The Express.
London, England, 1849-05-03 00:00:00

du es if he had net been a clergymas. The hen. member the slave a etas of Rome and Greece. Kings like
Louis XI., arable to maintain an efficient polio
kr Kilmarnock said he would refuse him the same position
he eas partieular—that of re-admission to hol orders. By were warranted, perhaps, in hanging robbers in der-
rorem, like acorns, on parks. Utter
the bill they destroyed the powers and privioeges of holy the trees of their ks.
orders. But was a dissenter, because he was a dissenter,
excluded from holy orders? On the contrary, there ware ignorance has no means of reading the lase
woo of clergymen of the established church who bad been save when manifested by the scaffold. Wild bassi
Masestsla S. ter ee being a dissenter, *mimeo a wan less can only be exterminated, or tamed by terror ; and
suprehlblesd from boll orders in the established church. Bat mei
be
assisedid that the position or a
ciyusa who had es,„ 2 brought up and kept in a state of wild bug.
hood,th are
ame tacceamble only to the ume treatment and
_seised lie oharacter as a clergyinan dMered from that of •
gealhaullisigi=ll.l=errors.
gr;;lntevainnditfteareint front oglearudfwu
ssen- But to maintain that in the midst of our highly
new. MO Wet real to give every civil exemption to Pew"' developed and graduated society, with such a variety
of motives, incentives, rewards, Privations • where
J. the condition contemplated by the bill, but he could not
Anent to place a eneding clergyman In the same position
ignorance cannot be pleaded ; where the gush
as if he had not been a clergyman.
Mr O. GREY said he would not object to the clause if the majority are freer dignified, educated, humane
interpretation put on it by the hon. and learned gentleman Fen, and where the example of the ma.
the member for Midhurst was adopted ; but the right hon. ority . prevails ; where a livelihood can elegy'
rettaaan who spoke last did not adopt it. (Hear, hear.) be gained by industry, and its reward fairly cal.
They ought cliorly to understand whit the intention of the ciliated upon and secured; where the comforts and
sumittes was in inserting this clause The hon. member
enjoymare ents of life common; where women are not
Ise llMhunt said the claws would leave the weeding cler-
k the same situation as other nonconformists; but the rare es angels or caged as curiosities; where, in face,
Whoa. gentleman said that there war something peculiar no one can be tempted to commit great crimes' such
la the case, and that a clergyman should be subjected top as murder, for lucre, or for love, or for political aims—
maim theseilltiol. He (84 0.0 ) certainly thought that %lakes the intellect be absolutely deranged, andthe met
seek clergyinea should not be de from the rites of moody beyond thrust
the pale sentiments
Itllltege or burial. Indeed he believed the law of the land
sea the church war that such rites, aooording to the forms —in such a state of society as this, fu maintain the
aerie church of England, must be administered to all old barbarous terrorism natural to a remote and incl.
parties not excosamugoated. What, then, was then pre pient state of civilisation, is most preposterous and
salter in the puke= of a seceding clergyman, who might inhuman.
sabeequently re enter the church ? Why should he be de- The .
barred from those rites which other dissenters were admitted . ofsuch state of society great security
is on becoming members of the church of England, and is its cairn t the lieneral influence which, in s crowded
which, if refused, could be enf,roed by mandamus? He community, all have over one, the almost impossibility
Monett the safer 0"7" would be not to introduce it in the of great and sacceefful crimes against property, whoa
so much of property is absolutely intangible; the in-
bill, but to leave dissenters to whom the bill spelled subject
only to all the disabilities which dissenters in general were utility and tareness of crimes of passion, the absence
subject to. (Hear, hear.) of excitement—these are the causes that dimi-
Albsi:BaßhwaNwAtordsotairsaaafma Mr).
std.rthtlealiralwa'as Teeny no quo. With crimes,. especially of that heinous natal*
lk, boon them, and they ought to proceed men regululy, which still incurs capital punishment. On the other
whet did the hon. member (Mr. Pete) mean to move ? hand, the most potent source of crime in such a state
Mr. PETO said he proposed to leave out the words "no of society is excitement, the feeding or influencing
'lnman." the imaguntioe so as to place the individual beyond
Mr. ROUNDELL PALMER said that there were many the common walk and motives of life. Now, nothing
dissenteis so opposed to the doctrines of the church, and to its excites and renders imagination predominant over
morality also, that clergymen could not be compelled to edged
- every day reason so much as deeds which attract
ulster the offices of the church to such persons without great
per. interest by horror, which rivet the public
Injury to their consciences. The question was whether
sees, who, after taking on themselves the TOWS of the mind upon trials, and wind up the excitement
dearth, afterwards romanced those obligations, ought not by an execution. These form, in fact, the
le eine within this description. moat popular novels, not read, but seen. And
Gel. THOMPSON was anxious to know to what extent hence it is that crime is epidemic, that one passionate
Ws douse would give power to clergymen to refuse the
aim of the church to dissenters. id„eep„ted, from what act prompts another, and that example pacipitatte
had fallen from hoc. members opposite, that it was intended what passion itself could not have resolved.
to treat seceding clergymen u excommunicated persons, and Whatever doubt might be thrown on the evidence
this nee next to patting thin in a white *kW._ ,(I.4_,eghter-) of statistics, these were at least plain enough in sag.
If such en intention nen been crony avowed, the clause rating the conclusion, that capital punishments had
would had have no chance of being speed to. ailed in deterring, what might be called the criminal
Mr. LUSHINGTON admitted that the clausehailed byeh prof on, from pursuing that profession.
the committee unanimously, but did not think th con- clue
misplaced the extent to which it might be strained—at least, When eep-st ers, and urg ars, and urgers, were
eal b I f
not to the extent of excommunication. hanged, it did not prevent new candidates, for the
Mr. GLADSTONE said he was not in • position to ex- gain of these professions, from coming forward and
pound the views of the committee. The question appeared taking the risks. It is inevitable that, with the in-
to be, how far a clergyman should be compelled to administer crease of property, there should be also an kenos. of
the offices of the church to persons of whom he disapproved. those who prey upon it, as well as of those who in-
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said he should vote dustriously live by it. But this increase, without
against the clause, if it were pressed in its present form. By
the law as it stood, clergymen were bound both to bury and plenty or of want,
taking into account years otand
marry dissenters; but the were not so compelled in cued all the other elements of struggling life, can lead to no
where excommunication 'had been pronounced. Still, in satisfactory conclusion. All we know is, that capital
practice, this exception even did not exist. The clause would punishment failed to repress those crimes. And if they
put seceding clergyman under peculiar disabilities, end on
this account he objected to it. lie also knew that many failed to repress the orlon s into which calculation num-
clergymen sat up the civil against the canon law in cues of Mill. entered, how can they be expected to be efficacious
this kind ; and he feared the result of this claws would be in repressing crimes in the perpetration of which
to encourage proceedings of that kind, as it might be con- calculation is suspended, and in consequence utterly
suited into a kind of legislative declaration on the subject.
Oa this ground also he should oppose the clause and necessarily lost eight of?.
This, as well as the singular law of the self-ge.
Mr. NAPIER supported the clause. aeration of crime, was fully illustrated by Mr.
The Earl of ARUNDEL and SURREY was of o
at secedin clemen saould be placed in the me e- ..
Pinkli BRIGHT. Another point, which he more fully,
lion
u other clergymen;rgy but, believing the whole state of if possible, developed, was the terrible injus-
the law on these matters to be wrong, and the question being tico and inequality of awards of death,
one of great difficulty, he should decline to vote upon it. the most fearful and irreparable severity falling upon
Bir E. N. BUXTON said that • clergyman war bound to some whose guilt is merely separated by a shade from
bury a deist as the law stood at present, but by the clause
proposed he might refuse burial to a clergyman who had that of others visited with comparative impunity.
seceded. Oa that account he should oppose the clause. The cases of ANNETTE MEYERS and of the girl at Brie.
be glad to bear from the tel were adduced as strong cases in Punt—alum Mr. Kr. SPOONER said he should
Attorney-General whether, In the present state of the law, that showed the utter impossibility under which the
clergymen had any right to reuse to marry dissenters ? Home Secretary laboured of apportioning punishment
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL replied in the negative' under such a law in any degree of fitness to the
but said that the clause under discussion, if paned, would offence.
give that right in "firm* t° the Partisa'allad" ta—watt If Mr. EWAET ably opened the question this year,
leg clergymen. Mr. BRIGHT may be said to have exhausted it, and
After • few words front Mr. Lace, Mr. GLADSTON74 Mr. . •
Lizatar, and Mr. Booming, carried away with him the sympathies and assent of
Mr. W. P. WOOD said he did not think the clause had those previously indifferent or hostile. Nor can the
been rightly represented as placing the seceders under • speech of Sir GEOIOE GREY be considered as labour-
penalty. The real ebject was to save the consciences of those ing for more than an adjournment of the question.
who might think it wrong to administer the offices of the A minister in his position cannot abandon the in ter-
church to such persons. Formerly, dissenters had thought
it a hardship that they were obliged to be married in the rorern penal legislation of the day until another be ma-
church; from this they had beta relieved, and he thought until, as Colonel Triosirsox
tured and provided, and
it a strange thing that say such persona should wish to be said, some secondary punishment be invented, lam
eligible to partake in the services of a church from which cruel and more Christian than the fourpenny end of
they dissented. Nevertheless, as the feeling existed, and he rope.
rejoiced that it did exist—he would suggest that the clause
shoied be withdrawn ;for he did not imagine that any of .
the parties seceding would wish to avail themselves of these 'The cause, indeed, we consider as gained. In
sentiment every one aczords with the earth-ab3litica
offices. movement. No ore upholds vindictiveness.. No
The committee then divided— high-churchman stands for the permanence of the
For the clause 67 Jewish lee talionis ; and none impugned Mr.
Against it llB-61 BRIGHT'S assertion that the first Christians universally
The clause was aeeerdingly struck out of the bill.
The house then resumed, and the chairman reported pro• set their faces against, and refused to aid in, the
grin. punishment of death. That was one of the first signs
The house adjourned at ten minutes to six, of the new civilisation.
With these unanswered and unanswerable argu-
ments, and with the close division that ensued upon
them, and indeed with the altered tone and modified
arguments of Sir GEORGE GREY in his solitary and
purely official speech, the leaders of the anti-abolition
movement have reason to be amply contented.

MARY ANN CROSBY, our readers know already,
has been set at liberty. The universal satisfaction
with which this news was received has been in-
creased by the manner in which her liberation was
effected. Wherever her story penetrated, it stirred
up some benevolent individuals to subscribe for her
rescue. But all gladly waived their claims to take
part in so meritorious an action on learning what the
honest and warm-hearted farmers of Ringwood were
doing. The poor woman's neighbours asserted their
right to be her liberators, and, in order that no one
should be defrauded of his title to a share in this good
deed, it was resolved that no man should be allowed
to subscribe more than sixpence.
The farmers of Ringwood have rescued a destitute
family, and at the same time read a lesson to their
game-preserving landlords and parsons. They have
done so in the sympathising gaze of all England—every
man worthy of the name envying their prior claim
by one and the same act to release the poor and rebuke
the proud oppressor. Honour to the farmers of Ring-
wood! If the Hampshire squirearchy are not utterly
callous to moral impressions, they must feel by. this
time how entirely their game-preserving mania is
isolating them from the sympathies of Om among
whom they dwell—upon whose kind services the
proudest and the richest are at times as dependent as
the humblest labourers. It is not too mach to hope
that such a lemon may have its effect even upon the
clerical magistrate who concurred in the sentence
which sent the mother of three helpless children to
distant prison, with an infant at her breast, on evi-
dence in which none bat game preservers could have
seen warrant even for a alight suspicion. Let se
charitably hope that the lesson may yet be the mesas
of converting this man to Christianity.
So far good: but much yet remains to be done.
There is an old proverb that fools should not be
trusted with sharp weapons. The game law is a tool
of a remarkably keen edge, and the utter want of dis-
cretion shown by our justices of peace in the fashion
after which they hack away with it, leaves no doubt
as to their belonging to the class out of whose hands
all such implements ought carefully to be taken. As
the people of England would avoid having their
moral sense insulted and outraged from time to time
by repetitions of the story of MARY ANNE CROSBY,
they must unite in a vigorous effort to wrest the
game law out of the hands of the squirearchy lay and
clerical.
In no place could a movement for this purpose take
its origin more appropriately than in and about Ring-
wood. The New Forest was the cradle of the game
law. There it was that the first English game-P"'
server on record, WILLIAM the Conqueror, destroyed
fifty-two churches and chapels, quenched the house-
hold fires on all the hearths within the townshipathat
contained them, levelled all the dwellings, and dross
out aged crones and gaffers mothers ecarcely recto
vered from child-bed, and infants a few Lours old, to
make room for his deer. The great original gams
preserver of the New Forest looms through the hats
of antiquity—a very dragon of Wantley, of whoa
voracious appetite the old song records, that

Houses end church;
Were to him gone and turkits.

Game-law dragons of each portentous bulk Oa
apetite there are none in these degenerate days; but
under the umbrageous boughs, sad amid the heaths
and marshes of the New Forest and its vioinitY, Bur'
'rive a numerous breed of dmgouets, as venomor,
and in proportion to their email capacity, stow