The Sun.
London, England, 1829-05-11 00:00:00

SELECT VESTRY SYSTEM.

In the parish of St. Mary Stratford, Bow, the
operation of the new Bill has already been felt in
the strongest degree. The rate making under the
new act, by which the parishioners have accom-
plished that most desirable object,—an equalization
of rates,—continued from Easter Monday up to a
few days ago. The moment it was known that the
Royal assent had been given to the Bill, notices
were sent round to the inhabitants of the parish,
calling upon them to elect officers for the ensuing
year. They assembled, and Mr. Coward was voted
to the chair.

The CHAIRMAN said he rejoiced on having the
opportunity of congratulating the meeting upon a
measure which was likely to be met with unani-
mity, and to give general satisfaction. It corres-
ponded with the liberal spirit of his Majesty's Go-
vernment, testified of late in a manner that gave
confidence to the hopes of the people.—(Cheers.)
Mr. SCALES said, that this was a most important
occasion. In the first place, it showed that indivi-
duals had the courage to contend with those who
owed their power to the arbitrary principle of self-
election, and then to convert the victory they
had obtained to the benefit of the whale parish.
Eighteen months ago he had vowed the destruction
of the self-elected vestries, and he considered the
increasing violence of the opposition by which he
was assailed, as a symptom of the decline of a
power which had grown to a height the most
alarming. God only knew, however, whether, if
the upper orders had not come in at last for their
share of the annoyance, the nuisance would have
been abated.—(4 laugh.),--To whatever it might
be owing, certain it was that the parish of St. Mary
Stratford, Bow, with the aid of the press, had given
a hint of which the Dons at the west-end of the
town had availed themselves, and flung an unerring
weapon against the unnatural principle of self-elec-
tion. Every man had now got a voica i making
the laws and imposing the plrish taes which he
was to pay. He thcii condemned the gross misap-
plication of the funds upon former occasions. On
those occasions it was always the fashion for chair-
men to declaim against practices which existed else•
where, of electing tradesmen of the select, in order
to guard against the appropriation of the parish funds
to their necessities, but the caution was a mocktAy
upon the parish, for it happened always, that every
select vestryman, with the exception of Dr. Barclay,
proved to be an apron vestryman.—(Latighter,)
Another parishioner highly commended, the new
mown), although it clice nit came up to the latent

To THE EDIT6II.—SIR,—A correspondent of yours.
signing himself " John Oldfaahion," appears to be very
angry with me because I compared the Bank of England
paper, during the Restriction Bill, to horse cheanuts ; and
he imputes to me a great share of presumption for the irre-
levant way in which I have spoken of Mr. Pitt, as the
parent of that Bill. Therefore, with your permission, I
will explain myself. I never had any doubt but that,

situated as this country was in 1797, the Bank Restriction
Bill was a measure of necessity. At that time we were
engaged in a hot European war; gold was leaving the
country, and we were even threatened with invasion.—
These circumstances produced the above Bill ; but no
men, I think, will venture so to libel Mr. Pitt's memory
as to say that that great man contemplated that it would
last for 20 years, otherwise he would have made a much
better bargain for his country. I have no desire to
insult the Bank Directors; many of them who lived
in those times are removed from us; others, now
alive, appear to have been perfectly unconscious of
the immense power they wielded ; but what I complain of
is this, and it is a complaint of the system, and not of the
men, that when it became necessary for this country to have
recourse to a false circulating medium, it was not neces-
sary that the profits arising from it should pass into the
coffers of the bank. It was clearly a state paper currency,
and the state ought, in fairness, to have derived the ad:
vantage of it. Instead of this what are the facts? It is
very true that the Bank lent the public a certain sum un-
der the market rate of interest, and a certain sum without
any interest at all, as a set• off for this extraordinary Bill.
But it was a mere sop in the pan. Parliament gave the
Bank an orchard, and, in return, the Bank gave us a
few apples; and if Mr. " John Oldfashion" will only take
the trouble to calculate the interest, simple and com-
pound, of the several loans we borrowed of the Bank
during the Restriction Bill, he will find that it cost this
deluded nation forty millions of money. I consider the
whole of this money thrown away, because the same rule
which justified having recourse to the measure would jus-
tify Parliament in taking the currency into its own hands,
and thus save the public the charge for interest. No
man looks with greater horror upon an incontrovertible
paper currency than I do; but the necessity of it having
become apparent, why were the immense profits resulting
from it to be shared in bonuses amongst the Bank Pro-
prietary?
Your correspondent says, that the Bank, in their issues,
must always have had their eye upon a day of reckoning.
No doubt they bad ; and it would, indeed be surprising if
►nen carrying on business as bankers, for twenty years,
with a capital consisting of bits of paper,, which the
strong arm of Government had stamped as the current
money of the realm—it would be very surprising that,
after so lucrative a business, they should not afterwards
have been able to conareand wealth enough to pay their
obligations in a metallic standard. Then, it seems, I have
given offence by comparing their currency during this
Bill to horse chesnuts. It is unfortunate in one respect
that Mr. Pitt did not make the currency horse chesnuts
instead of bank notes, for then the whole question would
have been better understood. Your correspondent denies
that I have been a spectator of the times I allude to ; but
I can assure him that I have been more behind the scenes

than he gives me credit for, and I can tell him that I liavve.
seen the effects of this Bank Restriction Bill upon the
trade of this country in such a variety of frightful shapes
as to induce me to hope that it may never be our hard lot
again to soil our fingers with it. I. can tell " Oldfashion"
that a great proportion of our trade at that time was rocked
and cradled upon this fictitious paper—that merchants,
worth only a few hundred pounds in the world, were seen in
the corn-market, the sugar-market, and the cotton-market,
with thousands and thousands of this fictitious currency,
raising thepriceofevery thing they came in contact with, and
rendering the business of the regular dealer and man of real
capital, one burly-burley of care and anxiety; and it is
too much at this time of day to tell us that high prices
were the cause, and not the effect, of such a currency. I
must again observe that if horse chesnuts and not pieces
of paper had formed the circulation the whole thing would
have been better understood—we should have seen specu-
lators in corn, and sugar, and wine, with their pockets
and hats full of these chesnuts, and their action upon
prices would then have been more obvious. But this is
not the darkest side of the picture, because all merchants
and dealers who were brought into life and activity by
this false and depreciated circulating medium have long
ago " settled the question for ever," as far as they were
concerned. But the greatest debtor of all, that ifl to say,
the greatest dealer in these horse chesnuts, his Majesty's
Government, find themselves in this situation, that, hav-
ing borrowed millions of these nuts in a currency depre,
ciated twenty-five per cent., they have now got to repay
them at par. Can any thing be more inconsistent than
this ?—and am I to be called a theorist because I ex-
press a wish that we have for ever washed our hand*
of such bastard currency? With these opiuions, sir, lam
one of those who think that we had no business to tamper
with the currency until we had first reduced the debt,
These very bank notes (bad as they were) were the horses
which drew the carriage along. We have taken off the
horses, or, at least, the leaders, and the coach rem Ains,
My sincere advice to our present excellent coachman,
Arthur Duke of Wellington, would be to descend from his
box, and thus address the passengers :—.

" Gentlemen, a life spent in your service is a sufficient
security that I shall ask nothing of you that is inconsistent
with your honour to grant. When I consented to take the
reins I had no idea of the weight the hor had to drag
along, or I never would have consented to drive without
leaders. Not only do I strain the coach, and knock up
myself and the horses, but I And that many of you are in
the habit of travelling by the Charles the Tenth diligence
and other foreign vehicles, which, by a new system, are
allowed to rep alongside of me, and which, being unin-
cumbered with dead weight, can afford to carry paseen..
gers at lower fares. Political economists cheer me up,
and assure me it is ' all right,' but I will no longer be
led astray' by their metaphysical nonsense. Looking
about the coach, I see it groaning under the weight of some
very heavy parcels, which the guard (34, Peel) will read
the names of, viz. three per cent. consols, old fours, three
and a half per cents, prosperity fours, unfunded debt (a
tremendous large parcel), dead weight, &c. These par-
cels it is, gentlemen, which impede the motion of my
vehicle, and enable the coachman of the King of FrepeA
and other whiskered fellows to pass me on the rev!, and
occasionally to taunt me, and make faces at me. There-
fore, gentlemen, I submit to you that one of these two
things must be done. You must, by some means or other,
ease the coach of this load, or, unless you wish me to stick
in the mud, you must give me back the leaders I had
during the war, and which, in my humble opinion, ought
never to have been sent to the stable in Threadneedle.
street, without lightening the wach."
Descending to simple language, the immense debt of
this country, acting as a blister upon our industry, is as
inconsistent with the principles of tree trade as it is 'neon-
sistee4 with the " righteous standard of our ancestors,"
and, until the nation voluntarily or compulsatively reduces
it, we may politically economize in vain.
I hope I may prove a false prophet, but much reflecting
upon these subjects, and looking at the. signs of the times,
one of three things awaits us. Either we must, by public..
contribution, greatly reduce the debt, or we must unfasten
the stable door is Threadueedle-street, and again draw the
coach along by means of a false paper money; or we must
break faith with the public creditor.
The currency question being settled for ever, can we
ever unsettle it again ? What, then, becomes of the so-
lemn protestations of Parliament on this subject ? No, let
us suffer any thing than submit to a false circulating me-
dium, which has first impoverished, and then degraded,
every nation in the woxid that ever had recourse to it.
I ec,i, Sir, your obedient servant,
SPECTATOR.

On Tuesday morning last, as JOHN Now.
tAnn, the keeper over Fryerning Manor, in Essex, was
passing through a very thick and swamped part of Fryer-
ning Wood, he flushed three birds, which he at the mo-
ment judged to be young owls ; he shot right and left,
and brought down two birds, when, to his great surprise,
the proved to be a couple of woodcocks ; one an old bird,'
the other a young one.