The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-03 00:00:00

*tronV/Zibitton

SUN OFFICE Three o'Cluch.

Great efforts we learn are making in various
quarters to promote the union of the working
and middle classes. One of the principal means
relied on is, for the middle classes to advocate a
great or complete extension of the suffrage,
which may satisfy the working classes, We be-
lieve that this will ultimately be very efficacious
to attain the proposed end; and those who pro-
mote it inform us that they have already been, to
a considerable extent, successful.
We will venture to suggest another means of
promoting this object. Many of the working
classes believe, right or wrong, that the Liberals
of the middle classes were their most decided
enemies on the loccasion of their turn-out. For
that ill-judged step many of the Turn-outs are
now paying severe penalties. They have been
consigned to gaol for shorter or longer terms,
and imprisonment in England is no light punish-
ment. Their families, who have already been
great sufferers, are doomed, by their incarcera-
tion,- to be exposed to still greater privations,
We cannot speak very positively, not having
ourselves visited the abodes, or witnessed the
misery of the poor in the manufacturing dis-
tricts, but it is our belief; that at no former
period within the recollection of any living man,
was such heart-rending distress found in the
abodes of our people. To have been more pa-
tiently borne, with the one great and fatalexcep-
don, was scarcely possible. On these accounts,
those suffering women and children, and the
mistaken men, are now fit objects of com-
miseration.
We understand that there is something like a
project on foot to, raise a fund to alleviate the
misery of those whose protectors have fallen
under the heavy hand of the law. There is no
longer any pretext for severity. Its supremacy
has been vindicated, and mercy should to the
extent of its means bind up the wounds the law
has inflicted, when to keep them open is no
longer necessary to the public safety. It would
be an act of kindness on the part of the middle
classes—it could now be in no case attributed to
fear or collusion—were they to come forward and
liberally contribute to any Lund which shall be
exclusively destined to relieving those women
and children who are suffering from the confine-
ment of their protectors. Should any such pro-
ject be in contemplation, we hope it will be sup-
ported by the middle classes, who may at a
small expense contribute to convince the work-
ng classes that they are not their enemies, but
:lie enemies exclusively of disorder and outrage.

At a meeting of the Dublin Corporation, which
took place on Tuesday last, in that city, Mr.
M‘LAucaturr proposed " a resolution of thanks
to the late Lord Mayor, for his valuable services
and upright conduct during the past year,"
which, after being duly seconded by a gentle-
man named M'CuLLAGN, was—says the report—
" carried by acclamation." This is quite a suffi-
cient answer to those political enemies of Mr.
O'CoNNELL, who, at the commencement of his
Mayoralty, asserted that he would degrade the
office be held, and become the laughing-stock
of all his Protestant fellow-citizens. Not only
has the Hon. and Learned Gentleman falsified
all these sinister predictions, but he has acquitted
himself so efficiently---with so much sense and
propriety as Lord Mayor, that the Dublin Cor-
poration, laying aside for the time those strong
political prejudices with which so many of them
are beset, have come to a unanimous determination
publicly to thank him for his " valuable services
and upright conduct," while occupying the civic '
chair. But fifteen years ago, and the man who
should have prophesied that a Catholic agitator
—and that agitator, Mr. O'CONNELL !--should
achieve the honour of the Mayoralty, and re-
ceive the thanks of the Protestant Corporation
of Dublin for his conduct during his year of of-
fice—the man, we say, who should have pro-
phesied this, would have been looked on as the
wildest visionary, fit only for the meridian of
Bedlam I Of all the strange political changes
and innovations that have taken place within our
memory, the strangest is undoubtedly that of
Mr. O'CONNELL, the Catholic emancipator and
Repeal agitator, into the pacific, orderly, magis-
terial Lord Mayor of Dublin ! We doubt
whether
even b
t thatnt„ remarkable individual—the
~ oldest
—can remember any change
equal to it.
in h a a

The Six Clerks' office has long been considered
as totally useless for any other purpose save.
that of giving credit to needy solicitors, and
adding costs to suitors. On the 10th of last Au-
gustpaseeeds entitledl‘;
gAhn
Court
tfoo for
acbhoal anschei
ri
itn wE certainansg
England," and by that Act an end
was put to the Six Clerks' office. Large pay,
without work, had been the rule of the Six
Clerks; pay for the suitor, play for the Six
Clerks; and it was naturally expected that the
extortioners, being defunct, the extortion would
follow them to the grave. But, what will be the
indignation of the public when they know, that
so far from the abolition of the Six Clerks' office
beinga benefit to the suitor, it will be a curse—
that the doing away of the fees payable to the
Six. Clerks has only been preparatory to,the im-
position of additional increased fees payable to
other officers—and that an abuse, too glaring
longer to be borne, has only given way to other
and more aggravated abuses—that, in short, the
operation of the Act, carried out by its, order,
is to tax the suitors in the Court of Chancery to
a very considerable amount?
We do not think that the introduction of the
ready money principle is an evil—we con Sider it
a good. The Six Clerks gave credit to the
solicitors for office copies of bills and answers,
frequently to a considerable amount, and a sort
of premium was thus given to proceedings in
Chancery. The solicitor of small capital .bene-
fited by this, arid .Chancery proceedings, so far
I from being the most expensive in outlay to. a so-
licitor, were far less so than proceedings at com.
mon law, in proportion to their ultimate amounts.
Cheap law is not an unmixed good—the facility
of carrying on a suit is a great encouragement
to the litigious or 'speculating client, and to the
needy or reckleSslawyer. The abolition of the
credit systeni will Check hundreds of paltry
suits, and applications to., the Court of Chancery
be .avoided, in trifles mostly easy to be settled by
common sense. anti judgment. There was no
ultimate benefit.to the suitor by the old system
—the day of payment did arrive, and although.
the bill bore longer date, its amount was the
same.
But we do find fault with the continued
charges in the shape of fees, and not even upon
the old, -but upOn a new and increased scale—
with the Property-tax system, now for the first
time introduced of 4 per cent. on bills of costs.
Fees of
office and taxes upon bills, are indefen-
sible in principle, and ought to be abolished.
The law and equity of this kingdom. belong to
the State—the administration of law and equity
ought to be provided at the cost of the State—
not of the suitor. The suitor ought to pay every
charge incident to the carrying on of his suit;
but the fees of office are not fairly chargeable
upon him in any case. The system of fees has
grown up with years, but it is not the less an
abuse, and ought to be swept away. And the
new plan not only continues'old fees; but doubles
and trebles their amount, upon matters purely of
office, and for which no duty is performed.
Besides this continued increased and aggrava-
ted evil, in the shape of fees,..the charges for co-
pies of proceedings, which nothing but a vicious
system renders necessary to be taken at all, is
trebled. A few years; .back the' charge for
copies of proceedings was
reduced to lid. for 90
voids; it is
UM' raised again to, 4d. Why this.
increase? The wages of copyinVelerks are not
raised—the prices of stationers remain the same.
To form a Fee Fund—to compensate six clerks
at the cost of the 3440r...t0 pay for services ren.