The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-20 00:00:00

missioners :

" Had the Board of Guardians acceded to the recommenda-
tion of the Commissioners, and suspended you—(a proceeding
which would neither have assumed your guilt nor have pre-
judiced any of your rights)—the Commissioners might have
taken a different view of the course they now think it At to
adopt."

But how is the master responsible for what the
Board of Guardians have done ? Why is he to be
treated unjustly by the Commissioners, because the
Board of Guardians have not followed their advice ?
We trust that this letter will be viewed by the public
as at least a great indiscretion, which must be noticed
in a marked manner.

The end of it was, as our readers probably remem-
ber, that on Mr. PARKER'S resuming the inquiry by
direction of the Commissioners, the master's counsel
protested against the decision of the Commissioners,
declared he could not proceed in justice to his client,
and therefore withdrew from the inquiry, and advised
the master to send in his resignation. Mr. PARKER
thus describes this conclusion, in which nothing is
concluded :—" The conclusion of the Andover case is
certainly unfortunate—for no parties are satisfied,
whilst much odium is cast upon the administration of
the law ;—the resignation of the master, under the
plea of an act of injustice committed ,by the Com-
missioners, has secured for him the sympathy of many
parties, whilst the Board of Guardians feel them-
selves compromised by the vacillations displayed in
the course of the inquiry, and, above all, the public
mind is not set right."
The Andover inquiry will inevitably be the
subject of Parliamentary investigation next session ;
and this cannot be a very agreeable prospect to the
Poor-law Commissioners. The following extract will
show—what may have been inferred already—that to
do justice was not the object of the Commissioners :
they were to set themselves right with the public as
speedily as possible, no matter though an innocent
man were victimised :

" I had an interview with Sir Edmund Head, touching the
conduct of the investigation, when he expressed great
anxiety about them, on account of the manner in which the
Times hid noticed the charges against the master, as well as
the complaint respecting the crushing of bones. Sir Edmund
appeared to me to be unusually excited by what he had read
in the Times, and he expressed a desire that I should exert
myself to bring the inquiry to a conclusion with as little
delay as possible, in order that the public mind might be
quieted. He then informed me he was of opinion that I
ought not to allow the master to be present whilst the wit-
nesses were under examination. This suggestion surprised
me as much as his state of excitement, and I replied, I would
not incur the responsibility of excluding the master, unless
the Commissioners gave me express instructions to do so.
Sir Edmund said, What responsibility would you incur?'
and I answered, ' The responsibility of acting illegally—the
responsibility of acting contrary to the received opinion of
the bar.' "

The exclusion of the accused would have been, with-
out question, the most flagrant injustice. A man
who could broach the doctrine here ascribed to Sir
EDMUND HEAD is certainly unfit to he a Poor-law
Commissioner.

We have learnt with surprise, from Mr. PARKER'S
pamphlet, that, before the exposure by Mr. WAKLEY
of the bone-crushing in the Andover Workhouse, the
Poor-law Commissioners had been remonstated with
on workhouse labour both by Ma. PARKER and ly
the invaluable Secretary of the Commission, Mr.

CHADWICK.
" I have been remonstrant against the indiscriminate em-
ployment of the inmates of workhouses in crushing bones ;
I think where • green bones' are used a mill is the proper
machine to reduce them to dust,' and that bone-crushing
should only be practised when bones of commerce, or bones
which have been submitted to some proces by which
the fat and animal juices are removed, can be procured.
Green bones' were used in the Andover 'Workhouse.]
This description of labour in union workhouses has been the
subject of my remarks on snore than one occasion, and the in-
formation communicated by me to Mr. Chadwick respecting
it, induced him to make some alterations in a paper, wherein
he broadly stated his conviction that grinding and pounding
bones was not fit employment for the inmates of workhouses."

Nothing was ever before heard of this paper of
Mr. CMADWICK'S, though the practice has been often
the subject of animadversion in Parliament. We
quit Mr. PARKER'S pamphlet with another remark-
able disclosure, on the subject of which the public
will require some explanation from the Poor-law
ommissiuners.

In the Rye Union it was the practice of the present
Commissioners to sanction, as a matter of course, small sums
in aid of wages to able-bodied men. In 1842, when the dis-
trict including that Union was placed under my superin-
tendence, I inquired into the subject, and I was told in the
Commissioners' office that I was to overlook the existing compro-
mises of the law in that Union, for the population was too
deeply pauperised for the poor-law system to worn beneficially
there."

We have intelligence from Madrid to the 12th
The municipal elections were:going on favourably
for the Government. The Funds were rising, nearly
all the Members of the Cortes had arrived, and the
capital altogether displayed great bustle and anima-
tion. The Gazette contains a programme of the
ceremonies to be observed at the opening of the Cortes
on the 15th.

The Three per Cents. closed at 36 11-16 for cash,
and 37 at 60 days; and the Five per Cents. at 24k,
at 60 days.

The Moniteur of the 18th publishes two royal
decrees, confirming the adjudication of the Paris
and Strasbourg, and the Tours and Nantes
Railways. The Paris papers continue their
comments on the Ministerial crisis in Eng-
land, and though there is little new in the
articles, the writers seem to know as much on
the subject as the best informed in this country.
They know the cause of the late resignations, the
difficulties of Lord JouN RUSSELL, and can only
guess at the probable results. They generally be-
lieve, that without a commotion the Whig party

cannot succeed. The following remarks appear in
the 11' ational.—" In the abusive language directed
against Sir IL PEEL, by the high Tories, there are
great injustice and great passion ; but it was, how-
ever, with those prejudiced men that Sir ROBERT
had his majority of one hundred votes in the
Commons, and it was these men who followed the
Duke of WELLINGTON to the House of Lords; it was
with them and through them that he rose to power;
and to sum up all, in a word, they form a body of
200 in the elective Chamber, so that, these votes
failing, Sir R. PEEL cannot do anything but by the
aid of the whole Opposition. For a length of time
the Baronet guided this hot-headed party by check-
ing them ; but for that he required the aid of Lord
STANLEY, and, still more, of the Duke of WELLING-
TON. If the latter would at once renounce his resist-
ance, and employ his authority, Sir ROBERT could,
no doubt, resume power, and go on governing as he
has done, realising the measures of the Whigs. But
without that he can do little. The only real master
of the situation at present is the famine which menaces,
--the bread, which is rising in price—the people, who
cry—the middle classes, who, if further resistance is
offered, will pass from the agitation of meetings to
the agitation of the streets. The hand which can
calm this tempest is the only one that can assume the
reins of power. This is what common sense points
out; but common sense does not always prevail over
interest; common sense cannot prevent resisting in-
terests from having, in the present organisation of
Parliament, a formidable power."

"We learn from a certain source," says the Courrier Francais,
" the a confidential memorandum has been addressed to the
principal cabinets of the Germanic Confederation by Prince
de Metternich. It appears that the state of Germany, in
his opinion, is anything but satisfactory. After having ex-
posed the gravity of the situation, he recommends the Ger-
man Governments to immediately inquire into the wishes of
their people, to satisfy as speedily as possible their real want',
material and :moral, in order to anticipate, by such means,
the complaints which the Opposition would not fail to make.
' The storm which threatens us,' says M. de Metternich in
terminating, 'cannot be conjured away but by large conces-
sions I"

The French funds were more firm on Thursday :
The Three per Cents. closed at 811. 35c. ; the Five per
Cents., 1171. 90e. ; the Orleans Railroad Shares, 1,1721.
50c.; Rouen, 957 f. 50c.; Northern, 7221. 50c.; Havre, 765 f.;
Avignon, 880 f. ; Vierzon, 6421. 50c.; Bordeaux, 615 f.;
Boulogne, 502 f. 50c.; Troyes and Montereau, 435 f.; Basle,
237 f. ; Fampoux, 49Df. ; Spanish Actives, 36.