The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-01 00:00:00

those who are Catholics defer till they are in ex-
tremity to ensure absolution from the Priest."
Black Eloisas every one of them, by the mere

unassisted light of nature ;
" Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, .
Clap her bright wings, and in a moment flies."
However, notwithstanding the climate, the
rum, the profligacy, the love of old women, and
a long list of et celeras, the free blacks do con-
trive to increase and multiply, while the happy

. _
slaves decrease. The slaves are even more
healthy than the free blacks, for Dr. Williams
says—" From your observation, have you any
reason to think that they are more healthy than
slaves hi general ? I have not observed them to
be more healthy ; on the contrary, I think them
more subject to disease from their great excesses
andtheir bad habits. I have known many slaves who
continued healthy so long as they were in slavery
and under controul, who, after they had obtained
their freedom, became sickly from their excesses."
The unhealthiness is probably the cause of the
increase of population ; and the masters have only
to be a little harsher to their slaves, and to make
'hem as unhealthy as the free blacks, and then
they will obtain the same increase. One cause
assigned by the witnesses is somewhat at variance
with the rest of their evidence, and leads us to
have some doubts as to the excessive kindness of
:he masters. It seems the French and Spanish

planters succeeded better in preserving the negroes
than the English. Doctor Williams " they
paid personally more attention to them, and refit,
always careful to have a sufficiency of the country
provisions growing. . . In general, the
French resided upon their own estates, whilst
the English properties were more frequently con-
:hided by managers." In short, the English are
cruel task-masters, who live in the squares of
London, and consign over the negroes to the
officourings of our trading towns, looking only
to the nett profit. Almost all the witnesses, too,
say that the Catholic religion is better fitted for
bringing rude people like negroes to a state of
civilization than the Protestant ; and experience
seems to justify them. The Catholic religion
secured, amidst barbarous ancestors, the relics of
civilization ; and it seems to be peculiarly well
adapted for making an impression on negroes and,
Indians.—Morning Chronicle.
Sir Peter Laurie is evidently a shrewd man,
and to use the common phrase, can see through
a millstone as far as his neighbours ; but for all
that he does not appear to be able to compre-
hend the reason for many of the practices which
have been most extolled in this country. In a
case at Guildhall, on Thursday, of a charge for
receiving a stolen watch, which ended in the
commitment for trial of Aaron Lazarus—
" Sir PETER LAURIE called upon Lazarus to account how
the watch came into his possession the day after it was
stolen.
" Lazarus began to roily, but his Solicitor checked him,
and submitted that the Magistrate was not entitled to call
upon his client for any explanation.
" Sir PETER LAURIE remarked, that if Mr. Isaacs or
himself had been charged with having stolen watches in
their fobs, how ready they would have been to say how
they came into their possession. He could not conceive
how answering any questions could affect an honest man.
Sir Peter,". rejoined Mr.- Isaacs, " I stand here upon
Law—perhaps in a moral point of view, I might be inclined
to act differently; but I contend that by the law of England
no man charged on suspicion of felony, is bound to answer
any question," &c.
The Law is the perfection of human reason,
and yet Sir Peter does not see the reason of the
Law Mr. Isaacs carefully distinguishes between
law and morality, and he is right in so doing.
He is right, also, in preferring the Law to more-
lily, for an Attorney gains by the principles of
the former, and loses by the principles of the
latter. When Sir Peter Laurie observed that
he should draw his own inference from the
silence of Lazarus," he was within a hair-breadth
of the discovery of the reason of the Law, which
evidently is to keep up a sufficient stock-of rogues
in the country. • innocent bufus—wittr,
eagerness to tell his story, 'that he may not lie
ger than necessary under the
one moment lon
dreadful imputation of crime. The most
grievous of all IVIOITS to him is to deprive him
of an
.opportunity for setting himself right with
the world. When that opportunity has been
delayed for some time, the feverish agitation has
often been found too much for the most vigorous
frame. The idea that all those with whom a
man wishes to stand well—all those in whose
affections and regard he holds a place—believe
him guilty of some foul crime, must be of all
tortures the most agonizing to an honourable
mind. Honesty, therefore, loses every thing by
silence—and can gain nothing from•n. There
is not a schoolboy who would hesitate .for one
moment to draw the inference, that silence.is a
confession of guilt. The world do draw uni-
formly that inference. Now, then, the object of
the tender mercies of the Law is to save, in order
to throw out on the world, men, whom the world
charitably believe to be guilty, in order, that
being suspected by all and trusted by none, they
may be driven to prey on society. This is the
object, and the only object of that kind provision
of the Law which Sir Peter Laurie could not
discover, but which the Lawyers were not slow
to discover, and which so many of them have
eulogized. We wish Sir Peter Laurie, if he
have any doubt on the subject, would apply to
.some of his Brother Magistrates who have laud-
ed the provision, to point out to him any other
intelligible object—lbid.
The Corporation of London, we perceive, are
about to make an attempt to recruit their finances
by strictly enforcing a law of a very oppressive
nature, and one which, we think, ought to be
allowed to go as quietly as possible into oblivion.
By that law the Corporation are empoweted to
eompß all retail traders, shopkeepers, &c., to
take up their freedom, as it is called, or else to
inflict penalties on them for neglecting or refus-
ing to do so, and for non-payment of such pe-
nalties to seize their goods and merchandise,
This law has frequently been made use of to
harass and overwhelm those small retail-dealers
~vho had not the means of purchasing their free-
dom, or of paying the penalties incurred through
their incapacity to obtain it. This law has also
the effect of excluding from retail business in
the City of London all persons of the Jewish
persuasion, and towards them a double tyranny
is exercised—they are treated as aliens, incapable
of taking up the freedom of the City, and they
'ate liable to the penalties of not becoming free-
men ; so that they are punished by this " liberal
and enlightened" Corporation for not doing
What it declares they shall not be allowed to do !
This is called an " age of intellect," of " won-
derful improvement," and of " universal benevo-
le
but a law like this is only worthy of the
dark ages. It invests a particular body of men
lith the power of crushing poor and industrious
traders by seizing their property, and reducing
them to utter bstitution. This is aL.7c) called an
principles and liberal co-
Igee of‘ free traderee,'"biitsucli alaV m
is an absurd and tyrannical
straint • upon trade as far as it goes, and is, in
Its spirit, of the very essence of monopoly and
clxaction. There are a great.many persons in the
'cli.,onlmon Council of London who style them-

selves patriots, and make speeches against the
Corn Laws and the Grand Turk—not one of
those " patriotic orators," hoWever, raised his
voioe the other day against the proposition of
Oldham (founded on the Report of a Com-
mittee), to carry this law against retail dealers
into effect in a more general and sweeping way
than had ever been done before ! Yet the Corn
Laws, even on the showing of the " statesmen"
of the Common Council, did not involve so ob-
noxious a principle as that which is the root of
this law—nor does the Grand Turk treat Jews
with greater intolerence than they experience
from the operation of this specimen of Civic
wisdom and liberality. If the Corporation feel
it necessary to recruit their funds, it would be-
speak more wisdom and right feeling in them to
economise their expenses rather than attempt to
repair the consequences of their extravagance by
levying a tax so vexatious and unjust. In the
article of civic feasting alone they might save a
very handsome fortune, which, while it improved
the health and intellect of the body at large,
would be a much more respectable expedient for
liquidating their debts, than the adoption of a
measure so vicious in its principle and so bur-
densome to their fellow-citizens.—Morning
Herald.

When we hear it stated, and that by the
highest authoiity for such matters in the king-
dom, that great part of the public time, in the
highest Court of Justice, is wasted in conse—
quence of the blunders of the practitioners who
draw up the proceedings in the various cases,
we are naturally led to inquire whether some ra-
medy might not be found for so serious an evil.
To our mind two very obvious remedies present
themselves. The one, that parties making those
plunders should be made to pay for them out of
their own pockets; the other, that the proceed-
ings, or rather pleading;, the length and intricacy
of which lead to many of such blunders, should
be much shortened and simplified. It is a
serious calamity to any country that the law,
which we are all bound to reverence, should be-
come, in the hands of so many of its practi-
tioners, a perfect nuisance, and a tax much
higher in amount, in many instances, than all
the claims of the public revenue, great and
numerous as they are. Even the Judges them-
selves, enlightened and keen-sighted as they are,
do not, we will venture to say, know one half
the extent of the abuse which, in the name and
under the sanction of law, prevails from one end
of the kingdom to the other ; and nowhere more
than in the metropolis, which abounds with
harpies, many of whom pass, unfortunately, for
honourable men. These people spread their
nets so universally, and there is, unhappily, such
a tendency to litigation amongst mankind, that to
expect to see the evil remedied by any general
agreement arising from the mere common sense
of mankind, is more, we fear, than can be rea-
sonably looked for. But for its diminution the
world may look to the knowledge and experience,
and undoubted integrity of the Judges ; and we
are, therefore, glad to see that they are alive to
part, at least, of the evil ; which we trust soon to
see, if not wholly cured, at least checked and
corrected, either by the adoption of the means
which we have suggested, or such other as the
benter judgment of those learned persons may
devise.—lbid.

Although every thing in the actual situation
of national affairs, forngn and domestic, concurs
to point out the expediency of an meeting
of Parliament, still it creates no surprise that the
present Administration has adopted the resolu-
tion of postponing it to the latest possible mo-
ment. Those who believe the Ministry to be
popular throughout the country, 'mist no doubt
be exceedingly perplexed to account for its mani-
fest reluctance and dread to encounter the Na;-
ssossras•-s,,,,essuosssisss,A A. aqual perplexity must
be experienced by those who ever believed Mi-
nisters to be sincere in their professed intention
to appoint an effective Finance €ommittee, at
the commencement of the next Session of Par-
liament, with a view to reduce the expenditure
of the year ; since the delay in calling Par-
liament together renders it quite impossible
that such Committee (if even it is to be ap-
pointed at all) can investigate so comprehen-
sive a subject in all its important details,
so as to enable them to present a satis-
factory report, prior to the period when
the Government Estimates for the year must
of necessity be voted., From this perplexity we
are exempt ; because we do not believe the Admi-
nistration to be popular, nor did we ever believe it
to be sincere in its professions of economy. When
we look at the constitution of the Administration—
at the conduct it has pursued—and, still more, when
we regard the diversified and conflicting tenures by
which it is expected to possess the confidence, and
retain the support of a great majority of its declared
adherents, and the severe trials to which those te-
nures will inevitably be exposed during the ensuing
Session—we own it will be matter of surprise to us
if it should dare to meet Parliament at all, rather
than that it should be anxious to defer the moment
of meeting, although at the expence of the most im-
portant interests of the State. Many of the antici-
pated supporters of Ministers are men who have al-
ways professed themselves so devoted to peace,
and economy, and commerce, that we should
hardly expect them to adhere to a Ministry
which had led the nation into even a just
and necessary war. How may such persons be ex-
pected to vote, when Parliament is called upon to
sanction a policy, of which the probable result was,
and is, to involve the nation in a war that is neither
necessary nor just ? Many of the anticipated sup-
, porters of Ministers are men who believe, or at least

assert, that the national expenditure during peace
may be properly and.safely reduced by several mil-
lions annually. How are these persons likely to be
affected, when they discover, as discover they will,
this boasted economical Administration disposed not
at all to reduce the expellees of the State, but rather
to increase them ? Many are warm advocates of the
dangerous and alarming measure of Parliamentary Re-
form. What will be the effect upon them when they find
out that the cause of Reform is as hopeless as ever,
and that popular election is so much the terror of
the new Ministers, that they have in more than one
instance modified their first official arrangements, for
no other purpose than to keep some of their under•
, liege out of the way of itG very formidable dangers ?
Many of the anticipated supporters of Ministers be-
lieve, or (which is perhaps not the same thing)
have frequently asserted, that the admission of
Papists to the highest offices of the State, and
,to
seats in both Houses of Parliament, is a measure
without which Ireland cannot be preserved as an
integral portion of the British Empire. What will
these persons feel disposed to think and to say when
hey find that Ministers, the majority of whom
believe as they believe, or at least profess as they
profess upon this subject, are determined never-
theless to encounter the responsibilities, or rather
to enjoy the advantages and emoluments of office,
leaving the Catholic question, and all that it involves,
including, according to them, the preservation of
Ireland, to chance ? Many of those upon whom
Ministers depend for support believe that justice to
the Protestant Dissenters of the Empire requires
the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act. Several
of the Ministers are known to entertain a similar
opinion upon this subject. Will Ministers long
ep„tinne to receive disinterested support from men
'Those cause and principles they abandon and with-