The Sun.
London, England, 1827-09-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The long official .document from Madrid,
which we published yesterday, has provoked, as
was natural, a voluminous, body of observations,.
both from individuals andathe press. Insurrec
tion is, at all times, an interesting subject.
Spanish insurrection has, for Englishmen, at this
time a peculiar interest.. -But the rebellious
movement now described by the _Minister of Fer-
dinand is not exactly of that class which, if our
countrymen had a .choice upon `.the matter, they
would have preferredaeas an exercise for his Ex-
cellency's descriptive powers.. Catalonia; we arc
told is in open;rebellion-4 rebellion, the growth
of two long yearn of!seditious practieese Towns
are taken, contributions levied, a. large space of
country occupied by the:rebels; whosheye. twice
railed:their audacious views to the possession of
the irriportantfortress,of .Tortosaa,and hoe ap-
peared in. arms almost at the gates of Barcelona,
,where ._is a garrison of some 8,000. air 10,000
French troops Thia is formidable, or appears
to be so: We take for granted that the forneof
the rebels, and, the weakness of ,the King's offi-
cial _ government, are such as they have been
painted by the Minister at War—such as they
have been, we might say, ostentatiously,displayed
and lamented by him : then the next thing one
feels inclined to' ask is, what may be the de-
clared object and purpose of this insurrection
Why—astonishing as such a. fact will bethought
by any reasonable being-L--it is not a rebellisaa by
the people to.procure more liberty, but by a .fac-
tion, to give the people less liberty, or rather to
show them less mercy, and to make .Ferdinand •
more despotic, than he.,was tendered, by the in-
vasion of the French army, or than lie continues
to be by their protracted occupancyaof :Spain.
This is the professed purpose of the new rebel-
lion ; and that there may he many, antong its
executive officers and partisans who really medi-
tate the ends which they avow, there, can be
little question. However, we may be permitted,
to repeat one or two of those: perverse and cu-
rious Commentaries which,break out from. Eng-
lishmen (a free-spoken race),in talking over this
extraordinary Spanish -insurrection. It .was re-
marked, as a piece of political, drollery, between
three and four years ago, when Ferdinand
did the Duke of Angouleme the honour of meet-
ing him for the first time after the fall of Cadiz,
that during their interview violent shouts were
heard throughout the town, (St. Mary's.; ,if we
recollect right), and under the King's windows,
of « Long live the absolute King !" " Your
Highness hears," quoth Ferdinand, with much
gravity, " how my subjects detest the very name
of a constitutional Sovereign !" The shouts of the
populace were well-timed shouts, and they were
united to good account by Don Ferdinand, who,
though at the moment Constitutional, King
of Spain, was not much offended, to all appear-
ance, by these anti-constitutional and disloyal
outcries. At present, it is pretty generally un-
derstood there are on foot, and have been for a
considerable period, negotiations on two most
important questions—viz. -Whether King Fer-
dinand shall follow the example of the Emperor
Pedro, and of his other relative Louis XVIII.,
by giving some sort of a Constitution to his
people; and whether the French army shall eve- •
cuate Spain or not. Now, protesting quite as
ceremoniously as, can be required of us, against
any false and scandalous imputations upon the
Courts of Madrid and of the Tuileries, and ad-
mitting that this is a most serious and most bowl
fide rebellion of Spaniards, because , they feel
themselves too free, against King: Ferdinand, be-
cause he is not sufficiently absolute, let ,us give
way to a slight sentiment of wonder, at the apti-
tude of the said rebellion to furnish Ferdinand
with arguments against granting any possible
Constitution, and Charles X.:. with protests
against consenting to an immediate evacuation.
In these respects it must be considered an op-
portune--and, as we may call it, a lucky hita--on
the part of the apostolical insurgents. Passing
over the oddity of a Minister at War addressing
a long paper to a Captain-General•for no seeming
object but to tell the Captain over again a long
string of circumstances which he .had already
told the Minister of War himself, we shall only
venture to observe that. there is no bitterness of
tone or spirit apparent. throughout. the .despatch,
or more properly manifesto, in speaking ,of these
Catalan rebels. They are complained oh; they
are eompassionated ; but they are not to holier-
seemed or proscribed. They march almost. to
the gates of Barcelona, but the French garrison
never think of attacking them : on the contrary,
it is stated in many letters from the neighbour-
hood, that the. orders of .the French Generals to
their subalterns, are, net to molest the insurgents.
It was not so when Valdes landedwithadiandful
of insurgent Spaniards- at. iu f 1824 a but
they were" on the Constitutional side, and, -of
course experieizeed- no mercy. The:French gar-
rison of Cadiz—die French sqUadron,in the. bay
—were ready enough Men to interfere.. All this
• may be' odd. It is certainly alittle odd to see a
legitimate rebellion raging, and ,the auxiliary
forces of 'a constitutional, neighbour; like Charles
X., looking quietly 'on. Should the rebellion,
indeed, change its charactera and from °despotic
become constitutional, the troops of France ,will
be. told, unquestionably, that it is their duty to
undergo a converse change, and, instead.of re-
maining tranquil spectators of vioience, to mane
use of tviolence AS " the only.means of preserving
the public peace."-- Times.
In a subsequent part of the paper will be found
a letter from a correspondent, deprecating the
ignominy and insult to which common informers
Are continually exposed. In our correspondent's
view of the matter: we entirely agree. 'To Us it
teens in the highe4 degree absurd;" that laws
should !)e pessed—rightly it is' to be Presumed—
to punish offencess and that the moment they
are to be carriedinto effect, these through whose
means they are brought into action are to be treated
with ten thousand times more -severity than any
which is felt towards the offenders themselves,
or their offences.999 cases out of 1,000,
the public at large is too indolcnda.. too much
otherwise occupied, or ,too m iffer,ent,
ito
rosecute ; and therefore, fit were n 0,,, for n;
formers, who take the matter lip for the, sake o.
the penalties, many of the most valuable laws,
and useful correctives, would be of n.o use •, ins
therefore, to hunt persons out of society—or, as
against them, is a
it were, " to run a muck"
species of barbarous inhumanity, as well as of
impolicv, which we wonder can so generally
prevail. But it may perhaps be said, and . not
untruly, that the prejudice in this case arises,
not so much from the 'dislike which people have
to see the laws put in force, as against the little
judgment which is used by, informers in the se-
ection of cages- for prosecution, and the too
ready eqnselence, or rather no-conscience, with
which informers and.their Witneses are too often
ready to make the facts meet the object they
have view; general impression, we believe;
prevails, and that not farmed Without reason,
that these people will, for the most part, swear

any thing; and that therefore no man's person
or property is safe where the sanctity of an oath
is so little binding. Another source of freir un-
popularity is, that they are often not satisfied
with taking up bona fide cases, but are conti-
nually making business for themselves, by tempt-
ing people to commit the very offences they pro-
lege to complain of. This, we believe, is also
but too well founded. It is monstrous that an
informer is to jump up behind a coach, and then
proceed for the penalty for carrying an extra
passenger ; or that, during the hours of Divine
Service,- he should make a circuit of public-
houses, and by drinking at each himself; tempt
the owners to commit the very offence he wishes
to see committed. Such things occur every day ;
and no wonder that tjjose who themselves thus
abuse the laws should not be looked upon with
a very favourable eye as the means of putting
them in force. But even here the evil produces
anti increases itself for while informers are looked
upon with so much odium, no wonder that none
but the very scum of the earth be found to take
up the occupation. In fact, we
.all like the laws
very well till they come to hit our own proper
parsons. We deem it highly proper that stage-
coa4imen, publicans, and others should be kept
from offending against the law, because we are
neither publicans nor stage-coachmen ; but the
gentleman who buys game, or shoots without a
lieence,,or the fair lady who smuggles a little,
either from the love of novelty, or to make her
person still more engaging, are quite scandalized
if the law or the informer visits their offence.
As the only remedy for the evil, if it be one, the
laws themselves should be better known then
they are, and rendered less vexatious. There are
a hundred penalties in the Statute-books .which
those who make them hardly know the existence
of ; and informers would be of no small use, if
they would now and then bring home to law-
makers themselves a few of the inconveniences
they tacitly, and often unconsciously, inflict upon
others.—Morning -Herald.
Our Cotemporary of the Courier has the fol-
lowing observations on a subject which has lately
attracted some attention :
" PRISONERS' CONFESSIONt.--The French system of
examining prisoners when in custody, and afterwards using
their answers against them on their trial, has been justly
reprobated in England. The distinction, however, between
the course adopted in France and in this country, is really
without a difference, so lone- as the English Police Officers
are allowed to question and cross-examine the persons they
arrest, and afterwards swear to a confession thus obtained.
Several of the Judges have lately taken occasion to repro-
bate this practice in the strongest terms ; and Mr. Justice
Geselee, in particular, during the pres,:ot nbi Bailey Ses-
sions, has availed himself of every opportunity of caution-
ing the Officers not to interrogate prisoners whom they
may have in their custody, without first apprising them
that their answers will be given in evidence against them
on their trial. During the Sessions there have been many
statements or ' confessions,' as they are called, sworn to by
the Officers—confessions which the unhappy prisoners have
no means whatever of contradicting, inasmuch as it is al-
most always sworn that no third person was present. The
acquittal of a prisoner thins circumstanced is next to im-
possible. We would really submit to those whiill.Ave the
controul of the poliCe, that each case should be allowed to
rest on its own merits; and that interrogation, by the
Officers, of the unfortunate prisoners, on whose minds hope
sod fear (no matter whether excited unduly or not) must,
to a certain degree, operate, should not be tolerated. If
the system is permitted, it would be better at once to avow
it, as they do in France, and no longer boast an advantage
which does not in fact exist".
Before proceeding to make any remarks on the
above paragraph, we may observe, that by the
Acts Ist and 2d Philip and Mary, cap.
is enacted, " And that the said Justices, or one
of them, being of the Quorum, when any such
prisoner is brought before them for any man-
slaughter or felony, befbre any bailment or main-
prize, shall take the examination .rd the said
prisoner, and information of them that bring him
of the facts and circumstances thereof, and the.
same, or as much thereof as shall be material to
prove the felony, shall be put in writing before
they make the said bailment ; which said
examination, together with the said bailment, the
said Justices shall certify at the next General
Gaol Delivery to be holden within the limits of
their commission." This Act of Parliament;
which is constantly referred to in practice, ex-
pressly authorises the receiving the confessions
of prisoners, and, in fact, on all occasions where
it has.been wished by men in power to obtain a
conviction, the prisoner has been examined with
a view to the extraction of evidence from him
against himself. In the trial of Jobn.the Painter,
for instance, who burnt the rope-house at Ports-
mouth, the conviction was grounded principally
On the prisoner's confession, as reported by one
Baldwin, for of the other evidence the greater
part consisted in confirmatory statements of other
facts, in themselves immaterial, but stated by the
prisoner in his confession. The Advocate for
the prosecution dwelt strongly on the importance
of this confession. If, therefore, the practice of
examining prisoners when. in custody has been
reprobated, the law has been reprobated, for the
law expressly authorises it. But a great. latitude
is allowed to time Magistrate in England which.
never is allowed in other countries, for in Eng-
land. the Magistrate. may. either exert. himself ,to;!
obtain evidence from the prisoner himself, or he'
may exert himself to prevent the prisoner fur-
nishing such .evidence) When an English. Magi-
strate hates a man, or wishes to have him hanged
or transported, ..he has only to give a hint to
a gaoler,. a police officer, or other subordinate,
and the evidence will be obtained in a much
better way. than he himself could extract it, be-
cause these low individuals, being more on a
level with the prisoner, are more likely to engage
Isis confidence, and to seize the moment for at-
tacking him when his conscience may be awake
or his feelings strongly excited. If; on the other
hand, a Magistrate wishes to bring off a prisoner,
he can caution him against opening his heart to
others, and impress on him the importance of
wrapping himself up in secrecy, in order not to
furnish evidence by which-his conviction may be
furthered. There is- a diji!renee, therefore,
between the English practice and the practice of
other countries, as our contemporary cannot fail
to see, and it is a difference, quite in accordance
with the spirit of the Emiglish law, which
delights in falsehood and fiction, in throwing
dust in the eyes of the multitude, in laying
down a positive maxim, and getting the better of
justice indirectly. The great object of the English
law is to favour the rich and the powerful, to
enable them to elude justice by means of friends
or the aid, which lawyers can supply. A decla-
ration from a Judge, delivered with a grave face,
deludes the multitude, for, it is necessary there
should be some screen. When justice was de-
feated lately in the case of a Baionet, and two
or three other -marked occasions, the Judges,
with a gravity which Liston could not equal,
proceeded to express their
wonderment that the
trial should go off for want of a prosecutor, just
as if they, trained from their youth to all the
tricks of a tricking profession, had not the least
idea how such a thing should be done. The
poor man cannot afford to indemnify sureties or
prosecutors, so justice must be done on him ;
and the multitude are stupid enough to deem; it
equal justice, because there Is an equal binding

over in the case of rich and poor. Mr. Justice
Gaselee's admonitions will have about as much
effect on, officers and turnkeys, as .a Methodist
sermon on a petty-fogging attorney. It has-been
observed, that the subterfuges which it is neces-
sary to resort to in England, afford an evidence
of the existence of a certain amount of popular
influence. In Turkey, at present, as in Eng-
land, when it resembled Turkey (which is not
so long ago as some people suppose), men in
power can do what they like without recurring
to any subterfuge. Any one who is read in the
French Memoirs knows, that when a rich or
powerful magi was convicted, a relation had only
to throw himself at the feet of the Grand Mo-
narque, or pay court to one of his Mistresses, or
the Mistress of one of his Ministers, and all was
arranged. In such a state of things, it was not
necessary that Judges and Magistrates should be
enabled, by the latitude allowerthem, of effecting
through the instrumentality of law, .without loss
of character, what could be so. well done by
Court favour. Nay, the Monarch might even
wish to tie down the subordinates, in order to
have the monopoly of cqnferring favour. We have
often had occasion to observe, that the practice
of our Courts having been the creation of law-
yers, has necessarily had for object the benefit of
the profession. It often happens that the benefit
of the profession and the advantage of the, com-
munity are directly opposed to each other. There
can be no question, for instance, that the greater
the facility for promoting the escape of guilt, the
more; the importance of the profession rises, and
the profession therefore have an obvious interest
in multiplying the means for enabling guilt to
escape. Hence lawyers have always laboured to
make Courts arenas for the display of skill which
would make the issue, independent of truth, and
for the practice of a science, the chief merit of
which is the exclusion of truth. " Under the
technical system," says Mr. Bentham, in his
lately published great work on Evidence, " the
interests and ends of judication being, from first
to last, opposite and hostile to the interests and
ends of justice ; whatever exertion and ingenuity
has been bestowed, is applied not to the disco-
very of truth, but to the finding of pretences for
not discovering it ; not to the administering-of
justice, but to the finding of occasions and pre-
tences for administering injustice in its stead.
Governed, if not by sinister reason, by blind ca-
price, under the mask of tenderness, English
lawyers admitting sa.slfsdisserving evidence when.
supposed to hare been extrajudicially deliver 4
or extracted, forbid it to be judicially extraetß.

_
or received
Tenderness ! to whom ? To the innocent in-
dividual, maliciously, or erroneously accused ?
No ; what it does for him, is, where misrepre-
sentations have taken place, tending to his un-
just conviction, to refuse him an opportunity of
clearing them up. To the guilty ? No ; not
even to the guilty considered in the aggregate.—
By the promise it gives of escape, it augments
the number; the number being so great, thence
.comes the pretended necessity for excessive pu-
nishment ; the deficiencies in certainty must be
made up in magnitude. Death is the English
Judge's universal remedy : higher he eannot
screw up the exertions of blind barbarity. It
is part of the same man, the same natural and
implacable, enemy of justice, on the one hand to
keep watch and ward in favour of the murderer,
charging him not to let drop any the least hint
from which justice may receive the least assis-
tance, not to say any thing by which his guilt
may be brought to light : and, on the other hand
to be no less active in his exertions to extend the
demesnes of death. .1, . To the profit of

cold barbarity, he adds the praise of tenderness.
The manly dictates of public utility are sacrificed
to the cant of -hypocritical or childish sentimen-
talism. The excess of the punishment becomes
a sufficient warrant for not executing it. Ex-
tending the demesnes of death, he thus extends
the map of his own despotism ; of that prepos-
terous state of things, by which every year the
lives of men by dozens and by scores, are laid at
the feet of every English Judge.—Morning
Chronicle.

It has lately been justly observed, that the bail
system, while it affects to mend a mall, in many
cases creates a great evil. In fact, and we do
not say this for the first time, the system of Lail
is radically defective. It inflicts a severe injury
on the poor and unprotected, and it inflicts rio
injury at all on the rich, and those who have
friends. We do not see how it can be•dispen-
sed with in all cases, but there can be no doubt

that it may be most easily and most be-
neficially dispensed with in small ones.—
Why the Police Magistrate, who is held to be
sufficiently acquainted with law to decide when
a man ought and when he ought not, to be tried-
for murder or felony, should not be held suffi-
ciently skilled_ to try him-when he incurs a pe-:
nalty of some ten or twenty shillings, would per-
haps puzzle a casuist to discover. Hope defer-
red, the wise man says, makes the heart sick,
and delay of justice, in petty eases, is equiva-
lent to the denial, of it. A man must be more
than ordinary zealous in pursuit of compensation
for -a small injury, who can wait weeks, and sub-
ject himself to great personal inconvenience, in
order to gain it. A law, indeed, which calls
on a person aggrieved for such a sacrifice holds
out a premium to settled hatred. But in what-
ever way the public may see fit to view the law
as it at present stands, in respect to two citizens,
there surely can be but ono opinion of its incon-
venience, to say the least, where the dispute is
between a citizen and one who, from his office,
is a servant of the court. The stronger reason
why the law should be altered in respect to the
latter case is, that it is one of daily, or rather
passenger, gbsolyi
nightly occurrence, • and involves in it what ap-
pears
idle
surditr. A
sima'nd idler
drunken watchman, without reason or rhyme,
prima facie to be. an ab
amidst
watch-house, locks him up for twelve
men, to the watc
tairlreeslatsuerahshaarnnidlesi
hours with half a dozen ;pickpockets, and when
s
next day the charge:is enquired into, has no charge
o oPtaisnBges"
'to make. What says the magistrate, what can he
say, in such an every-day case, to the party
aggrieved ? Why, he tells him that he is dis,
charged, and. that he may seek his remedy at
the Sessions. • • It might be conceived a trench-
ing on the liberty of the subject, were the Mit-
gistrate to be empowered to set one of two
parties who come voluntarily before him to the
tread-mill for a fortnight, and we should be the
last to wish him possessed Of such a power ;
but we can see no possible harm in allowing
, him to send 'a watchman there when convicted,
as they are in four disputed cases out of five,
of their having used their power of protecting
to injure the community. What in the present
system, the public complain og and most justly,
is, that the injury - sustained from the officers
of police is i
n its nature immediate, and_ the re-
medy remote and eircuitouS-4hat the officer,
by his own authority, can inflict 'an injury,,and
that the injured party must seek redress through

means which bring to a. man that loves hiS ease
even more annoyance than a night in the watch-
housei It is a most contradictory arrangement,
that the Magistrate, who is, pro Canto, a repre-
sentatiVe of the supreme executive authority,
should yet have no direct controul over men
who hold no power that is not derived from
him. The other day a constable—in this case
it was not a watchman—dragged a decent man
to prison, because he would not move on. The
man was standing at his own door ! Had the
order been « move in," we should not have de-
fended his disobedience ; but it is singularly
hard that a man should, under pain of passing
the night in the watch-house, be ordered to de-
sert his own house. While we may pause ere
we concede to a Police Magistrate the power of
deciding between two ordinary members of the
community, we do, therefore, most heartily wish
that the law allowed him to decide summarily in
respect of the delinquency of those who are de
facto his own emplolfis, and we are persuaded
that nothing like diligence or attention, on the
part of these subordinates, will ever be secured
until he be possessed of such a power.—New
Times. .