The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP, THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The contest for the great Scotch county of
Lanark has terminated in the election of Sir
Michael Shaw Stewart, the popular candidate.
Thus the staunch .and independent representa-
tive, Lord Archibald Hamilton, whose recent
loss has occasioned this new appeal to the sense
of the freeholders, is replaced by a man of cor-
responding principles, who will support a liberal
Administration, and join the almost unanimous
voice of his countrymen in keeping out, now
that we have got them out, the sordid faction
from whom his Maesty and his people have ex-
per id ebde. joyfulsoßut it
his
the local band of Scotch Tories in Lanarkshire
ias not release.
that r result foris wahsi cit
the
had prepared themselves, or with the hopes of
which the Tory press of! London had for some
weeks laboured, by the regular expedients of
bullying and boasting, to re-animate the cold
partisans of a dying cause. The country was
threatened with a series of Tory triumphs, of
which this Lanarkshire election would be the
first. The landed interest was to be .‘ true to
itself," and it has been so ; but not in the ex-
Minister signification—not by starving the poor
manufacturers of Glasgow and Paisley, and im-
poverishing the commercial interest, from the
prosperity of which alone can landholders expect
to maintain full prices, to enjoy steady and well- •
paid rents, and to escape the locust-plague of
innumerable paupers. This overthow of a
desperate effort of the Tories may be bailed as a
satisfactory evidence that the political monopoly
which afflicted our Scotch neighbours for more
than 40 years—the Dundas abomination, the
Melville blight—has begun to palsy the hand
which wielded it, or to spend its virulence
on its former agents. It will be glori-
ous to see a fallen tyrant wasting away
miserably in a corner of his own revolted
empire, enduring the most terrible punishments
—the contempt and indifference of his once
abject slaves. Never was an unrighteous rule
more absolute than the Dundas dominion over
Scotland. In no respect was the late tunny!'
of King and People more illustrious or more.
reviving than in the exchange of this dynasty of
usurpers for the legitimate sway of George Iv.,
whose desire and necessary policy must be, not
only to cast down the usurpation, but to cut away
the roots of it, that no base barriers may hence-.
forth impede that easy movement of a free con-
stitution, which brings the people into unob-
structed contact with their Sovereign, and encou-
rages them to contemplate his Majesty and his
Parliament as the natural redressers of wrong,
and the immediate despositaries of the public
confidence. It is needless to say how this direct
and salutary relation between King and subject
has been intercepted during the long supremacy
of the Melvilles. For two generations the nui-
sance lasted—the sceptre was transmitted from
old Harry to the son, as smoothly as that of Hy-
der to Tippoo ; and as completely, do we trust,
is the northern domination extinguished, as was
its prototype and parallel in the East. It will,
we believe, be"found in every part of the United
Kingdom, that the same spirit which has now
shown itself among the Freeholders of Lanark,
will act with equal vigour and success whenever,
the public is afforded an opportunity of attest—
ing its own true bias. The• chronic incubus
once shaken off, the national' frame recovers
health and elasticity—it wakes to a sense of
power—or, without uneasiness,, yields itself to
repose.— Times.

It is impossible to attach more importance
than it deserves to a subject which we brought a
few days ago under public notice, and which our
readers may have seen, from the Times of yester-
day, has occupied 'and continues to agitate the
minds of the great body of medical practitioners
in this country ;—we mean the necessity of ex-
tending, by all practicable means, the profes-
sional knowledge which is to constitute their
legal qualification for entering on their very se-
rious duties. The meetings which were alluded
to in yesterday's Times have been the channels
through which some deplorable and alarming,
facts have made their way to the public. It is a
dismal thing to hear the very men to whom our
lives and those of our families are committed,
Mate, before the whole world, that they are them-
selves by far more ignorant, and therefore by far
less capable either of curing disease, or of in-
structing the medical generation which is to suc-
ceed them, than the physicians, &c. of Italy,
France, and Germany—regions which, in the
fulness of contented arrogance, Englishmen are
generally accustomed to look down upon as in all
points less enlightened than themselves. It is
admitted that the course of English medical edu-
cation is too confined ; that the youths who
come to London for instruction do so with the.
view of making that instruction the passport
merely to their reception as members of what-
ever branch of the profession they may
aspire to—not with that of qualifying
themselves to save their patients' lives ;
that the schools abroad give knowledge
more enlarged and more profound than in
this country ; that the chiefs of great public esta-
blishments here are wanting in punctuality and
diligence where the business of instructing pupils
is concerned ; that-the pupils themselves are so
utterly and stupidly careless, where the object of
passing an official examination, is not concerned,
that a' man so eminent and able as Dr. Chohnon-
deley, Physician at Guy's Hospital, has rarely
more than one or two students to attend his cli-
nical lectures at the patient's bed-side—the most'
really efficient class of lectures that can he given,
and by the most competent instructor ; that, in
fine (and we believe this to be the sober truth),
the whole profession in London—and if in Lon-
doe, in the country also, which takes the tone
from London—is degraded into a mere money-
netting trade, having no characteristic oivirtuous
and humane compassion, or of lofty and generous
ambition, and being in a great degree composed
of men, and governed by maxims, disgraceful to
the art itself, and most frightful in relation to the
safety of those human beings who are afflicted
with disease and exposed to danger. We de,
think that more solid good might be effected by
bringing this Augean stable under the imme-
diate ken of Parliament, and by devising mea-
sures for its thorough purification, than by 50
committees for transporting the poor to Canada,
or exasperating the empty stomachs of those who
remain by doses of religious controversy:—
As what is called the London season ap_
p •
roaches we look with increased dismay at the
formidable preparations that the monster, gam_
ing, is making to undermine our national cha-
racter and individual happiness. The infernal.
Temple of Fraud and Robbery, which, to the
disgrace of the age, has reared its audacious
front in the most public thoroughfare of the me-
tropolis, approaches towards its completion, and
is now receiving, at unbounded expellee, the last
touch refilled art and gorgeous luxury can be-
stow. Around this hell of hells, numerous
minor dens of infamy abound—some of then

"-'"Viz"!494

under the denomination of clubs-, otheri open at
all hours of•the day and night, to the less select
thieves who choose to frequent them. It may
be justly asked, what must-be the feelings of the
Government which can suffer. and connive at
this wide-spreading ruin—what the state of its
minor agents, who can calmly look on at this
wholesale plunder, while petty marauders are
hunted into the toils; with an assiduity worthy
• of higher objects ? To expect from the police
as it is now constituted, and indeed as the law
now stands, any 'effectual efforts against this
alarming and increasing evil, would be much the
same as to expect the drones to quit the hive,
and encounter the rude gales of winter, while
honey, warmth, and quiet slumbers are to be
found within. But the more hopeless any re-
lief or assistance from that quarter becoines, the
more imperative is it on those who know and
see the alarming extent of the danger, to look
elsewhere, and to knock at the door of the Go-
vernment till they are heard, and can see the hydra
grappled with and subdued by the power of the
State. We hear continually of pious, goodly
people of high rank and station, meeting for objects
of ten thousand times less importance than this,
and talking themselves hoarse, and their hearers
asleep, with their benevolent designs for the
good of their . fellow creatures. We ask these
persons, composed as they often are, of the
reverend, the noble, the learned, and the good,
whether, among the various projects of religion,
proselytism, benevolence, and so forth, which
they from time to time espouse,' any one can be
named or thought of, half so worthy of their re-
eard and interference as this detestable vice,
which with rapid strides is sinking its cloven foot
into the very heart's blood of the nation. Away
with the cant of piety and virtue which these
people assume, if they will not, or dare not
employ the qualities they so loudly blazon forth
and boast of, for a purpose ten times more im-
portant and worthy of regard than any they have
hitherto espoused. , But we are sometimes an-
swered by being told, that if we were to succeed
in driving those robbers from congregating in
public, gaming would be carried on- in private
houses to a still more ruinous extent, because no
longer under the check of general observation.
This we do not credit. It is contrary to all ex-
perience to suppose, that that which from its.
very nature requires association, can flourish to
any thing like the same extent as a solitary vice.
But if it should, its victims would soon tell tales,
and we would pursue it fearlessly into that soli-
tude, till we had hunted it out of every garret.
When a pestilence rages, the delicacy and for-
- bearance which distinguish a season of health
• must be laid aside, and the one object of ridding
the land it, alone attended to. We still trust,
therefore, that we shall not appeal in vain upon
this subject ; but that there is virtue and energy
enough in the Government, backed as it would
be by every Tight-minded man in the community,
to crush this most audacious and formidable vice,
before its efforts have been more successful in
ruining the honour and character of the country.
—Morning Herald.
The leading Members of Administration seem
to be seized with a sudden and violent love of
privacy. The Directors ,of the East India Com-
pany gave on Wednesday a splendid' entertain-
ment in honour of Lord W. Bentinck, who is
about to assume the Government of India, at
which the presence of the whole or most of his
Majesty's Ministers was confidently expected.—
The disappointment. experienced both by hoSts
and guests upon the occasion may be conjectu-
red, when we have said that not one of the prin-
cipal Members of Government condescended to
appear ; and that the duty of returning thanks,
when the health of Lord Goderich and the rest
of his Majesty's Ministers had been drank, de-
volved upon Lord Bexley, who can hardly,' we
imagine, be deemed a Minister at all. Besides
his Lordship, there were, to be sure, Mr.
Tierney, Mr. S. Rice ; but no First Lord of
the Treasury, no Secretary of State, no Keeper
of a Seal, whether Great or Privy, no President
of the Council, no Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and still more strange, no President of the
Board of Controul, deigned to shed his lustre
upon the assembly. But perhaps the occasion
vies not deemed of sufficient importance to with-
draw these great men from their seclusion.—
Whether a sulky or a patriotic seclusion—whe-
ther employed in the brooding over some new
subject of mutual discontent, or in meditating
how they may best promote the glory and welfare
of the State—we presume not to enquire. It is,
no doubt, a voluntary seclusion, and we feel that
the mere will of men so high, ought not lightly
to be questioned. Nor should we question it on
any ground so light as that of an appearance of
disrespect to the East India Directors or Lord
"W. Bentinck ; but when it manifests itself in a
manner which, while unexplained, seems to
border upon disrespect to our beloved Sovereign,
we, in common with the whole nation, have an un-
questionable right to demand full and satisfactory
explanation. On Thursday; the day following
the East India dinner, his Majesty held a Court
and a Privy Council at his Royal Lodge, in
Windsor Park, the attendance at both of which
was, to use the gentlest term, unbecomingly
slender. Lord Goderich, First Lord of the
Treasury, did not attend. The Marquis of
Lansdowne, the Home Secretary, did not attend.
Mr. Huskisson, the' Cdonial Secretary, did not
attend. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did
not attend. Neither the President of the Coun-
cil nor the Lord Privy Seal attended. With the
exception of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
there were literally none but underlings in at-'
tendance upon the Court and Council of the
King; nor did the number of these underlines
exceed five, the Master of his Majesty's Stag
Hounds, who resides Officially at Windsor, being
included. What most forcibly strikes us upon
this occasion is the appearance of personal dis-
respect towards our gracious Monarch. This,
no doubt, will strike every body ; but perhaps
graver politicians than we pretend to be will see
in it even a subject of severer censure. Is it fit,
they will ask,' thus to strip affairs of state of their
decent plausibilitie,S, by letting the whole nation
know that the question whether Parliament shall
be called together in November or February is
one respecting which the above long list of Mi-
nisters are one and all indifferent ; or, which
would be still worse, that a meeting of the Privy
Council, professedly for the decision of this or
other important questions, is to be considered
henceforth as a mere matter of form, and in no
sense of the word an opportunity for delibera-
tion. We shall wait with' impatience for an ex-
planation of the motives which have induced the
leading Ministers of the Crown thus apparently
to desert their Royal Master and abdicate their
constitutional duties.--(Since writing the above,
-we have recollected that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer is not. at present in England.)—
IV/orning Post.-- .
The 72d, number of the Quarterly Review,
-AM) has just appeared, reminds
somewln