The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-10 00:00:00

44:_wri,NrrN-G

I with which our Whig Ministers have invested their
I stipendiaries. The Chief Justice of the Queen's
Bench, for instance, "is clogged" (as " Lberal"
Journals would style it) in his decisions by they inter-
vention of a Jury ; but Stipendiary Magistrates are,
henceforward, in a large class of cases, to be elevated
far above dependence on the opinions of jurymen. This
provision in the New Police Act is, in short, an embodi-
ment, to a certain extent, of that spirit of hostility
towards the institution of trial by jury, by which all
Whigs and " Liberals" are animated. This provision
abolishes jury trial in certain civil cases, as our present
rulers desired, very recently, to abolish jury trial in all
those criminal cases which police Magistrates may be
called on to decide. It may be urged, indeed, that the
ends of justice may be more effectually attained, in vir
tue of the operation of that power with which police
Magistrates are now invested. Our answer to such an
argument is—that even if the assumption involved in it
were correct, still such a mode of attaining the ends cf
justice is foreign to the genius of English law.

(FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OT YESTERDAY.)
(From the Courier.)
There is no country perhaps, in the world, less fitted
at the present time, than France for an extension
of' the elective franchise. The French people, with-
out the exception even of the greater part of the
elective portion, are almost entirely ignorant of
the true nature of a Constitutional Government.
Their present electoral privileges are not the result of
time and circumstances, grown up with the generalin-
crease of the wealth and the constitutional knowledge
of the nation. The French passed per saltum from. the
most slavish condition of despotic monarchy, to free-
dom. They are neither accustomed by habit to the
forms and working of a representative Government, nor
by time and reason to the characteristics of a constitu-
tional Monarchy. They still seek to (feet reforms by
the pike and musket, instead of trusting to the agency of
a system of Parliamentary representation. What are
franchises, what is a political code, to a people who have
not yet learned their true meaning ? It cannot but be
considered a great misfortune to France that the peo-
ple are hurried on from one political change to another
before they have acquired any habits of order or of
submission to the laws. Even as it is, there is sufficient
excitement and turbulence in the Chamber of De-
puties, ;n which . there are already a sufficient num-
ber of political quacks without talent or for-
tune. In what condition would the Represen-
tative Chamber of France be, were the adoption of
the Electoral system of the Radical Reform party
to array numbers against intelligence and to admit as a
member any man without education, without property,
without, in short, any qualification but that of being an
elector ? It is a good while since that one of the first
statesmen in France, M. Guizot, observed that the tr',.ie
progress of a nation, " C'koit lorsqu'il etoit sort: de
I'ordre, d'y rentrer." We quite agree with M. Guizot
in this maxim, which is quite as applicable to 1:-,ngland as
to France. It is religious education, and good habits
that the French people want, and not an elective reform.
(From the Globe.)
The Corporation of London, like the House of
Commons, possesses within itself the power of reform-
ing itself by amending the system of representation by
which Members are returned to its Common Council.
When the citizens obtained the privilege of electing their
Representatives the numbers of the Common Councilmen
were regulated by the number of inhabitants and the
amount of property in the several Wards. 'Various cir-
cumstances have in the course of time materially
changed the condition of the wards ; and the dispropor-
tion thus occasioned between the numbers of the inhalji-
tants and the members they return, has produced cars -
derable dissatisfaction in the citizens, and has been, found
to present serious obstacles to the reform of the Lumerous
abuses which, in common with all the old corporations,
have been found to exist in that of the City of London.
Leave was obtained to bring in a Bill for the removal of
these inequalities in the representation of the citizens
in their corporate chamber ; that all the forms might
be observed, the Bill was prepared under the direction
of the civic legal authorities, and provided that the
following should be the number of representatives to
be elected in future, the number of representatives
being proportioned to the number of electors ; viz.,
Aldersgate, 8 ; Aldgate S ; Basshishaw, 4 ; Billingsgate,
6 ; I3ishopsgate, 14 ; Bread-street, 6 ; Bridge, 6 ; Broad-
street, 8 ; Candlewick, 6 ; Castle Baynard, 8 ; Cheap,
8 ; Coleman-street, 6 ; Cordwainers, 6 ; Cornhill, 6 ;
Cripplegate-within, 8 ; Cripplegate-without, 8 ; Dow_
gate, 6 ; Farringdon-within, 12 ; Farringdon-witl-.out,
16 ; Langbourne, ; Lime-street, 4 ; Portsoi7,en, 8 ;
Queenhithe, 6 ; Tower, 8 ; Wintry, 6 ; We.Ylbrook, 6,
The measure came on for discussion yesterday, and
was introduced in a plain matter-of-fact speech by Mr.
Wheeler. The opposition to the measure from the
Anti-Reformers was as determined a.od unreasonable as
was manifested by the Tories to the Reform Bill ; in-
deed it was a Lilliputian edition of the Brobdignag re-
sistance to reform in the national representation.

(From the Standard.)
Time was when meetings, having for their object the
protection of the Protestant religion from the jesuitical
artifices of its Popish assailants, were considered not only
strictly justifiable, but even laudable. In those days it wi.s
neither tkertons" nor disloyal to express a hope that
contract entered into to maintain the Protestant As,,en_
dency by the monarchs of Great Britain on their accession
to its throne, will never be violated. The times, Lowever,
have strangely altered since then ; and if we go on in
the same track much longer, we may expect that every
public declaration of opinion on the part of a Protestant
will in due time become a statutable offence. Protestants
are now, according to the Morning Chronicle," fanatics,"
and Protestant Associations, instituted to protect the re-
formed religion of the land from Popish encroachment,
" perambulating firebrand societies." The late Ince:,
ings at Manchester and Liverpool, comprising three_
fourths of the wealth and respectability of those impor-
tant districts, were, we are assured by the Ministerial
organs, mere assemblages of " bigot agitators." The
Protestant faith is, to be sure,
still the national reli-
gion ; but a Popish ban is already upon Protestants, if
they are no longer allowed to meet together for the
purpose of devising measures for their mutual security,
without being proscribed as " theological savages," whoso
sole object is to " coquet with the fiend of persecu-
tion," and to " reduce the great mass of the Irish
people to " a degradation less tolerable than that of
negro slavery."