The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-27 00:00:00

THE QUEEN.

Mr. RICHARD TAYLOR said that there were many re-
ports afloat as to the habiliments in which the company
were to appear in the Guildhall on the 9th of November.
It would he very desirable that the Chairman should in-
form the Court how far it would be necessary for them
to hold conference with their tailors on the subject ; and
as there were several of the I:;,3piety of Friends in the
Court, he hoped they would not be e):Cluded on account
of their adherence to the custom of their sect.
Mr. FLETCHER said that the dress regulations tr ot...id be
_ _

published in a few days. The Remembrancer had been at
the Lord Chamberlain's office, and learned there that no
gentleman was to be admitted except in a Court dress, and
that no lady was to be admitted dressed in black. The
members of the Court would appear in their gowns, and
had, he believed, stipulated to wear white cravats. No
black or coloured stocks were to be worn. Military and
official persons would, of course, appear in their appropriate
dresses.
PRESS JTATION OF THANES AND PIECE OF PLATE TO
CHARLES PEARSON, ESQ.
Mr. Charles Pearson was introduced to the Court, and
received, after an appropriate address from the Lord Mayor,
the thanks of the Court, for the great services he had ren-
dered while a member ; and he was also presented with a
splendid piece of plate by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and
several members of the Court. The present was a splendid
candelabrum, made by Mr. Gibson, of Bishopsgate-street.

Mr. Hume, M.P., is, it appears, one of the trustees
under the will of the late Duke of Kent, and also one of
the Directors of the Brighton Chain Pier Company, at
which, during the late visit of her Majesty to that beauti-
ful structure, he attended to receive the Royal Visitor.
The paragraph in the Watchman, copied into most
of the morning papers, stating that Mr. Roebuck was gone
to Canada, is without foundation.
Under the ancient monarchy, on the occasion of
Princely marriages, acts of grace were published and pre-
sents made. Now-a-days Grand Crosses are distributed.
We moderns are less philanthropic than our ancestors ;
but we are more economical.—Charivari.

The Russian General Sablokoff, Prince Gagarin,
Prince Nanpkin, and other foreigners of distinction, will
pot leave England until after the delivery of the Royal
Speech from the Throne,

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We advert again, and for the last time, to the speech
recently delivered by Lord Durham, at a meeting cut
his own county, for the purpose of forming a Reform
Association. We are sure that those who visited his
presence on that occasion must have expected a speech.
of a very different character from that which he made,
and that consequently a deep and very general feeling
of disappointment must have been experienced at many
of the sentiments he delivered. In our observations
yesterday, on the extraordinary exhibition which the
Noble Earl made on this occasion, we dwelt at some
length on the startling theory he advanced, and which
he laboured so arduously to estaNish—the theory,
namely, that Reformers ought not t 6 press their
peculiar opinions on the country. On the anoma-
lous character of such a position, coming from one
who prides himself, or at least affects to do so, On
the fervency of his attachment to Reform principles--
we will not add one syllable to our remarks in yester-
day's Paper. But the inconsistency of Lord Dur-
ham is not the only thing to be impeached in the mat-
ter. His taste may be arraigned with equal justice.
Holding such sentiments as those to which he gave
utterance on the occasion, why, we ask, did he go to
such a meeting at all ? For what purpose was that
meeting called ? For the express purpose of forming
an Association for the spread of Reform principles-.
His acceptance of the invitation to attend that meet-
ing must have been regarded as an implied approbation
of the objects contemplated by the parties calling it.
If he did not approve of those objects, he ought to
have stayed away ; or, if present, to have said nothing
adverse to the views of the embryo Association. The
Noble Earl, however, did neither the one nor the other.
He appeared at the meeting, and he spoke in direct
opposition to the very objects for the promotion of
which it was convened. The taste, to use no harsher
term, which could have dictated such a course, needs
not to be characterised by us. Had a professed Tory
acted in this way, his conduct would have been intel-
ligible ; but that Lord Durham should have pursued
such a course may well astonish as well as pain his
friends. The Noble Earl seemed on this occasion to
try how much damage he could do to the popular
cause in the shortest space of time. Not content with
denouncing by implication those Reformers who, in the
true spirit of honest men and zealous friends to the
people, are anxious for the triumph of their principles,
he volunteers a defence of the House of Lords. The
hereditary legislators certainly stand in great need of
friends, considering the position in which they have
placed themselves. But if they are not more happy
in the defence set up for them than in that of Lord
Durham, it ought to be their earnest and daily prayer
to be saved from their friends. He denounces the idea
of an organic change in the constitution of that House
as " a perfect absurdity," and afterwards represented
the proposal to have an elective House of Peers as
an absurdity and moral impossibility." Not quite
so fast, Lord Durham. It is a very easy matter to
pronounce anything to be absurd ; it is sometimes a
very different matter to prove it so. Is there not a part
of that very House at this moment elective ? Are not
the Scotch Peers elected every new Parliament? And
do not certain Episcopal Dignitaries sit by rotation on
the bench of Bishops ? If 16 Peers are elected, why
should not the elective principle be extended to 32 ;
and if to 32, why not to 64 ; and if to 64, why
not to the whole number of Lords temporal and
spiritual ? The elective principle must be either
good or bad. If bad, why adopt it at all ? If good,
why not carry it out to the fullest extent ? Any
change, organic or otherwise, in the constitution of the
hereditary House must be for the better. It were im-
possible for any body of men to act more absurdly or
mischievously than the Lords have done for the last
three years. Were the members of the Upper House
to be chosen on the wheel-of-fortune principle—in
relics words, in the same as the county militia used to
be chosen—we could not get a worse body of legisla-
tors than the Noble Lords who now grace the Upper
House. The great probability would be that ws
would get a better ; but we are not left to theorise on
the subject. An elective Upper House has been tried
in America, and found to operate in the most satisfac-
tory and beneficial manner. Lord Durham may
denounce the elective principle, as regards the House
of Peers, as an absurdity and moral impossibility, as
lung and as vehemently as lie pleases ; but to this
complexion, he may rest assured, matters must come
at last, and that, too, if the hereditary legislators per-
sist in their present course, ere many Sessions have
elapsed. The country is silently but steadily ripening
for the change ; and when the popular voice loudly and
peremptorily demands that it be made, the Lords them-
selves, obstructive though they have proved to so many
other good measures, can no more resist it than they
could the ebbing or flowing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Lord Durham in this memorable speech—melancholy
would be a more fit epithet by which to characterise
it—completed the catalogue of his treasons to the
popular cause, by the high-wrought eulogiums he
heaped on the Autocrat of St. Petersburg. If it was
painful to listen to other parts of his speech, his warm
panegyrics on the destroyer of the Popish nation, and
the greatest tyrant'of modern times, must have abso-
luteii shocked and sickened all who heard him. Alas!
that an Englishman should be found to volunteer a
vindication of such a man as the Despot of the
North ! Alas above all, that that Englishman should
have been one who had been ranked among the
greatest of Reformers I But so it is. Lord Durham
imposes on himself the self-chosen task of doing that
which even the Tories themselves, great as their te-
merity in such matters proverbially is, have always
shrunk front performing. The truth is, that Lord
Durham has been completely spoiled by the flattery
of the Russian Nero. The declaration of the latter
personage, that, though Lord Durham be a Liberal,
he would much rather have him as the British Am-
bassador at his Court than any Tory, has turned
the head of the Noble Earl. We warn the people of
England against reposing any more confidence in him.
Our advice to them, after the experience they have
had of the treachery or apostacy of other, leaders in
whom they had trusted, is henceforth to confide only
in themselves.—Morning Advertiser.

The question between the Reformers and the Tories
as to the state of Ireland, does not depend, it is ob-
vious, either upon the absolute annual amount of
crime in that country, or upon the comparison of that
amount with the annual quantity of crime in England,
but altogether upon the increase or decrease of Irish
crime since the accession to office of the present Go-
vernment. To fix the attention of the public upon
every false criterion of improvement has invariably
been the game of the Tories, while their journals ex-
clude from their columns, with the utmost jealousy, all
ta',les or returns in which the effects of a liberal Ad-
• • on are submitted to the only true test. As
•
_ount of crime which Lord ulab rave
to the actual a.? Al
he assumed the Government, it
found in Ireland whet.
3...1 Whatever diminution
d it would be rather hard
was not of his creation ;
to make him answerable for it.
has taken place may fairly be ascribei:.te his Adminis.
tration, and it ought in honesty to be pk.:cted to his
credit. An evening Tory Journal has Orefully
extracted, from the article in the Edinburgh Re,
view, entitled—" Ireland, under Loa' Mulgrave,"
a Table exhibiting a comparison of Irish crime with
English for the year 1836. Our Contemporary
has been guided in this selection solely the
circumstance that, out of several Tables given l'Y
the Reviewer this is the only one which does not bear
upon the great question at issue. The returns illus-
trating the decided amelioration that has taken place
have been as sedulously kept back by the Standard as
was the Table in which, a month since, we exhibited
the wealth, rank, and genuine respectability of the
men whom it pleased our Contemporary to denounce
as " a Ribbonman majority." We must of course
supply the deficiency of information occasioned by this
unfair dealing. The Reviewer observes—" The fol-
lowing statement of the number of offences of all kinds
committed in Ireland (exclusive of those in the dis-
tricts of Dublin, Cork, and Limerick) during the last
five years, shows the astonishing decrease which has
taken place, from first to last, under a Liberal Govern-
ment ; no less than the equally remarkable temporary
increase under the Tory Government in 1834-5,

when, as is well known, the country was in such a
disturbed state."

1832 1833 1834 1835 1836
11,3,59 9,635 9,927 10,575 7,907
A deduction to the extent of about 400 is to
made (the Reviewer adds) from the total apparent im-
.rovement in 1836, in consequence of all altered mode
of making up the constabulary returns after the first
six mouths of that year, those returns having vs:aseCl
from that date "to contain a number of petty larce-
nies, and other minor offences of a similar kind, too
trifling to be proceeded with. Yet, with an allowance:
for this, what an improvement I A decrease from
more than eleven to less than eight thousand in five
years '." The Reviewer is, we believe, slightly
error in stating that the alteration in the canztal)ulary
returns consisted in the omission of petty larcenies.
The offences omitted in the latter part of 1836 were
those of the class of merely constructive assaults, street
brawls, &c.; and the change was made in compliance
with the proposition of the Inspector-General, although
it has pleased the Tory prints, in pursuit of
their laudable vocation, to ascribe it to a Go-
vernment juggle, for the purpose of creating a
false impression of its success upon the public
wind. This recalls to our recollection a statement
lately made by the Times (and of course a falsehood),
to the effect that Lord Mulgrave, having produced
ccr;ain constabulary returns in the House of Lords,
in proof of the fruits of his Administration, was forced
to withdraw them on account of their inaccuracy ! So
remote from the truth is this assertion, that Lord Mul-
grave, in referring to the returns of 1836, took parti-
cular care to explain the alteration above alluded to in
the mode of making up the constabulary reports, and
distinctly stated that, while the comparison of the re-
returns of 1835 and 1836, taken as they stood, pre-
sented a diminution of crime to the extent of two-
thirds, if the column of common assaults was omitted
the decrease would he no more than three-eighths.
" But," continues the Reviewer, " to exclude the
smallest opening for cavil, we shall now compare, for
the same years, the number of those outrages which
are wholly unaffected by this change in the enumera-
tion, selecting those which seem to indicate general
motives, or which affect the public peace, and over
which, as we have already said, a liberal executive has
most preventive influence.