The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-02 00:00:00

SUMMARY OF 'EV..'JS

AND

I,3tititt Opinion.

" Who runs may read.'

FOREIGN.
The Paris journals comment but slightly ua the
discussion on the Regency Bill in the Chamber of
Peers. The Debats, whilst it admits that the speech
of the Marquis de Dreux-Breze was remarkable for
urbanity, expresses its regret that he should have felt
himself bound by considerations of party to bring
forward arguments opposed to the Constitution, and
at variance with the attachment to monarchical prin-
ciples, which he must feel.
The French Chambers having been prorogued on
Tuesday by Royal Ordonnance to the 9th of January,
the Ministers have ceased their receptions. His Ma-
jesty on Tuesday afternoon received the Peers, and
was to leave that evening for Eu, where the Duchess
of Orleans continued very indisposed.
The Presse announces that a batch of Peers would
be made during the recess, but that no Deputy would
be included in ik
The Committee of Deputies of the vine-growing
department, at a meeting held with the principal
members of the Cabinet, have received an assurance
that, during the next session of the Chambers, mea-
sures favourable to the interests of those whom they
represent shall be presented. It appears certain, says
the Moniteur Parisien, that the recess will be em-
ployed in preparing treaties of commerce with several
at the northern States of Europe, and with South
America. In the mean time the Committee is engaged
in collecting all the documents necessary for justify-
ing the claims it is commissioned to urge.
The Spanish Minister of War had addressed a cir-
cular to all the military authorities, enjoining them to
afford the customs officers every aid in their power for
the repression of smuggling.
A band of twelve miscreants, calling themselves the
i Twelve Apostles, are infesting the environs of Toledo,
and committing all sorts of outrages.
The Mannheim Gazette quotes a letter from Berlin
of the 22d, stating that a certain mystery still sur-
rounded the events which had recently occurred in
the Russian capital. The account of the sudden
death of Count Orloff had been confirmed by the re-
ports of travellers.
Accounts from Constantinople of the 10th state,
that letters had reached that capital from Trebisond,
stating that the Persian troops had suspended their
hostilities along the Turkish frontier. The energetic
representations of the Envoys of Great Britain and
Russia had induced the Shah to adopt that resolu-
tion; there was consequently every hope that the
difference which had arisen between Persia and
Turkey, would be amicably adjusted through the
mediation of those two Powers. the Porte had trans-
mitted orders to the army on its way to Bagdad to
suspend its march.
PUBLIC OPIATY,ON.
The Times observes, in an article suggested by the
present state of the northern districts —" W e do
earnestly trust that those in charge of these districts
are pursuing a decided course ; but we confess these
accounts do not evidence that full protection to labour
to which we hoped their present force was adequate.
It is not enough to fill the prisons ; nay, if it be true,
as we see it reported, that thousands of persons are
now in confinement, we cannot help fearing that a
recourse to that ultima ratio has been even too indis-
criminately adopted. Men, like boys at school, do
not fear punishment in a crowd. Arrest--nay, punish-
ment itself—loses its effect, as it appears in this case
to have done, by being made so common. It is the
right man whom we want to catch, and to punish him
heartily and unsparingly ; the chastisement of a ran-
dom selection from the blind mob, unless it be such
as is administered on the moment and on the spot,
can produce little result. We should sincerely re-
joice, for example, to think that there was any pros-
pect of visiting with condign punishment this barba-
rous outrage on Mr. Cooper. For acts of this kind
—committed not in the heat of any contest, not in
any form 'of self-defence, however culpable, by no
accident, from no immediate provocation, but delibe-
rately, from mere revenge, and, we may say, in cold
blood—acts simply of intended murder—as no pal-
liative is conceivable, so no pains, we trust, will be
spared to bring the perpetrators to justice, and no
misplaced lenity shown them if they can be secured.
The seditious assemblies, the affrays with police, the
breakings of windows, the sturdy begging, the turn-
ing out of hands-all these, none of which are things
safely to be overlooked by the law, are yet infinitely
less urgent in their demands for stern and severe re-
pression than brutal outrage. Nor can we conceive
any more wretched symptom of the state of the ope-
ratives themselves than the fact, if fact it turn out to
be, that the mass of them sympathise with 'or con-
nive at such cruel and unmanly acts of their brethren.
Such occurrences, joined to the robberies which are
announced as commencing around Stockport, must
lead, if we are not mistaken, to some more extensive
and complete organization of the neighbourhood than
has yet taken place."
The Herald says:—" Every one remembers the
fable of the trumpeter who was taken prisoner in
battle, and who pleaded with the enemy for his life on
the ground that he had drawn no sword in the quar-
rel. True,' replied the captors, but though you
did not fight, you were the cause of the affray ; but
for the stirring notes of your trumpet there would
have been no conflict. You deserve the death that
awaits you.' We commend this apologue to the at-
tention of the peaceful fraternity which numbers
amongst its brotherhood so gentle and meek a mem-
ber as Joseph Sturge, the late candidate for Notting-
ham, and present President of the National Com-
plete Suffrage Union,' now sitting in Birmingham.
This quiet Quaker, who would fain fight only by
proxy, has affixed his signature to a letter to 'the
Irish people,' calling upon them to co-operate with the
disaffected in England to break in pieces the teeth'
of those whom he is pleased to term its oppressors.'
This epistle, somewhat different, from those which
serve the Society of Friends for their moral guidance
breathes a spirit of hostility to the laws and institu-
tions of this country appropriate enough in one who
all his life has fattened upon famine and grown
wealthy upon popular distress. This truculent man
of peace vindicates his claim to belong to those who
especially proclaim their charity and goodwill to all
mankind, by striving with as much vehemence as his
nature will permit, to stimulate the impressionable
Irish to assist him in carrying out his own selfish
views."
The following appears in the Chronicle:—" The
mischievous quackery of Sir Robert Peel's Corn-law
is becoming so generally felt, that its most ardent
supportersohave little confidence in its continuance.
Laborious puff's of it are coupled with announcements
of failures in Mark-lane, which are significant proofs
of its commercial advantages. It is found that the
agricultural interest may be injured without any
other being benefited, and that a sliding scale may be
adjusted with such masterly skill, as to derange and
dissatisfy every class of the community. The happy
contrivance, which insures that corn shall come in,
not gradually but in a mass, is proved, by experience,
to keep up the price of corn while the people are in
distress, and the farmers have none to sell, and to de-
press it considerably on the eve of a promising har-
vest, when the farmers are looking forward to good
markets for the means to pay rents not liable to de-
pression. This monument of Conservative sagacity is
found even to aggravate that one mischief, which all
parties agreed in attributing to the old Corn-law.
Instead of repressing, it has given new vigour to
gambling speculations in the first necessary of life ;
and if we attach any importance to the failures, the
embarrassments, and the alarm which every hour
seem to increase in Mark-lane, the corn trade has less
than ever of the steadiness and regularity which
would induce men of capital and caution to engage in
it. Hence this chef d'oeuvre of Sir Robert Peel's
tinkering will not last very long, and Parliament may
be called upon, even in the next session, to clear away
the botch-work, and make some more statesmanlike
and effective adjustment of the question."

We quote the following remarks, suggested by the
present price of bread, from the Post The exces-
sive disproportion between the price of wheat and
that at which bread is retailed by the bakers, con-
tinues to form the subject of just complaint by the
consuming public. There can be no 'doubt that, con-
nected with the sale of bread, much abuse and unfair
practices exist in some quarter. Some blame the
millers, some the bakers, and some both. Certain it
is, that while wheat is cheap bread is dear, and that
the charges made for the manufacture of the article
are greater than the public can justly and honestly be
expected to submit to. We are no friends of cheap-
ness, in the slang meaning sometimes applied to that
word. We wish to see the workman receive a fair
reward for his labour. We wish the' farmer to get
fair prices, measured by the standards of value existing
in the country. The baker, the miller, and every
other party concerned, are entitled to remuneration
for the services they render the consumer in stepping
in between him and the producer of the raw mate-
rial.' But these rewards, to be fair, must be rela-
tive; and when we see wheat falling ten or twenty
per cent., while the price of the poor man's loaf is
nearly stationary, an evil is disclosed, the enormity of
which imperatively calls up the consideration whether
there be no corrective power applicable to contin-
gencies of this kind."

The Advertiser says :—" Tf the rumour to which
we have so frequently referred of late, that Lord John
Russell has already intimated his intention of resign-
ing the leadership of the Liberals in Parliament, be
not true, there is one thing abundantly clear, namely,
that it ought to be true. If we have not proved to
Lord John's own satisfaction, we have, we are sure,
proved to the satisfaction of everybody else, that he
can no longer exercise the functions of leader of the