Star.
London, England, 1830-05-17 00:00:00

The most marked and the most inconsistent feature of'
the Bishop's lettcr, is a charge against the Press, of
" pandering !" to the irreligious portion of the poor, by
constantly naming► the Sabbath-breaking customs of the
rich, as an example !' This is " too bad," as Lord
Liverpool said. Must we then pander to the vices of the
rich by conniving at them ; and further connive at the
inconsistency and subserviency of the higher orders of
the Clergy, who enforce the Law against the poor; and
leave the rich to do as they please ; enjoining that their
sins be not even named ! And this would be virtue, and
religion, and justice, in the Press !! ! Really his Lord-
ship must excuse us, but we have never yet met with any
public writer who ventured so far into the slough of ab-
surdity. We throw back the term pander on the source
from whence it came, though it shoUld happen to light
in the very Vatican of Protestantism; and if his Lord-
ship, by perusing his Dictionary, should discover that it
Las been somewhat misapplied as to the Press—he may
possibly learn that it has an application nearer home,
amid the self-righteous in palaces : hard names, as well
as curses, resemble chickens, which " come home to
roost."

The Bishop, with some strange confusion in his clas-
sics, calls the predilections of the ignorant, and low,
vulgar classes of this country, to know something about
their betters, an " Athenian curiosity ;" and he says by
means of that " Panderer"—The Press—

" It is impossible that any transactions of those who
occupy the 'vantage ground of life should be concealed
from those beneath them. Their habits of living, their
domestic arrangements, their conversation, the petty de-
tails of their private life, find their way, generally indeed
distorted and misrepresented, into the newspapers: and
while many of their pious and charitable deeds pass un-
noticed, no violation of decency or propriety can escape
publicity. Every Sunday Dinner Party, or Concert, is
made known, on the following day, to every corner of
the metropolis, and scandalizes or encourages thousands."
What a strange perversion of facts is here ! The public
and the newspapers command only a view of the exterior
circumstances of High Life; or such as the parties are
desirous of seeing recorded—except only the few vices
and offences, the knowledge of which accidentally
transpires by accident, or through the Courts.—
Every thing else is dressed up to the public eye : and can
only be recorded from prima facie views. If the truth
must be known, the Bon Ton is seen only in a false
splendour ; and is commonly eulogized for virtues not
its own. Sunday Dinners ; Sabbath Concerts ; Lord's
Day Converzaziones ; Religious Routes, and Godly
(as, &c. are all, more or less, Morning Post adver-
tisements the day before ; they are communications
doming from the parties themselves, through whom only
they can be known. All the dark shades of the picture
are out of sight ; vice, profligacy, intrigue, gambling,
corrupt influence, drunkenness, blasphemous conversa-
tion, and all the indecencies of stimulated and uncon-
trouled passions, are affairs behind the curtain ; and are
no more accessible to the agents of the Press, than is the
worming and wriggling subserviency of the Clergy, at
the foot of political power, in their ascent up the ladder
of patronage. The openness of the Press is all on the
side of the charity and benevolence of wealth and rank ;
for these generally are " not done in a corner ;" and if
they were, the canning and clubbing philanthropists
(lovers-of-mans' praise) of our times would take care to
fully avail themselves of the Liberty of the Press, in
bringing such matters before the public eye.
When the higher classes seek to enforce the observ-
ance of the Sabbath, generally, and impartially, we will
give them all the aid in our power, con amore : but
when they leave wickedness and blasphemy in high
places, to wallow tincontrouled in the indulgence of the
Bonzes and the passions ; and carry the crusade of over-
righteousness into the haunts of the poor, where people
must do as they can, we will never cease to expose the
hollowness and hypocrisy of such a paltry puritanism.
Tradespeople are called upon to pay their workpeople on
a Friday, because the poor man should not be driven on
the chance of being too late for his Saturday marketing.;
and thus thrown on the unpardonable sin of buying " his
greens on a Sunday morning." The tradesman must pay
his workpeople when it is most convenient to himself : in
the same way as the rich pay their tradesman. How many
thousands of the middle classes in London, as they would
be called, have to receive for their goods, before they can