The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-03 00:00:00

THE KIN, LON

of the Brazils. If the hapless peasantry felt
such sentiments, we are quite sure they could
find no words of their own to express them, and
equally sure that the other classes would never
give them credit for entertaining them. .
They live together, but they are not neigh-
bours. They scarcely understand each other, and
one class is envious of the natural hilarity of
which unmitigated poverty cannot wholly de-
prive them, and the other of the wealth which
seems to promise enjoyment, but rather checks
than excites the animal spirits. To succour the
distressed, to help the weak, to bind up wounds,
to set the way-laid man on an ass, to bring him in
safety, and provide for his recovery and nourish-
ment, is to be his neighbour ; to wall round great
districts of the earth on the one hand for the pre-
servation of game, and to poach them on the
other; to make and to strain the law against the
poor, and to defy and evade it; to restrict all
kind of innocent enjoyment, and to retort all
kinds of petty annoyance, is not to be neigh_
bours, but enemies. Which character is best de-
served by the labourers and the upper classes in
the agricultural districts, let those pronounce
who have lived in them.

We have on several occasions called public
attention to the character of the clergy as ex-
hibited by the testimony they bear against
each other. When the Earl of RADNOR, in the
Upper House of Parliament, accused the bulk
of the clergy of perjury, and the newspapers
repeated the accusation,words could not be found
to express the big and overboiling indignation
with which the accusati on was repelled. But
latterly that accusation has been amply justified
by the crimination and recrimination of the
Evangelicals and the Puseyites—the platform-
actors and the monks, as they reciprocally call
each other. Some days ago we borrowed from a
Journal of the Evangelicals, a character of the
Puseyites ; and we now beg attention to the
opinion published in a Puseyite Journal of the
Evangelicals :
"flow does it happen," said a writer in the Morning Post,
"that we see no addresses to his Grace (the Archbishop
of Canterbury) calling his attention to the universal vio-
lation of the Rubrics of the Prayer-book which every clergy-
man is morally sworn to obey ! Is perjury a slight crime ?
It might, perhaps, be as well if these eager denouncers
of what they conceive to be erroneous doctrine would
pay a little attention to the subject of the Rubrics. They
would perhaps discover that those clergymen, whom
they consider perfect models as to doctrine, are in the
constant habit of deliberately violating their ordination
vows without the slightest excuse ; while, on the other
hand, those persons whom they conceive to be the
enemies of the Church of England, are consistently
fulfilling every command of the Church which has been
laid upon them. By their fruits ye shall know them.'
Popular clamour is much more easily raised than strict
obedience is fulfilled ; and, therefore, no wonder that
we find much more of the one than of the other."

If the Puseyites are such faithless men that
they cannot be trusted, that promises and oaths
will not bind them, according to the Standard,
the Evangelicals, according to the Post, are
men who habitually violate their vows, and
deserve to be expelled from society for " uni-
versal" and habitual perjury. The public in
general, we apprehend, will cordially believe
both accusations.

Upwards of forty of the leading patented print-
ng firms in Paris have just published a declara-
tion, setting forth the extreme hardships to which
they are exposed by the absurd operation of
the libel law. Bad as the libel law of England
is, the law of France is still more monstrous.
Here, the printer only is liable to prosecution,
where the author withholds his name; but in
France, the responsible editor and the printer,
must both be known; are both prosecuted; are
very frequently both fined and imprisoned;
although it is notorious, that one of them
is innocent of all intentional participation
in the alleged infraction of the law, the
circumstance is rarely admitted in extenua-
tion of punishment. In England, too, the Press
has other protections against the operation of a
defective state of the libel law, which are rarely
to be found in France. The liberty of the Press
is better known among us, both by public writers
and those who resort to their columns for infor-
mation and amusement. The tone of pub-
lic opinion among • us is healthier than
in France ; and, consequently, Journals are
less liable to prosecutions arising out of
caprice. A momentary gust of public discontent
scarcely affects the stability of a Cabinet in
England, hence Ministers rarely exhibit that
sensibility to attacks upon them which prompts
the most rancorous prosecutions in France. Our 1
Bench maintains a higher character for impar-
tiality, if not for legal knowledge; and our Juries
are of a very different stamp from the tools of the
Procureur-General, summoned not to try, but
to pronounce sentence of guilt upon a Paris
printer. Nevertheless the document published
by the Paris printers affords interesting matter
for the consideration of the Libel-law Reformers
in the British Parliament., The printers of Paris
seek to show that the printer of a daily journal
cannot possibly be guilty of libel within the
meaning of the law, which must of course con-
template a knowledge of the offence, and to
us it appears that in the following quotation
from their declaration they have done so
most successfully. The printers are quite
right in invoking the protection of the Censor-
ship, should -the Government refuse to amend
the September Laws. They must be ruined if
the Chamber of Deputies do-es not step forward
and cover them with the eegis of the Charter of
1830, so vilely trampled under foot by the Court
of Peers. We now quote the substance of the
Paris Printers' Anti-Libel-law Remonstrance :
" All the world knows that political papers are edited,
composed, and printed during the night, that is to say,
from 9 o'clock in the evening to twelve o'clock at night,
and very often later.
" The leading articles are formed of remarks of the
day and the evening papers. The political articles are
never composed sooner ; very often they are only made
upon the ensemble of the other articles of the paper, and
are, consequently, only drawn up very late in the
night. They are cut up into slips and thus put into-the
hands of a great number of workmen who compose
them without following the sense, and consequently in
ignorance of what the articles contain. When thus
composed, they are read by a number of correctors,
who are, like the compositors, without knowing what is
the sense of the whole ; these correctors, moreover, de-
pend almost entirely upon the administration of the pa-
per which pays them. These fragments of articles are
collected together, and when each is put in its place the
paper is ready, and is put to press as quickly as possible ;
the different copies are taken as quickly as printed off
by the folders, who place them under wrappers, and hand
them over to the porters and distributors. All this is
done in a few hours ; all the persons are most actively
employed, and without a moment's cessation, and without
having an instant for reflection.
" We ask, now, if it be possible in this pele-mele of
activity for a master printer, supposing him present at
every one of the numerous actions constituting the
printing of a newspaper, to examine, weigh, and criticise
all the articles which are to form a part of it, when two
or three correctors scarcely suffice to read as quickly as
possible what is produced by a certain number of corn
positors ?

" Supposing even that by the utmost activity and
wonderful facility he were able to read the whole paper,
how find time to exercise his judgment sufficiently to
declare that such an article contained an offence, that
such another contained none ? It would be necessary
for him to possess an infallibility which is not to be
found even in maturely deliberating Courts of Justice.
" Admitting, however, even this infallibility of judg-
ing, a still more serious question arises. All papers
which have given a security have entered into stipulated
arrangements with their printer, so that if a printer al-
lowed a paper to be behind hand in appearing in the
morning, he would be considered as having occasioned a
very consideraale injury to the paper as property, and
would be liable to an action for damages, proportionate
to the injury done to the paper by the delay he has oc-
casioned. This has already taken place, and the Court

. _
of Commerce has given a verdict against the printer im

plicated.
" What then is the printer to do? Either he must re-
fuse to print the paper, because it contains an article the
nature of which appears to him to be dangerous, and his
whole fortune is exposed to be paid away in damages,
awarded to the paper by the Court of Commerce ; or he
prints the paper, the dangerous article is declared guilty
of a political offence, and he is ruined for having printed
it against his will.

"If such be the position of a printer, who undertakes
the printing of a paper, what is that of a printer whose
whole establishment is employed in nothing but this
species of printing ? There are certain printers in Paris
who have undertaken from eight to ten papers every
day. Are they to possess a representative for every
paper ? But, if so, the difficulty is only augmented, the
fiction of responsibility is extended, and the chances of
infallibility diminished still more. This responsibility
required of the printers with regard to the editing of
newspapers is a material impossibility.
" Moreover, the authority of the Goverumept upon