The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-24 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

We quote the following remarks respecting Con-
servative Tavern keepers from the Chronicle :—" We
beg to call the attention of our readers to the dis-
tresses of a very meritorious class of persons who are
to be added to the long list o: sufferers by Sir Robert
Peel's accession to office. We mean the Conservative
tavern-keepers. Our table is crowded with letters
from these unhappy men in every part of the empire,
complaining that, far from profiting by the accession-
of their party to power, that event seems to have been
the signal for the immediate and total discontinuance
of those Conservative dinners which used to be held
at this time of year. Many of our Correspondents
suggest that such a sudden abandonment of the very
efficient means by which the party was kept together,
must prove injurious to the party—perhaps to the
sacred cause of Conservatism. But all are unani-
mous and strenuous in asserting that it is very inju-
rious to the Conservative innkeeper ; and what, as
they say, is the use of Conservatism, if it isn't to
uphold the Conservative innkeepers ?' "
The Times remarks, in an article on the American
newspaper Press :—" M. de Tocqueville, a careful,
and in general an instructive, reporter upon things
and people in the New World, accounts for the bar-
barous state of periodical literature, tolerated not only
in the ruder districts, but in New York, and even in
the most refined of all the American societies, that of
Boston, by a theory of which the logic seems to us to
be strangely inverted. He and other Frenchmen,
who went out, as the Reviewer has it, with no Eng,
lish disposition to carp and cavil,' but with the per-
suasion that of all forms of Government the Republi-
can is best f4ted to develope the political independence
and happiness of mankind, have returnrd to tell us'
(and with this conclusion the Reviewer himself ap-
pears wonderfully content), that the American in-
atitutions are good, but that the people are not.' Now
we strongly believe that the very reverse will be
found to be the truth—that the people would be good
enough, but that the institutions are not; and we can
scarcely conceive how the writer, in making a
valuation of his French witnesses, and accrediting
them for their freedom from English bias, should have
missed the very obvious suspicion that their sacrifice
of American character, in favour of American institu-
tions, was the result of the Republican prepossessions
which he avows that those witnesses carried with
them. They took out a certain set of opinions, based
upon no experience of populous nations, but which
they were determined at all times to justify. Arriving
in America, and finding there, instead of- develope-
meat of independence and happiness,' a state of affairs
where private character is insecure—where popular
licentiousness is at an enormous premium—where the
flatteries and the despotic powers so destructive to
virtue even in an individual sovereign, are lavished by
interested sycophants upon a Sovere'gn having mil-
lions of heads—and where, of course, a considerable
proportion of that bloated mob must exhibit the cor-
ruption thus inoculated into their constitutions—the
Doctrinaires of French democracy, instead of confess-
ing that their theory is swamped by the experiment,
stick to it with a vanity which, like Greek fire, flares
even under water, and :struggle to save their own
wretched credit by imputing an innate unworthiness
to a whole people.'
The following is from the Post:—" We perfectly
agree with all Sir John Tyrell so forcibly says about
the dishonest character of the policy of the late Go-
vernment. We agree with him that nothing could be
more base than for that Government to hold back
from certain measures while they had power, and
then to launch them forth upon the popular tide when
their power of carrying them was gone. But we do
not agree in the opinion which seems now to be held
by country members, though not openly expres'sed,
that because these measures were dishonestly launched
by the Whigs, it became necessary for the-Conserva-
tives to carry them to a certain extent, and to adopt
to a certain extent the principles or opinions upon
which these measures were founded. We repeat that
it seems as though some mysterious cause—not proper
to be revealed to the public—for holding this opinion,
had been imparted' to country gentlemen, and. go-
verned their political conduct. Sir John Tyrell
speaks of his interviews with the Administration to
obtain certain modifications of the Corn-law, but he
and his friends were unable to effect what they desired,
and were thus in an awkward position. No doubt,
Sir John, you must • have been, supposing that to
vote with the Minister was the first object, and to
support your own views the second. But we see no
reason why an independent country gentleman should
not have said that he was under the necessity of sup-
porting his views of what was best for the country,
and he must do so however he was pained in differ-
ing from the Minister."
The Herald says :—" The Marquis of Londonderry
has just addressed a printed letter to Lord Ashley,
to open his eyes' on the subject of the Mines and
Collieries Act, and the Noble oculist's mode of couch-
ing organs of Legislative vision has at all events the
merit of novelty. Some men attempt to convince
their opponents of error by a resort to argument,
others by an appeal to the heart : some endeavour to
shame antagonists into truth, others to ridicule them
out of false views ; some have recourse to irony others
to persuasion ; few, a very few, think that abuse and
hard words are the most successful implements of con-
version,--Lord Londonderry appears to be of this se-
lect minority. The locality of controversialists who
employ such literary weapons we had supposed to
have been much more confined than Lord London-
derry's epistle to Lord /Wiley indicates it to be.
Mere imputations of ignorance, mis-statement, trickery;
puerility, fraud, and misrepresentation, we had
thought were practices only in the most eastern quar-
ters of this huge metropolis; extremes, however seem
to meet in these matters as well as others, and this
'ancient and fish-like' style of convincing appears to
he, minus the vernacular in language' familiar to a
denizen of Park-lane. Bitter invective, unscrupulous
insinuation, unwarrantable imputations, and fierce and
vulgar denunciations. are the instruments with which
Lord Londonderry flatters' himself he ' will open'
Lord Ashley's eyes.' "

Trtanr.-CONLIKERCE.
Tke cattle-fairs held during the past week at Ash-
over, Lancaster, Mansfield, and Worksop have been
fairly attended. At Mansfield the business done was
very trifling, and at Devizes excessively dull. Ax-
minster fair was the fullest seen for many years.

NAVAL LINO MILITARY.
A letter from one of the privates of the 41st regi-
ment has been received, dated the 7th of Sept. last,
in which the writer asserts that there has been "no
fighting of late," but that they were in daily expec-
tation of receiving orders to advance towards Caubul.

LA.i.V AND POLICE,
Charles Gu3tavus Chamberlain, City policeman 619,
was charged on Friday at Guildhall, with having ex-
torted, by colour of his office, from fruit-women and
omnibus-drivers, sundry small fees of a penny and
twopence. The prisoner was committed to the House
of Correction.

A seaman, named !o, uham Uallagher, summoned
Captain Knox, master of a large East Indiaman, at
Thames-street, for a balance of wages, amounting to
181. los., for his services on a voyage from Port
Philip to London. It was shown that the complain-
ant had deceived the Captain, by shipping as an able
seaman, when he was ill, and unable to perform duty.
The Magistrate declined to make an order for the
wages.

Eliza Bailey, recently sent down from Liverpool to
be tried at the Cheshire Quarter Sessions on the charge
of stealing a large sum of money in notes from Mr.
John Marquis, was tried at Knutsford on Wednesday,
and found guilty. She was sentenced to be trans-
ported for seven years.