The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-23 00:00:00

sure for the abolition of the civil jurisdiction of the
Ecclesiastical Courts. Should they oppose that mea-
s ire, and their hostility to it be crowned with suc-
cess, their triumph will not only be of temporary dura-
tion, but it will be a most costly triumph. Their defeat
of the Government measure will raise such a storm of
public indignation against the Church, as will speedily
involve her in utter ruin.

(FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF SATURDAY.)
(From the Globe.)
The result of Thursday's meeting at Manchester for
the repeal of the Corn-laws, afforded the most satisfac-
tory proof of the union of feeling which we anticipated
I would be produced on this question in times like the
Ipresent. The Chartist and pseudo-Conservative inter-
!, raptions only made this more manifest. The conviction
/ has spread, in the language of one of the resolutions
carried by acclamation,—" That, at the present
time, the baneful influences of the Corn-law are ex-
i siting themselves with peculiar severity upon tha
i middle and working classes of the community—injuring
the banker, by the derangement of the currency—op-
-1 pressing the merchant and dealer, by the excessive rate of
i interest—annihilating the profits of the capitalist—and
reducing to pauperism the industrious artisan and la-
bourer ; and that, unless repealed, this destructive law
iwill, by banishing our manufacturers to other coun-
: tries, and throwing upon the soil the entire burden
[ of supporting a destitute and unemployed population,
[ involve the landowners, with every other class, in
one common ruin." While the Manchester petitioners
were all but unanimous in their conclusions, individual
opinions were uttered in the course of proceedings
! sufficient to set up the Standard for the next month
I in a new stock of sophisms. There are a certain sort of
reaspners, on this as on other subjects, who jump from
flets there is no disputing to conclusions which nowise
follow from those facts. Thus a gentleman who has
enourw:d the proposition, that the home-market is the
ntost. important and profitable, seems to deem himself
di',,pensed from inquiring whether the present Corn-
-1 .sues arc the best means of preserving the full benefit
at the home market. Another gentleman, who has
f di,T.evered that the corn duties have only pro-
' diked 186,7601. to the pubLc revenues, while the
%gait tax produced 4,982,080/. straightway infers
that the former are burthensome to the nation
only in the same proportion ; as if it were not pre-
cisely one of the worst features of the present system,
that it makes us pay periodical high prices, without
wivantage to the revenue, or any other national interest.
We have al:eady declared our opinion on many former
,ccasions that the Core-laws are hurtful to the agricul-
tural interest ay well as to every other. They are hurt-
ful to that interest in the same manner as artificial pro-
teetion has so often been to any privileged branch of
it4ustry. They encourage a single branch of produce
Al a greater extent than the natural laws of demand
and supply really render it, on an average, profitable.
The monopoly prices of dear years encourage an ex-
tended breath of corn cultivation on soils which can-
not profitably be kept under that culture. Thus,
while those prices pinch the consumer, and crip-
ple industrial enterprise generally, they stimulate the
a: Ticulturist with the hopes of such continued high prices
a s -cannot be secured excepting by giving him a bounty on
export in those years when excess of home production
snakes import duties inoperative. On the first recur-
rence of abundant harvests, we are certain to hear re-
newed complaints of agricultural distress—arising from
p-evious misdieection of capital in the over-cultivation

of ungrateful soils, encourard by protection. It would

be far better for the agricultural interest, as for every
other, that the natural operation of a regular trade in
grain should prevent prices from rising so high in some
ye arc,—to sink so low in others. The excessive low
prices at which we could import from abroad are a per-
! fact bugbear. Those low prices, like the present cues,
are amongst the phenomena of an artificial system and
;vould speedily vanish on a change in that system.
(From the Standard.)
The Ministerial Papers have been for some days
/occupied with articles deprecating or denouncing
the measures anticipated from Sir Robert Peel, upon
his succeeding Lord Melbourne. The writers of these
articles seem to think unnecessary any inquiry as
to Sir Robert's own views and intentions, although
he certainly has furnished them with no grounds for
assuming the plan of his future government, beyond
Lis well-known principles of attachment to the Con-
Aitution in Church and State, and indeed has left
hens in the dark as to his intention of taking
the office that, it is thus confessed, lies ready for his
acceptance. There can be no question that, whenever
Conservative Administration shall give its services to
tkie Queen and country, Sir Robert Peel will stand at
the head, of that Administration. His wisdom, and

gcaius, and integrity, entitle him to the distinction, and
the claims of wisdom and genius are in his case power-
fully reinforced by services during the last nine years,
which no amount of national gratitude can overpay.
.But though Sir Robert Peel's title to the first place
4 in the Government is so clear, it is not yet manifest
that ho may think the present the best time for assert-
ing it. He at least has given no indication that such is
his opinion. Upon personal grounds the night Hon.
Baronet can have no wish to change from his position—
! a position, perhaps, the most honourable ever occupied
by an Englishman—the position of commanding the
Government of his country, and restraining, rather than
soliciting, the zeal of his countrymen to place him at
the right hand of their Sovereign. Compare this posi-
t tiou with that of almost any other statesman in our
history .

Here is no vulgar party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place ;

not even the less dishonourable warfare of ambition,
which contends openly in party contest for the posses-
sion of office. And for what must Sir Robert change
thi6 so enviable position ? The profits of office and pa-
, n-onage are happily far beneath his regard, and to him
the duties of office were toil indeed. He is not a man
i of tiuit easy conscience to treat as a sinecure the re-
; spolsible station of first Minister of the British empire,
or to squander the time due to the care of the public
h Appiness and prosperity in criminal pleasures or frivo-
( ',pus indulgence—such breach of trust may suit Lord
Melbourne, but it were alien to the habits and character
of Sir Robert Peel.

(From the Courier.)
It is stated by a correspondent of the Morning Post
that Mr. Gibson, late M.P., who distinguished himself
hut a short time as an overheated zealot of a sort of
Toryism in extravagance long extinct, or nearly so,
and is now figuring at such dinners where admission
Ican be gained, as an ambulant orator of rampant
it idicalism ; that this Mr. Gibson, we say, is only
eating, drinking, and spouting his way to a Baronetcy,
of which he has the promise " on the Queen's mar.
riage.This report seems the more entitled to credit
4s the act would be in such perfect keeping with the
at hole tenour of Ministerial policy hitherto in the dis-
pensation of honours and patronage. And truth to
1, speak, the claims of Mr. Gibson are at least as well
founded as those by which Admiral Fleming achieved
the only naval achievement ever recorded of him—the

entrance into Greenwich Hospital. There is, however,
this difference in the two cases. for the unscrupulous
means adopted in the electioneering exploits of the Ad-

mint! were crowned with victorious results vainly to be
Loked for in his naval career, whilst Mr. Gibson remains
a defeated candidate, after two desperate contests, in
which, if votes could have been purchased and consciences

corrupted, :there wau no lack of the moat profuse prodi-
g4lity of the money of the Government as of his own.
Toe difference, however, ought rather to enlist on the

of Mr. Gibson the commisserating sympathy of
Ministerial patrons, who besides have established pre-
cedents in favour of his pretensions in all respects an-
swering the peculiarities of his case. Of these prece-
dents we need only to adduce two in his behalf at
present, and they are those of Admiral Ommanney and
Sir John Josiah Guest. The Gallant Admiral, so far
as we learn, is almost as little known in the annals of
11;:i own profession as Admiral Fleming himself, a kind
of obscurity which seems the unenviable fate of most
Admirals marked out. for dignities and places of the
present day.

The Bath Theatre, which has always been con-
sidered as one of the nurseries of talent for the metro-
ruditan stage, has (otv ing to the ill success attendant
"Pon some of his speculations) devolved from the hands
Ol Mr. Woulds, its former lessee, into those of Mr.
D widge, the fortunate manager of the Surrey Theatre,
who, having ample means and appliances to boot, will
who,
carry on the scheme with spirit and enter
prise, and ensure a successful issue to his undertakings
EXECUTION OF A FRENCH MURDERER._
Loas Romain, who was condemned to death some months
ago for the murder of a farmer named Boileau, and his
wife pn d daughter, with whom he had lived as servant,
the circumstances of which we have reported, was exe-
cuted at Tours on the 16th inst. During the whole of
his confinement, up to the moment when he left the
P.- .-
;•on for the place of execution, ha evinced the greatest
indifference for life, and, during the last few days, showed
(:Lon an anxiety to go the scaffold. He insisted upon
having a good breakfast on the morning
of his execu-
ton, and invited a fellow-prisoner to partake of it, joking
ling the repast upon what was about to happen When
Procureur du Itoi visited him in the
hope of obtain-
he refused to make any, and
ing some new confession,
sold nettishly—.. lam going to die—so much the better.
My heart leaps with joy. There must be an end of all
this. I Is ill have no more to do with justice." On
I:!aving the prison for the scaffold he showed the greatest
o:Jduracy of character, asking for a glass of brandy. It
was given him, but the priest who attendedrn.t me pure.poured in
snore water. " No, no," said Romain, "give I
Wilen I arrive la haul I wish to be able to say that I
(lrank my brandy pure before I set out." He mounted
the scaffold with alacrity, embraced the priest, and in
a few minutes had ceased to exist.
Captain Woodford has obtained the lucrative and
responsible appointment of Chief Constable of the Rural
Police at Preston. For the maintenance of this force
the county is to be taxed to the tune of 30,000/. a year,
or probably much more, and an immediate county rate
is to he laid for the purpose of raising a temporary fund I
of 15,000/.—Liverpool Mail.