The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-01 00:00:00

sum OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The charg of Lord Chief Justice Best to the
Grand Jury of the county of Wilts, on opening
the Assizes at Salisbury, would have claimed
our attention, had it been unaccompanied with
any peculiar mark of respect from those to whom
it was addressed. But his Lordship was, by an
unanimous resolution of the Grand Jury, re-
quested to make it public. Nor was this all ;
for, it having been declared by his Lordship that
he had spoken without notes, and Consequently
required time for the recall of those ideas which
had been suggested by his view of the affairs of
the country and the business.of Assize, a method
was suggested, by which the topics of his speech
might be more speedilN brought back to his re-
collection, and the whole British public made
acquainted with it before the close of the Cir-
cuit, till which time he had proposed to wait.
Of a speech, to which so marked a respect has
been shown, it
_is only necessary to state the
facts above recounted, to direct • public curiosity
to it, and insure it attention. His Lordship,
moved by just indignation at a crime which we
are pleased to think not_ natural or congenial to
our countrymen—that of stabbing—expatiates
on the advantages which are supposed to result
from the practice of boxing ; but like us, he de-
precates prize-fighting. This is, no doubt, in-
jurious to public morals : but it is difficult to
say how boxing can become a science, without
the support of the opulent ; or how that support
can be administered, but by means of prize-
fights ; and the most offensive thing to us in
prize-fights is, to see smooth youths, with un-
ruffled shirts and cravats, who would dread
the blow of an honest Englishman's fist worse
than a thunderbolt, expert in all the terms of
the ring, and encouraging two hardy ruffians to
beat .each other to mummies for their gain or
amusement. But Heaven forfend that the ab-
sence of plain straightforward fights among is
should introduce the practice of the dagger !
An explanation of Mr. Peers Acts appears to be
necessary from the. Judges ; and' it is really re-
freshing to see men of their age and attainment;
so free from the prejudice of system, so unwed-
ded to the old rule, that they can even recom-
mend further innovations in the Criminal Code
of the country, beyond any which have been at-
tempted by the late Secretary of State for the
Home Department. 'His Lordship's observa-
tions on the practice of paying the agricultural
labourer in part from the poor 's rate is just ; nei-
ther, in one sense, an it be said to want the
grace of novelty ; for though, it has been long
and freely reprobated, but not beyond its deserts,
by all considerate men, it was not till now that a
person in a most eminent judicial station has Un-
dertaken to condemn it officially from the chair
of justice. " Let the gentlemen of the country,"
says the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of
Common Pleas, " regulate the rate of the la-
bourer's wages, independently of the poor-rates ;
and when, .decording to the original intention of
the laws for relieving human wants, age and in-
firmities shall visit the peasant, then, and not till
then, 'let him be the object of humane and
careful protection out of sources independent of
his own earnings." A most just and salutary
injunction, highly creditable to the promulgator,
and calculated to confer the greatest benefit on
the object of it. , We hope it will be obeyed.—

A new topic of discontent is alluded to bi
oils City article, as now exerting considerable
influence among the inhabitants of British India
---native as well as European. It appears that
some attempt has been made to levy stamp
duties in the East, and that meetings have been
held at Calcutta, where the great houses of
Alexander and Palmer, supported by the other
representatives of the monied and commercial
interest of that Presidency, were further aided
by natives •of wealth and respectability, mer-
chants and proprietors of land, in adopting reso-
lutions expressive of the general repugnance to
submit to such unnatural burdens oti A com-
munity so circumstanced. It would be childish
to bring forward the old Stamp Act," which
stood so prominent among the causes of our
losing North America, for the sake of forcing an
apparent parallel between the history of English
Government in the East and West. There is
little fear that the pfinciples of the British Con-
stitution will be appealed to by the European
subjects of the Company, or that 100,000,000
of Hindoos and Mahornetans will be encouraged
by their white neighbours to petition Leadenhall-
v.reet against the grievance of being taxed without
being represented. India is not, as America has
been, a colony, but a spoil; and its people have
no right to allege, but that which military
despotism vouchsafes its humbled ',-ictims. Ne-
vertheless we may he permitted to question the
policy, while we admit the power, of imposing' a.
restraint like this in question, which goes directly
to retard the growth of a covnerce as yet in the
earliest stage of infancy. The recognised source
of revenue throughout the Company's domi-
nions is the land-tax. But Europeans are,
on the anti-colonial theory, prohibited from
possessing or occupying land : the effect of
which is, that little or no increase of produc-
tion can take place for ages, and little or
alo increase of value can be imparted 'to the
soil, thus deprived of the improvements
which might result to it from affording an
example to the natives of what. can be accom-
plished in all situations by the skill and enter-
prise of European industry. Under the existing
state of India; and the disadvantages to which its
agricultural interests • have been eposed by this
•
exclusion of the farmer from an acquaintance
with more perfect models, and from the benefits
cf a more animating and instructive rivalry; there
seems no other channel through which the bulk
of the population can make any advances in the
enjoyments or the arts of life, but the circuitous
road of external and domestic commerce. The
Coisipanv, it must be confessed; have appeared
1.6 look at this great instrument of wealth and
eiyililation with no very favourable eye. If their
can trade be, as we have heard it strongly as-
serted, carried on at a loss, amounting in the
whole to more,
ha
half the debt of the Hon.
y have taken care to establish laws
Company, the
and restrictions, under which the monopoly
secured to them by charter shall be reaered
most as injurious to others as to those for whose
sake it was instituted. It is not merely the bar-
barous inhibition of British subjects from the tea
trade enjoyed by the rest of the world which we
now refer to, but it is affirmed to us that difficul-
ties of the most formidable nature are experienced
by private merchants trading to India, or licensed
to reside there, in the pursuit of their same'
modes of commercial speculation which have not
been denounced by law. Whether this be ss-
tematic on the part of the Company, we km:sv
not, and we hope the reverse ; but the impose
tion of novel and annoying duties, such as that
which forms the subject of our city article, soikAt
furnish uncharitable critics with a pretence fa.
clamouring against the policy of the Directo#,

as if it bad really for its design to oppose every
impediment, great and small, to_the growth of a
commercial interest throughout -their immense

. .
.. . .
• It .is much to be regretted that, on the dif-
ferent circuits, a greater number of days is not
allotted to each town for the trial of the cases
fpr the county to which that town belongs, than
are at present allowed. At the Assizes of the
county of Oxford, which have just concluded,
*lr. Baron Vaqghan and Mr. Justice Littledale
tbok their seats on Friday last, at eight o'clock
i' the morning ; and each continued in Court,—
t e one trying civil cases, and the other pri-
ners—during the whole of the day ; and Mr.
Court—
elaron Vaughan did not leave the Court till past
tOn o'clock at night, while Mr. Justice Littledale
sat for more than an hour later ; so that his
Lordship did not quit the Shire Hall till nearly
li' if-past eleven. That the Learned Judge felt
that his own attention wa:s nut wearied out, and

at his own faculties were not
_exhausted, by

f 1 s tting sixteen hours and a half in a close
c owded Court, at a temperature of ninety-six
d green, of Fahrenheit, we have no doubt, or his
ordship, instead .of continuing to try men
r capital offences, would have adjourned the
.ourt ; but the question is, could the Jury
k ep their attention alive for that number
o hours in such an atmosphere, or were
t ey worn out by the enormous fatigue of their
citifies? Early in the day one of the Jury very
larly fainted,- and could only be continued in
h s place by drinking cold water, and smelling
to sal volatile. However, this was not all ; for,
after this extreme fatigue, the same Learned
Jadge and the same Jury proceeded, at eight
o'clock the next morning, to the trial of other
uses, and sat in the same heated Court till six
iri the evening.--If this were a solitary instance,
iti might be attributed .to. au accidental pressure.
of business in a particular county. But the
filet is, that on the last Circuit several casesswere

obliged, after the parties had brought their wit-
-1
n sses to the place of trial, to remain over to
tI e present Circuit, because there was not time
f r them to be tried. It may no doubt be said
tliat these remanets were all civil cases between
p4rty and party ; and that, for a few hundred
pounds each, the parties may bring their wit-
n4sses to an ensuing Assize, and have their cases
tried, but that no criminal case was left untried.
--True. However, it still appears, that making
th trials of cases which involve life and death,

rue a race against time, and then be determined
b3i Juries, exhausted by sitting fifteen or sixteen
h urs a day in a hot Court, is not the best mode
of administering criminal justice. If it was laid
dclwn that all the prisoners at all Old Bailey
Sessions must be tried in three days, or that the
586 cases in Lord. Tenterden's cause paper
shbuld be tried in a month—that would be con-

sulered absurd : and yet, on a circuit, all the
criminal cases in the calendar, be they many or
feiv, are disposed of between the commencement
of the assize at that town and the day previously
appointed for the assize at the next. This is
inpre like the bed of Procrustes than might be
expected in a country which boasts orits Crimi-
nal Laws.-11forning Herald.

IWe noticed the other day, in the Journal des

Debats, a whimsical article, the scope of which
was to infer the comparative popularity of the
present Ministers and of their predecessors in
office, from the number of the London Journals

which adhere respectively to each of the two par.
ties. The Parisian Editor makes a strong mus.
ter; of names in favour of the present Adminis.
traction, whose cause he espouses ; but names
are not in all cases sufficient, and his argument,
if ;,argument it can be called, is obviously erro-
neous in principle as well as fact ; nor should
we have noticed his errors at all, were it not
that they afford rather a striking instance of the
zeal with which papers and parties in the other
European nations, the most opposed to their
own respective Governments, think it behoves
them to support the British Administration of
Mr. Canning And the Whigs. It is at least
something new to find the zealous supporters of
an English Administration among the most de-
termined enemies of the Governments with
which England is in friendship and alliance. It
reminds us of former times, when we thought it
our duty, England then being at war with
France, to animadvert upon the schemes of the
Directory, and to denounce the ambitious pro-
jects of Nayoleon. It was nasal in that state
of affairs that we should so animadvert and so
denounce ; and it is equally natural now that the
enemies of Government in the abstract should
be the fast friends of the present English Admi-
n.stration. It is impossible not to perceive that
Europe, Ea a whole, is interested in the present
state of the British Government, and that the
question at issue is no less than this, Aether
England is to become the rallying point of poli-
tical disaffection, and the general watch-word of
political change, The traitors and the dreamers
of the whole world wax bolder and more visionary
As they look upon the Government of England,
committed as it is to the hands of Mr. Canning
.and the Whigs. The spirits of innovation and
thedxmons of danger hold just now one uni-
versal carnival.—Monzing Post.
The Gazette of last night, besides the full par-
ticulars of the, Investiture of the Empei-or of
Russia, with the Ensigns of the order of the
Garter (which we have given at full length),
contains an Order of Council, that the trade and
commerce of his Majesty's settlements and terri-
tories at the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of
IVlauritius, Island of Ceylon, New South Wales,
and Van Diemon's Land, with the- respective
dependencies thereof, shall from the arrival of
this present Order within any of those settle-
ments, be regulated in the manner following
All such laws, rules, orders, and regulations,
as were in force within the settlements, territo-
ries, and islands aforesaid, or any of them, for
the7regulation of the trade and commerce thereof
upon the Ist day of July, in the year one thou-
sand eight hundred and twenty-five, shall, until
further order be made by his Majesty in this
behalf, revive and continue, and be of full force,
virtue, and effect within the several settlements,
territories, and islands aforesaid respectively ; and
if any goods shall be imported or exported in
aily-manner contrary hereto, such goods, toge•
ther with the ship importing or exporting the
same, shall incur and become liable to such
forfeiture 4' in the said Act of Parliament is
mentioned in that behalf."--Ibid.
We have to call the attention of our readers
to a report in another column, of a charge de-
livered by Lord Chief Justice Best to the Grand
Jury* of Wiltshire. It is altogether a singular
outpouring. Upon the Grand Jury it seems to
have produced a most powerful effect ; for Mr.
Benett, the Chairman, read a resolution, thank-
ing his Lordship for the charge, and instructing
their foreman to express to him their earnest re-
quest, " that he will permit his admirable charge
to be printed, in Order that observations so itn-
portail+ may be generally circulated, and that the

public may receive the gratification and advan-
tage which an acquaintance, with such valuable
instruction cannot fail to impart." It is but jus-
lice to his Lordship to allow, that his charge is
very advantageously distinguished from the twaddle
that has so frequently been delivered on, similar
occasions to gaping clowns from the judgment-
seat, and that it contains, amidst somequestiona-

. -
able matter, much good sense conveyed in eloquent
language. We willingly do this justice to his Lord-
ship Lfor though we cannot abet him when he
takes a part." in The-strug,gle now carrying on be-
tween the Press and the Justice of the Coun-

tr)L," we shall gladly support. him in his strug-
gles to dispel error, and to advance the cause of
reform. Of late Judges and Magistrates have
set themselves; against boxing, with a zeal ap-
proaching to enthusiasm, and every charge at an
Assize of Sessions contained a tirade against the

brutalizing practice. Chief Justice Best seems
to think that if we do not encourage boxing, we
must be prepared for the practice of stabbing.
" I cannot but express my regret (he says) that
a knife should have been found in the hands of

an Englishman, as an instrument of offensive
quarrel. It was. formerly the practice in this
country, when men fell out, to fight as long as
they could, and possibly to do each other as
much injury as could be inflicted by the personal
strength of the combatants; but they fought in
an open, fair, and honourable manner; they took
no mean advantages ; they had no recourse to
deadly instruments to procure superiority or .to
gratify revenge. . . . . I will take care, as
long as common assaults are punishable by the
law, to visit, with the utmost severity of that law,
those who dare to desert that mode of defence
which nature. has given, and which time has
almost sanctioned in their own country, and who
have chosen to adopt that foreign practice of ein-
ploying instruments of this description against an
opponent. Gentlemen, the practice of boxing has
often been a subject of discussion in this country ;
I must say that it,seems to me a practice that
may very advantageously be encouraged to • a
limited extent. It is in some sort a law of peace,
for it discourages the use of unfair means of at-
tack ; it prevents malicious retaliation; it• only
enables men to employ fairly advantages they
may naturally possess, and in the use of whith
they are restrained by the point of honour ; and
while it encourages a proper English spirit, it
prevents courage from degenerating into brutality,
and secures men from the treachery and malig-
nity of those whom they have offended. Though,
therefore, I view the prize ring itself as disgrace-
ful, I cannot but hope to see the old practice of
boxing revived among the people of this coun-
try, as I consider that practice introduces a law
of honour among the combatants, which will ef-
fectually prevent those who observe it from re-
sorting to instruments of this deadly descrip-
tion." We confess that we are no great ad-
mirers of boxing, though it be an English prac-
tice, and only enables men to employ advantages
they may naturally possess ; or of kicking the
shins, which is another English practice, en-
titled to the like praise, dear to the people be-
yond the Trent. If men, however, will fight, it
is better, perhaps, that they should fight in the
manner least calculated to do themselves injury.

But we do not see the advantage of encotirag--
ing boxing, any more than proscribing it.
When the people of a country are addicted
to any particular practice, ,such as playing at
quarter-staff, or wrestling, or even boxing, we
do hot see what business Magistrates have to
stir heaven and earth to put down that practice.
Men of refined habits will neither box, nor
gouge, nor kick shins; but if these practices
give pleasure to coarse-minded people, in God's
name let them continue to box, and gouge, and
kick. Preach against the practices as much as
you please; do what you canto instil better ha-
bits Into the people; but as long as they injure
each other by consent, do not attempt to reform
them by the terrors of penal law. We are,
therefore, neither of the party of those Magi-
strates who would seek to reform the habits of

the people by the lash, nor of the party of those
who think it is necessary to" encourage one bad
habit as an antidote to 'another still worse.
The spirit, however, which dictated the observa-
tions is deserving of 'praise. It has been too
much the practice of late years to make war
against all that the people delight in, as dancing,
the exhibition of puppet-shows, ,athletic exer-
cises, &c. merely because the people do de,
';2llt in them. We are glad to hear the Lor'

Chief Justice loud in commenJation of Mr.
Peel, even at the twelfth hour, and still gladder
to find that he concurs with us in thinking that
the Ex-Minister has been too cautious in his
Reforms—that he has not gone so far as he
might have gone. We trust, however, the re-
mark of his Lordship will not be lost on Mr.
Peel's successor. When Judges lament the cau-
tion of Reforming Ministers, their successors
may well take courage. But what gives us most
pleasure in his Lordship's charge is, the plain
good sense with which he approaches the sub-
ject of the cause of crime. " I cannot look on
the calendar (he says) without being convinced
of the melancholy fact, that crime and vice are
much extended in this country. I am afraid (he
adds) they are not now that peasantry which
were formerly called their country's pride." He
very sensibly observes, that the eloquence of the
Clergy will have but little effect on them, unless
aided by other causes, among which he very pro-
perly includes such wages as they can decently
subsist on without parish allowance.
" There can he no greater curse befal acountry," he
eloquently states, " than that it should be reduced to a state
in which the virtue of the peasantry is undermined by the
destruction of that self-esteem, and that honest, indus-
trious, manly pride, which makes a peasant prefer his own
exertions to any other mode of obtaining a subsistence.—
Unless such are his feelings, the country which be inhabits
can never become, or never remain, a great country. Gen-
tlemen, the greatness of the country does not consist in the
extent of its empire, nor even in the knowledge and publi-
city of useful and ornamental arts. Such things may be
among the proofs of its greatness, but they are not its
cause, nor by them alone can a nation always hope to re-
main great. A country may truly be said to be great when
the mass of the people are in the enjoyment of comfortable
and easy circumstances—a state in which alone they can
always be expected to he virtuous—and he is the greatest
benefactor who lends his aid to introduce such a state
among them."
We wonder how Mr. Benett, the Chairman
of the Grand Jury, whose pamphlet on the ad-
vantages of keeping the poor on low diet we
• lately alluded to, felt when his Lordship deli-
vered this. We shall return to this important
subject, which we fear his Lordship does not
fully understand.—Morning Chronicle.

It may be recollected that at the promulgation
of the Portuguese Charter it was argued by the
French Ultra Newspapers, and, among others,
by the Quotidienne, that Don Pedro, by the
treaty between him and his father, in which it
was provided, that Portugal and Brazil should
thenceforth remain separate kingdoms,_ had de-
nuded himself of all authority over the former—
that he was incapable either ofigiving or taking
away its rights and privileges—and that Doi
Miguel was, in fact, its lawful Sovereign. This

position seems now abandoned as untenable ,
tint the claim of-Miguel. to the. Regency, under
the Charter, seers equally so, It is very justly
remarked by. an!evening contemporary, that the
abdication of Don Pedro is prospective—that
certain conditions are required to render it abso-
lute, which conditions have not yet been complied
with. The actual King of Portugal, therefore,
is Don Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, and the In-
fanta Regent, or_Don Miguel, has no claim to
the Regency, or to any other office in the. State,
-except in so far as it suits his pleasure, which,
in the case of the latter, has been distinctly sig-
nified by the command given to him to proceed
to Brazil. We cannot for a moment suppose
that there is any truth in the French accounts of
Don Miguel's, claim being supported by Sir
William A:Court, although these accounts re-
ceive countenance from the letter of Abrantes.
We are persuaded: that both they and the letter
must originate in misconception. England does
not, indeed, seek to interfere in the internal ar-
rangements of her Ally, and if the Emperor
should see fit to nominate his brother to the Re-
gency, the appointment would meet with no op-
position from. this country ; but to .agree to a
claim ostensibly founded on the charter, which,
if conceded, would go to deprive the Emperor of
his sovereign authority, in virtue of which our
troops are now-in Portugal, would be tantamount
to the admission of a foreign power.,-New
Times.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF CHANCERY, Rix 31.
IN THE MATTER OF WILLIAM GALLOWAY.

Mr. WHITMARSH reminded the Lord Chan-
cellor that he had made an order o►► Saturday last.
respecting the affairs of this gentleman, alleged to be
a lunatic. He bad now to move. orP behalf of Mr.
Galloway, that his wife, who was in possession of
his property, should be restrained from selling or in
any way disposing of it. The order of his Lordship
already went the length of restraining persons who
flack obtained a bill of sale, from proceeding under it,
but-Mr. Galloway had reason to fear that his pro-
perty might be injured by other means, and there-
fore this additional application was made.
The LORD CHANCELLOR could not see any rea-
sonable ground for this application. Mr. Galloway
was the master of his own property, and if he appre-
hended that it was in any danger, there was nothing
more easy than for him to protect it without the ex-
traordinary aid of the Great Seal. The shortest
and most familiar way seemed to be by sending for
a peace officer if any one attempted to remove his
property, or otherwise personally to assail him. His
Lordship therefore made no order.
The COURT was afterwards occupied in hearing
motions in causes.