The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-16 00:00:00

to land without needless expenditure of their time and
toil. The duty of registering the votes, which in England
is discharged by revising barristers appointed by the
judges, devolves in Ireland upon the assistant-barrister
who presides over the business of the Quarter Sessions,
and who, unfortunately for the interests of justice in
such times as these, is not only selected by Ministers,
but removable at their pleasure. Although there is an
appeal from his decision when he rejects a vote, there
is none front the decision by which he puts a vote upon
the registry ; so that at the election an entire poll may
'De drowned by fictitious votes without redress, except
by a petition to the House of Commons, before whose
tribunal there is nothing certain but the expense.
From the examinations taken by the Committee on fic-
titious votes, whose report we are now considering,
and of which Lord Granville Somerset was the able
Chairman, it appears that in and since 1832, when the
registration under the Reform Bill began, four gentle-
men have acted successively as assistant-barristers at
Belfast—Mr. O'Dwyer, Mr. Curry, since deceased,
Mr. Mayne, and Mr. Fogarty ; and the chief tcnour of
all the evidence is to show how widely the manufacture
of fictitious votes was carried on, and how effectually
the mischief was facilitated by the rules which Mr.
Fogarty, departing from the universally approved
practice of his three predecessors, thought fit to lay
down for the conduct of the registration. The exami-
nation of the first witness, Mr. 'ODwyer, who acted as
Assistant-Barrister at the first session of the registry,
and by whom therefore the principles for its regulation
were first marked out, affords a notable specimen of
the use to which the Ministers are converting their
patronage at the bar, and of the manner in which Mr.
O'Connell, the- great dispenser of that patronage, con-
' ducts himself toward the independent members of his
own profession. Mr. O'Dwyer, in performing the
functions of Assistant-Barrister, gave full satisfaction
to the Radical party, and at the election was ap-
pointed Assessor to the returning officer by the con-
sent
of both sides. But (as that consent demonstrates)
he had the misfortune to give satisfaction to the Con-
servatives also ; and this impartiality, though it made
hint popular with the simple people at Belfast, was
justly considered at head-quarters as a high mispri-
sion against the sovereignty of Mr. O'Connell. It was
necessary that an example should be made of such a
man, for if once impartiality were to be tolerated, and
that, too, in conjunction with ability, there was no
security for the O'Connell system. The Government,
therefore, on whose behalf Mr. O'Dwyer was employed
as Crown Counsel on the circuit, received instructions
to dismiss him from that honourable and valuable post
in his profession ; and the excuse laid hold of was,
that in his capacity of assessor to the returning officer
at the Belfast election (observe, not in his office of
Assistant-Barrister, but in his capacity of assessor to
the returning officer), he had advised the !ejection of a
Toter on account of a defect in the certificate of quali-
fication, after having at the registry, where he acted as
his signature to that certifi-

sate. Now, it appeared, that at the time when
he signed it his attention had not been called to
the tlefect ; end he stated to the Committee, that being
convinced at the election that the certificate was in-
valid, he felt it would be culpable in him to evade the
only right decision, merely because his had been the
hand that signed the document, deeming it better, as he
manfully said, to bear whatever blame might result
from having sirened it, than to give nneonsetentious
e(iyiee to the returning-ollicer on the adinissibilitv of
the vote. When he was informed at the poll that the
decision, front the number of votes it would affort, as
of importance to the election, he told the Counsel sup-
' porting the vote that he would hear it re-argued next
day, which he noderstood was ttrranoed lecurdinolv.
But the caudidate, who would have h:eu the chief
loser by the rejection of the vote, finding, from the
prospect of the election, that he inu-t, al all
cycids, he defeated, seized this intimation of the
assessor as an excuse for retiriug from the Contest, and,
I)::fbre the.farther argument, announced his resigna-
tion.; so that the assessor's opinion upon the vote ap-
pezns dearly to have been a mere colour for riding off
with some show of credit. But it was enough for the
Govermnent ; and Mr. O'Dwyer was removed from his
Crown Counsel:Ad!) ore the Circuit—a situation, for
the sal-;e of which he had in great measure withdrawn
from his civil business, and suffered his juniors to step
into his place. About the sante time, for reasons foreign
to this ingoiry, but about equally unsatisfactory with
the ground of Mr. O'Dwyet's dismissal, Mr. Smith, his
•oliertett e in the Crown business, was dismissed likewise
—a gentleman, the discredit of whose removal was:
shifted by Mr. Attorney-General O'Loghlen upon his.
predecessor, Mr. Perrin, and by Mr. Perrin, in his
turn, as earnestly disclaimed. The thing was done,
however, by sotnebody, and the Irish Government had
the two connsellorships to give away. Now, who got
the appointments thus confiscated ? Mr. Sauce, a
Roman Catholic Barrieter, who had been assisthe,o
111. Attorney-General O'Loghlen in his office ; and,
Mr. Dixon, a Member ql the National Association....
We print this without notes of admiration, because
we hare long ceased to wonder at any act, however
barefaced, which Mr. O'Connell may direct his Mi-
nisters to venture. These removals and these appoint-
ments having come out in evidence ueforc the Com-
mittee, the great contriver of- them all, who was a
Member of it, felt his withers wrung ; amid he re-
venged himself for that annoyance by such an exa-
mination of Mr. O'Dwyer, as from one Member
of a learned profession to another is, we apprehend,
wholly without parallel, unless among other metno•
ra6ilia•of Mr. O'Connell himself. The object of
it was to disparage Mr. O'Dwyer, by depreciating .his
estimation on his Circuit, so as to have shown, if the
fact had not foiled the malice, that Mr. O'Dwyer,
even laid" lie not allowed the Government cases to eu-
- gross hie time, would still hare had no briefs in civil
causes, and had, therefore, lost nothing through the
CroWn eounselship ; and the examination is actually
pushed to the indecently coarse extent of- asking him,
county by county, throughout the citcuit, what was
the greatest number of briefs he ever held .at, any one
assize—whether he will say positively that he bad two
.itt any one assize, and so on. We have given this
passage entire in our abstract, that lawyers may form
their judgment, as gentlemen, of the emancipator's
fitness for that silk gown, the denial of which was so
long and so
_angrily complained of, as wronging his
manifold claims to represent the bar in its front. rank.
We trust that such demeanour is as little like a true
representation of the manners and feelings of that
highly-educated and honourable profession as Mr.
O'Connell's tail are like true representatives of the
British people. So much, by way of introduction,
touching the policy and behaviour of those for the
sake of whose power and patronage the fictitious
registration system is got up. Our next notice of this
subject will bring us to the frauds and perjuries of the
system itself.—Times.

IWhatever differences of opinion may be entertained
in regard to the extension of the elective franchise,
short Parliaments, or eveu.vote by ballot—convinced
as are now almost all honest politicians of the eligi-
bility of secret voting—there can be no question of the
necessity of affording to those enfranchised by the
Reform Act greater security and facility in obtaining
their qualification than is given by the present system
of registration. No one who has given the slightest
attention to the proceedings in the Registration Courts
for the last few weeks, the vexatious opposition given
to votes of indisputable validity, the numerous instances
of disfranchisement through the neglect or partiality
of 0 verseers, the conflicting decisions of the Revising
Barristers, and the general uncertainty of the circum-
stances which may be considered to invalidate claims,
but must at once admit the inconvenience, unpolicy,
and injustice of the present mode of registry. If it
were the design of the framers of the Reform Act to
mar their own work, and render the extension of the
franchise inoperative by a vexatious and harassing pro-
cess of acquirement, they could scarcely have devised
a scheme better adapted to their purpose than that at
present in operation. Not dilating upon the numerous
imperfections and omissions in the Act, nor insist-
ingnpon the dei,pot;e tendency of making the franchise
instrument
an subservient to the collection of taxes,
we shall here confine ourselves to a few obser-
vations on the mode of registration and its effects.
And, first, we protest against vesting the nomination of
the Revising Barristers in the Judges. We mean not to
cast any reflection on the general impartiality of the
Bench in a judicial capacity, nor on the impartiality