The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURINTSPA:{II

We recollect few cases in which a little discussion
has done more good than in that of the Scotch Church,
brought before the two Houses of Parliament in the
last fortnight, by Sir W. Rae and Lord Haddington.
If the public and the Kirk have been equally threat-
ened by the Tories—for such a measure must have
been dangerous to the Kirk, in proportion as it was
partial and unfair to other parts of the empire—with
an inconsiderate demand on the Consolidated Fund,
we must admit our obligation to the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman and the Noble Lord, for the oppurtunities they
have given us of a fair and full examination of the
question, before Parliament has been called upon to
take a first step in so mistaken and mischierous a
policy. It is clear from the proceedings at some re-
cent elections in Scotland, if there were before the
least doubt on the point, that the Tory professions of
liberality to the Church have been solely grounded on
party views. We, therefore, entreat our northern
brott:ern to make a little use of their accustomed
prudee and caution, before they allow themselves
•op
to be enlisted under such pretences in the ranks
of a faction alike hostile, in principles and policy,
to their venerable and popular establishment—to
recollect that is not gold that glitters—that the se-
curity of the Kirk is established on surer foundations
than a dependence on Tory principles, or Tory as-
sistance in forcing disputed grants through the Le-
gislature—and to rely rather upon the attachment
and gratitude of those among the people committed to
their care who are able and willing to contribute their
aid to the extension of their uoefulness, than upon the

alms-giving offer of Sir Robert Peel to tax other parts
of the King's dominions for the exclusive advantage of
one creed. The grants of unreformed and wasteful
Parliaments are not to be taken as precedents for the
future. We do not suppose that the: million and a half
voted to build English Churches, ax the larger sum
wasted on the Caledonian Canal, will be referred to
by their authors as measures of absolute wisdom, or
complete success. To the first we are mainly indebted
for the difficulties of the Church-rate question. Our
Northern neighbours can probably enlighten us as to
the advantages of the last. To other grants to assist
in building Churches in the highlands and islands of
Scotland, amounting, we believe, in the whole, to nearly
two hundred thousand pounds, there may have been
no objection. The poverty and scarcely civilised condi-
tion of the people in these remote districts made the
case one of justifiable exception. They have no
wealthy neighbours, like the poor of the cities of Glas-
gow and Edinburgh, bound, and we believe willing—
and we are sure their duty and interest equally pre-
scribe 'hat conduct—to contribute to the relief of their
wants anal necessities. But our object is rather to
direct pubi.;c attention to the history and state of this
question, in order that its rise and progress may be
clearly understood and watched, than to make many
observations upon it. The first application of the
General Assembly for extrinsic aid for the endowment
of Churches was made, we believe, to Lord Mel
bourne's Administration in 1834, when Dr. Macfar-
lane, the Moderator of the Church in that year, was
the bearer of their memorial on the subject. On

that occasion it was stated that additional stipends
were required for ministers officiating in between fifty
and sixty Churches, recently built by voluntary
subscription, and not sufficiently endowed ; and
a suggestion was for the first time offered, that
the bishops' lands and teinds, formerly the pro-
perty of the Scotch Church, and then in posses-
sion of the Crown, should be restored to the
Church for this purpose- The income arising
from that source was between two and three thousand
pounds, stated to be sufficient for the wants of these
Churches. In the same year, to prove that no public
grants were anticipated, a Bill was carried through
Parliament by Mr. Colquhoun, of Killermont, in the
Commons, and Lord Rosebery in the Lords, for regu-
lating Churches then built, and the erection of other
Churches to be built, and endowed by voluntary con-
tributions, and to give the patronage to their founders.
To the fifty or sixty before built we believe thirty or
forty have since been added, making the number of
new Churches, many of which are amply provided
for, but all of which the Tories allege require as-
sistance, about a hundred. But a change "in the
vision, of their dream" suddenly came over the General
Assembly between the dismissal of Lord Melbourne's
Government and his restoration to office. Sir Robert
Peel and his friends, feeling it necessary to en-
list other allies in their cause when they found
it unsupported by public opinion, anew out the
lure of a vote to the Scotch Church in the speech
from the Throne in 1835, taking care, however,
to avoid any specific proposition during the time
they remained in place. Once put upon the
scent, our northern brethren are never remiss in
following up the chase for public money. But we
mistake sadly if they do not admit in the end that they
have been much led astray—that the time they have
spent, and the pains they have taken in this direction,
and the political devotion they have paid to their un-
natural patrons, have been all misapplied, if the same
industry and zeal had been applied in exhorting their
congregations to come to their assistance, in working
out their natural resources, and in enforcing contribu-
tions on their wealthy and well-disposed countryulen,
they would now have been in possession of more ample
and less invidious means than they will ever obtain
from the public purse. The rule of the Assembly is
never to allow a Minister to be inducted to a new
Church without a certain, although in the first instance
it may be a very moderate, independence from volun-
tary endowment. The same was and is now frequent
in the first 50 or 60, if not in the remaining 30 or 40,
new Churches on this principle. In Aberdeen, we be-
lieve, there are three or four new Churches of this de-
scription, decently, if not amply, provided for, and
without the least expectation of assistance from the
public. Suppose a grant made to provide for si-
milar Churches in Edinburgh and Glasgow, would
not the sources of private benevolence and charity in
the other towns be instantly dried up ? If it is said
the stipends are in some cases very moderate (we be-
lieve the General Assembly refuse to induct until SO/.
a year is assigned to the clergyman), are the Welsh
clergy better provided for ? Or are the wants of the
people in London, Liverpool, Manchester or Bir-
mingham, for church accommodation or spiritual as-
sistance less, or less pressing, than those of Edin-
burgh, Glasgow, or Leith? Once begin a system of
grants to one establishment, where will equal justice
and equal claims carry us ? Lord Melbourne has
said that he was not indisposed to consider the ex-
pediency of restoring the revenues of the Bishops'
teinds and lands to the Church ; and to this extent,
on the special ground that this has been Church
property, the public may approve of the appropria-
tion. He also pointed out another source from
which the Church had a right to look for augmen-
tion to its means in specific parishes. There can be
no doubt that the teinds in parishes where they.
have not been exhausted by law are applicable
to the spiritual wants of the increasing popula-
tion in those parishes. It is not pretended that they
are now applicable by law to a general fund. But,
even where they are clearly applicable, the difficulty in
establishing the right of the Church, from the poverty
of the parishioners and incumbent, and the expense of
proceedings in the Court of Session, is so great as to
deter from suits for augmentation. The Commissioners
may point out some mode, either by the Lord Advo-
cate proceeding at the public expense, in all cases
where he has no doubts of the law, or other means of
removing this difficulty. But this is a question we
leave the Tory Episcopalian heritors and other lairds,
and the General Assembly, to settle for themselves.
We only insist that it must be settled before they join
in an attack on the public purse, and that they prove
clearly to the public that sufficient spiritual assistance
is provided for the population in those parishes where
ample and specific funds exist for that purpose.
If even the Bishops' estates and teinds, now increased
to 5,0001. a year, are to be given up, a Bill will pe
required to amend Mr. Colquhoun's Act, transferring
the patronage of the Churches, to which public endow-
ments are given, to the Crown. Are the parties who
have built these Churches, and in many cases provided
a sufficient stipend for the minister, prepared to sur-
render their right of appointment ? This is one of a
hundred points which must arise out of any attempt to
legislate on the subject. This question is in itself so

.~

important, and acquires so much more importance from
the -political consequences depending upon it, and the
precedent it may establish for an unsound and perni-
cious course of legislation, that we owe no apology to
Orir readers for these details. It will presently be our
duty to return to the subject, and we shall watch with
great attention and jealousy the proceedings of the Ge-
aieral Assembly now convened in Edinburgh. The Go-
vernment appear to have their eyes open to the dangers
of the case. We repeat, once commence a system of
grants to the national Churches, and let any man
predict—for we certainly cannot—where it is to end.
The Bishop of London must watch the commence-
ment of the system with great hope and anxiety. We
dare say he could make out as good a case for Spital-
fields and the eastern parts of the metropolis as Dr.
Chalmers can for Edinburgh or Glasgow. We can-
not avoid indulging in one remark on the consistency
of certain Noble Lords, who are in such haste to force
oa measures relating to the Scotch Church, when only
in possession of the partial information of the Com-
missioners relating to Edinburgh and Leith ; while
they refuse to consider any Irish measure until they
lave before them not only full knowledge of the in-
tentions of Governnient, but the actual decision the
House of Commons on other measures only connected
with the first, because they are all applicable to Ire-
land. Lord Aberdeen, Lord Haddingto-n, and Lord
Wharncliffe seem to know how to adapt their legisla-
torial wisdom to specific cases.—Morning Chronicle.
The Parliamentary support of disaffected Irish Pa-
pists was brought to market two years ago by O'Con-
nell and the priesthood, and the price at which it was
advertised was the ruin of the Church in Ireland. The
Parliamentary support also of the disaffected English
Dissenters was brought to the same market at the
same period], and its price was to be the utmost prac-.
ticable injury that could. be inflicted on the Church of
England here. A cabinet of corrupt political adven-
turers was satisfied to bid for both the dishonest price
demanded. For the votes of the Papists it offered-
-Ist. Such an administration of the Irish Executive
Government as should gradually vest all public func-
tions, political, judicial, and those relating to police,
in the hands of Papists or of sworn tools to Papists.
2d. Such a tithe Bill as should not merely despoil
the established Church of a large share of her ancient
revenue, but should ingraft upon that system of im-
mediate robbery the recognition of a principle, by
virtue of which every shilling of Church property
should be hereafter conficated to .the Papists.
3d. Such a Bill for the packing of corporations,
as should place the representation of Irish cities
and boroughs at the mercy of the Popish priests.
Happily, except in what relates to the abuse of the
king's prerogative, and to the factious and corrula
appointment of public officers, no part of the scheme
has vet succeeded. The Ministers bidding for votes,
have much resembled Irish peasants in their bidding
for laud. They have tendered prices, thei:z ability to
pay which they had taken no pains to ^,alculate. At
the end of the second twelvemonth the whole rent
from the very outset is in arrear, The tenants are
in a state of palpable insolvency, and nothing remains
for them but a surrender of the land, or holding on a
tortuous possession. One Irish Church Bill has been
strangled by its authors, because, under cover of com-
muting tithe, they could not smuggle through Parlia-
ment a law for its total extinction ; of a second, after
an unnaturally long gestation, it looks as if they were
about to miscarry—if not, to die in travail. Their Bill
for wielding over each Municipality in Ireland for
election purposes the rod of a Popish inquis;ition,
is sure of meeting from the proper legislative autho-
thority its meet and, just reward. So far as con-
cans Ireland, therefore, or any permanent change
in the law and constitution of Church or State in
that country, the Ministers we say are bankrupt of
promise, annd their whole plot has been defeated.
Now for England. The purchase-money of the po-
litical Dissenters, likewise, was to be an attack upon
our National Church. But a confiscatory Tithe Bil
would not answer here. The mind of Englishmen
would not endure it. The mode of operation against
the Church of England, therefore, was to be of neces-
sity by sap. A marriage Bill, with one for registration
lit' births, deaths, &e., was part and parcel of this
course of indirect hostility, and after long blundering.
such a Bill was carried, with how much benefit to the
contrivers, or how much more of injury to the estab-
lishment than a mere demonstration of sectarian spite
;against her Clergy, we shall not now iiarire. It is
ufficient to remark, that the Church of England has
been in nowise lowered, impoverished, or weakened by
this measure, cotc.paratively with the hopes originally
cotertamed from it by those at whose suggestion it wa's
introduced to Parliament. Another instalment of the
purchase-morrey payable to political Dissenters, as the
price of their partisan support of the Radicals in °ince,
was to be a Bill for recognising the " voluntary prin-
ciple," by driving in the small end of the wedge under the
,:ante of a measure for the better settlement of Church-
rites. Of this notable expedient, recommended both
1 y Lord Melbourne 'and Lord Morpeth, as one which
riust prove prodigirmsly satisfactory to all parties inte-
rested, the prin.:in:le is briefly this, viz. a.foreible seizure
of the lands of Bishops and Chapters, and wresting
them out of the possession of their immemorial ow
ners, on dye plea of improving their market value, for
the betiO:rt of other parties not connected with the
Clitire'a of England, and proFessedly bent on her de-
strtaction ! Twist this plausible invention as you will,
it Is a systematic alienation of Church property, and
1 ranster of it to strangers. It is a version of The vo-
l:intary principle to the full as intelligible as the ex-
t inction of Tithe itself, or its transfer to Jumpers,
Bumpers, or Muggletonians, would be. It is an-
nouncing to the Protestant Bishops and Chapter,—
" You shall have no help from Parliament towards
the better management of your own estates, but on
the condition of surrendering them to a faction de-
claredly hostile towards the Church of England."
In fact, it is a robbery cloaked over by a fraud,
and one which the nation, whatever the House
of Commons may do, will never cease to repro-
bate. The Conservative leaders have abundantly
tc stifled their willingness to consult the interests,
the scruples, the prejudices—nay, the caprices of
those Dissenters who feel a bond fide repugnance
to the payment of Church-rates, from other than fac-
tious and malignant motives, by offering, either as Mi-
nisters or Opposition, their concurrence in any plan
which shall not involve a fresh encroachment on the
rights of the Church and of the Clergy. The Church-
rate is now, and was from time which may be called
immemorial, a burden upon the landed property of the
realm. All estates are subject to it. They have been
invariably transmitted, transferred, purchased, and en-
joyed, liable to that essential charge. The Conser-
vatives are ready to-morrow to release the land, &c.,
from the burden in its present form, and to substi•
tute another mode of preserving sacred edifices from
dilapidation, which shall be free from certain special '
objections raised against the existing practice. The
inevitable condition, however, being, that the secu-
rity shall be equally solid, and the obligation such,
in point of universality, as shall neither impair the
amount of the fund, nor invalidate in any sense that
principle of a Church Establishment which gives
it a lien upon the nation as a whole. Whether this is
to be effected by the imposition of a land tax, or by an
assignment from the Consolidated Fund of a portion of
revenue adequate to the emergencies of the service, we
deem a matter of but secondary calculation. The two
chief points are, that a just amount be secured, and
that a fundamental principle be maintained inviolate.
There is little more to add, but a remembrancer to all
friends of the Church in Parliament, that the question
of English Church-rates comes once more before the
House of Commons this night, and that it behoves
t hem to manifest to their countrymen an unrelaxed de-
votion to the most ancient, valuable, and sacred of all
our national institutions. That stanch old English-
man, the Member for Westminster, will no doubt be
in his place, and forward, both by speech and suffrage,
to defend the true Catholic Church of England—pure
daughter of the Reformation.—Times.
Electors of Westminster ! we hasten to put you on
your guard against a most villainous conspiracy which
is now in active operation against your independence.
This conspiracy is formed for a purpose no less atro-
cious than to make the recent disaster which has be-
fallen your representation the prelude to your perpetual
degradation. The Tories, in availing themselves of the
services of an imbecile apostate, had an object in view

far more injurious to public liberty than the dubious
success of sustaining in your representative trust the
drivelling clotard who so shamelessly betrayed it. They
well know that the faded fatuous &lel gentleman whom
they have deluded and seduced to, their camp is impo-
tent alike to good or ill ; they reell know that the act
of dire desertien which flung i.tretrivable infamy on the
brilliant reputation of BurdEtt, and made Westminster
an associate of his disgrace!, as it had previously been
of his glory, is the last for which the fallen Baronet
can be made availrble. Their object, therefore, is to
supersede him the first opportunity by an implement
more efficient for Tory purposes—one, whose name
being unstained b'; apostacy, and whose influence un-
impaired by previous associations, may be used with-
out an outrwe:e on the feelings of those few con-
scientious Temes who prize political principle, character,
and cons!miency too much to act in concert with a rene-
gade. -With this intent the anonymous Committee who
acttsd in the late election for Sir Francis Burdett, with
that activity in evil which characterises the Tories, has
already hired agents for the purpose of canvassing
those electors who voted for Toryism and apostacy, to
transfer their suffrages on the next occasion to pure
Toryism, of which Sir George Murray is named as
the personification. This is the plot, men of West-
minster, against which we most earnestly and anxiously
warn you. The wrong already inflicted upon you, and
the odium which you have incurred by yourselves be-
coming parties to it, may be palliated by the fact of the
inability of him who betrayed both himself and you,
and the reflection that gratitude for past services, even
more than the vile machinations practised against the '
free exercise of your franchise, produced the majority
at the recent election ; but if you incur a perpetuity of
disgrace, and of worse than political disfranchisement,
by allowing the representation of your city—a repre-
sentation hallowed by so many reminiscences dear to
the affections of freemen—to be permanently usurped
by Toryism, you will become the scoff and scorn of
every free and independent mind ; and Westminster,
once a magic name, the mere utterance of which made
tyranny tremble, and the heart of liberty heave with
tumultuous 'exultation, will become a bye-word for
everything that is base and degraded. Hence it is that
we conjure you by all that is dear to you as men and
citizens, by the duty ycu owe to yourselves and to your
country, to repel the insidious advances which Toryism
is attempting agaisist your independence, and prepare,
by an immediate and active organisation, to retrieve
your recent (Visaster. No time should be lost in effect-
ing that combination of force which in the day of trial
is so essential to victory, and to the absence of which
the late defeat of the Westminster Reformers is solely
attributable ; for, notwithstanding the number of the
former supporters of Sir Francis Burdett who remained
neuter, and of others who, through a generous, but
most culpable gratitude, sacrificed political principle to
personal regard towards the apostate, and voted for
Toryism, yet a sufficient number of the good and true
men of Westminster—had they been one-half so well
organised as their enemies—still remained to protect the
city from the calamity which has befallen it. But trea-
son triumphed as the Tories have frequently done, not
by superiority of numbers, but by superiority of dis-
cipline. It is to this, almost as much as to their cor-
rupt practices of bribery, intimidation, and other undue
influences, that they are inCebted for most of their suc-
cesses. The Reformers, not in Westminster only, but
in many other constituencies, arc miserably in want of
the drill-serjeant. This is a defect which, in Westmin-
ster, it is especially imperative to supply without a mo-
ment's delay ; for if the result of the secret Tory can-
, vacs which is now in progress prove favourable, Sir
Francis Burdett, the spurious Tory representative.
might at once resign in favour of the thorough-bred,
thorough-going, " whole-hog" Tory, Sir George Mur-
ray, and the faction might thus snatch a victory by
surprise, as they have lately done by stratagem, of a
more 'infamous description ; beSides, in the probable
course of events, a general election is not far distant,
and even if it should not occur so soon as anticipated,
yet should the Tories, by any vile manoeuvring, usurp
the Administration for howevet short a time, the trans-
fer of Sir Francis Burdett to the House of Lords—if
he be not previously disposed of in some other asylum
for the imbecile and refractory—will give Westminster
the opportunity of retrieving its defeat, or allowing the
seal to be 'fixed on the irrevocable fiat of its degrada-
tion. Electors of Westminster, you have made an enor-
mous stride in the way of evil and of political debase-
ment, by yielding to the machinations of Toryism and
the suggestions of a misplaced and unseasonable grati-
tude in your recent choice of a Reprcsenta:ive—facilis
descensus avelui—it is now more than ever in-
cumbent on you to be vigilant and active in recovering
the ground which you have lost, not only to your-
selves, but to the Reform interests of the empire. For
two years of one of the most important epochs of Bri-
tish history, you have been either unrepresented, or
misrepresented in the House of Commons. At pre-
sent you have there only a mere " driveller and a
show"—an apostate and a Tory. Shall your repre-
sentation be suffered to remain in this degraded posi-
tion, when the great contest for British freedom is
being fought ? When history shall record the pro-
gress of the struggle of popular against oligarchic Go-
vernment, shall the electors of Westminster be handed
down to eternal infamy, as either standing neuter in
the fight, or striking against the principles of liberty,
of which at one time they had been foremost in the
assertion ? The time is at hand when you must give
a negative to these queries. Now, therefore, men of
Westminster, " Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen !"
Morning Advertiser.

Our labours for the reform of the criminal law seem
at length to he drawing towards an end. The divi-
sion in the House of Commons, on Friday night,
upon Mr. Ewart's motion to limit the punishment of
death to cases of actual murder, though nominally a
defeat of the great principle for which we have con-
tended, was such a defeat as affords us the consolatory
assurance of future victory, and that at no distant time.
It was one of the last vehement struggles of the bar-
barous system of legislation, against which the sen-
tcnce of enlightened opinion has gone forth ; but strug-
gles of this sort indicate less of the vigour of health
than the agony of approaching expiration. A majority
of one in support of the system, not merely of useless
but brutalising executions, which Ministers wish to
uphold, may be said with some confidence. o an-
nounce the coming doom of the life-destroying en-
geance which had too long in this country usurped
the name of justice. If Sir George Sinclair, the
Member for Caithness, and Mr. Lynch, the Member
for Galway, who were both favourable to Mr. Ewart's
proposition, had not been shut out on the division, the
majority of one would have been the other way. But,
as it was, the expression of the real opinion of the House
was in favour of the abolition proposed ; for we find,
on examining the list, that there were no fewer than
„fifteen Whig, placeinen in the majority. Omitting those
placemen, the instruction of Mr. Ewart to the Com-
mittee, giving them the power to limit the penalty of
death to murder alone, was carried by a majority of
14. Thus the Ministers were virtually defeated, not-
withstanding they threw all the weight of their in-
fluence into the scale of exterminating law. It is a
strange and curious circumstance that Ministers, who
' have shown themselves but too ready to sacrifice the
great and noble institutions of this ancient monarchy to
propitiate the advocates of organic or revolutionary
changes, should cling with desperate tenacity to the
established system of judicial strangulation on the
scaffold, and become conservators of the gallows Is
this the only portion of our ancient system of govern-
ment worth preserving ? Are the spectacles which
afford a disgusting pastime to the rabble of London and
other towns, and which, in the way of example, are of
no other use than to familiarise the populace with
cruelty, and
.thereby make them more ready than they
otherwise would be to embrue their hands in blood—
are these spectacles, we ask, too precious in the eyes of
our Whig Reformers to be allowed to be swept away by
the advancing civilisation of the nineteenth century ?
The spirit of the ancient common law of England was
mild and merciful. The copious infusion of barbarism
into our penal code is comparatively of modern date.
Several of those capital enactments which Ministers
now endeavour to perpetuate under the head of offences
against the person are scarcely more than thirty years
old, and the earliest of them not .older than the reign
of Queen Anne. What a change has taken place since
we first began to demand regularly and systematically
the extirpation of punishments of blood ! Ten years

have now nearly elapsed since we entered the field
prepared to avail ourselves of every fair opportunity to
expose the barbarism and prove the inutility, or rather
the pernicious effects, of a state of the law, under which
judicial homicide was carried to a most frightful extent.
Romilly's honest and able efforts to civilise our penal
code had proved abortive in all but a very few compara-
tively unimportant instances. Mackintosh, who took
up the subject after his death, made one or two power-
ful speeches, and then fell asleep at his post. As far
as the Whigs were connected with this question it may,
indeed, be said " a change came o'er the spirit of their
dream," for the Marquis of Lansdowne, when Home
Secretary under Mr. Canning, added some three or
four new capital punishments to the statute-book in
his " improved edition" of the Ellenborough Act,
without encountering any opposition in the House of
Commons. Now we are to record the gratifying fact
of a majority of the independent Members of the
House of Commons having voted for the abolition of
capital punishments in all cases except that of wilful
murder. How would Romilly be astonished could he
return on earth to see that enlightened amelioration of
our criminal law defeated only by the influence of the
Whigs themselves, and the votes of their subservient
placemen I Combined with the Ministerial phalanx
on this occasion we also observe the names of Sir
Robert Peel, MI. Goulburn, and Sir R. H. Inglis.
We had hoped that by this time the leaders of
Conservative policy had been convinced that the
best way to preserve our national institutions is
to. root out the abuses which impair their use-
fulness, and get rid of those legislative errors
which are opposed to the spirit of Christian civi-
lization. That the abolition of capital punishments,
at least to the extent of Mr. Ewart's proposition,
must take place sooner or later, we have no doubt
whatever. It is not in the power of either Whig, or
Tory noblemen, or both combined, to prevent it. Why
then will a Statesman like Sir Robert Peel repeat the
error which he committed in regard to the offence of
forgery in 1830, and impotently object to improvements
when he can no longer successfully resist ? With a
sincere admiration of his talents, which ought to be de-
voted to nobler purposes than vainly endeavouring to
retain some fragments of the broken tablets of sangui-
nary law—with a grateful recollection of thestruly con-
stitutional principles which he maintained and elo-
quently expounded when last in power—we trust we
may be excused for wishing to disconnect his fame
from the contamination of a system which enlightened
opinion has irrevocably condemned, and which Whig
influence can only respite for a time from its merited
doom. We cannot avoid noticing a suggestion thrown
out during-the debate on Friday night by Mr. Grote, to
substitute secret for public executions. That such a
suggestiOn should emanate from one of the school of
" philosophers" to which that gentleman belongs does
not astonish us. We recollect when he said the Poor-
law Amendment Act was not unconstitutional enough
for him, and certainly anything more at variance with
the genius of our free Constitution than secret execu-
tions could not be proposed by any body. Hitherto
it was thought that executions were only had recourse
to in the way of public example. Our legislators and
our judges have been in the habit of disclaiming the
doctrine that would make punishment partake of re-
venge or retaliation. Example, and example alone,
is the professed end and object of executions. As
examples, in all but the demoralising sense, they have
failed—utterly and notoriously failed. The Duke of
Richmond admitted and lamented their failure a short
time ago in the House of Lords. Sir Robert Peel
has no less freely confessed and regretted their failure
in the House of Commons. In this state of things—
while the public have fresh upon their memory the dis-
gusting scenes of popular licentiousness with which the
recent executions of Pegstvorth and Greenacre at New-
gate were realised, up starts the ultra-Liberal Mr. Grote,
and proposes that executions shall be conducted for the
future in private. Does he propose private execu-
tions by way of public example 9 Does he recall the
scenes of the dungeons of the Parisian Bastile and the
Spanish Inquisition, with the hope of improving, by
their revival in this country, the administration of Bri-
tish justice ? Mr. O'Connell reasoned better than Mr.
Grote, when, as a remedy for the disgusting and bru-
talising examples of death upon the scaffold, he sug-
gested the abolition of such scents altogether. There
was an able article on this subject on Friday in
the Morning Advertiser, in which that complete
abolition was advocated. We quote the following
passage, as deserving the most serious attention. The
writer, having commented upon the indecent conduct
of the populace at Grcenacre's execution, went on to
say, " The Frederick-st:eet murder, which followed
directly upon the execution, and which is characterised
by a still more contemptuous disregard of human life
than the minder by Greenacre, proves the utter futi-
lity of the example. Executions of murderers pro-
duce fresh murders. If we do not wish to offer a
premium for murder we must abstain from supplying
a stimulant to the crime by the sanguinary familiarity
and brutal vindictiveness of public executions." It is
also worth observing, that immediately after the exe-
cution of Pegszvorth, who had stabbed his victim with
a knife, the attempt to assassinate the Deputy-Chair.
man of the East India Board was made with a simi-
lar weapon by the wretched Kearney. Stich is the
moral efficacy of the death-scene on the scaffold !
Mr. Flume, in seconding Mr. Ewart's instruction to
the Committee, truly observed that " sanguinary laws
only tended to tender a people barbarous ; and this was
a truth which the recent executions in the metropolis,
at Gloucester and elsewhere, strikingly exemplified."
And Col. Thompson asked " Was there an intention
in any quarter to do away with the punishment of
death for political offences ? The current of opi-
nion was strongly running against such practices
throughout Europe ; and there was a natural
anxiety to know whether this country was to
be behind the rest ? " For our own part, we
often recommended to Louis Philip to try some other
experiment than that of the guillotine in endeavouring
to put down the crime of regicide. He has at length
tried the experiment of clemency ; and we find that he
was not able to stir abroad without exposing his person
to the assassin's weapon, while he relied upon the terror
supposed to be inspired by examples of retaliation and
vengeance, but has repeatedly appeared among the
crowds of Paris unguarded since he gave an example
of mercy in the case of Meunier, and has experienced
a degree of personal security to which he had been
previously a stranger. All experience proves that the
most effective laws for the protection of both property
and life are those which are most free from the stain of
blood. On Friday morning.we commented, by antici-
pation, upon the statistical returns which were pro-
duced in the course of the debate.—Morning Herald.

SECOND EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clock.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT,

(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.

The Loan CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Woolsack at
five o'clock.

Mr. F. MAULE and others from the Commons brought up
the Highway Acts Continuation Bill, and some Private Bills,
which were sevsrally read a first time.
Lord SEAG R AVE presented a petition from Cheltenham,
praying for the abolition of the Window Tax.
Earl RIPON said, as he understood it would be more con-
venient to the Noble Secretary for the Colonies that he
should postpone his question and motion relative to the pro-
ceedings in Colonel Arthur's case, with the leave of the
House he would postpone them till Tuesday week.
Mr. BERNAL, and others, brought up the Glasgow and Ayr
Railway Bill, the Shire Halls Bill, and other Bills.—Read a
first time.
CHURCH-RATES.

Petitions praying for the abolition_ of Church-rates were
presented by Lord Seagrave, from Cheltenham ; Lord Straf-
ford, from places in Essex ; the Earl of Burlington, and the
Earl of Fitzwilliam.

Petitions against the abolition of the Church-rates were
presented by the Bishop of Salisbury, Lord Orford, the Bishop
of Exeter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of
York, the Bishop of Worcester, Earl Ripon, and the Marquis
of Bute.

The Marquis of SALISBURY presented a petition from
John F. Murray, late an inspector of the National Board of
Education in Ireland, complaining of being dismissed without
cause, and praying for enquiry into the case before the Com-
mittee now sitting on the question.
The Archbishop of DUBLIN had no objection to the in-
quiry, but he begged to state that there was an objection oil
the threshold of such an inquiry. The inspectors were
not the direct servants of the public...they were the