The Sun.
London, England, 1831-06-20 00:00:00

tion of royal duty, exert his prerogative. Regard-
ing the disorganized state of the House of Corn-
Mons, which having wilidrawn its confidence from
one set of Ministers, denied it'a suppoil to the mea-
sures Of another; the tranquil state of the Empire
(with the exceptirsn of a small portion of Ireland,
from which no mischief was to be expected, as none
has arisen to the general weal), and, above all, the
nature of the question; one incapable of being post-
poned or delaycd touching, as it did; the very root
and foundation of " the National Regiment ;" and
involving the authority of Parliament itself .; surely,
on such aluestiotr; arid at such a time, if ever, was it
the duty of the Sovereign to take the s. nse of his
people.—Morning Chronicle.
It appears now l:eyoild all doubt that
the bodies .tr unfortunate individuals who were
killed by the fire of the military at Merthyr-Tydvil
have been interred without any inquest having been
held upon them. An anonymous correspondent),
who has sent us a communic•.tion, wrilten with the
obviou» intcntioa of rescuing the local authorities
t.nd the soldiers froth all blame touching this dread-
ful transtietion,adinit's the fiect that the bodies have
been buiied withont that solemn inquisition of blood
havit4g been taken which the law in such eases
requires. But he states that it is the Grade of the
parties slain who have taksr,n away' their bodies, and
he acCon.ritt 'rot.- their having got posSe3sion of them
`,;l the following manner:—" The first measure taken
by the local authorities, after the ha's! 'oeen re-
pulsed, was to collect Coe dead and wounded. In
this :".-irier eight dead bodies were found, and
placed together in a stable or outhouse of the Castle
Inn; but shortly after the comrrent!itig °Meet• an-
nounced to the nrig,i'.4,ll-ales. that he felt it duty
to rct!ra r:roth the Castle inn, N‘vhich is situated in
the heart Of the town; in a narrow-street, end takt
up the strong position of ilen-y-darran House„—
There the Magistrates retired under protection of
the soldiers, and the landlord of the inn has since

informed them that the dead bodies acre taken
away by the peeph, Witimiir a quarter of an hour
after :in., Magistrates had thus retired. It is a fact
that when the Magistrates got possession of the
town again, which was not until tile following
Monday, eve ,y person known supposed to have
been killed en the 'Friday had been buried by their
fl itOds ; nor had it been discovered a few days
ago, when the Coroner was sent for, who were
killed, nor where they had been buried: The truth
is, from various motives, the greatest pains have been
taken by their unfortunate comrades and friends to
Conceal who were killed and wounded among the
people ; nor has a single application been made to
the parish authorities) ncr tb the Magistrates, to
send for the Coroner." In this way our informant
endeavours to account for the omission of holding
invests—with what accuracy we cannot determine.
It is strange, indeed, that he should take upon him
that " persons sup,voser! to hate been killed" had
been herizl, for such persons may be still alive. It
is also strange that the bodies of those who were
not only known to be killed, but had been actually
collected and deposited in a stable, should have been
taken away without any ptison ut their friends or
commies knowing whither they were carried for in-
terment. If the statement be true, surely there
could have been no objection to warrant it by some
responsible name. It is a matter far too important
to be satisfactorily explained by a statement resting
only on anonymous euthorit.V. Our informant also
obserVes ii that those who know best how strong
the feeling is among the middling and poorer classes
in England against disturbing a body which has once
been interred, can hardly form an idea of the strength
with which that feeling prevails in Wales." We
cannot understand why this exeuse for not disturb-
ing
the bodies of the dead should be necessary, on
behalf of the local authorities, if the places of their
interment cannot be discovered. Waiving the ap-
parent contradiction, it is certainly new to us to hear
the popular reverence for the sacredness of sepulture
plead; l in a case of homicide, as a reason for abstain-
ing from the mode of investigation which the law
has prescribed as necessary to the ends of justice.
Our informant doubts that so many as 23, or even 21
persons, were killed, but he does not state how many
less than either of those numbers they were who were
actually slain on the spot, independently of those
of 60 or 70 wounded, who may have since died of
their wounds. But this is not the question. He
admits that eight dead bodies were deposited in a
stable. Were not those bodies, or at least same of
them, identified before they were carried away ?
Why then has there been no inquest ? We adm:t •
that the Coroner can only sit super visura corporis,
and, if the body cannot be found, he has no juris-
diction. But the law does not allow a defect of
justice in such a case, because it has expressly pro-
vided that " If the body cannot be found, or have
lain so long before the Coroner had viewed it that
he cannot in any way be assisted by the view of it
on taking an inquest, or if there be danger of infects
ing people on digging it up, the inquest ought not
to be taken by the Coroner, but by Justices of the
Peace, or other Justices authorised to inquire of,
hear, or determine felonies, &c." But even the
Coroner may be appointed by a special writ to take
the inquest in such crises, or the Inquiry may be
made by the Chief Justice of the King's Bench,
who is, ex-egicio, Chief Coroner of all England.
It has been decided that to inter the body of a per-
son who has died suddenly, cr by violence, or in
prison, is an indictable misdemeanour; and, in the
two former cases, it renders the township in which
the death has occurred liable to be amerced, and in
the latter the gaoler. It is also provided by the
Statute 3d Henry VII., which is in aid of the
Statute De Officio Coronatoris, that, if the Coro-
ner he remiss, he shall be fineable, and in each
case, by that Statute, he incurs a fine of one
hundred shillings; which though a small fine now,
in consequence of the change in the value of money,
was a very heavy one when the statute was made;
but, in addition to this, it is provided, by an Act
passed in the 25th year of George 11., that, if a
Coroner be convicted of wilful neglect of duty, it
shall be lawful for the Court before whom he shall
be so convicted to remove him from his office. So
careful has the Legislature been that a Coroner's
inquest should be duly holden whenever a British
subject came by death under circumstances of vio-
lence or suspicion. In the instance of the riots at
Merthyr-Tydvil many lives have been lost, under
circumstances which make the exercise of the Co-
roner's office, or of those Whom time law deputes to
act in his stead, when the body;:eannot be found,
imperatively neces-ary. Such an inquiry is as requi-
site to vindicate the conduct of the local authorities
and the soldiers, if they are blameless, as to satisfy
the country that the blood of English subjects has
not been shed by military force but under circum-
stances that can bear the strict scrutiny of the law.
It is true the friends of the parties who have pe-
rished may still present bills of indictment at the
Assizes; but it is far more satisfactory that the
established and constitutional mode of inquiry in
such cases, before a Coroner's .Jury, should take
place, for every instance of the death of a subject
by military execution involves a question deeply af-
fecting the rights and liberties of all the subjects of
the Crown of England. All history proves that
nothing is more essential to the preservation of the
very existence of a free state than a wholesome and
constitutional jealousy of military power.—ltlorning
Herald.

The Ministerial Journals are labouring to con-
vince the world that Ministers, in their present
desperate circumstances, may attempt, without any
violation of constitutional principles, to keep them-
selves in office, and to carry their insane project of
Reform into effect, by manufacturing a new House
of Lords, which shall be more subservient to their
views than the present is likely to prove. Of course
the reasoning in support of this extravagance cannot
be supposed to merit any very serious notice. What
is really deserving of notice is met ely the fact that a
measure so unconstitutional has supporters among
the most strenuous advocates and most confidential
friends of the present Administration ; and this Is
itnpertant only as it affords some degree of evidence
that the revolutionary expedient in question is or