The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-16 00:00:00

fire," which is more destructive than any of
those with which Egypt was afflicted. The
Brewers' monopoly, by operating to the deterio-
ration of a wholesome and nutritious beverage,
has greatly tended to lessen the demand for malt
drink. This monopoly ought to be broken
down, and the licensing system abolished. How
does it happen that the advocates of " free
trade" take no steps to procure a 44 free trade"
in beer ?—Morning Herald.
There are mow, we believe, lying in the con-
demned cells of New gate the capital convicts of
two Old Bailey Sessions, and part of those of
a third. God forbid that we should appear to
wish to hurry on the fate of wretched beings
. whose lives are forfeited to the law, on their own
. accounts! On the contrary, most happy should
we be to see the severity of the law ameliorated,
and the punishment of death inflicted much sel-
domes than it is ; but if, unhappily, the law is
to remain the same, and death is still to be the
penalty, then we think that a delay which con-
verts what ought to act as a terror and an ex-
• ample into an oblivion of his offence, and pity
towards the criminal, is highly mischievous.
Every one who has witnessed the different ef-
fect of executions on the circuits to those which
take place in the metropolis, must be aware of
the troth of this. There the punishment fol-
lows while the public mind continues alive to
the enormity of the crime. Here the criminal,
the offence, and his trial, are forgotten, and he
is at length led forth to suffer amid the mistaken
sympathy of the crowd, aided, as it too often is,
by a morbid and perverted use even of the
sacred truths which should influence his last
moments. We can readily imagine (and who is
there that will not honour the feeling ?) that the
Royal mind must naturally shrink from the sad
duty of presiding at Councils when these fatal
necessities are decided upon, and that an excuse
is readily caught at for postponing what is in
every sense an " evil day." But if it be true,
as is generally reported, that the ill-health and
physical incapacity of the chief City Law Officer
is the cause of the delay, and of thus swelling
the ultimate more melancholy and painful duty,
we cannot help thinking that there ought to be
a power somewhere to obviate so serious an in-
convenience, and that that power ought to be
exerted. Indeed we cannot help going the length
of saying, that it would be almost as well that
there should he an amnesty given to offences, as
that their punishments should be delayed till all
hatred for their crimes are absorbed in sympathy
towards the criminals. We do not wish to en••
large on a subject so painful in iteelf. Nothing
but public duty would urge us to notice it at all ;
but when it is considered how much of heinous
crime is produced and nurtured by the delay and
uncertainty of punishment, we are confident
that, in what we say, we arc urging mercy to-
wards numbers who may otherwise be in the
place of those whose fate has been so long mi-
The rumour that it is the intention of Go-
vernment to pay off the Four per Cents. by the
creation and substitution of stock bearing a lower
rate of interest appears to gather strength, and
the expostulations and reproaches of those whose
interests are opposed to this measure become
proportionally more vehement. The prevalence
of such a rumour, and the lively apprehensions
and premature complaints of the holders of this
particular description of security, having, as we
before observed, no other foundation than pro-
bability and conjecture, may be considered as
testimony, powerful, although indirect and unin•
tentional, not to the practicability only but to
the justice of the anticipated measure. If it
were really perceived to be either unjust in prin-
ciple or difficult of execution, we are quite con-
vinced that the attempt would not be so confi-
dently foretold, and that the parties who will
suffer by its accomplishment would be compara-
tively free from anxiety or alarm. A threat, we
perceive, is held out of a combination on the part
of the class of fundholders in question, to
defeat the design so confidently ascribed to
Government. Of this threat the fundholders
themselves, if, as is most probable, they com-
prehend their own position and their own in-
terests, cannot be the authors. If the state of
the Money Market be such as to enable' Govern-
ment to borrow money by funding at a lower
rate of interest than four per cent.—and in no
other circumstances will the attempt be made—
no combihation can defeat or impede its success,
or produce indeed any other effect than that of
aggravating the loss to those who shall so com-
bine. Government is not liable to be baffled or
obstructed by a combination whose sole means
of resistance is the magnitude of its aggregate
demand, inasmuch as Government has the right
and in the case of such a combination would be
bound to exercise it, of dealing with the annui-
tant separately and in detail. That it would be
impossible to pay off annuitants to the amount
of a hundred and fifty millions in one day, is
true and obvious enough ; but to pay this sum,
as Government may, if it please, in ten or twenty
rapid instalments, would be neither impossible
nor difficult. The only consequence of driving
Government to such a course would be, that the
bonus which always accompanies such opera-
tions, and is necessary to make them proceed
smoothly, would be lost to those holders of
Four per Conte. who embarked in the proposed
combination, and gained by other capitalists.
That the anticipated operation is strictly within
the terms of the contract subsisting between Go-
vernment and the class of annuitants it would af-
fect, is not denied ; and there certainly never was
a period in which Government could have stood
' more clear of the imputation of advancing the
price of stock, or lowering the interest ofmoney
artificially, with a view to facilitate such a transac
Lion, than at the present. All the measures of
Government have indeed been of an opposite
tendency. The introduction of a metallic in lieu
of a paper currency, and the reduction of the
Sinking Fund to an amount limited by the ex-
cess.of income over expenditure, both of which
meesures have been accomplished within the
year, may be triumphantly adduced in refutation
of the preposterous charge, that Government has
acted upon the dishononrable policy of enhancing
artificially the price of the publiefunds with a view
ya Any financial operation. Nor is the loud
appeal ;which has inconsiderately been made to
the geneiosity of Government upon this subject
less irrational than the imputations which
have been levelled against its integrity. Would
it be generous on the part of a trustee to neglect
to disencumber an estate, left in his charge, of a
burdensome mortgage, when he had a fair and
honest opportnnity of t edceming it by an easier
one ? Would generosity either require or permit
bins to prefer the convenience and advantage of
the original mortgagees to the just interests of
the proprietors of the estate for whose benefit
his trust had been specially and exclusively
created ? And if the facts were, that the parties
interested in the estate, or any considerable pro-
portion of them, endured great privations and