The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-15 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Chronicle thus alludes to Lord Ashley's Nine-Regula-
tion Bill :—" Objection has been made to Lord Ashley's Bill
for regulating employment in mines, that it will deteriorate the
value of some coal-pit., enhance the price of coals, and injure
the collier labourers. There are a few coal mines at present
in work, and but a few, in which the beds of coal are so thin
that horses or asses cannot be employed to draw the coal from
the spot where it is detached through the subterranean road-
ways. Along these pas,ages, often not more than two feet in
height, children are employed either to drag, by means bf the
girdle and chain, or else to push, the car of coal provided by the
dicker. Of course their motion can only be that of crawling on
their hands and knees. This cruel and beastly work is, in the few
instances alluded to, essential to the profitaJle working of the
mine. The Commissioners report that It is imi by
any outlay compatible with a profitable return, to render sutir
coal-mines, happily nut numerous or of great extent, fit for
human beings to work in ; they never will be placed in such a
condition ; and, consequently, they never can be worked with-
out inflicting great and irreparable injury on the health of the
children.' This is, we believe, the only case in which the
existing value of mine property will be, or need be, deterio-
rated by the restrictions which Lord Ashley proposes. In other
cases the application of capital and skill to the improvement of
the state and arrangements of the mine will not only render it
a wholesomer scene of labour, but eventually bring its own
remuneration."

The Times thus alludes to the Recorder's charge, as regards
Francis, the man accused of high treason In another
column of our paper will be found the charge of the Recorder
to the London Grand Jury, directing them in their proceed-
ings with regard to the man Francis, who lately attempted the
life of the Queen. This case, in the stage with which he had
to deal with it, was not a very complicated one. It is tolerably
clear, whatever may hereafter follow, that the case is, at any
ra:e, not one to be quashed by the Grand Jury, yet the state-
ments of that Judge respecting the allowances made to
criminals charged with high treason, and the operation of the
law as it now stands upon such persons, will be read with in-
terest at the present moment. (here are, perhaps, few points
on whit:hour present and our ancient law are in more market
contrast than this. The divinity that hedged a king in former
days is faded in these latter times—power and prestige have
changed their places, and whatever corresponding evils may
have resulted from that revolution in opinion, we may at
least congratulate ourselves that it has swept away from this
part of our law those unjust and arbitrary principles
which made the very enormity of the crime a substi-
tute for evidence—the weight of the threatened punish-
ment a reason for impeding the prisoner in the prosecution of
his defence. This, indeed, is a principle of judgment too
deeply rooted in human nature to be expelled from the popular
mind by any amount of Acts of Parliament. The mass of the
people, who are anxious only to see some correspondence hr.
tvveen the crime and the punishment, will adopt it, though
they are hap, fly unable to apply it practically, in all those
cases where their own feelings are arouied, let the law re-
nounce it as loudly and effeciivtly as it will. I3ut this is a
triflmg evil. A more real satisfaction is it to observe the care
with which, in later days, the full advantages of the law have
been secured to those who, however aggravated the crime of
which they are accused, are yet to be presumed innocent till
they are proved gu lty, and certainty are rot in a position
v. hich requires any unnatural weight of power to be added to
that which they have already arrayed against them. If we
rightly interpret the Recorder's charge, so far ha.l this care Inc
those involved in this kind of accusation been carried, that it
was necessary to pass an Act of Parliament (of 39 and 40
George III.) to deprive even men who had made direct at-
tempts upon the lite of the Sovereign of advantages then de-
nied to those who were under trial for an ordinary at:empt to
murder."

The Post has the following remarks :—" We do not think
that any language we could use would be too strong for the re •
probation of the attempts which certain journals are now
making to turn to political account the distress which so un-
happily prevails in some of the manufacturing districts. What
can be more wicked than to represent to destitute crowds who
are hungry because they have not the ordinary means of buying.
food, that a remedy lies in a reconsideration of the Corn-laws?
What can be more false and mischievous than to represent to
these poor people that, at the present time, food is " enormously
high in price?" Food is not enormously high in price, and it
is manifest that no reduction of price which wonld not be utter
ruin to the work-people engaged in the prodr^* f food,

could materially benefit those who are suffering from distress.
Food is now rather cheaper than it has been for several years
past, and the working classes have often been prosperous (be-
cause sufficiently employed) when food of all kinds was dearer
than it is at present. The representations of the desirableness
of an additional supply of foreign corn and of food at a cheaper
price, are tile delusions put forward by selfish speculators, or by
those who wildly give way to the impulse of political virulence.
Unfortunately, the case is a much more difficult one than they
represent and it is they who have made it so."
MThe Southern Reporter has the following remarks on the
assacre at Ennis :--" Every circumstance detailed in the
evidence shows that this fearful and fatal scene was enacted at
a moment when no necessity existed even for a more moderate
effort on the part of the police to disperse the crowd ; as, from
the testimony of the resident Stipendiary Magistrate and others,
it is clear that they could have been entirely dispersed without
presenting a bayonet at them, and, were, in fact, retiring at
the time they were fired at. The shuffling with which the
parties in command endeavour to get rid of the responsibility
attachable to their conduct forms rather a striking feature in
the matter; but we have every confidence that the result of the
pending investigation will satisfactorily fix the guilt in the
proper quarter. In the meantime it is satisfactory to ksuow that
prompt mea,ures have been taken to render the parties
amenable to justice in the ecrnrni:tal of the police to prison
and we trust that the promises of those gentlemen who so
laudably exerted thems, Ives to prevent the infuriated populace
from taking retributive justice on their assailan's will be fully
sustained in subjecting those who are guilty of, and morally
responsible far, so foul a'crime to all the consequences which
the law of the land will firmly and impartially deal sta."