The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-18 00:00:00

FRIDAY
_AVENING,

Stockport and Marple Road.
I PAinorn and Rowley R•..)ads.
Stroud and Bisley Road.
MacclesflPld and Buster.' float
Kirkby St,Thcn and Hawes Road.
Marsden, Gisburne, and Long Preston Roads.
Bury and Little Bolton Road.
Bramley and Ridgewick Road.
Wakefield and Depby Dale Road.
Rottierbam and Pleasley Road.
Leven Railway.
Lancashire and Yorkshire and York and North Midland
Railways.
Beaconsfield and Redhill Road.
Manchester, Buxton, Matlock, and Midlands Junction
Railway.
Kettering and Northampton Road.
Railway Passengers' Assure/I;3e Company.
Greenfield and Shepley Lane Head Road.
Leeds Waterworks (No. 2).
Tramore Embankment.
Limerick Improvement and Market.
South-Eastern, and Reading, Guildford, and Reigate
Railways.
Ipswich Dock.
Tyne Improvement.
South Wales Railway. •
Londonderry Bridge (No. 1).
Londonderry Bridge (No. 2).
LyEdinburgh
oenodviolnaannddainslcdhoerGsthtlae-rsgw Railway.WToeusrtenrpnikßeaiivasyts(so.
2).
EaAstnergnlianCortuaniltwieasyßs,aklewsy (Power to use the East
Leek and Hassop and Middlehills and Buxton Road.
York, Neweastk4 and Berwick Railway (Deviation of
Bishop Auckland Branch, sc,c.)
Presbyterian Ministers' Widows'
and Orphans'
Bowden Park Estate.
Clarkson's Estate.
Watson's Hospital (Edinburgh) Estate.
Balmoral Estate.
The Lords Commissioners were the Lord Chancellor,tind'
the Marquis of Salisbury, and Earl Fortescue.

The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Woolsack
at Five o'clock.

MR. MA.THER's CASE.
Lord BEAUMONT gave notice that be should, on
Monday next, call the attention of the House to the
correspondence which had been lately laid on the table,
relative to the recent assault on Mr. Mather, at Florence.
The Earl of HARROWBY presented a petition fromiverpool, praying
the Chamber of Commerce at I. for
an amendment in the Passengers' Act.
Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition in favour of
copyhold enfranchisement.
The Bishop of WINCHESTER
presented a number
of petitions against the Maynooth grant.
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS (CRIMINAL) JU-
RISDICTION BILL,
Lord WODEHOUSE moved the second reading of
this Bill.
The Bishop of SALISBURY opposed the Bill. He
allowed that reforms were necessary, and
professed him-
self desirous of seeing them carried into effect, but he
did not think this Bill calculated to bring about any re-
form. He thought, in dealing with this subject in a
fragmentary manner, they might trench upon principles
which it was desirable to maintain intact. The Right
Rev. Prelate concluded by moving that this Bill be read
a second time this day six months.
Lord CAMPBELL said that a Committee of their
Lordships' House had investigated this subject, six of
the members of which were prelates of the Church,
long as twenty years ago, and had reported
a measure of the kind now submitted to their Lordships.
The Right Rev. Prelate appeared to be in fav
to
th
our of a
more sweeping measure of reform in r
ecclesiastical courts than the Bill now before the House
eferenea se o
respect,
obt
,u
at
nthis i Billd
not was as
standi
whollyn the way of future legis'
lation in reference to those courts. The object of the
unexceptionable in that
Bill was to abolish the jurisdiction in favour of
of these courts in
cases of brawling in churchyards and of defamation;
and the only real objection of the Right Rev. Prelate to
the measure appeared to be that it was brought forward,
not by the Government, but by an independent Member
of the House—an objection which was wholly futile, for
it properly lay with any independent Member to bring
forward a measure for so manifest a reform of abuses as

acquiesce in the
this was.
oobf
100 XaoFdOLßeDarcboeudldl
onrodt
who
had just sat
dvoieTwwnhs.eoUfTtishhheeolsTpNoble and Learned Lord had
misconceived
the argument of hie Right Rev. Friend, whose objection
was to those piecemeal attempts at reform Which pro-
ceeded on no definite principle, and provided no substi-
tute for the existing remedies which they proposed to
do away with. He (the Bishop of Oxford) admitted,
with his Right Rev. Friend, that the subject deserved
the attention of the Legislature, and that great reforms
ought to be introduced into the ecclesiastical courts of
the country. But it was because he believed the pro-
ceeding with those nibbling measures was not the way
to produce reform, bat rather to leave real difficulties
at present available
untouched,itd id
away thatwitb he t
the
objected
only
remedy
omtehlys Bill, particularly as
for certain great existing evils, and substituted no other
reremedy in its Such legislation as
place.that he re-
garded as vicious. The particular offences to which the
Bill applied could not be dealt with in the ordinary
courts of justice, and, therefore, if they abolished the
existing remedy, they must substitute a new one.
He admitted that there were many cases of defama-
tion which he should be glad to see not brought
before these
,courts ; but in the main these
courts were most effective is repressing offences of
this kind, which were of frequent occurrence in the more
populous parts of the country. During the three years
prior to January, 1830, the number of
these offences
brought before the courts was 311, which showed the
necessity that existed for maintaining a remedy. When,
however, they had substituted a better mode of dealing
with these offences than the present one he should be
glad to see the present mode done away with, but not
before. By this piecemeal interference with the main-
tenance of the discipline of the Church of Christ—a dis-
cipline which was was one of its inalienable rights—by
thus removing remedy after remedy for admitted abuses,
without giving a substitute, they would produce, not a
system of reform, but a hopeless chaos. No one knew
better than he (the Bishop of Oxford) did the necessity
which existed for a thorough and complete reform of the
abuses of the ecclesiastical courts, and he hord the
should live to see it effected ; but it must be accomplishea ,
not by removing, in this piecemeal fashion, one parti-
cular abuse after another existin_
g in the system of thek
discipline and law of the Church, but by bringing bac
to a more rational, simple, and
primitive state what the
abuses of modern times had corrupte d.
Lord WODEHOUSE observed in reference to what
had fallen from the Right Rey. prelate, that there was a
remedy existing at common lase offences treated
for the
of in the Bill, fur they could be punished as
misde-
meanours. He should divide the House on the second
reading.
Earl FITZ WILLIAM said their Lordships would be
glad to know what was that
Primitive state of the law
which the Right Rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Oxford) de-
sired they should return to. From the tone of the Right
Rev. Prelate's speech it was eas-
y to se® what the spirit of
the law would be which the i P
--at Rev. Prelate would
have established as a restoration of the primitive system,
and he thought their Lordships
miht conclude that the
Rght ev. Prelate's objection to theproposed amendment
of the R
ecclesiastical law was, not
ot that the Bill was so
small, but that he thought the commencement of a reform
of that law
reform of those courtgs whichet lead to s
--eethin still greater, as a
e, g
'
-pen according- to the Right
Rev. Prelate's own statement,;were a scandal to the coun-
try. The country, however, after the statement of the
Right Rev.:Prelate, would now
know where tojlook for the
destruction of the abuses of those courts.
The Earl of DERBY said, that after the statements
of the two Right Rev. Prelates, and after the declara-
tion which he understood had
been made in the other
House of Parliament, and vvh;
eh he had no objection to
repeat in that House—viz., the.,
that the subject of the eccle-
siastical law and of the praeue
e of those courts should
receive the earliest attention ot her Majesty's Govern-
ment, he hoped the Noble Lord woulds notr press the Bill.
He was fin slyer convinced that, ea,
Noble Lord on
Fite • • at the
the cross benches (Earl_ Palliate 'N had attributed to
the Right Rev. Prelate en
e-xfore; namely, that h®
would be found an uncompromising opponent to the
en
abuses of the ecclesiastical
, --,,Urtg would be shown to be
the case in reality, ana not in the manner in which the
Noble Lord had supposed by way of taunt and of cast-
ing ridicule upon the statement of the Right Rev. Pre-
late. Ho (the Earl of Derby)
was far from saying
that a question of this 6;
-,nd ight not be
brought forward by any
'ridemndent Member
of Parliament in either House; but, at the same
time he might venture to express his opinion, that
where there was a lage question to be dealt with, of a
difficult and complicated character, and involving the
movalof abuses which had arisen in
process of time, and
re-
which might be attributed principally te the ltered cir-
cumstances and habits of the time, the Government,a with
the means and appliances at their command,
the
assistance they could call to their aid, roah with
ppor-
tunities, if they set about it in carne, '
t, of deal!'e ge-with
such a large question of legislation in e
a Inff ctive
manner than it could be treated if take_eu more e e. d
vidual Member of Parliament only, N:
t cP bY
any
fromlni
himself, however, the difficulties of ancealing
not
even presuming to say. that they head',
object, and
before the House a satisfactory scheme be able to lay
, but declaring
that their attention should be devoted
to . b
with a view to removing those abuses the questio 9
Which were ad-
mitted on the part of the Right Rev. Prelates he must
express a hope that the Noble Lord
wile had introduced
the Bill would, after that statement, and looking
tothe
period of the session at which they had ,arri looking
consent
to leave the question in the hands of her v -Go-
vernment, and not press the measure fuMajesty's
Lord WODEHOUSE was sorry that hest.
sent to the proposition of the Noble Earl, booculd not e
s:
_
the measure. The country expected it,
anEdmustlpdrre
Bard it as an earnest of that more extensive refowr ellwhich
was promised that evening. m
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE •
saul that that log
the first time he had heard the postponement
forged on the ground of the lateness of of a Bill
the • on
the I6th of June—(lronical cheers from th session'
' i
' be. nehes)—particularly in the case of a Bille Ministeria.
passed through the House of Commons, which had
both sides of the House, and amended by thseurpor teffid
officers
of the Crown by the introduction of the onlyaw °provisoe
which ho had deemed requisite in the raeasuie a Bill;
too, which had been brought up to their Lordships
House without one dissentient voice. If the Govern-
ment had not thought it a proper Bill, they y ought not to
.have given it their approval in the other House. -But they
ak`iould not, at all events, now, on the plea of the lateness
of the session, seek to throw over the Dal when they had
given no pledge that they would undertake the reform
which was admitted to be needed for those scandalous
itbuseo. It was by no means creditable to the Govern'
[
.meat OW to rejeec this proposed amendment of abases