The Sun.
London, England, 1837-04-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

To your tents, 0 Israel ! The whole town is in a
state of commotion—the Treasury clerks meet their
former masters with a smile—the Tory press struts
forth with well-acted exultation—and the Conservative
Club really feels the nervous flutter of a young lady who
thinks from papa's looks he may possibly have received
some proposal. What is the matter? What that
great event which has disturbed the equanimity of
Crockford's, and given to Mr. Forrester that grave and
statesmanlike cast of countenance ? It is Sir Robert
Peel's speech. He has declared that he would accept
office. Wonderful man ! Yes, though the King of
France cannot find a Minister, the King of England
is not to be without one. High are the breakers that
will beat upon his vessel (we use the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet's own metaphor, borrowed, doubtless, from Sir
James Graham)—great the dangers of the stormy sea
he has to navigate-;- but round his breast, as the Ro-
man poet would have said, there are " three folds of
brass"—he defies everything—
" Mercator metuens, otium et oppidi
Laudat rura sui : mox reficit rateis
Quassas, indocilis pauperiem* pati."
It is true he was wrecked in his last voyage—that
his skill as a navigator was shown in a series of
triumphs upon sandbanks—that he always insisted on
sailing against the wind, marvelling that he made no
progress—that his crew were an ill-assorted crew—a
mutinous crew—that they would do no work, and in-
sisted upon receiving full pay. But what does all this
prove ? The greatness of the man to be sure—thc
boldness of the man to be sure—nothing daunts him.
He is not the pilot who weathers the storm—but what
then ?—he is the pilot who braves it. We remember a
periodical writer of the last century, who was speaking
of an American captain, a gentleman in the Right
Hon. Baronet's own way, and who, like the Right
Hon. Baronet, was rather given to boasting. "
said the writer, who was commemorating his exploits,
" and so he may continue to boast, unless some con-
trary wind should take him against the enemy's
cruisers." This is just what we say to the Right Hon.
Baronet. He will see the value and the force of a nau-
tical illustration. He may boast of his readiness to
take office—of his confidence that the country
would support him in office—of the courage he could
show in stepping into the same boat with the Right
Hon. Member for Cumberland, who once shipwrecked
even the Royal George in a sentence ; but if a " con-
trary wind should take him against the enemy's
cruisers"—if he saw the smallest probability, the most
distant possibility, of his vaunts being verified—if, in
the awful crisis to which affairs are being hurried by
his blind coadjutors, he saw the remotest chance of
being at their head—relying on the soothing qualities
of Lord Stanley's character for subduing irritation—on
the deep sagacity of Mr. Goulburn's mind for disco-
vering expedients—on the friendliness of Sir Richard
Vyvyan's character for helping him over ditficulties—
if, we say, he saw the remotest chance of being Prime
Minister under such circumstances, he would sooner
have bitten his plausible tongue out of his mouth than
hare given vent to the sentence which has procured
him such eloquent laudation. No ; Sir Robert Peel
is no common • man ; he is not blind ; lie is not
bigoted like his former, and now, we are obliged
to say, like his recent associates. He feels and
fears the force of the times ; he wishes not to
struggle with that force. Left to the play of his
own prudent character and the sway of his own prac-
tical common sense, he would make himself a new man
for the new times he lives in. He has always conti-
nued to take the greatest leap he could at every fresh
necessity for concession, and to enter as deeply as he
was allowed into the system which it had established.
After the Catholic Emancipation Bill he said that he
accepted, and we believe would now be anxious to
accept, all its consequences. After the Reform Bill
he placed.himself upon the principles of that Bill with
as much firmness as if he had even held schedules A and
Bin the deepest veneration. He is not the man, the
Tories may depend upon it, who will play their despe-
rate and reckless game. He may now and then give
his hounds an halloo, to cheer them on and to keep
them together; he may show them the prey, but lie
n2ver means them to hunt it down—and he is wise ;
for if they had hold of their game they would soon fall
foul of their huntsman. He was honest just when his
friends and followers thought him not to be so ; that
is, when he said- he was not desirous for office.—
Morning Chronicle.
* Read, perquisites of office.

The following observations of the Examiner on the
display of Sir Robert Peel on Tuesday night are cha-
racterised by sound sense, and are peculiarly season-
able :—" Sir Robert Peel ended his speech with ob-
servations in this modest strain : If you look steadily
at the state of public affairs, I think that Hon. Gen-
tleman will agree that no man, but from a sense of
public duty, would take upon himself office.—( Cheers.)
If his Majesty's Government wish to seek a pretext
for abandoning 9flice, and escape from the difficulties
with which they ale surrounded, I do not hesitate to
say that I believe there is energy enough in the coun-
try to find compensation for their loss. If the crew
choose to abandon the vessel, I do not believe but that
the country would lend its support to those who would
make an effort to protect it for the country's interests,
and save it from dangers which appear to threaten to
overwhelm it.' He here fairly puts the pretensions of
his party as a pis aller. If no other Government can
be had, he makes bold to say that the country will
put up with his administration. And this brings us to
the question of the policy of a resignation upon the
Irish Corporations Bill. If the public were prepared
to support a measure for the reform of the Peerage,
and if Lord Melbourne were prepared to lead the
country upon that all-important question, we should see
the fitness of instant resignation upon the King's re-
fusal to grant the necessary powers ; and upon the
failure of the Tories to form a Government, or upon
the overthrow of any Government it might form, the
next Administration would come into office with the
means of conquering the existing obstacle to good go-
vernment in the House of Lords. But if Lord Mel-
bourne thaws up the Government before things are
ripe for the reform of the Lords, it seems to us that
any defeat of the succeeding Tory Ministry will only
bring us back to the present state of things, and with
the a dvantage to the Lords of a respite from the ordeal
of popular measures. The value of the move, after the
next overthrow of a Tory Government, depends upon
the sorundness and decisive nature of the ground upon
whick this Ministry resigns. Observing the rule of
chess, we are against an useless check to the
King. According to this view, the resignation
should! be upon the demand and denial of the means of
conquering the dead lock—the essential preliminary to
which must be an appeal to the country against the
conduct of the Lords in a general election—or it should
be postponed till, by further exhibition of the obstinate
vice of the House of Peers, the necessity for the means
of conquering the dead lock is recognized by those who
now hesitate, entertaining vain hopes of altered effects
from unaltered causes."—Morning Chronicle.
The events of the last week, and the eagerness of op-
posite parties to anticipate from them those political
consequences which respectively they must desire,
have produced a restless and feverish hurry in the
minds of numbers, both amateurs of bustle and actors in
it, which we do not consider justified by the real posi-
tion of things, and which indeed we should, looking
far on towards faturity, be loth to think well founded.
'We deprecate any premature, that is to say,
any immediate change, in the persons of those who
are ostensibly Ministers of the Crown. It is obvious
t o us, and this is not the first time we have said so,
that the longer Lord Melbourne and his colleagues
defer that step, which they as well as we know to he
at last inevitable, the more apparent will the ne-
cessity for it have been rendered in the eyes of
:the English nation ; 'the more glaring the inca-
pacity of a wretched broken down fragment of a
faction, we will not say to manage the difficulties, but
to' uphold the mere decent common-places of official
. station, times like these, the more manifest
the impossibility of their ever being recalled to
pow.'r within the age of men now living, and the more
secure and unassailable the hold which Conservative
statesanen will then have taken of the British Govern-
ment. It is a strange remark, but a sound one, and
throws a strong light upon the morality as well as
wisdom of these adventurers now in office, that their

whole scheme of action has been contrived upon the
one principle of calculating, not what measures are
best in themselves for the whole people—not what is
just as between Crown and subject, or landlord and
tenant, or producer and consumer, or between
clergy and laity—the only standard by which any
one who deserves the name of " statesman" would
adjust his political views with regard to those
several great interests of the community ; but, on the
contrary, these Ministers, from their first of the Irish
appropriation clause, down to their last, the Eng-
lish Church-rate Bill, have been decided by the single
rule of fixing upon some point beyond which the Con-
servatives would not go—some point which their con-
scientious honour and deep reverence for the Constitu-
tion, without regard to party, would deter the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Robert Peel from conceding, but
the insisting on which might be taken by the revolu-
tionists for an earnest, on the part of the official
Whigs, that they would proceed further when the op-
portunity offered, and establishing that point being
one which lay beyond the limit of Conservative policy,
as the hinge or pivot of their own Ministerial ex-
istence. This has been the praiseworthy law of the
rump Administration ; they did not measure the
wants of the country that •they might fairly supply
them. They took measure of the conscientious
scruples of their political opponents, and wherever such
scruples of conscience presented obstacles to the
progress of Conservatives in the path of change, there
stood the band of Whig desperadoes, pledged to them-
selves and to each other to overleap those obstacles,
whatever they might be ! It was not any particular
aversion to the great principles on which Church or
State was founded that induced the Melbourne Whigs
to attack the Church of Ireland. They would just as
lief have left that ancient establishment undisturbed. 1
But as the destruction of the Irish Church happened
to be that specific price which O'Connell and his
Popish tail demanded, and which the Conservatives
were too honest to pay, the Whigs cried " We
must at any rate buy the tail by outbidding our op-
ponents." "It was not that they loved the Church
of Ireland less, but that they loved the support of
O'Connell more." So in England. The Whig Ca-
binet cast about. for some concession to the demands
of the disaffected, which the Conservatives would not
make, and they found a thumping one in the old con-
tribution of Church-rates. This, like Irish tithes,
comprehended the double condition of being a thing
which the enemies of the State exacted, and which its
friends refused. Very well. The Rump went upon the
same system with the English Dissenters, which they
pursued with the Irish Papists. They sacrificed the
Church-rates here as they had sacrificed the tithes in
Ireland, not because they had any love for Papists
or Dissenters, or the smallest antipathy to Church-
rate or to tithe ; but because they wanted votes as
the raw material of a Cabinet, and they knew they
were so far safe, in offering for the commodity that
which men more upright than themselves would re-
fuse, at the risk of a perpetual exclusion from office.
Had Sir Robert Peel, instead of manfully declar-
ing that he would uphold the principle of Church pro-
perty, said " I will grain the appropriation clause, and
welcome," and had then a proposal been made to
O'Connell that lie should support Sir Robert Peel, what
would have happened ?—Why, the Agitator would
have bawled out—" Gentlemen of the rump, the ap-
propriation clause is offered. There are 40 of us
Papists. Who bids more ? The appropriation
clause, once !—the appropriation clause, twice—going,
for the appropriation clause, the third and last time—
go,”—whel my Lord John with a languid nod half
whispers " the voluntary principle down on the nail,"
and away flies the Church in a tangent. In England,
and with regard to Church-rates, precisely the sanie
cards have been played, but against more powerful
antagonists. The bidding here was to be for the
turbulpit Dissenters. Had those political sectaries
required an immediate attack upon the tithes of
England, instead of on Church-rates, and had the
Melbourne rump been persuaded that the votes of the
Dissenting faction could have been got on no cheaper
terms, who can doubt that, in their desperate circum
stances, these Ministers would have been deterred from
closing with the modest proposition, solely from a fear
of being kicked out of office by the country, instead
of being maintained there ? There is, however, one
thing more to be considered by these men, and in
relation to them. Have they in either of the above
cases paid the price which they so readily offered ?
Have they actually given the appropriation clause to
the Papists ? Or to the factious Dissenters the Bill
for dragging Church-rates henceforth out of the
pockets of the clergy ? No; and they are moreover
conscious that they never will. They knew from the
first hour, that neither their Irish Church Robbery
Bill, nor their English Church Robbery Bill, was
worth more than a sheet of blotted paper. They knew
that neither would be passed into a law, and that
neither the Irish Papists nor the English intriguing
sectaries would during the present generation obtain in
practice any real fruits from their respective bargains.
It is clear, therefore, that the Whigs have either
knowingly cheated the respective factions whose sup-
port they pretented to purchase, or that they are in the
situation of other parties, frequenting auctions of fur-
niture advertised for sale, who affect to bid for what
would suit them ; but, on being called upon to pay,
are unable to realize their biddings. In that case, ac-
cording to the regulations of every sale-room, the
Whig competitor proving insolvent, the next bidder,
being the Conservative, carries home the goods. We
hare no doubt that if Sir Robert Peel came in to-
morrow, both Dissenter and Papist would put more
confidence in him than in any of those mountebank
Whigs, who have actually done nothing for the
last two years but clamour against Conservatism,
and pocket their own salaries of office. As
for what they will do, or will not do, either re-
specting their Irish Tithe Bill, or their so-much-talked-
of resignation, we know nothing about the former,
and about the latter are no otherwise anxious than that
it should not take place sooner than might be desirable
for the cause of Conservatism, understood with refer-
ence to its solid and enduring interests. We are
-hourly gaining strength throughout the kingdom—
moral ascendancy, which is the infallible stepping-
stone to numbers—and of numbers we have, even
now, sufficient for success, though not for unresisted
victory. With respect to the Irish Church Bill,
whether the Whigs make it more or less outrageous
against the Clergy than it was last year, is of
little consequence to any but the Whigs them-
selves. In either case it must be fatal to them.
Were their asseverations worth anything, we should
guess from those which they have made within these
few days, that the forthcoming Bill (if it ever do
come forth) is to out-herod the by-gone flagitiousness
of the appropriation principle. Lord John Russell
and Lord Morpeth have both declared, that the Bill
which they offered as " satisfactory" to the Irish Pa-
pists in the last Session, "will not satisfy them now."
The argument, therefore, which was most dwelt upon
in recommendation of their former measure, viz., that
it would tend to tranquillise Ireland ; will not, on their
own showing, be available for the new one, unless the
latter should contain clauses more immediately destruc-
tive of the Church of Ireland than those which have
heretofore by the House of Lords been rejected, and
been looked upon with increasing indignation and hos-
tility by the Protestant English people.— Times.
To-night Sir Henry Hardinge will move in the
House of Commons, " That an humble address be
presented to his Majesty, praying that his Majesty
will be graciously pleased not to renew the order in
council of the 10th of June, 1835, granting his Ma-
jesty's Royal license to British subjects to enlist into
the service of the Queen of Spain, which order in
council will expire on the 10th of June next ; and
praying also that his Majesty will be graciously pleased
to give directions that the Marine forces of his Ma-
jesty slur!, not be employed in the civil contest now
prevailing in Spain otherwise than in that naval co-
operation which his Majesty has engaged to afford, if
necessary, under the stipulations of treaty." These
are the terms of the motion upon which the House
of Commons will have to express its judgment.
They involve no decision upon the relative merits
of the titles put forward by the two claimants of
the Spanish Crown ; they suggest no controversy
upon the questionable expediency of the Quadruple
Treaty. They simply pronounce an opinion that
British subjects ought not to be stimulated to shed

blood in a quarrel with which Britain has no con- ,
cern ; they merely convey a recommendation that the
framers of the Quadruple Treaty should not defraq
the people, the Parliament, and the King, by doing,
under its provisions, what its provisions neither con-
template nor authorise. We believe that Sir Henry
Hardinge's motion will be carried. Lord Palmerston ,
will smile his most triumphant smile as he reads these
words ; and Mr. Stanley will refer exultingly to- his
ready list. But, nevertheless, we believe that Sir H.
Hardinge's motion will be carried. We know, indeed,
that Parliament, to use the words of a French jour-
nalist, " has for some time abandoned the foreign po-
licy to Lord Palmerston, as if it referred merely to the
government of a district of Australasia--to an affair
of so remote and unknown a nature that it is neces,
sary to leave the utmost freedom of action to the
functionary charged with its management." We
know too that, inasmuch as the present Ministers are
favourites with the mass of their supporters, because,
being unprincipled, incapable, and fond of place, they
are easily led and driven, Lord Palmerston may expect-
from them an especial degree of favour, because he is
of all most easily led and driven, being of all the most
unprincipled, the most incapable, and the most fond
of place. We know, moreover, that there may be-
some half-dozen of respectable gentlemen whose intel-
lects may not be sufficiently clear to separate the sub
stantial merits of the matter before them from the ex-
traneous garbage with which it will be studiously over-
loaded ; and who, instead of applying English reason
to English interests, will fancy themselves called upon
to vote upon the Durango decree, or to testify their
dislike of the inquisition. But conscious as we are of
all these obstacles to a right verdict, we believe, once
more, that Sir Henry Hardinge's motion will be
carried. Of course the mere Whigs, the officials, the
cousins, and the private secretaries, will support Lord
Pa!merston in his extremity. But they form an incon-
siderable minority of the majority of the House. 11l
as we think of the larger proportion of those by whom
Ministers are ordinarily aided, we cannot yet suppose
that in their love of the ballot or their zeal for triennial
Parliaments, they have wholly forgotten their concern
for our national interests, or their regard for our na-
tional character. It is now two years since Lord Pal-
merston began the experiment which we say has been
sufficiently tried. Two years ago we were told that
the loyal subjects of Spain, if theylhad but arms in
their hands, would drive the Pretender in ignominy
from his fastnesses ; and we supplied arms and muni-
tions of war with a liberal profusion. Two years ago
we were told that the first appearance of a British uni-
form on the shores of Spain would produce a moral
effect which would in a month's space terminate the
war ; and we encouraged the idle and the ambitious of
Westminster to enlist in the British legion, and to share
the labours and the laurels of their adored representa-
t. ve. The process of the experiment lai not been in-
terrupted by any factious interference on the part of the
Conservatives. They have abstained, with almost
more than constitutional scrupulousness, from any
notice of Spanish affairs, beyond an occasional in-
quiry, which Lord Palmerston alternately could not,
and would not answer. What has been the result of
the experiment ? The war is still raging with undi-
minished ferocity ; the muskets which we kindly pre-
sented to our allies are pointed against us by their
enemies ; and on the scene of our proudest achieve-
ments English soldiers have been seen " flying
like sheep" from a band of undisciplined moun-
taineers. Let the Queen-Regent of Spain be the most
chaste and immaculate of women ; let Don Carlos be
the most brutal and bigotted of men ; let Mina, who
shot a surgeon for dressing the wounds of a Carlist,
be remembered with veneration ; let Zumalacarregui,
who did but execute the policy his adversaries had
taught, be stigmatised' with curses ; in short, let us
believe all the Foreign Office asserts, and doubt all the
Foreign Office denies. Still the question is unan-
swered—whet has England gained by your sacrifice
of English fame, your expenditure of English trea-
sure, you waste of English blood ? Thus far the Fo-
reign Secretary is responsible for the evil he has done.

But a vote against Sir Henry Hardinge's motion, will
be a vote of indemnity to him. Such a vete will trans-
fer the future culpability of repeated disaster and re-
doubled disgrace from Downing-street to the House of
Commons. Let the Members of that House, possi-
bly on the eve of a dissolution, look well to their
course. The people may not scrutinise nicely the
morality of our foreign policy ; but they are likely to
be moved by its events. It may be safe to back an
injustice, ,but it is dangerous to defend a failure.
Morning Post.
It is with feelings of deep regret we are, at length,
compelled to notice a subject of painful interest, which
has excited very general observation, and which pre-
sents at one view, a domestic affliction to our Gracious
Sovereign, and a violation of the usages of civilised
society.. We allude to certain events recorded in the
Court Circular of last week, which placed in unex-
pected and infelicitous approximation, mirth and
mourning—the banquet hall of festivity, and the
chamber of death I To this subject a Correspondent
called our attention on Thursday last, but anxious to
avoid being led into error, in a matter in which it was
only charitable to suppose there had been some mis-
take, notwithstanding the apparently official authority
the Court Circular, we waited to see whether any
contradiction would be given to the statement of the
Court Newsman, who, having, on Wednesday, an-
nouncod the death of the King's daughter, Lady
de L'lele and Dudley, at Kensington Palace, at 11
o'clock on the preceding Monday night, did, von,
Thutsday, give the public—the astonished public7thi7,
following intelligence :—" The Duchess of Kent eltres
tained a large and distinguished party yesterday,"
" Mr. Rosenhain, the pianist, who has just arrived in
this country, had the honour of performing at ier
Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent's yestterd4
evening"—thus,. as we hoped, slanderously imputing
to that illustrious lady, the bad taste, to say the Least.
of it, which could induce her to cultivate the gay hos-.
pitalities of the table, under that roof beneath which
death had just struck its victim, and to waken the
voice of music where the sound of lamentation '.was_',
heard. Pale and cold in an early shrowd lay the
mented object of a husband's love and a father's af-
fection—the mother of an infant bereaved of a mo,
ther's care before it was conscious of its own existence.
Such an instance of mortality is thought capable of
subduing even gay and light tempers into at le.st ,a
temporary reflection upon the transitory nature of all
that engages the affections, cherishes the pride, or eon:
stitutes the earthly happiness of man. "It is better,"'
says holy writ, " to go into the house of mourning than
into the house of feasting, for that is the end of
all men, and the living shall lay it to heart ;"
but to turn to the house of mourning into the
house of feasting—to disturb the sacred sorrows of
those who weep over the dead by the sounds of music
and joyousness, is as little in accordance with the
ems reflections which such scenes ought to inspire,
as it is in unison with the conventional usages of,
civilised life. We have always given the Duchess of'
Kent credit, not merely for strict moral propriety, but for
those kind and amiable qualities of the heart which
are no less the grace and ornament of a distinguished
station. Was it strange, then, that we preferred
doubting the correctness of the Court Circular to
believing that she could have listened to any advisers
who were so ignorant of what was due on such an
occasion—we will not say to the Kiag, but to the
British nation, and to civilisation itself, as to induce
her to depart from the respect which in this country
is ever paid not only to the feelings of bereaved
kindred, but to the place which the sorrows of death
have sanctified ? No contradiction has been given to
the statements which have called forth these remarks,
and in reference to which we had hoped the Court
Newsman was misinformed. On the contrary, it has
been admitted by a Ministerial journal that the enter-
tainment given by the Duchess of Kent did ac-
tually take place in the Palace of the King at
Kensington, while his daughter lay dead thetie, and
on the second day from the melancholy event. We
may now presume that the announcement of her Royal
Highness, with the heiress presumptive, having. vi-
sited the opera the very night succeeding that event is
also true. However disposed we might be to censure
such conduct on account of the want of respect which
it seemed to evince to the King's feelings, we cannot
look upon it in that limited -point of view. English
habits, public manners, the decencies of societyiv-

quire that such conduct should not pass unnoticed or
unreproved. The higher the rank under which an ex-
ample of this sort is given, the more necessary it is
that it should receive the admonition of public opinion.
To us it matters not whether Whigs or Tories, or both,
were present at the banquet and music in Kensington
Palace. Let party writers treat questions of public
ethics and manners with party feeling. We have none to
gratify. Whether they be Whigs or Tories who violate
propriety, we care for' neither of their Houses," so that
"We should assert black to be white out of preference to
either. As far, indeed, as the King is concerned, the
Ministers of the Crown would be more culpable than
any other politicians in attending a banquet under such
circumstances, because of the official ties by which they
are connected with his Majesty. But, upon the part of
the British public, we protest against all such deviations
-from our established usages—all such violations of our
English manners—all such shocks to the public sense
of propriety, as was exhibited by the unseasonable
scene of festivity in Kensington Palace, on Wednesday
evening last. It has been rightly remarked that no
such scene ought to have occurred, if the corpse of a
domestic servant lay under the same roof. It has been
no less truly stated that the Duchess of Kent, not very
long ago, consulting her own sense of propriety, con-
sidered the death of a menial of her household a suffi-
cient cause for postponing certain entertainments for
which she had issued invitations. In the Court Cir-
cular of Thursday, the same that spoke of the " large
and distinguished dinner party" of the Duchess of
Kent of the evening before, there was the following
announcement:--" In consequence of the lamented
death of Lady de L'lsle, Reschid Bey has felt it pro-
per to postpone his two remaining dinner entertain-
ments, from Monday the 17th, to Monday the 24th
inst., and the one of the 24th inst., to Monday the Ist
of May next." We need scarcely add that the enter-
tainments for which the Turkish Ambassador had sent
out invitations were not to have taken place under the
roof beneath which the corpse of Lady de L'lsle re-
posed ; but whether it was out of respect to the King,
who had postponed the grand dinner which their Majes-
ties were to have given in St. George's Hall on Saturday,
or whether his mark of respect for the King was blended
with a polite deference to the usages of the British
people, certain it is, that this Mahomedan chief con-
ducted himself in a manner that his Majesty's " Chris-
tian" Ministers would have done well to imitate. Has
it to come to this, that in almost the highest places
of the realm, we are obliged to call attention to Turk-
ish examples of civility to prevent the deterioration of
the public manners ? We enter not into the question
why the Duchess of Kent thinks proper, both as re-
gards herself and her illustrious daughter, to have but
little intercourse with the Court of William IV. We
quarrel not with her taste therein, or with the indul-
gence of feelings as to certain . personages, which if
rightly ascribed to her, it would be hypocritical to
conceal ; but the subject which has called forth these
remarks is quite a different question. It is a question
affects us, as a civilised people—a question in
which the national manners, and, in some degree, the
national character, are involved—and upon such a
question we shall never shrink from expressing our in-
dependent opinion.—Morning Herald:

ARISTOCRATIC CAPERS at MELTON

The Marquis of Waterford, who, now that there are no
longer, through the innovations of the age, any " Charleys"
to floor in London, occasionally takes a provincial tour to
enjoy this manly and much-admired sport in the usually
peaceful and quiet country towns of England, has been again
getting himself into a scrape, with a number of his aristo-
cratic friends, at Melton. The Noble Marquis, with his
friends, the Hon. Mr. Villiers, Mr. Reynard, Sir F. John-.
stone, and another, described by some of the suffering
watchmen and special constables as the " tall gentleman,"
had been attending Croxton Park- races, and at the con-
clusion of each day's sport the Marquis of Waterford and
his party slept at Melton. There were large dinner par-
ties almost every evening, either at the New Club or at
Lord Rokeby's.
At an early hour on Thursday morning they sallied forth
bent upon mischief, when sundry watchmen were jostled
and " floored," and a great many special constables sworn
in on the occasion worsted in the tight. The next scene in
this Tom and Jerry drama was a visit to the Grantham
toll-gate-house, where they screwed up the door and win-
dow-shutters, and, as soon as they had accomplished
their laudable object, sang out " Gate 1" and made as
much noise as they could to astonish the gatekeeper.
He, however, required not this to awake him, for the noise
of the screws had broken his slumbers, and thinking that
. thieves wore forcing the shutters, he had loaded a large
horse pistol, and but for the accident of his not being able
to find powder to prime it with, it is more than probable
that some one or more of these worthies would have received
its deadly contents. They then proceeded towards the mar-
ket-place, one carrying a large can of red paint, and others
bearing the brushes, and no sooner was the Old White
Swan perceived than the " Noble" Marquis was raised
upon the shoulders of his companions, an immediate trans-
formation of colour was the consequecce, and then was to
be seen that rara avis, a red swan. This feat having been
performed and greeted with shouts of laughter, the gentle-
men proceeded to overturn caravans, throw signs into the
canal, smash lamps, wrench off knockers, and break down
or screw up doors as to their fancies might seem most de-
sirable. Among the doors and windows which underwent
the fate of being screwed up was the Post-office, which was
also facetiously daubed over with pigment from the can be-
fore mentioned. One of the party(Mr. Reynard) after giv-
ing chase for a long time, was run to ground, and locked up
in the watchhouse ; but his friends soon came to the res-
cue, and four or five doors having been forced, and about
double the number of heads broken, the captive was once
more set at liberty.
Such riot and confusion was never before known in Mel-
ton, and the Marquis could not have had such a feast of
-intellectual enjoyment, since his return from New York. It
!.is stated that nothing was in request, on the early part of
Thursday, but mops, turpentine, and screwdrivers. Mr.
Reynard was secured a second time, and has since been
fined five shillings for being drunk by the magistrates. No
other offence could be directly made out against him. War-
rants have, however, been issued for the apprehension of
the Marquis of Waterford, Sir F. Johnstone, and the Hon.
Mr. Villiers. It appears there were eleven persons en-
gaged in the riot, but only Sir F. Johnstone was a resident
at Melton.—Morning Paper.

Mr. Scholefield has been confined to his own house
•in the country, by severe indisposition, for some time back,
which has caused him to be absent from numerous recent im-
portant divisions in the House of Commons.

Our columns of this week report the perpetration or
the legal punishment of several murders and other heinous
crimes here, for the commission of which we can discover nct
adequate provocation or suffering, as is generally known to
exist in the sister country. The question properly prefatory
to any discussion upon the means of reducing the crime with
which the country seems at present to abound in a very fright-
ful degree, is—the cause or causes by which this unusual quan-
tity has been produced. On this question a considerable
number of politicians have attempted, and still hold themselves
prepared to prove, that the cause of the crime in the country
is the poverty. We presume this is to be understood in the
particular as well as in the general sense ; and that it instigated
Bartlett, a hale young man in the prime of life, to murder his
mother-in-law ; that it impelled the three stout young naviga-
tors to beat out the brains of a poor, lone, and defenceless old
woman, at Denver, and afterwards pillage her dwelling of its
few silver valuables ; that it also induced the wretched Green-
sinith to strangle his four little children in their sleep, and
urged on Greenacre and his woman to the murder of Mrs.
Brown. We presume that poverty, in these particular cases,
is to be considered as the impelling cause, as much as in the
more extended cases of " the incendiary Swing," which de-
stroyed so enormous an amount of agricultural produce and
property. Now, this seems to us to be, in England, a very
fallacious theory ; and we arc quite sure that—if fallacious—it
is also a mischievous and dangerous one. No doubt the crime
under which the country suffers proceeds from a variety of
causes—of which poverty will be one. Part of it is inseparable
from the constitution of society ; another part will be attribut-
able to imperfect or defective legislation ; a third part will
proceed from the temptations and facilities which the peculiar
circumstances of a densely populated, rich, and commercial
country afford. A fourth cause may be found in the general
pressure of national distress, upon the lower and poorer classes.
But, practically, we belive that this last portion is the smallest
of the whole ; and we are sure that the very worst conse-
quences are likely to arise from any attempt to give too much
importance to it.—Bath Herald.
CHURCII-RATES.—We are glad to see that the
eloquent speech delivered by Mr. Northhouse, at the Lambeth
Meeting for the Abolition of Church•rates, has been published
in a cheap form, for general circulation. We highly approve
of this mole of enlightening the minds of the ignorant, and
removing the prejudices of the bigoted, on the Church-rate
question. It is a powerful auxiliary to the newspaper press at
a moment like the present, NS hen Church-rate meetings crowd
so fast upon each other, that it is scarcely possible to notice
them even slightly—much less to give at length the speeches
delivered on these occasions. Mr. Northhouse's address will
well repay perusal. The author enters into the very marrow
of the subject, bringing to bear upon it the united artillery of
reason, religion, justice, and authority—array ing against the
unholy impost both the law and the Gospel, denouncing in it
the venerable names of Latimer and Barrow, of Burn, Milton,
and others.—Nottingham Review.

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