The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-17 00:00:00

*trontlX tttott

SUN OFFICE Three o'Cloch.

Two specimens of summary conviction by Mr.
GREENWOOD, the Magistrate of Clerkenwell,
have appropriately called forth the censure of
our Contemporaries. A boy was selling pictures
in the street to gain a few pence, he was pounced
on by the police, and for this innocent and even
virtuous action, made an offence by the law, he
was sentenced by Mr. GREENWOOD to be i►n-
prisoned fourteen days. The prisoner, who is
described as an innocent, intelligent-looking
child, about eleven years of age, begged of his
Worship not to punish him, as he sold the prints
"for the support of a widowed mother." But the
Magistrate was inexorable, the law must be car-
ried into execution. Selling prints was, in his
eyes, only an excuse for begging ; and to prison
for fourteen days, to herd with felons, was the
widow's son sent for endeavouring to procure
food for his mother.

The other case was a poor lad, about fourteen
years old, with scarcely as many garments about
him as covered his nakedness, whom a policeman
saw begging. The Magistrate satisfied himself
in this case, as in the other case, of the boy's
iniquity by his own imagination. He supposed
that the lad had put on these garments for the
purpose of exciting compassion. In vain the
youth supplicated that a policeman might visit
his abode to see how he lived; the Magistrate,
fully convinced of his own integrity and his own
immaculate love of justice, was again inexorable,
and the boy was sent fbr twenty-one days to the
House of Correction, to become most likely a
member of the copartnery of thieves.
We trace, in Mr. GREENWOOD'S decision, the
influence of a class of official publications, the
effects of which seem at present to be somewhat
mischievous. Commissioners have been em-
ployed to inquire very minutely into the habits
of vagrants; and though they have not, as far as
we know, discovered any means whatever by
which vagrancy can be prevented, they have
dressed up so many stories of the pranks of
vagrants, many of them resting on no better
fbundation than the boasting of the vagrants
themselves, whose word in other matters would
be considered wholly worthless, that the hearts
of the community have been hardened against
every vagrant. He is always considered an im-
pudent impostor. A vagrant is treated by the
Legislature, the Magistrates, and the public
generally, as a being without any rights, who
umy be taken up at the pleasure of a policeman,
and incarcerated at the pleasure of a Magistrate.
In the olden times when a vagrant was a pil-
ferer, both by force and fraud, and in other
times when the community was generally pros-
perous, comparatively little evil resulted from
the over-much righteousness and hard-hearted-
ness of the Legislature, the Magistrates, and the
public. But now when distress has reduced a
great multitude of respectable working men and
artisans to vagrancy, as was proved at the Anti-
Corn-law meeting at Lincoln—these general
dispositions cause, as in these two cases, a great
deal of mischief. Unmerited punishment is in-
flicted on persons more deserving of compassion
than anger. We make laws to deprive men of
food, and then we punish them with imprison-
ment for not having wherewithal to eat, and
being hungry. We will not allow them to
labour honestly, and then, under a notion be-
gotten by elaborate Reports, we imprison every
seeker after food and work as a vagrant. In
this matter neither the public, the Magistrates,
nor the Legislature is free from blame, and
neither are those Commissioners who have
dressed up, perhaps for the sake of making an
impression, the Reports on vagrancy.
From such scenes as those at Clerkenwell,
from the remarks of the Magistrates, from' the
terrible tales we read every day of people dying
for want of assistance, from the many cruel
crimes we read of in the papers, and from the vast
number of punishments inflicted by the Magis-
trates for actions equally as harmless or meri-
torious as the two punished by Mr. GREENWOOD,
we begin to think that our countrymen and
women are becoming a very hard-hearted, cruel
set of people. Want and hunger, and the fear
of hunger, seem to press on all classes, and
threaten to convert them into ferocious savages.
We trespass on one another; and were we to
decline as fast in the next six years as we have
in the last six, the morals and condition of the
Chinese would be exemplary in comparison to
the morals and condition of the English.
The Morning Chronicle very properly styles
the sending of these two youths to prison as
" manufacturing criminals." Unfbrtunately for
society, nearly all the Magistrates throughout the
country are employed, like Mr. GREENWOOD,
in " manufacturing criminals." They manu-
fhcture some twenty or thirty thousand
a year, and are much honoured for their labour.
Our Contemporary suggests that there should
be a supervisor of the Magistrates; but who is to
be supervisor of the supervisor? Who shall
guarantee the public that the Secretary of State
will not neglect his duty or prostitute his func-
tions as well as a Justice ? Has the Minister of
Justice in France or Prussia escaped without
reproach ? We believe not ; and, considering
the hard-heartedness from which the evil flows,
we hold our Contemporary's suggestion to be no
adequate cure for it. We have said befbre, and
we say again, our whole system of criminal juris-
prudence requires to be investigated by philo-
sophers. Its principles must be examined and
proved, instead of ever building and building on an
insecure or rotten foundation. To inflict pe-
nalties, seems for the public, which has over-
whelming power, the easiest thing in life; to
draw good out of the infliction, one of the hardest
tasks—judging from the want of snccess—that
men every undertook.

It gives us infinite pleasure to see that the
Income-tax is working just as we anticipated it
would work—just as such a tax ought to work—
that is to say, in so offensive, vexatious, and
tyrannical a manner, as to inspire us with san-
guine hopes that Sir ROBERT PEEL must, at no
distant period; consent to its total repeal. At a
numerous and highly respectable meeting of
the merchants, tradesmen, and inhabitants
generally, of the Ward of Tower, which
was held yesterday, the greatest possible dissa-
tisfaction was expressed at the surcharges in the
returns of this detestable impost; and a gentle-
man named MAITLAND observed that "having
been surcharged in all his returns, he could not
refrain from coming forward and asking the
meeting to go along with him in denouncing the
whole system of surcharging which had been
practised. He considered the time and trouble
expended in seeking relief by appeal more
intolerable than the pecuniary loss itself."
Meetings of a similar character to this, and at
which similar language is held, are, we per-
ceive, getting up, not only in the metropolis, but
also in many of the more influential provincial
towns ; and at all these meetings, the bitterest
complaints are uniformly made, of the preposte-
rous and impudent nature of the surcharges. Is not
the Income-tax sufficient of itself' to supply the
wants of Government, but its amount must be
increased by every artifice to which ingenuity,
unembarrassed by principle, can have recourse ?
This invariable system of surcharging is not the
result of mere accident. It is scarcely possible
that there can be a mistake in the case. A hint,
we suspect, has been thrown out from head-
quarters. Money is wanted—friends and sup-
porters are clamorous so money must be
raised, and the machinery of the Income-tax
furnishes—or, as it :is hoped, will furnish—the
necessary amount. The last election must have
cost an immense sum; and who shall assure us
that the scandalous system of extortion now so
generally attempted, under the plea of collecting
the Income-tax, has not its origin in the

anxiety of Government to satisfy the claims of
its unscrupulous agents at that election, which,
to Toryism, was a matter of life or death ?

The mystery in which the origin of the instil.-
rection at Barcelona was at first involved is now
gradually disappearing. The suspicion„ and med-
dling part taken in the of tir by the French Con-
sul, the lying telegraphic dispatches transmitted
to Paris, and the lamentations of the Govern-
ment journals on the failure of the conspiracy,
showed that others besides the Christinos
and Republicans were mixed up in this atrocious
scheme. The Madrid Gazette of the Bth leaves
no doubt on the subject. It positively states
that it was got up in Paris, and implicates in
the plot the French Consul at Barcelona. The
Barcelona Constitucional confirms the statement,
and openly accuses a "certain Consul" with hav-
ing been instrumental in creating the revolt.
" The time is not yet come," says that journal on
the Bth instant, " for expressing an opinion on
recent events. At a later period we will expose
the foreign hand which, under a semblance of
philanthropy, spreads gold to corrupt the vile,
to bribe traitors, and to direct the arms of mis-
guided men against their country. Neither will
we hesitate to criticise certain acts of the Go-
vernment, which are of a nature to produce a
very different effect from that which was expected
from them. At present it is only permitted to
us to mingle our tears with the blood of the vic-
tims, and to implore the Government not
to give way to an unworthy feeling of ven-
geance, and not to shed a drop of innocent
blood." The affair, therefore, cannot rest as
it is. A remonstrance will be made by the
Spanish Government, and the Consul must either
make good his innocence, or leave the country in
disgrace. If the fact is established beyond the
controversy of even the Ministerial journals,
LOUIS PHILIPPE will probably disown the acts
of his representative, dismiss him for a time from
office, and endeavour by all possible means to
hush up this revolt, like the other in which the
eX-QUEEN-REGENT'S party so signally failed.
He may, however, have other designs in view,
for we believe he would have recourse to any ex-
tremity rather than lose the opportunity of mar-
rying one of his sons, or at least one of the BoUR•
BON line to the young QUEEN. The Consul,
therefore, may provoke a collision between him-
self and ESPARTERO'S Government, and under
pretence of avenging some imaginary insult,
Lours PHILIPPE may make war on Spain.
In such a case with which party would Europe
sympathise ? With the SOVEREIGN who che-
rishes at his Court a worthless woman, guilty of
two rebellions against a neighbouring State with
which he is at peace, or with a REGENT chosen
by the nation, who put down civil war, and has
since been actively engaged in healing the
divisions which so long afflicted that unhappy.
country ? It is needless to answer the ques-
tion. The most despotic Monarch in Europe
would not abet such a deed, and it would be de-
nounced with tgeneral execration. ESPARTERO
on the former occasion acted with great prudence,
and gave the French Government no pretence
for any act of aggression. We trust he will pre-
serve that character to the last, and if affairs
come to extremities, throw the responsibility on
the proper head. The Spanish nation appears
unanimous on the question, and any course of
policy like that anticipated would rouse them to
madness. At present not one district or town in
Spain sympathises with the conspirators. The
Madrid Gazette of the Bth publishes dispatches
from the political chiefs of Toledo, Jaen, Pam-
peluna, Ciudad Real, Seville, Huelva, Guadala-
jara, Soria, St. Sebastian, Burgos, Logrono, Le-
rida, Huesca, Almeria, Temel, Bilbao, Malaga,
and Saragossa, announcing that the utmost tran-
quillity prevailed in the districts under their care.
The capital, too, is quite tranquil, and awaits
with patience the development of this extraor-
dinary outbreak. There is no later intelligence
from Barcelona, but the Minister at War pub-
lishes the annexed dispatch from General VAN
H A LEN

In consequence of the events which I have already
described, from eight in the morning of to-day (the
4th), the generality of the population, to stop the ef-
fects of the cannonade, decided on disarming the
groups which the revolutionary Junta had armed.
A little after, Commandant Garcia, who headed those
of Barcelona, faithful to the Government, announced
that we could enter the citadel, as white flags were
displayed from the Atarazanas and other points. I
gave orders to the regiment of Zainora, to the Foot
Artillery and Sappers, to occupy these forts. I or-
dered General Zurbano at the same time to enter the
citadel if there were no great obstacles. The Com-
mittee of Proprietors then coming to assure me that
the population were prepared to receive the troops
pacifically, I marched from Sarria to occupy the place,
which was accomplished at three in the afternoon.
At half-past fivP the ordonnance and address enclosed
were issued. The Commandant of Barcelona gave up
200 of the most turbulent who were arrested, and who
will suffer condign punishment. The Treasurer of the
Provincial Department tells me, that besides 47,000
crowns taken by the revolutionary Junta, 37,000
more were stolen by the last Junta, &c.

The intelligence from Lisbon is to the 12th
instant, and will be found under that head. If
the statements respecting the duties charged on
English manufactures and produce be correct,
and Portugal refuses to make material re-
ductions, England certainly has no great reason
for altering the wine duties. It would appear that
most articles are charged 50 per cent. ad valorem
duty, and some so high as 130 per cent. Even the
Dutch are more favoured than the English. This
is a strange return for good services so often ren-
dered to a country that, but for foreign aid,
would long ago have been swallowed up by her
more powerful neighbour.

The Paris papers contain no news. An or-
donnance has just been issued relative to the
importation of books into France. In place of
booksellers' packages being sent to the Prefec-
ture nearest theliplace ofilanding, to be verified,
they are for the future to be examined by agents
specially appointed at the sea-ports through
which such articles are allowed to pass. All
pirated editions are to be seized, and, when a
doubt exists, the matter is to be referred to the
Minister of the Interior, from whose department
an answer is to be given within forty days.
French works, the property of persons in foreign
countries, or being a foreign edition of works
which have become public property, may be im-
ported, provided that proofs of their origin be sa-
tisfactorily given. The re-importation of French
works is to be permitted only on a special appli-
cation of the publisher to the Minister of the Inte-
rior. These conditions are applicable to lithogra-
phic prints and engravings. Books taxed at less
than 150 francs for 100 kilogrammes are to be
packed separately according to the several
works, so that the different parcels in one large
package may be clearly perceived. Should they
be mixed indiscriminately, the highest duty is
to be levied on the whole. Books intended for
transit are to be similarly arranged. All books
sent to France must be either half-bound or
stitched. The following places are given as those
through which books may be admitted into
France; those marked with an asterisk are open
to the admission of French books :—Dunkirk,
*Lille, *Valenciennes, Forbad), Sierck, Wissen-
bourg, *Strasbourg, St. Louis, Verrieres de Joux,
*Les Rousses, Bellegarde, *Pont de Beauvoisin,
Chapareillan, *Marseilles, Perpignan, Behobia,
*Bayonne, Bordeaux, Nantes, *Le Havre, Rouen,
Boulogne, Calais, Ajaccio, *Bastia.
According to the National the following is
the amount of foreign merchandise dispatched
through France in transitu during the year 1841,
Theo
f
and the countries to which it belonged.
total was 203,000,000 f., of which /0,00 0
0,0 .
were'fbrwarded by Switzerland; by Great Britain,
30, 00.0,000 f.; the German Union, 29,000,000 f. ;
Sardinia, 22,000,000 f.; and the United States,
16,000,000.
A letter dated Toulon, the 9th inst., published
in the National, states that the ships ordered to
be laid up in ordinary have still on board three-
fourths of their crews, and all their artillery.
The Paris journals still continue to debate
with acrimony on the result of the Barcelona
insurrection. It is some relief to find even one
of them taking a rational view of the affair, and
we therefore copy with pleasure the following
article from the Constitutionnel

We have for these two years past declared our-

selves partisans of a policy of a good understanding
and conciliation between the French Government and
the existing Government of Spain. This is an addi-
tional motive for us to deplore and censure the violence
of which Barcelona has been the object, the bombard-
ment of that manufacturing city, and the cruelties
which are said to have been committed after its sur-
render. We are of opinion, however, that the latter
have probably been exaggerated in the accounts that
have appeared, and we think also that Europe would
do well to wait for the judgment of Spain herself on
these events. In the meantime we cannot, even on the
occasion of this sad event, make use of the same language
as those journals which for two 'years have declared
a personal war against Espartero, or which had some
other motive of political sympathy with the rebels. Spain
has for eight years presented us with a sad spectacle, and
all parties have to reproach themselves with having
shed blood with barbarity. We will excuse in none
of them the fury and vengeance and cruelty which are
distinguishing traits in the Spanish character, so
heroic in other respects. But let us not be expected •
to join in the furious cries which are now set up
against Espartero by those who would have found ex-
cuses for the insurgents who murdered 800 soldiers, if
they had succeeded in proclaiming another Govern-
ment, or another Regency in Spain. We blame with
energy the bombardment of Barcelona, but we do not
go the length of wishing for Spain a new revolution,
anarchy, or a republic. What do those persons de-
sire, who connected as much as the could the name
of France with the revolt of Barcelona? Do they
wish to make a conquest of Catalonia, and transform
it into a French department ? Suppose that Catalonia
had been all on fire, and that insurrection had
spread into a civil war, would they have found any"
thing but words to support the insurgents' cause
Yet it is necessary to know clearly what is desired..
There has a good deal been said on the subject of
substituting in Spain French influence for that of
England. That, no doubt, is very fine. But whil
means are to be employed for the purpose ?
an armed invasion ? Certainly not, no one wou.
dare it. Propagandism ? This is practised, thougli
not avowedly. If all intervention, whether
or hostile, be declined ; if the conspiracies which are
plotted and the insurrections which are excited are
blushed at, we have the right to come to this conc.l.u-
-sion :—Either take oft' the mask and affirm hold, IY;
that you desire to plunge Spain into corapteert.
selfus thatinto
ill-humourh arms of i
is not
friends friendly
anarchy, in order that she may afterwards throw h.
like France with respect to Spain. Let not them s
the
ing of our words be exaggerated. We know that_.
occasion of the bombardment of Barcelona would:?.
badly chosen to recommend our Government to sa.l3b..
some new and benevolent measure towards With
i;ngoradeclare,
but we regard as fatal the policy of those who, Gvernmennt
fort
the
last two years, have not ceased declaiming agaiaantei.
Spanish Government, who eagerly catch a false Isibie
ligence, in order to separate as widely, aspo our
France from Spain, and who seek to identify
n ni:
a
cause with that of all the enemies of the Regent a _
the Constitution. The bombardment of Barcelott
therefore, afflicts us much more than those who 111_0
so much noise about it. We condemn it in the saw_
of humanity, and we see, besides that it is used as
argument argument to induce, if possible, 'France to come
complete rupture with Spain.
BOURSE—PARIS. THURSDAY, DECEMUSS 15°
First Highest -..osfest
Price. Pried Price. jl9 4
French Five per Cents. 119 60... 191 60... 119 45...
Four per Cents. 101 50... 101 50... 101 50... '`,i; 06
Threes, ex div. 79 20... 79 20... 79 95'. $342 ba
Bank of France 3345 _3345 ...3342
Laffitte Bank I,ooof 1053 75 —1055 ...1053
5,000 f 5080 ...5080 —.5080 ..°876
Belgian Bank
50... 805 *" 103*
Belgian Fives •1035 103 k 31 104 i
1840._ 1041 ... 104 i ... 1
04# 1231
231
Spanish Active. ... 23i ••• F,l* 32
Portuguese Fives 32i ... 32i •... 106 ou
Neapolitan
Roman lo4k ... 104 k
104 i
RAILWAY SHARES.
St. Germain . ' 852 50... 855 ... 852 """ pn2
Versailles, L.B •.. 125 ... 135 125 272 --
AO
R.B 270 ... 272 50... 270 667 60
Rouen
675 "' 632 50
Orleans. 630 ... 633 75... 630.. 205
Strasburg to Bale 203 75... 205 ..• 202 51).

THOUGHTS ON THE PRE
FINE WEATHER•

" As an illustration of the remarkable
the weather during the past week, it flk,' werta
tioned that on Tuesday last several butterflies f this
observed sporting in the sunshine."—lrerald °
Morning.

Butterflies in flaunting pride,
Showing off at Christmas-tide!
Sun with June's effulgence glowing,
Winds with August's mildness blowing •
Birds exulting, as in season,
Thinking, doubtless, and with reason'
That December's iron sway
Has yielded to the smiles of AftlY
Never yet was seen a change
So unparalleled and strange !
Baffling to their great surprise,
Moore's and Murphy's proPhecies'
And proving that the year is thrown
Topsy-turvy, upside down !
Ten to one ! who takes the bet !
In a week or so we getJ
Summer's daintiest fruit-pies,
Peas, and beans, and strawberries,
Parsnips, born of April's shower,
Lamb, mint-sauce, and cauliflower !

After such rare change, I trove,
Nothing need surprise us now;
We may soon expect to trace
Smiles on Whiggery's sullen face;
Tories shouting out with glee,
" Down with Corn-Monopoly 1"
Dan O'Connell and Dick Sheil
Voting side-by-side with Peel;
High Church Bishops in a row
Kissing Antichrist's great toe ;
Hume, inspired by novel hopes,
Sporting choice, poetic tropes;
Sibthorpe, gone his past alarms,
Clasping Russell in his arms;
Feargus and his Chartist clan
Turning Peelites to a man'
Borthwick speaking, two months hence,
Almost like a man of sense; Bull
And (queerest change of 'all) John
Grown so incorrigibly dull
As actually—oh, thought distressing
To deem the Income-tax a blessing

bee°

_.-----2---------:----
We understand that communications w"„.d tne
exchanged between the Bishop of Londonlol pity
Attorney-General on the subject of the 1111100-
which has hitherto been permitted to the lona
ushers of blasphemous tracts and Placni' the
that measures are about to be adoptlie iguiltf
Government for the punishment of
.bterforence
parties. A very few days before the
in
entlerosn
of Mr. Knight Bruce, a y oung if
__,.street
of the name of Wileis ad applied at t" t the
and other police-offices for warrants , e_nguiuby. Sr.
miscreant whose windows were broil(' ' 00)00
Bruce, without success ; those gentlenlent,,, de-
y e 8 sit
one of the placards was produced before
dining to i n terfere.—Staudard.--DO° ar f. The
tlemen to whom our Contemporar
only parties to which the leader allude'
present Ono
offices and Bow-street, never till the
reckoned gentlemen.] ill
nfl • residing ~
JEDBURGII.--GEOLOGY.--.A. poi— old
he top of An
this place lately picked from t struck hint
dyke a piece of sandstone, which .ro ressionoi
being marked with some singular '
_1
severP $ o
On submitting it to the inspection of
_li. tbe
our local geologists, they were convinced ;tool
police-
impressions were organisms of an 111,30 villa,
type ; but they were unable to definei.bsequeni
genus of animals they belonged. Suhoweveri
light has been thrown upon the stechnent are the
and it appears that the impressions in question ito a
scales of the Holoptychius, a fish which 1181° e, 4Oa
fora~ the upper formation of the old red sandstonot
Dope
which, in point, of grotesquesness of
peculiarity of construction, will yield t°
~, has
which the wonder-revealing science ofgeOlteilei
yet brought to light. The specimen of the d to
which has been discovered here, is suPP(te.cii it
have come out of Tudhope quarry, near 1011 alit
was found. The quarry has not been Wrebeeu
for several years ; but now that this discovery 110..6 of
made, there is no saying to what extent the ren3',3 by
primeval days may have been brought to the ourt°,' will
the inobservant quarryman. As it is, a new interes'
spa
be imparted to the sandstones of this district,
evi
we have no doubt that geologists will find filfir
field for further discovery. Sles of a stTeen
character to those above mentioned have
_,,vtor,
found by an intelligent gentleman of Rule ir"revi
near the foot of IVynbrugh Hill. There are 'the
instances in which an entire specimen of _ost
Holoptychius has been found anywhere. The
~”;‘lO
perfect is that discovered by the Rev. James 'd
of St. Madoes, in the sandstones of Clasbbennie,
iti..il.
which has created a great deal of discussion in itsaN
—Kelso Chronicle. I,,tter•
QUICK POST TO CHI/CA.—Extract from a
0 sir'
dated Macao, September 18, 1842 :—" I owe you s
acknowledgment cf your very kind and file° va
letter, of the 28th of May, which reached me a10°,4
the earliest of that month's overland--viz., on the ile
of August, which was only 60 days after their
in to
patch from London—the quickest post on rent." to
this part of the world, considering the whole, vi
, brought from Bombay to this in a sailing vessel.