The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-11 00:00:00

place of detention, a mere restraint on personal
liberty, that kind of conviction was perhaps bear-
able ; but now, when imprisonment is associated
with insufficient diet, damp cells, the want of
society, and irksome monotonous toil, and when
it is inflicted on hundreds, perhaps thousands,
every day in the whole society, it becomes a
grievous cruelty and a grievous tyranny. The
Magistrates go on inflicting it from habit, be-
cause their predecessors inflicted it when it was
only a trifling evil, though it has now become, to
thousands and to the community, a serious cala-
mity, injurious alike to body and mind.
We may perhaps say that the paragraph we
have quoted is pregnant with a more general
lesson than the instruction in detail it has af-
forded. It is a type of what is continually hap-
pening, by which laws become inadequate or
unjust. The law-maker, with the best intention
no doubt, lays down a general rule, which is
nominally fixed, and does not change from year
to year or month to month ; but all the circum-
stances to which it applies do change, and his
nominally fixed rule is in relation to those cir-
cumstances, by which alone it can be tested,
exceedingly changeable. He fancies he has
secured the stability of a law or an institution—
he has only provided a form of words, a set of
phrases, which will not be immediately altered;
and his institution or his law is made to vary
almost as soon as it comes into existence.

Take the case of the 101. franchise. The law-
makers of 1831-32, meant by that to enfranchise
the bulk of the artisans and intelligent workmen.
At least it is impossible to be acquainted with Lord
BRouGx AM'S high opinion of those classes, with-
out being convinced that such was his intention.
The law-makers are not very well acquainted
with the habits of the people, and so the law fell
short of their intention. But if the prosperity of
1834, 1835, and 1836 had continued—had the cir-
cumstances of the people gone on improving, that
intention would speedily have been realized.
The distress of 1837, 1838, and every year since,
has not only prevented the extension of the fran-
chise to the degree intended, but has every year
since curtailed it more and more. In the pre-
sent year, owing to the number of persons who
have been constrained to receive relief, and owing to
the fall in the rent of small houses, the disfranchise-
ment in Leeds, Manchester, and other places,
is very great indeed. The ten-pound limit,
therefore, remains fixed and unalterable, but
with prosperous circumstances, and a small in-
crease of intelligence amongst the people, that
fixed rule might be extended almost to universal
suffrage, or it may become, as at present, under
adverse circumstances, a most narrow and re-
strictive law, which places the bnlk of the com-
munity out of the pale of the Constitution, and
actually endangers, by its vast irritation, the
safety of the State.
We might easily quote other similar instances
to illustrate the general lesson taught by the In-
spectorof Prisons' Report, viz., that while the law
is nominally fixed, and the law-maker supposes
because it has not worked enormous evil at one
time it cannot effect it at another, the circum-
stances to which it applies continually undergo
variation ; and, tested by them, it has varied just
as much, producing, perhaps, at one time, un-
bearable evils which were unknown at another.
We must, however, stop, leaving our readers to
seek other illustrations for themselves. We may,
perhaps, borrow some hereafter from the de-
tailed accounts of the separate prisons contained
in this Report.

The LORD MAYOR'S feast unites all parties
in enjoyment, and furnishes no occasion fbr
politics or partisanship. To convert it into a
theme for angry discussion is toL set at defiance
the good example which the great men present
set to the press as well as the public, and to act
with as much bad taste as they displayed good
taste and courtesy. We will not depart from
their rule. We will not disturb the digestion of
the convives with one bitter remark. We can
only regret that we were not pr,esent to share the
hospitality of Mr. Alderman HUMPHERY, and
hear the sportive jests of Sir ROBERT PEEL. The
worthy Alderman undertook the defence of tur-
bot and turtle, when the tariff was under discus-
sion, and his feats on those great subjects were
appropriately hinted at by Sir ROBERT as
a certain augury of numberless excellent
dinners, during the next year, at the Mansion-
The whole assembly echoed the de7

ouse.

lightful prophecy. The Alderman and the Pre-
mier, too, complimented each other on their
public services and public virtue, and all the:com-
pany laughed at the joke. The Premier only
became serious when he began to describe the
objects he had in view, and then, too, the com-
pany being in a merry mood, laughed, but
whether it was because Sir ROBERT had laccom-
plished his object, or had failed, the reporters
have neglected to inform us. The company as-
sembled to eat, drink, and be merry; and know-
ing that Sir ROBERT PEEL must be miserable
enough in Downing-street, and fearing that lie
will be more miserable still before Parliament
meets, we cannot find fault with him, that amidst
the distress and ruin around him, and which have
followed his footsteps, be appeared to be merry
at the LORD MAYOR'S feast.

It was recently proposed at a meeting of Not-
tinghamshire Magistrates to increase the police
force for that county one-third, and the proposal,
we believe, remains over for consideration. At a
meeting of Staffordshire Magistrates, at Stafford,
on Tuesday, Lord SANDON moved a resolution
that it is expedient to take measures for the in-
troduction of a more efficient system of police
into the county of Stafford, under the 2d and 3d
of VICTORIA. After some discussion, the resolu-
tion was unanimously carried, and followed by
other resolutions, carrying into effect the Report
of a Committee. According to its recom-
mendations there will be appointed four police
superintendents to the Pottery district,
one at 1301. a year, and three at 1001.
a yearovith sixty constables at weekly salaries of
165., 18s., and 205.; six police superintendents
and ninety constables at the same rate of pay-
ment, for the mining districts; one of the super-
intendents to be mounted, and have a salary of
150/. a year; and eight superintendents, with
seventy constables, for the rural districts of the
country. Over all there is to be a chief consta-
ble with a salary of 3501. a year. Thus we find
the country gentlemen busily engaged in orga-
nizing a police for their own security.
What may be the cost of this new force in the
rural districts of Stafford we do not see stated,
bot it is proposed to levy on the Potteries
and mining districts, for the support of
this police no less a sum than 9,2401. a-year.
Our view of what is at present good policy in our
rulers is perhaps simple and erroneous, but it
strikes us, when the country is groaning under
the weight of local and general taxation, that
every addition to it, for whatever purpose, is
very much to be deprecated. The Staffordshire
nobles and squires have adopted a different con-
clusion, and they are helping Sir ROBERT PEEL
to destroy the incomes of the industrious classes,
and the nourishment of future industry.
In the course of the discussion Alderman
COPELAND observed, that unless the Potteries
were supplied with an additional police "he
would not answer for what might occur during
the ensuing winter." From the apprehensions,
therefore, which the opulent and unpro-
ductive classes in Staffordshire entertain of
the masses engaged in productive labour,
they are about to establish a new and an addi-
tional coercive force. The proceeding is ob-
viously the result of fear. Instead of living like
• brothers in this England of ours, class dreads
. class, and man dreads man.

- .
It is plain and palpable, too, that the poverty
of the people, the tumbling down of their wages,
their want of employment, and their consequent
discontent, are the causes why,the COPELADIPS and
the SAN Dore are filled with alarm and urged on
to establish alarger protective and coercive force.
But what makes the people poor and discon-
tented? Restrictions on the supply Or 'their
food, and excessive taxation ; and without re-
moving the former, the Staffordshire 'squires are
augmenting the latter. One of the pretexts for
Corn-laws is county rates, and county rates are