The Sun. — 1845-10-30 (London, England)

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1845.  A melancholy exemplification of the unequal degree of sympathy manifested by the law in its practical administration for the rich as compared with the poor, occurs in a para graph we have transcribed from the Somerset County Gazette. It relates to one of the most deplorable catastrophes into which madness or despair can precipitate a reaBoning being. It regards the case of a wounded, impetuous spirit, stung by the intolerable pressure of a present distress, presumptuously withdrawing from its appointed sphere of existence and of duty,—and " rushing"—as it is somewhat vaguely but impressively described—" into the presence of its CREATOR,"—unbidden, unanealed!" GOD forbid I that we should be misunderstood—in our observations on this melancholy event—to speak irreverently of that Divine prohibition which has its echo in the conscientious and abhorrent convictions of every human breast. We should be reluctant, to the last degree, to be suspected of regarding with levity or irreverence that stern but wise and solemn reprobation with which human institutions resent this insult on the Supreme Majesty of the Universe. But it is with no such feelings—it is in the absence of any such Purpose—that we find ourselves compelled to denounce the Coroner's verdict returned on the inquest attending the circumstances which led to the death of JAMES LOVELL, of Norton Kewstoke, Somersetshire, who committed suicide on Saturday last by hanging himself. This is but one exemplar of a very numerous class of cases in which we are too often shocked—not by the servile and obsequious promptitude of inquest juries,in devising every possible construction of circumstances proved in evidence— every possible assumption that can be formed in the absence of proof, and every possible straining of the existing law, rendering self-murder liable to certain penal visitations of ex post facto ignominy—(for these things have almost ceased to startle by their daily occurrence)—but, by the careless, unhesitating, and reckless consistency with which they return verdicts of felo-de•se against those children of misery and wretchedness whose crime against the decree of GOD himself, is aggravated in the eyes of these duodecimal councils by the more inexpiable guilt of poverty ! Is there a country in the world where poverty is more persecuted in life—more hunted down after death, even—than this, with all its boasted institutions, its moral bearing, its munificent charities. We seriously fear that there is not. A Pharisaical, conventional propriety appears to be at once more diffusively established, and more highly appreciated, thanp plain,t unobtrusive, meek, and sustained Christian en of benevolence to, and pity for, our peees It was but to the excess of this pseudospecies. co irt a. m correctness ;" this meretricious shadow of a tmhoisraliwtyhite.as bewauthifeud, decorum-hiding, beautiful dbyoveryrdzr not of ita simplicity; atoningfor, the " multitude of sins," that the miscreant TAWELL, in the beginning of the present year, sacrificed the substantial merits of his private charities and good works, and all the worldly advantages of a competent fortune and a " respectable position in society." How many hundreds of thousands yet remain among us who, without so far losing their calculating habits of self-possession as to be hurried into crimes of so deep and revolting a dye as those of TAWELL, do yet maintain this " respectable position" in the great world by sacrifies of principle, of integrity, of candour, of affections; by violations, one day to be atoned for in this world, or beyond it, of the most sacred ties of kindred, honour, and good faith ; and the studied contravention of the great rule of human conduct, "to do to others as we would be dealt by ourselves" —every slay in the year, and almost every hour in the day ? If they be not great convicted criminal offenders, like the heartless poisoner, they are not less heartless as moral delinquents of another kindi—the plausible but worthless Pecksniffs of society. Were not this the case, it is certain that so pernicious an example would not affect, as we are persuaded it does, the judgment of jurors in that remarkable manner which the verdicts of coroners' inquests exhibit. If an honourable or noble speculator on a race-course, or a wealthy and influential dealer in the money !market, after being defeated in the projects which he has raised on some operation of extraordinary magnitude in his peculiar sphere, communes with his friends, or settles under his own handwriting his worldly affairs, all this evidence of mental collectedness and deliberation is at once passed over as nugatory, or accepted as establishing the case for a certain inevitable verdict—that the " unfortunate nobleman," or " lamented gentleman," committed suicide