The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-15 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1853.

We have no wish to quarrel with our Lords
Spiritual, but if they will quarrel with us, they
must bear any blame which we are compelled in
self-defence to throw upon them. Now, it does
appear that CHARLES JAMES BLOOMFIELD, Bishop
of London, and EDWARD DENISON, Bishop of
Salisbury, as Parliamentary agent for his metro-
politan brother, have been guilty, as we humble
laymen think, of an unwarrantable attack upon
our franchises—upon one of the oldest of them
too. And as we really think our lay immunities,
in relation to Church matters, very few, and those
of the Right Reverend Fathers in GOD neither
'few nor small, we think they are rather hard
upon us. As it was lately said about the doc-
trine of "a stake in the country," that a poor
man's 5/. in the Savings Bank was as much to
him as the millionaire's 100,000/. in the Funds ;
( think we in ecclesiastical matters. Our few and
mall rights are very precious to us, and we will
not surrender them so tamely. One of those
rights is the popular election of one or more
of the Churchwardens of the Parish, and this
is the right which our neighbour of the Pad-
dington Estates wishes to take from us.
We must say that the cunning displayed
in the concoction of the London and Salisbury
Bill is worthy of a college of Jesuits. It does
not directly enact that all the Churchwardens
shall be chosen by the clergyman of the parish,
but it places the election so completely in his
hands, that the Churchwardens would, in the ma-
jority of cases, be merely his nominees. Gene-
rally, if not universally, the parson does nominate ,
otic—by the proposed plan he would virtually
nominate all.

The parishioners of Hornsey and Mr. Tormatrusr
SMITH deserve the hearty thanks of the public for
calling its attention to this clerical bin ; and but
for the press of other matters, we should have
noticed it before. We shall now make free use of
Mr. SMITH'S address, delivered on Thursday, the
2d of December, at a parish meeting at Hornsey,
and printed and circulated by order of the meet-
ing. The proposed Bill professes to remedy
"the inconvenience" with which the present mode
of electing Churchwardens is attended. We shall
soon see that the inconvenience is that of free and
popular election, and the remedy is to make the
parson returningofficer, poll clerk, scrutineer, revis-
ing barrister, indeed everything in the election. By
virtue of STURGES BOURNE'S Act, passed in 1818,
the clergyman has deprived the meeting of the
right to elect its own chairman, a most mischie-
vous innovation ; and the rector or vicar has now
the right of being chairman, ex officio, if he
chooses to attend ; according to the proposed plan,
however, there a to be no meeting at all / The
"chairman," as the clergyman is still absurdly
called, is to do everything. It is first to be enacted
-that all elections for Churchwardens are to take
Pace in Easter week ; •next, that "the parson," or
Mme deputy appointed by him, is to be chairman
(mark how the little liberty remaining by STURGES
BOURN E'S Act is taken away) ; next, that the so-
called chairman is to issue notice of the election,
and that he is to nominate the minister's warden
where there is one. And now for the people's
election ; every nomination of any Churchwarden
•is to' bs sent to the " parson." If the nomina-
tions are more in number than is wanted, " the
parson " is to send out voting papers to the rate-
payers, to collect them again, to cast up the votes,
to " disallow such as he shall find invalid," to
give a casting vote when the numbers are equal,
and to declare the result of this Parsonie poll by
notice on the church door !
We do hone that the mere exposure of this
audacious Bill will be sufficient to kill it in its
birth. Ic assayed to enter the House of Lords
last year, but public business happily interfered
with its progress, and public attention will now, we
hope„g?:ve it its quietus. One circumstanceespecially
shows the animus of the Bill ; it is to be applicable
to all parishes having a population exceeding two
thonsand—that is, to all parishes large enough to
,
have any independence of priestly control, or
large enough, .to maintain one congregation or
more of pestilent-sectaries. We hardly need ex-
plain' how efficient this insidious Bill will be to
attain its obvious end. Every one conversant
with elections knows what would be the chilling