Ducal fowler and his party,
being 16 guns in all, demolished 400 head of
game in the Gipsey Bottom preserves, or
25 head to each gun. Pretty fair this
account for the work per man on one property ; six-
teen brace and better one day, twelve brace and a half
the next, is the average return for each gun. But
if seven hundred head of game were slaughtered in
two days only, on but two preserves of all the broad
lands of Stowe, what may we infer the aggregate
quantity to be on all the Buckingham estates in
Bucks, Hants, &c. ? And of that vast aggregate,
what shall we reckon the daily consumption, occa-
sioned by the pillage of cottage gardens, the destruc-
tion of young corn, the barking of young trees ? And
let us take the accumulated amount of all this damage
in a season at as high a figure as we may, or as the
fiercest opponent of the Game-laws assumes it in
arguing againo them, how molecular a point does the
social or civil wrong it involves represent, con-
trasted with the fearful sum of human misery
and suffering, of criminal excitement and law-
less violence and murder, which is to be ascribed
to the partial protection—the arbitrary privilege,
which our code of Game-laws throws around this
species of property—or, rather, the childish manner of
dealing with it. For it is the disgrace of an era of
civilisation, the shame and mockery of a country of
free institutions, to tolerate enactments of so despotic,
insolent, and fraud-encouraging a description as
these. We found statutes on the book, dictated by
the stern, unreasoning demands of a military no-
bility, on behalf of the strongest passion, next to that
of rapine, of which they were susceptible—conceded
by intimidated or heedless national councils—con-
firmed by the wants or weakness of the SOVEREIGN
to his more formidable Barons, and the armed
feadatories of his Crown, and submitted to by the
people implicitly, or with murmurs and reluctance in
proportion as they, were brought to understand, or
were able to vindicate the rights derived from their
ancestors. In the process of time we thus got rid of
the most odious of the forest laws, with their san-
guinary penalties of mutilation and death. Iron
penalties they were, decreed, indeed, by iron-hearted
men, but against bold outlaws and fearless foresters,
who—

" Through each deep dingle of the forest hoar,
Chased the fleet hart, or spear'd the savage boar,"
ith bold front and open hand. If "fere nature"
were then, as they have since been declared, chattels
in which property could be lawfully established, it
must be confessed that our ancestoral lords of the soil
had their plea for the vengeance they visited upon its
violation ; namely, that it was invaded in a most waste-
ful and wanton manner. In those good times when
"stout Earls" were subject to such impromptu excite-
ments as to vow upon the Cross "to take their plea-
sure" in the " woods" of other stout Earls on the oppo-
site side of the Border, with a somewhat significant
escort of "full five hundred fighting men," it was na-
tural for the party so threatened with such un-
bidden guests to tremble for the safety of other
possessions besides his venison. But we moderns have
not the excuse to be pleaded for our forefathers. We
legislated in the year of grace 1843 for the honour
and glory and monopoly of a mere caprice, with as
much of grim coolness and relentless severity as those
forefathers would have done in 1348 for the mere
reverential approaching of the holy Rood. We
have surrounded the game with penal and specific
statutes that we deny to the protectors of human life,
or limb, or property—against the great bulk of the
people. Yet we have done so only to secure the de-
struction of that game, and their mutilation in mem-
bers to a privileged class. We visit with detestable
penalties of fine, imprisonment, and transportation,
offences of trespass against game by reason of no cer-
tificate qualification to sport ; by reason of snaring,
shooting, or otherwise taking game off the lands
on which it is found. Yet we legalise the sale
of game, where the commodity is supplied
by, or with the consent of, the landed owner
to the retail dealer. Thus, we give a premium, be-
sides holding out a temptation, to the midnight spoils-
tions of the poacher. The poacher thinks, perhaps,
that it is hard for titled fowlers to be at liberty to
knock on the head 700 hares and pheasants in two

days, which they may sell—if they please—for, say,
one shilling a piece, and though he has no chance of

getting 351. in two days, he thinks it would be plea

sant to make 355. in two or three "cloudy nights,'

by helping himself from their assumed stock—there
to-day, here to-morrow. The owner grants depu-

tations to gamekeepers.

These come into bloc,dy

collision with the poachers. Outrages, assaults, mur-
ders follow in the train of the hatred thus engendered

between the two classes of men. Our gaols swarm
with poachers for trial; our hulks with poachers

convicted ; our penal settlements with p- cachers

who have taken some further but inevit-

able degree in crime. Deserted families, ruined
households, abandoned callings, desolate wives,

unfathered children, loss of liberty, loss of life, the

reprobation of friends, the rejection of society, despe-

ration, new excesses of crime, new criminal associa-

tions to incite to them—desolation, vengeance, and
despair—these are the daily gathered fruits of laws to
which no man who upholds them attributes any pur-
pose of benefit beyond securing to the aristocracy the

schoolboy, unsportsmanlike, paltry pleasure of exter-
minating game, on high days and holidays, with as
little trouble or art as if the birds were barn-door
fowls, or geese grazing on a village-green. But
justice does not sleep ! Oh, no ! She has a
" red right arm " for the poacher, it is true—
though on a balance of the good effected by
the offence of the one, or the injury perpetrated by
the pleasures of the other, it may be a grave question
whether the poacher is not much more the farmer's
friend than the Duke. But justice has also a hand
for the ruffian whose brutal violence breaks a woman's
arm, even at the humble feast which her hospitality
has accorded to him ; and with this hand justice exacts
from the brutal delinquent—a 51. note! Verily this
cannot be that old justice which was used to be "even-
handed."

Madrid journals of the 2,1 inst. have been received.
General Pam had arrived at Cordova, on his way to
Cadiz, where he was to be shipped for the Marianne
islands. He was in a very bad state of health, and
his mother had hastened to Madrid in order to peti-
tion the QUEEN that her son might be sent to Cuba
or Porto Rico, in place of the Marianne Islands, the
climate of which, it is feared, would be fatal to him ;
but the NA.EVAEZ Government cruelly prohibited an
interview. The eighth section of the Reform Bill,
relative to the minority of the Sovereign and the
Regency, was discussed on the 2d, and that clause
of it which conferred the Regency on the nearest re-
lative was carried by a large majority.
The Three per Cents. closed at 30 for cash, and
30f at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents. at '2l for
cash, and 21i at 60 days.

The robberies and murders which have been com-
mitted in Paris and the suburbs for the last eight or
nine years, and the conviction of a gang of fifteen
which had long infested the metropolis, has at last
induced the Prefect of Police to adopt some measures
for the protection of the inhabitants. The first step,
says one of the journals, is to increase the patrols,
each of which is to consist of not fewer than three
men. This, however, will afford but a trifling relief,
for, from all accounts,. never was there a race of
constables, not even the old watchmen of London, so
utterly useless as the present guardians of the French
capital. In 1836 the band of felons just convicted
commenced their operations, and since that yedr a
vast number of crimes have been committed with im-
punity, not one of them having been at all interrupted
in their course by the interference of the police. The
noise of the scuffles in the streets, says the Consti-
tutionnel, the cries of the victims, have brought the
inhabitants to the windows, but they durst not
descend ; yet the tumult caused by these savage
assailants, and by the desperate resistance of their
unhappy victims taken unawares, never brought
to the scene of crime one patrol, one
constable, or a single individual of a body
formed for the protection of the public.
Nay, more. After the robbery, the thieves were
generally allowed to escape peaceably with their
booty. Only one had been caught, because he had
not the sense to throw away the heavy load with
which he was encumbered. It appears these male-
factors were at last discovered, not by the police, but
by a leader of the gang, who betrayed his comrades.
This journal recommends a system of police like that in
existence here, but with still more authority and power.
It is surprising that in a city like Paris, and with a
Government so watchful and generally careful of the
public safety, scenes should have been allowed to con-
tinue which would disgrace Rome and Madrid. The
Journal des Debuts has another article on the election
of Mr. Pola to the Presidency, which it considers
unfavourable to order and the cordial union of the
northern and southern States. " This time," it says,
" the question was more clearly than ever a struggle
between the north and the south—between the free
and the slaves states, which have opposite interests.
Of all the characteristics of this election, this is per-
haps the most annoying. In fine, this election, by the
very choice which it has made, appears not a fit one
to resolve the difficulties in which the States have
been place& for the last eight years. For such a re-
sult, a firm and able hand like Mr. CLAY'S would
have been necessary. It has brought forward in re-
lief the tendencies which may become dangerous to
the repose of the States, and even for the maintenance
of the union. As to the great questions of the
custom-house tariff and Texas, there appears little
propability of their being soon settled. But the elec-
tion of Mr. POLK having opened the field to many
intrigues, and having set public affairs adrift, to be
acted upon by accidental causes, and passim.: unex-
pected influences, it is impossible to foretell wit. ^.n 7
certainty what may occur in America during the
next four years in regard to the conduct of public
affairs."

A Toulouse paper called the Emancipation has
published a letter from Otaheite, describing in the
most violent language the conduct of the English
missionaries, to whom they attribute all the disturb-
ances in the island. The following extract is a speci-

men :

" It is now evident that it is solely to the perfidious
councils of some wicked men, who cannot relinquish
their old instinct of internal hatred, that the present de-
plorable state of this country is due. These men cannot
see a regular and strong authority established in a coun-
try where they were nearly masters, and where their
intrigues, seconded by their influence over Queen Po-
mare—a poor, spiritless woman, replete with vanity—
gave them a supremacy which they have not feared to
make even Europeans often feel. They, therefore, had
rather see the unfortunate Otaheitans perish by famine,
or decimated by our grape-shot, than see them escape
their yoke, and live quietly and happily under French
authority. Nothing is spared to deceive them, and keep
up their hostility to us ; the most absurd tales, and most
extravagant promises—everything, in short, is resorted
to for the purpose Every day the insurgents ascend
the mountains to discover the English fleet that is to ex-
terminate us."
The National, as a matter of course, believes every
word of the latter, and thus attacks the Government
and the English :
" The Emancipation's correspondent has still the good
nature to ask whether the French Government will de-
mand some reparation of that of Great Britain ? We,
unfortunately, know, on this side of the ocean, what is
to be expected. Instead of demanding reparation, we
have sacrificed the men who bad worthily upheld the
honour of France against the odious intrigues of Eng-
land. But how has the disavowal which has fallen on
those men been received at Otaheite ? This the Go-
vernment knows but takes care not to tell. It has re-
ceived dispatches, and, according to its custom, it keeps
them shut up in the navy department's cartons, or in
other cartons which it is useless to name. The report
has, nevertheless, spread that the English frigate Carys-
fort, which carried to Otaheite the disavowal of Admiral
Dupetit Thouars, has been received by the French with
indignation. It is even said that their emotion has been
so great that some artillerymen have threatened to fire
on the friendly ship which brought the news of the dis-
avowal of the Admiral and Zof his being superseded.
The Ministry will, probably, not explain themselves ,re-
garding these rumours ; but the Chamber well know
how to force them to it, provided the Chamber have in
their heart a single drop of blood which runs in the veins
of our countrymen, who are exposing their lives yonder
in defending our flag against the enemies of France."
The French Three per Cents. were quoted a
TORTONI'S, on Sunday, at 84f.

ROBBERY IN THE ClTY.—This morning informa-
tion was forwarded to the various metropolitan and City
police-offices and stations of the following extensive rob-
bery of goods, &c., having been committed between the
hours of half-past five, P.M., on Saturday the 7th, and
nine o'clock yesterday morning, at the warehouse of Mr.
James Oldham, No. 96, Wood-street, Cheapside, viz.,
50} pieces of fancy Brussels handkerchiefs, 2 pieces of
black silk ditto, 7 pieces of spun ditto ditto, 8 ditto Corah
ditto, 1 ditto and 7 silk handkerchiefs, 69 fancy Brus-
sels of varions patterns, 9 black satin ditto, 57fancy ditto,
33 pieces of chequed and fancy vestings, 24 yards of
figured and chequed ditto, 129} yards of rich French
satin, 52 yards black satin, 431 ditto ditto, 12k ditto
fancy ditto, 1041 ditto figured ditto, 21i ditto velvet, 89i
ditto vestings, 1,423 silk and satin scarfs of various qua-
lities and colours, and about
.94 in silver. A reward of
50/. is offered.

WOOLEY, TUB BRISTOL
.MERCHANT, ANI) MISS
DRYERS.—The Liverpool Albion states that these two
persons have been, for the last six months, and are at
this moment residing under the same t oof, in Liverpool,
dining together at the same board, and living just as
happily as if no fictitious correspondence had ever taken
place, or as if there had been no Miss Mary Ann Mor-
gan, no marriage in London, no 47,000/. in the distance,
no charge made at Union-hall, and as if all had been a
dream, a short, unpleasing, delusive dream At what
precise period after the examination at Union-hall Mr.
Wooley and Miss Br} ere came again together and made
up their little differences report saith not. But, with
out attempting to draw aside the veil which surrounds
this interesting epoch in Mr, Wonley's pventfal life, the
fact appears to be, that that gentleman, ace.orapanied by
Miss Bryers, came to Liverpool about six months since,
purchased the good-will of a public house, No. 10,
Frederick street, and that, from being a Bristol mer
chant, ha transformed himself into a Liverpool lict nsed
victualler, _ _ .

DRAYTON MANOR.—in consequepcp of the death
of the Dowager Lady Floyd, Sir Robert. and Lady I'M
will be prevented from receiving company at the manor
tbie winter•