The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-14 00:00:00

Obindag

LONDON, TUESAY. OCTOBER 14, 1845.

Except in those countries of the East, where two or three
superior castes absorb the whole wealth, power, and property
of the State, leaving to the mass of the population a wither-
ing equality of slavery and poverty, there is, perhaps, no
empire throughout the world in which the extremes of opu-
lence and destitution are brought into such close habitual
contact, as England. The most luxurious magnificence is
everywhere to be met with, in ceinnestion with our social
institutions ; but everywhere it[is elbowed by the most squall('
misery. It is in the most sumptuous capital, as it is in the
most beautiful provinces which are to be found in Europe,
that this fearful contrast obtrudes itself on the most indifferent
or careless observer. The presence of poverty and distress,
under their most appalling aspects, amidst the most elaborate
refinement, and the unstinted exhibition of riches and
of pomp, is so remarkable in England at this dav,
that it seems to reconcile itself to our ideas as a
healthful qualification of that passion fur display which is
daily assuming more decided development in the national
character. We are insensibly habituating ourselves to the
example of those old Egyptians who imposed an impressive
restraint on the growing hilarity of th( it festive meetings bs
ur.v eiling, at a certain period of their symposiac festivities, the
embalmed corpses of their ancestors. In England the juxta-
position of the highest and the lowest conditions of social
existence—of the capital which is so largely employed to
procure all enjoyments for the former, and of the penury
which denies the most ordinary necessaries of human life to
the latter—is a perpetual miracle. That capital, those en
joyments, subsist, expand, multiply, under no more im-
mediate protection than the moral guarantee of public
opinion, which, in its turn, is the only true form (I
law. This wretchedness, with all its sufferings, and the ter-
rible strength of the physical wants that surround it, con-
tinues religiously to respect that moral protection. Tempta-
tion, in a thousand forms, and with all its importunate
activity, from week to week, day to day, hour to hour, is
constantly bringing under the eye of famine the well-spread
board of luxurious plenty, and placing within the reach and
under the very touch of destitution, the easily-accessible and
superfluous treasures of opulence. But the effort is vain.
Misery respects the rights that are denied to itself, and turns
from the excess of that abundance, of which not even a
fraction is doled out to itself, to the mournful
habitudes of its suffering and its despair. But if
human charity is thus indifferent to—or from their
mass and variety incompetent to relieve—the distresses of
the destitute, surely human laws ought to protect and even
to reward these latter for their abstinence, their patience,
their good conduct. Among the numerous cases on which
we have felt it from time to time our duty to animadvert,
as illustrating the disgraceful and painful fact that the ten-
dencies of the law, in this country, point in just the con-
trary direction, we know of none in which legalised oppres-
sion has attained to so monstrous a height as those which
arise out of decisions by our petty magisterial sessions, on
summonses against the very poorest class of cottage• holders,
for non-payment of the parochial or district poor-rates to
which they stand assessed. Often as we have found ourselves
compelled to bring these matters under public notice, we
shall never relax our efforts, humble though they be, on the
one hand to awaken the indignant reprobation Of
the public to the wanton cruelty of poor-law unions
and parochial authorities in pressing such assessments against
decayed householders, if we may mo term them, who cannot
find bread even for themselves or their wretched children—
and to urge upon the attention of Parliament the scandal, as
well as the absurdity, of permitting any laws to remain on the
statute-book, under the letter of which those more hopelessly
poor than the parochial paupers are required to contribute out
of their own destitution towards the support of all the other
destitute of the union within the limits of which their cot-
tages are situate. To the competent and the rich on the po-
licy, independently of all other considerations, of securing the
continued forbearance and respect of the poor, whose masses,
from their increasing number and the extent of their priva-
tions, are every day becoming more formidable, we can urge
no stronger appeal than that which we have already renewed
on this occasion.
Just six months have elapsed since some feelings, stronger
than those of astonishment, were excited by the report of
some statements made in Parliament connected with the case
of a poor, but very industrious labourer, against whom cer-
tain Leicestershire magistrates had granted a distress war-
rant for non-payment of a poor-rate. This man, together
with a poor female, charged with the same cesste—" inabi-
lity to pay"—was sent, there being no go.)ds and chattels
left to him in his miserable cottage wherewith to defray
the levy, to Leicester County Gaol, till such rate should
be paid. Some charitable individual (who " Did good by
stealth, and blush'd to find it fame") paid the rate for them.
And what ensued? They were committed to the House of
Correction for one month—" with bard labour"( !!)—for
w
this contumacious inability to pay costs, aggravated by the
ytt more intolerable offeuce of ing> under tlao preaure 9f