The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-27 00:00:00

answer any effective service. But what is the
practice now going on in the county of Middlesex
for instance ? Two, three, or four times a year,
are the inhabitants called upon to return the
names of all male persons residing . under their
roof, between the ages, we think it is, of lgand
45. Well, this done, sundry persons of the
number thus returned are exempt ; but it is not
sufficient to claim that. exemption upon the re-
turn, but a day of appeal is named, when the
person so claiming to be exempt must attend and
substantiate his claim (by proving, probably, some
bodily infirmity before a surgeon), at a meeting
of Deputy Lieutenants, held in the filthy
smoking-room of an ale-house on Clerkenwell-
green. Well, this part of the process gone
through, and the lists completed, those liable to
the ballot are exposed to this'ordeal. But how
the numbers to be ballotted for arise, or how the
ballot itself is conducted, we do not pretend to
know. At length the constable comes to a man's
house with a notice that he is the drawn man,
and that he must attend at the aforesaid smoking
room on such a day to be sworn in, or find a sub-
stitute. Now the being sworn in is what the
underlings, upon these occasions, by no means
want, and lest a man should, have, as is probably
the case, no martial propensities, the constable,
who shares the profits with the professed crimps,
kindly announces that he need be under no alarm
at the smell of gunpowder, for that for such a sum
he can provide a substitute. Like many other
trades, the constable crimp demands a higher
- price than he means to take, and rather than not
get your money at all (though your person is
what the King's service requires), he will descend
from 5/. to a guinea. If a man, however, instead
of making too hasty a bargain with the constable,
waits till the day of swearing in, and attends at
the alehouse, he there finds a much larger and
cheaper choice of substitutes assembled about the
door, composed, apparently, one half of professed
thieves, and. the whole of fellows rivalling the
very: lowest idea of Falstaff's ragged regi-
ment. Frem these he may buy of their em-
ployers his man, and having paid his money, and
seen his substitute enrolled, he may return home,
stinking and sweating from the crowd and stench
of the place, from one or two, to five pounds
poorer, but proudly conscious that he has been
doing the state some service—till, in about six
months time, the same farce is to be played over
again in the person, perhaps, of his son or his
servant. Now this is something very like what
occurs upon these occasions, by which no small
gain is acquired, and no small revenue, of course.
raised, as we have said, under colour of the law.
Of ccurse the gentlemen in the smoking room
(selected, as they must have been, by the Lord
Lieutenant for their wealth, rank, and skill in
such matters) know nothing of the tricks_goiug
on out of doors. If they cannot remedy them,
it is fit they should be looked into, and redress-
ed by a higher power. The obvious remedy is,
that all ballots for the' Militia should be sus-
pended during pars when there is no intention
of calling out, or embodying :t. But the matter
ought not to rest there. The abuse, of which
we have pointed out the outline, ought to be
probed to the bottom, and if the Membees fOr
the home counties, where the evil principally._ if
not wholly lies, do not take the subj, • en, ue
• trust that Mr. Hume, or some other acts .
ber, will move for returns, which will fill tic. ;i
picture, ancki4a a way too, we are convinced, that',
will show that our outline is very far from being '
exaggerated.—/bil.
The Journal which is supported by the pis.-
sent Administration, or which rather, as it would
naturallyssZsupports them, has thought pro-
per, in a 5 . insanity or intoxication, to return
to the subject of:lord Charles Somerset. The
Noble Lord, atforins its readers, viould have
been re-appointati by the late Tory Administra-
tion, as it has been told, to the Government of
the Cape of Good Hope, if they had continued
a few days longer in power ; and it proceeds to
say,• that this would have been an act of such
flagrant delinquency, that meanly ae it thinks of
the late Administration, it cannot suppose them
capable of having contemplated it. We disdain
to answer the falsehoods which proceed from a
degree of ignorance .which can only excite pity,
or to refute the calumnies which drunkenness or
idiotcy only can have prompted. But we never-
theless think fit to recal to the recollection of
the public certain facts connected with the case
of the late Governor of the Cape, which, on
account of their importance, ought in our opi-
nion never to be forgotten. That Lord Charles
Somerset was actually Governor of the Cape at
the period of the dissolution of the late Admi-
nistration, and that
.consequently his re-appoint-
ment to that office could not have been contem-
plated by. them ; that lie would have returned to
the Cape to.the great and general joy of its in-
habitants if that Administration had continued
in power ; that he might 'have returned to the
Cape as Governor, if the Administration which
succeeded them had been thought worthy of the
Parliamentary support of the house of Beaufort—
are facts so evident and notorious, that the mere
mention of them is more than sufficient. But the
conduct of the chief members of the late Oppo-
sition, of the chief Parliamentary supporters of
the present Ministry towards Lord Charles So-
merset, deserves a more particular comment. It
was such as to stamp them, and all who held
political communion with, or received political
support from them, with infamy. Lord Charles
Somerset has not had one or two—he has had at
least a dozen accusers in Parlianient. They
have one after another laid to his charge crimes,
for the least of which he ought to have been
eternally disgraced, for some of which the loss of
his bead would not have been too severe a pu-
nishment. But during this period of accusation
and of calumny Lord C. Somerset was at the
Cape of Good Hope. This, however, could
not last long. Lord C. Somerset returned to
England, for the purpose of hearing and answer-
ing whatever could be said against him; and at
once, as if 'by magic, his accusers were awed iuto
silence—the cowardly assassins flung far from
them the poisoned daggers with which they
.had
threatened and attempted to strike. -No positive.
testimony to character can be so Conclusive as
this negative testimony. A considerable number
of Members of the House of Commons, many 9f
them men of unbounded wealth—all of them
secure of whatever assistance the existing Admi-
nistration can render them, sit down to be
branded. as calumniators, as assassins, •as cowards,.
when the production of evidence that Lord C.
Somerset has been a bad Governor at the Cape
of Cood Hope, would redeem them from so
ignominious an infliction. Surely we may infer
that history, ancient or modern, bears no 'record:
of a public functionary so unblemished as thisl
Noble Lord. His enemies in Parliament have
shrunk confounded from the position which they
so factiously and unjustly assumed • ' and the
most honest and able servant of the State may
well envy his peculiar felicity in having his namd
thus ennobled for the present, and consigned td
thejespea itnd gratitude of posterity -.-by the