The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-21 00:00:00

to the children he may have, attempt also to de=
prive him of them. The tender mercies of the
Court of Chancery are the ruin of children. It
cannot interfere beneficially. And it is with
the establishment of the principle that the public
ought to concern themselves, and not with the
conduct of Mr. Wellesley.--Mowing Chronicle.

We are rejoiced to . find, by . our Windsor
communication of this day (given in another
part of our Paper), that the Duke of Welling-.
ton has had a private interview with the King, in
consequence of a special request from his Ma-
jesty for that purpose. Of the immediate cause
of this interview it would ill become us at pre-
sent to hazard any positive opinion ; but in a
day or two we shall be able to gratify the eager
curiosity which must naturally be excited in this
respect. For the present we must content our-
selves in .the indulgence of the :fond and well-
founded hope that the result will accord with the
anxious wishes of the Public, and consequently
prove auspicious to the best interests of the
State.—Morning Post.
A complete and unequivocal contradic-
tion has been given to the report of Mr.
Sturges Bourne's pension. It was to elicit
thii that we alluded to the subject ; and we are
glad that one, at least, of Mr. Canning's Tory
allies is not of so grasping and unreasonable a
temperament as some of his new Whig friends
seem to be. It would seem, however, that some
of the latter have been a little disconcerted, and
arrested in their place-hunting career, by the
manner in which various reports on that head
have been adverted to by the public press. The
two embryo Commissioners of the Excise and
Customs are among the number; though we
strongly suspect, that after all it will be found
that we have only " scotch'd the snake, not
killed it." The Whigs may be a little abashed
by public indignation, if not actually ashamed of
themselves for the moment ; but hunger, like
love, will break through walls—and as long as the
public larder lies open to them, they will feed
till they have either cleared all the dishes, or get
fairly turned out of doors by the master of the
house.—Morning Herald.

The decrease which has taken place in the
number of convictions for forgery, during the
last few years, has given great satisfaction to the
public. The mitigation of one of the necessary
evils of a paper, currency has accrued from the
withdrawal of the small notes from circulation ;
and any proposal which tends to its further sup-
pression deserves serious consideration. The
most feasible we have yet seen is that of Messrs.
Perkins and Heath. The adoption of it has
hitherto been confined to Country Banks ; but
an attempt has been made by Mr. Joplin, in a
new edition of his work on Banking, to give
such an explanation of its merits, and such hints
for its improvement, as will probably lead to a
serious consideration of the subject ; at all events,
we understand that a motion for a Committee
of Inquiry into the question will be made early
in the next Session. The great inducement to
forgery has heretofore been the little time and
expence ,required for its execution. If the
task of imitating a Bank plate required months of
labour, as well as considerable talent, it
would seldom be attempted. The objection to
the adoption of such plates has been the heavy
expense entailed on the Bankers. Their cost,
in the first instance, is great, and, in the,second,
the more costly and intricate they are, the less
number of impressions can be taken from them.
From a plate of very fine workmanship not more
than fifteen hundred impressions could probabls
be taken. Fresh plates would, therefore, he eon.,
tinually required ; and, in addition to this, the
great difficulty of making them file-similes of the
complex original has rendered the scheme im-
practicable. This objection Messrs. Perkins
and Heath have obviated by an ingenious dis-
covery of producing any number of plates
from the original one, and thus confining
the expense to the mere cost of its engraving
once. By these means they can manufacture
notes of the greatest intricacy, nearly as cheap,
in the long run, as the plain bits of paper now
in use. This is precisely what the Bankers
want—a note, the first cost of which would
not remunerate a forger for the limited number
he can circulate, and still not entail any ad-
ditional expense upon themselves. So far have
these artists succeeded in this
_important object,
that they would engage to furnish banks at the
present cost of their note, and even to supply a
fresh note in the event of a forgery. If the fact
be so, these gentlemen deserve much considera-
tion for having made a discovery of art a suc-
cessful remedy for a great moral and commercial
mischief. Mr. Joplin has entered into a long
discussion to prove that a note, which is placed,
as regards expense, beyond the reach of ordinary
forgers, will seldom or never be forged. He has
wasted too much argument on such a /srima
facie proposition. The only thing to be considered,
is, whether, as regards expense, it will be practi-
cable to the banker to adopt it. Messrs. Perkins
and Heath offer the best argument on this ques-
tion. If, as they assert, they can afford such a
note as cheap as she old note, he must be a
very dull banker indeed who does not see
its advantages: In one respect Mr. Joplin is
much mistaken. He presumes that forgery Will
be entirely prevented, by rendering a note too
difficult for the execution of ordinary artists. He
supposes that men, who have the talent to live
honestly, will not be rogues. Now it does not
follow that, because a man can live respectably,
that he will have the honesty and good sense to
do so. Barrington had the manners of a gentle-
man, and the education of one ; yet he preferred
the precarious profession of a pickpocket to one
of more credit and security. Blockheads have
as little of the esprit du corps as of the ingenuity
which characterises our swindlers and forgers ;
and in the history of this class it will be univer-
sally found that there is very little clumsiness in
their villainy, and that they might have lived
decently, had they not been possessed with
that infatuation for indirect gain, which is too
often a passion with unprincipled men of talent.
Although the proposition is wrong, the corol-
lary is just. He proposes to encumber the exe-
cution of a note with several specimens of dis-
tinct branches of the art ; thus rendering many
artists necessary to its execution. This idea is
excellent, and will render the danger of detection
greater by placing forgers at the discretion of
each other. " Honour among thieves" is very
well as a reproach to men who would be dis-
honourable if it were not for the name of it ;
but with professional rogues it has no truth.
They have neither honour in themselves, nor
confidence in their associates. There is one
disadvantage in the proposed intricacy of Bank-
notes, that it will increase the difficulty of disco-
very to ordinary observers. If Messrs. Perkins
and Heath can remedy this obstacle, or if, upoh
trial, their scheme of transferringfitc-simile im-
pressions of the same heads upon paper 3UC-
reeds, they will have made a very important and
useful dissoYerysss-Xen, Timas