The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THII PUBLIC; JOIRNALS.

At length despatches have been received from
Sir R. Gordon, announcing that the ratifications
of the late treaty have been exchanged. between
Count Diebitsch, on the part of his Sovereign,

and the Turkish Ministers ;—that a part of the
Russian force has already retreated from Adria-

nople, and that the remainder will speelilv fol-
low. As to what is still to be done between
the Russian and Turkish Governments we take

for granted that there is an intention on the side
of Turkey, from a sense of good faith as wolf
as weakness, to fulfil to the utmost tho hard
conditions to which she has subscribed ; and on

tile side of Russia, from a consciousness of

power to enforce them. If, indeed, the pecu-
niary exaction be not diminished, and that con-
siderably, we do not see how the most strenuous
efforts of the Sultan can accomplish the pay-

ment of sums so enormous ; nor flow the most

ingenious exercise of Russian rigour can squeeze
them from her impoverished and worn-out vie-

tim. Russia must have known much better than

any Court in Europe the limit of the Ottoman
resources, when she dictated those harsh terms
of which Turkey now complains ; and that we
think the most suspicious circumstance of any
apparent in the conduct of the Emperor. If a
territorial equivalent be now demanded as the
price of relaxing from the extreme condition as
to money, the object which we have frequently
pointed out as probable will have become mani-
fest to all the world, and the true spirit of the
war-policy of Russia will be so laid naked, that
none can affect to misconstrue it. Let us, how-

ever, hope for a result of this crisis more credit-
able to the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh, and more
satisfactory to Europe.—Times.
The narrative of the proceedings in the Vice-
Chancellor's Court, regarding a pauper case,
with some accompanying strictures, which ap-
peared in the Chronicle of Wednesday, drew
from the Standard, of Wednesday evening,
some excellent observations on the judicial wants
of this country. The observation of Lord Redes -
dale, that " in Ireland there is one law for the
rich, and another for the poor," received from

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our contemporary this very happy qualification,
" that it affirmed of Ireland what it would be
gross flattery to predicate of our own countrv.
Lord Redesdale. is said to have spoken of the
administration of Civil Justice, and so speak we ;
and thus speaking, we assert, that so far front
there being one law for the rich, and another for
the poor in England, all the law is on the side
°jibe rich, and all against the poor." After
noticing the case above alluded to, our contem-
porary observes—
" Things of this kind happen nearly every day ;
and will continue to happen in still greater numbers,
without some change in our mode of administering
what we comically miscall justice. It is notorious;
that no prudent man will sue a person whose ho-
nesty he suspects for a hundred pounds at law, or
for fire hundred pounds in equity, because a pru-
dent man knows that an unscrupulous opponent
may, in the progress of a suit at law, put him to
two or three hundred pounds cost ; while in equity
expence is boundless, and the duration all but inter-
minable. On the other side, a prudent man will
scarcely resist a claim in lily or equity for these re-
spective sums, if he have reason to fear that his
claimant creditor is prepared to play the whole
game. The high-spirited, indeed, find it a difficult
thing to bend before such considerations; but, we
must repeat it, a prudent man, if he be poor, will
yield as far as he can, rather than walk barefoot even
in the most solemn triumph of justice. It is, then,
only to the wealthy that the law of England admi-
nisters ; and, looking at the toil taken by her bill of
costs, she hardly administers it in full measure to
them, while, for the poor there is no law, though it
may be made a very grievous instrument of cppres.
sion against them. This, too, is a state of affairs
which is yearly getting worse and worse ; and yet
we have had Chancery Commissioners, and Com-
mon Law Commissioners, end all the other appara-
tus of inquiry, illusion, and expellee: and what have
they done ? They have done, we suspect, all that.
they were intended to do; they have staved off the
day of reform, filled the pockets of some of the Corn
missioners, and added to the number of those huge
folios, a whole library of which, magnificently bound,
was sold at the Earl of Liverpool's auction the other
day for twenty guinea:, a fifth part of the price of
binding, and not the tenth part of what the psper
was worth before it was soiled with the wisdom of
Parliament and Parlinmentary Commissioners. The
Common Law Commission has, indeed, undesignedey
given us some other information, and no small value.
By sheaving how the present idite of the Bar can
reason, can write, and arrange their matter, it has
given uq a key to the literary and intellectual rank
of that learned profession.
" Mr. Peel, it must be remembered, began his
Law Reform without Commissioners, and he began
well; but, unfortunately, he wanted on that occa-
sion, as he did on another more important one, that
moral courage which never had other foundation in
any man than a full consciousness—first, of his own,
integrity, Next, a thorough conviction of the sount/s
ness of own views.

" Mr. Peel's views in law reform were sound, but
he wanted the first essential foundation of moral
courage; and when Mr. Brougham and Sir James
Sca!lett began to talk in the slang of the Inns W:
Court, he took fright, and skulked behind a com.
mission.

" The Commissioners set about their business
like true lawyers. Instead of stumbling at the
threshold upon the remedy, to find which they were
delegated, as any plain man would have done, they
opened an inquiry into the nature of all things which
might be the of of litigation ; all hereditaments,
corporeal or incorporeal; every thing that can be
given or received, promised or expected—a field o
inquiry running over all substances and mixed modes,
boundless, in a werd, as the ten categories ; and
having entered upon this field, they then engaged in
a promising plan for classing all that they should find
therein, and regulating the courses by which they
should pass. They might as well have cut patterns
for the clouds, or written an ephemeris of instruction
for the course of the winds ;—prorery will take
shapes which no human sagacity can anticipate, and
pass in channels uncont rived by Legislators, channels
which Legislation can neither open nor close. The
real remedy, however, which the lawyers did not
see, who seen by every body else; it had been, in-
deed, suggested in Parliament, and in part adopted,
until it was found out that it would ruin some regis,
trar of pleas quartered on the public by a statesman
or Magistrate of the last century. The lawyers, a
shrewd race when their own interest is concerned,
were not slow to- calculate that what fell heavily
upon the registrar of pleas, must light upon the
makers of pleas also. They took fright,and frightened
Mr. Peel; and for a legal reform, the country bus
that monument of ingenious disquisition and grace-
ful writing, the Common Law Report. The remedy
was not the development of any new principle, not
the empirical exhibition of any untried nostrum—it
was merely a recurrence to old principles, and a
restoration of institutions nearly as old .as Eaglisk
history. It was to rerive the county,, courts, to
give them competent judges (such judges us we scud
to our colonies, where justice is much more satis-
factorily administered than at home),j and to tn-
laige very considerably the jurisdiction of these
courts, both in law and in equity, limiting the costs
to a very low rank of Les. This reforni was easily
practicable—it was safe—and would have been ade-
quate. Therefore, we suppose, it was that it was
not adopted,"

01,r contemporary has, unintentionafly, no

doubt,:b.en here unjust towards Mr. Peel. Lord
Althorp, some years ago, proposed and laboured
hard to effect the establishment of County
Courts, on a plan far too narrow, no doubt, but
still no small matter when we consider how woe-
fully the people of England are ridden by law-
yers. When even Cromwell, who could turn
the Parliament out of doors, was yet unable to
gain one inch of ground against the lawyers,
whom he in his Scriptural phraseology termed
the Sons of Zeruiah, Lord Althorp may well
be excused fur his endeavour to propitiate that
crafty and selfish race by the apparently insig-
nificant nature of his encroachments on their
monopoly. The lawyers in the house were too
cunning to meet his Lordship on the ground of
hostility to his principle of placing justice
within the reach of the people. The ground
they took was the danger to which the
liberties of the country would be exposed
by the immense additional power which
the nomination of so many local Judges would
give to the Crown. However, when it was-seen
that that scare-crow no longer frightened' the
people, it was agreed between Lord Althorp
and Mr. Peel that the latter should proceed
with the Local Courts as a Government mea•
sure. We do not believe that Mr. Peel has
relinquished his intention to propose Local
Courts, and we look to see some steps taken by
him soon after the meeting of Parliament. Our
fear is that, intimidated by the Lawyers, he
will not dare to propose a remedy adequate to
the evil. We cordially agree with our Contem-
porary, that the remedy wanted is merely " a
recurrence to old principles, and a restoration of
institutions nearly as old as English History.
It is to revive the County Courts, to give them
competent judges, and to enlarge very consider-
ably the jurisdiction of these Courts, both in
law and equity." Our Contemporary is here
in accordance with Mr. Bentham, in his petition
for justice.
" To Saxon Judicature," says Mr. 8., " suc-
ceeded that of Norman conquerors : to Saxon libe-
ralism, Norman absolutism. In Saxon times reigned
in adequate numbers local judicatories; not only
County-shires, but so to speak, still lesser Judge-
shires; Hundred Courts, Courts Leet, Courts Ba-
ron, and others.
" Then and there, people or lawyers, made no
difference ; language was the same. From the pre-
sence of the Judge, in any one of these small and
adequately numerous tribunals, directly or indirectly,
was suitor ever excluded ? No more than, in a pri-
vate family, contending children from the presence
of their fathers.
" Under the Norman Kings grew up Norman
French-speaking lawyers. Whether in the metro-
polis or elsewhere, along with his horses and their
grooms, one train of these domestics was always in
attendance about the person of the King. To this
train was given the cognizance of all such suits as
from such varied distances, so various, and some of
them so long, could be made to come to it.
" Quartering himself upon vassal after vassal, the
King was perpetually on the move : in his train
moved a Judge or Judges.
" To this train, whatever part of the country lie
had to come from, every man who had any thing to
complain of bad to add himself. To the place,
wherever it was, that the train happened to be at,
the defendant had to be dragged. When there,
these same suitors there found a Judge or Judges,
who, speaking a different language, could not or
would not understand what they said.
" The language of the Normandy-bred lawyers
was a sort of French. The language of the country
from whence they came these lawyers spoke ; the
language of the country into which they were come
they disdained to speak. The rules, such as they
were, by which the procedure of these foreign des-
pots, in so far as memory served and self-regarding
interest mild be guided, would, of course, be such
as their own language gave expression to; rules
which, as well as the rest of the language, were, to
the vast majority of the suitors, unintelligible;
meaning by suitors, on this occasion, not only those
who were actually so, but those who, but for this
obstacle, would have been, but could not be so—
:wade/Nes they are called in French. In British
India this state of things may with a particular
degree of facility be conceivable.
" Here, then, by a plaintiff, if he would have his
demand attended to ; by a defendant, if he could
be admitted to contest it—here were two sorts and
sets of help-mates to be hired; interpreters to con-
vey what passed between parties and their advo-
awes, and between witness and Judge ; and advo-
cates to plead the cause on both sides.
" Between Advocates and Judges, the connexion
was mot intimate. Like robbers acting together in
gangs, and without license, these licensed, irresis-
tible, and torplinishable depredators, linked together
by one common interest, acted as brothers, and
styled one another by that name.
" Thus circumstanced, they had but to take mea-
svite of the disposable property of the suitors, and
divide ;t among one another, as they could agree.
" In and by this confederacy, in a language in-
telligible seldom to both parties, most commonly to
neither, or, what was worse, to one alone, was the
matter talked over and settled. As to the truth of
what was said, how much was true, how much
false, was not worth thinking about ; means of as-
certaining it there were none. Parties, while ex-
- bausting themselves in fees, either looked on and
stared, or, seeing by attendance nothing was to be
got but vexation, staid away.
. By this our all-powerful judica-
tory (rlletropoldan it might have been styled, had
the place of it been fixed)—by this oar great French-
speaking judicatory, the little local English-speaking
.judicatories were swallowed up.
P •
ro • 3
"Wien in local judicatory, in which the plain-
tiff's demand being so clearly just, the defendant
would have been sine to lose, a suit was depending,
the Judges on each occasion, at the instance of the
defenders, sent to the however distant judicatory
au order to proceed no further, and to the defend-
ant an order to come, and along with the plaintiff to
add himself to the team as above. This having
been made the practice, and been extensively felt
and universally seen to be so ; thus all over the
kingdom was an end put to the business of all these
Euglish.speaking and jasticesadministering judi-
catories."
•We shall on a future day advert more pattt:cu,
laxly to Mr. Ber,tham's proposed Courts.—
Morning Chronicle.
The condition of the houseless poor in this
inclement season calls for the active sympathies
of all the friends of humanity. We are glad to
find that benevolent persons are exerting them-
selves to procure the means of shelter and pro-
tection for the destitute human beings who are
leading a life of helpless, vagrant miswery, a out
the streets and suburbs of LOild",11, ithout the
means of procuring a better lodging than what
an outhouse or brick-kiln can afford. Our police
reports, from day to day, bear melancholy evi-
tlenee to the state of forlorn wretchedness in
which a great portion of the poor of this wealthy
and luxurious metropolis contrive to drag on an
existence, to which the condition of the savage
in the wilderness is happiness itself. We trust
that those opulent individuals who have heard
the cries and succoured the miseries of fugitive
foreigners, will not, in this season of calamity,
neglect their perishing countrymen. The cha-
rities of England shed lustre on the national
character ; but, among the institutions of benevo-
lence which adorn this metropolis, we hope there
will not be wanting, at least, a winter asylum in

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every parish, for those, the most destitute of our
fellow-creatures, who, under all the severity of
the elements, have not where to lay their heads.
—Morning Herald.
An Evening Contemporary states that " no-
thing can equal the disgraceful state of dilapida-
tion, mutilation, and filth, in which all the clois-
ters, and much of the interior of Westminster
Abbey are at present." Though this, if it be the
case, will excite but little surprise, it must, we
should imagine, increase the indignation which
the public naturally feel, first, at their exclusion
from a free view of the interior of this interest-
ing structure ; and, secondly, that the building
itself, and its valuable treasures, on both of
which so much public money has been expend-
ed, should fall into a state so disgraceful to those
who have the charge of them, as well as to the
national character. There is one point of view
to which we are anxious to bring the attention of
those who have the charge of this building ; that
is, duty and self-interest, which, both as men of
education and of the world, they cannot but be
alive to. This edifice is dedicated to religion—
to the honour and worship of Almighty God.
We have all heard of another Temple
being made the resort of money-changers, and
the receptacle of sundry other pollutions ;
and we all know who it was that cast
out such abomination from his Father's house.

If not the receptable of money-changers tho
principal use to which this superb Temple is put
is that of money-taking, to which even the regu-
lar forms of Divine Worship are made subser-
vient ; for to attend these the congregation must
creep in at a little obscure door in a corner, lest
by opening its splendid portals even on the Sab-
bath day, too much of the interior should be
seen for nothing. But referring to the alleged
state of the interior, and the duty of those who
have the charge of it, for what, we would ask, is
the money for showing the Cathedral taken ? or
for what are its Prebendalb revenues due, but,
among other things, to maintain the structure
Nor is it because Parliament has dedicated large
sums of the public money to the same purpose,
that this duty is the less incumbent upon those
who themselves " live by the Altar" to maintain
it. We wish to see the Clergy, in all their de-
partments, free from just grounds of repro.:ch.
It is their manifest interest to be so ; and though

this mode of handling the subject may not beat
the moment the most agreeable to those whom
it concerns, we are sure that, in thus urging it,
we are most essentially serving (as it is our ob-
ject to do) both the cause of religion and its

In the last number of the Quarterly Review
there is an excellent article, entitled " Home
Colonies," or the Anti-Pauper System, in
which an attempt is made to prove that the poor-
rate might be greatly diminished, and the able-
bodied poor very profitably employed either in
fanning poor soils, or bringing into cultivation
waste lands. The author of the article has
brought much knowledge of his subject to bear
upon the question, and reasoned upon it in a
manner which appears to us equally ingenious
and accurate. Assuming as the basis of his
argument, what is indeed the fact,—that the
effect of British machinery, aided by the grow-
ing rivalry of continental nations, since the
peace, has been to produce more goods of all
kinds than a profitable market could well be
found for—and that great numbers of the work-
ing classes have, in consequence, been thrown
out of employment, he proceeds to state his—
" Conviction, which no argument that readily
presents itself to our minds can shake, that no mea-
sure can afford our labouring classes substantial re-
lief which falls short of producing an entire change
in the character of their industry—which does not
transfer their labour from the manufactories in which
they starve, to the soil of the country, on which, we
entertain no doubt, they might be made to subsist in
comfort, at least, if not ►n affluence. This proposi-
tion may appear paradoxical, as we hare already ad-
mitted that even our agricultural population is su-
perabundant ; i: may sound somewhat strangely that
we should propose pouring more water into a vessel
which, upon our own show►ng, already overflows.
• " With regard, however, to the idle hands which
now press upon the resources of country parishes, it
may be observed, that their want of employment
arises from the faulty organization of the district,
and from the defective cultivation which the occu-
piers bestow upon the soil. Every intelligent per-
son, conversant with the state of agriculture in this
country, will acknowledge that scarcely one farm
can be met with on which a vast addition of manual
labour might not be employed, to the great benefit
not only of the labourer, but also of the occupier.—
But laying for the present cut of our consideration
the number of unemployed hands which a better
system of tillage undoubtedly would absorb, we ven-
ture to reiterate what we have already more than
once stated, that we possess in our numerous waste
and uncultivated districts a source of employment
which cannot be speedily exhausted."
We never have befriended schemes of emigra-
tion at the expellee of the country. They have
always appeared to us very excellent contfivances
for enriching a few individuals, benefitting those
emigrating, and saddling the country not only
with a great additional burthen for the present,
but also with the prospect of increased pressure
in future. If more hands have been trained to
manufacturing employments than can now find
a vent for their industry, the natural remedy—
especially if the country does not produce a
sufficient supply of agricultural articles—would
seem to be, to turn the overplus of population
upon tl►e land, which, although it might not
afford much remuneration for the labour and ca-

•
pital bestowed upon it, would, at all events, un-
der due regulation, be made to supply abund-
ance of the first necessaries of life to the
labouring man and his family, whose principal
support is now derived from the parish funds.
The experiment has indeed been most success-
fully tried on the Continent upon the poorest
soils, and in the most unfavourable situations ;
and if on the Continent, why should it not also
succeed here
" It is not a little singular,'' says the writer, " that
notwithstanding the millions annually squandered in
this country, on the maintenance of the poor, and
whilst this lavish waste of resources hiss been going
on for centuries, no rational or consistent attempt
should have hitherto been made to enable the able-
bodied pauper to maintain himself by husbandry.
li
From the time of Queen Elizabeth down to the
present period, every effort seems to have been made
to force the industry of the country into a manufac-
turing channel. So completely has this prejudice
become ingrained into the habits and feelings of the
commi4i4y, that even your present overseer, whose
whole life has been passed at the plough-tail, never
dreams the labour of the unoccupied pauper at his
elbow could be rendered productive otherwise than
if employed ot: some branch of manufacture. It
never enters into his calculation, that this sturdy
idler might be made to earn his own subsistence by
the use of a spade. It has even, we believe, got
• into the head of some of our political economists
that to exact from paupers any species of productive
labour in return for their maintenance, is positively
injurious to the industrious classes. They urge,
forsooth, that this adds to the supply of labour, al-
ready too abundant in the market; but here is a
shallow fallacy. They forget that the food con-

sumed by the pauper diminishes the funds for the
employment of labour, in at least as great a ratio as
the idleness of the pauper diminishes competition in
the labour market. _ _

" It seems to us to admit of no question, that the
experiment, which has answered in every respect in
the Netherlands, would, if fairly put to the test on
any of our thousand and one wastes, succeed equally
here. Every undertaking must have a beginning ;
and we earnestly call upon the wealthier inhabitants
of some particular district, or even county, to com-
bine their efforts. In many parts of the country,
manufacturing workhouses already exist, for the
reception of paupers belonging to several parishes.
These institutions are annually attended with a vast
expense. The value of the manufacturing labour
executed in them seldom bears the proportion of one
to a thousand, when compared with tbe cost of
maintaining them. They are moral pest-houses, for
the encouragement of idleness and profligacy,
where, at a great charge to the public, a host of
outcasts are reared and trained for a career of mi-
sery. For these costly and demoralizing establish-
ments, which the English poor dread even more than
imprisonment or transportation—for
That pauper-palace, which they hate to see.'
we would fain see substituted a district or county
colony, where every able-bodied human being out
employment might find both work and subsistence.
If such an experiment were set on foot in any part
of England, and conducted with a due attention to
its necessary details, its success would, we think,
be certain. It must, however, be added, that with-
out a rigid adherence to these details, any attempt
of the kind would run great risk of miscarrying.
" It will, perhaps, be said that, upon our own
showing, a considerable outlay of capital will be
required in the first instance ; it will be necessary
to provide the means of maintaining the colonists
while tilling the ground during at least one year;
and it may be urged, probably, as an additional ob-
jection, that this amount of capital must be with-
drawn from the general capital of the country ; and
that the gain of one spot will be counterbalanced by
an equivalent loss in another district. This seems,
at the first blush of the matter, to be a formidable
objection ; but when closely analyzed, it will, we
apprehend, entirely vanish. The question is, not
whether it may be expedient to transfer a certain
capital from a branch of industry, in which it is now
productive, into another department—but whether
it be expedient to render productive, both to the
owners and the public, a certain amount of capital
which is now utterly wasted and yields no return to
anybody. We speak of the enormous capital an-
smelly squandered upon the maintenance of able-
bodied paupers. The food consumed by this class
of persons is pure and unalloyed loss; for all the
purposes of the experiment which we thus earnestly
recommend, the proper application of this wasted
capital would be more than sufficient; and surely
the advantage to the parish, from the adoption of
this system, would be immediate and palpable.
Supposing even that some fifty quartern loaves, ad-
vanced to the transplanted pauper for his mainte-
nance during the first year as an agricultural la-
bower might not be repaid—(in the Netherlands it
is repaid, and that with interest)—still this one loss
would be a mere feather in the scale, when com-
pared with the long series of annual losses sustained
by the owners and occupiers of land under the pre-
sent system. In the event of success, this man re-
quires no further assistance : the crop raised by his
own industry constitutes the capital, or supply of
food, required to subsist him afterwards. But, if
lie be allowed to consume his fifty quartern loaves
in idleness, there is nothing reproduced at the end
of the year; and, therefore, every subsequent year,
as long as he remains unemployed, it will be neces-
sary to furnish him from the parish stock, with an
equal supply of food, to be in its turn wasted and
lost. All that is required is, that those who now
throw away their capital upon the unemployed la-
bourer, should combine to lay it out in a manner
which would enable the same man to raise food for
himself by the sweat of his ova brow."
In the spirit, as well as in the reasonings in
these extracts we cordially concur. About eight
millions a year are expended in this country
upon the maintenance of the poor, one half of
whom are able-bodied, and only require to be
set to work, under due regulation and superin-
tendence, in order to be made to earn their living
comkrtably ; and why the half of such a sum
should not be destined to the promotion of
useful industry, instead of being applied to the
promotion of idleness and profligacy, we really
can see no good reason. We regret that our
limits will not permit us to give the examples
of the species of colonization to which we have
adverted, and which are carefully detailed in the
Quarterly Review ; but they are too interesting
to bear abridgement, and we trust, from this
slight notice of them, that the whole subject
will meet with the attention which it so amply
merits.—Morning Advertiser.