The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-10 00:00:00

Eighty thousand pounds have been expended
by his grateful country upon the obsequies of
the late Duke of WELLINGTON. And forty-
seven years after our incomparable NELSON ex-
pired in the arms of Victory at Trafalgar, the
capital of his tin-grateful country continues to be
disgraced by an incomplete testimonial. We are
not grudging the old Duke one sixpence of the
magnificent sum expended in the pomps of the re-
cent ceremonial. No ! He won the tribute well
with his good sword in Hindostan and the Penin-
sula. But we do lament from our hearts the very
lamentable niggardliness, or, to say the best of it,
the very mournful indifference displayed in refe-
rence to the national homage for the memory of
HORATIO NELsoN—the hero of St. Vincent, the
Nile, and Copenhagen,—blind of an eye, maimed
of an arm, prematurely old from the anguish of so

many wounds, and carried away at last in a

" flaming chariot of glory," yielding up his life
for hig fatherland in the splendid agonies of his
last and greatest achievement. It was not enough
that that glorious sailor died merely a Baron and
a Viscount, while the departed soldier died not
only a Baron and a Viscount, but an Rarl, and a
Marquis, and a Duke. It was not enough that
the one obtained in grants half a million of money
from the Legislature, while the other was so poor
that he had scarcely enough plate to take
out with him when ho last went to sea on board

the Victory. It was not enough that these and
a thousand similar contrasts in the same grand
and memorable careers should be visible to every
heart and intellect in Great Britain. But it was
necessary, in addition to all this, that a pageant,
costing altogether the sum of eighty thousand
pounds, should pass on the 18th of November,
1852, through Trafalgar-square, bearing upon a
car of state the body of ARTHUR WELLESLEY,
Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, Duke, at the
cost, we repeat, for that one occasion, of eighty

thousand pounds—immediately under the pedestal
of that monument to HORATIO NELSON, a monu-
ment still glaringly incomplete, although his Im-
perial Majesty the EMPEROR of all the RUSSIAS
generously came forward some years ago with a
contribution of 5001., to aid England in building
up this one tardy testimonial.

We put the case as simply as we cans and,

having done so, we commend it to the gallant
sailor at the head of the Admiralty, we commend

it to the chivalrous heart of a PERCY, to the judg-
ment, the justice, and the patriotism of the Duke
Of NORTHUMBERLAND.

Our readers have been amply supplied w

lists, longer than they could have patience to read,
of the elsewhere unheard of nepotism of the Ec-
clesiastical Courts. Such perfect " family Cabi-
nets" are they, that one involuntarily suspects
that sympathy prevented the Whigs from trying
their reforming hand upon them. We have no
intention now of quoting from the return relating
to Ecclesiastical Courts, which, though moved for
by Sir BENJAMIN HALL, in August, 1851, has
but just made its appearance, to tell of infants
of three and five years of age, and females ! ap-
pointed as Registrars of Courts—of a pair of
VERNON HARCOURTS, differenced by a G. or an E.
prefixed to the well-sounding patronymics, the one
Registrar in two Courts by the time he was six-
and-twenty, his office a perfect sinecure of nearly
2,000/. a year ; the other, since the same age,
having enjoyed 1,4001. a year, for five half-days
per annum in his Court—the two having already
bagged, of good English money, not less
than 96,3861. for doing nothing, or next
to nothing. We leave these Ecclesiastical
flowers for our readers to cull in abundance from
the extracts which will appear from time to time
in the public papers. There is another question,
a more important one, that is—why are laymen
to be plagued with Ecclesiastical Courts at all ?
We should, indeed, be thankful to see them
banished entirely from these realms. We have
no wish to hand over " offending clerks" to their
tender mercies, unless the said clerks desire it.
Were we in the position of a clerical delinquent,
we fancy we would much rather appear before one
of her MAJESTY'S Civil Judges, and an honest
Jury, than before the FUSTS or VERNON HAR-
COURTS, or the deputies of female infants three
years of age, who grace our various Courts
Christian. We should prefer, we mean, if we
thought our defence complete or tolerable, to
place it before those whose constant practice 'qua-
lifies them to act the part of a Judge, and those
whose unsophisticated habits dispose them to
decide a case upon its merits. If, however,
as we anticipate, Archbishops and Bishops,
especially, and perhaps the " inferior clergy" also,
wish to settle their own matters between them-
selves, why let them do so. We would not
for the sake of emancipating the cloth from
a cherished slavery, risk the opposition of
the Bishops in the Lords, and the noise and
petitions of the clergy throughout the country.
We of the profane laity only ask that we at least
may not be forced, nolens volens, into these sacred
Courts. Courts Christian we know they are called,
but most of our grade, when we have had the mis-
fortune to be dragged or pushed into them, have
been mulcted with what we have thought a most
un-Christian burden of fees, and an equally in-
tolerable loss of our time. Indeed the reflection
has occurred to us, that these Courts Christian
obeyed the Christian precept of " Redeeming the
time," on. the principle that so much of ours as was
spent in attendance within their holy precints, was
time redeemed from the profane use we shouldother-
wise have made of it in our worldly callings. One
case long ago set a going in them, the Braintree
Church-rate case, bids fair to rival the longest de-
lays for which the ante-Sugden of Court of Chancery
used to be notorious. Now as this is the hour
of Law Reform, and as our Conservative Law Re-,
formers have actually undertaken the reformation

of these very Courts, we do put in our humbie
petition that they would leave nothing for their

successors to do ; nothing, we mean, on behalf of
us laymen. It is complained, and with too much
truth, that their Budget was pervaded by no
master-principle ; it was freely owned, on the
contrary, that their Reforms of Irish Law Proce-
_ _

dure, though they might have gone further,
were not open to this charge. That even the
more complicated Reforms of Mr. NAPIER had
their leading principle. Let, in like manner, a
well-defined, sound, and popular principle be
adopted in reforming the Ecclesiastical Courts,
and our Cabinet will deserve and will enjoy
the thanks of the present generation, and of all
generations to come. _ _

There are but two sets of Courts in England
now, in which the class interested in a conviction
are made judges of Englishmen : these are the
Church Courts and the Game-law Courts. In the

latter, the clerical game-preserving Magistrate or
Squire deals out his practically irreversible sen-
tences against the criminals whom his own amuse-
ments have made such, and in support of his own
selfish and feudal privileges. In the former, the
man who enjoys Church fees, or Church emolu-
ments of various kinds, is made the judge' of our
offences against Church demands upon us—it may
be of Church rapacity. We protest against such
one-sided, interested judges. Perhaps many of us
are Dissenters from the Church : we can expect
no mercy from our theological adversaries trying

us on questions of Church tribute, and disliking
us as a practical denial of their right to such
tribute at all. What we want, then, is, that no
case of ours which affects our time, our property,

1 a ••
or our liberty, should come under the cognisance
of these Courts. It is a good proposal to take tes-
tamentary matters out of their hands ; but that is

by no means enough. Every matter in which

property

is concerned, Church Rates, Easter

offerings, Mortuary fees, Surplice fees ; everything
when a shilling could be demanded or refused,

may come as easily under the jurisdiction of our

Civil Courts, from the County Courts upwards,

of the Imperial Parliament—the old site
crowding the present structure close up to the
very corner of Sir CHARLES BARRY'S architectural
masterpiece. We would seriously commend these
considerations to the judment of Lord JOHN MAN-
NERS. We have such confidence in his sagacity
thdi we do believe on reflection he must resolve to
guard off this disgrace from the Administration.