The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOORMALS.

, There is ascribed to us, we perceive, in /11
paper of last night, an arrangement of places
which we never made. All that we said, with
the degree of certainty which is permissible pend-
ing such transactions, was, that the Duke of
Portland was President of the Council, in the
place of Lord Harrowby. We hinted that Mr.
Huskisson " might " go to the Colonial-office ;
but we never heard nor dreamed of his receiving,
the Seals of the Foreign-office, which we are de-
scribed as having said. The journal which has
committed these errors will, probably, through
practice; gets out of its present random way of
stating what ought to be facts; but, till . it does
that,. towards which these, our remarks may he
serviceable, it. must be read, with caution. As
to its arguments,. vakant, quantum valent. Our'
mode of proceeding has always been to consider,
anxiously and conscientiously, which upon all
political questions is the juster cause ; and hav-
ing made our choice, we are not afraid that the
less just should make good its plea to public
support. With respect to Mr. Canning, it
would be as absurd to deny that the national
grief follows him to the grave in an unprece-
dented degree, as to deny that it is day-light
when this journal issues forth into the world. \V(
could not check this feeling if we were to try,—at
least we could not eradicate or extinguish,—
but, on the contrary, we deeply participate in it.
We at all times admired his many and eminent
talents; we •have supported and shall support
that liberal system of policy of which he was the
author and the advocate, as soon as he emanci-
pated himself from the trammels of faction, and
the predominance of aristocratic influence ; and
we pay our tribute of gratitude to the Sovereign
who selected such a man .for his. IVlinister, and
seems now to have devolved the . full develop,.
ment of his -plans upon statesmen of similar
principles.— Times.

The Report of the Select Committee of
Inquiry into the causes to which has been owing
the increase of criminal commitments and con-
victions in England and Wales, will be found in
another part of this paper. By the above Report
are established some facts in relation to the poor
of this country, which are not less melancholy
than important. A period not exceeding twenty
years—from 1801. to 1821—produced an in-
crease of population .frora 8,872,986 to
11,977,663, or better than 33 per cent.; and
assuming that from 1806 to 1826, the rate of
increase has been the same as. in the former
twenty years, namely 33 per cent., see what har.
been the comparative proportion of commit-

tnents
In 1806 4,346
1826 16,147
almost 300 per cent.! , To what must we as-
cribe this dreadful aggravation of. the criminal
state of England ? The Committee borrow
from the evidence which they have diligently
collected, a variety of causes for ,this apparent
degeneracy of the nation. We have paymenns
from the poor-rates to the able-bodied labourer
—an increase in the amount of poaching-41v_
Malicious Trespass Act, which gives the power
of summary, that is, arbitrary conviction am;
commitment to Magistrates, corrupting the par-
ties by the .contagion of a prison, and thus
snaking punishments engender crimes instead of
ehecking them. We have, finally, a. want of
employment for the labourer, and its necessar\
consequence, a rate of wages, in many parts o,
the country, insufficient for his support. With'
the single exception of the summary jurisdiction!
vested in the Magistrate by the Malicious
Trespass Act, all the. above causes of committals
for crime may be resolved, into the single one Of
poverty, which has, we are afraid, to a large ex-
tent, overgrown the agricultural labourers of
England. Bearing a near ;affinity to want, i'
loss of manly pride and honour, which result,
from the misapplication of . the. poor-rates
Those who would formeily as soon have though
of any other mode of disgrace as this legalized
beggary, now.not merely accept the poor alio*-
ance as a supplement to scanty wages, or a sub•
stitute for them, but snatch at it and seize it a.
a prey. litnce, unquestionably, one most va-
luable moral safeguard has been withdrawn from
the British labourer; and from the period as-
signed to the introduction of this grievance, re
are disposed to agree in the opinion that it arose
from the unreflecting selfishness of the farmers,
who, early in the war, when prices rose, got the
increase of pay which they ought to have them-
selves afforded, saddled upon the parish funds,
and an evil established which it may cost an age
of wisdom or a serious convulsion to eradicate.
,

We refer our readers to a very valuable Re-
port of a Select Committee of the House. of
Common c,
on the subject of Criminal Commit-
tais and Convictions. The Committee com-
menced their labours only a short time previous
to the close of the Session, and have not been
able to extend their inquiries beyond the agricul-
tural districts. There is still a wide range of in-
quiry remaining for them, and we trust that the
subject will be taken up in the same spirit on
the re-assembling of Parliament. The rate at
which crime has been for several years increasing
in the agricultural districts is truly alarming.—
For instance, the Rev. Dr. Hunt, a Visiting
Magistrate of the gaol of Bedford, who has
acted as a Magistrate for Bedfordshire for about
sixteen or seventeen years, stated in his evidence
before the-Committee, " as far as I have been
able to form- a list, the whole number of commit-
ments in 1801, including prisoners sent to trial
and prisoners summarily convicted, amounted to
between forty and fifty ; and in the last year they
amounted to upwards of 400. From 1814 there
has been a rapid and almost uniformly continued
increase to the present time, extending in the
first instance from a total of 47 to a total of
417." The same Magistrate observes, " that
from the year 1801 to 1827, the population of
the county has increased to the amount of 40
ner cent. or rather more than one-third ; while,
during the same period, crime has increased ten-
fold, or 900 per cent." It would give us sincere
pleasure to he able to state that Bedford is ano-
malous in its condition ; the agricultural districts
seem all to have advanced in crime at the same
frightful rate. A population of criminals seems
a contradiction in terms. We may safely lay it
down that crime cannot always increase as it has
done between 1801 and 1827 ; for, if the re-
- spective rates of increase of population and crime
were to continue for a few years longer, the
whole people would be criminals. Even in the
worst governed parts of Italy—the dominions of
the Pope and the King of Naples—there are
some honest men to be found, otherwise it is
difficult to conceive on what principle particular
towns could be selected for distinction on account
of their being
exclusively inhabited by robbers.
on
progressi in crime
But the is calculated,to
appal the stoutest hearts, even with the assur-
ance that the rate of increase cannot long con-
tinue to be what it is at present. We find in

the evidence a strong confirmation of what we'
have again. and again endeavoured to impress on'
our countrymen, that the English gentry
are the great corrupters of- the people of
England. « I think (says Dr. Hunt) that there
has been a great increase of commitments for'
small offences, owing to the facility with which'
petty_ criminals can be convicted before single
Magistrates, out of Session.---, Do you mean
in consequence of late Acts of Parliament ?'-11
The number of such commitments has been
certainly increased by the Wilful and Malicious'
Trespass Act, and by other Acts that give sum-
mary jurisdiction to magistrates. think a great
n:any offences are thus brought to conviction'
that would not be thought of,, if-they had to go
to a more distant or expensive , tribunal ; the
power of summary jurisdiction has been very
much extended in latter years. A. person once
sent to ,prison, gets into a course of criminal ha-
bits, by associating with dissolute persons whom
hVneets there. .. . . Many young men
are thus sent to prison for small offences that
would not otherwise have been sent, and by these
means they continue in a course of crime.' "—,
The English gentleman, his capacity of Le--
gislator, procures for himself, in his capacity of
!magistrate, all manner of summary and discre-
tionary powers, and, armed with them, he sallies
forth .the absolute Lord of all the peasantry in
his neighbourhood, who are totally without the
means of protecting themselves. In countries
where something like principle runs through the
laws, which are not, as in England, chiefly corn-
posed of unconnected, arbitrary, and contradic-
tory enactments, in which no line of demarcation
is drawn between crimes and police offences, and
against a liability to the penalties of which, often
very severe, no degree of sagacity is sufficient to
guard—in countries in which the execution of
the laws is not committed to men destitute of
professional knowledge, and whose only qualifi-
cation is the possession of property, the lower
orders can count with something like certainty
on the consequences of their actions. The chief
security of an Ehglish peasant is not in the laws,
but in the temper of the Squire to whose discre-
tion he is subject ; for the laws supply to tyranny
And malevolence the means of persecution, to an
extent which they could hardly wish to exceed.
The consequence of this grasping and meddling
disposition of the higher orders is precisely what
might, have been expected—the people feeling
themselves without security, and subject to every
caprice of their superiors, have become reckless.
Our only hope now is, that the excess of the
evil will work its own .cure ; that the demoralize.:

tion,of the peasantry having under the fostering
care of discretionary power, attained a height un-
exampled in any other civilized nation, the gen-
try will at length take alarm, and consent to
abandon the exercise of functions for which they
ire obviously unfit, before we are all involved in
t,nie common ruin. All the witnesses agree,

that one great cause of the criminal character
of the agricultural population is the preservation
of game. Poverty holds out irresistible temptaL
dons to the peasant to poach, which neither he
himself nor the farmer consider a crime ;
though, the same man who will shrink from crime
poaches without scruple, the poaching leads in-
evitably to crime ; so that he who commences as
a poacher ends by being a criminal. The Com-
mittee of the Society for the Improvement o.
Prison Discipline; to whose Report we alluded
Ehe other day, remark with respect to the Game
Laws, that they are " a source of crime, to
which a large proportion► of the increase of
offences in the agricultural districts is mainly to
he attributed. Of this fact there is abundant
and but too certain evidence

An experienced Magistrate of Bedfordshire, in
a communication to the Society—in which he
attributes the increase of crime to the demoraliz-
ing effect of the Game Laws—observes, that
preserves for game are very numerous, and hus-
handry wages extremely low. Setting snares
day is succeeded by armed poaching at night,
and followed up. by robbing hen-roosts, pigeon-
stealing, sheep-stealing, and horse-stealing. In
stances are perpetually occurring of this descripl
don, in the commencement and regular progress
of crime.' In Hertfordshire, an active Magis-
trate and correspondent of the Society writes,
that the increase of crime is considered to be
mainly attributable to the strict manner in which
game is preserved by the Lords of Manors, and
which produces a tenfold quantity to that for-
merly in existence, and that consequently thei:e
is a proportionate increase in the number of
poachers. . . . The Chaplain of the
County Gaol of Norfolk, who devotes himself
most laudably to the religious and moral welfare
of the criminals, observes on this subject, that
".poaching leads more easily and rapidly to the
perpetration of the higher crimes than any other
incentive ; and the time and nature of the em-
ployment, and the desperate combinations that
are entered into, create a greater ferocity of
spirit than has hitherto been found in any other
class of offenders ! It is estimated that about
one-fourth part of those who crowd our county
prisons consists of offenders against the Gamel
Laws. In the last seven years the number'
amounts to upwards of 12,000, being, on an
average, one thousand seven hundred in each
year. But the extent of evil of which the
Game Laws are the source, must not be esti-
mated by the actual number of commitments for
this offence. If the history of the felon were,

traced, it would appear that in innumerable
cases poaching had been the first step in,his
criminal career." The disposition which seve-
ral of the Members of the Committee of the
House of Commons, and particularly the Chair-
man, Sir James Graham, seem to have carried
with them into the inquiry, is deserving of every
praise for its uncompromising fearlessness anu
sincerity. It is always a great point to know the
real nature of the disease, and there has been
but too general a disposition in the people of
this country for many years to play off cant
against each other, which, after all, deceived no
one. When prudent people, as they are called,
see that at this game of hypocrisy they are far in-
ferior to the inmates of prisons, it is to be hoped
the vile race will decline among us." Mr.
Orridge, of Bury, says on this subject very
naively, " Hypocrisy goes to a great extent in
prisons. I am sorry to say there are many
whom I have never known properly till I had no
power over them.—' Do you find that the worst
are generally the best behaved F—Yes, a com-
plete scoundrel conceals himself; I had thoughts
that, after thirty years, I had a knowledge of;
criminal character ; but I believe I shall die a'
novice at last." What a powerful confirmation
have we here of the truth of Mr. Cunningham's
observations !—Morning Cheonzcle.

However gratifying it may be to Englishmen'
to see the spirit of freedom which characterises
their own institutions spreading abroad and in
'fusing itself into those of other countries, no-
thing can be more preposterous than the idea of
hawking about Constitutions, and in a manner
forcing them upon foxeign countries. This, as

in the case of Portugal, wad,_ one of those wild
poetical notions of the late Mr. Canning, which,
though it was received with cheers and acclama-
tions by those who mistake sound for sense, is
now involving this country in a dilemma from 1
which she will find it difficult to-extricate herself, I
but at a considerable expense both of fame and'
money. The grand obstacle to freedom both in
Portugal and in Spain is the ascendancY of the
Roman Catholic religion. To talk of freedom
under the domination of Priesthood, is as pre-
posterous as to look for the light of the sun
during the darkness of midnight. We do not
consider it, as some have d‘ine, any inconsistency
in Mr. Canning to have looked for freedom in a
Catholic country, at the same time that he ad-
vocated Catholic Emancipation at home. If
Catholic Emancipation and Catholic ascendancy
meant the sanie filing, that inconsistency* would
be undeniable ; but we can easily imagine that in
advocating the. one, Mr. Canning, and those who
think with him, in ayimagine it as one method ofput-
ting an end altogetherto Catholicyin a Protestant
country. But leaving this view of the subject, it
cannot be denied by any calm and reasonable
looker on, that the spirit of political proselytism,
in other countries is what the most sanguine ad-1
mirer of the institutions of his own country has,
no right to
,indulge; and which if indulged in,'
must generally_ recoil in the discomfiture of thosel
who attempt it. To say nothing of the expence,l
which is no small consideration in the present,
financial state of this country, it is degrading in
the extreme to Great Britain to have-her troops
employed as a, sort of gens-d'armerie in a fo-
reign country, where they must be the objects of,
hatred by one party, and of disappointment to
the other. 'What earthly object will have been
gained by Mr. Canning's Portuguese expedition,
or by the doubtful and recalled eloquence which
he bestowed upon it, time will soon develope ;
and that developement, we strongly suspect, will,
consist either in our being obliged to retire from
a country where we had no business, or our being
involved in a war for objects totally foreign to!
any British interests. Much as we deprecate,
national disgrace, the first alternative would be,
we apprehend, by far the most desirable ; andj
wektrust, therefore, that one of the first objectsl
of the new Ministry will be to disclaim, with all!
the delicacy they can, the hasty, inconsiderate'
step of their leader towards Portugal, and to
leave that country to settle its own internal affairs,
in the wav it may think best. That such settle-,
ment will not be of the kind to satisfy the lovers
of freedom in this country, we can easily ima- 1
gine ; but it will not be unsatisfactory, upon the
whole, to those who, though, they love freedom,
and would forward its advancement by all legiti=
mate means, nevertheless deprecate the Quixotism
'and injustice of interfering in the internal con=
cerns of other countries.—Morning Herald.
i.
We give, in another part of our Paper, a copy
of an interesting Report made by the Commit.
tee appointed by the, House of Commons to in-
quire into the cause of the increase in the num-
ber of criminal commitments and convictions.
This Report, however, is by no means complete.
The appointment of the Committee having taken
place late in the season, it was impossible at
once to embrace the vast expanse of the field!
which it had to explore. The Committee, there-
fore, began by ascertaining the fact, that commit-I
ments and convictions had increased ; and corn-1
paring that increase with that of the population,i
the result afforded a melancholy proof, that
crime had augmented in a still more rapid ratio
than population. The increase In the latter,
(
between 1801 and 1821, was 3,104,777, or
little more than one-third of the whole, whilst
the number of commitments within the same
period had nearly quadrupled itself, being not
less than 16,147 to 4,346. The .Committeel
then divided the subject into three branches : the
increase of crime in the Agricultural districts—
in the manufacturing ones—and in the Metro-
polis ; but, for the present, confined their enqui-
ries to the former, on which they do not even pre-
tend to form a definite judgment. They suggest
the change from war to peace, as a partial cause
for the general increase of crime from 1806 tc,
1816 ; but its unchecked progress since that'
period, not withstanding the attention called to
the subject, and the efforts made•to furnish a re-
medy, appears to them to arise, in the agricultu-
ral" districts at least, from the low rate of wages
—the want of sufficient employment—and the
abuse of the Poor Laws to purposes for which
increase
of were never intended. The great
of preserves for game is also pointed out,
and most, justly so, as materially tending
to the augmentation of crime in' particu-
lar districts, and an experimental legalization of
the sale of game is recommended, as likely to
put an end to poaching. The best remedy, how-'
ever; for such a state of things, is admitted to bel
one beyond the immediate controul of the Legis-
lature—" a great increase in the demand, for la
H
bour ;" but it is also contended that some amend-1
ment of the Poor Laws, which might prevent
the prevailing abuses from being carried farther,
is imperiously called for. We trust that this
call will not pass unheeded ; and, from the in-
formation already collected by the Committee.
within so short a period from the commence-
ment of their labours, we have no doubt that
much advantage will result from their appoint-
ment, if their inquiries continue to be carried
on in the same spirit and with the same activity.
—New Times. . I

Of all those I ever heard of, who have mani-
fested the " ruling passion strong in death," George Bread-
man proved one of the staunchest. He was a poor yokel,
foistered upon me in the last stage of consumption, and
who remained bed-ridden until our arrival in the colony.
He fell away so fast that I never expected to land him
alive, and certainly it required the most anxious attention
to retain the glimmering spark. I fortunately, however,
possessed a very facetious fellow among the batch, to whom
this poor dying creature became strongly attached, never
being a (lay happy whereon his friend neglected to visit
him, and often begging me to send this man to him for
company, which I gladly did, seeing it invariably put him
in good spirits. Wondering what could be the cause of
this extraordinary liking, I inquired, and found that Bread-
man had been a great pig-stealer in his day, which being
considered a very vulgar calling among the professional
classes (particularly among the townies), he could get no
one to listen to his adventures except this joker, who would
laugh with and quiz him on the particular subjects of his
achievements ; praise the wonderful expertness with which
he had done the farmers out of their grunters, and propose;
a partnership concern on reaching the colony, if the pigs
there were found to he worth stealing ! I really believe
the poor creature was kept in existence a full month solely
by the exhilarating conversation of his companion. On
anchoring at Sydney no time was lost in conveying Bread-
man ashore, he being so weak that he could not even lit up
without fainting : yet, in this pitiable state, supporting'
himself round the hospital-man's• neck while the latter was
drawing on his trowsers for him, the expiring wretch
mustered strength enough to stretch out his pale trembling,
hand toward the other's waistcoat-pocket, and pick it of a
pocket-comb and pen-knife ! Next morning he .was a
corpse, thus dying as he had lived. Yet, during his whole
illness, this man would regularly request some of the sober
minded rogues to read the Scriptures to him, and pray by
his bed-side ! Indeed, ill practices become ultimately' so
habitual with many, as to be no longer deemed such : and
hence, no wonder we so often see religion and knavery in-
timately blended...Cunning/was Two Years in Ara°
South Waks.