The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-25 00:00:00

EVENINO- EDITION.

ECCLESIASTICAL COUItTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
lilts,—Permit me to direct your attention to the case
of Apsley Pellatt, Esq., of this parish, now pending in
the Arches Court of Canterbury, which illustrates in a
remarkable degree the unconstitutional and oppressive
character of those hotbeds of pro-clerical tyranny, the
Ecclesiastical Courts. My object in troubling you is,
not so much to expose the grievous individual injustice
of which Mr. Pellatt has been made the victim, as to
awaken the public mind to a due appreciation of the
infamy of a system not more flagrantly opposed to
every principle of common justice than it is to the gene-
ral spirit of British law. What judicial impartiality
can be reasonably looked for in Courts which derive
their jurisdiction, not from the appointment of the
Crown, acting as trustee for the benefit of the sub-
ject, as is the case with all our other tribu-
nals, bat created, maintained, furnished with
Judges, forms of pleading, and authority, to enforce their
decisions, by the very corporation which must always be
one party in every case submitted to them. Is it not
obvious that the bias, if not of the individual now pre
siding at least of the authorities to whose dicta his de-
terminations are expected to conform, must be strongly
in favour of those whose creatures they have been ?
Where one litigant nominates the Judge, the other
suitor must be sanguine indeed to hope for an independ-
ent and even-handed judgment. And what must be
the state of things when this process has continued for
ages, and each succeeding expounder of laws, origi-
nally enacted for the benefit of one party, has no other
temptation than to emulate the zeal of his predessors in
the service of that establishment to which he is indebted
for the position he holds ? Hence the monstrous de-
cisions, the irreconcileable incongruities, the harsh pu-
nishments, which, however consistent with the dark and
cruel bigotry of past ages, exhibit such an appearance of
deformity in the light of the nineteenth century ! So long
as the right of foreigners to interfere in the concerns of
the people of this country was recognised or tolerated by
law, such things were naturally to be expected.
Whilst the nations of Europe bowed in slavish subjec-
tion to the authority of an Italian priest, and Kings
were not ashamed to own that their thrones were held
at his good pleasure, it was perhaps a necessary conse-
quence that tribunals of his erection, and independent
Df municipal authority, should exist in every Popish
country, to mock the power and supersede the jurisdic-
tion of the national laws. But is it to be endured that,
haring shaken off the great moral incubus, we are to con-
tinue to suffer under a thousand minor but more galling
tormentors? Has the burial of Popery been indeed
but the sowing of the dragon's teeth ? Shall this in:-
perium in imperio last for ever? For my own part, I
would as soon my property and liberty were at the
mercy of a Judge appointed by a Romish, as by an
:English Bishop ; and to the public—more particularly
the Dissenters—l presume it is indifferent whether the
power to scourge them is derived from a believer in
Transubstantiation, or one who has swallowed the
Thirty-nine Articles from Dr. Capwllari or Dr. Phil potts.
Cons,der for a moment the recent decision of Sir H.
Jenner in the case of Mr. Pellatt. By that it is esta-
blished that an overcharge of 25 per cent. in a rating is
immaterial and insufficient to invalidate proceedings
taken for recovery of the whole amount ; in other words,
should any man dare to resist an illegal and excessive
charge, he may be dragged into an Ecclesiastical Court,
and although the miserable remnant of fixed principle,
to be found even there, should compel the Judge to
decide that the demand is unjust, the defendant is sad-
died with costs incurred in the attempt to plunder him
For even on the view of the case taken by the Church
functionary himself, the original demand was illegal and
improper; if so, why not resist it? and if resisted with
1:' success, why should the party, sought to be robbed
of his property unlawfully, suffer through the ignorance
or dishonesty of his persecutors?
When Mr. Pellatt's protest was overruled, he was
compelled to pay the cost of that preliminary proceed-
ing, without any reference to the ultimate issue of the
cause ; but when Mr. Peilatt clearly establishes that
ihe has been improperly dragged into Court, the Judge
allows the Churchwardens to amend their libel, so as
to present a state of facts not too glaringly at variance
with the truth, and the costs of this blundering, or to
speak more correctly, false statement, are to abide the
result. Surely nothing can be more unjust, or more at
variance with every principle by which proceedings be-
tween man and man are regulated. Ido no not mean
to impeacn the integrity of Sir H. Jenner. No doubt
he had sufficient precedents for both decisions ; but, as
an Englishman, I feel , indignant that we should still
tolerate a system so replete with injustice. Why should
not the clergy sue in the same Courts, and with the same
forms of proceeding as the rest of her Majesty's stal-
ljects ? How long are the Queen's Courts to be super-
seded by the authority of those bitter legacies of Po-
t pery ? Surely it is time to revert to the practice of our
free Saxon ancestors, and repudiate a system repro-
bated as well by Blackstone and all our great Constitu-
tional writers, as by every rational and conscien-
tious man.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
AN INHABITANT OF CHRISTCHURCH.
Nov.
18, 1839.

MR. CHARLES GREEN'S PROPO-
SITION TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC IN A
BALLOON.

Mr. C. Green has authorised the following statement
of the grounds upon which be founds his assertion of
the possibility of making a journey in a balloon from
New York, across the Atlantic, to Europe. He states
that balloons inflated with carburetted hydrogen, or
common coal gas, will retain this fluid unimpaired in its
buoyancy, and very slightly diminished in quantity, for a
great length of time ; whilst on the contrary the pure
hydrogen is so subtile a gas, and capable of so great a
degree of tenuity, as to escape through the imper-
ceptible pores of the silk, whether prepared in the
ordinary manner or by means of dissolved India rubber.
These facts are the result of observations made during
27b ascents ; on many of these occasions, a smaller balloon
has been filled at a neighbouring gas-work, and has been
brought a distance of 5 or 6 miles to fill that in which he in-
tended to ascend, retaining, in many instances, its con-
tents nearly the same in quantity and quality for nearly
a week. The aeronaut has travelled 2,900 miles with
the same supply of gas, and could have continued its
use for three months, if necessary. As to making the
voyage from America to Europe, Mr. Green dates its
possibility from the following facts :—On all occasions
in which the balloons in which he or other aeronauts bad
gained an altitude beyond the lower current of air, or
land-breezes, they found one uniform current of air com-
ing from the Atlantic, and blowing west, north-west, or
west by north, whilst the under winds, from different
causes, were blowing from points completely at variance
with the above : the ascent of the machine into these
upper currents is perfectly easy, and the same altitude
may be kept for an indefinite time with equal facility.
In 1836, Mr. Green made a proposition at Paris to
cross the Atlantic in a balloon, when he received a
letter from Admiral Sir Sidney Smith confirming his
observations as to the direction of the upper currents,
and in which that gallant officer states his conviction
of the safety of the proposed undertaking, and his rea-
diness to accompany the aeronaut from New York to
Europe in his balloon. It must be kept in mind that
a balloon is not borne along as is a ship by the force
of the wind, having to overcome the impediment inter-
posed by passing through a denser element like the water,
but is a body lighter than the air itself in which it floats,
and is wafted at the same speed as the air itself travels,
as if it were a part of the moving body. The wide ex-
panse of sea offers no impediment to the undertaking,
and a machine as large as the Nassau Balloon could
easily be fitted up for the reception of three persons,
and victualled for three .or four months if necessary.
The machine could be lowered to the earth and ascend
as often as it pleased the voyagers, by the adoption of the
same plans as those used in the voyage to Germany.
Mr. Green, having established the facts of a current of
air continually passing round the earth in the direction
of west-north-west, the capability of his machine to
retain the carburetted hydrogen gas for an unlimited
time, and of its power of sustaining itself in the air
for weeks--under these circumstances, and trusting to
the faith he has always endeavoured to keep with the
public as a claim to their confidence on this occasion,
offers to take upon himself to traverse the Atlantic from
New York to England in a balloon to be constructed
for that purpose, and that he will make the experiment
without any reward for his exertions.

PARLIAMENTARY PUNS.—Our facetious con-
temporary, the Charivari, has for some time been in the
daily of habit of publishing telegraphic despatches which
it pretends pass between MM. Sauzet and Dupin. On
Wednesday last M. Sauzet, the grave President of the
Chamber of Deputies, is made to ask M. Dupin (the
Lord Brougham of France), " Pourquoi l'Anglais est
it l'homme le plus cruel ?" To which M. Dupin re-
p
lied " Parcequ'il se glorifie d'etrangler" (d'etre An-
,
eais). On Tuesday M. Dupin asked M. Sauzet,
.. Laquelle est la lettre la plus joye,,u de l'alphabet ?"
M. Sauzet replied, " C'est l'Orient (I'O riant). some
time since M. Dupin asked his friend, . Comment
peut ou faire des bottes avec des pommes?" The
President replied, " En les iesant cuire" (Cuir).
An order has been received from her Majesty by
Mr. Burke, of Limerick, for twelve dozen pairs of Li-
merick gloves, such as sent last ; when complete to ba
forwarded to Windsor Castle.
INNER TEMPLE, Nov. 22,
1839,—The fol-
lowing gentlemen, viz., Edward Platt, William Ather-
ton, John Edward Panter, Stephen Charles Denison,
John Williamson Fulton, James William
M‘Donald,
it William Webster Watson, William Forsyth, Geo -go
oodin Moulton Barrett, George Tickell, Forsyth,
\VII'
s, Richard Ford, James Plaisted Wilde, Robert
~r-, orp, George Taylor, and John Edward Giles, Esqrs.,
7. e this day been called to the degree of barristers-at-
::l' ' by the Hon. Society of the Inner Temple.
\1
-,
---4 EXTRAORDINARY FECUNDITY.—There is a

1 eiie sheep, now living, in perfect health, in the posses-
..Li- lion of Mr. Joseph Taverner, of Doccombe, in the pa
r -
is Al of Moretonhampstead, of the age of twenty years,
that
bas had the extraordinary number of 38 lambs,