The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

Having some days ago capressed an opinion
that it would be essential to the safeguard of in-
dividual life and property to introduce the " pre-
ventive principle" into the system of our muni-
cipal police, we are favoured. with a very lona
letter, the writer of which seems to have run
himself out of breath in declaiming against the
horrors of the " State Police.' which exists in
France and throughout the Continent. Now
there is no objection to a foreigner, as we per-
ceive our correspondent to be, stuffing up a
straw figure of his own manufacture, and then
pummelling and thrashing it until it falls to
pieces ; but we must assure this gentleman, that
the " State Police"—that grim destroyer,
against which he rails with so much passion,
and possibly wL!I so much justice--against
which he, at least, if we may guess from his sig-
nature of " Proseriptus; may be at this
moment in open war—was not the sort of
engine which we contemplated when we talked
of " preventive" measures for assisting the
municipal officers of London, and other great
cities, in the security of the citizen against mur-
derers and robbers. Although the bulk of fo-
reign residents in England are not remarkable
for precise or discriminating views with regard to
our internal regulations, it might have been ex-
pected that the broad and obvious difference be-
tween a " political" and a " municipal" institu-
tion would have made itself visible to the under-
standing of most men who ventured to write for
the public. A State Police can never be forced
upon this country while the Parliament and the
press are in existence. A State Police would,
in truth, be without an object here, where con-
spiracy against the State itself would be the
wildest of all chimeras. But for the prevention
of crime, under due, and as it appears to us easily
practicable, regulations, we do not see that any
more solid objection could be made to it than
there now is to many of those processes which
arc every day recurred to for the detection and
punishment of crimes already perpetrated. Rea-
sonable ground of suspicion, that robbery, mur-
der, or some illegal outrage was in preparation,
ought in all cases to be not merely.entertained, but
established and recorded on oath, before the
least attempt on the personal liberty of the im-
puted culprits received the sanction of a police
magistrate. What is this worse than, or indeed
is it so bad as, the imprisonment of an indivi-
dual in default of bail on the oath of a party
who swears the peace against him ? The grand
defect of our existing practice is, that it tends
to the consummation of crime, for the sake of
punishing the offender, instead of its prevention,
for the sake of protecting the innocent. We
really cannot see what connection subsists be-
tween a bona fide remedy for this deplorable
evil, and the establishment of a " State Police,"
which is a defensive or aggressive (which you
please) instrument, between the political ad'ini-
nistration and the subject.—Times.
No man who is not exceedingly prejudiced
will refuse to allow that the inhabitants of this
empire are not, compared with even the most
favoured nation of Europe, as far as the majo-
rity of the inhabitants are concerned, in what
may be called an enviable situation. As far as
we have been able to discover, a great number
of individuals in England, compared to the po-
pulation, enjoyed the advantage of nutritive and
stimulating food, good clothes, and protection
against cold, titan in even the most favoured
country of Europe. The increased average du-
ration of life sufficiently proves, that though
large classes—as the weavers for instance—may
suffer, yet that, upon the whole, the means of
comfortable living have not diminished. It is
true, that in many parts of the country
the means are not always obtained in the most
creditable way. Poaching, sheetastealing, and
plundering of various kinds arc so common
among the peasantry of many parts, that
they are almost considered as legitimate
means of subsistence. The people say to them-
selves, we are willing to work—there is food,
and we ought to have it by one way or another ;
and such deep rout have the practices generated
by this way of thinking struck, that in many
trades, there are conventional modes of pillage,
the not submitting to practice which would ex-
communicate a workman, and if a labourer on
a farm were to refuse to pilfer like his fellows,
he would be treated as a spy. There is a sort
of conventional dishonesty which seems to run
through all business and occupations in this
country, the reality differing as much from the
pretension, as the corrupt practice necessary to
the working of the English Constitution does
from the theory. If you ask the dealers in
coals, for instance, how it happens that fraud
has been so general among the most respectable
of the body, they tell you that they arc obliged
to cheat in self-defence--that where, by ceitain
tricks of trade, certain men can afford to take
contracts at such a price, if they did not contrive to
sell at the same price, they could do no bu-
siness. In the same manner, if you ask a
tradesman—not only in the Metropolis, but all
around—why he charges at such an enormous
rate to gentlemen, he will tell you, that so firmly
rooted is the system of bribing the domestics at a
high rate, that were he to reuse acquiescence,
he would be without business. The gentleman
or nobleman whom he befriended by his honesty
might thank him, but the servants would all
conspire against him, by spoiling the articles sent
from his shop in some way or other, that the
gentleman would be obliged to consent to sacri-
fice hint. Some years ago, an attempt was made
to break through the monopoly of fish in the
metropolis; but the old dealers and the servants
understood one another, and the attempt neces-
sarily failed. The noblemen and gentlemen set
the example of preying upon the rest of the
society, and they prey upon them in return ; and
thus the frauds balance each other with less in-
convenience than might be supposed. There is
seldom much flagrant wrong—nothing of the
titter want of principle exhibited in Russia, for
instance, or the grasping extortion so common in
Italy. But still the people of this country have
generally a moral law of their own, which they
do not find in the Decalogue. In the Memoirs
of Scipio Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia, there is,
among the Pieces justificativcs, a Letter from
a Friend who had been travelling in England
with Bishop Gregoire, who " describes his
having been much struck with the cor-
ruption of the inhabitants of Great Bri-
tain, covered over with a decent and hypocritical
exterior." What we do in this country, we ge-
nerally do well, and canting is done admirably.
The keepers of correction-houses tell you that
the appearance of profound piety is so well kept
up by the thieves under their care, that the most
penetrating would be deceived by them. The
evidence of the very intelligent keeper of the
principal correction-house in the county of Suf-
folk goes to this, that in the course of his long
experience, an instance in which a game of de-
ception has not been practised by the men under

his charge, has not occurred: We were very
much struck at the time by the wonder expres-
sed so naturally by the Judges at the circumstance
of no prosecutors appearing in the cases of shoot-
ing at a Baronet in a midland county—killing a
lad nt Eaton—and several others, as if they had
not the least suspicion how such things came
te, pass, being utter strangers to the ways of the
world. Every thing is done with decency in
this country, and though parties understand
each other tolerably well, yet certain conven-
tional rules must never be violated. This makes
us wonder the more at the proceedings with respect
to the fishermen of Queenborough, so often before
the public. The statements published from time
to time, and which have never been contradicted,
go to establish that a cool determination has
been taken to destroy these poor fishermen, root
and branch, by the most unheard of violations of
justice, in order that, by having only Govern-
ment labourers in the place, it may become
thoroughly an Ordnance Borough. It has often
beeu remarked, that the English Law puts it in
the power of a rich man, if he chooses',' to ruin
a man of moderate resources ; and that so com-
plete is this power of destruction, that without
public opinion, every poor man would be at the
mercy oi his richer neighbour. Here, however,
the verdicts of Juries and public opinion have
been laughed to scorn, and the poor devils are
stretching out their hands to heaven in their ex
tremity, seeing no earthly means by which they
can hope to avert the destruction to which they
have been coolly doomed. " Nearly one-half of
their houses," said Mr. Pennal, at the Meeting
on Monday last, " were now empty, and the
aspect of the rest bore evidence ofthis calamitous
state of things, if no inhabitants presented theta-
selves ist3 living memorials of the prevailing
wretchedness. The truth must be told. It
was Boroughmongering—unconstitutional and
corrupt Boroughmongering, by which the town
had been afflicted like a pestilence, ever
since Greet sold Calcraft. What did it
concern the Aristocracy who perished, since
it did not deprive them of one pleasure ?
Could it be expected that they should feel
eympathy with the sufferings of another order .of
beings ? When it was made known in this
country, which had once prided itself on the pro-
tection given to the rights of the meanest, that a
whole town had been deprived of its
,property
and food, and was perishing; what concern was
taken by them in the matter ?
They treated all with dignified indifference, or
'sat in grim repose, expecting, no doubt, within
themselves, when these people are half-starved
they will yield ; or when they are half dead we shall
be rid of thee:l4nd then we shall have theboroih;h.' "
This seems like the introduction of a new prin-
ciple into the working of the Constitution of this
country ; and when coupled with the utter dis-
eegard of decency now evinced by the higher
ranks in causing the supply of game to the inha-
bitants of towns to be obteined by constant vio-
lence and bloodshed ; ending often in bloodshed,
in violation to the right implied in the very idea
of a body politic, that every man has a right to
his share of all that the earth produces, the land-
owners being merely trustees for the regulation
of the distribution, according to the necessities
of the venders, and the abilities of purchasers ;
when coupled, we say, with this bold disregard
of decency, one can hardly help supposing that
the higher ranks are either tired of the constraint
of hypocrisy, or displeased with their being beat
by the rest of the ccenmunity at their own wea-
pons. " We are toll," says Mr. Godwin, in
the second volume of his History of the Com-
monwealth,' 't of the well adjusted balance of
authorities in our Government, which so
happily preserves to us our immunities as
citizens. How far the English Constitu-
tion, with its Government by corruption,
the gross inadequateness of the representation
in the House ..f Commons, and the ruling
power being in so high a degree in the Aris-
tocracy, not to mention the evils which attend
upon the institution of an hereditary Chief Ma-
gistrate, is better than a Commonweelth, it is no
part of the business of the present work to dis-
cuss. The people of this country now enjoy a
considerable portion of personal liberty : but the
same institutions that secure this to us, render
our national character phlegmatic, selfish, and
glaringly deficient in public spirit and public
virtue." We fear it was not without reason
that the higher ranks of this country, with the
Church in their train, have always, till lately
forced to appear a little otherwise, been so
stoutly opposed to education. The schoolmas-
ter, since he has been abroad, has dreadfully in-
terfered with the working of the Constitution. '
The game of the high begins to be seen through
by the low ; and when one trick is met by
another—when the man whom you meant to
cajole smiles knowingly in your face—when the •
zeal manifested for our holy religion and social •
order is pretty uniformly interpreted a zeal for a
slice or two of the good,things going, some por-
tentous change cannot. be far off. When Eno-
lish Boroughmongers cease to regard appear-
ances so far as to doom a whole town to destruc-
tion against justice, things look ominous indeed.
—Morning Chronicle.
We alluded again yesterday to the dreadful
murders which have been perpetrated in Edin-
burgh for the purpose of disposing of the bodies
of the victims to surgeons and anatomists, and
gave further particulars, from the Scotch Papers,
of the tragic work which has been carrying en
there, to such an extent, for such a length of ,
time, and with such hardened impunity. No
fewer than thirty-five persons are now said to
have fallen victims to the murderous hands of
Burke and Hare ; and we only re-echo the wish I ,
of every one who has heard of the dreadful tra-
gedies in which they have been engaged, when
we express a fervent hope, that the latter,
although allowed to escape from the charge in
which he was only a spectator of the crime will still
be brought to justice for those in which he was
principal. But what, ought to be done to those to •
whom the bodies of the unhappy victims of the
Murderers were disposed, or what shall be said •
respecting them ? Had there been only one
murdered subject presented to them, it might
readily he granted that the total absence of sus- •
picion had prevented them from detecting the
mode in which the life had departed from it ; '
for who could have dreamed that a monster
would have been found in the present age, so
utterly callous and wicked, as to have converted
the most dreadful of crimes into a sort of every- j
day work ? But it was not the body of one I
victim, but the bodies of thirty-,five—nay, per-
haps, of more (for who can tell the extent of
murders which may have been committed?)
that were presented ; and it argues either a
gross connivance at the villainy which was
perpetrated, or a gross ignorance of medical
science, on the part of those who pur-
chased the bodies of the unfortunate persons, I
not to have known, even at first sight, that they
had been deprived of he by violence. The

• marks of strangulation are too well known to be
mistaken by the merest tyro in medical science ;
and yet it appears, from the evidence hitherto
laid before the public, that only in one instance
was the slightest hesitation manifested in the re-
ception of the bodies ! A greater blot, in fact,
has never fallen on the scientific and moral cha-
Iracter of the Edinburgh surgeons, than the non-
) discovery of the mode in which the victims of
I avarice and unheard-of cruelty came by their
deaths; and the rublic, we feel assured, will
not rest satisfied until justice bas, in the first
place, been done upon Hare—until the names
of the persons whom Burke and Hare mur-
dered have been ascertained—and until, also,
the names of the anatomists into whose
hands dee bodies were delivered have been
made known. The sensation which has
been excited is great here, and still greater
• near the scene of the dreadfni murders ; but it
is not greater than such revolting barbarity might
have been expected to elicit, and we should re-
gret its subsiding before the fullest inquiry has
taken place, and the whole matter been probed
to the bottom. Who knows that there may not
have been others implicated in the murders than
those whose names are already before the public,
and that at the moment we write, similar trage-
dies may not be in the course of performance in
other parts of the Kingdom ? The authority
. vested in the Lord Advocate is sufficient to lead
to the most complete discovery of all the ramifi-
' cations of the dreadful plot, and he will greatly
fail in the performance of a great public duty if
he fails in developing them.—Morning' Adver.
' In another part of our paper we insert a
letter of Dr. Curtis's, explanatory of his show-
ing to his friends a letter written to him by the
Duke of Wellington. We think that Dr.
Curtis was not warranted in showing that letter,
and we should think that the Duke, in future,
will be very cautious how he writes to any Ca-
tholic—whether lay or clerical. It would appear,
by Dr. Curtis's letter, that the Duke's sugges-
tion, as to the Catholics being for a time quiet,
and leaving their cause to time, will not be at-
tended to by the Catholics. We, therefore,
think that Catholic Emancipation will not, at
least for the present, be entertained by England.
The great mass of the people of England have
a horror of Catholicism, fOr they are afraid that
if the Catholic Barristers were admitted into
Parliament and power, that the time would not
be far off when the Catholic Clergy would be
for thrusting themselves into tithes of some
description ; or that they would be for shar-
ing the present tithes with the Church
of England.. Now it is well known that
ad Catholics are under the dominion of the
Priest, and the probability is that, if the Bar-
risters succeeded in getting into place and power,
the Priests would not be long after them ; and if,
in the attempt to share the tithes, or to institute
further tithes, the Catholic Barristers, when in
power, did not second the Priests, why then the
latter, in all probability, would threaten to ex-
communicate the Barrister, which would bring
them to, if any thing would. The Church of
England, before the Catholics are admitted to
power, should take good security from the Ca-
tholic Church that it would not interfere with
our Church as to the tithes ; for, if no such se-
' curity were given by one Church to the other,
we should, in the long run, have the two Churches
at open war about the pounds, shillings, and
pence—all which would be " part and parcel of
Anti-Christ."—Morning Herald.
The Letter of Dr. Ciirtis (the nick-named
Catholic Primate of Ireland) in reply to that of
his Grace the Duke of Wellington, is given in a
preceding column. The arrogant pretensions of
the Popish faction in Ireland we have frequently
felt it our duty to advert to, in order to counter-
act and expose their plots, and lay bare the real
nature of the case, as between them and the
Protestant Constitution in Church and State.
But in doing this on every proper occasion—in
endeavouring to give a right direction to the
public mind, and humbly invoking the assistance
of the generous and the loyal to assist us in the
good cause, little did we think that an Irish
Popish Bishop would have had the presump-
tuous hardihood to read such a lecture to a Pro-
testant Prime Minister as this aspiring ereve of
the Duke of Wellington has had the assurance to
attempt. But the first thing to strike every man
upon its perusal, after he has recovered from his
astonishment, will naturally be, what were the
contents of Dr. Curtis's letter which called forth
the reply of the Duke of Wellington ? What
did it ask, what did it deny of Popish violence,
or in what did it deny their double, and there-
fore doubtful allegiance to the Protestant King
and Government of Great Britain ? Was Dr.
Curtis, presuming on the regard exhibited •
towards him in Spain by the Duke of Welline.- •
ton, at the same time seeking to throw that
illustrious Hero and Statesman off his guard ;
or was he taking advantage of private intimacy
by obtaining a confidential communication,
and then exposing it to the world ? Our
Readers and the Public cannot fail to give
the proper answer. That the publication
of the Duke of Wellington's letter was a
breach of confidence can be best demon-
strated from the letters already before the
public. Dr. Curtis, in the first place, expresses
a wish to avoid mixing himself up with other ,
than spiritual affairs ; in the next place, he ne-
gatives by his silence that he was authorized by
any body of the Catholic Clergy or Laity to o
address the Duke of Wellington ; and then, we
tearlessly ask, did he or could he dare to address •
him in any other capacity than that of a private
acquaintance ? It is impossible, from the do- I
cuments before us, to arrive at any other con-
elusion. Now, if this be so, is not the publica-
tion of his Grace's letter a direct and atrocious
violation of private confidence ? Let the Protes-
tants of England and Ireland look to this in tune
—let them not slumber on their post, but " watch
on the towers of Jerusalem by day and by
night.”—Still the jesuitical and double-dealing
subterfuge by which the Duke's letter got into
publication in the Popish prints of Dublin, re-
mains to be
,explained. Dr. Curtis lives in a
town by no means small (its inhabitants being
very numerous), having a Corporation, and
sending a Member to Parliament. Yet every
hotly, as the Doctor says, knows the letters which
are directed to all his leilow-townsmen—(risum
teneatis);—one was franked to him by his
Grace the Duke of Wellington, which excited
surprise, as well it might, and (mark the
logical conclusion of the controversial Bishop)
—therefore I was justified in reading its
contents to a few emfidential friends,
upon whose advice we agreed to betray
the Prime Minister and each other. If this
is to be borne, who will say, what next ?
Never indeed have we read any thing more
shallow or fallacious than the reasoning at-
tempted throughout by the subtle Priest. He
professes himself to he adverse. to the Noble
Duke's idea of a calm consideration of the mea-

sure ; which, strange to say, he pronounce.., to
be totally inadmissible, pretending that " it
would exasperate those who arc already too
much excited ;" thus giving us to under-
stand that the best mode of arranging the
business is to do it amidst the preva-
lence of violent party feelings, when all
dispassionate consideration is impossible.—
This is an idea every way worthy of a
crafty Jesuit, but wholly unworthy of the atten-
tion of a wise and enlightened Minister, or of
any man having the slightest knowledge of the
existing order of things. To this instance of
exquisite reasoning on the part of' the Irish Ca-
tholic Bishop we have to add a striking proof of
his candour, in attributing atrocious language
and horrible threats solely to the Brunswick and
Orange Prints. It is surely impossible that the
Priest can be ignorant of the infamous and sedi-
tious language so constantly indulged in for a
iong time by his worthy friends, O'Connell, Law-
less, Sheil, and others ; or of the main and in-
controvertible fact, that the Brunswick and other
loyal Clubs had their origin only in a loyal
determination to counteract the mischievous
objects (as uudisguisedly mid daringly expressed)
ati.d defeat the rebellious designs, of the declared
enemies of the Constitution in Church and
State. In one respect, however, we entirely
agree with Dr. Curtis. Most sincerely do we
hope and trust, that the nation will long have
the happiness and advantage of possessing a
Prime Minister '' who after an uninterrupted
series of the greatest victories, and a successful
arrangement of the most important interests that.
perhaps ever yet occurred, has been placed at
the head of Government by the entire and well-
earned confidence of our most gracious Sove-
reign, and with the universal applause of the
whole empire, and indeed of all other nations."
—Morning Post.

WINTER ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

KINGSTON, DEC. 31.

Richard Lawrence and Henry Lawrence were
indicted for burgiarionsly entering the dwelling-house
of Mr. Thornton, Bennet-street, Stamford-street,
and stealing therefrom sundry articles of plate, value
upwards of 5/., and two hats, on the 11th of August
last.

Richard Lawrence protested his innocence, and
declared he had liought the hat sworn to by the pro-
secutor in April last.
The other prisoner made no defence.
The jury, after a short consultation, found both
prisoners Guilty.
The JUDGE, in directing sentence of death to be
recorded, remarked, that the crime of burglary had
reached to such an extent in this country, that it
mast be punished severely. It was only in consi-
deration of the absence of personal violence in this
case that he should recommend his Majesty to spare
the prisoners' lives ; but they would have no oppor-
tunity to commit a similar offence in this country at
least.
The prisoners are notorious offenders.

The assizes concluded this day.