The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-18 00:00:00

gibt ,§Atit

LONDON :
FRIDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER IS, 1842.

There is an avowed conflict going on, not only
in England and Europe, but in America, be-
tween the aristocratic and democratic principles,
and hence our Tory Contemporaries, who neces-
sarily champion the former, have thought it their
duty to excuse and palliate the late exposures in
our Courts of Law of the vices of some members
of the aristocracy. They
nation,
ct t
members,s foit forth that
c, thetii
"the
Peerage contains, amongst
brightest ornaments of the
pro-
found learnin men of
g, practical ability, and sound,
of its
they say,
state:manlike views."
"affords, in the bulk members, examples
of' pure life, decent conduct, generous charity,
and and justice well administered." Thy,
the HERTFORDS, the FRANKFORTS, the llstpiNaTnc(f
TOWERS, and the CHESTERFIELDS, as mere ex-
ceptions to the general high character of the
Peerage; and they call upon the body to make
war upon those individuals who are bringing the
whole of the Peerage to public
,shame. Our
Tory Contemporaries have not acted with their
usual prudence in directing attention to these
blots in the escutcheon of the Peerage, and it
would have been wiser for them to have followed
their usual course, and have passed stains unno-
ticed which only become the deeper and extend
the further the more they are rubbed.
If the Peerage contain men of profound
learning and great practical ability, they have
not in general been born in that station. For
twenty years the principal man in the tipper
Ijoase, despite the great sagacity of Lord
G viLLE, the vast and playful learning of
Lord HOLLAND 1 , tIC majestic good sense of
Earl GREY, and the official influence of Lord
LIVERPOOL, was the son of a Newcastle coal-
whipper, Rarelycommandingtalent found
rarely, indeed—is any
found in a Peer who has in-
herited his titlet through three generations. The
leading men
here
be Lords LYNDIIURST and
UH BROGAM, were born
members of the demo-
cracy, and their original, hardy, or virtuous
nature enabled them to rise in
influence and in-
tellectual power, high above
Peerage, great majority
of those born in the
Duke Of WELLINGTON, the gyeu. Nor can
son of a'
the
army, be
poor Irish Peer, and schooled ?angler
aristocracy
considered an exet ption to the rule. Of all
great Admirals, in modern times at le - our
the navy has been freely open to the
NELSON, DUNCAN, COLL/NGWOOD, Exm9CraCYl
not one, we believe, except,
perhaps,
Lord
HOWE, was by birth a member of the Peerage
or of a family allied to the Peerage. Fur the
sake of human nature, for the sake of those whose
Parents pass a toilsome or a turbulent life, in
order to transmit coronets to the brows of their
children, the truth must he impressed on the
public mind that, in the majority of cases, to be
born in the Peerage is to be the iheir of compa-
rative imbecility, It is a sad ambition that men
should waste their own happiness, and sometimes
sacrifice their_ peace, in order to doom their
posterity to certain feebleness, if not to annihi-
lation.

Is not also, let us calmly inquire, the apology
for the Peerage carried too far, when it is asserted
that those individuals who have of late made
themselves notorious, are rather the exceptions
than the rule ? In their case the vice was bla-
zoned before the face of the world but are not

similar deeds common among the aristocracy ?
Is it anything rare or strange for a married Peer
to have a mistress? Is it uncommon for Peers
to barter settlements for the possession of a
woman ? Do not a great many of the scions
of nobility incur, like Lord HUNTINGTOWER,
great debts, which they expect to pay when they
come of age ? Most of the reproachful
acts committed by the late Marquis of HERT
FORD, by Lord FRANKFORT, by the Earl of
CHESTERFIELD, and by Lord MINTINGTOWER,
are of every-day occurrence, among men
of title and wealth. What is remarkable
in these cases, and proves, we think, the
low tone of moral feeling and debasement of
the class, as much as of the individuals, is this
—they went voluntarily into a Court of Law to
make known their depravity, which if they had
possessed one scintilla of right feeling they
would have given the wealth of worlds to hide.
To the Marquis of HERTFORD, of course, the
remark does not apply. No ; it applies with
great force to his executors, to his family, and
friends—to a class, rather than an individual,
who, for the sake of a few thousand francs, or
perhaps to gratify a vindictive feeling, unfolded
all that old man's hideous private life to the
scorn and detestation of all decent people. To
Lord FRANKFORT, to Lord HUNTINGTOWER, to
Count BATIIYANY, to Lord CHESTERFIELD, and,
to all their friends and advisers, the remark does .
apply. At, a comparatively small sacrifice—for
of what value was Lord FRANKFORT'S trinkets,
Lord CHESTERFIELD'S 3001. a year, if he had to pay
it himself, or ten times Lord HUNTINGTOWER'S
whole estates, compared to a good name ?—these
noblemen and their friends might have pre-
vented the public coming to any knowledge of
their conduct. But they rushed into Court
) and proclaimed their own vices to the world, as if
they knew not that they were vices. That is an
almost infallible index to the moral opinions of
the class among whom, and by whom, they were
educated, and with whom they live, and move,
and have their being. It proves, as clearly as if
similar facts were brought home to every Peer of
the realm, that the conduct which the Times and
the Herald vehemently and justly condemns is
common: amongst the upper classes, and is not
by them branded with shame and disgrace.
Another index to the general character of the
Peerage is to be found in their corporate acts. !
There can be no mistake about what the body
does publicly. "In no country," says the He-
rald, " has the Peerage such inducements to
virtuous and patriotic careers as in England."
They have " the SOVEREIGN'S favour, national
honours, the people's applause, power, and the
gratification of ambition." "They are secured in
the possession of their estates, they have perma-
nent wealth and permanent power." How have they
rewarded the generous and confiding people for
their vast social advantages ? They have, for their
own selfish purposes, to add a little to their
wealth, and extend their power, doomed the
industrious classes to still severer toils to obtain
a living, and doomed many of them to the slow
and torturing death of starvation. Tell us not
of any political expediency in the Corn-laws;
tell us not of any patriotic notion of making the
nation independent of to Feigners, in those who
almost live on foreign productions—that was the I
after-found-out defence of a pre-enacted ini-
quity; tell us not of any wish to have a great'
abundance of strong-backed and independent
minded agricultural labourers—which, of all
things, the landowners abhor; none of these
dictated the Corn-laws. They were avowedly
dictated by a low and mean desire in the aris-
tocracy to increase their wealth, and keep up
their state and their extravagance. If, instead
of increasing rent, the Corn-laws had been sup-
posed to lower rent, they would have been,
regardless of every interest but that of the aris-
tocracy, at once swept out of the statute-book.
If the aristocracy, too, as a body, had been as
generous as they are extortionate, supposinc, the
Corn-laws to be productive of wealth to them,
they would have been sensible of the bias their
minds must receive by their own advantage, and
they would have spurned the dishonest proposal
to enrich themselves by laws which plunder the
people. But they are neither generous nor
grateful to the people, who submit to unheard-of
privations out of respect to them, and show by
their corporate acts that the world may readily
believe the whispered stories of the shamelessness
of their private lives.
If they had those feelings of charity, of bro-
therly love to their kind, of respect for justice,
which the Herald ascribes to them, would they go
on, year afteryear,obstinately enacting one punish-
ment after another for trespasses which only the
poor and humble classes can possibly commit, when
experience has proved that the punishments are
so much gratuitous misery, for they prevent no
crimes ? Men of the most lukewarm feelings of
humanity would recoil from ord aiuing and in-
flicting, month after month, and year after year,
those slow and lingering tortures in prison, to
which the Press has lately adverted, for offences
which spring from sheer poverty and want, such
as the Peers can never experience. Law after
law, heaping these tortures on their fellow-
creatures, and sharpening them, have the Peers
passed, selfishly to protect their own sports.
They have unthinkingly or wilfully inflicted such
misery on their fellow-creatures for killing a par-
tridge or a hare as no matt of average humanity
would doom a dog to suffer. Time statute-book
is the index to the generosity and humanity of
the Peerage. Its numerous and bloody decrees,
its sad and disgraceful enactments regarding
such things as young trees and young birds, to
which a feliow-creature's life is as nothing, which
have been somewhat meliorated, or reformed, as
the intelligence of the middle classes have come to
influence the decision of the Legislature—the nu-
merous, sad, disgraceful, and bloody decrees, which
havepreserevnecat encumbered,
which b
oendg,
tile'
sed still encumber, the sta-
tute-book,'
possible,Peer show
we
tzealously
have no respect for their fellow-creatures, no
love for their kind, and no confidence in human
nature. All that is a sign of men degraded, not
ennobled, by the wealth, luxuries, and honours
they enjoy.

' The meeting held at the Crown and Anchor
Tavern, last evening, to which we yesterday
r were
ad-
verted, was numerously attended. l‘ DuN-
COMBE was in the chair. The resolutions
carried unanimously, and were of a description,
we believe, to command a very general assent.
The fewer examples there are, and happily they
arc very few, of Judges exhibiting themselves as
intemperate political partisans, and expressing
opinions vindictively hostile to the men they are
about to try, the more necessary it is, when such
a case does occur, that the public should pro-
nounce a strong and unanimous condemnation on
such conduct. Possibly the expression of
public. opinion, to which a beginning and
an impulse were last night appropriately
given, may not suffice to remove Lord ABINGER
from the Bench, but we are sure that it will suf-
, fice to impress a lesson of moderation and caution
:on him and all other Judges. Considering how
very strongly the feelings of a large portion of
the people are excited by the late proceedings in
the north, their conduct last night seems to have
been highly creditable. Several ladies were pre-
sent. The meeting was peaceably conducted to
its close.

A very smart hurrichurricaneappears to be getting
up against the Income-tax.
In the Isle ofWight
it already "blows great
guns"—Cowes
.orted is disconso-
late, and Ryde " refused) to be comf
the manufacturing districts the discontent is not
less general; the metropolis and its suburbs arc
in a similar state of effervescence ; while in north
and south Devon—as we gather from the local
journals—numbers of families are reducing their
establishments, in order that they may be en-
abled to provide against the detestable tax in
question. Every where, in short, a grinding system
of household economy is the order of the day.
Mrs. Deputy Dobbs,
: )mkins has taken
who once rejoiced in three
is now compelled to rub on
Nfier; :II ;;-1. 1 e t
ssveor %;an rit's
his eldest
son from the grammar-school ; Jenkins has
put ,
1. stop to his daughter's duncing-lessons; and
of the
the thousands of Smiths with which
overrun, hundreds have given up
country is

their "one-horse shay," shot or sold their dog,
and substituted swipes for port at their five
o'clock dinner !

On all household domestics, in particular,
this iniquitous Income-tax presses with re-
morseless severity. Betty has just received her
discharge ; Molly has got a hint thrown out
about a reduction of wages; Tom, the footman,
has been told that he need no longer walk behind
his mistress in velvet shorts to Church, carrying
her prayer book, and a gold-headed stick as tall
as himself; and Polly the scullion, is threatened
with a "month's notice" the instant the Col-
lector calls for his first half-year's dues. A tax that
causes all this unmerited suffering, and makes
itself specially felt among classes which never,
by any chance, interfere in politics, must of
necessity be grossly unjust in its character. Let
it fall upon the rich and the independent, and
welcome; but why should Betty be dismissed,
because Sir ROBERT PEEL wants money? Why
should Molly's wages be reduced, because
Gen. PoLLocic has received orders to join Gen.
NOTT at Caubul ?—and why—oh why, should Tom
be told to leave his velvet shorts behind him
in the pantry, and take himself ff at " a month's
notice," because the Chinese refuse to yield sub-
mission to the " Barbarian Eye ? " When Sir
ROBERT PEEL can explain these matters to our
satisfaction, we will believe that his Income-tax
is not quite so flagrantly unjust in its operation;
but till then, we shall take leave to consider it
as the most harassing—inquisitorial--outrageous
—and insolently oppressive measure that was
ever hatched by the Devil, or a Tory, for the
express annoyance of John Bull.
Our readers may perhaps imagine that the un-
popularity of this precious Impost is chiefly con-
fined to the Whigs and Radicals. But the case
is not so. The Tories detest it with equal hearti-
ness, for Mr. Deputy Dobbs, who has just turned
off his footman Torn, and the six Smiths, who
have just got rid of their six housemaids, are all
Tories, and bitterly regret the vote they gave at
the last,City election. So is it with the respectable
families of the Tomkinses, the Jenkinses, &c.
They too, arc Tories. They, too, thought it a fine
thing to have such a respectable man as Sir
ROBERT PEEL to tax them—thinking, of course,
that he would have a sort of fellow-feeling for
pockets of respectability—and now they find to
their cost that they have been deceived, and in
the agony of their disappointment have serious
thoughts of turning Chartists, and swallow-
ing the Five Points at a gulp !

But as if the Income-tax were not in itself bad
enough, the utmost efforts are being made—one
would almost suppose on purpose—to render it
as galling as possible. Si►r ROBERT PEEL has
not only established a raw in John Bull's sides,
but he has hired a set of assistants, and armed
them with whips, for the express purpose of
keeping that raw in a constant state of irritation.
The Times and Herald of yesterday, and the
Post of to-day, make grievous complaints on this
score. The latter observes, "It is high time
that some dismissals ofAssessors under the Income-
tax took place. Severe examples have become
necessary. Many a poor creature is justly sent
to the treadmill for a less guilty thing than en-
deavouring to extort a tax from those who are
not liable, in order to pocket a per tentage on
the sum extorted. A taste of the treadmill
would, we have no doubt, be very efficacious."
It is not often that we agree with the Post; but
when we do agree—as Puff says in The Critic
--"our unanimity is wonderful !" In the
above passage there is not a sentence of
which we do not cordially approve. The hint,
in particular, about the treadmill is admirable.
But why, oh Post, why restrict thine indignation
to the subordinates? Why not launch thy thun-
ders at the heads of the chief offenders? The
Assessors, no doubt, are much to blame, but who
first put it into their heads to do mischief?
These last, and not their helpless tools, are the
fit subjects for the treadmill ; and civilised hu-
manity cannot imagine a more gratifying spec-
tacle—or one more replete with useful warning—
than that of Sir ROBERT PEEL :picking oakum,
with his bead cropped, at Brixton !

Slop clothes are proverbially worthless. Sailors
deal in them more than any other class of men,
and generally pay a good price for what they
purchase. No men, as the rule, are more fleeced
by dealers than sailors; and, it appears, from a
recent meeting on the subject of the distressed
shirt-makers, that slop-sellers are two-edged
dealers, and cut as much off the wages of their
work-woman as they cut off Jack's earnings.
They pay one penny a piece for making sailors'
shirts, and a skilful work-woman makes one in
two hours. The cost of making them accounts
at once fbr their worthlessness when made. They
are only run, not sewed together, and when .the
sailors get to sea they find employment in
re-making their-shirts. The excessive smallness
of the pay of the work-woman, and the excessive
high price generally asked by slop-sellers, make
the ' honesty of that class of tradesmen very
doubtful. If there be exceptions in the trade, as
there probably are, it is to be regretted for their
sake that the names of those who pay one penny
for makinga shirt were not mentioned at the late
meeting, that the public indignation might be
directed against them. By withholding their
names justice was not done to the trade.

Fourteen hours a day do these sempstresses la-
bour for sixpence. What a noble field for Lord
ASHLEY! The factory slaves and the colliery
slaves get three times as much money for a less
degree of toil. Their condition, however, is only
a specimen of the general condition of the work-
ing classes. They are not worse off than agri-
cultural labourers. They are much better off
than the unemployed labourers of Greenock and
Paisley. They are generally either single women
or they have partners who contribute to their
subsistence. They have not families, we hope,
to provide for out of their hard-earned sixpence
a day. They are not exposed when they toil
like an agricultural labourer to all the severity
of the weather ; nevertheless, they deserve
public commisseration and public support, but
they do not deserve them more than the agri-
cultural labourer who earns a shilling a day, and
must with that support a family.
The slop-makers and sellers do but take ad-
vantage of the necessities of the poor, and they
are far less criminal, worthy as we deem them of
reproach,than thosewho make the poor necessitous.
Those who stop up the channels of employment
and impede the labouring classes from finding
healthy occupation in factories, in embroidery,
in lace-making, in stocking knitting, are far more
to blame than the slop-sellers. In every part of
society there are too many persons for the work
to be done ; their competition is their own de-
basement; and those legislators are their worst
enemies who place restrictions on trade, and pre-
vent a single human being from engaging in any
honest pursuit by which he may obtain subsist-
ence. But if we look at our laws we find one
forbids a man to import wheat, another prevents
him from importing butter and cheese, and a
third prohibits him from bringing in sugar. We
have no hesitation in saying that these and simi-
lar restrictive laws are the causes of the la-
mentable want of work which now makes
the people injure each other by excessive
tpheersonco-ceaxnistednecney N
of IVaawn
st
of
competition.
work ,and
men from engaging in particular
occupations; g
s
and should we seek further than the
existence of laws so well calculated to deprive
the people of profitable employment for the
cause of that want which actually exists ? Our
restrictive system is the cause why sempstresses
are obliged to put up with a penny for making a
shirt, and why agricultural labourers cannot get
above one shilling or one shilling and sixpence
fbr a day's hard labour. In this case machinery
cannot be blamed, for sewing machines have not
yet come into use, if any have been invented.

We have received by the Levant Mail copious
intelligence from the East. Letters from Con-
stantinople state that ALEXANDER, grandson of
CZERNI GEORGE, had been solemnly recognised
by the Porte, and that the firman fbr the depo-
sition of Prince GniKA had been forwarded to
Bucharest. Two special Commissaries had been
appointed to carry the faman into effect.
The quarantine station has been removed from