The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

interests of the Roman Catholics themselves
to dispel the delusion by open investigation ?
But it is alleged that an inquiry into these
institutions would violate delicacy; and an
analogy• is attempted to be drawn between
them and private &allies. The answer LI
obvious. Nunneries are not families : the
authority of a Lady Superior over those in her
charge bears no resemblance to that which
God and nature give to the parent over die
child. And there is a point which, as Mr.
WALPOLE well observed, has been strangely
overlooked in these discussions—viz., the
right of every subject to the protection of the
State.
The law absolves infants from the conse-
quences of their acts unless after the period
of full age they ratify those acts. So also in
the case of persons of unsound mind, not only
are their acts invalid, but inspectors at stated
periods visit the places where they are con-
fined, for the purpose of protecting those who
cannot protect themselves. Now, we are far
from saying that persons who immure them-
selves in convents are necessarily under
duress; but this we do say, that it is possible
some may be under constraint, moral if not
physical, and, if such cases do exist, it would
be a dereliction of duty on the part of the
State to abstain from covering them with its
protecting shield.
In the relations between the sovereign
power and the subject the State knows no
distinctions of creed. All—Roman Catholic,
Protestant, Jew, and Infidel—are equally enti-
tled to its care ; and if, from any peculiarity
of religious discipline in any particular sect,
facilities for oppression may exist, then the
governing power should step in and meet the
evil by countervailing checks. In all ordi-
nary cases the writ of habeas corpus is suffi-
cient, but the organisation of monasteries and
convents affords such an admirable machinery
for secrecy and evasion that virtually the writ
is inoperative.
Now, this is a serious evil, when it is consi-
dered that, if in all the convents of England
not one inmate is under duress and restraint,
it can be only because the directors of those
institutions are singularly virtuous and exempt
from human passions, and not because they
have not ample facilities for perpetrating any
iniquity they please. It is a question, not of
religion, but of common sense. Despotic
authority should never be entrusted to any
human being who can exercise it in absolute
secrecy.
But, granting that there are no cases of phy-
sical duress in convents, are there none of mo-
ral coercion ? Have *e not heard of property
diverted from its natural course of descent—of
blood relations left destitute whilst Roman
Catholic institutions and Roman Catholic
clergy have flourished on the wealth wrung
from the weakness or the terrors of the dying.
The arrival of Cardinal WISEMAN in England was
marked by increased activity in his clergy; and
no one can forget the numerous cases that at
this period pressed into the Court of Chancery,
in which natural heirs of testators impeached
the validity of wills made in favour of Roman
Catholic institutions.
Monasteries and convents stand on a some-
what different footing. The former are illegal,
but their existence has been connived at ; the
latter are not illegal. Now, the inquiry to be
instituted will not be with a view of suppress-
ing but only of regulating them; and this
power is exercised in every Roman Catholic
country of the Continent. Can it be contended
that conventual and monastic institutions
should be exempt in Protestant England from
restrictions which would be imposed on them
in Roman Catholic Bavaria ? In what manner
those institutions should be regulated will
depend upon the result of the inquiry. At
present we confine ourselves to this—that
Mr. WALPOLE laid before the House ample
reasons to justify the appointment of the
Committee for the purpose of preliminary
investigation, so that the people of England
may know what these institutions really are,
which are now, either with their sanction
or connivance, overspreading this Protestant
land.

SATURDAY,

CONTINUED COALITION SCANDALS.

THAT, in the short space of a twelvemonth, one of
Lord ABERDEEN'S Lords of the Treasury should have
his name associated with the proceedings sworn to
have taken place in the two boroughs of Sligo and
Carlow is an extraordinary circumstance. Mr.
MICHAEL GETHIN, a solicitor, stated before the Sligo
Committee on Wednesday :—" Mr. arosoa and Mr.
" TORNELET desired him (Grimm) to use all his
"influence at the last election for Mr. Joint SADLEIR.
"He offered 501. to CULLEN the elder to withdraw
"his recognisances. If CULLEN would have taken it,
" he would have sent his bill for it to Mr. Sadleir."
It seems to have been a foregone conclusion with
Mr. GETHIN that Lord ABERDEEN'S Lord of the
Treasury would neither have "ignored" his proceed-
ings, or protested against his bill. The whole
evidence before this Sligo Committee is of the most
startling nature, and will certainly give that Coalition
borough a prominence, more peculiar than honour-
able, in electioneering annals. One witness swore
that he would not have taken 1,0001. to do what one
of the supporters of Mr. SADLEIR proposed to him.
A postmaster deposed to false affidavits having been
offered to him ; and the rival swearers disagreed in
their evidence only as to which of the witnesses first
proposed the corrupt agreement. Not the least
curious incident of the case is, that Mr. COPPOCE
was the advocate of Mr. SADLEIR on Wednesday.
Next week we shall probably have the report of the
Committee before us, and then we may have occasion
to mark how, in the game of "party scandals," the
Coalition has the worst of it. The purists who pro-
fess anxiety for their immaculate gloves should
reflect that they have dirtier hands inside than the
hands with which they come in contact.

THE INNS OF COURT AND LEGAL
EDUCATION.
ON Wednesday Mr. NAPIER moved an address for a
commission to inquire into the constitution of the
inns of court and their arrangements generally, and
the motion was carried, not in silence, but without
opposition. Two points will be involved in the in-
quiry—first, what revenues the legal societies have
applicable for the purpose of providing legal educa
tion ; secondly, what will be a proper test to apply to
candidates for admission to the bar. With regard
to the revenues, we believe they will not be found to
be so great as is generally supposed. The gross
nominal rent of the inns of court is, of course, enor-
mous, but a Society is never economically served, and
the repair of house property always constitutes a
heavy deduction from the rental ; besides which the
Societies lose by bad debts much more than ordinary
landlords. But we are strongly of opinion that the
benchers of the inns of court could alter and reduce
the fees at present payable by students, and at the
same time increase the revenue of the Societies.
The alteration we would suggest is to abolish fees,
the reason and origin of which no one knows, and
impose others for which the students would con-
sciously receive value in return. With regard to
legal education, we cannot conceive why the bar,
which requires more diversified knowledge than any
other profession, should be the only one to which
the candidate is admitted without passing an exami-
nation. The evils created by the present system are
patent to all. In no profession are there such
differences in social position and intellectual acquire-
ments. There is as much difference between an
eminent member of the bar and some of the fre-
quenters of the inferior courts as there is between a
European and an African in European costume ; the
only resemblance is in the wig. Again, under the pre-
sent system many idle gentlemen members of influen-
tial country families become barristers for the purpose
of obtaining an easy income by conducting prosecu-
tions at assizes and sessions. A vast majority of
these cases require no other power than that of being
able to speak the English language; and yet a mem-
ber of the bar with a good magisterial connection
may obtain a considerable income by these means
without any labour or knowledge of law. Mr.
NAPIER'S committee will be a great step in the right
direction towards the suppression of these evils, and
the Right Honourable Gentleman deserves well of the
bar and the public for the course he has taken.

OFFICIAL PARTISANSHIP IN IRELAND.
TUE least excitable of Irishmen putting together
various incidents might almost infer that a sys-
tematic aggression had been designed against the
social position of the Irish gentry. We could, if
we pleased, cite some farcical proofs of this apparent

.1

MARCH 4, 1854.

conspiracy, such, for instance, as the present prac-
tice of the Roman Catholic journals, whenever public
meetings or assemblies of pleasure are recorded, to
put the names of the Protestant gentry after the
shopkeepers, clerks or " half Sirs" who happen to
be Roman Catholics. Not to descend, however, to
such contemptible details, there are certain other
indications of a pressure in this direction which are
becoming of more importance. In a leading organ
of the St. Germans' press at Dublin there has been
for sometime past an ominous series of attacks
upon the constitution of Irish grand juries, and, in
accordance with its bitter partisan pretensions, we
hear of unfair proceedings in various directions.
We have been shown a list of the " Record Jurors"
for a county where the Roman Catholic gentry is a
very small minority, yet, under the auspices of a
Roman Catholic High Sheriff, exactly one-half of
that body has been placed upon the list, though not
entitled to the honour by their social station. Again,
we hear of instances in various parts of Ireland
where the Roman Catholics of a very subordinate
rank have been privileged to write J. P. after their
names, to the great astonishment of the local gentry
even of their own persuasion. The nominations
made to the bench by a certain Whig peer in the
south-east of Ireland have been loudly complained
of, while similar strictures have been passed on
official freaks in other parts. In the county of
Louth, where the recent Ministerial victory afforded
occasion for some comments in our last week's
number on a similar abuse of local influence, we
find from the list of deputy lieutenants in Thom's
Almanack, that Lord IlEitzw, the Lord Lieutenant
of the county, has exercised his patronage in this
fashion. Seven of the thirteen are Roman Catholics,
who, however, are gentlemen of very small property
in the county, one of them, Mr. O'CALLAGHAN, being
the famous divisional magistrate of Capel-street,
Dublin. Of the six Protestants, only two are Con-
servatives; the rest are Whig Radicals, some of them
not having even residences in the county. Thus we
may account for the result of the Louth election,
at the same time that we see in this and in other
instances an evidence of the agencies by which the
Coalition secures the support of its Romanist allies.
For our own parts, we could desire that the civil
feud of Protestant and Roman Catholic had ceased
to embitter the politics of Ireland, but we will
steadily watch and resist any movement towards
Catholic ascendancy.

PUBLIC DECENCY AND THE PUBLIC
PRESS.

WlTimm assuming to be censors of our contempo-
raries, and especially repudiating any prudish pre-
tensions to superior virtue or morality, we yet think
there is one subject on which the conductors of the
newspaper press of England would do well to reflect
—we allude to the reports of proceedings in the
Police and other Courts of Law.

Within the last fortnight, cases combining every
conceivable ingredient of impurity, filth, corruption,
and indecency, have been investigated, and by the
daily papers faithfully, we may almost say verbatim,
reported. On the part of the magistrate there was
a disgusting, yet necessary, duty to perform : he has
to bring crime to punishment. The press also has
its duty to discharge. Rightly understood, and
faithfully and discreetly carried out, the office of the
journalist is lofty and honourable. It is to instruct
the ignorant, to encourage the good, to protect the
weak, and, above all, to unmask and to brand vice,
when the crime or the offender is beyond the reach
of law. Yet, to do this, is it necessary to report
literally the evidence of pandars, and to recount
with disgusting exactitude the iniquities of the
brothel ? Occasionally one may read in the leading
articles of a newspaper an eloquent discourse, which
would do honour to the pulpit, denouncing the im-
morality of the cheap publications of the day, and
calling the attention of the police to the indecent
prints in Holywell-street. Turn to the police reports
of the same paper, and the reader will see pruriency
which Holywell-street cannot surpass. " Change
places bandy-dandy, which is the justice—which the
thief"?
It is easy to say that the press must faithfully
report the proceedings of courts of justice; but a
repot t can he faithful without being minute. For
our own part, we confess we cannot see any difference
in effect between publishing to the last particular
accounts of vice that have actually occurred, and
inventing imaginary scenes of impurity, to acquire
wealth by corrupting the minds of the ignorant.