The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-05 00:00:00

itbsequent offence, uncl have his or I.cr licence a ithdrawn,
such there be."

What 's to become of allsojourners hotels, coffee-
lhoues, &c., if they be no:, permitted to eat or drink on
the Sabbath-day ? Our modern Saint Andrew op.
Tears to have forgotten the reproof which the Divine
-Founder of Christianity Lave to his disciples, when he
told them " The Sabbath is made for man, mid tn,t
man for the Sabath." The ninth clause runs tv;
follows :

" And be ;t further enacted, that the ownr...r and owners
of every carriage carrying, or used or lieensed to carry
goods or pascngers for hire, which shad travel on the
Lord's-day, shall forfeit for the first offence ten pounds, and
for the second offence twenty pounds, and for every subse-
quent offence thirty pounds, and to be deprived of his, her,
or their licence, if any such there be ; and every per:t'm
with such carriage shall forfeit any sum Lot less than five
shillings, nor more than twenty shillings the trst offence ;
not lens than twenty shillings nor more than forty
for the second offence ; and not less th rai forty shillings ncr
more than five pounds for every sul,-,equent offence."

Poor Sir Andrew ! you should with this have pro-
posed to expunge e,ur Liturgy the prayers for
all that travel by lareit or by water." With such a
law they would be empererogatory, unless for the spe-
cial protection oc. chose who keep their own carriages ;
and such a trecal omission of allusion to this class of
individuals is observable in the Bill, that it would ap-
pear its propounders intendedao let them drive their
own way, wherever it might be. Those who have no
horse or vehicle, ur opportunity of taking recreation,
unless on the seventh day, should feel particularly in-
debted for the solicitude manifested in this Bill to lay
up a store of enjoyment to their credit in the next
world, 'oy debarring them of the only meana of rational
relaxation which is open to them in this. It is un-
necessary to comment on the other clauses of the 13i11.
It is sufficient to read those which we have quoted, to
justify us to all rational minds in our designating the
Sabbath Obscre Alice Bill a Bill of absurdities.—
' Morning Advertiser.
For the particulars of the proceedings in the two
Houses of 'Parliament last night we most, in conse-
quence of the pressure of advertisements, and other
matter, refer our readers, in the that place, to our
report of the debate, and, in the second, to the
brief Summary which we are enabled to give of them.
To one portion of these proceedings, however, we
trust that our readers will, fhr once, forgive us for
adverting—we say forgive 113, inasmuch as although
the matter is interesting to every portion of the com-
munity, it is especially interesting to us, and, more-
over, bears upon the character of one of the most
importr.nt functionaries of the Government of this
great empire. We need scarcely say that we refer to
the p etition from the Times, MorningHerald,Morning
Po4t, and the *Standard newspapers, presented by
Mr. Goulburn, upon the subject of the stamp duties
'in Newspapers. What the object of that petition could
be, it is impossible for any one to ascertain from the
speech of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer,
who in attempting to do justice lo it, has established
a most satisfactory claim to the cognomen which we
bestowed upon him not long ago, and which be believe
stilt sticks to him, of Vox-et-preeterea-llihd. His
speech, in fact, is utterly unintelligible, so far as object
is concerned ; but after all, the gross failure of which
he was guilty ought perhaps to be attributed more to
the character and contents of the petition 'with which
he
.nwas,entrirsted, than to his own lack of power. A
n peon more discreditable in every possible respect
has never been presented. It was concocted without
the knowledge of any other Newspapers interested in
the result, and it is based on manifest falsehood. Ac-
cording to Gonlburn's speech, it sets out with saying
—" that the papers from which the petition proceeds
have the largest circulation ;" whereas, none of the
Fartics whose signatures are attached to it can dare to
;icily that this Journal possesses a circulation double,
or nearly double, of that of two of the petitioning
Newspapers, and all but equal to one of the four.
This fact can he ascertained by any one, by applica-
tion to the Stamp-office, and we may further aver,
that within the City of London and its suburbs,
there is no existing Journal which can boast of
one-fourth part of the circulation which the Adver-
tiser commands to a certain extent, and most un-
restionably possesses. litre. is one falsehood,
Dot it does not stand alone--for the sake of
uniformity another is appended—namely, that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had selected the size of
the Morning Chronicle—namely, 1,066 inches—as
the maximum of a single sheet.' It was well known
to the petitioners, who were present at almost all the
interviews with the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and who might have been present at all had they
chosen, not only that this number of inches had
been selected, because it embraced the quantum of
size of the largest single metropolitan sheet ; but that
the Chancellor of the 'Exchequer upon the representa-
tion made to him, that it would be unjust to lay ally
additional tax on any single sheet Newspaper in
existence, proffered his aniciety to include in the mea-
surement every existing single sheet Newspaper.
And what was the result ? Why, that without
any pressure from without on the part of the re-
presentatives of the Newspaper press, or any par-
tiality to any existing Newspaper, he communicated,
not only to this journal, but to the Times, the
Herald, the Standard, and the Post, the petitioning
papers, within twenty-four hours, his determination
to increase the size of the single-sheet. Newspaper
to the extent of 46.1 superficial inches ; in other
words, from 1,066, proposed to him by the Stamp-
office, to 1,530, 'which embraces the largest single
sheet published in the United Kingdom. The peti-
tion, however, notwithstanding the knowledge of these
facts on the part of the petitioners, was presented by
Mr. Goulburn, and according to his usual practice it
met with a deserved fate. The answer of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer was of the mast manly and
straightforward character. We pass by the severe cen-
sure which he passed upon those who had lately made
public, through our columns and those of other existing
journals, the conversation which took place between the
abolitionists of the stamp duties on Newspapers and
Lord Melbourne, because there may fairly be more than
one opinion entertained upon the subject. But in jus-
tice to ourselves as well as to the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, we deem it hut fair to direct the attention of
our readers to the following extract from his speech :
" It was stated that he had drawn a line most inge-
nously Which profited tine Morning Chronicle,. and most
ungenerously iaiurefl the interests of the other papers which
his Right Hon. Friend had adverted to. Now, he would
tell the House distinctly, and upon his honour, that before
he" haul stated what he had done with respect to the inten-
tion of the Government, as to the duty on a single sheet,
he had told the officers of the Stamp-Office to measure the
largest single sheet ; and why should he take the largest
singlest sheet ? Why, because it would comprehend the
less ; and he could assure the House, upon his honour, that
at the time he stated that he (lid not know what paper it
would affect, or what it would not. Well, but that was
not all—he would go a step farther, in order to show the
principle upon which he had acted. The next communica-
tion he recei:ed came from the proprietors of Newspapers
themselves : be Lad been in communication with those who
represented !Le petitioners, and also in constant communi-
cation the Committee of the Proprietors of Newspapers,
and he. never was more astonished in his life—all the ar-
rangements having been made at their own suggestion
—they-knowing every step that had been taken—than at
the pr'esentation of a petition involving him in personal
charges froth the very men who knew of every step that had
been taken, and had given it iheir sanction. It was repre-
sented to him by the very parties that there were some pa,-
pers of one form and some of another; and it was said, if
you fix a certain dimension you will create great inconveni-
ence, and you will compel several establishments to alter
their machinery. Such being the case be proposed to them
to take the largest Newspaper, with which they were per-
fectly satisfied. It was almost, in point of fact, at the very
suggestion of the petitioners themselves that the arrange-
ment with respect to the size was come to, and that was
made the ground of strong animadversion upon him. This
was not all. He was informed that the largest Newspaper
published in the metropolis was that proposed to be fol-
lowed by the Bill ; but that there were others in the coun-
try much larger. He then asked what was the largest, and
he was told that it was a York Paper,' the name and po-
litics of which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) could
assure the House he did not know even at the present hour
—he, however, tat the parties that they should have the
benefit of the largest."

Nothing can be more true, in every respect, nothing
more disgraceful to the parties concerncl in the peti-
tion than the above state:nent—the truth of which no
one concerned in the concoction of the Bill regarding
Newspaper stamps can fairly deny. The Bill, as we