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Leader (1850-1860), 15th February 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 145, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      men . who had struck work went to the building to get the wages due to them , and St . Clair , observing Mr . Fox , asked him to grant him an interview . Mr . Fox inquired his name , and on being told that it was St . Clair , he recollected the letter , and declined to hear anything he had to say , upon which St . Clair said , "I ' ll make you repent this . Mr . Fox then gave him into custody , and on his person was found a copy of a letter , which he admitted was written and sent by him to Mr . Fox . The magistrate before whom-he was taken convicted him of having endeavoured by threats and intimidation to make Mr . Fox alter his mode of conducting his business , which the act made a misdemeanour , and sentenced him to two months' imprisonment , the maximum punishment being three months . Against that conviction St . Clair appealed .

      Mr . Fox and Mr . Cochrane were the principal witnesses . They proved the main facts of the case . Mr . Parry , who appeared for the appellant , asked if it was not owing to the worthless and . unsafe mode in which the glazing had been done , that so many thousands of panes had been blown off the roof . Mr . Fox denied that so large a number had been blown off . Out of 300 , 000 panes of glass not more than 250 had been blown off . He denied also that they had reduced wages . The men had struck under that idea ; but the truth was that they earned more under the new arrangement than they had done under the old , and when they found out that they were very glad to return . Their average earnings after the alteration were £ 2 5 s . per week . Mr . Parry addressed the bench , urging that the letter was not of so threatening a oharacter as to warrant the appellant ' s being subjected to the punishment awarded . Mr . Sergeant Adams held that it was , and the magistrates having concurred , the conviction was confirmed , and St . Clair was committed to prison .

      Untitled Article

      REPEAL OF THE WINDOW TAX . A public meeting of the inhabitants of Westminster was held at the Theatre Royal , Drury-lane , on Wednesday , at noon , with a view to take steps to impress upon Government the necessity for the total , immediate , and unconditional repeal of the window tax . Lord Duncan occupied the chair , and was supported b y Sir Benjamin Hall , Mr . W . Williams , Mr . Wakley , Sir De Lacy Evans , Mr . Lushington , and other members of Parliament . The various speakers strongly condemned the tax as iniquitous in its imposition , and most damaging to health in its operation . In addition to the usual resolutions it was unanimously resolved : —

      " That this meeting pledges itself to use every legitimate means to cause the removal of this obnoxious tax from the statute book , and earnestly appeals to all members of Parliament , in the event of the Government refusing its total , immediate , and unconditional repeal , to offer such constitutional resistance to the passing of the supplies as will show that the Ministers no longer possess the confidence of ihe people . " A resolution was also passed pledging the meeting to oppose " any attempt to reimpose the unpopular house tax . " Most of the metropolitan members who spoke declared their intention to vote for stopping the supplies if the window tax were not repealed .

      Mr . Ernest Jones , as a representative of the working classes and as a Chartist , in supporting the last resolution , assured the meeting that the working men and Chartists were anxious to support all pructicul measures of reform .

      Untitled Article

      THE GREAT REVENUE TRIAL . The Court of Exchequer has been occupied since yeBterday week with one of the most important revenue cases ever tried there . The defendants were the London Dock Company , against whom eleven informations were filed by the Attorney-General , to recover the amount of duties alleged to be due in respect of 8000 lb . of foreign cocoa , and 25 cwt . of foreign sugar . The Solicitor-General , Sir F . Thesiger , Mr . Watson , Mr . Rulluntiiie , and Mr . J . Wilde were counsel for the Crown ; Sir F . Kelly , Mr . Peacock , Mr . Mucaulay , and Mr . Groves uppeured for the dofunduHts . The case wua opened by the Solicitor-General , who said lie was prepared to prove that u systematic plan of abstracting goods under their charge hud been carried on by the London Dock

      Company , by which the merchants of London and the Crown had been grossly plundered . lie did not » ay that individual shareholders or directors were chargeablo with a direct knowledge und perpetration of open iraud , but a dishonest system was pursued , which held out strong inducements to the servants to commit depredations on behalf of the company , and the amount being conaidcrablo in the year , it helped to swell the dividends , and to make things pleasant . " Tho company had a most ingenious way of carrying on their frauds , by packing sound sugar in out-of-the-way places , under the pretence that it was hweepings . In ono case they appropriated 10 bags ot sugar out of a cargo of 1 ) 00 bags which wus snipped for Antwerp , and tho wholo of tho contents of tJicso 10 bags wero converted into sweepings by tho company s Bervunts . In oocoa tho amount of pluuder

      ¦ was rery large . Cocoa was an article which hardly admitted of sweepings at all . The whole of the sweepings of cocoa at the West India Docke in sixteen years amounted to only I 6 lb . At the London Docks , where the importation of cocoa is no greater , the sweepings in one year amounted to 80001 b . This showed that the sweepings were neither more nor less than the grossest depredations on the merchant and fraud on the revenue . By this system of plunder the company had actually obtained a profit equal to the whole of the wages they paid annually .

      A number of witnesses were called on the part of the Crown . Among others John Cockshot , a landing surveyor , stated that he had seized a large quantity of sugar of superior quality , which he was told was warehouse sweepings . He seized no less than £ 4000 of goods . In one day he seized about twenty tons of what they called " sweepings . " There was one place , well known among the men as " Davis ' s corner , " a very dark place , where good sugar , under the name of sweepings , was said to be converted into

      molasses , and sold at 15 s . per cwt . At another place , called " the inclined plane , " where surplus packages were transferred from the cargoes to which they belonged , in a very mysterious way , if the witnesses might be credited . Another witness said he had been ordered to cut open bags of Mauritius and Manilla sugar , and put the contents of them into casks . Most of the witnesses had formerly been in the service of the Dock Company , and were now employed by the Custom-house . One of them admitted that he had been round to the

      men in the employment of the Dock Company to induce them to make statements against their employers , but he denied that he had told them what to say . He himself remained three months in the service of the company after he began to give information at the Custom-house . George Goodwin , who had been in the service of the company as a clerk , produced a memorandum book , from which it appeared that the gross amount of the sweepings from 1842 to the present time did not amount to much more than £ 4000 a-year .

      Sir F . Kelly , m his speech on behalf of the Dock Company , said he was prepared to prove that the whole case on the part of the Crown was a gross and wilful fabrication . The London Dock Company had been established in 1795 , prior to which it had been proved that frauds to the amount of £ 172 , 000 per annum were committed on the revenue in the article of sugar alone , although we did not import one-third of what we do now . So excellent had been the arrangements of the company that property to the amount of £ 20 , 000 , 000 or £ 30 , 000 , 000 had passed through their hands without complaint from the Customs or the mercantile world . " The charges which , the Solicitor-General had made and insinuated

      he repelled with scorn and indignation . The imputations were false from their beginning to their ending ; and he threw them back upon those who had cast them upon the London Dock Company in so unscrupulous and disgraceful a manner . " The jury must bear in mind the class of witnesses called . According to those witnesses a regular system of felony had been carried on in the London Docks , which a few years ago would have been punishable with death . Then , nearly all the witnesses had been betraying the company—even supposing their statements wero true—while eating the bread of the Dock Company .

      The examination of the witnesses up to the present time , has not thrown any light into ' Davis ' s corner . " On Thursday , the Lord Chief Baron said he was afraid they would not be able to iiniali the case during the sittings .

      Untitled Article

      PROTESTANTISM AND POPERY . " John Archbishop of Tuara , " has addressed along epistle , through tho Freeman s Journal , to Lord John Russell , in which ho endeavours to show that tho persecution to which the Church is about to be subjected will have the effect of adding to the number of her followers . Alluding to the growth of Romanism in England , as attributable in a great measure to the Irish immigration there , he proceeds as follows : — " The very persecution which you menace—for disguise it an you will , it in rank persecution — will have the effect of spreading and consolidating the Catholic Church ugainst which itH rage in to bo directed . The brute force with which your Lordship is about to defend the falling ramparts of the Protestant Establishment will not fuil to awaken attention to the congenial instruments to which it ban been indebted for ita first emotion . The consequence of this historical inquiry will bo an increasing accession to the ranks of Catholics of those intellectual men wIiohc renearch . es , guided by humility and grace , will open to their view and their abhorrence those appalling Hceuc > n of lust and cruelty , and tmorilegc , and ( spoliation by which , in an evil hour , that establishment wan ushered into the world . With the increuuing numbers of such converts the tide of Catholic immigration to your kIioich will more than koep pace—an immigration sure to ho as steady as the cruelty that continues to propel it will lie untiring , until at length you hear the exiled Catholics of Ireland nddreNsing you from every quarter of England in tho laneuaKe of

      Tertullian—« W e have filled yotir cities , towns , fields , armies , senate ;' the ' conventicles' alone we leave to yourselves . " Dr . TTllathorne , the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham , has also addressed an epistle to Lord John Russell , in which he asks him whether he deems it wise to put the Roman Catholic hierarchy " in conscientious opposition to the law , " he says : — " . Will it aid the sanctions of the State and that , opinion which , as your lordship views it , is the best support of law and Government , to force us into a position where , standing , as we are bound to do , upon the law of God and our conscience , we are compelled to count for nothing enactments which we can only consider as assaults upon the cause of Heaven and of our souls—enactments which , in fact , come from no divine fountain of justice , but are the offspring of party contests and sectarian dislikes . "

      A deputation , consisting of Rear-Admiral vernon Harcourt , Mr . J . B . Ryder , chairman of the board of guardians of St . Luke ' s , Chelsea , and Mr . Thomas A . Young , waited , by appointment , upon the Archbishop of Canterbury , at Lambeth Palace , on Tuesday , to present an address , adopted at a meeting o £ the Protestant laity of St . Luke ' s , Chelsea , in which they called upon him to exert all his influence to suppress the preaching of corrupt Romish doctrines , and the use of superstitious practices in the church . In reply he said : — "He hoped he should not be deemed undeserving of their kind opinion , if he were not enabled—owing to the difficulties by which the question was surrounded—to fully carry out their desires . Probably the deputation

      was not aware of the great difficulty it was for those in power to settle the matters now agitating the church , owing to the present uncertain state of the ecclesiastical law . He agreed with the address , that the popish practices therein complained of did exist in the church , and he deeply regretted that any encouragement thereto should have proceeded from amongst any of the Bishops ; he would use all his influence to repress these innovations , and he believed his brethren would do the same . It was gratifying to find that the heart of the public was with them , which would very much encourage and assist them in their efforts to check these objectionable

      practices ; in consequence , however , of the state of the law , great difficulty was experienced in bringing the business before the courts , lest they ( the heads of the Church ) should be foiled in their attempts to remedy the evils complained of . The subscribers to the address particularly feared the evil of the dissemination of false doctrines ; he admitted that it was the great evil , but the doctrine and practice were certainly connected . With j-espect to erroneous doctrines , so great was the difficulty in suppressing them that though they had long existed in the Church only one case had occurred within the last fifty years , where a person had been condemned on account of erroneous preaching , and he was a Socinian . "

      A deputation from the three denominations of Dissenting ministers hsd an audience of the Queen at Windsor Castle , on Tuesday , when they presented an address expressive of their conviction that we are indebted , under God , for our national prosperity and greatness , and especially for our civil and religious liberty , to those principles of the Protestant ' reformation which placed the House of Brunswick on the throne . They ascribed the recent Romish aggression to the legislative

      patronage of Popery and the anti-Protestant teachings and practices in the Established Church . They stated their claim for the right of conscience for themselves and others , but they did not consider that these rights would be impaired by her Majesty ' s disallowance of territorial titles and jurisdiction conferred by the Pope . They prayed that the development of Popery should be only so far permitted as was compatible with the security of the throne and the liberty of the subject . To this address her Majesty returned the following reply : —•

      " I receivewith much satisfaction your renewed assurances of loyalty and uttachment to my person ; ind Government . 1 fully appreciate the importance of a linn adherence to tho principles ) of the Protestant reformation , and you may rely on my earnest desire , in asserting the just prerogatives of my Crown and the constitutional ri g hts of my people , to maintain unimpaired tlio l ) le « Hin ^ H of civil and religious liberty whieh are ho justly dear to this country . "

      A long correspondence has taken place between the Bishop of Gloucester and certain members of the congregation of St . Mark ' s Church , New tiwindon , who are dissatisfied with their minister , the Reverend Mr Hodgson , on account of his Puseyitc tendencies . The Bishop takes Mr . Hodgson ' s part on most points , and the grumblers are not at all pleaded . Sir J . Staple ton , brother of Lord Beaumont , and a recent uecedcr from the Church of Home , writes to the Globe reminding Protestants that the temporalities of

      every sect are a proper subject for legislation , und that through these " we may strike a blow at the I ' ope without endangering religious liberty . " lie recommends that the administration of charities be left to a central board , and local boards formed of Roman Catholic laymen . At present the properties are administered by the clergy , who depend on the bishops , who , in their turn , are appointed at liomc "Such a measure , " nays Sir J . Stapleton , " would give a death-blow to the Ultramontane party , "— . but it might prove a two-handed sword .

      I he Marl of Winchilsea ba . s published an address on the Papal question , in which he suyH : -- " Fellow-countrymen , brother Protestants , —The milk-and-water measure proponed by her Majesty ' s I ' riinc Minister last night against the recent act of Popish aggression is u gross iunult to tho Protestant feeling of this country . If you value the maintenance of our civil and religious lilierlios let no time be lost in addressing the Crown for a dissolution of Parliament , and for taking tho sense of the country upon u question which invulven everything which la dear to us a « Englishmen and Protestants . "

      Untitled Article

      Feb . 15 , 1851 . ] < E& £ 3 Lea&et % 145

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 15, 1851, page 145, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1870/page/5/