The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-18 00:00:00

THE SUN) LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY_ lB, 1842.

Duke of WELLINGTON acknowledged that he had
seen enough of war, and trusted that the sword
would never again be drawn in his day. We
cordially reciprocate this wish, which we are
well assured is the wish of every honest . man
in this country. Lord Mayor's dinners are
so proverbial for sumptuousness that
no room is left for any comment on yes-
terday's entertainment at the Mansion-house,
save that the Chief Magistrate, despite his party
politics, conducted himself with a degree of ur-
banity towards all his guests, and with a kind-
ness towards the public Press throughout, which
cannot but add to the admiration universally en-
tertained of his Lordship's excellent private cha-
racter.

We are reminded by the loud complaints of
some of our Contemporaries as to the condition
of our streets hat we saw at Manchester a few
months ago a very ingenious machine for sweep-
ing the streets. It was a cart, followed, as it were,
if we remember right, by revolving scrapers and
brooms, which swept up' all the dirt as the cart
moved on, and lifted it into the cart. The form
of the machine, however, is of little importance;
it is sufficient to kiiow that it has been frequently
tried and been found completely to answer the
intended purpose. It is, we believe, the inven-
tion of the Messrs. WIIIT*ORTH, who are also
the inventors of that celebrated instrument, the
iron "Jem Crow," which will hand their names
down to a remote posterity with great honour
long after the American " Jem Crow" (Mr.
RICE), and the English "Jem Crow" (Lord
MONTEAGLE), or any other towering politician
of our day, shall have been completely forgotten.
This street-sweeping machine of the Messrs.
WHITWORTH, of which we have been thus re-
minded, seems to us, looking to the present dis-
cussion about machinery, to teach a moral lesson
well worthy of the public attention. _
Why is not this machine, or some similar ma-
chine, brought into general use, and the streets
swept, at a small cost, two or three times
a day? The occupation of street scavengers is
at once disgusting and degrading. Almost every
one has learnt from experience that these men
are as rude as they are dirty. Bespattered, be-
plastered, and begrimed with mud and filth,
they seem to like, when an opportunity offers,
to make others share their extreme uncomfort-
ableness. All their organs, if sense be not
wholly obliterated, must be continually offended.
Though the vulgar phrase of clean dirt seems
strange, it is correct ; but the dirt which they
have to remove is the dirtiest of dirt. To get
rid of such an offensive, disgusting, and de-
grading occupation, would be both morally and
physically a benefit to society. But there is, in
every parish, no inconsiderable number of per-
sons to be maintained at the expense of the
parish, who are fit for no other than this de-
graded occupation; and if the parish, or the
contractors, could not employ such men, they
must be sustained in idleness. To introduce
street sweeping-machines, would be to deprive
them of employment ; and as long as they must
be maintained, the use of the machine would
scarcely be any saving. The machine is, conse-
quently, not brought into use, and, to keep indi-
viduals employed at this disgusting and de-
grading occupation, the march of mechanical
improvement is suspended.
The same principle may be generally found at
the bottom of most of the obstacles, and most of
the objections to the introduction of new and
useful machinery. In every walk of life there
is a great number of poor and degraded persons
whom society think it proper and just to
condemn to toiling and noisome occupations, in-
stead of allowing them to be performed by ma-
chinery. In that we see an unwise and niggard
spirit of economy. Invention gives birth to in-
vention ; one machine makes way for another ;
and it would be' in the end a great saving of
wealth to society, as well as a prodigious saving
of human feelings, were such men as scavengers
pensioned off to live in comfort, when their place
can be supplied by machinery, and such noisome
and disgusting occupations for ever consigned to
the willing and unfeeling exertions of birch and
iron.

We have given a brief account, all our space
allows, of the great Anti-Corn-law Deinonstra.
tion which was held at Glasgow on Friday last.
There was, first, a meeting of Deputies from all
the surrounding towns, at which the reports of
the condition of their people were read, which
draw a dismal, but accurate picture, of that once
flourishing neighbourhood. Numerous examples
were given of wide-spread and rapid deteriora-
tion and decay; and a general opinion was ex-
pressed, that unless something be done to arrest
this downward progress, it must end in convul-
sion. We miss at the meeting that fervent elo-
quence which was so honourable to the Conference
at Edinburgh, but we meet with more details and
more facts, denoting the practical, business pur-
suits of the parties. But both the moral elo-
quence of the ministers at the Conference and the
facts of the men of business equally lead to the
conclusion, confirming and strengthening each
other, that the continuance of the present im-
moral and iniquitous system of Corn-law legisla-
tion is an impossibility. The Ministers, strong as
they may be in Parliament, and strong as they
may be in the country, are deplorably weak,
from the unrighteousness of their cause, and they
must give up the system or involve all our insti-
tutions in one common ruin. We respectfully
solicit the attention of the Tory Premier and his
supporters to the evidence which the meeting at
Glasgow affords of the incompatibility of mono-
poly with the national welfare, and of the impos-
sibility of continuing it.
The meeting of the Deputies was followed by
a Grand Banquet in the evening, at which up-
wards of 2,000 persons were present. More
would have attended had there been room. Lord
BELHAVEN and Sir J. GIBSON CRAIG were
snowed up, and could not get to Glasgow ; the
Marquis of BREA DALBANE had other engage-
ments ; but there was a considerable show of
Members of Parliament. The banquet set the
seal to the opinions of the Deputies and minis-
ters, and cautious pziliticians, who have hitherto
taken a different view, found it necessary to fall
in with the demand for the total and immediate
repeal. There was a time, Mr. °swam:, said,
when less would have contented them, but now
their demand is for justice, and they will take
nothing less than justice.
At the banquet, as well as at the meeting of
Deputies, it was intimated that the farmers in
various districts are made sensible, through their
own pockets, that the► Corn-laws are not for
their advantage. Let. us hope, therefore, that
these gentlemen will no longer sacrifice their
industrious countrymen and themselves, in order
to foster the bloated wealth, extravagance, and
pride, of the owners of rent. A brighter day is
dawning on our country, from the union of all
industrious and useful classes to resist the unjust
arrogance of the mischievous and the idle classes,
At both meetings the language was bold and
energetic ; and as we are convinced that it is
only necessary for sincere and honest men man-
fully to speak their thoughts to attain their just
ends, we infer from the manner in which the
Anti-Corn-law party have begun to speak out
that the day of their triumph is not far distant.

On
important Saturday
an mweeeetki
n; e it). uthhl
ei s
Ihveodo l al
ennalcncaonuunfta
c0..1
turers at Bath, which amply confirmed the de-
plorable accounts we have from time to time
published of the falling off of the woollen manu-
facture in Yorkshire. We shall not, we pre-
sume, be accused of exaggerating the import-
ance of this manufacture, when we content our-
selves with borrowing the following notice of it
from the Devizes Gazette, a Tory paper :
The woollen manufacture of England must, indeed,
be a subject of deep anxiety, not merely to those en-
gaged in it, but to every one who feels an interest in
the happiness and greatness of his country. For a long
series of centuries it has contributed to that greatness
and that happiness. Its raw material is the produce of
our own fields, and of the labour of our own rural popu-
lation, and the conversion of that material into clothing
first raised our hamlets into villages, and our villages
into thriving towns. As it grew and flourished, and
gave greater and greater employment to capital and in- •

dustry, it enabled England to extend her supply beyond
her own limits ; while the supply of our own growing
population still continued to be its great and principal
object. The population employed in the woollen manu-
facture has always been intimately connected with the
population employed in the production of wool ; a bond
of union between them has' been formed by palpable
community of interest, and the strong sense of reciprocal
dependence.
Whatever may be the case of the cotton manu-
facture, then, with the prosperity of the woollen
manufacture the prosperity of the agriculturists is
deeply.and firmly entwined. To them, therefore,
it must be of great, though sorrowful interest, to
learn, from the circular of a respectable firm of
wool-brokers in Liverpool, dated the Eth instant,
that a contract for th 6 deliveryof upwards ofloo,ooo
Pieces of woollen goods for the East India market
has been
.taken by a continental house on terms
far below any English manufacturer's tenders.
Perhaps our agriculturists will think themselves
compensated for this, by selling the bulk of their
wool abroad, which will probably come to pass.
The circular says :

The exports of wool to France, Belgium, and. America,
have risen from 1,690 cwt. in 1840, to 7,210 cwt. from
Liverpool alone; and including 5,856 cwt. from the port
of London, the exports of wool to our rivals in manufac-
tures amount, in 1841, to 13,066 cwt. exchisive of the
exports of combing wool direct from the port of Dublin,
which are regular and very considerable. When we
state besides, that the prices paid for these wools are such
as to be quite out of the reach of the English manufac-
turer, we cannot look upon our position, as essentially-a
manufacturing country, without apprehension and alarm,
The prices of wool, then, are now higher abroad
than at home, and the flockmasters may be
certain that as long as we continue to export
wool, such will be the case. The price abroad,
in fact, will, in a great measure, rule the price at
home ; for, if a higher price could be got from
English manufacturers, the wool would not be
sent abroad. Here, then, we find one large
and important product of agriculture already
reduced in price below the continental level;
while its cost of production, owing to landlords'
taxes, is much above the cost of production on
the Continent. Wool helps to pay rent as well
as wheat. By checking the prosperity of the
woollen manufactures, the price of the farmer's
wool falls below the price on the Continent;
while, by keeping up the Corn-laws, all the
farmer's out-goings are determined by the higher
scale of English expenditure: That will tend to
impoverish all the farmers who keep sheep.
There is another and a very numerous class of
our countrymen, for whose welfare great concern
is professed, deeply interested in the question.
The circular says :

The present consumption of wool, both British and Fo-
reign, is much reduced, and from various causes. , The
revolution in the stuff trade of Yorkshire, produced by
the disuse of hogg warps, and the substitution of the
cheaper cotton warps to a vast extent, has rendered
hogg wool nearly unsaleable, and barely equal in value to
wethers of similar fineness. Failures to a large amount,
amongst the consumers of fine yarns, in Scotland and
elsewhere, have for the present, depressed the value and
checked the consumption of all super English and
Colonial combing wools. But the increase of foreign ma-
nufacturing establishments, supported in.many instances
by British capital, superintended by British workmen,
consuming British wool, out-bidding
.British buyers in
the German, Spanish, and almost every other foreign
wool market, and supplanting British manufactures in
almost every market abroad, becomes every year more
felt, and admitted to be a main cause of the present de-
pression of British manufactures..

At the Cape of Good Hope, in New South
Wales, in Australia, and in Van Diemen's Land,
the colonists have for years past devoted their
attention chiefly to cultivating sheep, so that
wool has become one of their staple exports.
Much of the prosperity of those colonies must
depend on the market they find for their wool,
and they will suffer even more than the English
farmers from the decline of the woollen maim-
facture. If they should find, as they will to
some extent, a market on the Continent for their
wool, they must of necessity take the manufac-
tured goods of the Continent in exchange. Those
" vast and expanding markets," therefore, which
are to be extended at the cost of our people, by
the Government promoting a systematic scheme
of emigration, while it persists in destroying our
manuthetures by accursed Corn-laws, will be, as
the United States, another ancient colony of
ours is fast becoming, vast markets for the manu-
facturing industry of the Continent, and we shall
plant our colonies in vain. Both the colonies
and the mother country, both the manufacturers
and the farmers, will be deeply and permanently
injured by that decay of our woollen manufac-
tures which is now unhappily in progress.

We have received the Paris papers of Sunday,
together with Madrid journals of the 9th instant.
All the important paragraphs contained in them
are given in our Foreign Summary.
The following is the article for which the re-
sponsible Editor and Printer of the Charivari—
ent, the former to two years' impri-
sthonemGPnreavtis gt punch"—have been condemned by
the earnnnida fine of 1601., and the latter to six
months' imprisonment and a fine of 801.:

—•-
" The cross of the Legion of Honour has just been given
to M. Hebert ; there is a talk of granting the same to
the executioner. This is the recompense for his efforts
in procuring the condemnation of Dupoty—an easy
bt ryi ut Ibnapt mixturehe jury would not have been convinced
of gall, bile, absurdity, and h . T
extra-
vagance, M. Hebert's requisitory. But the Court of
Peers being an exceptional tribunal, could not be con-
vinced by eloquence and logic, both exceptional. So that
M. Hebert's was an easy triumph, and the recompense
not very brilliant. A Cross of the Legion of Honour is the
pay for consigning to the dungeons of Doullens a writer
of the independent press of Paris, as a moral conspirator.
A cross of honour for each head crushed by the hydra
of the press—such is the Ministerial offer. Who wants
a cross ? The Procureur-General must have expected
something 'better. A mere star and cross is not pay
enough for having invented a new crime, which brings
down condemnation, and requires no proof of moral crime.
Richelieu paid Laubardement better ; he may have des-
pised him, but he enriched him. Why not enrich
M. Hebert ? I)eutz got 400,000 f. for betraying- the
Duchess of Berry ? Why, then, give so little as a riband to
the lawyer that has caught Dupoty ? An orator like
Hebert is not to be had every day, who perorates
so freely his criminal rhetoric, and who leads his audi-
tors through a series of clap-traps and fear-traps, lulling
them with sounds of the scaffold, and with flowers of
eloquence all savouring of blood. This is not to be bought
by a riband, but with gold. He would have preferred a
nteful grain of millet. We saw yesterday a veteran of
our armies, who tore off his cross, and clashed it on the
ground with disdain, exclaiming, " Never will I wear it
again ; I might be mistaken for the Procureur-General
Hebert.' "

The Department of Finance has just published the
statements of the amount of the receipts of the indirect
taxes in 1641, compared with that of 1839 and 1840.
The following is the general summary :
The first nine months of 1840 show an increase of
43,525,000 f. above the same period of 1839. The last
quarter shows an increase of 14,759,000 f. above the last
quarter of 1839 ; total increase 50,284,000 f. The re-
ceipts in 1840 having exceeded that of 1839, the increase
in 1841 above 1840 is 33,038,000 f.

THE DUKE OF CLEVELAND.
The following is a copy of the bulletin issued this day
at noon :
"His Grace the Duke of Cleveland is in much the
same state as yesterday, having passed an indifferent
night.--" St. James's-square, Jan. 18, 1842,"

FOLLIES ON ,t MACHINERY."
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In a late conference with some of the
working classes in one of the manufacturing
towns, it was ascertained from them that the
following was among their articles of faith ; sb
far at least as a derisive hum on its being sub-
mitted as apocryphal, may be considered as
evidence.
" That if a stop were put to the use of stamps
or machinery in printing cottons, the same quan-
tity would be manufactured as at present, and
the working classes employed to paint them all
by hand."
When a prime minister makes his stand on the
question of Machinery, the operatives must not
be questioned too narrowly on the use they have
made of their opportunities of knowledge. But
the inference from the wanderings of both
will
be, that this will make a fine subject on which
to overturn the general Alliance of the " Ex-
tinguishers" whether rich or poor within our land,
Yours very sincerely,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON.
Blackeath, Jan. 18, 1842.

MEMORIAL FROM THE WOMEN OF TUE
KINGDOM TO THE QUEEN,—The canvass for signatures
is nearly completed in Manchester ; the total number
will exceed seventy thousand. Throughout the country
ladies are forming committees and proceeding with such
spirit that we have every reason to expect that, when
ready for presentation, the memorial will contain the
signatures of all who feel that the Corn-laws are unjust,
and who desire to accomplish their total and immediate
repeal. Information upon the subject is rapidly gaining
ground ; objections and proposals for delay and change
are felt to be frivolous, and the whole country is fast com-
ing to the conviction that the Corn-laws must be abolished.
—Manchester Times.