The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-21 00:00:00

is that the Commons do, they being the most nume-
rous. The Lords hardly ever originate any measures,
are a Court for revising the measures of the Commons,
and appear, perhaps, to be more free from errors
because they do a great deal less work. They have
nothing to do but to correct the errors of the
Commons, and commit none themselves because they
frame no bills. We are ready to take the character of
each from the other and pronounce both to be, each in
its line, complete bunglers.
The Slave Trade Bill being the subject of a notice,
Mr. O'CONNELL took the opportunity of calling on the
Government to insist with Portugal on the punishment
of the miscreants who had planned wholesale murder by
poisoning the wine and water on board slavers.
The Lords' amendments to the Metropolitan Police
Courts were taken into consideration and agreed to.
The Duke of MARLBOROUGH'S Pension Bill went through
a Committee. The House adjourned at Three and met
again at Five.
The RECORDER, who had been challenged by Mr.
HAWES to be in his place in the early sitting,
and hear himself attacked, but was not present,
wished the attack to be renewed in his pre-
sence, but to this both Mr. HAWES and the
SPEAKER demurred, and the Learned RECORDER had
not an opportunity of defending himself. Mr. HAWES
had censured him_ for misrepresenting the Metropolis
Courts Bill in his own Court, instead of attacking it in
the House of Commons.

In answer to a question Lord Howtcx stated that
the substance of the Report of the Navy and Military
Commission was agreed on, but he was af.aid would
not be laid on the table this Session.
Mr. HumE referred to the case of Mr. VIGER, but
only received the satisfaction of learning that Sir JOHN
COLBORNE was justified in keeping him in confinement.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, after making
a long and querulous speech, complaining of the oppo-
sition he had experienced, announced his intention of
withdrawing the Bank of Ireland 8.11, and of bring-
ing in two Bills to continue the Act of last Ses-
sion till 1841, and to fund 900,000/. more
of Exchequer Bills held by the Bank of Ire-
land. So ends the scheme for the present ; and
the next Chancellor of the Exchequer will, we hope,
know something more than Mr. RICE about the.
principles of banking, and the prerogative of coining
money. After some not pleasant bickering, the
Right Hon. Gentleman obtained leave and brought
in a Bill to secure the payment of certain
sums advanced by the Bank of Ireland. The Com-
mittee on the Bank was postponed till Friday when
certain amendments are to be made in it, and it is to lie
over.

..Nlr. HUME moved for leave to bring in a Bill to es-
tablish County Councils. The debate on the motion
was adjourned, and the House adjourned at Half-past
Eight o'Clock.

In The Sun of yesterday we published at length
Mr. M'DouALL's defence, and it seems to us to
confound all ideas of right and wrong, to pet vert
the moral judgment, and render the public mind a
complete chaos, to apply the same term, Guilty, to
his conduct, and that of a murderer. What did
he dos He was present at a meeting where other
persons carried flags on which were some inscrir-
tions that are unpopular with some classes, but
are neither indecent nor immoral. Nor are they
injurious to property, or repugnant to liberty.
He made a speech containing something displeasing
to somebody ; there was a pistol or two fired, a felt
de joie, for people, as witness Gil Blas, hare long
been accustomed to blow off powder on hilarious or
exciting occasions. There was a procession, a rem-
nant of worn-out manners which our Italian Opera-
going gentry have wholly discarded, and therefore
it must be impure and dangerous. But, with all defe-
rence to stately Judges, and prim starched-up Juries,
we cannot look on any of the monuments of anti•
quity, abounding as they do with the representation
of processions of all kinds, and agree to their asser-
tion that there is guilt in a proces3ion accompanied
by flags and the firing of pistols. Processions are
of great antiquity, and very innocent.
The Attorney-General for the Palatinate,
and the Judge, were quite of one opinion, that the
flags, and the pistols, and the processions made the
assembly illegal, which we do not dispute. We
never pretend to know what the law is ; Chief Jus-
tice DENMAN does not know it, though he pre-
sumes he does ; but we know that the law is
an incongruous, incomprehensible mass of ecntra-
dictory absurdities, and we conclude, therefore,
that an action which is perfectly illegal may, at the
same time, be perfectly innocent and most praise-
worthy.
But Mr. M‘DouALL was guilty of speaking.
He is an eloquent man, and litters words that burn.
How did the Judge and Jury know what he had said ?
A constable reported his, words, who-had probably
never reported any thing before in his life, and ap-
pears not to have made the notes of what he had
heard till next morning. How easily such a
report might become a jumble of what Mr.
M.DouALL said with his own beer-bred
fancies, both being equally believed by him,
is known to every person conversant with
such subjects. So apt a reporter was he, that
he could not repeat a passage immediately
after Mr. M‘DovALL, though he recollected his
very words twelve hours after hearing them at
Hyde. On such evidence, a Judge would have
directel a verdict against a plaintiff in a civil suit
for 57., but in these inflamed party times, the Judge
and Jury held it sufficient to stigmatize an able
and an eloquent man with the epithet of guilty.
Though the Judges, who are bound to know nothing
but the law, may be ignorant of the fact that re-
poriing is brought to great perfection, we beg
leave to state, for their information, that there
are now numerous gentlemen skilful at taking
down the words of a speaker, and whose known
accuracy entitles their reports, whether attested by
an oath or not, to implicit credit ; and we tell the
Judges that they fail in performing their duty—
, they do not act honestly and decorously when
they accept any evidence of what a public speaker
says, exceft the evidence of an accredited
and skilful reporter. In such cases the Judge, if
he be an honest, .reflecting man, and not a mere
blind instrument of a very imperfect rystem, if he
be the advocate of the accused, and not the tool of
a vindictive party or a vindictive Government—is
bound to tell a prosecutor—" You should not come
into court unless you can bring the best evidence
which the circumstances of the time and the case
allow you to procure." Since writing has become
common, it has not been the practice to admit
the existence of any kind of contracts, unless
they are written. The Judges, in such cases, re-
quire the evidence of art, and they are bound to
require similar evidence, as to spoken language, on
which a man's life may depend. No such evidence
was brought against Mr. M‘DouALL ; and from the
verdict and the sentence we pronounce him a much
injured and oppressed man.
•We would venture, humbly but respectfully, to
press his case on public attention, because, in the
party warfare now carrying on, it may be the case
of every public speaker in the country. The con-
test at present is between the middle classes and
the lower classes, and the former think themselves
safe ; but the Tories may return to power, the
Peers may get the tipper hand, a Tory Attorney-
General may prosecute a Whig politician before a
Tory Chief Baron, and the precedents followed in
the cases of 11'j'DOUALL and STEPHENS will
then tell against the Liberals. We press Mr.
M‘DouA Lt.'s case on public attention, because
he is obviously an educated man, who appears not
to have taken up his principles lightly, and will not
lightly lay them down. He acts from conviction.
" I retire (he said, at the close of his eloquent speech)
cheerfully within the gates of a prison ; I retire there
knowing that I am prosecuted and imprisoned because I
have dared to advocate the rights of the poer man, and
because I have presumed to assert, and am now prepared
to demand, the extension of these rights to the working
classes of this country which their forefathers possessed.
I retire, therefore, in the hope and consciousness that the
temporary imprisonment will at length draw to a close,
and that at some period I must be liberated ; and being
yoinv, in years, I am high in the expectation that I shall
yet live to see those principles carried into execution in
this country—that I shall yet live to see them perfected in
this IP.nd, and peace, and security, and comfort enjoyed by
all its people."
The case of such a man deserves public atten-
tion, though even the so-called hut now much mis-
named Liberal Journals, keep their readers in the
publishing any portion of his defence. They con-
tent dark as to his character and attainments by not
themselves with hurling a few shafts of ridicule
against the Chartists, and
stifle the evidence that
ep.nodew,:erful talents, commanding eloquence, great
gy, and honest convictions°are ranged on their
s
i • Such a course is deluding and dangerous to
those who receive such erroneous and one-sided
views. Those who read M T erroneous and
mdeen-
fence will conclude, though‘thre. °pi; be put down, that Chartism will giow
and become the political creed of theand spread,
masses,
means be found, and that spec , unless
d Iy redress their
to orievances.

The middle classes juswave unfortunately
Great need of the soldiery, and the soldiery seetn