The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-12 00:00:00

1 rider it a greet -ctel:irnity to be driven to the repeal,
er even the! Modification, of any one of its liberalpro-
visions—driyen, we say, by the faithless nevi i4e;bkellions
oroceedines of those on beheifeaf ','Sl'ioni it was enacted.
If then, the Paoiet, Ivy a course of violent hostility
again, tlve ..etelitutions of the State, and by a flagitinels
pereeetelon of those political a'd leAi.a.litlll'e privileges,
which were bestowrei Xlll'hem for widely different •
ends, tte ti,\Z dismemberment and destrtnntn'il of
the. empire, should, as above enTlVOsed, put to us
the alternative whethet they shall trample upon us
or we on them, it is not we Protestant ConserveoNes
who leetaitne responsible for any dienier which may
, • inrolee collaterally the Bil!'a 1829, but the Homan
• Catholic disturter, 31' the peace and safety of the realm,
who force:Yes to arm ourselves for ewe awn security,
eel to strip them of :heir implements of treachery and
mischief. With the Bill itself, called that of " Vonan-
cipation,” not corrupted into an engine of mortal evil
to the Monarchy, we repeat that Conservatives hare no
right or preteiw to quarrel. So with the Reform
Bill, which amongst other friends to the purity and
popularity of election, and to the wholesome spread of
bonafidc freedom among the people of England, we
supported as strenuously and as fearlessly as we had
during many years upheld the admission of Roman
Catholics to civil rights, it is no wish of ours, nor of
any liberal Conservatives, to limit the operation of
that great national franchise, or to touch a single para-
graph of the Bill. We have attained the two grand
objects for which the champions of liberal policy so
long contentled—the extension of political privileges,
Ist, to sects; 2d. to classes. Our hopes, our deeirce,
our professions, never went a single inch further.
Uniform and invariable, at all periods of our existence,
has been the fidelity of the Times to all branches and
institutions of the monarchy ; uniform our hatred of
republican democracy ; uniform our adherence to
the Established Church, but never separated from
that anxiety, which we never felt more strongly
than at this moment, for a searching, thorough,
and unflinching correction of all the abuses
which have crept into it—abuses of patronage—
abuses of property—abuses of administration. Such
are the feelings of all true Conservatives, and beyond
dispute of every respectable member of that political
party distinguished by the name of Conservative. In-
stead of dreaming that the Protestant church in Ire-
land can stand longer on its present footing, the Con-
servatives, were they in power, would do at once what
the Whig Ministers have; precluded themselves from
attempting—namely, bring in a bill for the absolute
commutation of tithe as it now exists into a rent-
charge upon the landlord, releasing the tenant, whether
Protestant or Papist, from all concern with it. Be-
yond that point no honest Conservative will go ; up to
that point every public man of the Conservative party
is pledged to go. In opposition they consented
to that principle ; in office they acted an that prin-
ciple. The bill of Sir Henry Hardinge was a frank,
full, and manly application of it. But why should
Conservatives or any other friends of Church and
State go further ? How can any enlightened reader
of English history, or consistent advocate of constitu-
tional monarchy concur in schemes for overturning the
church as an establishment, or any but the basest hy-
pocrite pretend that- between such schemes and one of
church " reform" there is any one attribute in common ?
The Conservatives, thus libelled as being stubborn foes
to the beneficial progress of society, have pledged
themselves to that noble and philanthropic measure
against which the protests of Messrs. Sheil and
O'Connell stand recorded—viz. a law for elevating the
condition of the poor of Ireland, by rendering them to
a certain (and hitherto unexampljd) extent in.depea.
d'ent of precarious charity. To such a law the Con-
servative leaders, lifting themselves above all petty and
selfish considerations, have announced a free and cor-
dial assent. It is a law which low-minded intriguers
cannot like, but which generous and lofty spirits must
embrace with eagerness ; and we see that the line of
demarcation is drawn in strict conformity to that double
test. The statesmen of England view it as a blessing
to humanity, while the priesthood and the O'Connell
scamphood of Ireland mutter curses against a poor
law, as that measure " by which their trade must be
extinguished"—vide Feargus O'Connor's disclosure of
time Agitator's confidential acknowledgment. It is, there-
fore, as we think, pretty manifest that there never was
a charge more unprincipled than the charge against
Conservatives, of being adverse to ''Reform." When
Papist conspirators and needy democrats assume that
their projects are each in itself a model and standard of
11f:form, nothing, we admit, is left for honest men
but to revolt from such a standard, and proclaim that
it is a rallying point for revolution. The people of
England by a large majority have already done so, and
the Queen's Ministers are conscious of it, if their un-
derlings be not. The meeting of Parliament and the
speech from tl:e throne will gave some mysteries, if
we err not, in a manner more satisfactory to the bulk
of Englishmen, than to the wizards themselves thus
about to be exorcised by their own incantations.— Times.
We learn with the highest pleasure that a petition,
from the Magistrates and Town Council of Glasgow
has been forwarded to the Queen, earnestly praying
for a commutation of the sentence of death passed
upon the unhappy persons' at Paisley, to whose case
we adverted in our paper of yesterday. It is likewise
! with the utmost satisfaction we are enabled to state
! that so great and general is the empathy felt in the
1 west of Scotland, in the case of these wretched per-
! sons, that another petition to her 'Majesty, to the same
effect, signed by many thousands of the inhabitants,
wee to have been forwarded from Paisley on MOuday
last, and consequently must by this time have reached
Brighton. These are facts which more than substan-
tiate ail that we yesterday said respecting the horror
with which the country generally, but the people of
Scotland in particnlar. reeard the judicial shedding of
, e,
human blood. lii the present case, however, this
horror at the here thought of a public execution,
is, if possible, greatly increased, owing to the
peculiar circumstances under which the unhappy
parties have been condemned to death. We have
already said on repeated former oceasions,• that the
i
1 justice of capital pu+iishments is, to say the least,
cetremely problematical its any case. Others, we are
aware, think that the punishment of death ought to be
inflicted iu ell cases of deliberate murder. But the •
case of one of these. mieerable parties—we mean the
female—is one which no man with a particle either of
reason, religion, or humanity in hie llesom, could for
a amount suppose a fit gee foe the exaction of the life
of the party. What is the crime for which she now
!lies under litt sentence of death ? The murder of her
own child. Under what circumstances did the un-
happy woman taloc away the life of her offering
Under eirculhstances of a very peculiar and very pal-
liatiteg nature. The poor creature had been brought
i un from her infernos in utter ignorance morally and in-
l t' reettlaily) and lied all her life long been steeped to
! the tears in poverty. She v‘At Stilt to work, instead
I ,‘t' being sent to school, when only five years of age,
When she had reached her ninth
year, death deprived
1 her of her mother ; and when only eleven, her father
was consigned to the tomb, Thrown at this tender age
iaq orphan on the world, amid having no one to care for
her, is it to be wandeced at that her moral sense
should hare been imperfectly developed ? The farther
slie advanced in life, the deeper she sank in poverty
and wretchedness ; and that Poverty and wretchedness
reached the utmost point of human enduranceta %cell:jell,
twelve months after marriage, she gave birth
A separation between herself co.-4-,14 net Lull
Jana
eyent4.
ally took place ; and anding that her child was the
great
:,',.acia to her getting such employment as would
sustitho!!i existence, she came, when under the influence
of a momentary frenzy, to the resolution of destroying
it. But in addition to the species of madness brought
on by her accumulated miseries, she possessed a con-
stitutional thoughtlessness amounting to mental imbe-
cility. Such were the circumstances under which this
wretched female committed the crime for which she
now lies under sentence of death. In the case of the
other unhappy person who is in the same awful situa-
tion, there are also circumstances of a palliating nature;
but his case is one which we must make the subject of
a separate article. Can we doubt that petitions to her
Majesty from so respectable a body as the Magistrates
and Town Connell of Glasgow, and from thousands of
the inhabitares of the west of Scotland, praying her Ma-
jesty to commute the sentence of this wretched woman,
will fail of their effect ? We are sure they will not, if
she be left to the free exercise of her humane disposition,
•