The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-14 00:00:00

his usual expenses ! Those who live in the agri- t
cultural districts look for greatly increased rates
and greatly diminished means to pay them, or
to employ the labourers. _ _

The Brighton Gazette has stated that some
farmers and landowners have declared their in-
tention of discharging labourers to meet the
Income-tax. That must be the case. The land-
lord might have compassion on the tenant—
the tax-gatherer will have none ; and the
farmer is preparing to meet him by lessening
the sum he pays for wages. Such an effect of
the tax was foreseen by all persons, though it
was con,sisten with the system of deceit prac-
tised by the Tories to represent the tax as falling
wholly on property, and inflicting no injury on
the labourer. It is quite useless to preach to
the farmer, as some persons do, about humanity
and patriotism ; he sees that either he or the
labourer must go to the workhouse, and he is
not such a fool to go thither himself to please
his Tory landlord and some Tory scribes, and
so he dismisses his labourers.

For the extra bands: of the agricultural dis-
tricts there will now be found no ',employment
in the manufacturing districts. The landlords
have taken care to stifle their trade and means
of employing the people. The pauperism they
have engendered will now overwhelm their own
lands. Never was retribution more plain and
more just. Never did a punishment more certainly
and clearly follow an offence. They have
dammed up the outlets which carried off the
surplus population from the land, and now, when
farmers turn off their hands, they fall on the land
for support. It is perhaps possible for an in-
dividual to escape—or at least appear, to our
short-sighted views, to escape—the punishment of
his offences; but it is not possible for a nation.
He may slink into some'hole, or travel on some
bye path through life, and imagine he is for-
gotten; but where can a great nation hide itself
from its own deeds, so that they shall not follow
and find it out? It cannot escape the conse-
quences of its acts ; and now we see the guilt
of England, in spurning?the bounties of Pro-
vidence and keeping food out of the land,
bringing on her the most alarming evils.

The whole Press has only done justice to Lord
Chief Justice TINDAL'S charge, in describing it
as a calm, clear, and masterly exposition of the
law. It exaggerated no facts, it exasperated no
feelings. It gave to those who were to be tried
an assurance that they would be fairly dealt
with, and would not find in their Judge a ran-
corous political opponent. They could have no
apprehension that the law which was so pro-
perly explained would be strained or perverted
to take away their lives or their liberties.
kcarly the whole Press has only done justice to
die charge delivered by Lord ABINGER at Liver-
pool, in describinx it as the very opposite to the
charge of Sir N. TINDAL. Even heated partisan
Tory journals, which cordially approve of the
political sentiments or Lord ABINGER, and en-
tirely concur in his hostility to Chartists and
master manufacturers, justly and vehemently
condemn the use of such language as he held on
the Bench.

These passages (said the Morning Herald yesterday)
are also excellently adapted for the House of Lords,
but we do think there are sentences in them much
misplaced in the charge of a Judge, who, in all pro-
bability, will have fo try some of the very Chartists
whose conduct and designs he thus decidedly con-
demned. If some of the Chartist prisoners should,
upon arraigment before Lord .Abinger and a petty
jury, object to be tried before a tribunal thus con-
stituted, on the ground of the very strong opinions
contained in this charge, their objection will surprise
no one. Is it prudent then in Lord Abinger to risk
the occurrence of so unseemly a scene?

We will pass o►•er, with proper condemnation
of the Noble Lord's political partisanship, all the
hostility which he expressed towards the Chart-
to take notice of some of the Noble Lord's
political economical doctrines. The people are
much reproached because they do not reverence
Bishops, who discourse about the duties of wear-
ing surplices and lighting candles, and Judges,
who discourse from the bench about timings which
they understand less than do the Bishops the art
of wearing gowns or extinguishing- lights ; but
how can men reverence those things which thee•
believe to be folly or nonsew:e ? The mind dis-

.criminates as well as the palate, and men may
as well be reproached for not liking aloes or as-
safcetida, as for not reverencing a worldly Bishop
or a partisan Judge. Whatever hostility the
workmen in the manufacturing districts may
have to the master manufacturers—and we have
good reason to believe their hostility is intense
—and however much further they may desire
to go than the Anti-Corn-law League, there is
not, we believe, one of them out of a thousand,
who is not an opponent of the Corn-laws. They
will not demand a repeal of those laws; because
they say that would not ensure them against fu-
ture oppression ; they want the Charter. There
is not one them of who is-not painfully convinced
both that employment has been lessened as food
has risen in price, and that their wages, which
have not been increased, would not procure them
as much food in dear as in cheap times. There
is not one of them, therefore, who will not
treat Lord ABINGER'S assertion that " the price
(meaning, we presume, rate) of wages must de-
pend on the price of provisions," with contempt.
They all know pretty well the price of provisions
in Ireland and in the United States, and know
also the rate of wages in the two countries; they
know still better what has been the rate of their
own wages, as provisions have risen or fallen in
price, and they openly say Lord ABINGER knows
nothing about the matter. From contemning his
opinions, they will speedily come to contemn
the man; and Lord ABINGER, by mixing silly
errors with his avowed hatred of Chartism, may
bring the whole Bench into contempt.
We should suppose that there was some error
in the report of Lord ABINGER'S charge, but we
find the phrase, " 'mice of wages " repeated.
What does Lord ABINGER mean by the price of
wages? Wages is the price of 'labour, and those
who speak of the price of wages, confuse all
language. Ninepence is the price of a loaf;
does any person ever speak of time price of nine-
pence ? And why, then, should he speak of the
price of eightpence, that being the day's wag es
of an agricultural labourer in Devonshire If
the Judge means to say that that eightpence
will buy as much flour when it sells- at
thirty-
pence a bushel, as when it sells at twelvepence,
we should at least understand his proposition,
however we might dissent front it. If he
means to say that the rate of wages
always rises as the price of provisions
rises, we could understand that too; but
it would be so obviously untrue, that
he could mean no such thing. The phrase--
which, as far as we know, is of Lord
ABINGER'S invention—seems to have been used,.
either because the Noble Lord had no clear
ideas of what he was speaking of, or because he
desired to mystify the subject.
We might, were it worth while, correct some
more of the Noble Lord's errors, whose reading
on these important subjects seems not to have
extended beyond the pages of the Herald and
the Post, but he is, we fire afraid, too old to
learn, and seems, from what we recollect of the
man, to have hardened in error as he advanced
in years. Of his law we pretend not to Judge,.
but his doctrine about wages and the price of
provisions. as far as we understand It, is so
erroneous, that it will certainly be, in fact we
know has been laughed at in Lancashire.

The Animals' Friend Society of Mark-lane have
calmed William Ashsted to be fined 16s. 6d. by the
Mayor and Bench at Canterbury, for great cruelty to
a horse covered with wounds • but unfortunately an-
other case against Wm. was dismissed, on
the mistaken idea tli4t it was necessary to state the
ex of the animal ; and another charge, against Wm.
Hickman, a drover, was dismissed by 'Mr. Henry, at
Lambeth-street, for great cruelty to a sheep ; but at
Bow-street the Society caused John Doris's Dorches-
ter waggoner, named John Dove, to be fined, for ill-
treatment of a horse. .
The
list which has appeared of Commissioners, said
to he appointed under the new Bankruptcy Act, is in
several instances incorrect.e
the AN'
fact, and
the means of
knowing what we state,
int act,.and can at pre-
sent go so far as to .iln to
eaitl b
easthaotr Mie
ot the new Com-
.
thissioners,Horace Twiss,
m whose naehashasaeyeent
o i
appointment.