The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-22 00:00:00

fil 0/nlin 14 *Mt

LONDON, WT DNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1845.

Extremes meet, they say, and we will just give a
striking fact, or two, in illust ration of this old adage.
On the very same day that the columns of ou;.
Contemporaries were filled with descriptions of her
MAJE3TY's visit to Stowe, and of the abundant signs
of lavish wealth, luxury, and magnificence that every-
where met her eye
,as she traversed the halls of that
prlocely fabric—the rare old pictures, the matchless
marble statues, the valuable books and manuscripts,
the golden candelabra, and numerous other costly
articles ,of vertu—on the same day, we repeat, that
she COltiljaliii of our Contemporaries were full of

descriptions of these things, they contained also the
following case of exquisite privation and suffering,
which stands out in edifying contrast to their glowing
details of the splendours and luxuries of Stowe. At
the Canterbury Police-court a poor woman, named
MARY HAMILTON, was charged with having stolen a
broom, the property of a Mr. JACKSON. It appeared
that she had gone into the prosecutor's shop on pre-
text of making some trifling purchase, and while there
had purloined the article in question, which she sub-
sequently sold to a baker for eighteenpennyworth of
bread. In her defence, the prisoner urged that she
was goaded to the theft by intense hunger, for neither
she nor her children had tasted any food since the
preceding morning; but the fact of the petty larceny
having been clearly established against her, she was
committed for trial at the quarter sessions. " What
rendered her case particularly affecting," observes the
reporter, " was that she had a child in her arms, and
was surrounded by six others, the eldest not eleven
years old ; some were shoeless, others were without
covering to the head, and all were in rags, the pic-
tures of misery and wretchedness, awaiting with
excessive anxiety, and tears in their eyes, the fate of
their distressed parent; and it was also known that
there was another child of the same family in the
hospital, and a ninth roaming about. The prisoner's
cries of lamentation, mingled with those of her chil-
dren, were deeply affecting, and would have moved
hearts sterner than those of the bench, all of whom
felt much for the family." These cases of squalid,
hopeless destitution are, unfortunately, daily becoming
more frequent among us. Indeed, concurrently with
the march of affluence and luxury appear to proceed
the march of squalid, gaunt, bare-ribbed poverty ; and
while one portion of society is absolutely rolling in
riches, and scarcely knowing what to do with its
superabundant wealth, another is a prey to distress in
its most ghastly form, rotting by inches in garrets or
cellars, devoid alike of food and raiment, and grateful
for such broken victuals as" the lowest menial in
respectability's kitchen would reject with contempt
and loathing. As a necessary consequence of this
state of abject destitution among the humbler classes,
crime is increasing among them at a fearful ratio, and
not only crime of an ordinary character, but cri:ne
of the blackest and most hideous complexion it is pos-
sible to conceive. Parricide, observes a correspondent
in a Morning Contemporary, rises into a common
occurrence ; children slain by parents, themselves
goaded by starvation and the workhouse into despera-
tion ; whole families extinguished by arsenic. In
Somersetshire a daughter poisons her father, saying
to her sister, "We shall do better without him." In
Suffolk a grandmother destroys her grand-daughter
by the same means, and for the same reason. Near
Bridgewater a widow makes away with her daughter,
mother, and brother, and she had probably made away
with her husband. And while these horrid deeds, at
which humanity sickens, are in course of almost daily
perpetration, how are numbers of the upper and
middle classes of society occupied ? In building new
churches and chapels, forsoo'.h ; in mixing themselves
up with questions of Tractarianism and anti-Tracta-
rianism ; and in sending forth missionaries to the
East and the islands of the Pacific, for the purpose
of affording religious and moral instruction to those
who do not require it half so much as thousands of
our own ignorant and demoralised poor ! It is clear
that something must be done, and speedily too, to
remedy this alarming state of things. It is vain to
boast of the flourishing state of the revenue, and of
the marked improvement that has lately taken place
in the manufacturing districts, while thousands and
tens of thousands of our labouring population con-
tinue in their present debased condition, without
even the commonest rudiments of instruction, and
ready victims of reckless desperation, induced by the
iron pressure of distress, which suvests all sorts of
atrocities. The " Condition of England" question is
by far the most important—the most pressing ques-
tion of the day, and should be the first to engage the
undivided attention of Parliament in the session which
is so close at hand.

The state of the Protestant Church now impera-
tively calls for the interference of Parliament. The
Bishops hare been appealed to in defence of the Re-
formed Religion. The heresies of Oxford, the Popish
rites and ceremonies practised in many churches, and
the commotion excited among the people by the
wicked attempts of perjured men to destroy the great
work of the Reformation, have all been placed before
their eyes in vain. Archbishops and Bishops are
alike deaf to the voice of reason, and their own solemn
engagements ; they have resolved to march to Rome,
and rather than be defeated in their purpose are de-
termined to risk all consequences. The scenes which
have been exhibited at Exeter for the last two or
three Sundays reflect the greatest disgrace upon
the order of Bishops. Striplings from Oxford
imbued with the new doctrines, and looking up to
their superiors for patronage, are encouraged to in-
sult the unanimous voice of the public, to treat with
contempt the most respectful and urgent remon-
strances against a departure from the usual modes of
public worship, to prefer the orders, or rather the
well-known propensities of their patrons, to the well-
being of their flocks—and their just reward is universal
execration. They are deserted in their churches,
hooted and mobbed in the streets, and obliged to
appeal to the civil force for protection even in their
own houses. The patrons of church livings, the Legis-
lature, to which the Established Reformed Church
owes its existence, and the QUEEN herself, the head of
the Establishment, cannot any longer stand by
inactive spectators, when the appointed shep-
herds of the flock have shown themselves rene-
gades, or incompetent to their duty. Let
the people, therefore, throw the Bishops en-
tirely out of the question ; let them apply for pro-
tection to the right quarter; to the Crown and the
two Houses of Parliament, and demand their rights
as Protestants. To desert the Establishment or
erect free churches would be a great folly and a great
sin. This is what the new sect want. Could the
Puseyite Bishops only get rid of the staunch sup-
porters of the Protestant religion, and be at the same
time allowed to retain their large incomes and their
enormous patronage, they flatter themselves that
in time all would be right, that they would speedily
assert their supreme spiritual authority, and
again unite with Rome to elevate the Church
above human laws, and put down that spirit
of justice and independence which has ever
been so fatal to ecclesiastical dominion. The
people of the diocese of Exeter may rest assured that
they have the sympathies of all good Protestants, that
they will be supported to the utmost by the Legis-
lature, and in due time shall obtain their just reward.
Never, perhaps, in the whole history of commotions
in this country, and these are not few, was there ever
such a general, a determined, and a cordial hatred of
a new sect, as that which now prevails against these
wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Independent of the rumour of the Emperor of
RUSSIA'S death, the accounts from St. I'etersburgh
for some time have been of a very unfavourable cha-
racter. Sickness in the Royal Family, it is said, has
prevented the usual routine of balls and Court
amusements ; rumours of changes in the system of
Government have prevailed, and it has even been in-
ferred that there is a party around the throne more
powerful than the throne itself, and fully determined
also to assert their power. Of the vast influence of
the nobles and their retainers there can be no doubt,
and a very striking instance of the fact has been fur-
nished within the last eighteen months. The EM-
PEROR, aware of the wretched condition of the serfs
throughout his vast dominions, and anxious to raise
them in the scale of human beings, as well for their
own sake as the security of the throne, had issued an
ukase, the object of which evidently was to prepare
the way for their gradual emancipation. The
lords of the soil took the alarm, rebelled against the
royal will, and in a very few weeks afterwards the
humane decree was withdrawn. Such a display of
feeling on the part of the SOVEREIGN, however, could
not fail to produce a strong effect; it showed these
arbiters of royal destiny that the power, not the will,
was wanting to interfere with their privileges, and
led them to believe that, at a fit opportunity, the
design might be carried into effect. Have they,
therefore, been forming schemes to ward off the
danger, to lay their SOVEREIGN under restraint, and
remind him that he was placed on the throne, not by
right of descent, but by their sole will and pleasure ?
Judging from past events, and present appearances,
there is but too much ground for suspicion.
The EMPEROR, it must have been observed,
makes all his journies in the most expeditious

manner; not one seems to know when he is
to leave his capital or when he is to return ;
he affords no time for preparing plots during his ab-
sence ; even when he undertook the important visit to
England, and honoured our QUEEN with his pre-
sence, as little was known of his departure at St.
Petersburgh as at London, where every one was
taken by surprise. This is one of the penalties which
despots pay for what has been called their unlimited
power, though it is in reality the power of a system
of which the Sovereign is the head. He bears all
the blame ; he endures all the anxieties and horrors
surrounding a throne unprotected by the lower and
middle classes—unprotected, in fact, by any class ex-
cept that which reigns alike over the King and the
peasant, and which sacrifices all others to its own
selfish interests. He sits on a volcano, and every
symptom of change, imaginary and real, overwhelms
him with the terror of an explosion. Even the
Emperor ALEXANDER, with all his good and
great qualities, and after the immense services
he had rendered to his country, was placed
in this very situation at the hour of his death.
The mine partially exploded soon after that event,
and the throne was saved only by the courage and
presence of mind displayed by his successor. Per-
haps his turn is now come ; but such mystery and
secrecy prevails in all proceedings of despotic coun-
cils, and especially in those of Russia, that nothing
like an ordinary calculation of results can be obtained.
Two circumstances, however, throw some light on
the present policy of the Russian nobles. They are
determined to keep the peasantry down, and prevent
a middle class, like that in England, from dividing
authority with them. It is for the interest of the
throne, on the other hand, to raise the in-
habitants of large towns to importance, to give
trade and commerce its due share in the admi-
nistration of the affairs of the empire, and
thereby to form a counterpoise to the influence which
weighs down the energies of the most useful classes
in the community. The nobles, like the old barons
of England, will naturally struggle to the last against
both Sovereign and people, and, unfortunately, they
have more power now than even those haughty Eng-
lish despots had at any period, except when an imbe-
cile King was on the throne. They possess all the
great domains of the country—they possess vast
power in the army, and, unfortunately, the army at
present is but teo ready to be tampered with by their
machinations. Peace to Russian soldiers is the
greatest of all evils. Both men and officers are, at
the present moment, ill fed and ill paid—they are
sunk in idleness and povsrty—they have had no wars
for sixteen years, except the war in the Caucasus, where
neither plunder nor glory is to be obtained, and they
are naturally dissatisfied with a SOVEREIGN who would
not take advantage of the helpless condition of the
Turkish empire, when it was assailed by MSIIEMET
ALI, nor of the intrigues of Russian agents in Persia
against the British possessions in India. Peace abroad
and tranquillity at home are incompatible in a country
so purely military. The soldiers are open to any
bidder, and possibly the nobles may be the purchasers.
These remarks, of course, are founded only on cun-
conjecture, for the domestic policy of Russia is in-
volved in impenetrable darkness. Even the causes of
her revolutions, the mode in which an obnoxious
Czar is pushed from his throne, and the winding up
of a vast conspiracy, which in France or England
would astonish the world, are regarded in that be-
nighted country as matters of ordinary occurrence,
and the great body of the people, like automatons,
move on again with the new system.