The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-18 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

.ses
The spirit and principle of that great measure which
consolidated the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ire-
land are imperfectly felt anti understood, if we are not
prepared to concern ourselves as actively and cordially
in everything that affects the welfare of Ireland as if
our own immediate interests were the matters in issue.
England and Ireland arc one to all intents and pur-
poses, or the Act of Union may be torn uki to snake
battledores. When abuses are proved to exist in Ire-
land, such as we feel that we should not suffer to exist
upon this side of the Channel for a single hour, or
when those constitutional rights and privileges, which,
. having once obtained, we feel that we should die rather
than surrender, are refused to our Irish fellow-citizens,
we arc bound, as honest Englishmen and as loyal 'sub-
jects, to manifest the same anxiety to reform those
abuses as if they existed here, and to use the same
exertions to obtain those privileges as if they were with-
held from ourselves. Ireland is no more to be considered
apart from England, than Wales or Yorkshire apart
from the remainder of the island. The Union for-
bids us to distinguish between Irish and English inte-
rests, or Irish and English questions. As there is no
such a thing as a Yorkshire question, or a Welsh
question, so there is no such thing, in strict consti-
tutional parlance, as an Irish question. An Irish
question is an English question, and the enemies of
Ireland are equally the enemies of England. Impo-
verish, debase, or enslave Ireland, and you impoverish,
debase, or enslave England. It was a sentiment of
Mr. Grattan, equally just and noble, that " the Irish
Protestant would never be free until the Irish Catholic
ceased to be a slave." The observation admits of
being extended : it may be laid down as a sound
imperial maxim, that the people of England will never
be free until the people of Ireland cease to be slaves.
Ireland is not an islet like Anglesea, or a speck in the
ocean like-St. Helena. Ireland is a vast limb of the
United Kingdom, ample in territory, powerful in
every natural capability, mighty
.in population, in
every element of strength and consequence too import-
ant to be afflicted with any disorder of serious
moment without spreading the contagion of its
disease to the other members of the empire.
We boast of our English wealth, our English
liberty, and our English comfort ; but we do not suffi-
ciently consider how much our wealth is diminished,
our liberty endangered, our comfort and social har-
mony disturbed, by the impoverishment, political de-
pression, and miserable sectarian squabbles of our Irish
neighbours. Every blow struck by the Tories at the
prosperity of freedom of Ireland is felt in every corner
of the United Kingdom. The misery in which they
have steeped the Irish peasantry to the lips overflows
upon the Scotch and English population. To main-
tain the giantgrievances and monstrous anomalies which
the Tories insist upon perpetuating in Ireland, we
keep up an enormous military establishment, and
pay enormously in taxes to support it. Every
Irish abuse that continues unreformed—every
Irish nuisance that continues unabated—is pro-
perly to be regarded as so much strength remain-
ing in the hands of the common foe—so much
power left to a selfish and oppressive faction to
prosecute their interminable war against the ge-
neral cause of freedom and improvement. With
what propriety can we boast of the health and
flourishing condition of the United Kingdom
while, under the burden of uncongenial and extrava-
gant institutions, anti the scourge of a mischievous
domestic faction, a third part of it continues in the
state of poverty and political degrada4on to which the
Tories have brought Ireland. With what justice do
we boast of British liberty while seven millions of
British subjects remain excluded from the very elements
of that glorious advantage ? Let us talk if we please
of English liberty or Scotch liberty—of English
prosperity or Scotch prosperity ; but it is the height
of infatuation to talk of the liberty or prosperity of
the empire while so great a member of the imperial
family as Ireland remains in the state of physical ex-
haustion and political servitude, to which Tory go-
vernments, Tory institutions, and Tory policy have
reduced it. How can that party be fit to conduct the
affairs of the Britiih empire, the very bond of whose
union as a party is a rooted and undying hatred to
seven millions of the people of that empire ? If the
union is worth a straw, Irishman and Englishman are
one ; and, if Irishman and Englishman are one, the
party is no more to be tolerated which rests its pre-
tensions to the Government upon an open de-
claration of hostility to Ireland, than if it claimed
our support upon the grounds of an equally
express resolution to oppose the liberties of England.
Gracious heaven ! did the world ever behold an in-.
stance of political effrontery comparable to that of the
Tories, in grounding their title to the public support
and confidence upon the avowed principle of perpetu-
ating all the disorders, wrongs, and grievances of one-
third part of the empire, the government of which they
claim ? The Tories, in fact, declare, " People of
Great Britain, towards seven millions of you we are
actuated by a feeling of inextinguishable hatred. To
seven millions of you we are resolved never to con-
cede Municipal liberties, which are the elements of all
others. While the reins of Government are in our
hands, you may rely upon it that seven millions of you
shall never enjoy the benefits of the British Constitu-
tion ; that seven millions of you shall never be treated
as free citizens, or reai3Qualle beings. Towards a
third part of the Un'...ed Kingdom we promise and
vow never to adopt a liberal or enlightened principle.
Towards osie-third part of the United Kingdom we
pledge ourselves to pursue a bigoted and despotic po-
licy. All'aw us to rule the destinies of this great em-
pire, for with one of its most important members we
have no feeling, sentiment, or principle in common ;
we bate the country and the creed ; we hate the laity
and the priesthood. These are our pretensions to ma-
nage your affairs."—Morning Chronicle.
We have this day the pleasure of' congratulating
our readers, and the friends of humanity thioughout
the world, on the successful result—successful in so
far as one of the unhappy parties is concerned—of the
exertions which were recently made by the inhabitants
of the west of Scotland to rescue from the hands of the
public executioner the two individuals now under sen-
tence of death in Paisley. We envy the feelings of
those humane individuals in that town and its neigh-
bourhood, who originated and took the most active
part in this Christian and merciful enterprise. They
must, at this moment have a somethiug within their
breasts, which, did we possess it, we would not give
in exchange for all the glory, unjustly so called—with
which the name of the greatest general of ancient or
modern times is associated. The happy results of
the reprieve which has been granted the wretched
woman on whom the sentence of death was to
have been carried Into effect in a day or two,
in the west of Scotland, will not be confined
to rescuing her from the doom of a public exe-
cution, and sinning the shock which such a spec-
tacle must }'.ac given to the feelings of the people of
Scotia ; but they will exercise a great, though indi.
rec.., influence on the question. of capital punishments
`,-,sencrally., The more that men's minds are turned to
the contemplation of the judicial shedding of human
blood, the greater must be the horror with which they
will regard the existence of a law on our statute
book, which requires the taking away of the life of a
fe!lorf mortal trader any circumstances—especially
"Pete facts tan be stated, and arguments can be urged,
Ota paidating nature. The feeling is now :rapidly
wining ground throughout the width and breadth of
theai land--and what is worth, a secia is,
that it is Most general! enterta
is ra idlyined by thel mention
best and most
nlintiened men
in country-the feeling, we say,
p spreading, that capital punishments are un-
thristian and unjust. They have been proved times
without number to be impolitic ; for it is matter of
hrithmetkal proof, that they invariably increase, in-
ttceA bt diminishing the very crimes which it is their
professed object to repress. On the brutalizing
effects of public executions on the minds of the
people, we will not at present make any observa-
tion, that being a point to which we invited public
attention a few days since. Most anxiously could we
have wished that the reign of Queen Victoria had
been characterised by the non-occurrence of a single
public execution, from its commencement to its close.
As that, however, from the determination of Lord
John Russell respecting the miserable man now under
sentence of death in Paisley, may not be, we do most

earnestly call on all the friends of humanity and just
Lice throughout the United Kingclorn to lender the
u 1• dicial shedding of bloodblooda Matter of as rare occur-
rence as possible, by giving a decided and unanimous
expression of the horror with which thesv regard slich
spectacles, as often as opportSiiiitieS ;nay present them-
selves for aping tit) with effect. As closely connected
with this subject, we may advert for a moment td the
ease of the shoemaker; killed the other day at
Hampstead. First of 'all, let Us express our strong
reprobation of the practice of allowing soldiers to
carry sidesarms when not on duty, When they are
on duty the regulation_ may be a proper one t at all
events, the risk of any unhappy tonsequences result-
ing from it are infinitely less than when off duty~ A
soldier on duty is not only necessarily ptesinned to be
sober, but he is, in a great measure, if not entirely,
beyond the reach of persons who may be disposed to
quarrel with him. When off duty, on the contrary,
the soldier is too often in the public-house, where
there are generally parties who being, like himself, un-
der the influence of intoxicating draughts, are as much
disposed to quarrel with him as he is with them. The
wonder consequently is, that such tragedies as that
enacted the other day at Hampstead, are not of more
frequent occurrence. It is a strong argument against
granting permission to soldiers to wear side-arms, that
in all quarrels with other persons the latter are sure to
be the sufferers, if not the victims—they having no
deadly weapons in their hands. It is a gross oversight
—to call it by no harsher name—on the part of Go-
vernment, to have sanctioned the practice of soldiers
wearing their side-arms, when off duty, so long.
Within the last few years there have several conse-
quences flowed from it. It is to be hoped that the
present catastrophe will lead to its prohibition in fu-
ture. We observe that the Coroner's inquest on the
body of the shoemaker, who died of the wounds he
received from the soldier, have returned a verdict of
" Wilful Murder" against the latter. That was a
verdict which the facts of the case did not warrant--
the verdict should have been simply one of " Man-
slaughter ;" but as the Jury at the Central Criminal
Court will doubtless rectify the error of the jury at the
Coroner's inquest, we will not further advert to the sub-
ject at present.—Morning Advertiser.
The value of the House of Lords as an integral
part of the Constitution, and as a co-ordinate body in
the Legislature with the House of Commons, was
never more clearly exemplified than in the course of
the struggle which has been carried on between the
friends and the enemies of our national institutions ever
since the accession of the present Ministry to office.
When a Ministry bound irrevocably to the chariot
wheels of an able and profligate demagogue, with a
secure though not very large majority at their back,
applied whatever energies and influence they possessed
to obtain the sanction of the Legislature for such
measures as were intended to gratify the ambition, in-
dulge the bigotry, and realise the criminal hopes of their
Popish taskmaster, who labours incessantly for the sub-
version of the Protestant Church and the dismember-
ment of the empire, the House of Lords resisted the
tide of destructive innovation, and stood the immovable
barrier of the religion and constitutional liberties of Eng-
land. If the House of Lords had not existed as a check
upon ministerial influence or democratic impulses exer-
cised in the Commons, or if the successors and repre-
sentatives of the " bold Barons" who founded the liber-
ties of England had been less courageous, less pa-
triotic, and more accommodating to the wishes of an
unprincipled Ministry than they have shown them-
selves to be, the " compact of Lichfield House" would
before this time have been " carried out" in Legisla-
tive enactments, and the strongholds of the Constitu-
tion would have been surrendered to its implacable
enemies. The attempts made to overawe and coerce
the House of Lords are still fresh in the recollection
of the public. O'Connell's expedition as a " Minis-
terial Missionary" to preach down that august body
as a public nuisance that ought to be abated be-
cause it constituted an obstacle in the way of his
dangerous schemes, which neither Popish cunning
nor Ministerial intimidation could overcome, our
readers are aware, received all the support which
the Government journals could give it, although
Ministers themselves were silent on the subject.
But the Missionary overshot his mark. The robe
of the Jesuit did not sufficiently disguise the character
of the Revolutionist. The violence and coarseness,
or, we might rather say, the savage ferocity of O'Con-
nell's language on that occasion, disgusted English
notions of decency, as his wild declamation outraged
all reason. Not only_ was. that atrocious plot to inti-
midate the House of Lords into a base compliance
with the measures of the O'Connell-Melbourne Ad-
ministration a complete failure, but it threw the stigma
of indelible disgrace upon the Ministry by whom it
had been, if not originally concocted, at least secretly
fostered and encouraged; It is a remarkable fact, that
ever since that outrageous crusade of O'Connell, the
Ministers whose " missionary" lie declared himself to
be, have been sinking lower and lower in public opi-
nion, while the Lords, whom he so furiously libelled
and assailed, have been as constantly rising in the es-
timation of the country. The great service which the
House of Lords has performed to the nation, consists
in the manly and intrepid stand which they made
against the destructive measures of the O'Connell
Cabinet and their majority, until the mind of the
country, which Whig-radical artifices had somewhat
seduced from its propriety, came round, and public
feeling had righted itself. The Lords, supported by
such a body of Conservatives as the late elections have
sent into the House of Commons, will henceforth have
an easier task to perform, in preserving from Ministe-
rial treachery and Popish fraud, the ancient and in-
estimable institutions of the British empire.—Morn-
ing Herald.
The morning Journal which attempts to support
Lord Melbourne's Government, and affects at the
same time to support liberal opinions, seizes an ac-
cidental occasion to sow enmity between the troops
and the civil subjects of her Majesty, and to denounce
the highest military authorities bearing her Majesty's
Commission as the systematic and determined enemies
of her Majesty's people. The accidental occasion
upon which our Ministerial Contemporary pursues
this conduct and manifests this disposition is the death
of a shoemaker, who received a bayonet wound, of
which he died, from a man who had been discharged,
after being for one year with his regiment, for a
degree of weakness of mind which rendered him in-
capable of discharging his military duties. The de-
ceased had, it appeared, fallen into company in
the tap-room of a public-house at Hampstead with
a party of soldiers, of which the person charged by
the verdict of the Coroner's Inquest with his mur-
der, and the brother of the latter, still a soldier,
formed part. Some dispute arose about the reckon-
ing, in the course of which the deceased made a
violent personal attack upon the soldier just
discharged from his regiment, upon the ground
of imbecility of mind. His conduct was such that
the landlord of the house thought it necessary to
drag him from the room, to which, after giving a pro-
mise to behave more quietly, he was permitted to re-
turn. After his return nothing to deserve notice oc-
curred in the taproom, but the two brothers, one of
them the late soldier discharged for weakness of mind,
having left the place, the deceased very shortly after-
wards left it also. No further evidence as to the'cir-
cumstances antecedent to the homicide is offered.
What remains to tell is short. Whether the subse-
quent meeting of the parties was accidental or inten-
tional, or if intentional, by which of the two parties it
was contrived, does not appear. All that is known
from the evidence is, that they did meet that the
shoemaker who had acted at the public-house in the
manner we have described was found mortally wounded
—that he was so wounded by the imbecile discharged
soldier, with the bayonet of his brother—mid that, after
the infliction of the mortal wound, the two soldiers
fled from the spot, and,.. after pursuit and resistance,
were apprehended. Upon these facts the Coroner's in-
quest have pronounced a verdict of " Wilful murder"
against the soldier discharged the day before from his re-
giment for imbecility of mind. Upon such a verdict
it is, of course, unnecessary to offer any comment.
Everybody perceives at a glance that it is worth no-
thing. We are sorry to say this, for the inquisition
by a Coroner and Jury in cases of sudden death has
been, and might still be, one of the most valuable of
our national institutions. But it cannot be concealed
that this institution is rapidly falling irito contempt,