The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-20 00:00:00

KING'S COLLEGE.

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Trie pupils of the upper sixth class of King's C :ollege
School reited on Wednesday afternoon, the t Bth of
December, the whole of the third book of Mi'Arm , and
&deg of Horace, in the large theatre of the Co liege,
before a numerous as;.!mbly, among which: we = the
Principal a! the College a.nd the Masters. 'The a ames
of the boys were as follow :
MturoN.—Sells(head monitor), Eason (sec ond itto),
Ince, Roope, Hodgson, Thurston, 17)avies, Sit a, Ta evor,
Wray, Vouog, Brandram.
HouAcE.—Bladon, Thrupp, Karsla.ke, Rost,
The Principal expressed his grea-, ;iatisfacti'L in, and
said that it gave him great pleasure, &c., a. Id part ioularly
the last boy in the Milton, Braudram.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOUR NA LS.

(FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY., •
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
Our Liberal readers must have been highly gratifi 'ed
by the intelligence that Lord Melbourne has given nt '
tier of his intention to move on an early day of tht
ensuing session for the abolition of the Ecclesiastical
Courts. The statu quo of the question, as concerns
those Courts, may be briefly recalled to the mind of the
reader. In 1834, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of
Inquiry returned a report that it would be desirable to
do away with the jurisdiction exercised by those
Courts, except in civil matters, abolishing their power
in criminal matters entirely, and leaving their jurisdic-
tion in civil only so far as related to marriages and
wills. In addition to this, seeing that there existed at
that time three hundred and sixty of these Consistorial
Courts, exercising a criminal jurisdiction of a vague,
extensive, and extraordinary description, it was pro-
posed that all these Courts should be abolished, with
the exception of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
The recommendation of the Commissioners for the
abolition of these Courts was, in 1836, sent up to the
House of Lords, when tho fate which might, be expected
awaited it ; their Lordships generally, and the Bench
of Bishops especially, refusing to sanction the proposed
reform. In this condition the question remained till
Mr. Hawes, on the 25th of April, brought forward
an express motion for their abolition, grounded upon
the Report and recommendation of the Ecclesiasti-
cal Commissioners. The motion was successful, and
a resolution for the abolition of the inferior Ecclesias-
tical Courts was carried unanimously. No Bill to
follow up that resolution has, however,- been prepared,
and we are fearful that it will turn out to be a mere
" brutum fidmen," leaving the question- as it was
before, like many other suspended measures of im-
portance, and unsatisfied conviction continuing to rankle
like a thorn in the public side. If the assent of the
Bench of Bishops, and of the Lords generally', to the
resolution of the Lower House is doubted unsier the
‘Vhig rule, what would have been our prospects' bad
the projected Tory domination been confirmed ;
the Bishops, and their docile and respectlbl coronettcd
pupils, would have been supported in their distaste
to ecclesiastical change of any description by the
existence of a Ministry never over-favourable to
the claims of Dissenting redress, or of Church re-
form ? Yet these Courts must henceforth be con-
sidered as defunct, as a dead carcass linked with the
living body of the Church, and as so injurious to the
proper exercise of its vital functions, as, for its own
sake, to require the sharp and speedy remedy of ampu-
tation. In fact, the anathema of Sir S. Lushington
himself, the head authority of one of the chief Eccle-
siastical Courts, has already struck the system of these
Courts a mortal blow, and sooner or later they must be
extinguished by a natural or violent death. " The
clerical functionaries who presided in them," said Dr.
Lushington, " were wholly ignorant whether their pro-
ceedings were or were not consisl-,ent with law. Such a
Incas and medley displayed had seldom been exhibited ;
they were sentiments of the grossest and most grievous
injustice." It is notorious to all persons familiar with the
history of the Church, that ever since the organizing
" Constitutions" of 1603 were agreed to, the same ob-
jections have been made to the heterogeneous mass of
canon avid civil laws ; and that the unconformable
junction of a new and old system has caused the same
confusion and the same disgust. An able writer in the
Edinburgh Review, referring to the patchwork Consti-
tution of the Church hastily adopted in 1603, says—
" Neither the Bishops at that time had any competent
knowledge of the laws they had to administer, nor had
the clergy the most vague conception of the canons
which prescribed their duties and regulated their inte-
rests in matters of spiritual jurisdiction." Precisely in
that condition has the Church Constitution remained
ever since. Cromwell once intended to clear away the
whole framework of the Ecclesiastical Courts ; and it
would have been well for society if he had enforced that
wholesome resolution. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
the Church is not only disgraceful to a civilised coun-
try, but most painful in its exercise to the respectable
members of the English Church, most injurious to the
estimation and the popularity, to the wholesome influ-
ence and to the permanent interest, of the Establishment.
(From the Morning, Chronicle.)
For months past the Tory Press have been va-
pouring about the wonderful things their party was to
achieve at Manchester at the next election. Loud and
long were their notes of triumph when Sir G. Murray
purchased, at the expense of the remnant of character
which his previous pledge-breaking performances in
Perthshire had left him, the precarious support of a few
" honourable and independent" Chartists, and the
somewhat dubious honour of a defeat, more disgraceful,
but a little less decisive, than on former occasions.
What change is this which has come over the spirit of
their dream ? How is it that their boastings are
turned into lamentations, their confidence into despon-
dency, their exultation into an agony of terror and de-
spair ? A simple announcement appears in the Court
Circular that Mr. Labouchere has gone down to spend
a few days with a friend at Manchester ; and, if a
thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them it could
not have caused a greater panic. That the electors of
Manchester would, in the event of Mr. Greg's health
preventing him from taking his seat, be extremely glad
to secure the services of a gentleman whose character
stands so high with the country, and who, from his
business-like habits, his intimate acquaintance with the
commercial interests of the empire, and his known
opinions on the all•important question of the Corn-
laws, is in every respect so well qualified to represent
their great metropolis of manufacturing industry as
Mr. Labouchere, is in the highest degree pro-
bable ; and that, if he were to come for-
ward as a candidate, he would be returned by
an overwhelming majority, is abundantly certain.
Happily, however, the improvement of Mr. Greg's
health of late has been such as to remove the apprehen-
sions, which were at one time entertained, that he would
be unable to attend to his Parliamentary duties ; and,
although we do not pretend to be in the secret of Mr.
Labouchere's intentions, we have the strongest reasons
for believing, that it has never so much as entered his
contemplation to take any step which would dissolve his
connection with the constituency of Taunton, among
whom he is so deservedly popular. Although the Tories,
therefore, may escape for the present the infliction of a
signal defeat at Manchester, the ludicrous terror which
the bare surmise of the possibility of a contest has occa-
sioned among them, will not, we trust, be lost upon the
country. Shameless as they are, they will scarcely
venture in a hurry to boast of re-action at Manchester,
or talk of their popularity in the manufacturing districts.
So hopeless does the writer in the Times consider
the Tory cause to be, in case Mr. Labouchere should
be induced to come forward as a candidate for Man-
chester, that he can find no better resource than to en-
tertain his readers by sneering at the " cotton metro-
polis" and the " cotton aristocracy." The rancorous
spirit of arrogant domineering exclusiveness, which is
the very essence and life-blood of Toryism, is continu-
ally showing itself behind the hollow mask of popularity,
which, for electioneering purposes, they find it conve-
nient to put on. Bland and humble, the Tory candidate
goes hat in hand to the manufacturer to solicit his
vote. Who so loud as he in the praises of British
energy and enterprise ? Who so warm in his pro-
testations of attachment to the interests of trade and
commerce ? Listen to the same man in the unre-
serve of private society, and the ingenuousness of
after dinner potations. Mark how he sneers at the
vulgar parvenu, who has dared to raise himself by the
exercise of talent and honest industry to an equality
with the hereditary lords of the soil ! We tell these
narrow-minded exclusives, that the " cotton aristo-
crcy," as they are pleased to term the manufacturers of
Manchester, are a body of men who may vie with the
foremost in the land, in intelligence, education, princi-
ple, and public spirit. We tell them that it is owing
to the energy and enterprise of these men, that the
country has been enabled to struggle on under the load
of debt entailed upon it by the senseless wars and pro-
fligate extravagance of their forefathers ; and the still
heavier burden of the bread-tax wrung, by their grind-
ing selfishness, from the pittance of the famishing arti-
san. Are they aware of the importance of the branch
of didustry which they presume to make the butt
of their paltry witticisms and clumsy ridicule ?
Do they know the amount of the capital embarked
in the cotton manufacture ? Do they know that a mil-
lion and a half' of persons, whose collective wages ex-
ceed 17,000,0001. a year, depend upon it for their daily
bread : that the value of the cotton yarn and manu-
factures annually exported considerably exceeds
20,000,0001, and constitutes at this moment more
than half the value of the whole export trade of thc,
British empire ? Well may the writer in the Times an.
ticipate defeat at Manchester, if he has no better charge
to bring against Ministers than that of having fostered
and encouraged, to the utmost of their power, this most
important branch of national industry. We thank him
for having taken off the mask, and avowed openly,
what his more timid brethren make no secret of in pri-
vate—that the bitter and unprincipled opposition of the
faction to Lord Melbourne's Administration has for its
chief cause the countenance and encouragement which
have been so steadily and undeviatingly afforded to the
industrious middle classes—the trading, commercial, and
manufacturing interests of the British en pire.