The Sun. — London, England, 1832-02-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TIIE PUBLIC JOURNALS. We yesterday alluded to a curious article in the Standard of Thursday evening, on the sub ject of Church property. " The Learned Member for Kerry (says our contelin porary), in presenting a petition from Waterford, de nounced Lord Grey's declaration. He was followed by Mr. Sheil, in the same strain ; and by Mr. Henry Grat• tan, who achieved the somewhat difficult exploit of talking more violently and stupidly than the one or the other. The changes were rung upon the old story of the fourfold divisii.n of Church property, which Mr. O'Connell, for the sake of sinking the Popes' and the Bishops' share, re duced to a threefold division. We feel that an apology is due to nineteen-twentieths of our readers, for offering a single word to expose this obsolete nonsense of the three fold or fourfold division. We write, however, to boys and to girls, as well as to men—and to them it may he useful as suggesting inquiry, but by no means as pretending to satisfy it, to offer shortly a true state of the case. Theo rists and text-writers have, for their own convenience, and for the sake of systematizing, propounded the theory of the fourfold division of tithes. That no such fourfold divi sion was, however, ever made, in fact, we have abundant proof both a priori and a posteriori. A priori, because we know that no power existed to which the Church was responsible, in ancient time., for the disposal of its wealth ; and because we know also that, without such responsibility, no body of men every yet disposed of the funds at their'' mercy, save in the manner most profitable and pleasant to themselves. A posteriori, we find that as early as the reign of Henry the Second, churches were built and re paired, not by the contribution of a fourth part of the tithes, but by a rate upon the county ; and the manner in which the poor were maintained at this time, when it is asserted that a fourth part of the tithes of the country were applied to their use, appears pretty plainly by the horrid famines sweeping off fifties of thousands annually, recorded by our ancient chroniclers as occurring about every third year." The notions of our contemporary on the sub ject of responsibility are as orthodox as could be desired, and it is only surprising to us that one who sees so clearly the danger of trusting Popish priests with money without responsibility, should not see the danger of trusting Protestant laymen with the money of others without responsibility. Popish priests, mo doubt, occasionally disre garded the original destination of Church pro perty in their distribution of it, just as the no minees of boroughmongers disregarded the in• terests of the people whom they virtually repre sented, and Protestant priests evaded the pay ment of First Fruits, and violated the oaths by' which they bound themselves to defray the ex pence of schools. But, whatever the practice might be, there can be no doubt respecting the rule. Originally the whole property of the Church belonged to all the members, and the Bishop or Presbyter was merely the distributor, so that the poor had a right to the whole. To wards the fifth century, when the priests began to collect the revenues of the Church at an ex pence of about ninety-five per cent. ; the four fold division seems to have been introduced into the western churches as a remedy for abuses which had crept into the Church. One-fourth was given to the parson, one-fourth to the Bishop, one-tourth to the support of the Church, and one-fourth to the support of the poor. But this quadripartite division did not apply to tithes alone, but to all the revenues of the Church. Thornassinus, in that part of his learned and la borious work on Discipline, which relates to benefices, shows that the rule was never departed from, though corruptions occasionally crept into the Church. With respect to England, the same distribution obtained, which prevailed throughout the Western Church. With respect to the application of the share for the repairs of the Church, there are abundance of regulations on the subject in the Provincial Constitutions. In the Constitutions of Richard, Bishop of Salis bury, in 1217, it is declared, that on the death of a parson who has neglected to keep the church in repair, so much shall be deducted from his goods as shall be necessary for that purpose. There is the same provision in the Constitu tions of St. Edmund of Canterbury, in 1236, and of the Synod of 'Worcester, in 1240. In order that there might be no misapplication, the care of keeping the church in repair was, by the Synod of Exeter, in 1287, committed to laymen, who became accountable to the parish priest and the principal parishioners. This, which at first was a security against the abuse of the clergy, became the source of a burden on the laity, who are now obliged to keep the churches in repair out of their own estates. But then the Church has been so strint, it seems, by the Reformation, that the revenue is no longer adequate to the ne cessities of the clergy. But let us hear our con temporary— " In the first place, the Church had all the tithes of the kingdom of England, undiminished by lay impropria tions. In the second place, the Church had more than one-third of the land of the kingdom—that is to say, that at a time when the produce of laud constituted all the ma terials of income in the country, the clergy held two-fifths of the produce of the land. In addition to this, the Church of Rome levied a capitation tax upon the whole people for masses, confessions, indulgencies, penances, be nedictions, offerings, great and small, and the whole of the tarif of Popish exaction Amounted, as we remember, to ?83 articles. The case grows so strong upon us, that we are really ashamed to hazard a calculation as to the actual amount of this capitation tax. Let the reader calculate for himself, and add whatever sum he pleases on this head, be it much or be it little, to the two-fifths of the income of the country, of the possession of which, by the unreformed Church, there cannot be the slightest doto.t Now what is the relative income of the existing Church of England (and the relative income of the existing Church of Ireland is still less), from the fourth part of which the clergy are to he required to maintain the poor, thus undergoing a burden which err tainly was undergone by the unreorrned clergy, though possessing two-fifths of the income of the country, plus the uneilculated and the incaleulable capi tation tax and death tillage, in the shape of legacies, which the Church of Rome always wrings from her dupes ? Does the Church of England possess two-fifths of the in • come of the country ? Does it possess one-fifth—one twentieth 7 Let our ports, and docks, and manufactories, And crowded cities—those workshops of wealth, which yield nothing to the Church, hut bring in a vast share of the income of the country—let our annual dividends upon the public debt, its share of which dividends the Church must pay, though they are wholly unproductive of eccle siastical revenue—let our vast colonial fortunes, thrown into our markets to raise prices impartially upon church men and laymen—let all these be remembered, and then let the question be answered,—what proportion does the present incom e of the Church bear to the present income of the country ? We fearlessly assert not one fiftieth ; and we are ashamed of writing a figure so much below the mirk. A n d yet we are told that the clergy are to main thin the poor out of the fourth part of their income; that is to say, that the poor are to be maintained out of less than the two hundredth-pa r t of the income of the country !" In Catholic time s there were gre a t religious communities, wh o possessed large estates. The Reformation put an end to the communities, and their estates came into the hands of laymen. But the share of the wealth of the country pos sessed in those times by t h e secular clergy bore no proportion to what is now possessed by t h em . The tithes in those days were levied ac cording to the moderate r u l e now o b served in Catholic countries. In Italy itself, before the French revolution, Arthur Young found the tithe a trifling amount of the produce. Through out Piedmont, he says, " Tithe is an object of no account. I made inquiries concerning it everywhere : the greater part of the lands pay none ; and upon the rest it is so light, as not to amount to more than from a twentieth to a fif tieth of the produce." In the Milanese, from Milan to Pavia, " no tithe of any kind." At Mozzatta, " the tithes, as everywhere else, are so low 38 to he no object ; grain pays, but not on all land ; it is confined to the lands anciently in culture. The titheable lands, or small districts, are near to the villages which have been in cul tivation many centuries." "At Codogno, and through most of the Lodizan, tithe is so very inconsiderable, that it is not worth mentioning." In the State of Venice, " wheat one-twelfth in some places, in others less ; maize, millet, &c., from one-fifteenth to one-thirtieth ; but for forage only they pay none. In the district of Vicenza, tithe varies from the one-tenth to the forty-first." Ecclesiastical State—" Tithes are so low throughout all the Bolognese, that I could get no satisfactory account of the very small payments that are yet made to the Church." In the Duchy of Modena no tithe. In the Duchy of Parma no real tithe, but small pay ments in lieu. " All I conversed with in Italy (says Young) on the subject of tithes, ex pressed amazement at the tithes we are subject to ; and scarcely believed that there was a people left in Europe who paid so much ; observing that nothing like it was to be found in Spain itself." In the Letter from Italyby Mr. Stewart Rose, there is an excellent account of the Italian tithe system, from which it appears that the Church can hardly be considered a burthen in Italy. In all Ca tholic countries the parish clergy, both cures and vicaires (rectors and vicars), enjoy moderate in comes. The idea of a parish priest enjoying from tithes an income of 6,0001. or 7,0001. a-year would seem monstrous. But since the improvements in agriculture, the small tithes alone, formerly of little value, have become often as valuable as the great tithes. It is the exten sion of tithe that has made it such a nuisance both in England and Ireland. But what has rendered tithe so peculiar an evil in England and Ireland is, that, under the authority of the Court of Exchequer, the Church and Lay Impropriators benefiting by the rates in favour of the Church, have been suffered to commit great robberies. All the ordinary rules for the protection of property are reversed when the Church is a party. " In many cases," says Baron Wood, " the Courts de cide against moduses (which are allowed to be mutters of fact) without any evidence at all, upon an idea of rank ness; viz., that they are so large that they cannot have existed from time immemorial. I know it is frequently said, Juries will always decide against the Church, and therefore we will not send a modus to be tried by them.' It is unwarrantable to act upon such a principle, or to make such a supposition, when Juries are the constituted and legal tribunal. by which matters of fact, as to cus toms and prescriptions at least, are and ought to be tried. The decisions upon this head of tithe-law appear to me to depart very much from the fundamental principles of our Constitution, and to require the aid of the Legislature to bring them back to their legitimate standard--the common law and trial by Jury. There is another rule, which is a little extraordinary—viz., that a rector is allowed at all times, and however strong the case may be against hint, to have an issue to try a modus by a Jury as a matter of right; whereas a landholder never is but by the grace and favour of the Court." After alluding to the injustice of considering moduses lost in case of alteration of farms and fields for the sake of improvements, and of holding moduses not to be sufficient where lands, or the pasturage and produce of lands, have in ancient times been allotted to the rector or vicar in lieu of tithes or other lands, because no owners of the land given in lieu can be ascer tained at this day, Sir George notices the case of real compositions— " There is uo doubt (he says) but many compositions of this sort were made before the restraining statute of Eli zabeth, the deeds or instruments of which in the lapse of ?.40 years, and more since the making of that statute, have by time and accident been lost and destroyed, and no traces of such deeds are to be found ; but to ground a presump tion that such deeds or instruments did once exist, there is uninterrupted usage so far back as any memory can go, from which in all other cases, and even against the Crown, a legal origin by grant or deed would be presumed. Yet, in case of tithes, if you have lost your deed or instrument of composition, you have lost your right." But one of the recent deviations from justice is in the mode of compositions made by parson, patron, and ordinary, as well as other deeds of the same sort between the parson and pa rishioners not having the consent of the ordinary, but which have been confirmed by decrees in Chancery, in inclosures of common fields, and the drainage and improvement of fens, &c. Great improvements have been made upon the faith of these arrangements, which were considered to be legal and binding till 1765, when the Lord Chancellor, in a case " The Attorney-General and Blair v. Cholmeley and others," deter mined all such compositions, though sanc tioned by a decree in Chancery, to be void, and his decree was confirmed upon an appeal to the House of Lords. " Since these decisions (says Baron Wood), suits have been brought by Rectors and Vicars, to set aside such compositions, which had been considered as valued, and the lands enjoyed accordingly for 100 or 150 years, and more ; and they have succeeded in setting them aside, and in conse quence have got not only tithes in kind, but the land also which was given in lieu of those tithes, on account of the impossibility of ascer tains to vt hom the lands now belong, so that the Court ►night restore them to their rightful owners at this day." Lay Impropriators have all the rights of the spiritual persons whom they represent. Since the reign of Henry VIII. many persons purchased their tithes from Lay Impropriators, but have lost their tithes, though there is no doubt as to the fact of the exemption as far back as living memory can go. "In all other temporal inheritances grants will be presumed from usage or enjoyment, or the Statute of Limitations will be a bar ; but on this, though a temporal inheritance, they will not." " '('he consequence (adds Baron Wood) of the doctrines I have mentioned has been that Rec. tors, Vicars, and Lay Impropriators have been encouraged to institute suits in Chancery and the Exchequer, but mostly in the latter, for the pur pose of setting aside moduses, real compositions, and exemptions, merely upon the expectation of succeeding by defects in the defendants' title, from loss of deeds, and do very frequently suc ceed." After dwelling on the numberless and tedious litigations from these sources, and the mischievous consequences to which they lead, Sir George Wood concludes with the remark, that " this grievance arises principally from the nature of the property itself; and can never be entirely eradicated till the property itself is ex tinguished, which, in every point of view, would be a great blessing to the people, and to the clergy themselves, upon full and adequate com pensation." Thank God, it is no longerin the power of any set of men to uphold tithes ni Ireland. Abuses have been retained till the patience of the people is exhausted. The idea that in Ireland the whole of the tithes, par sonage, in that because there are few im propriations that country, and above a million of acres of fertile land, are not sufficient for a sinecure clergy, is supremely ridiculous. In Scotland there is a respectable clergy, who do not receive a te n th p art of the tithe, and yet are well paid.—Morning Chronicle. Parliamentary motions, as well as Parlia mentary men, must not always be judged by their first appearance. Mr. Courtenay's, on the affairs of Portugal, was of innoxious aspect enough—it was for papers merely ; the Right Hon. Gentleman was not " the advocate of Pedro or of Miguel ;" he wanted not " to aid any particular dynasty." We believe him. He wanted nothing but to delay the Bill,—to try the strength of his party to attempt to fish for papers on which to ground some yet undefined charge against his Majesty's Government, and "to aid" the Opposition in expelling the Mi nisters from office. It is rather curious that Mr. Courtenay should have inserted among the ob jects of his proposition the wish to prevail upon the present Government to pursue a course of policy " conducive to the maintenance of peace," and this at the commencement of a speech in which, and throughout the debate which fol lowed it, the mover and his friends made it the chief topic of their accusations against Ministers, that they had abstained from a system of mea.., sures which must beyond all human power of prevention have long involved this country in a war with France ! It may not be difficult to understand such a seeming paradox, or to recon cile it with the views of a certain party. The peace so much desired is a peace at all hazards, and under every contingency, with the European Holy Alli ance ; while to insure tranquillity on that side, and to improve it into a fast and indissoluble friend ship, the Right Hon. Gentleman's old associates would make little objection, we fear, to a " war at all hazards," with that nation against which the former Holy Alliance was directed, and with purposes not over favourable to which another Holy Alliance, if any exists, has been framed. Mr. Courtenay dreads the growth of republi canism in Europe—the possible growth of des potism is a theme on which he delights not to dwell. If the Anti-Reform party were sincere in their doctrine of non-interference with foreign Powers, how comes it in a matter vitally affecting the honour of the French Government and the rights of its subjects, they have raised such an outcry because the King of England did not de feat the efforts of Louis Philip to obtain redress of multiplied injuries from Don Miguel ? After Great Britain had set the example of forcing Miguel to make reparation for his wrongs against herself, was there ever any thing so monstrous as would been an attempt on our part to interfere between France and a similar demand of justice? It is needless to ring the changes, as was done in the House of Commons, on the pre cise amount of tyranny practised towards French citizens by the Portuguese usurper. That most inhuman oppression was inflicted upon citizens of France is on record ; and the paltry and low minded tricks and artifices by which Miguel struggled, first to conceal the crimes of his agents, and afterwards to evade the application for redress, were only less obvious in the case of France than in that of England, because the proceedings of the latter Government in the na ture of remonstrance and negotiation had been more prolonged than that of her neighbour, al though the final resort to maritime coercion by the English Minister was perhaps more prompt and decisive than that of the Ministers of Louis Philippe, so loudly inveighed against by Mr. Courtenay and his friends as an attack upon Portuguese independence. In fact, the pretext for censure upon Ministers is twofold,—first, that they have not protected Miguel against France, whose honour he had insulted,—next, that they have not taken part with the same Miguel against his brother, whose confidence he had basely betrayed, against his niece, whose Crown he had wickedly usurped, and against the cause of constitutional liberty in Por tugal, of which all the best friends, and advocates, and supporters, he had banished to Africa, immured in dungeons, or mer cilessly butchered. It is singular that in one instance Miguel should be represented as having claims to British protection founded on the policy of upholding the ancient friendship between Portugal and this country—a friendship which Don Miguel, by every act of his Government, showed an inveterate anxiety to renounce ; and in another instance, that Mini sters should be called upon to strain the law of nations, or indeed to violate it, in favour of him whose usurpation of the Crown of Portugal, not England, but all Europe, has openly condemned, and against her whom the same England ac knowledged as the rightful Sovereign ; we say it is an odd coincidence, that where either an undue infraction of the rights of other indepen dent Powers, or an unworthy sacrifice of the rights of England, has been called for by certain anti-reforming gentlemen, in both cases, whether of outrage or of meanness, the party for whose in terest and advantage it would operate, happens to be the same virtuous Don Miguel. Is there not something more in this th a n can be explained by vulgar philosophy ? One point is clear. By the course which Lord Palmerston has adopted, peace has to this hour been happily preserved ; whereas, by the course which he is arraigned for not following, a war with France would have been inevitable. The value of the policy which has been pursued may be judged from a single truth, which probably will not be disputed,—viz. that if England and France were separated in their European objects, the apprehension which restrains the despotic monarchies of the conti nent would be instantly removed, and an imme- ..... diate attack on the principle of free Government, in the person of Louis Philip, would be made by common acclamation, whilst now that the Fo reign Secretary speaks in cheering terms of a pro longed maintenance of cordial friendship with France, it is difficult to imagine from what ex isting elements a general war could be concocted. —Times. It is eminently deserving of public observa tion that one of the crimes for which human Oft is ordered to be taken at the scaffold of the Old Bailey on Monday next is one of the three spe cified 9ffences contained in Mr. Ewart's notice of motion for a repeal of the punishment of death, those offences being horse-stealing, steal ing in the dwelling-house, and cattle-stealing.' It is for the last-mentioned offence that Henry (Veils is doomed, within a brief number of hours from this time, to die by the hands of the exe cutioner. The notice which Mr. Ewan had given of a motion for leave to bring in a Bill to abolish the punishment of death for the offences above stated, was first entered upon the Parliamentary paper many months ago. It has been *repeatedly postponed—so often, indeed, as to excite in the minds of sonic persons doubts whether Mr. Ewart was sincere in taking up the subject at all ; while others thought it might be to make way for the Reforth measure. Whether the latter may be the true certain cause or not we cannot Say ;but it v does not appear to us to be a sufficient one. The French Chamber of Deputies found time to revise and make considerable improvements and ameliorations in th e cri minal code, although the important and corn plicated questions which the Government to attend and Chambers had necessarily :o since the revolution would, at least, have formed as reasonable an excuse for the postponement of the revision of the penal code as any which our own Ministry and Parliament could offer to the country on the score of the pressing importance of the Reform Bill. Let it be granted, however, that the Reform Bill alone stood in the way of the intended amelioration of the law ; it would then appear that the accident of that Bill not having been carried before now alone prevents the offences which we have men tioned from being no longer capital. Are Mi nisters, then, justified in executing laws which, but for the peculiar circumstances in which this country has during the last year been placed, must before this time have been erased from the Statute-book for ever ? Surely no reasonable person will think so, especially when it is con sidered that the interposition of the Royal pre rogative of mercy is as much a legal act as the execution of bad laws, while it is infinitely more becoming the character of a just and en lightened Government. It is a curious circum stance that the last notice of Mr. Ewart's motion, that which appeared a few days ago, contained only two of the offences which it previously corn• prised. The offence of cattle-stealing was omitted. This seemed strange enough, but it appeared still more so when it was coupled with the cir cumstance of a cattle-stealer being selected out of a great number of capital convicts for the extreme penalty of the law. The coincidence, however it originated, was at all events very singular. Since writing the above we have re ceived information of a respite having arrived for Henry Wells, the cattle-stealer; and, if our information be authentic, we presume that the King's advisers have, upon reconsideration, been convinced that there are modes of punish ment which, whether in the way of coercion or example, can be as as effective in preventing the crime of cattle-stealing as the taking the blood of the offender, if not a great deal more so. But there is no reasoning which can lead them to this conclusion which ought not also to convince them that the stealing of letters from the Post-office might he as effectually repressed by transportation for life, imprisonment to hard labour, or some other punishment of restraint and example known to our law, as by the barbarous spectacle which the horrid tragedy of the scaffold presents. The principal argument relied upon by Lord Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, and other strenuous opposers of Sir Robert Peel's Forgery Bill, in 1830, was the ineffi cacy of the punishment of death as applied to that offence, and they argued, upon data which could not be disputed, that the excessive severity of the law in a great measure defeated its own object, and, instead of effectually pro tecting property from that sort of depredation, rendered it insecure. In support of that opinion they had the recorded sentiments of 1,000 bankers—the persons the most interested in the detection and punishment of forgery--besides the numerous petitions of clergymen, Magis trates, merchants, members of the profession of the law—in short, the representatives of the commerce, the opulence, the education, and in telligence of the country. Now, forgery, whether in a moral, a social, or commercial point of view, is quite as bad an offence as stealing letters from the Post-office. The former is a theft of more ingenuity than the latter—but not the less dangerous. We call it a theft—though, legally speaking, it is a fraud ; but the end which the forger has in view is the same with that of the thief, though the means are different. A great many forgers escape without any punishment whatever, because people who feel the penalty of death to be too heavy for the offence avoid prose cuting, lest they should bring upon their own consciences the guilt of blood : others, whose guilt admits ofno reasonable doubt, are acquitted, because Juries often take -that course which is more favourable to life than remarkable for any strict adherence to the legal deductions of evi dence. So it happens that, for one offender in this way who suffers an extreme punishment, many suffer none whatever. It is so with the offence of stealing letters—the sanguinary law is no protection to the public, but the reverse. An offender is now and then convicted and hanged ; but this offence does not decrease, because many dishonest persons who commit this crime hope to be as fortunate as others, who have either not been prosecuted, or have escaped conviction upon a trial, contrary to all expectation, in consequence of the natural repugnance of Juries to be instru mental to the vengeance of laws that will have no compensation for wrong but a sacrifice of blood. Rightly was it said by Mr. Fowell Buxton, in his admirable speech upon the criminal law, in the year 1821—" Whence, I ask, the lethargy, the supineness, the indifference to the prevention of crime, which marks our system ? Here is the cause :—We rest our hopes on the hangman, and in this vain and deceitful confidence in the ultimate punishment of crime forget the very first of our duties—its prevention."—Morn. Herald. The lesson which was read in the House of Commons on Thursday night, on the subject of our foreign relations—more especially our rela tions with Portugal—will not, we trust, be lost, either on the Opposition, on the country, or on the Ministry. The Opposition must see and hear, from its triumphant result in favour of Mi nisters—if they have either eyes to see or ears to hear—that they form a very despicable mino rity in the representation—the country must now be convinced that whatever the question may be which is to be brought forward by the Opposition, its only object is to delay the pro gress of the Reform Bill through the House of Commons, and by delaying it to sicken the public of it—and, finally, his Majesty's Ministers must learn from it, if they had not previously learned it from other occurrences, that. the enemy op posed to them does not deal in fair play—that the bandying of compliments ought to cease— and that henceforward they they must not only give up the suaviler in mod°, as an unnecessary ingredient in Parliamentary practice, but adopt the fortiter in re with the courage and determi nation of men who have all to lose, and all to gain, by the conduct which they ought to pur sue. Their motto ought to be— " Comeon—and damned be he who first cries hold, enough !" And let them not fear that they will be ably sup ported. The whole power of the country—m tellectual, moral, and physical—is with them ; and what ought they to think of themselves, or what will the country think of them, if they flinch from the fight ?—Morning Advertiser. The Lord Chancellor seems to be hi great dudgeon with his colleagues On account of the reserve they have maintained towards him, since the passing of the Bankruptcy Court Act, upon the interesting subject of his diminished emoluments. This Act, it will be recollected, passed the House of Commons in the dog-days, after a most oppressive and exhausting session, and the g • uestion of compensation to th e L or d Chan cellor for the fees it abstracted from his official emoluments was postponed until a more conve- . . - nie nt season. That none of his colleagues have since that period thought of reviving a subject so interesting to him—that they should by their cruel want of sympathy for his condition have driven him to the necessity of complaining aloud in the House of Lords—is no doubt an offence which might well excuse even a stronger expression of disappointment than the Noble and Learned Lord permitted himself to indulge. The matter is not certainly of much importance in a public point of view, because we sup pose there can be no indisposition on the part of the other members of the Adminis tration, as certainly there is none on the part of the public, to do full justice to the Lord Chancellor, so far as pecuniary claims are concerned. What is really curious in the affair is, that a Ministry should have been able so long, we will not say to carry on the business of the country, that would sound too much like mockery, but to keep together ill office at all, among the members of whi c h th ere h as ex i ste d so little of personal cordiality or of unreserved intercourse as the Lord Chancellor's complaint, and the occasion of it, would lead us to suppose. It is to be lamented that the members of his Majesty's Government should be upon such terms with each other that they cannot communi cate their sentiments reciprocally and frankly upon a subject of some importance to the nation, and of great interest to one of their own body, otherwise than by speeches in Par liament, or by disclosures through the medium of the Press. The Lord Chancellor, however, ought to know why none of his colleagues have approached the subject of his compensation ; and as it appears that he will not ask them, and that they will not tell him unless he does, we will endeavour to enlighten the Noble and Learned Lord as to the probable causes of that procrastination and reserve which seems to him as unintelligible as it is tantalizing. It is to this moment extremely doubtful, in the opinion of every body but the Lord Chancellor himself, whether the new machinery in Bank ruptcy will work. The probable necessity, there fore, of a new Bill may have entered into the contemplation of the Noble and Learned Lord's co/leagues ; and considering that in this case the proper amount of compensation is still unknown, and that as affairs now actually stand the pro • posal of any measure of compensation could scarcely fail to give rise to much disagreeable and inconvenient discussion in the House of Com. mons, it may have occurred to them that upon the whole it was better to say nothing upon the subject for the present. This would account for the delay which has taken place in proposing the expected compensation ; and as it is not pre cisely the kind of explanation best calculated to soothe the temper of the Noble and Learned Lord, it surely need not excite much surprise that none of his colleagues volunteered to give it. That so large a proportion of the fair and usual income of the office of Lord Chancellor as that which the New Bankruptcy Act has abstracted should have been permitted to remain for a period of seven or eight months in legal abeyance, should for so long a time have been subject to the chances of political vicissitude and the con troul of patty passions and manceuvres, is no doubt inconvenient and unwise, if it be not unconstitutional. But there may have been reasons for it, and reasons too such as the col leagues of the present Lord Chancellor might naturally enough be reluctant to advance.— The times are critical. Is it nothing at such a moment as the present for such an Administra tion as that of Earl Grey to hold, or to fancy that it holds, a man like Lord Brougham by the powerful tie of self-interest ? Is it at the crisis of their fate, and while it remains doubtful whe ther the provision they are called upon to make for the support of the dignity of the Great Seal shall be enjoyed by a Whig or by a Tory Chancellor, by a colleague or by an opponent, by an unflinching partisan of their own, or (for even this they may deem not impossible) by a con vert to the principles and a deserter to the ranks of their victorious antagonists—is it, we appeal to Lord Brougham himself, reasonable to expect that at such a trying and interesting moment the Whig Ministers should forego the advantage of so good a card in their hands as the power of fixing the emoluments of the present, the next, and all future Chancellors ? The Noble and Learned Lord uught to be a little reasonable, and we have no doubt that if he and his Noble and Right Hon. Colleagues could but get to a right understanding, he would at once acknow ledge the prudence and propriety of maintaining their present ambiguous position with respect to the affair of the Lord Chancellor's salary a little longer. He is much too acute a man not to perceit e the advantage of refraining from any specific preposition to Parliament upon this sub ject until Ministers know on which side of the House they are likely hereafter to sit—until they can determine upon sure grounds whether it be their proper game to exhibit parsimony or munificence.—Morning Post. LORD BYRON AND THE CANTERBURY TALE 5......." I have almost finished," said his Lordship, " another play, which I mean to call Werner. The story is taken from Mims LEE'S Kruitzner. There are fine things in The Canterbury Tale. Nothing of SCGTT'S is finer than The German's Tale.' I admired it when a boy, and I have continued to like what I did then. This, I remember, particularly affected me."—( conversations of Lord Byron.) Hour many are there who, like the Noble poet, have been affected in their youth by the exquisite fictions in The Canterbury Tales ; and bow many will renew their ply asure in mature age, now that, after those volumes have for several years been scarce, and, conse quently, only to be obtained at high prices, they are again placed within reach of the public in an improved form, at little more than a fifth of their original cost in the Standard Novels! CONJUGAL REGRETS.—When YOU have passed the barrier of Mount Parnassus, you see on the lift side of the Boulevard, almost opposite, the name of GemeiN, in large letters. It is an alehouse of some note. lou may vow never to enter it, but you cannot be very certain that it is not in your fate to remain once, at least, at the door. It is the ordinary rendezvous of the under takers belonging to Mount Parnassus ; and usually the hearse is stationary for a short while before it. It i. almost the only place where your inconsolable husbands take " a drop of comfort," after having been to fling flowers on the graves of their wives. Two friends were seated at a little table, having drunk and laughed them selves into feelings of great sociability. Seeing an ac quaintance pass by, they eagerly insisted on his joining in their festivity. " Ilnp.)ssible ;" said he, "to-day is the anniversary of my wife's death, and I have promised POLITO that we will go and weep over her grave." lie was leading a little boy, of about six years old, who held a wreath of immortals in his hand. However, gaiety is very contagious, and our widower thought it mattered not whether the flowers were scattered over his wife's tomb half an hour sooner or later. Down he sat, and " three merry men I trow were we." The only interruption to their enjoyment was the teasing of the child, who kept worrying, " I will go and cry over mamma." " Be quiet : we can't go bow," said the father, whose own sorrow was yielding to the influence of wine, the comforter. " I whl go and cry over mamma." " I tell you you shan't ; yo❑ have been a great deal too naughty the whole week for any such indulgence." Well, the boy kept worrying, till a last the disconsolate widower, provoked beyond all patience, gave the child a good thrashing—and then got drunk. The flowers which were to have been strewed over the grave were scattered under the table; and so ended the anniversary of " my poor dear wife's death."—Le Livre des Cent-et- Utz, MARKET INTELLIGENCE. LONDON MARKETS. • • 1 , 31. (From the London. Nets Price Current of yesterday.) SU O A R.—The Sugar Market remains very steady; the pun. chases are limited, but the prices are firmly maintained; the estimated sales this week are 2,000 Mids. and tra. In the Rened Market there has been little variation this wek. Notwithstand ing the prices of strong working British Plantation Sugar. con. tinue to be maintained, the value of refined continues to decline, and there are now no buyers unless at a further reduction ; some ord. large Lumps were sold at 615., which is 6d. lower, and the best large might be had at 625. 6d. ; some offers have been made for large parcels of fine crashed, but nothing of any consequence has taken place this week. EAST INDIA SUGARS.—By private contract little has been done this week ; 1,777 bags Mauriti us , f or exporta ti on only, and 144 bags Siam have been offered at public sale; the Mauritius and Siam went at steady prices; the former good brown to fine yellow from 17s. a 20s. 6d., the latter ord. to good white from 22a. a '24s. 6d FOREIGN SUGARS.-The public sales since last week have been rather extensive, offering 705 chests 227 brls. Brazil, 335 chests white, 896 chests yellow Havannah, and 299 brls. Porto Rico; strong brown and white descriptions sold at steady - prices, but soft Pernams and Bahias were chiefly bought in, as well as about 500 boxes yellow Havannah, there being less demand for these last than at the preceding sale. The following are the prices :-Pernams, ord. white sold from 20s. a 215., good white h3s., mid. brown 15s. 6d., good yellow IBs. ; Bahia, good brown sold from 16s. tid. a ISs., ord. to fine yellow 18s. 6d. a his., ord. white 2'2s. a 235. 6d., 'good white 21s. a 255.; Havannah; ord. to good white sold from 31s. a 335. Gd., damaged ditto from 23g. a h9s., mid. yellow from 225. 6d. a 235., good yellow h4s. 6d. a 255.. damaged yellow 16s. a 225. 6d. ; the Porto Rico was chiefly bought in, mid. to good yellow from 19s. a 225. 6d., ord. brown sold from 178. a 18s. 6d., mid, yellow sold from '2os. a 21s. The arrivals being 863 boxes Havannah. • IMPORT DUTY ON MUSCOVADES.-The Committee' of the House of Commons are investigating the question of the Sugar Duties, to relieve, if possible, the West India planters; among other suggestions it is stated the lowering the duties on other articles, such as Coffee and Tea, would greatly add to the increase of the consumption of Sugar. COFFEE.-The purchases of Coffee by private contract have been very limited lately, and the market has a heavy appearance, but at the public sale yesterday a parcel of Brazil, 580 bags, went off' with briskness at rather higher pri ces ; fine ord. selling at 565. 6d. and 575., superior quality to what was sold last week at the same price. The quantity altogether brought forward, though less than last week, has been too much for the demand, the greater part of the pale good ord. Foreign sorts being bought in coloury Brazil is still wanted, and a bout 500 b ags brought full prices. British Plantation has sold heavily, and about 2s. lower. The public sales consisted of 106 casks 85 bags British Plantation, 987 Foreign, 1,813 East India; Demerara, fine ord. and not clean sold from 80s. a 80s. 6d.; Jamaica good ord, sold 81s. 6d. fine fine ord. 85s. a S6s., mid 88s. f x l. a 89s. good mid. 925. a 435.; Ha vannah good ord. bought in a t 53:. ; Batavia good ord. yellow sold from 535. a 535. Gd., ord. 51s. a 51s. 6d. ; Cheribon yellow good ord. bought in from 555. a 555. fal., good ord. ditto from 59.5. a 525. 6d.. Sumatra ord. brown so ld 46 5 . 6d . a 475.; Brazil good ord. bought in at 525. 6d., fine or d. so ld f rom 565. Gd. a 575. The arrivals being 311 hhds. and 366 brls. British Plantation. This day at public sale 101 casks Berbice Coffee, nearly the whole taken in, mid, to good mid. 875., fine 975.; some lots sold after. wards 91s. for good mid. The prices are again lower, and heavy at the decline. RUM, BRANDY, AND HOLLANDS.—The transactions in Rum this week have been very considerable, and the prices are rather higher. In Brandy and Geneva there Is no particular alteration. TALLOW.-The prices are rather lower, and the market is heavy at the reduction. PEPPER-Small parcels of black mid, heavy have been Sold 316 d. and 3 %el., grey heavy 3%d. SILK-The market is steady, and prices the same as last, but little doing; for fine waste there is a good demand. SA LTPETRE.-The sales offered 2,207 bags, which were sold at various prices, rough Madras ord. not refracted 238. 6d. a 255. 6d. • Calcutta ord. ditto 255. 6d. , good ord. ditto 345., S% per cent, refraction 365. 6d. a 375., 10% ditto 365. a Es. 6d. Very little is doing by private contract. COTTON.-There is no alteration in Cotton. The purchases this week consist of 170 Bengal ord. 4 M., good 4%d. ; 1,060 Su. rat, mid. 4%d., good fair 474 d. ; 60 Madras, good sd. ; 100 Per nams, good fair 7%d. ; 200 Egyptian, fair 6%d. FRUIT.-On Wednesday, by public sale, 116 brls. Red Smyrna Raisins damaged sold at 395. a 40s. ; 65 butts Currants, part da maged, at 645. a 665., and four caroteels at 675. By private con. tract there has been very little done. TEA.-Boheas have risen to 4s. I%d. for large chests, and are extremely scarce: there continues to be a fair demand for Congous. EAST INDIA HOUSE SALE, 7th inst.-900 bags Sugar, Bengal, white, fine 295. a 295. Cid., damp 285., good 255. a 26€. tid., damp '24s. a 245. 6d., ord. 235. 6d. a 21s. tid. damp `2 3.c. ; yellow, fine 21s. 6d. a 225. ' damp 21s. 6d.. • 410 bags Coffee, yellow Ba tavia sold 555. and 555. (id. The gugars were about 2s. above last .sale, being nearly the advance of market prices by private contract. INDIGO.-There is little alteration in Indigo; the market looks more firm. PLAICE OF SUGAXL The average price of Brown or Muscovado Sugar, computed from the Returns made in the week ending Feb. 7, is 245. 7A, d. per cwt., exclusive of the duties of customs paid orpayable thereon on the importation thereof into Great Britain. PR ICES OF HOPS —Feb. JO. K ant .4/ 15s. 61. 01. to B'. • Or. Sussex Ditto 10i. W. ss. to 51. 14s. lissex Ditto 4l. 103. 5!. 156. to GI . 15s. Farnham Ditto, line 9/. Os. 19.1. Os. to W. Os. Seconds 0/. Os. Os. to 9' Oi. vrownow , ", evo• 41. Os. 51. 10s. to 61. 10s. 41. 43. 41. 15s. to 5/." O. V. 15s. 51. Os. to 51..124. Kent ISags. Sussex lilt' PRICE OF OIL. Ripe Oil, brown .................351. Os. ............. Refined .......... £37 0 Linseed Oil . 22 0 Linseed Oil Cake at the Mill, per th0u5and..,,.,,.,,,.,,,,, 12 0 Rape Cake, per ton LEATHER. Per lb. d. to l. English Horse Hides.. 12 15 Swinish Ditto 17 19 Per dozen. Calf Skins,. 36 to 401 b. 15 20 Ditto 50 to 701 b. 21 24 Ditto 70 to 801 b. 18 21 Small Seals. Greenland 20 201 Large PRICES 0 Per lb. Butts, English 16 21 Ditto, Foreign 15 18} Dressing Hides---.. 121 15 Ditto l6k 18 Ditto, light Crop Hides, light 12 131 Ditto 4U to 451 b. 14 15 D tto l5 161 WHI'I'ECHAPEL HAY 111 A ItKET.—Feb. 9. Hay 50s. Od. to 844. Od. I Clover— 60s. Od. to Ms. 'Od.' 24i. Od. to 344. Od. RAW HIDES. ter Stone. J.& to s. d. I'er Stone. s. d. to s. d. gest Heifers Fs Stoers2 8 3 0 Ordinary 1 8 110 0 2 2 Market Calf 6 0 each. Polled SHEEP SKINS. 4s. Od. to 6s. Od. I Downs 2s. 6d. to 4s. Cd. Shearlings.,—..... N. Od. to Os. Bd. PRICE OF RAW FAT, per stone of Sib. Price of Tallow (as stated by the Tallow Melters)---. 3s. Od. PRICE OF TALLON Town Tallow 535. 6d. Yellow Russia 47s. Od White _ _ 465. 6d. Soap Ditto 4ss. 6d. Melted Stuff 375. Od. Ditto Rough 25s Od Ware......,,... Kidneys Scotch Reds r ' SOAP, &c. per 1121 b. Yellow 625. Od. Mottled ..- 70s. Od. White 745. Od. Graves 16s. ed. Good Graves 58. Od. ?RICE OF POTATOES.—Feb. 10. 2/. 54. to 3/, Os. per ton. 0!. Os. to 31. Os. ditto. 91. 155. to 31. Os. ditto. COAL MAR Per Ton. ET.—Feb. 10. Adair's 20s. Od. Bensham Main --- 16 0 Dean's Priinrose--..„ 17 6 Holywell— '2o 0 Kenton West 20 0 K illingworth ---- 20 0 St. Lawrence Main 19 6 Per Ton. Walls End Hotspur—,.., 20s. 6d. Ditto Perkins and Co—, 20 3 Walls End 18 0 Lambton's Primose—,..... 21 0 Walls End Helton 22 0 • Walls End Lambt0n........ 21 0 Walls End Stewart's 23 3 Walls End Tees IS 6 Blyth 15 0 Graigola 25 0 Halbeath l4 0 Hartley 21 0 New Flockton, Milne, and Co. Old Haigh Moor Silkstone Field and Co. 18 6 Silkstone Clark 16 6 TantieldTrader----....., IS 6 Townley l9 0 West Hartley 19 0 Willington, 2O 0 Wylain '2o 0 Walls End Callerton 16 6 Ditto Bell,ltobson,&Co. 19 6 Ditto Bewicke and Co. 21 3 19 0 Ditto Clarke and Co..— 19 6 Walls End 20 9 Walls End Hilda —......... 20 3 Ditto Northumberland 20 0 The prices during the week h. supply is fully equal to the demai :ave not varied much, and the aid.—Fresh ships at market, 14. COUNTRY CORN MARKETS DURING THE WEEK. r r I Wheat. I Barley. Oats. I Beans. Per Quarter. Ashburn.--- 62 72 134 40 26 34 40 48 Basingstoke 56 70 30 37 20 25 39 4t5 Bah - . 144 65 2'2 36 24 30 42 50 Bridgewater 58 72 26 30 i '22 26 28 36 52 62 36 42 18 '24 34 42 Chesterfield 64 70 26 32 46 52 . Derby 62 65 40 43 24 27 42 44 Devizes 66 70 29 40 20 28 39 43 Doncaster 57 68 30 41 16 20 40 44 Dorchester.--..., 54 64 33 39 21 26 39 44 60 70 31 40 Gloucester..- 4B 66 36 47 20 26 34 44 Liu ngerford —... 51 66 27 36 20 '29 34 44 Leicester , 75 44 29 48 Newbury ...... 44 66 26 37 2) 32 56 42 Bomsey . 56 62 32 38 24 26 Shaftesbury 56 37 27 44 Shepton Mallet .... 52 63 34 43 20 26 36 45 Sherburne..._......, 56 62 34 40 22 2U 44 Taunton . 58 72 35 20 38 Yeovil 56 64 34 40 20 al 34 38 Per Bushel. s. 0. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s, d. s, d. s. d . Shrewsbury .. . 90 9 6 6 0 6 6 5 0 6 0 0 0 00 BIRTHS. On the Sth ult. at Corfu, Lady Woodford, of a daughter. On the 7th inst.. at Southgate, the lady of J. Carrick, Esq., of a daughter. MARRIED. On the 7th inst. at St, George's Church, Hanover-square Lord Viscount Marsham, son of Earl Romney, to Lady Margare Scott. On the 7th inst. at Woolwich, Thomas Dyer, Esq. son of the late Lieut.-Colonel Sir John Dyer, K.C.B. of the ;loyal Artil. lery, to Mary Anne, daughter of Lieut.-Colonel Clement, of the above regiment. On the 9th inst. at Marylebone Church, William, son of John Crichton, Esq., of Upper Gower-street, to Anne, youngest daughter of Thomas Clutterbuck, Esq., of Nottingham-place, and Bushey House, Herts. On the Sill inst. R. G. Walker, F.sq. to Elizabeth Apthorp, youngest daughter of G. Winbolt, Esq., late Captain in the •Itli (or King's Own) Infantry. DIED. On the 10th inst. Mr. George 11oby, sen. of St. James's-street, aged 73. On the 9th inst. at her brother's, the Rev. F. S. Wall, Eliza beth Wall, aged 39. On the 7th inst. in Devonshire-street, Queen-square, the Rev. T. Lewthwaite, second son of the late Rev. S. Lewthwaite, Rec tor of Hutton, Cumberland, aged 39. On the sth inst. at Camberwell, in the 80th year of his age, Charles Cullen, Esq., the last surviving son of the celebrated Dr. Cullen. On the Bth inst. Henry, the infant son of F. H. Mitchell. Esq., of Upper Wimpole-street. On the 7th inst. at Woolwich, aged 63, the Rev. W. Terrot, A.M., of St. John's College, Cambridge, Vicar of Grindon, in the county of Durham, Chaplain to the Marquis of Cleveland, late Chaplain and Head Master of Greenwich Hospital schools. On the 2dth ult. in the fifld year of his age, at his seat, near Caen, in Normandy, J. B. Bonnaire, Esq., late proprietor of the celebrated French blond lace manufactory, of the firm of J. B. Bonnaire and Co. On the 7th inst at Ampthill, Bedfordshire, Lennox Archi bald. younger son of Johu Dunbar, Esq. of the Bengal Civil Service. PRINTED :AND PUBLISHED BY MURDO YOUNG, AT THU SUN OFFICE, 11:2, STRAND, LONDON.