The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

There is, even to this late period of the public
anxiety arising out of the Turkish question, no de-
cisive intelligence leading to a belief that the dif-
ference wilt be speedily and amicably settled. It
may, we think, be safely asserted, that whatever ob-
stacles in the way of negotiation had been caused
by the battle of Navarin, have in a great measure
disappeared, and that the Porte is understood to
have waved, or relinquished, all claims to indemni-
fication for her ruined navy. But every one, per-
haps, will not be prepared to learn that the great
object of the Allied Powers—viz. the acceptance
by the Turkish Government of the conditions held
out to it in the treaty of the 6th of July—seems to
be not much advanced by the arrangement of that
secondary ground of quarrel. In fact, it may be as
well to state at once, that on the main and original
topic of debate, the Reis Effendi has not yielded a
single particle of the declaratians.made by his Mas-
ter in the manifesto published several months ago,
when his Highness announced the resolution to re-
ject every species of foreign interference between
himself and his Greek subjects, come from what
quarter it might. To the decision then promulgated,
the Turkish Government, we have reason to believe,
adheres with pertinacious obstinacy, still pretest-
ing against the principle of the treaty, as con-
trary to the European law of nations, and violat-
ing the most sacred rights of an independent So-
vereign. To this it need be only answered, that j
vilether the intervention be in aid of the Sovereign
or of the people, the argument which defends it is
the same, and that there is not one of the Powers
of Europe which has7not within the last eight years
either asserted or admitted by its actions the privi-
lege of interference in the civil conflicts of neigh-
bouring states, whatever may have been its language
or .professions. The right was assumed by Austria
with regard to Naples, and in a broader and more
barefaced insurer by the French Howse of
Bourbon, when it invaded Spain, while Louis
XVIII. in his outrage, was directly advised or half
compelled by the Court of Russia, and meanly con-
nived at by the British Government, which thus
established a disgraceful precedent of at least subor-
nation of tyranny. The Turks, therefore, cannot
say that whatever may be the written law of Europe
the law, as administered, is contrary to the treaty Of
intervention ; nnless it means to affirm that despots
are always to be assisted, but persecuted nations
never,—Times.

Since the preceding remarks ware written, we
have heard from the. hut authority, --that M. Otten-
fels, the Austrian Internuncio, acting in concert
with M. Guilleminot, the French Ambassador, (who
has received orders to leave no stone unturned to
produce delay),. is exerting every nerve to prolong
the stay of the Allied Ambassadors at Constanti-
nople, though they both know that the Sultan will
not bear the mention of the treaty for the inde-
pendence of Greece. The English and Russian
-Ambassadors are not the dupes of this shallow po-
licy, and will listen to nothing short of an imme-
diate and bona
.fide armistice. The crooked policy
of Austria has involved her in a difficulty from which
mere cunning cannot extricate her; and though the
French Minister, at a late hour, in order to save
Villele, is playing Austria's game, it is to be feared
that . the quarrel has now reached that crisis. when
great passions and great interests will overwhelm
all the little intrigues of crawling diplomacy.—lbid.
Severe and not unreasonable complaints are made
by many of the most respectable inhabitants in and
near Clapham, that the scheme which is now in pro-
gress for enclosing the common will be most in-
jurious and oppressive to the neighbourhood. We
really agree with some of our correspondents, that the
overbearing pride, find sometimes the odious rapa-
city, of great proprietors, living in the vicinage of
common;, has been too long and too extensively
indulged by the Legislature, whenever plans of en-
closure have come recommended to it from power-
ful quarters. An enclosure bill is -almostinvariably
an expedient for accommodating the aristocracy at
the expence of the poor, who are excluded from
space, and in a degree from productive space,
which was formerly accessib% to them, and are
thus every day robbed more and more of their
scanty comforts, amusements, and enjoyments.
The right of commonage previously possessed by
.small cottagers and occupiers within a certain dis-
tance, serves in lien of that portion of land which,
by a benevolent, wholesome, and politic' enactment
of Elizabeth, was directed to be attached to every
new habitation, and the extinction of the coinmon
itself cannot fail to inflict upon that class of the
community the most cruel and incalculable distress.
Besides these new bills, in most instances, contain
clauses under which a numbar of small houses are
crowded together, without a foot of garden or other
ground to constitute an accessory source of employ-
ment or support to the tenants ; from Which it is felt
that a large increase has invariably been made to the
.poor rates of the parishes so dealt with, and that the
insecurity of property has extended in an equal pro-
portion. We trust that the worthy and estimable
nobleman whose name has been referred to as most
connected with the promotion of this Clapham En-
closure Bill, may be induced to listen to the sugges-
tions of the neighbourhood against it.—lbid.

We refer our readers to some extracts from !the
Leeds Mercury of Saturday, and the Cheltenhanz
Chronicle, in another column, under the head Game,
Laws. They will there see a fresh proof of what
we affirmed some months ago, that the poachers
have, at length, organized themselves in such a way
that all attempts to oppose them are fruitless. Be-
tween sixty and seventy assembled in the grounds of
the Marchioness of Hertford, at Temple Newsam,
and shot pheasants close to the mansion. The:poachers
having once attained to so perfect an organization
that they can bring a large body on any given point,
must almost always be victorious, because no one
game preserver can possibly keep up a force equal
to them ; and as the point to be attacked cannot be
known beforehand, each estate must depend for its
defence on its own resources. We consider, there-
fore, the attempts to preserve game, where such a
system of attack has been once organized, as no
longer practicable. Besides the preservers will na-
turally become more and more intimidated, and wit-.
nesses will be afraid to come forward; and the sa-
crifice of a, poacher now and then will only stimulate
his associates to take vengeance on the preserver
by the entire destruction of his game. The feeling
of the inhabitants of towns is pretty obvious from
another paragraph, where a poacher lying:upon a gun
was acquitted by a Magistrate in Leeds, because it
was not seen in his hands. The Gentry of England
have looked with cold-blooded indifference on the
transformation of the peasantry into criminals,
through the agency of the Game Laws. They have
been called on as men and Christians, to consent to
such a change in those laws as might arrest the pro-
gress of this evil. They have again and again been
told of the fearful responsibility they were incurring,
by insisting on the maintenance of a system which
was the parent of so much vice and crime.. They
were told that they would be called on one day to
render an account of the thousands and thousands of
their fellow creatures whom they had ruined body
and soul; and that though as Legislators they could
not-be reached here, Divine justice would assuredly
Overtake them hereafter. To all these Monitions
they remained callous and insensible. They closed
their ears to the suggestions of pity, and the dictates
of justice. But they are now doomed to experience
the mortification of seeing that extorted from their
impotence which they would not yield to elevated
considerations: they will be compelled to stop their
persecution, not from a sense of what they owe to
God or their fellow-creatures, but sheer inability to
be longer
vi ; and, instead of receiving credit
for their tardy amendment of the laws, they must
prepare .themselves
for
delightedthe derision of an insulted
country, shove measure with their embar-
rassment. As to their
in the military to aid
in the enforcement of the c.2,,,,a0
Laws, such an in-

suit to an overtaxed community durst not be offered.
—Morning Chronicle.
We are now nearly arrived at the end of the quar-
ter, and we are assured that there is a very great
falling off in the Revenue. The deficiency is re-
ported to amount to a greater sum than we choose
to name : a few days will serve to clear up this
point. The energies of the people of this country
arc very great indeed, but there are limits to taxa-
tion. These limits, we fear, have been already
passed, and every year, and every quarter, our pro-
spects seem only to be more gloomy.—Thid.
It requires a more than ordinary hardihood to per-
suade the world that that which is clear as the sun
at noon-day has never happened. Of this descrip-
tion arc the efforts of suehof the public Jurnals as are
now instructed to deny that there has been the least
schism in the Ministry, and that the Premier has
never tendered his resignation, or even expressed
any wish to resign. Of Lord Goderich's wish to
retire from the Government there can be doubt :
as little doubt, we believe, is there that he had vir-
tually resigned, and that the attempt to persuade
Lord Harrowby to take his place having failed, he
has been prevailed upon to continue in office a little
longer. In the mean time conjecture is afloat as to
the most probable person as his successor. Some
assign the post to the Duke of Portland, others to
the Marquis of Wellesley; while the Whigs look
to Lord Holland, and the Tories to the Duke of
Wellington. With the exception of the Whigs,,
there are, we suspect, no persons very anxious for
the office. Lord Harrowby, it is pretty clear, has
declined; and Great Britain witnesses, for the first
time in her annals, a period when the high distinc-
tion of presiding at the head of her affairs is rather
avoided than sought after. This is no very gratify-
ing state for the country to be placed in.—Morning
Herald.

If Mr. Herries in seriously looking out for objects
of retrenchment, why should he not put an end at
once to the Hackney-coach and Hawkers' Office,
with its whole train of Commissioners, Clerks, In-
speetors, &c. ? nothing so utterly useless, we will
venture to say, having ever been saddled upon the
finances of the country. Why it is so we cannot
pretend to say—but that it is really the case cannot
for a moment be doubted by nny one who has occa-
sion to see or use the public vehicles, a great pro-
portion of which, instead of being a couvenience, are
an actual nuisance and disgrace. None of those
persons can have any right to complain, should they
be ultimately, and that very soon, obliged to quit.
They have had hints and warnings enough, which,
if they had not had the wisdom to take, why they
must expect to take the consequences. No doubt
but their services, even were they well performed,
might be easily dispensed with ; but as for keeping
up useless Boards arid Offices at any time, but more
especially in times of financial difficulty like the pre-
sent, the idea is preposterous. We should strongly
recommend, therefore, this establishment being forth-
with broken up—as the French say—" pour encou-
rager les attires." There is a homely saying about
more cats than mice, which seems to be strongly
illustrated in the existence of this useless Board—
one part of whose duties might be transferred to the
Police, and the other to the Stamp Office. We are
not prepared to say what this useless establishment
costs the country ; but, be it little or much, it might
as well be saved, and the use which it ought to be
of derived from some other quarter.—lbid.
We have seen in the columns of a contemporary a
very interesting letter, signed " A School As-
sistant," in which the writer, who describes himself
as a young gentleman, a graduate of one of our Uni-
versities, details the treatment and degradation he
received from the head of the establishment in which
he was engaged as worse than that of a menial ser-
vant. We believe that such instances are not un-
common, nor the less disgraceful on that account.—
Avarice is too often the accompaniment of pecu-
niary success ; and that which should make men li-
beral often freezes up the channels of common jus-
tice. Pecuniary liberality and mental liberality are
very different things. The latter is often possessed
when the means of gratifying the former are wholly
unknown. But education, we are told is to produce
liberal ideas ; whilst its enormous cost in this coun-
try now enables those who are engaged in it, one
would think, to indulge in the more substantial
liberality of the other kind. But mark the
sort. of liberality which ushers and teachers
in schools receive from the heads of these
establishments, and then let parents reflect
what sort of principles their children are likely
to imbibe, where selfishness and meanness mark the
conduct of the principals towards the hands and
the heads of those from whose labour their profits
are derived. It is no uncommon thing for persons,
whose schools produce them an income of two or three
thousand a-year, to give 301. or 401. to the principal
assistant, who generally finds all the higher kinds of
knowledge which are required in the establishment.
In many female schools this is still worse ; for there
the young creatures, who undergo the drudgery, ac-
tually themselves pay for the privilege of so doing.
In the shape of articled scholars, premiums are
given under the idea of these young girls becoming
qualified as governessesor schoolkeepers themselves ;
while, in fact, they frequently find themselves mere
slaves of people incapable of teaching them any
thing,and without time to attend to theirown improve-
ment, were it otherwise practicable. We wonder that
parents and guardians do not look a little more into these
matters before they place children of either sex in places
where so much abuse, negligence, unfeelingness, and
want of liberality prevails towards those whose
treatment is too often but an earnest of what the
children themselves are liable to receive. If parents
and guardians were not negligent in the extreme,
could we hear of such things as a whole schoolfull
of children being handed over to the highest bidder
as sheep at a fair; or could the common feelings of
humanity be outraged by conduct towards children
which would be disgraceful as applied to the brute
creation ? Instead of being led away by specious
prospectuses, it would be more creditable to parents
to look a little into the nature and the details of
these establishments—among the rest, to enquire
who the teachers are, and how they are paid and
treated—in fact, whether the person to whom the
solemn charge is to be confided of training up their
children in the way they should go is qualified for the
task, or, as is too often the case, a mere selfish specious
pedagogue, bent only on his own aggrandizement,
_without liberality or justice, and of course without
the means of communicating them to others.—lbid.
We have alreadiy communicated to our readers
the substance of a Note addressed to the representa-
tives of the several European Powers resident at St.
Petersburgh, and said to have been drawn up under
the personal and anxious superintendence of the
Emperor Nicholas. In this Note, " Russia repeats
to the Powers of Europe the most positive assur-
ances of not desiring to aggrandize its territory at
the expense of any of its neighbours ; but it also re-
peats the resolution, taken by the Emperor himself,
to prosecute the plan agreed upon with his Allies,
for the pacification of the East. The treaty of in.
tervention, it will be recollected, disclaims with suf-
ficient distinctness on the part of all the Powers who
are parties to it, any motives of ambition. This
reiterated disclaimer by Russia separately, and, above
all, the importance which the advocates of the
Treaty every where attach to it, can serve no other
purpose, therefore, than that of attesting the rea-
sonableness of the suspicions which all who are not
advocates of the Treaty have entertained, as to
the intentions of that Power. Between good faith
and tautology there is at least no necessary alliance.
It would be idle and perhaps indecorous to dis-
pute the solemn and repeated assurances of the
Court of Russia as to its desires. These must of
course be best known to itself, and we are perhaps
bound to take its word, that territorial aggrandize-
ment is not one of them. But if this be so, we are
compelled to pronounce the Ministers of Ruse',
the
most unskilfid and unfortunate set of Sta.
hentab ethatse
ever existed upon the face of the ee• .cth
miserable Muscovites every thift appeals, to Nye
gone svrong. They have beta foilectandeotinterected.i

on every side. In spite of their earnest desire to
confine the Russian territory within its present limits,
such is the perverse fatality which over-rules their
affairs, that almost at the same moment some of the
finest and most important provinces of Persia are
added to the Russian Ernpire on the one hand, and
they are beguiled by the subtle Ministers of England
and France into a Treaty, of which the certain effect
is to aggrandize that Empire on the other. Pro.
fessing our willingness then to believe, in deference
to those who are the adulators of Russian virtue
and honour, that Russia is and always has been
actuated in her political movements by motives the
most pure and disinterested ; that she possesses
Poland in virtue of a miscalculation; that her in-
fluence and pretensions in Wallachia and Moldavia
have resulted from mischance ; 'she has been en-
trapped and defrauded, in short, into an elevation
from which she can overlook Asia with one eye, and
Europe with the other; professing our willingness
to believe all this, we still venture to say that the
Treaty of Intervention is sure to add another to the
long series of instances in which Russia has had
" greatness thrust upon her;" that upon this occa-
sion also, the uniform tenor of her history will be
preserved, that the disinterestedness and humanity
of her Councils will once more miss their aim, and
be compelled, however reluctantly, to bear the in-
appropriate trophies, and reap the unwelcome liar-
vest of ambition. It is yet doubtful whether the
Porte will submit to the Treaty of dictation, or
persist in refusing acquiescence. In the former
case, Greece including both the Continent and
the Islands, falls under the power of Russia—
of necessity, and without a struggle. The
Turks who reside in Greece are, by virtue
of the Treaty, to be expelled, and are to sell
by compulsion to the Greek inhabitants, or in other
words, are to be plundered of their property. This
in the new state of Greece is to be the auspicious
commencement of civil Government. Nor can it be
doubted that Greek authorities may lfe found com-
petent enough to carry this preliminary operation
into effect. But to our minds the proof is abun-
dant that among the Greeks the materials are not to
be found wherewith to form an independent national
government, fitted to discharge its regular and per-
manent ditties; and from the day upon which the
Grand Seignor shall testify his submission to the
Treaty, we are quite certain that twelve months will
not elapse before the opinion of the Court of Russia
is upon this point precisely similar to our own. The
Russians and the Greeks, dissimilar as they are in
many respects, are united by the tie of one common
superstition. If independence is to be preferred
to foreign domination, the latter, with a view both
to the welfare of the Greeks themselves, and to the
interests of other nations, will be considered pre-
ferable to anarchy; and thus the Czar of the Rus-
sians will without a struggle become the Monarch of
the Greeks. And if on the other hand the Porte
should persist in rejecting the treaty, Russia, not-
withstanding her desire not to aggrandize her ter-
ritory, will invade Turkey in prosecution of the plan
agreed upon with her Allies for the pacification of
the East. But suppose, after the Russian armies
have advanced to Constantinople, the Pcirte
should then at last acquiesce, will Russia restore
in their integrity to the Porte the territories
of which she will have acquired military posses-
sion ? Nothing of the kind is said. It could
not be expected to be said, or believed if it
were said, no matter how solemnly. If the treaty
of Intervention is just, the conduct of the Porte in
withstanding it will be unjust, and will deserve pu-
nishment at the hand of Russia. By invading
Turkey it is clear that Russia would punish herself
as well as her antagonist, if it were previously de-
termined that no permanent gain or loss of territory
to either party should be the result. It would re-
quire indeed only this determination to confirm the
obstinacy, as it is called, of the Porte. England had a
right to resist the dismemberment of Turkey byßussia
in any possible circumstances previous to the Gth of
July. By the Treaty of that date England in effect
relinquished her right to interfere in favour of Tur-
key—even to preserve. her from annihilation, or re-
tained it only upon condition that Turkey should, by
submission to the demands of the rreaty, withdraw
every pretext for the coercive measure of invasion.
All the world, except the parties to this wicked and
absurd Treaty, might justly resent any attempt on
the part of -Russia to possess herself of Turkey;
but as between Russia and England, the Treaty
creates a factious and occasional kind of justice,
which in the event of such an enterprise would con-
fine the Government cf the latter to ignominica!in-
action.—Morning Post.
It must be a matter of sincere pleasure to the
public to see the endeavours of the Home Secre-
tary directed to a subject which has an intimate and
immediate bearing on the comfort and security of
the metropolis, and, consequently, on the good of the
Empire at large. We allude to the Police Regu-
lations, which, it appears, the Marquis of Lags-
downe has suggested, for giving increased facility to
the detection of offenders, and which our readers
will find in a subsequent column. The labours of
the late Home Secretary were directed to a higher
object, and the fame to be derived from them will
be proportioned. But the task of preventing crimes,
even in the locality of London, is not to be under-
rated, because there are others which require
greater talents and more application. Tice preven-
tive process in general is less ambitious than the cu-
rative, but it is not less valuable on that account.
The plan, or rather the suggestion, of the Marquis
of Lansdowne, has probably been impressed on his
attention by the advantages which have accrued to
the public from the system of police reporting. In-
deed the proposed measure is but an imperfect spe-
cies of it. An account, it is proposed, containing
the substance of the whole of the informations re-
ceived at each separate police office, shall be drawn
up every night, and the whole printed for the benefit
of the police offices, by the Editor of the fine and
Cry. This account is to contain to evidence, nor
names of witnesses, but the name of the prosecutor
in every case, and, in those of robbery or theft, a
shmt description of the goods stolen. Such a plan
can be looked on at present as tentative only; it
will doubtless receive numerous modifications and
improvements before it works easily. Onemf the
most obvious defects is the non-publication of the
evidence, and the limitation of the reports to the
police offices. 'With respect to the first, we doubt
not the argument will be urged, that the evidence is
ex-parte: It ;nay no doubt be a Very considerable
hardship on a person accused of a crime or misde-
meanour, to have the circumstances bruited in all the
newspapers; but it would be a still harder cases
were an innocent person to suffer whoM such a
publicity might have saved. We never, indeed,
find that there is any great disinclination to publi-
city, unless where the case deserves exposure. We
have known hundreds of instances where the guilty
have been prosecuted to convictions and where the
innocent have been vindicated, in consequence of ex-
parte statements, and we never yet met with a case
where the publication had a contrary effect.. It has
invariably, so far as our experience goes, either ef-
fected nothing or effected good. But lodging an
information at the twelve Police Offices is not pub-
lication, neither does it possess any of its advan-
tages, and as little will insertion of the informa-
tion in the line and Cry, a contemporary by-tbe-
by, which, in the range of our periodical read-
ing, we never even by accident happened to
meet. The great object gained by Police re-
porting is, that it interests the community in the
administration of the law. The proposed method
will, to a certain degree, enlighten the Magistrates
and Officers of Bow-street-, as to what is passing at
Union-Hall, and vice-versa, but it leaves the public
awshuilneinthsetruNeted
lis before. We therefore hope, that:
every
information
tois vtehrey Ipauodliacbely,vidaegsiisrtorautseo3f
,
ive-,liee"s'a uplpprovide that the public, who are interested in
the suppression of crime, as they derivleinthoobuet ea-
posingnefit
receivefromitstiitestyei,nheoestulayishthem to
alittle, v
actions for libel,
or extrution torn aii office which is open to every
One else, 'whomever the delicacy of a defendant, of

the pride of a :Alagistrate, happens to be offended.
In short, we hope that he will legalize police re-
porting, in the same way as law reporting is legalised,
and allow no one to be challenged for publishing the
truth in the one case any more than in the other.—
Neu, Timcs.