The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-16 00:00:00

VICTORIA THEATRE.

Mary While, or the Murder of the Old Tabbard, a tl-.ree.act
drama, founded on laeta of actual occurrence in the year 1543,
added another novelty on Monday to the attractions already put
forth this season at the Victoria. The scene is laid in the Old
Tabbard Inn, at Southwark, and the heroine (Miss Vincent) is both
an orphan girl and barmaid. Her lovers are Sir Lionel Lenmore
(Mr. C. Williams), and Edward Allworth (Mr. Seaman), a
poldsmith's apprentice, the latter of whom is the favoured party.
A series of rapid transitions ensue, in which a mixture
of characters figure, among whom Baynard appeals in the
light of Sir Lionel's murderer, and the assassinator of old Dove,
and who accuses Mary of the latter murder, of which, upon the
circumstantial evidence of the trial, she is found guilty. Savage
Sam (Mr. Saville), however, the chief of a gang of cadgers, who
had been bought over by Baynard, vows ultimate revenge agaisud
him, and finally drags the miscreant to Smithfield, where Mary
was on the point of execution, and forces him to coefess his atro-
cities. The characters of the piece, which is very effective, were
well sustained, and its announcement for repetition was received
with much applause.

COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION.--The enact.
mcnts proposed by Mr. Godson and Mr. Bulkeley Hughes, who
have succeeded Sergeant Talfourd in the management of the Copy.
right question, are as follow :—That all works published after a
certain date be registered by memorials in the Court of Chancery,
and a sealed certificate be delivered to the author on payment of a
fee of I Os. ; this memorial requiring the attestation of at least one
witness. All assignments to be memorialized and certificated in
like manner on payment of a fee of ss. Re.assigninesits, by way
of mortgage or security, to be accepted by priority of registration.
A register.index to ►se kept, and liberty of searching fixed at le.
These measures the framers expect will give authors of printed
publications greater security in the property of their copyrights,
and afford the public all requisite knowledge of assignments and in.
cumbrances affecting such works.

BILL FOR THE BETTER REGULATION OF
ItaiLways,—This Bill, brought in and prepared by Mr. Gladstone,
Mr. Manners Sutton, and Sir Thomas Fremantle, proposes to
make further provision for the supervision of railways, rendering it
imperative on the part of the Company, to give notice of intended
opening of any line by the clear space of one calendar month, to the
Board of Trade, and an additional ten days notice at the time of
completion, with a forfeiture of 201. in case of non-observance:
Other provisions relate to precautions respecting railway49tes, and
crossings, for the future prevention of accidents; and the appoint-
ment of arbitrators is regulated in all necessary cases.
BA NlZ.—Words cannot descrihe the distressed stateot_hkegini.
THE FAILURE OF MESSRS. KIRKPATRIC IC ' S
inha-
bitants of this town are now in, through the failure f
quarter of the
Kirkpatricks, bankers; to enumerate
but what has
great cases would be too tedious--both rich
tahnodtpaenr are
suf-
ferers, and scarcely an Institution in . ,
The greatest cost-
lost the whole of their funds for this yatnad.
the failure surprises,'
fidence was placed in these bankers,
cad,. The late respectet
5,Wm. Moore), has lost all he' pos
some that lave lost all they pos.sessedt.
everyseveral o
tnoe .t h
elVe
amountl i ear o
off s
minister of Ryde (the Rev.
for the New Ch h - - w tire , au&
100/. for a Burial Ground. There was also
a large stun of:
daysago, for deposited a few the Society for the
money only
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Per •
Farts. File wonder of-
teased, including
• what can ave become of the
H.amphireAdvertiser.
every one is N9Ol. subscribed
money ; we trust
that things will turn out better than is expected, for it is a blow
which the Island will not soon recover.—

LONDON •
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1842.

'There were a few points in the debate on Monda3
night, which we think worthy of notice. First, Lord
DEN:stAN is reported, in several Journals,- to have said
that'no State ought to enforce within itself the laws of
another State, which it regarded as unjust.. The Lord
Chief Justice instanced the case of the United States,
which refused to give up a person accused of forgery, be-
cause those States regarded forgery as a crime whiCh
ought not to be punished with death. Now, if laws are
not to boenforced because they are not just, on account
..of the moral obligation naturally imposed on every man
to be just, it naturally follows that neither ought such
:laws to be obeyed. We, therefore, add the authority of
a living Chief Justice to the authority of Chief Justice
131...icasToNE, to justify our assertion that th,e Corn-law
is of no validity or authority whatever.

It may be said the law-makers or law interpreters art
the only persons to decide what law should be obeyed.
This we deny, because it would place in the breasts of
the taw-makers the power of making and of deciding
the authority. and the validity of laws. Who shall de-
cide, then—if the law-makers are not—whether a lavk
be just or unjust ? We answer, with PALEY, every man
for himself. In fact, to do so is an inalienable function
of the human mind, which no tyranny can destroy. The
Corn-law is unjust, and every man who regards it ae
'unjust has in that circumstance a sufficient warrant, on
the authority of two Chief Justices, not to obey it, if he
•choose to run the risk of disobedience.

• Another point in the debate on Monday, worthy of ob-
servation, was a remark of Lord STANLEY'S, that some-
thing must be done to prevent the ruinous competition
of phcaters with one another, at Demerara. That asser-
tion implies that the Noble Lord and his colleagues will
endeavour to prevent a similar ruinous competition which
takes place at home. To what degree that will extend
the sphere of the functions of the Government, is one
thing worthy of notice; to what degree the Noble Lord
implies, by his wish to restrain competition, that he is a
disciple of Mr.. Owr.z.4. or a Socialist, is another point
which cannot be undeserving of public notice. The
activity of the, Noble Lord in such a direction, will very
soon place every portion of society under the Government,
;and compel it to provide for the subsistence and happi-
ness of the people in parallelograms. Those who applaud
the Socialist activity of the Noble Lord, if we do not
mistake, will soon have reason to repent of their hasty
approbation. They must already begin to be aware that
there is a mislchievous as well as a beneficial activity;
which is the characteristic of Lord STANLEY'S exertions,
we. need not specify. He has on several occasions, from the
beginning of his career in Ireland to his Registration
Bill, established his own character.
Ur. GLADSTONE, to notice another point, was cour-
teous beyond anything to gentlemen out of doors who
have applied to him on the subject of his proposed Co-
'tonic duties,
,With whom he said he was in communi-
cation. To them he defers,
his and means not to carry for-
ward Plait without their approbation. Bravo, Mr.

GLADSTONE. But you will have to extend this, defer-
ence. Do the Tories suppose that they will be
allowed to defer to JENKINS, the owner of rotten
ships, or TOMIUNS, the dealer in Canadian wheat, and be
allowed to refuse the least deference to HODGE, the agri-
cultural labourer, or BROOKS, the cotton-spinner ? They
will not ? and when Mr. GLADSTONE avowed that he
would study the wishes of JENKINS, the rotten ship-
owner, he imposed the obligation on the Government
also to ask the approbation and study the wishes of
HODGE and BROOKS. Proud as his colleagues are, they
must do the bidding of the swinish multitude, as they
and their journals have chosen to call the people. To be
the instrument of such a multitude is a degradation the
Tories have imposed on themselves.

In the House of Commons last night, the public
were taught a remarkable lesson, which will not soon
be forgotten. A great landowner, Mr. ORMSBY GORE,
openly declared, though the man was so confused that
it was difficult to make out what he meant, that the
present Bread-tax amounted to ss. 9d. per year on
every person. Every man, woman, and child, he said,
consumed a quarter of corn per annum ; the duty paid
on corn, on an average, he said, has been ss. 9d. per
quarter,--consequently every person has paid, and pays,
ss. 9d. per year as a Bread-tax. As Mr. WARD said,
the Corn-law is a Poll-tax to that amount.

The Poll-tax, according to Mr. ORMSBY GORE is only
about three-halfpence a week for each person, and lw
ridiculed the idea of such a sum being of any importance
to the people, or the cause of their distress. It is
nothing, of course, to a landowner of 30,000/. per year,
but to the man who has to live on ss. a week, and has a
wife and family of six children—the case of many
weavers—it is something more than the sixth part of
his income. At present a great multitude of the people
are almost starving, and Mr. ORMSBY GORE, Sir
PEEL, and the landowners insist on retaining a law
which takes away one-sixth of their income to swell the
landlords' rent.

Let us suppose that Mr. Oamsnir GORE has 30,0001.
a-year ; ss. 9d. is about the tenth part of the average
price of wheat, and, consequently, the tenth part of the
landlords' income is raised by levying this tax of three-
halfpence per week on the bread of every poor man,
poor woman, and poor child of the empire. About
3,0001.. a-year of this man's income, then, and of the in-
come of the landlords, is the produce of the Bread-tax;
ai he and the rest of the landlords have the astounding
impudence- to stand up in the Legislature and insist on
making and maintaining a law which adds in this pro-
portion to their wealth, while- it takes away one-sixth
of the income of many a starving family. Which
class can best spare this tax, we shall not even hint; but
if the landowners are lost to all sense of justice, let
them be charitable and generous, and fling back that
which Mr. ORMSBY GORE implied is as a miserable
pittance, to the starving people.
The Tory press has frequently spoken of Mr. O'CoN-
NELL as the Big Beggarman, who takes a penny from the
serving man, and a half-penny from the labouring man,
and a farthing from the beggar. Mr. OR3ISBY GORE,
says, that the income of the landlords is partly made up
by taking farthings from beggars, half-pence from
labourers, and pennies from those who have large fami-
lies. Between Mr. O'CONNELL, whom the Tory press
describes as completely disgraced by accepting for useful
services the voluntary and honourable offerings of his
generous countrymen, and the proud landlords of Eng-
land, there is only one difference ; they extort by law
the penny and the farthing tribute per head, which the
cheerfully give to their Liberator and benefactor.

. _
Every pos,'--britip §;me new feature of the' general
indignation manife;:. -" /lOW against the new sliding
and the system
scale, but agalnst the 67:71:444.1"1
Ar9ttipglittni
.. of which they are the especial gna:""ns'
uo moans
has made the latest demonstration, am;
the least effective. At a meeting held there yes.:,_""Y'

consisting of more than 8,000 persons of all ranks,
a Nobleman was called to the chair, and an
Alderman moved a resolution denouncing petitions to
the two Houses of Parliament as " farces," and calcu-
lated only to add insult to suffering. The resolu-
tion was carried by acclamation. Another no less re-

markable, as it is the first of the kind carried
unanimously at a general meeting, was moved by a
Chartist. It demanded the Charter, the whole Charter,
and nothing but the Charter, and, strange to say, every
hand was held up for it. Is Sir B. PEEL then pre-
pared to go on with a measure which does
not even satisfy one-half of his own party, and which is
stirring up from south to north the worst feelings, not
against him and the DUKE, and their Cabinet only, but
against both Houses of Parliament, and even the Throne
itself ? Will they not learn wisdom by experience,
and grant at once the reasonable demands of a starving
people, before rebellious hunger and hopeless despair
Jrive millions to abhor the very names of Parlia-
ment and Constitution ? The next step probably will
be to petition the Throne. Such a course would have
ten-fold mere effect than- cart loads of petitions sent to
men who seem determined to stand by their class: Her
AfAJESTY cannot fail to be moved by the cries of her
people, and if the olfi,N) of First Magistrate be not an
empty name, her earnest entreaties will not be made in
vain.

The Report of the Commissioners appointed by the
Lords of the Treasury, to inquire into file Exchequer
bill fraud has been submitted to Parliament. It forms
a blue book of 138 pages, the marrow of which, how-
ever, may easily be comprised within the limits of a
leading article. The Report which, apart from the
evidence, occupies fourteen pages, establishes the im-
portant fact that facilities for the grossest frauds existed
in the Exchequer Bill• Officefrauds which it was impos-
sible for the public either to detect or guard against.
The absence of sufficient internal checks, and the incom-
pleteness of general supervision, afforded the late " Se-
nior Clerk," Mr. BEAUMONT SMITH, abundant op-
portunities for the commission of frauds to any
extent. The words of the Report are most explicit :
" The sole direction of the quantity of paper to be
manufa red, and of the paper to be printed, and of the
plates to engraved, and the custody of the moulds of
:,he plates, of the paper unprinted and printed, of the
press seal and counterfoils, as well us the entire prepara-
tion of the Exchequer. Bills, were entrusted to the un-
xintrolled discretion and integrity of the Senior Clerk of
the department in which the Bills were prepared, and,
during his absence, of his assistant-clerks, unchecked
' by any regular examination of the stores or of the trades-
men's bills, or by any regular periodical destruction of
surplus printed paper, worn-out plates, or counterfoils."
Other temptations to the commission of fraud were
constantly held out to the Senior Clerk. The
Comptroller-General, Lord MONTEAGLE, admits in his
evidence that nothing could be more loose and irregular
than the way in which he conducted the business of his
office. His Lordship often signed bills at his private
residence,
.at the Privy Council, in the House of Lords,
Ind wherever else it pleased the Senior Clerk to send
them to him in a despatch-box, of which the only protec-
tion was that he retained one key and the Senior Clerk
mother. After reading the evidence the public wonder-will
not be so much that Mr. BEAUMONT SMITH was a rogue,
but that he was not one to an hundred times a greater
extent than lie has yet been proved to be. There have
been occasions when he has had Exchequer Bills, in this
loose way,. to an amount exceeding seven millions sterl-
ing in his possession, without official let or hindrance to
hia dishonest appropriation of them.

Two important facts then are established by the Re-
port :—Firstly, that the business of the Exchequer-office
has been scandalously conducted for a long series of
years ; and, secondly, that the holders of the Forged
Exchequer bills are fully entitled to have them replace')
by good bills, or the full amount of the sums for which
they were drawn in other Government securities. The
recipients of the forged bills have no right to suffer for
the scandalous mismanagement of the officers of her Ma-
jesty's Government appointed to superintend the business
of a department so important as that of the Exchequer.
The improvements recommended in the Exchequer
Bill-office by the Commissioners are obvious and com-
mon-place enough. A superior style of engraved plates—
mechanical means of distinguishing impressions—and a
closer connection between the Office of Issue and the
Bank of England, occupy the most prominent place.
In conclusion, we may remark that the Report
has disappointed us. There were more rogues than
two or three connected with the Exchequer forgeries,
and we expected that the Report would have
afforded some clue to their discovery. On the
contrary, the Report really looks as if there was an
anxiety on the part of the Commissioners to draw a veil
of oblivion over the past. In the list of the wit-
nesses examined we cannot put our finger upon the
name of a single Stockbroker. None of the City
people were examined who were at all likely to
supply
any clew to the elucidation of Mr. BEAU-
MONT SMITH'S Stock Exchange transactions. This
is a point which we cannot suppose will escape the
penetration of the House of Commons. There ought to
be no hushing up of a crime by which national credit
has been injured, and the public robbed to an extent as
yet incalculable. The present Report may do, so far as
concerns the future management of the Exchequer Bill-
office ; but we want one which shall supply such details
of its past mismanagement as are required to satisfy the
ends of justice:

The United States Go; ernment has a crow to pluck
with the Republic of Mexico. Should extremities be

had recourse to, there can be but little difficulty in de-
termining
to which Power shall belong the better
portion of the plumage. In addition to the old
grounds of complaint, we find it stated that the
Santa Fe expedition, treacherously seized by the orders
of General SANTA ANNA, was composed, for the
most part, of American citizens, and that on
their march into the interior, three of the prisoners,
being unable to walk, were taken out and brutally shot
by the Mexican soldiery. We are not surprised that
the report of such a cowardly atrocity has roused the
indignation of the North American people. None but
wretches who would disgrace the uniform of a bandit's
gang, could participate in the murder of three unresist-
ing human beings, guilty of no crime, charged with no
offence, and so overcome with fatigue and sickness as to
be unable to walk a step unassisted. And !'yet it must
be of such cowardly villains that the Mexican army is
composed, since General SANTA ANNA expressed neither
abhorrence of, nor wonder at, this murder, but, on the
contrary, promoted the officers under whose eyes, and
in whose presence, it was perpetrated. The Southern
States are furious against Mexico. In illustration of
this statement, we quote the following extract of a letter
from New Orleans, published in.a New York daily paper
of the 24th ult.:—
The first act of Santa Anna's Administration is stained with the
blood of Americans. All is anarchy, treason, pillage, and death
in the capital. How long shall these barbarians be suffered to de.
secrate such a country ? How long will the Government of the
United States suffer the laws of nature and of nations to be out-
raged by Mexican savages, and civil and political, and religious
wars to ravage and desolate the land ? For twenty years past we
have bad a treaty with this pusillanimous nation, and yet they owe
us millions of dollars, which they cannot pay, and no American
hardly is safe in passing through their country. Our Government
should cause the great highway from Vera Cruz to Mexico to be
kept always open, where hundreds and thousands of our citizens
desire to travel, and hold the Mexican nation responsible for every
American who touches his foot upon their shore. The distance
to the capital from the coast is short of SOO miles, not farther
than Wheeling from Baltimore, and about four or five days' jour-
ney. and yet it is hardly safe or possible to reach that capital.
But the Anglo-Saxons are on their march, and freedom will soon
be proclaimed upon the house.tops of this deluded and oppressed
people. A mine has been sprung which will reach the walls of
Mexico,. and a blast louder than that which caused the walls of
Jericho to fall down, will soon be heard upon the outer walls of
this devoted city. Tile fatal termination of the Santa Fe expedi.
tion, and the indignities heaped upon the American Consul and
citizens, has produced tiu greatest sensation, while the blood of our
slaughtered fellow countrymen calls aloud for vengeance. General
Coombe, of Kentucky, whose son was in the expedition, and the part.
nor of Kendall, of the Picayune, have gone post-haste to Mexico,
and will return with their friends, or share their fate. If a hair
of their head, however, is injured, the days of Mexico are num-
bered. Twenty thousand gallant spirits are now ready, " armed
and equipped as the law directs," who will rush across' the valley
of the Mississippi, nor slumber, nor sleep, till they shall proclaim
liberty and religious freedom in the Temples of the Montezumas.
General Houston, the President of Texas, is disposed for peace;
but if the war.cry is sounded, he will lead where any dare to fol.
low, nor stay his march till every drop of American blood has
bean atoned for, and his treacherous and pusillanimous friend,
Santa Anna, paid with his own life the penalty of his bond.

The Treaty of Commerce between Great Britain and
Persia, signed at Teheran on the 28th of October, has
just been presented to Parliament. It has one merit,
rarely found in Treaties of any description—it is exceed-
ingly brief. By leaving out the preamble, it might be
printed on that nautical decoration of a skipper's time
piece, a watch-paper, or engraved on the lid of a snuff-box.
We like it all the better for this. A commercial treaty
clogged with a catalogue of excepted articles, is at all
times a nuisance, and very often a hindrance to trade.
Our treaty with Persia consists of but two articles, which
are as follows :