The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TUB PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The new Stamp Act (an ominous name) imposed
by the local Government of India on the inhabitants
of Calcutta, has given rise to a state of feeling in
that capital which his Majesty's Ministers and the
Parliament would be very rash to despise. A cir-
cular address has been printed upon the subject by
tine committee appointed for conducting a constitu-
tional resistance to this most obnoxious measure,
and we are happy to bear evidence as well to the clear
statements brought forward by the committee, as to
the temper, firmness, and judgment with which
they have embodied in a petition to the House of
Commons, a summary of the matters contained in
the circular address. The question as to the policy
of the new tax is perhaps to he. solved by the pos-
sible exposure to extensive injury, or even destruc-
tion, which might result to the private commerce
of India from a repetition of such attempts to
levy money without the consent of Parliament.—
But the startling question is one of law. By
the very last renewal of the Charter, the sovereignty,
" the undivided sovereignty over India, was dis-
tinctly asserted to be in the British Crown." The
Act of renewal conferred a power of levying certain
imposts within Calcutta, subject to the approbation
of the Court of Directors and of the India Board.
But it is contended by the petitioners, that such im-
posts were limited to duties of customs, and a tax
on houses, the proceeds of which were to be appli-
cable to mere purposes of police. They insist that
a stamp or any other description of tax (but the
above) was never contemplated by the Act of Par-
liament of 1813. The general exasperation pro-
duced by the measure, if nothing else, ought to be
looked upon as one good reason for rescinding it. If
the treatment which Counselhave received from the
Bench at Calcutta, while arguing against the re-
gistration of the Stamp Act, be what the letters
represent it, we must say that we consider it most
disgraceful.—Times.

We alluded yesterday to the efforts now making
by the Parishes around the Metropolis to secure
themselves against the depredators who have lately
gained such a head among us. The letter addressed
by Lord Lansdowne to the Lord Mayor and Magis-
trates of the several Police Offices, has been animad-
verted on by some of our contemporaries as an at-
tempt to cure symptoms, instead of the disorder
which is the cause of their appearance, and as attach-
ing an importance to that which is really of very
little moment, as the absence of protection leads
necessarily to compromise, and when compromise is
necessary, the better the channel is known, the less
the loss and inconvenience to the sufferers. We
have no doubt that his Lordship, on giving due con-
sideration to the subject, will see that people ne-
gociate with thieves only because they are without
protection, and that the great point to be aimed at
to supply the protection, which would put an end
to the negotiations ; and not to render the unprotec-
ted still worse, by throwing difficulties in the way
of their aiding themselves, before other means are
devised for their assistance. Our Police is on
a bad footing with a view to prevention ; our
law throws difficulties of all sorts in the way of
the discovery of guilt; and When a conviction has
been obtained, we have a system of punishment not
calculated to deter from crime, but to render the
comparatively innocent hardened in crime. It would
notbe safe, perhaps, fora Catholic Priest to quote from
Defoe's Moll Flanders, after what has been said on
the subject of that work forming the youthful mind
in the Sister Kingdom ; but it would not be amiss
if our Legislators bad perused it, before they fell
upon the maddest of all mad projects, that of re-
warding criminals by transportation. Moll's mother,
a transported felon, in Virginia, tells her, " When
such as are transported from Newgate and other
prisons, after having been found guilty of felony,
and other crimes punishable with death, come here,
we make no difference between them and other ser-
vants, and they work together in the field till their
time is out. When it is expired, they have en-
couragement given them to plant for themselves;
for they have a certain. number of acres of land al-
lotted them by the country, and they go to work to
clear and cure the land, and then to plant it with to-
bacco and corn for their own use; and as the trades-
men and merchants will trust them with tools,
clothes, and other i
necessaries, upon the credit of
their crop before it s grown, so they again plant every
year a little more than the year before,anaso suy as
ever they want with the crop that is before them.
Hence, child (says she), may a Newgate bird become
a• great man ; and we have (continued she) several
Justices of the Pe,aqe, Officers of the Train Bands,
and Magistrates of the towns they live in, that have
been burnt in the hand—there's Major —, (says
AO, he was an eminent pickpocket ; there's Justice
B—r, was a shoplifter, and both of them were
burnt in the hand; and I could name you several
such as they are." There never has been any want
of men in England to point out the defects of our
laws. But where are we to find legislators ? As
Mr. Bentham observes, " among legislators in name
scarcely any other practice can be found than that
of children, who, in their prattle, copy what they
have beard of their nurses. . . . Among those
whose wants have been forestalled from their cradle,
among those who become legislators to gratify their
vanity or relieve their ennui, there can scarcely be
found one who could be called a legislator without
Jnockery. How shall he who possesses every thing,
without the trouble of thinking, be led to subject
himself to the labour of thought ? If it be desirable
that legislators should be men of enlarged and well-
instructed minds, they must be sought among those
who possess but little wealth—among those who,
oppressed with their insignificance, are stimulated
by ambition, and even by hunger, to distinguish
themselves ; they must be sought among those who
possess the habits of Cyrus, and not Sardanapalus."
—Morning Chronicle.

As if the moral ruin of the community were the
point about which those who have the charge of the
public weal were most indifferent, we see the two
most likely sources to bring it about—viz. gambling
and gin-drinking—at the present time most rife and
uncontrolled. Passing by, for the moment, the
Hells, both great and small, in which the first of
these sources of contagion is engendered, who can
pass along our streets, and not perceive that the
other is quite as flourishing a trade ? Yet we are
possessed of laws and religion, and boast ourselves
to be a vastly moral people, and our Monarch " De-
fender of the Faith. Oh, how little, we must be
per).-nitted to say, is the practice of that faith under-
stood, if vice and corruption of the most loathsome
kind are allowed to rear their heads, and reign
triumphant in
a community capable, if duly regu-
lated, of much better things ! We despise the mere
cant of morality as much as it be possible to despise
it; but we cannot be indifferent to, much less can
we despise, the danger Wioch stares every one in the
,face who ventures out of his own dwelling. No
man can pass along the streets without seeing sump-
tuous dwellings rearing their heads at every cor-
ner, in which fortunes are every day made, and des-
tined to be made, by the mere trade of pouring liquid
tire down the throats of the poor, the profligate, and
the unthinking; and all that a revenue may be raised
at the price of the health, the lives, and morals of
those who have, if they did but know it, a right to j
be protected by the Government under which they
live from these seeds of, and traps to, early, prema-
ture ruin. Year after year the public is promised a
reform of the licensing system—but each wise head
that undertakes it proves itself as thick as any on
which the gross abuses of the present system can
be seen to work. That department of the Govern-
ment which ought to attend to such matters seems
to consider the lulus populi a very insignificant con-
sideration cotepared with the one great object, re-
venue—and even the leviathans of the mash-tub,
though theyfind their peculiar commodity intrenched
non by the 'newel.% of this liquid fire, find it more
convenient to
!coalesce with them than to irun the
hazard of opening a traa,., the monopoly of which
they have
solongenjoyed, The gm-seller cannot
carry on his trade
"'fit is called a beer
vela ! and, though
ougll he sells no leer, and holds the

license in question merely as a blind, the connection
between the brewer and distiller, whose mere tool
he is, satisfies all ; and the licensing Magistrates on
the one hand, and the Government on the other, are
much too kind to break in upon this monopoly in
poison, for the sake of the community in general.—
If the Government were anxious to produce a com-
munity of drunkards, of lunatics, thieves, and disso-
lute people of all denominations, they could not en-
courage a more fruitful source of every one of these
characteristics than that which now exists,and is every
day extending itself. Tile Press—the much-abused and
hatedPress,however,dares to decry this enormous and
widely spread contagion. It dares to grapple with
that which Ministers are forced to succumb to—the
brewer's monopoly; a monopoly which at once
cripples the finances of the country, while it under-
mines public morals and happiness. In fact, we
know of few subjects more alarming than this. It
is every day spreading its baneful influence in a way
and to an extent which no man of common observa-
tion can be insensible to. Yet the Press is the
only weapon which dares to lift itself against the
overwhelming mischief. The Quarter's Revenue,
forsooth, satisfies the Government; the compliant
Magistrates, those guardians of public morals, see
no danger; and the populace of the country are
handed over to ruin, that the taxes may not be les-
sened, and the Sunday smoking of the great
breweries and distilleries may not be diminished.
And yet we live in a country boasting of its morals,
its religion, and its liberty. How often must we de-
clare that liberty never can survive public virtue ;
and that thesurest road to national degradation and
ultimate despotism, is that the morals of the common
people should be undermined ? We ask, then, those
among our Legislators who still think principle
worth contending for, why they remain indifferent
to this danger ? We call upon them to consult his-
tory, and to declare whether there is upon record
any instance of freedom and of property sur-
viving the wreck of public virtue ? If there is
not, can the abominable career which, for the sake
of a revenue, they are encouraging the populace of
this country to pursue, end in any thing but the loss
of that which, as freemen and as Christians, we
have hitherto been taught to reverence and hold
dear ?—Morning Herald.
Archdeacon Bathurst, the son of the Bishop of
Norwich, has deemed it expedient to publish the
correspondence between the Bishop of Chester and
the Lord Primate, and that which ensued in conse-
quence between the latter and the venerable Prelate
his father. If any thing had been wanting to the
vindication of the Bishop of Chester, or to the proof
rather that his assailant was at once calumnious and
stupid, these documents would undoubtedly have
supplied it. They confirm in every impOrtant parti-
cular the statement of facts by which we at first en-
countered the silly and contemptible calumny,
levelled against one of the brightest ornaments and
most effective champions of the Church. It is now
placed beyond further question, that in fact the
Bishop of Norwich did ordain a person who had no
title to ordination, and who was to officiate, if any
where, in the diocese of Chester, in violation of Ec-
clesiastical discipline, and practically in usurpation
of the Ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction of
another Diocesan; and that this was not the first
instance in which such a line of conduct had been
adopted by that Right Rev. Prelate. These cir-
cumstances reduced the Bishop of Chester to the
alternative of compromising the salutary discipline of
the Church, and surrendering without resistance his
rights and his duties in his own diocese, or of com-
municating to the highest Ecclesiastical authority
the dangerous inroad which had been attempted, and
in part effected upon both. No man who has the
advantage of knowing that eminent Prelate, will
doubt that the alternative was a most: painful
one,. or will feel the least surprize that he
adopted without hesitation the more firm, un-
compromising, and conscientious course. The
communication produced, as it was sure to pro-
duce, a very mild rebuke as to the past, and a
very calm and dignified admonition as to the future
conduct of the Bishop of Norwich, addressed to that
Prelate by his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.
We shall only express our hope and expectation,
that the rebuke and admonition, administered as they
have been in the temper of true Christian mildness,
may have been received and adopted with congenial
meekness of spirit—and respectfully forbear from
any further canvass of the conduct of the three very
elevated and estimable persons engaged' in the trans-
action. How or where the contemptible slander
upon the Bishop of Chester, which is now so fully
exposed, was concocted, is a question with respect
to which we acknowledge a feeling of curiosity. It
is both too silly and too malevolent, we are per-
suaded, to have originated with our contemporary.
All that we yet know is, that the Bishop of Chester
being the aUest champion of the Protestant Church
and Constitution of the Empire, and the most insur-
mountable obstacle to the designs inimical to both,
which the present Administration profess they do
not entertain, but which, upon their avowed prin-
ciples, they must entertain if they are honest men,
information which turns out to be false, and which
he'd it not been false would have been fatal to the
reputation and influence of this learned and virtuous
Prelate, is, from some quarter or other, communi-
cated to, and published by, the Journal which en-
joys in a peculiar degree the patronage of Ministers;
which has been their chosen vehicle for imparting
sundry previous matters that they were desirous that
the Public should know or believe; and to which
hitherto the secret articles of treaties and the very
pencil marks, genuine or forged, on the envelopes of
official papers have been equally accessible. It
would perhaps be rash to draw inferences at the pre-'
sent moment, but if further information should be
withheld the public will not fail to draw their own
inferences.—Morning Post.
We are happy to find our contemporary, who
vilified the Bishop of Chester so grossly, laudably
anxious to atone for his error. Not contented with
the apology which was dictated to him, and which,
from the ample confession of folly and falsehood
which it put into his mouth, could not but be a
bitter draught to the most sincerely penitent, our
contemporary yesterday, by way of " more last
words" on the subject, presented ins readers with
the docuraeets by which the statement in his re-
cantation is estal;lished. We desire to give him all
credit for this act of supererogatory candour—for
proving to the world the trafotuided nature of his
monstrous charge against Dr. Blomfield, by other
evidence than his own, which, after the experience
of the last month, the more sceptical might have
been disposed to reject on the old rule—inendaci
male creditor etiam vera decenti. We are
not disposed to make any lengthened observa-
tion on these documents, which we have given in
another column. We could have wished that
Archdeacon Bathurst had, instead of attacking one
of our contemporaries which was most honourably
anxious to vindicate the Bishop of Chester, for
,
statmg, without the slightest wish or meaning of
offence, that the letter of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury reached Dr. Bathurst while he was engaged at
a game of whist, had given a few words of advice
to the Journal he was more particularly addressing,
in which that Prelate's attachment to cards, and
his resolution not to give up his hand as long as he
could manage to hold one, were so coarsely and in-
considerately put forth. We could also have wished
that Mr. Archdeacon had given us the whole of the
correspondence, instead of presenting it in abstract,
net that we mean to insinuate that the parts he
suppressed were less favourable to Dr. Bathurst
than those that he published, but because less
candid and less courteous interpreters may. This
is perhaps the last time that we shall be called
on to notice directly the very pitiable predicament
in which this affair has placed the Journal princi-
pally concerned in it ; nor do we conceive that any
of its future lapses, by whatever circumstances ac-
compsr.ied, are likely to call for our notice or ani-
madvarsion. It may now indeed say with Hadibras
--" those that are down can fall no lower." In
tat lowest depth in which its conduct has placed it,
there is no lower depth to which it can sink. Of

Dr. Merrifield we have only to say that his con-
duct has been all in all the conduct of an honest,
conscious servant of his Divine Master. It may be
a very good thing to study Hoyle at night, and to
weary the eyes in poring over the gravities of Jortin
in the morning. We wish not to quarrel with any
man's inclinations, but we must say that there are
in our opinion, recreations and studies of a
higher character, and that above all, there are
duties of practice belonging to the office of a Chris-
tian Bishop, the honest discharge of which is infi-
nitely more important than either cards or criticism.
—New Times.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

ROLLS' COURT, DEC. 12.
FIELD V. OSBORN, BART., AND OTHERS.

This was a bill filed against Sir John Osborn,
Bart., Lord Kenyon, and others, to set aside certain
deeds of conveyance and release, which, as was al-
leged, the plaintiff had, in ignorance of his rights
under a settlement made on the marriage of the late
Sir Charles Ventris Field and Louisa his wife, and
by misrepresentation on the part of the late Sir
George Osborn, Bart., been induced to execute in
1792 and 1804.

After a very long struggle by the plaintiff's Coun-
sel to uphold the case,
The MASTER of the ROLLS decided that the bill
must be dismissed, with costs.

VICE-CHANCELLOR'S COURT, DEC. 12.

PEPPER v. PEPPER.

Mr. HEALD (with whom was Mr. Rawl,'Ns) ap-
peared for the plaintiff in this cause. Mr. John
Pepper, the plaintiff, having put some title-deeds
and other documents into the hands of a Mr. Mon-
travers and a Mrs. Langdon for security, gave his
son, the defendant, a written authority to take them
out of their hands. Upon presenting th:4 authority,
the papers were immediately- given up to the de-
fendant, who gave a receipt for the same, in whose
hands they now remained, and who refused to give
them up to the plaintiff, his father. It was under
these circumstances that Mr. John Pepper had found
himself under the painful necessity of filing a bill
against his own son. And what was the defence
which the defendant had sct up ? Why, that his
father was too old, and his faculties too much im-
paired, to know what to do with them ; and that he
was afraid that his younger brother would get them
into his possession. This was the whole of the
defence.

Mr. PEI'YS (with whom was Mr. BARBER) ap-
peared for the defendant. The Learned Counsel
said that this was not the suit of the father, for he
was wholly incompetent to manage his affairs : it
was instituted at the instigation of persons in whose
hands he was.

Mr. HEALD, in reply, was glad that the time of
the Court had not been wasted in hearing the mass
of evidence respecting the infirmity of this old gen-
tleman's mind, because it was no ground of de-
fence. It was unpleasant to ask for costs on behalf
of a father against his son; but as he did not see
why his client, who had offended nobody, should
be visited with so heavy a punishment as the costs of
this suit, he should not only ask the Court to grant
the prayer of the bill,—namely, that the papers in
question should be delivered up to the plaintiff,—but
also that the defendant should be made to pay the
costs.

The VICE-CHANCELLOR granted the prayer of the
bill, and ordered the costs to be paid by the de-
fendant.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND ATIIERSTONE SCHOOL.

Mr. RUSSELL was about to open this case, when
Mr. SUGDEN, who was on the same side, said
that the trustees in their answer baying declared
their utter ignorance of certain matters, it was neces-
sary that there should be an inquiry before the cause
could be heard.

After some conversation between the counsel, it
was agreed that there should be an enquiry as to
what estates belonged to the charity.—for what
rent they were let, and what the rights of the
schoolmaster were; the trustees in the mean time
undertaking to pay the master the arrears of his sa-
lary of 1101. without prejudice.

CONSISTORY COURT, DEC. 12.
YOUNG AGAINST YOUNG.

This was a suit for a divorce by reason of adultery,
promoted by MrS. Mary Young against her husband,
Colonel Henry Young. It came now before the
Court on a question as to the admissibility of the
allegations. The libel alleged that the parties were
married in 1798; they cohabited together till 1814,
and during that period seven children were born.
Colonel Young, towards the latter end of 1914, it
was alleged, formed a criminal intimacy with a
woman named Sophia Cross, who accompanied him
to Aberdeen. Mrs. Young was in the mean time
left in great want, by reason of this desertion, and
owing to an execution being put into the house by
the contrivance of her husband, whereby she was
disabled from following him to Scotland. It was
further alleged, that Colonel Young and Sophia
Cross went to Prince Edward's Island, where they
cohabited for eight or nine wears. In 1825, he was
found to be residing at 'Paris, and Mrs. Young
went to France in January, 1826, in order to
serve him with a process from this Court. She
returned to England in May, in order to raise
money, leaving her daughter, Matilda Jemima
Young, at Boulogne, where Colonel Young came
to reside. During this time, it was alleged, he car-
ried on an adulterous intercourse with a French
actress. By the medium of the daughter, a recon-
ciliation was effected, and Mr;. Young returned to
cohabitation with her husband at Boulogne in July.
Soon after, however, he formed a criminal connexion
with a French woman, named Juliette Dupont, and
cohabited with her in the vicinity of Boulogne, after
his release from prison, to which he had been sent in
October, 1826. - _ _
_ _

Sir C. ROBINSON was of opinion that some of the
allegations were inadmissible. On the whole, he
should admit the libel, with the exception of the
last four articles.

HAnnozn V. HARROLD.

This was also a question as to the admission of the
libel in a suit of divorce, on the ground of adultery,
pi'omoted by Mr. Thomas Harrold, against Jane, his
wife.

The COURT directed the libel to be reformed in a
few particulars, and then admitted.

GRANT V. GRANT.

In this case Dr. ADDAMS moved upon an allega-
tion of faculties, representing the husband (who is
the promoter of the suit) as possessing an income
of 5,0001. per , annum, that the Courc would order
the wife, on account of alimony, a greater allowance
than 31. per week, which she now received from her
husband.
Dr. LUSHINGTON, on the other side, denied the
allegations respecting the faculties, and objected to
a greater allowance.—The COURT refused to order
more.

MARY HARVEY, a widow, \vas fully com-
mitted to Norwich gaol, on Tuesday, charged with mur-
dering an illegitimate child by administering laudanum ;
she was the mother of four children by her late hush end.—
Boston Gazette.

curious computation has been made, which
winAbeinteresting to reflect upon at the tea-table.
25,000,0001b5. of tea, and 170,000 tons of sugar are an-
nually consumed in the United Kingdom, averaging about
20 ounces of the former and nibs. of the latter for each
individual.

1 It is not, perhaps, generally known, that poor
BAR„un, the comedian, whose destitute condition called
forth considerable public sympathy, has, some months since,
his sufferings by the hand of death.—
Ebnae.ete released
il ved
On the night of Monday the 3d inst. a sheep
belonging to Mr. GxeitoE CLARXE7 of Sutton, was
earefd. em
~
slaughtered
in a close Occupied by him. The immediate
wants of the
depredators, however, being small, after skin-
quarters, they contented them-
selves with taking away a
few pounds of chops, and left
oftnhinegreomnaeinodferthe h
theind carcase behind them,.....Boston
Gazette.