The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-25 00:00:00

THEjUIy.
LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1862,

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Some hundred and fifty members are determined
that the Session shall die game. Mustering up
from their country and lccal obscurity, they can
vote if they cannot argue. Men like Sir GEORGE
GREY on the part of the Government, like Sir
JOSEPH PAXTON and Mr. W. E. FORSTER. on the
part of the Liberals, and, above all, like Lord STAN-
LEY and Mr. HENLEY on the part of the
Tories themselves, appeal in vain to the horse-
jockey temper and intelligence which is determined
to force this scandalous game-preserver's bill on
the fag-end of a session. When the welfare of the
Indian Empire, or the grave question of legislating
for the sUrving millions of Lancashire are the sub-
ject of the evening the Government whips can
hardly keep a House; but, when the question is
whether a game-law code, whose barbarous seve-
rity is worthy of the middle ages, shall be made y t
e
more sever e, no whip is needed, Up fly the Great Un-
knowns from their woods and copses, and vote that
the public shall pay any amount of county rates,
the police be multiplied, and the most unconstitu-
tional powers entrusted to them, so that game-
preservers may but secure their unmanly amuse-
ment at the lowest eost. We entirely agree with
Lord STANLEY that the hot haste with which it is
attempted to smuggle through the Legislature a
bill to protect the mere fancy amusements of gen-
tlemen, and that while every thinking man was
looking with anxiety on the sufferings and priva
tions of millions, is really indecent. We can only
hope that every form of the House will be made use
of to keep this outrageous bill where it stood on
Wednesday—at clause I—till Parliament breaks up.
Such a reactionary Parliament as this needs not to
all Its sins of negation of good, the positive sin of

enacting evil.
The Rome Secretary while perceiving, on Wed.
nesday, that it was useless to resist going into com.
mittee, rehearsed with great force the priiacipa
arguments which bad been used against the second
reading, and Mr. w.
FORSTER and Lord HENLEY
thought it their duty to divide the House against
going into committee. Mr. WALTER pressed it on
the unreasoning obstinates to leave such a serious
matter in the hands of Government to deal with in
a subsequent Session. All in vain. The country
worthies, under the redoubtable leadership of Sir
B. LEIGHTON, had brought up d majority of ninety
are sorry to say,
to do as they pleased, and, we the
Government and the Liberals generally were
cot at
hand to prevent the House from thus disgracing
The Opposition
itself in the eyes of the country.
by their treat- \
displayed pretty well their quality
ment of the honourable member for Brighton. Mr.
CONINGHAM—niose, tu mull-, and exclamations being
their only answer, to what indeed no wir, much less
theirs, could find an answer.
The fact on which we insisted last Wednesday
was well brought out by Sir G. GREY, that this is
nothing else than a lull to encourage unreasonable
game presereing ; what is asked, he remarked, was
that Parliament should give additional powers to
police, in order that gentlemen might, towards the
end of the season, have the pleasure of reading in
the papers that they and their friends has in two
or three days, killed 7,000 or 8,000 head of
game. No doubt of it. And, for this a " law of
Suspects" must be introduced into the counties—the
county pollee must be doublet!, if not quadrupled,
till police gangs area match for the poaching
gangs—the county rates must be swelled till the
national ezehequer would at last be appealed to,
aria all that game preservers may amuse themselves
by two cr three days' pheasant murdering per
annum. Sir JOSF.pg pArroN,
who could speak, as
we ear, from no little practical knowledge, told the
House that gamekeepers
were a very unpopular
class, not only with peasants but with tenant-
farmers, and that to associate policemen with them
would be to bring on the latter the odium now
borne by the former. He, and all the speakers who
dared to utter the truth in the teeth of mime noise
end clamour, told the House the undoubted truth,