The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-10 00:00:00

ciety, the greater often the necessity for trespassing, '
and the greater the excuse for defective instruc-
tion ; but penal laws wisely punish the most
ignorant and the most excusable with the greatest
severity. The great problem is to make men
easy and comfortable in their circumstances. But
the great crime of crimes in civilized society (for
as men become civilized they cannot afford either
to love or hate to such a degree as to be thereby
stimulated to acts of personal violence, which
are consequently rare), the appropriation of the
property of others wrongfully, does not seem to
decrease with wealth and increase with poverty.
In the work on Penal Laws, by Mr. Lucas,
he shews that " the crimes against things, or
real crimes, are necessarily more frequent in
countries the richest and most advanced in
civilisation ; not that civilization develops directly
those crimes, but in augmenting incessantly, and
under so many forms, the sum of our things,
of our property, it augments infallibly in this
respect the occasions of injury. Nothing so
natural as that where temptation does not exist,
or exists but rarely, the offence should be rare,
and that where the temptation is more multi-
plied, the offence becomes more frequent. It
is the first principle of the justice of foresight,
a principle common in the physical as in the
moral world, that in removing from the
cause the occasion of acting, we prevent the
atlion." The same writer observes further " that
with a poor population, thst is to say possessed of
few productions, such as the population of La
Correze and of several parts of Brittany, where
man derives little from an ungrateful soil, which
he does not attempt to render more fertile, ac-
customed as he is to live on the little which he
obtains from it ; with such a people, who feel
neither the spur of want, nor the attraction of
luxury, it must be owned that the absence in the
dreary external world which surrounds them of
all that kindles our passions is calculated to render
crime more rare." We must not, therefore, be-
cause rich men are less disposed to steal or rob
than poor men, infer that the theft will be in the
ratio of the privation experienced in a country.
On the contrary, it may be pretty safely laid
down, that the country which is the most pros-
perous will have the greatest number of thieves.
Where the carcase is there will the eagles be
gathered together. We must not, therefore, let
ourselves be hurried away with the idea that we
can ever extirpate thieving. But thieves may,
like Soldiers or Priests, become so numerous
and burdensome as to impair production, and
thereby destroy the sources of their own main-
tenance. In this country of late the thieves
seem to have actually increased in a ratio greater
than that of the funds for their maintenance ; for
in many places in the vicinity of the Metropolis,
the industry of the inhabitants is seriously
paralysed by the measures necessary to protect
themselves. We might still' have the consola-
tion of believing ourselves the richest people in
Europe from the extent of thieving among us,
and yet by improverrients in our police and in
the administration of justice materially diminish
the 'number of our thieves.—Morning Chron.
Some, who profess to understand political
tactics, augur a stormy Session on the meeting
of Parliament ; but we do, not ourselves see any
very good grounds for such an opinion. To us
it seems that both the materials and the actors
are wanting for such a drama. The policy of
the Duke of Wellington's Government, both
foreign and "domestic, seems to give as much
general satisfaction as any which the country has
for many years witnessed ; while the Opposition,
if it can be called such, is so deficient, both in
numbers and talents, and so little united in•itself,
that, added to the extreme paucity of fair grounds
of attack, there seems but little chance of its
being likely to make any serious impression either
on the Duke's Ministry, on Parliament, or the
country. As far as our foreign relations are
concerned, they are at least in as favourable a
state as the Duke of Wellington's Go\'ernment
could bring them to. Whatever there is of a
contrary character about them is clue to the mis-
taken policy of Mr. Canning, which policy the
Opposition, such as it is, has hitherto 'loaded
with its approbation. At home the prosperous
state of the finances, added to the evident desire
of retrenehment in every quarter, must silence all
cavil on that head ; and proves the Duke's Admi-
nistration to be, what the country in general wishes
it to be, one of deeds and not of words. if we ex-
cept then that eternal theme of discord—the Catho-
lic Question, we see but little ground for stormy
debate ; and as storms have hitherto served that
question so little, we do not see the policy of
raising them afresh. That the Duke is desirous
of treating the question calmly we have his own
authority for believins. Till it can he treated
calmly on all sides, discussion but embarrasses it,
and " the words that burn" only add to the flame
it should be the object of all parties to extinguish.
Such being, on a cursory view, the state of
public affairs, we repeat that we see no reason
for anticipating a stormy Session. That there
will be much business to occupy its attention
there can be no doubt ; but as we have at length
got a Prime Minister who prefers doing to talks
ing, it would be well if Parliament itself would,
in this respect, take the tone from its leader, by
doing more, and talking less. No one can be
ignorant that the love of speechifying his long
been one of the banes of England, and that it
obstructs business much more than it enlightens
the public mind. Even when we possessed a
race of distinguished orators, they were listened
to rather with pleasure than profit ; but now,
when scarcely any thing deserving the name of
eloquence can be found on either side of either
House, the country has a right to hope that
speakers of an inferior grade will not continue to
occupy the same proportion of time; to the hin-
drance of public business.—Morning Herald:

A ridiculous contest has been got-Up between
two of our Morning Cotemporaries, respecting
the amount of annual revenue which they con-
tribute to the Government; and their mode of
calculation is no less amusing than the claim
put forward.on the result is truly ludicrOus.—
Says our Cotemporary in the Strand, " I am
the proprietor of four newspapers, and adding
the amount of stamp and advertisement duty,
which I pay to the Government, to the amount
of the tax on the paper which I consume, the
sum of my contribution to the Revenue is
upwards of 53,0001. annnally." Says our other
Cotemporary in Printing-house square to our
joint Cotemporary in the Strand—" You are
much mistaken in thinking that you are
the greatest contributor to the Revenue of the
State ; for by proceeding on the same plan, I
find that I contribute nu less a sum than
68,000/. ; being upwards of 14,0001. more than
you pay !" Now, if the truth may be spoken
without offence, neither of the parties iu ques-
Ition pay one farthing more to the Government
than the humblest news-vender in the eountryl
They are mere agents between the Government
and the public—the former being receiver-gene-
ral of all duties, and the latter consumer-gene-
and_ in all ca_ces. the nartv out of w hoSe pockets