The Sun.
London, England, 1829-03-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.)
The No-Popery phrenzy is drawing rapidly to a.
close. Excitement is necessarily of limited dura-
lioss. People cannot be always in a state of alarm.
People must cat, drink, sleep, work, and pay their
debts, even though the Protestant Constitution of
1688 lie doomed to destructions The first effect
produced on us by the recent exhibition of popular
stupidity and ignorance, on din subject of the mea-
ewe before Parliament, as chagrin at the disco-
very of the small progress which has yet been made
by the schoolmaster in this country, However, out
of evil sometimes cometh good; and we set our-
selves to consider whet good could come out of this
exhibition of national doltishness. There has been,
throughout England and Scotland, what may be
called a complete separation between the classes in
respectable circumstances and the poor and unedu-
cated. In Edinburgh, we have seen a petition
signed by nearly 8,000 pertons, including almost every
educated individual. Yet we have not the smallest
doubt that even in Edinburgh, as well as through-
out the rest of Scotland, the lower orders are as
generally hostile to concession to the Catholics as
in England. The Editor of the Droiffries courier
describes the phrenzy of the lower orders in that
respectably-inhabited town as extravagant in
the extreme. In some places, ns at Thateo and
Inverness, the lower orders have proceeded to acts
of violence. In the United States of North Ame-
rica it would be impsessible to separate the different
cloeses in this marked manner. The North Ame-
ricans are erne people. In this island there are two
nations living together who possess a sort of con-
ventierial language for the matters which bring them
in -contact with each other, but who have tach
their separate language, the language of the one not
being intelligible to the other. How is this ? It is
because in the United States all are not only edu-
cated, but the same channels of intelligence are ac-
cessible to and common to all. Every man in Ame-
rica reads a Newspaper ; in England Newspapers,
from their price, and the poverty of the people, are
accessible only to the higher and middle classes.—
Newspapers arc the °lily co;:ans of instructing told
disciplining the minds of the people ; they furnish a
constant excitement of sufficient power to rouse the
laborious classes from the lethargy which would
otherwise oyes-power them ; and tote habit of hear-
ing ar7;atnents, pro and con, on th s numerous guff-
ticans discussed in Parliament and Courts of Law,
gradually disciplines and strengthens the mind. Of
the Newspaper readers of England and Scotland
nine-tenths at least are favoureble to the measure of
:Ministers. A better test of this cannot be afforded
than the circulation of the Papers throughout
the counties which advocate Emancipation. But
then, the great body of the people never read any
Newspapers, and to this ignorant body the Tories
have appealed. This great class, for the most part,
can read; but their reading is only an occasional
act, when any one wishes to make tools of them for
some base object, when a tract, suited to their igno-
rance and prejudices, or some book written with re-
ference to the state of affairs 200 years ago, is put
into their hands. The system of England is to ne-
glect the lower orders, and to take the opinions of
the higher trod middle classes for public opinion,—
I-knee, from a stupid jealousy, lest the lower orders
should read seditious books, taxes have been im-
posed on the vehicles which circulate intelligence, so
that they may be placed beyond their reach. Per-
haps a Ministry with bad intentions might find
their account in this policy ; but we have just seen
that the stupidity caused by Government can also
be turned against Government when its intentions
are honest. If Newspapers had not been placed
beyond the reach of the lower orders, instead of
sorting themselves in public-houses, and approach-
ing a question with minds so constituted that the
worst reasoning is sure to be the most successful
with them, we might have had men as intelligent as
the lower order of Americans, proof against the vile
arts of those who are DOW making use of them for
the worst of purposes. If we could prevent the
people from being appealed to, it would be all very
well to keep them in ignorance; but the evil is that
theywill always be appealed to in critical conjunctures,
and therefore the only question is, whether we should
wish them to judge in a sober and discreet manner, or
to judge like the animals bereft of reason. Dr. Paley,
in his Moral and Political Philosophy, has the fol-
lowing sensible observations on the beneficial in-
fluence of the agitation of political subjects on the
minds of the people. " The satisfaction," he says,
" which the people in free Governments derive
from the knowledge and agitation of political sub-
jects ; such as the proceedings and debates of the
Senate; the conduct and characters of Ministers ;
the revolutions, intrigues, and contentions of parties;
and, in general, from the discussion of public mea-
sures, questions, and occurrences—subjects of this
sort excite just enough of interest and emotion to
afford a moderate engagement to the thoughts, with-
out rising to any painful degree of anxiety, or ever
leaving a fixed oppression upon the spirits; and,
what is this but the end and aim of all those amuse-
ments which compose so much of the business of
life, and the value of riches? For my part (and I
believe it to be the case with most men who are
arrived at the middle age, arid occupy the middle
classes of life), had I all the money which I pay in
taxes to Government at liberty to lay out upon
amusement and diversion, I know not whether I
could make choice of any in which I could find
hgreater pleasure than what I receive from expecting,
earing, and relating public. news ; reading Parlia-
mentary debates and- proceedings—canvassing the
political arguments, projects, predictions, and intelli-
gence, which are conveyed by ' various channels
to every corner of the kingdom. These topics, ex-
citing universal curiosity, and being such as almost
every man is ready to form and prepared to deliver
his opinion about, greatly promote, and, I think,
improve conversation. They render it more ra-
tional and more innocent—they supply a substitute
for drinking, gaining, scandal, and obscenity. Now
the secrecy, the jealousy, the solitude, and precipi-
tation of despotic Governments exclude all this.
But the loss, you say, is trifling. I know that it is
possible to render even :the mention of it ridiculous,
by representing it as the idle employment of the
most insignificant part of the nation, the folly of
village statesmen and coffee-Louse politicians; but I
allow nothing to be a trifle which ministers to the
harmless gratification of multitudes ; nor any order
of men to be insignificant, whose numbers bear a re-
spectable proportion to :the sum of the whole com-
munity." This is admirable. Any man, hots ever.
who calculates the proportion which the number of
Newspapers bears to that of the grown population,
must see that they find their way to a very small
portion of society. Wherever they reach they ele-
vate. And we are confident that a better gage of
the intellectual advancement of a district cannot be
obtained than the number of Newspapers circulated
in it. When the mob of Edinburgh and Glasgow
burnt Popish Chapels in 1780, the number of News-
papers circulated in Scotland was not one-tenth of
the present number, and the proportion is still be-
low that of England ; from which we infer with
confidence, that the quantity of ignorance and pre-
judice among the lower orders 'of Scotland is still
greater than the quantity among the same classes in
England. When Arthur Young travelled in
France, about the beginning of the Revolution,
he found the people every where ignorant and
credulous from the want of Newspapers. " Though
they are now slow (he observes) in knowing what
has really happened, they are very quick in hearing
what is impossible to happen
King has been advised to take several steps of au-
thority against the States; but none of his Mini-
ters have advised the establishment of Journals,
and their speedy circulation, that should undeceive
the people in those points his enemies have misre-
presented. When numerous Papers are published
in opposition to each other, the people take pions
to sift into and examine the truth ; and that inqui-
sitiveness alone—the very act of searching, en-
lightens them ; they become informed, and it is nol
longer easy -to deceive them." He again and again

describes the helplessness of the more respectable
people from their ignorance of what was going on
elsewhere ; and contrasts this helplessness with the
energy which would have been displayed in Eng-
land in consequence or the correct information cir-
culatedihtoUgh Newspapers. Mr. Malthus tells us
(2a edition, quarto, 1803), " in some conversations
with labouring men, during the late scarcities, I
confess that I wit! to the last degree disheartened
at observiitg their inveterate prejudices en zl.fe sub-
ject of grain; and I felt very strongly the almost
absolute incompatibility of a Government really
free with such a degree of ignorance." He says In
a note—" During the late dearth half of the gen-
tlemen and clergymen in the kingdom richly de-
served to liave been prosecuted for sedition. After
inflaming the minds of the common people against
the farmers and corn dealers, by the manner in
which they talked of them, it was but a feeble an-
tidote to the poison which they had infused coldly
to observe, that however the poor might be op-
pressed or
:cheated, it was their duty to keep the
peace," We may thus see how dangerous it is to
deliver over the lower orders, bound neck and
heels, to clergymen. One Newspaper In a village
would do more to enlighten and elevate the charac-
ter of the people, that: a whole year's discourses of
their clergyman. In general, in political subjects,
it is the blind leading the blind; for how should
tine sort of education which a clergyman receives
make him a guide in political subjects ? There is
not one clergyman in a hundred who knows even
the first elements of the science which has for ob-
ject the happiness and prosperity of nations; and
how should he give good advice to others who is
profoundly ignorant himself? If the Government
really wish to improve the people, let them encou-
rage the circulation of Newspapers, which will make
them both better informed and better fathers and
husband!, by giving them a substitute for degrad-
ing sensuality.