The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-11 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF' THIS DAY.
TlNlES.—lastead of the stormy and protracted debate
which agieated two successive Parliaments can the ocea-
sisn-cf the last Reform Bill, the
present bids fair to be
thscussed as calmly as a Police or a Beer Bill. But like
its predecessor it will be fought on its details. Of those
details, till the Bill is printed, we are but imperfectly
informed. The most salient point is the enfranchisement
of the 51. householders. On this proposal we must re-
peat our unwilling conviction that the new class of
voters, like the lowest class in all our existing constitu-
encies, will be simply a material for the exercise of cor-
ruption on a petty or a gigantic scale, according to the
size of the borough. Ho who said the other night that
the 51. householders would swamp the 101. householders
spoke to the good sense of every experienced member.
At all events, where the practice of bribery is prescrip-
tive the new 51. electors will rush with avidity into the
market of votes, and, like the expiring race of freemen,
overpower the more scrupulous 10/. householders. The
cure for this state of things, should it arise, will be
either a revocation of the dangerous boon or vote by
ballot; but which is the snore likely we will
leave Lord John Russell to decide. The next point
in the order of importance, and which bids
fair to occupy many weeks of the session, is
Lord John's mode of dealing with the borough's which
he has not the courage to disfranchise. We warn the
public that a comparison of the proposed schedule
with the map of English counties will disclose the
grossest absurdities, not to say
impossibilities. In some
parts small boroughs lie 30 thick that if they are
decently augmented as proposed they will form con-
tinuous borough districts, and reduce the county pro-
perly so called, to a very inconsiderable area. Nay, in
some instacces we do not see how the boroughs can be
augmented, so small is the interval between them. If
the new Parliamentary boroughs are made without re-
gard to the divisions of counties,
then we have a great
step towards equal electoral districts, to which Lord
John himself expresses the greatest objection. Nay,
whatever the details, the creation of sixty-seven new
district or partnership boroughs is going some way in
the direction he deprecates. It has already been dis-
covered by the sharp eyes of the Reformers that in more
than one instance the kroposed annexation will simply
have the effect of -harnessing a wild elephant
between two tame ones—that is, a borough
more remarkable hitherto for corruption than
nomination between towns or districts long obedient to
aristocratical menage. Bat, after all, when so many
counties have a Lair claim to a larger share in the repre-
sentation, and also so many towns, will those two rea-
sonable demands be satisfied with the creation of hybrid
coun-
ties or swollen towns, as people may 'please to describe
miniature hsLboertdw ;eon))
John
counties andsays totilnts
boroughs
England does not
nt
boroughs.et having ascertained
country.
He finds the want
p
towns, and that a
representation confined to those two Species of consti-
tuency
os
would not adequately express the in-
terestss up supplied
andd i n
opinions
cis wholly of counties and large
this object, and found the proper means applied in the
existing small boroughs, be proceeds to alter •their cha-
racter altogether, and to change that which exists into
something which as yet can only be imagined. In every
small smaller of
tthe
aspect of the scheme we see only a superficial remedy
and an ephemeral duration, and, accordingly,
we cannot
anticipate for the propose Bill even that degree of finality
which the Fates have accorded to the last.
CHRONICLE.—The curiously ambiguous reception
which the House of Commons gave to Lord John Rus-
sell's explanation of the provisions of his new Reform
Bill—the utter absence of anything like resolute oppo-
sition or hearty approval—is, perhaps, the best comment
on the merits of that singularly lame and disjointed
piece of "workmanship. It is not in human nature either
to denounce or to admire a project which, as it contains
a little of everything to please everybody, cannot be
wholly bad—whilst its total lack of originality, and of
any definite and intelligible principle, precludes more
than a faint and listless acquiescence on the part of
those who are so fortunate as to deem it a real gain
to the popular cause. For our own part, the more
we look at that incoherent jumble which Lord
John has the assurance to dignify With the
name of a " Reform Bill," and which he asks the
country to accept as the matured product of years of
anxious deliberation, the more are we amazed at his
po.
verty of intellectual resources, and his destitution of
statesmanlike breadth of view. As a string of empirical
changt s in the working details of our political life, it may
b good, bad, or indifferent; but as an enlarged and
amended Parliamentary Constitution for the British
empire, carefully framed and pretentiously announced
by the First Minister of the Crown and the " leader of
the Liberal party," it is alike discreditable to its author
and insulting to the country. It is but too clear that
Lord John Russell has dealt with a great question in a
petty and n arrow spirit. Years of elaborate trifling
have ended in the production of a scheme so thoroughly
crude, common-place, and trivial, that for aught we can
see, the humblest Treasury clerk might any day have
jotted down as good a one on his blotting paper at a
quarter of an hour's notice.
ADVERTISER.—The defects of the new Reform
Bill were not clearly perceived on Monday evening,
otherwise it would not have been so favourably re-
ceived by many of the Liberal party. When its great
and manifold deficiencies are fully apprehended, as they
soon will be, we shall find some of those independent
Members who greeted its developement on Monday,
transformed into its most strenuous opponents. What,
in the meantime, surprises us most is, that Mr. John
Bright, as the representative of the Manchester school of
reformers, should have regarded it as a mighty boon to
the country. Six or seven weeks only have elapsed,
since Mr. Bright took a prominent part at agreat demon-
stration in Manchester, in favour of Reform; and cer-
tainly it would not be very easy to imagine two measures
more different, than the one which Mr. Bright then
advocated, and the Ministerial measure of Monday
which, to all intents and purposes, he accepted at the
hands of the Russell Ministry. The absence of disen-
franchising clauses ought alone to have rendered the
measure unacceptable to all real Reformers. The Bill
contains no schedule abolishing small boroughs which
are notoriously the seats of corruption. A separate Bill
is to be brought in to disenfranchise St. Albans,—from
which the legitimate inference would be, that there are
no other boroughs in England which need to have the
disenfranchising process applied to them,—whereas
there are at least sixty or seventy which are quite
as bad as St. Alban's. And were a commission
similar to that which lately dragged to light the
abounding corruptions in St. Albans, appointed to
inquire into the doings which have occurred in these
boroughs, it would be found that the bribery and
corruption in nearly all of them were quite as great as
in St. Albans. The only parties who will feel any
gratitude to the Noble Lord for their enfranchisement,
aro those in small boroughs, who see a reasonable chance
of finding the franchise a marketable commodity. They
will priz3 the electoral right for no other reason than
that they hope to be able to turn a penny by it. Its
value in their eyes will be measured by the money it will
bring. Had the measure included the ballot, we might,
notwithstanding its many defects, have deemed it worthy
the acceptance of the country; but without that accom-
paniment, it will be altogether worthless; and whatever
amount of time the Legislature may
devote to it, will be
wholly wasted. As the measure now stands, it will be
found, the moment it comes into °oration, should that
moment ever arrive—a mockery en a a delusion.

LAW INTELLIGENCE,
COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, Feb, 10.
RETIREMENT OF MR JUSTICE PATTESON.
In expectation of this event, there was from the first
sitting of the Court not only a very large attendance of
the members of the bar, but also a considerable number
of visitoro. The inconvenient court, with no proper
means of ingress and egress, and very few means of ac-
commodation, soon became a prison to those who were
in it, and was literally wedged up with human bein.
gs
The back gallery of the court was filled with gentlemen,
aallerd,
and the side
- was occupied almost entirely by
ladies. So sincere was the desire to pay respect to the
retiring judge that nut-Jahr:l.s remained standing in the
court during the whole of the day, maintaining with
~m, edable pertinacity the
,positions which they had
first taken up.
Mr. Justice Erie came in from the Bail Court, and took
ni
his seat on the bench. Sir Thomas Acland, Sir H. Inglis,
and Mr. Napier, M.P., were also present.
At the close of the arguments in a motion for a new
trial,

(Turning rose with him, and continued
Gentleman was speaking-, rose, and the whole bar
d standing while the Learned
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL
be-
half of my brethren of the bar
address a few words to thesaid—My Lords, on
see Learned Judge whom we all
bar I claim permission to
the
bar
Patteson, 1 am
the last time upon the
u»derstand that we nor,
sorrow
ar to convey to you our
bench of this Court.
that we see you for
Judge, he proceeded)-_eur.
.T. then to the Learned
charged by my brethren at
sincere regret and common
the last time on that bench wherer°7
two years, you have occupied a, or now nearly twenty-
honour to yourself, and such uubseat with such infinite
the prof, ssion. And, as we are :waded satisfaction to
it may not be entirely unbecoming now about to lose you,
wholly unwelcome to you to ree• in
me to offer, nor
the universal sense of the whel°lvu, the assurance of
high and sacred duties of the profession, that the
never more honestly or ably discharged
office were
during your whole judicial life. ged than
we by you
your memory will yet remain to Though lose you,
proper position among those revered us, assuming its
nify this place and this hall, and will names which dig-
not more for that vast and varied learningo cherished by us
have profited and which all have admired h_
y which all
untiring love of justice and truth, , than for that
oppression and wrong, that unflinching
that hatred of
pose, that simplicity and singleness of integrity of pur-
benevolent kindness of nature, which leave
heart, and that
whether we should more revere the 'eave us in doubt
man. You will carry into your judgeor love the
and veneration, and the enduring
attachment, retirement the respect
member of the profession. We rejeie of every
though the sense of one infirmity, and
theto think that
lest that should interfere with the perfect apprehension
your duty, have made you withdraw fremt discharge of
the vigour of your powers, you will long your office in
impaired health, and long enjoy all
the pleasuresremain in un
We hope and pray that in that honourable of life.
you have so well earned, you will enjoy longretirement
happiness, and with full hearts we bid you
years of
and affectionate farewell. ulu you a respectful
At the close of this address, which •
delivered, the whole bar bowed in
assent was. admirably
Lord-
ship; but the strangers, who were not I
fetteredo his
rules of prote.sional decorum, expressed
the by the
by applause, as, indeed,they
had done
moreir thanapproval
during its delivery. Their applause _ once
as soon as silence was restored, was checked, and
Mr. Justice PATTESON, who was
much
swered—Mr. Attorney-General and
affected, an-
bar, I receive with proud satisfaction
and gentlemenlofth
with feeling'