The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-10 00:00:00

FASHIONABLE INTELLIEGNCE.

ARRIVALS.
Misses and Lady Clifton, at Thomas's Hotel, Berkeley-
square, from Nottinghamshire; Sir John Osborne, Bart., at
Earl's-court, Old Brompton ; Sir William Pepys, Bart., in
Bryanston-square, from Tunbridge-court, Godstone, Surrey.
DEPARTURES.
Lord Dorchester, from Mason's Hotel, Jermyn-street, for
Paris ; M. Durand St. Andre, from Montague-square, for
ditto ; Lord Henry Vane, from Peuton's Hotel, for the Con-
tinent; Mr. Montague Parker, M. P., from ditto, for Whit-
away Devonshire ; Lord Castlereagh, from Chapel-street,
for Belvoir Castle ; Colonel Charlewood, for Brighton ; Lord
and Lady Cranmore and the Hon. Miss Browne, for Chelten-
ham ; the Hon. Grantley Berkeley,for ditto ; Lord Seagrave,
from Berkeley House, Spring-gardens, for Berkeley Castle,
Gloucestershire ; Captain and Mrs. Patterson, from Con-
naught-square, for Mount Clements, Herts ; the Rev. Charles
Lane and Mrs. Lane, from Patterson's Hotel, Lower Brook-
street, for Windsor.

LONDON :
TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 10, 1538.

The House of Commons was occupied for a consider-
able time last night with the charge brought by Mr. Pout
TER against the Shaftesbury Election Committee. We
placed before our readers on Saturday, the terms of Mr,
POULTER'S charge, and we referred to the debate which
ended by ordering that gentleman and the printer of the
Morning Chronicle to appear at the bar last night. On
the order of the day being read, Mr. MILDMAY proposed to
postpone calling Mr. POULTEIt to the bar till the evi-
dence given before the Committee was published ; but after
a warm and protracted discussion, the amendment was
withdrawn, and Mr. POULTER came to the bar. Though
his hearing was mild and gentlemanly, he avowed his letter,
and did not retract one word of his accusation. Mr. BLACK-
STONE, who brought forward the question, was then com-
pelled, though probably reluctant, to move that the
letter conveyed false and scandalous imputations on
Hon. Members. The Tories still clung, however, to the
hope that they might get out of the difficulty ; and at Lord
STANLEY'S suggestion Mr. POULTER was once more sum-
moned to the bar to win from him if possible something in
the shape of an apology, that might serve as an excuse for
not persisting in a wrong course. Mr. POULTER continued
to assert that his seat had been taken from him by a politi-
cal and not a just decision, and the necessity remained for
Mr. BLACKSTONE to persevere. Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
to get him out of the scrape, moved the Order of the
Day for the third reading of the Slavery Act Amendment
Bill, but the House decided by 124 to 120 that it would
not go to that question, and would have a decision on
the question, whether Mr. POULTER'S letter conveyed a
false and scandalous imputation. On the main ques-
tion being again put, Mr. O'CONNELL moved that
it be postponed for a week, which was carried
by 122 to 116, and the other business proceeded
with. As the House will in all probability not be sitting
this day week, the subject may be considered as finally dis-
posed of ; and the Shaftesbury Committee, according to
the view of its Chairman, rests under the imputation of
having falsely and scandalously filched Mr. POULTER'S seat
from him, and from the electors of Shaftesbury, their chosen
Representative.

The tone of the debate, we may remark, was much more
complimentary to Mr. PoULTER than the debate concern-
ing Mr. O'CONNELL. But Mr. POULTER'S offence was
much greater than Mr. O'CoNNELes. He selected a
particular Committee—the whole of the Committees stand-
ing charged with bias, deliberate injustice, and pe.jury ;
and he accused that Committee of being the most unjust
of the unjust. Mr. O'CoNNELL's accusation was general—
Mr. PouLTEA'S particular; and the Members of the Shaftes-
bury Committee were especially branded as the very worst
of the bad lot. Yet personal and party feeling so much
influenced the deliberations of the Honourable House, that
Mr. POULTER'S conduct was spoken of in the mildest and
most gentlemanly terms, while no language was too gross
or too severe for that of Mr. O'CONNELL. Last night he
had his revenge, for his motion led the House to slip away
from any decision on the more false, and more scandalous,
and more precise accusations than he ever applied to
Committees.

Another matter, which is worthy of notice, is, that Mr.
Sergeant WILDE made it doubtful whether an Election
Committee of the House is clothed with any privileges which
can be violated. He argued that such a Committee is ordained
by Statute, that the House of Commons only acts Ministeri-
ally or executively in appointing it, and that a Committee,
being thus a Court of Law, is no more protected by the pri-
vileges of the House cf Commons, than the Commissioners
under the Poor-law Act, or the Court of Bankruptcy.
This is novel and curious doctrine ; and if the Committees
he liable to such imputations as those cast on them by Mr.
POULTER, and have no remedy but an action at common
law, we shall not be surprised at sensitive men following Si,
ROBERT PEEL'S advice, and refusing to serve on Electiot.
Committees.

n conclusion, let us observe that the Tories have shown

themselves on this, as on all other occasions, absolutely un-
teachable. They are too old to learn. Every question
of this kind which they have mooted, has involved the
House in difficulty, ending in disgrace. Like an habi-
tual drunkard, or an habitual gambler, there is no
hope of reclaiming them ; and wherever their influence
predominates ha the House, as in the attack on Mr.
O'CONNELL and Mr. PouLTER, they seduce the House
into bad courses. The statement of Mr. Sergeant WILDE
shews very clearly why those who seek to shield election
committees from public censure must expose themselves
to public scorn. An Election Committee is a Court of
Law—the Members of:the House of Commons are all par-
tizans. Each man regards revery other, politically speak-
ing, as a friend to be aided or a foe to be crushed ; each
man is hotly intent on promoting his own interest or the
interest of his party, and according to the present system,
into the hands of these ambitious partizans is given the
power of deciding whether their friends or their enemies
shall triumph. To expect justice from such bodies is ab-
surd ; and for legislators whose whole art and science pro-
ceed on the supposition that nothing must he trusted to
the virtue of mankind, to rely so confidently on the angelic
virtue of members of Election Committees is a contradic-
tion, arising from overweening vanity, which is certainly
not to be surpassed in the large history of human delusions.
We may with justice praise the sensible speech of Lord
JOHN RUSSELL and the moderate conduct of his party. He
and they are assailed day after day by scurrilous accusa-
tions from avowed fabrications, and they have the magna-
nimity to pass them unnoticed. Mr. HALL last night
quoted a more severe censure and calumny, which a Tory
publication has cast on the Roxburgh Committee, than
even Mr. POULTER'S, but the Whigs properly thought it
unworthy of notice. The evil consciences of the Tories
betray them into violence.

At an adjourned meeting of the Middlesex Magistrates,
held yesterdAy—the proceedings at which are reported in
another column—a majority of their Worships adopted Mr.
BARBER BEAUMONT'i string of vexatious and rediculous
resolutions for closing Public-houses and Beer-shops at eleven
o'clock at night, and preventing them from opening at all on
Sunday mornings. Did it not occur to such a genius
AS Mr. BARBER, BEAUMONT that it would be an improve-
ment upon his scheme to recommend the total abolition of
public-houses, breweries, and distilleries? If to drink be a
crime, why not strike at the root of the evil, by ren-
dering the slaking of thirst on the part of any indi-
vidual below the rank of a Middlesex Magistrate utterly
impossible ? Nay, we are not certain if it would not be
better still to make thirst a capital offence when ex-
hibited anywhere, save under a pump or within sight
of a wine-cooler. Mr. BARBER BEAUMONT it is true, is
indulgent to what men of more lax notions might deem the
necessities of the wealthier classes. He excepts from the
" closing clause," inns for the accommodation of " respect-
able families ;" forgetting, in his solicitude to provide
for the comforts of the rich, that his plan requires
that he should lay down for the information of inn-
keepers a test by which they may ascertain the
respectability of their guests. He ought to have
divided society into three great classes—the wine-
drinkers, the ale and beer-drinkers, and the water-
drinkers—the first only to be deemed respectable. But
enough of Mr. BARBER BEAUMONT'S absurdities, whom
we must in conscience acknowledge to he a fitting oracle
of the Middlesex Magistrates. As for the resolutions,
they will be spurned with contempt by every man of
common sense in the country. Were the proceedings of the
Magistrates in this affair of the Licensed Victuallers simply
ridiculous, we should be content to laugh at them ;
but as they are a source of much trouble and annoyance to
that body, we shall to-morrow enter more fully into what
we conceive to he the merits of them. It is really too bad
that a body of functionaries who are negatively valueless
themselves, should be suffered to devote the little energies
they possess, to an impertinent intermeddling with the
affairs of others.

We learn from the Jamaica Journals to the 29th of
February inclusive, that on the 21st of thlt month the
House of Assembly voted the agitation of the Slave ques-
tion an insolent, unwarranted, impertinence on the part of
the people of England! It comported not with the dig-
nity of that august body to pay the least regard to
the addresses presented to her MAJESTY for the abo-
litio.l of the apprenticeship system, inasmuch as the
petitioners had overlooked the claims of the planters
to additional compensation ! We are really well
pleased to be able to present our readers with an ab-
stract of the debate in the Huse of Assembly upon this
occasion. It lays bare the roots and fibres of the whole
question, as well as exposes the folly of the Government, in
supposing that the planters ever regarded the period of
apprenticeship as necessary to the preparation of the slare
for the enjoyment of liberty. From the extracts given below
from the speeches delivered by a certain Dr. WHITTAKER
and a Mr. LESLIE, we may safely infer that these gentlemen
approve of the cruelties of which the negroes are the ob-
jects, in so far as they may induce the generous but deluded
people of England to re-purchase by another Parliamentary
grant the freedom of the coloured race. There is not a
syllable uttered about the fitness or unfitness of the slaves
to be free ; all the House of Assembly looks to is the
gullibility of the Emancipationists, and the frequency
with which the planters may compel us to purchase
what the laws of GOD and man have made already
our own—the right to declare all the subjects of her Ma-
JEYTY, of whatever clime or colour, co-equal in the eye of
the law. Having swindled us out of Twenty Millions, we

are not surprised that the Colonists entertain a contempt
for our sagacity ; but still we may fairly question the pru-
dence of openly describing such men as Lords DENMAN,
BROUGHAM, SLIGO, CLANRICARDE, and the Members
of the London Deputation, as the Radical offscour-

ings of society. It may be bad taste on the part
of the Paisley weavers, but sure we are that there are hun-
dreds of that most intelligent and industrious body of
Operatives, who would shrink with horror from coming in
contact with the richest traffickers in human flesh, of which
Jamaica can boast the presence. Now for the abstract of
the debate in the Jamaica House of Assembly, which we
have abridged without the alteration of a syllable from the
Falmouth (Jamaica) Post :