The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-02 00:00:00

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SUN OFFICE Three o'Clock.

We have described the system of summary
punishment and prison discipline, as one of slow
torture, and we are glad to see that description
fully confirmed by the observations of a Contempo-
rary. A writer in the Times yesterday stated :
In the year 1840, the total number of persons
sentenced by Courts of Justice to be whipped in
England and Wales, was 1,049, and to be placed in
solitary confinement, was 3,370. In the same year
the total number of punishments for offences within
the prison, and, therefore, inflicted almost at the dis-
cretion of the gaoler was :
Whipping
Handcuffs and irons
Stoppage of diet
Solitary cells 11,139
Dark cells
Other punishments ..... 3,935
Here we have 'a total of 75,170 punishments,
arbitrarily inflicted on the gaol population
by the officers of the gaols. The public are
never called in to witness the infliction, or to see
justice done. All that mass of torture takes
place in secret; the prison walls shrouding it
in darkness, and taking away all possibility of
redress. Now, when it is remembered that
many of these additional punishments fall on
persons who are summarily convicted, that they
are in the first instance sentenced without a
verdict of Guilty being pronounced by a Jury—
that they are afterwards liable to these inflictions
at the good pleasure of the gaoler or the Visiting
Magistrates, no very gentle personages, it will
at once be seen that the lower classes in Eng-
land are exposed to a great system of arbitrary
and cruel punishments which constitute a ter-
rible torture. That odious practice, after we have
plumed ourselves for centuries that it is extinct
in England, still prevails in our gaols and still
gives to our lower classes that characteristic of
hard brutality of which civilization and the in-
crease of the people, the source of civilization,
cannot deprive them.

But then it is said there must be some punish-
ment for crimes. It remains, however, to be
proved that many of the actions punished are in
any other sense crimes than that it has pleased
the Legislature to ordain punishment for them.
For example, all the offences connected with the
Game-laws are not naturally crimes; they are
made so by the legislator, and he is justly
chargeable with all those crimes, and all the
cruel punishments he ordains on account of them.
In like manner numberless venial transgressions
of moral duty, such as drunkenness, neglecting
to provide for a fluffily, are not crimes to be pu-
nished like theft or murder. The same remark
will apply to trespasses on land, and many of
the Minor violations of the right of property,
which are things to be reprehended—checked, if
you will, by public censure, but they ought not
to be classed as crimes, and ought not to subject
the offender to torture in a gaol.

We will not go through the long catalogue of
actions for which it has pleased the legislator to
ordain punishment; enough has been said to
show that he very frequently transmutes inno-
cent actions, or actions to be only slightly repre-
hended, into grave offences, and he is the true
author of these crimes. Of course he is the
author of all the cruelty which is employed in
the vain attempt to repress them. We know
that in matters of trade he has been much too
busy, and we see reason to suspect, in matters of
criminal jurisprudence, that he has done a
great deal more than he ought, and inflicted, by
bad criminal laws, almost as much injury on
public morals, as by bad trade laws he has
caused to national wealth.

The Convocation of the Scotch clergy at Edin-
burgh has led to one important result. Vague
threats had from time to time been made, that if
the Veto Act was not recognised by Par-
liament, a vast number of the clergy would
secede from the Church, and, shaking off the
dust of their feet against the Erastians,
trust to the people for support. This threat
is now put in a distinct form. Three hundred
and fifty-four have solemnly declared that they
cannot in conscience submit to what they term the
unconstitutional decisions of the Supreme Civil
Courts, and in particular the decision of the Lord
Ordinary, in the case of the deposition of the mi-
nistersofStrathbogie, and thatif no measure, such
as they have declared indispensable, be granted,
it is the determination of the brethren assembled
at Edinburgh, "to tender the resignation of
those civil advantages which they can no longer
hold in consistency with the free and full exer-
cise of their spiritual functions, and to cast them-
selves on such provision as GOD in Hisprovidence
may afford." Now, the measure which they have
declared indispensable, is a law ratifying the Act
of Assembly, called the " Veto Act," and em-
powering them to depose all clergymen who
conscientiously differ from them on that head.
Betore this modest request can be complied
with, a radical change must take place in the
two Houses of Parliament. The Bishops must
be expelled from the House of Lords; all the

patrons of English livings, and most of the
patrons of Scotch livings, must follow in their train,
and a majority of the House of Commons must
profess theldoctrines of Non-Intrusion. Can any
rational being expect such a result in the present
day? And knowing, as these clergymen do, the
inexpressible indignation which not only the
political party in power, but many also of
their old staunch friends the Whigs, felt
on reading the cold-blooded sentences
passed on so many venerable clergymen,
do they imagine for one moment that the Legis-
lature will confer on them more power to do evil ?
They know pretty well the sentiments of Sir
ROBERT PEEL and Sir JAMES GRAHAM; they
know that the Bishop of LONDON, who represents
his order, distinctly stated in writing, to Sir G.
SINCLAIR, that such a measure never could be
carried in the House ofLords, and that the secession
of a large body of the clergy was infinitely
preferable, and that no earthly consideration
could induce the QUEEN'S advisers to sanction an
Act which would expose five hundred clergymen
to the tender mercies of the Non-Intrusionists.
After the solemn declaration, therefore, made at a
Convocation constituted and concluded by prayer,
no alternative is left but secession, and they must
make up their minds to this painful result. It
will be a heavy blow and a great discourage-
ment to one section of the Kirk, and be pro-
ductive of some evil ; but any change will be
better than the present system, which is injurious
to religion, keeps up constant animosity in the
Church, and subjects hundreds of excellent mi•
nisters to unmerited punishment.

The accounts from Spain leave little doubt tha

the rash and wicked insurrection at Barcelona
would speedily be put down. ESPARTERO was
rapidly approaching the city with an army of
15,000 men, which, with that under General VAN
HALEN, would amount to about 30,000 troops_a
force to which the insurgents could Oppose no
adequate resistance. The port of Barcelona and
the river Belos was declared in a state of
blockade by a decree of the REGENT, issued at
Saragossa on the 26th. The insurgents were dis-
posed to yield, and would probably give up the
ringleaders as some atonement for the slaughter
of so many soldiers. No place of the slightest
importance in Catalonia, or indeed in any part of
Spain, appears to sympathise with the people of
Barcelona, and the affair altogether may be pro-
nounced the most hopeless attempt at revolution
evermade even in Spain. The following is an extract
from a telegraphic dispatch which appeared in
the Paris Moniteur of Wednesday.—

"BARCELONA Nov. 26.—Llinas, having lost the
confidence of the people, has been superseded in the
Command of the armed force. lle has taken refuge
on board the Meleagre. Brigadier Durando, a Pied-
montese officer of merit, has assumed the command.

" The Captain-General Pedro Chacon returned to
Valencia on,that day.

" Brigadier Durando, who has taken the command
of the Barcelonese insurgents is," says these papers,
" a brave Piedmontese officer, who fought under the
orders of his countryman, General Borso di Carminati.
The latter was shot last year at Saragossa, for parti-
cipation in the Christino conspiracy of October, 1841."
The Emancipation de Toulouse of the 27th announces
the arrival of the Gemappe ship of the line and
several French steamers at Barcelona.