The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONI;AY, NOVEMBER 20, 1837.

mony which they have borne to our services in a cause
which involves the life of man, and the Christian cha-
racter of the British nation. Every step which has
been made in the progress of that cause, since we first
resolved to lay formal siege to the system of extermi-
nating law, has only encouraged us to proceed, in the
hope_of that efficient reform being finally achieved,
which can only be considered complete when the prin-
ciple of legislative barbarism shall have been exorcised
from the penal code, and the last fragment of its ensau-
guined tablets cast out of the temple of the Constitution.
To preserve as many fragments as possible of the
blood-stained code some of the organs of the Whig
Ministry long and laboriously struggled. With them
we have had to engage in many a controversy, either
in vindication of the general principles of penal legis-
lation for which we contend, or to repel the attacks
made upon us for demonstrating, in individual instances,
the uselessness and cruelty of insisting upon human
sacrifice, when experience proved that there were other
means of repressing crime far more effectual than the
brutalising exhibitions of the scaffold. In attempting
to defend the principles, and sometimes the application
of statutes of blood, those ministerial journals to which
we' allude unconsciously rendered great service to the
cause which, in common with some of the most
enlightened men of various countries, we advocate.
its
foundations shakes a vicious system so effectually from
foundations as the circnmstance of its supporters
leaving the safer ground of prescription and established
usage, to challenge, by injudicious praise, a searching
investigation into its principles. And, surely, nothing
but the long-continued practice of strangulation
on the scaffold for a multitude of offences of different
degrees of guilt could have reconciled the mind of
one of the most civilized nations in the world to spec-
tacles, the familiar occurrence of which, until a very
recent period, gave to almost every prison in the king-
dom the appearance of shambles, where, as invariably
as certain market days came round, the work of hu-
man butchery went on, and only added a popular
pastime to the ordinary business of the neighbourhood.
Twenty years have scarcely elapsed since every ses-
sions at the Old Bailey used to contribute from twelve
to a score of human victims to the Draconic law. How
did soceity profit by those exhibitions ? The riot, dis-
sipation, and robbery committed under the gallows tell
us how. Profit, indeed, some derived from such soul-
revolting scenes. The profit was to those persons who
let out scats and windows in the houses opposite to
the male and female amateurs of the hanging system,
who could afford to pay for a convenient position to
enjoy the " pleasant" excitement communicated by the
first appearance of the trembling victims, the with-
drawing of the hangman's bolt, the shock of the pre-
cipitated sufferers, and the agonised struggles of ex-
piring nature ! Conservative, as we are, of the great
principles of the Constitution, we arc not more
anxious to preserve all that gives strength and stabi-
lity to our ancient system of free government than
we -are to remove the abuses which have crept into
our institutions, without regard to the length of time
during which such abuses may have existed. Our
ancient common law was mild and rreniful compared
with the innovations for which we are indebted to
subsequent law-makers, so that, while the country
was advancing in other respects towards civilisation,
the Legislature was retrograding in the march of cri-
nunal jurisprudence. A greater disgrace to a free Con-
stitution cannot exist than cruelty in the laws which
are intended-to punish crime and protect innocence. To
purge the laws of such cruelty—a cruelty not more
disgraceful to the national character than injurious to
the public interests—has been our constant endeavour
for nearly ten years past, during which we have availed
ourselves of all fair opporetnities to enforce our prin-
ciples by argument, and to illustrate them by reference
to facts occurring pet petually around us. Nor is it in
the application of the laws only that the triumph cf
clemency over the revengeful principle, when once
achieved, will be felt. The abuse of power, in gene-
ral, to purposes of oppression, and the wanton exer-
cise of brute force to the injury of the weak, will be
less frequent when the laws cease to familiarise the
powerful with examples of blood, and to educate the
people to cruelty. In pursuing the great object of a
thorough reform of the criminal law, we have gone on
in the way which we thought best for that purpose,
without allowing ourselves to be turned to the right
hand or to the left by any considcaation of party
politics. We contended under a Tory Government
for the same measure of improvement in our laws which
we snuggle to attain under a Whig Ministry. The
personal humanity of our ;Ito lamented Sovereign,
William IV., greatly assisted the cause by keeping in
check the less merciful propensities of certain Members
of the Whig Cabinet. That beneficent Prince has
been succeeded by a Sovereign whose heart is true to
the emotions of a good and kindly nature. We may
well hope that this cats ;C Stijl prosper beneath the mild
sway of Victoria, who, in her first great act of State,
spoke as one who regarded the regal attribute of mercy
as the most beautiful flower of her hereditary sceptre.
—Morning Herald.

In reference to the Speech to be delivered this day
by her Majesty, as an introduction to the Parlia-
mentary business of the first Session of her reign, it
would be hazardous for us to speak, and useless too,
considering how few hours are to elapse before it will
he presentrql in an anthentie shape to the general eye
of the community. But we mar, nevertheless, ven-
ture to offer one or two negative propositions. with re-
spect to the forthcoming address, and to the conduct
of the body in Parliament who are opposed to the
Queen's present Government, which we think will
not be contradicted by the Speech when it appears,
or by the distinguished persons in either House of
Parliament who are expected to give an opinion
upon the topics it will embrace. We incline to be-
' here that the Queen's Speech, to be delivered to-day
to the two Houses of Parliament, will, tame, un-
meaning and insignificant as such productions gene-
rally are, be more insignificant, unmeaning, and tame
than any similar document within living memory.
It will be surprising, no doubt, but yet we know
that it is just possible, that her Majesty may have
been advised to leave the state of Ireland and the
intentions of her Government (if her Government
have any intentions) with respect to that part of her
dominions, either unnoticed altogether, or noticed so
slightly as if merely to, make an apology for the ab-
sence of notice. This, we say, would be surprising,
although it may be true. It would be enacting the
play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted.
Such an omission could not bring the Conservatives
into action. They will be too satisfied to find that it
is no part of the Ministerial plan of the session to
make the House of Commons the focus of Irish incen-
diarism and sedition. Here would be a great gain,
which it would by no means be the policy of Conser-
vatives to renounce. If Ministers can consent to re-
tract all they have ever said, and to neutralize all they
have ever done, for sake of keeping a little longer in
place, it is well. There is great good in all they have
ever said being retracted, and all they have ever done
being neutralised ; and we must accept the good thus
offered us, however we may despise those who, not in
patriotism or virtue, but in venal selfishness or guilty
fear, make tender of the boon. It is a triumph, how-
ever of Conservative policy, and this the British peo-
ple will generally feel, that little, if any mention is to be
made of Ireland in the first,and probably the last, Speech
which the Melbourne-O'Connell Administration have
or will have an opportunity of putting into the mouth
of our most gracious Queen. Ministers sink Ireland
in order to preserve unanimity. They will succeed.
But they would not hare been contented to succeed
thus had they not been lamentably conscious of weak-
ness. With respect to foreign policy, the Speech
will be of the ordinary description. Perhaps it may
adopt a more confident tone of Ministerial self-
approbation than usual, inasmuch as it is known
that Lord Palmerston will not be in the House
to attempt to sustain the language of the Speech.
Here is a point of clear and unequivocal advantage,
of which the author of the Speech may not
have disdained to avail himself. With respect to
the state of the finances, the Ministers, it is
plain,
cannot have any congratulations to offer. They
may express hopes, and upon this subject hopes
are always listened to very attentively. We hope,
however, that they will not, upon the sub-
ject of finance, have prepared a tub for the whale
in the shape of a surrender by the Crown of the
revenues of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.

We do not enter into the question of the value of
these rich appendages to the Crown, or of the eco-
nomical advantages which might or might not arise
from 'amalgamating their revenues with the general
revenues of the country. But we should decidedly
object to any arrangement stripping the Crown of
these gems, in circumstances like the present, when
when we have a female Sovereign, but yesterday of age,
and a Ministry, from the necessities of their position,
eagerly catching at. every straw of popularity.
Any bargain whatever, in . such circumstances,
would be bad. There are no sufficient parties.
Persons filling ostensibly the position of trustees
lie under grievous suspicion of fraudulent
collusion. There is great room for anxiety lest
the permanent interests of the Crown would be sacri-
ficed to the Ministerial eagerness for momentary popu-
larity. We have already intimated that the secret
has been well kept as to the precise terms of the
Speech which Ministers have determined to place in
the hands of their Sovereign. Its general character
will, we have no doubt, be of the most negative, futile,
milk-and-water description. It will be a Speech we
apprehend saying nothing and meaning nothing ; con-
trived to favour the thimble-rig ; leaving the masters
of this game to the unfettered nimbleness of their
fingers without impediment or restraint. Such as we
have described will, we believe, be the character of the
Speech put by Ministers into the mouth of her
Majesty. And the Conservative body in Parliament
will concur in an unanimous Address to her Majesty
in reply to this Speech, because it is desirable that the
first Address in a new reign should be unanimous,
and because the Ministers will have abstained from all
topics on which Conservatives could not concur. The
battle will have to be fought ; but this conflict of par-
ties will be better and more vigorously sustained upon
occasions in which the name and presence of the So-
vereign are not involved. Unless, contrary to all ex-
pectation, the Speech of this day should contain
matter clearly questionable, there will be no amend-
ment to the Address in either House of Parliament pro-
posed by any member of the Conservative party. We hear
of amendments by the Radicals ; but of these we
cannot be expected to know anything upon direct au-
thority.—Morning Post.
The Duke of Sussex is to move, and Lord Portman
is to second, the Address in the House of Lords to-
night. The selection of the Royal Duke for the
delightful duty which he has been called on to per-
form, was tardy—hesitating—we hope we ought
not to add, reluctant. The Duke of Roxburgh had
been mentioned as the Nobleman to whom the agree-
able task was to have been entrusted. Why was the
Duke of Sussex called on at the eleventh hour ?
The Whigs, poor as they are in the House of
Lords, are surely not so very poor that it could have
become a matter of necessity to get the uncle of the
Queen to move the first address her Majesty is to
receive from the Parliamentary Nobles of this country.
Yet the very tardy, and apparently reluctant, mention
of the name of the Duke of Sussex upon this occa-
sion would seem to intimate that his Ministerial friends
had regarded his Royal Highness as a pis tiller. If
this be the right construction of the matter,we do not hesi-
tate to say that no son of George 111. ought to have
been thus treated. We sincerely hope that this pre-
sentation of the Royal Duke to the country in a posi-
tion which persons less immediately connected with the
Crown have generally filled is not preparatory to any
unusual application to Parliament in relation to such
merely vulgar matters as those of mezon and tlllllll.
Our readers will readily enough excuse our misgivings
in this matter ; for they must have perceived, as we
have, that when Whig-Radicals, like the present Mi-
nisters of. the Crown, set precedent at defiance, their
ultimate ain4 is very generally the pockets of the people.
—Morning Post.

Our Gracious Queen Victoria opens, this day, the
first Parliament called in her name, and, we trust, un-
der those happy auspices and cheering anticipations
which have ushered in her reign. That her Majesty
will be received not only with that loyalty and respect
which Englishmen have always been in the habit of
paying to their lawful Sovereign, but with the strong-
est expression of affection and enthusiasm, there can-
not, from recent occurrences, be the slightest doubt. It
is true that hitherto her Majesty has only had an op-
portunity of figuring in State ceremonies, and none at
all of displaying the hearty goodwill which she enter-
tains for the welfare of her people ; but it is well
known that she has received almost the best education
which a person in her exalted station is at any time
likely to he heir to, and, on the other, that every sentiment
to which she has hitherto given utterance is in perfect
accordance with the liberal views and the benevolent de-
sires which the acquisition of a well-directed knowledge is
calculated to confer. In other words, we have no
hesitation in affirming that she distinctly understands
the tenure by which she holds the throne of these
realms—the supreme will of the people—that her
sentiments arc in perfect accordance with it—L.that she
prizes her power still more highly because it springs
from the people—and, finally, that she is, and is likely
to be, an ardent supporter of the present Administra-
tion, while it continues to pursue measures which arc
calculated to unite and promote the prosperity and
welfare of the people. Those, however, who expect
to find in the Royal Speech this day, any de-
cided expression of sentiment, will, in all proba-
bility, be greatly disappointed. We are not, of
course, aware of its contents; but looking, on the
one hand, to the few events of any importance which
have occurred since the dissolution of the last Par-
liament—on the other, to the state of parties—and,
finally, to the fact of this being the first Parliament
assembled under her Majesty's auspices—it would, it
seems to us, be somewhat out of place, to set down
any thing in it which was calculated to produce such
a difference of opinion as would lead to an attempted
amendment of the address in either House of Parlia-
ment. There are certain points, of course, to which
her Mljesty will, no doubt, refer in the course of her
Speech—such as an expression of her sstisfaction at
meeting her faithful Commons assembled in Parlia-
ment, and her hope that their labours may contribute
to the benefit of her people—her pleasure in being
enabled to state that she continues to cultivate the
most amicable relations with all foreign powers, and
that she entertains the most sanguine anticipation
of being able to maintain them. Nothing, in fact,
has occurred to disturb these relations, and, there-
fore, nothing beyond what we have mentioned
can be specially said respecting them. With
regard to Ireland, it has now become, in con-
sequence of the ardent wishes of the present Go-
vernment to promote its prosperity, and the excellent
and impartial Administration of Lord Mulgrave, so
completely an integral part of the British empire, that
no special notice need be taken of it. It will, perhaps,
Fie the first time in the course of the records of Royal
Speeches, that all allusion to it will be omitted ; and,
con ;idering the gratifying 'tranquillity which reigns
throughout every part of it, it might afford a useless
I;andre to a few factious Tories to disturb the unani-
m ty which is expected to prevail in voting the Ad-
dr( en to her Majesty, were the measures to be glanced
at which it is the determination of her Majesty's Mi-
nisters to bring forward in the course of the Session.
To these measures it is not likely that any specific
reference will be made, inasmuch as this first part of
the Session will, necessarily, be devoted to many mat-
ters of form, and also to the Civil Li►t—for the ad-
justment. of which Parliament was specially sum-
moned, and which will naturally occupy no inconsider-
able portion of its present preliminary sittings, as well
as a notice in the Speech. It is not, however, to be
inferred from this anticipation of what may be con-
tained in the Royal Speech, that it will be totally de-
void of political sentiment. On the contrary, there is
just reason to believe that her Majesty will recommend
her faithful Commons to proceed with all due expedi-
tion to the consideration of the measures, the perfec-
tioning of which was so prematurely interrupted by the
demise of his late Majesty, King William the Fourth
—a recommendation to which her Majesty's Ministers
will specially attend, and which,. we trust, will produce
a greater degree of unanimity among all parties than
has hitherto existed, as well as lead to a greater pro-
cress in the furtherance of Church and Municipal im-
provement than has yet been achieved. It is needless,
however, •to expatiate farther upon what the contents
of the Royal Speech will be. A few hours have only
to elapse before the public will be in full possession of
its very words ; but we cannot conclude without ex-

pressing our high gratification in being enabled to in-
form our readers that that illustrious and excellent
Prince, his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, who
is always foremost in the van of Liberalism, of scien-
tific pursuit, and of benevolence, is to move the address
in the Lords. A better choice could not have been
made, and we arc happy to add, according to what we
deem to be well-founded report, that it has nut only
met her Majesty's approbation, but that his Royal
Highness was specially signalized by her as the most
fit and proper person to move it.—Morn. Advertiser.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF CHANCERY—Nor. 18.
MOULT V. CASSES.

This was a motion to dissolve an caparte injunction
opened yesterday by Mr. Wigram. The plaintiff is one of
the Directors of the Northern and Central Bank of Eng-
land, and the defendant was the manager of the affairs at
the bank in London.
In this case, which was not concluded on Saturday when
we went to press, the LORD CriANcELLott was decidedly
of opinion that the defendant had failed to make out his
case, and the injunction is, therefore, continued.