The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-18 00:00:00

BOROUGH HOP.

The amount of business passing iu our market is still of
limited extent. Prices, however, both of English and
foreign qualities, rule firm. The import last week amounted
to 105 bales from Antwerp, 11 Hamburg, and 23 bales from
Rotterdam.
Mid and East Kents £5 Os to £9 10s per cwt.
Weald of Bents 5 Os to 7 78
Sussex
Yearlings 3 Os to 5 Os I,
Bavarian 5 52, to 8 8s 71
Belgian
American

WOOL.
Long stapled English wool continuo) very arm in price,

Particulars.

Stock this nay._
Price of Y.C.
Delivery last week
Ditto from June 1
Arrivals last week
Ditto from June 1
Price of Town ....

1850.

1851

1863.
3'oBB 76.031 37A60 41.823
5682.1 to 59861 to 4hs‘d t0142s 93 to
Od —s Cd 46s 6d —s Od
1,486 1,116 1,9:/1 1,312
73,63 70,411 111,458 72,688
736 285 307
92,791 115,323 92.157 76,232
56s 6d 568 6d 478 9d 4i'B 3d

Roman Catholic Chaplains,

(From the Times.)

t 2.106
Ole Od to
—s Od
1,',02
63,37
50
82,639
43s Od

It will have been observed with regret filet the
Middlesex magistrates have decided, by a large ma-
jority, neither to appoint Roman Catholic chaplains
to their gaols nor even to pay priests for visiting
Roman Catholics in the county prisons. Oar readers
will remember that a bill was passed last year which
gave the magistrates power under certain circum-
stances, with the consent of the visiting justices, to
appoint a Roman Catholic priest as minister, and
to give him a fixed and sufficient remuneration.
Wherever the number of prisoners exceeds 30 the
Act may be put in force. Where it is not adopted,
prisoners are only 'visited by a priest at their own
request. TLe Middlesex county prisons are a good
instance of the necessity of some such measure.
According to a letter which we pubish in another
column, the number of Roman Catholic prisoners in
the three county prisons is no less than 649. The
number in the House of Correction is 391, in the
Westminster Bridewell 223, and in the House of
Detention 35. All these at present have no regular
religious instruction. They will, of course, in nearly
every case exercise their right of refusing to receive
the visits o' the chaplain of the Established Church,
and there is no one else to go to them. They may,

if they ask for it, receive visits from a priest, but it
is not surprising that, as stated on Thursday,
" compratively few prisoners have mace such re
quests ;" and the result is that a 1 these prisoners,
remain without any religious influence—we might
almost say any moral influence—being brought to
bear upon them. They are simply subjeated to the
hard lessons of the penal discipline of the gaol, and
left to deduce the moral for themselves.
Mr. Laurie endeavoured, by the most obvious
arguments of justice and common sense, to induce
the magistrates to put an end to this disgraceful
state of things. He proposed resolutions for the
appointment of regular Roman Catholic ministers
for these three prisons, leaving the details of the
arrangements in the hands of the visiting justices.
Such a straightforward propoeal, however, seems
to have been felt at once to involve a liberality of

feeling which was not to be expeoted in the board
of magistrates, and Mr. Cox endeavoured to substi-
tute a proposition which should give a less serious
shock to traditional prejudices. Ho only ventured
to propose that the justices should be requested
to carry out so much of the set as relates to " per-
mitting a minister of the chuch or peranation to
which prisoners belong to visit them at proper and
reasonable times" under any necessary regulations,
and that they should be authorised to pay such
ministers a moderate remuneration. Even this,
however, was far too much for the meeting. and
the amendment was rejected by no less dmajority
than 65 to 7. Upon this another amendment was
proposed, directly denying the necessity and the
justice of the proposition before the Court. It
committed the magistrates to the opinion " that
'the present arrangements for the moral and
religious instruction of the prisoners are suf-
ficient," though, es we have explained, at far
as Roman Catholic prisoners go, there are no such
arrangements at all; and " that any appointment
by the Court of permission by the visiting justices
for Roman Catholic priests to attend at the prisons
on all occasions, whether their ministrations are re-
quired or not, would be unnecessary and improper,'
—a statement of which we will venture to say that,
like many Protestant manifestoes, it contains as
much ingenious misrepresentations as any of the
Roman Catholic evasions which are these gentle-
men's bugbears and every honest man's abomi-
nation. No one proposes, ever did propose,
that Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to
attend at the prisons "on all occasions," but only
on such occasions as shall be permitted by
the regulations of the visiting justices; nor was
it ever contemplated that they should attend
" whether their ministrations are required or
not," but only when it shall reasonably appear

that such ministrations are required. The sole
question is when it shall be considered that this
requirement exists. At present it depends upon

the caprice of the prisoner; the proposal of the act
is to make it depend on the judgment of the magi-
strates. However, the
amendment was scarcely
even criticised, and this disingenuous and extrava-
gant resolution was adopted by a majority of 70 to
24, or nearly 3to 1. The original proposal was
therefore rejected, and the result received with
loud " cheers." The cheers proceeded, of course,
from the magistrates themselves. There are very
few other persons who will receive with any satis-
faction a result which proclaims that two-thirds of
the magistrates of such a couuty as Middlesex are
still capable of denying the claims of reason and

justice.
The speech of the gentleman who proposed
the amendment—Mr. Sergeant Payne—is a curio-
sity as being delivered
by an educated and
learned gentleman to a body of magistrates. It
consists of nothing but a string of those load and
irrelevant, and for the most part unfounded, decla-
matorybe eulogised or studied
a
which m
bauyt
t Protestant platitudes
Institutes,
which are banished
from the conversation and almost from the recollec-
tion of all reasonable men. Mr. Sergeant Payne
"did it," it must be confessed, in a style which
would have done honour to the most free and inde-
pendent
"buncombe
endentoraj on platform orator
pwlhofemver thundered Protestant
or
in
pulpit. " Three
centuries ago their ancestors had fought for an
amended form of religion, and they ought to hold
by a Reformation which was founded in good
sense." " When once the door was opened there
was no knowing when it would be closed."
"If they admitted priests, there would be a sealed
confession, and what would there be to prevent
improper communications being made between the
priests and the prisoners ?" 'Who, indeed, can tell
what horrible schemes, what new Guy Fawkes
Mr. Newdegste might
the Qleen, the Arch-
bishopp l o t s for o thef
Cblowingterb o
rupCanterbury,
a !loaf
not be hatched if two such persons as Father New-
man and an Irish convict got together in a prison
cell ? May we suggest that the same danger exists
from Roman Catholics loose as from Roman
Catholics tied up, and that Mr. Payne himself and
the whole Constitution are in imminent danger of
being suddenly blown up 20 long as half a dozen
priests and a dozen Irish Catholics exist in London?
One or two other such dreadful consequences were
suggested : and then came the peroration It
was said that the strong Protestant feeling of the
country was sufficient to check Roman Catholic
arrogance. He trusted that it was so, and he
hoped that re:iitance would be made to every
attack, howiver small, from a sense of thankful-
ness that we no longer lived under the blighting
influence of a Roman Catholic priesthood." That

last sentence was no doubt irresistible. There is
one other argument, however, which we have kept
to the last as the gem of the whole speech. "It
was impossible," be said, " to regard the proposal
as anything but an attempt to increase the number
of Roman Catholic subjects." We confess we are
at a loss to understand what this means; how the
visits of Roman Catholic priests to Roman Catholic
prisoners would have any tendency to increase their
or any other species.
Would it have been credible before the event

that all this nonsense should have been net only
spoken, but listened to patiently and approved
by 70 magistrates of the metropolitan county P
They had before them two simple considera-
tions—one of common justice, the other of com-
mon reason. The question of justice may be simply
proposed in the familiar coesideration of doing as
they would be done by. If many hundreds of our
countrymen were constantly liable to be immured
in a Spanish prison, these seventy gentlemen are
just those who would get up a great agitation and
go on deputations to Lord Palmerston to get
Protestant chaplains appointed to the Spanish
gaols ; and they would think it monstrously
hard if the Pontifical Government refused to
allow the establishment of a Protestant clergy man
and a Protestant church at Rome. Yet no other
considerations whatever, except force, can be
brought to bear on the Spanish or Roman Govern-
ment which do not equally be.:r on the magistrates
of a county with a large cumber of Roman Catholic
prisoners. As to the consideration of reason, the
question is, as we have before put it, whether these
prisoners shall have any religious or moral influenc.l
brought to bear on their minds at all. It is idle to
say they can have it if they like. It is much the
same thing as telling a man with hydrophobia that
he may drink water if he likes. The very men who
will not send for Ilia priest are just those who want
him most. The opposing magistrates seemed to
speak of the matter on Thursday as though a minis-
ter were a sort of luxury which ought to be denied
to prisoners, in the same way as amusing books or
newspapers or venison, as though he were a sort of
dispenser of agreeable theological excitement or con-
troversial delicacies. But we appoint chaplains to
our gaols for the supposed purpose of initiating a
process of improvement by awakening in the minds
of prisoners religious and moral motives. He is sup-
posed to be as essential a part of the prison as
the cell, the rank, or the treadmill. His duty
and use are, so to say, to interpret to the convict
the external consequences of his crime, and force
them home on his conscience and reason. If this
be necessary for Protestant prisoners, it is certainly
necessary for Roman Catholic prisoners; and it is,
in fact, nothing short of a direct derelecfion of duty
when it is not provided. We hope the day is not
far off when the prejudices we have been exposing
—perhaps more foolish than bigoted—will yield to
these simple considerations, and when Roman
Catholic ministers will be regularly admitted, not
only to our gaols, but even, in spite of Sergeant
Payne's almost inhuman expression, to lunatic
asylums. That any English gentleman could be
led to- refuse to the unhappy inmates of county
lunatic asylums the chance of the comforting, and
therefore restoring, influence which the ministra-
tions of priests of their own religion might afford
is alone sufficient to condemn the spirit which
prompted the opposition of the Middlesex Magis-
trates.

GARIBALDI AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

(THIS DAY.)

The presentation of the trades' addresses to
General Garibaldi having been arranged for to-
day, the early trains to the Crystal Palace were
crowded in an extraordinary manner. The gates
of the Palace were opened at nine o'clock, and
immediately after thousa ads of visitors arrived in
quick succession. The weather was all that could
be desired, and no doubt this greatly swelled the
number of those present. Nothing like an estimate
of the number present at the time of writing could
be
_formed, as every five minutes brought fresh
acquisitions to the already enormous assemblage.
The proceeding will be as great a success sip the
presentations of Saturday; and as that event will
be foutid in another part of The Sun, it is only
necessary at present to say that the demonstration
of to-day was nearly in all respects similar, except
as to the filing past the General of the numerous
deputations, each of whom presented the address
of their respective bodies.

SYDENIIAM, 12 o'clock.
BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

The attendance is beyond all precedent. The
interior of the building presents a sight of the
most extraordinary nature. Everything bids fair
to pass off with the greatest effect and order.

QUARTER PAST Two.
Attendance about 26,000. Not so many here as
expected.

HALF-PAST Two.

General just arrived. Received with enthusiasm.
Numbers greatly increased. Deputations filing
past.