The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-20 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS, OCTOBER 19.

The SPEAKES took his seat a few minutes before Four
o'clock.

Mr. Thomas, from the Treasury, brought up certain
papers, containing all the Pensions on the Civil List,
which were ordered to he printed.
Mr. EVANS presented a petition from the journeymen
shoemakers at Northampton for the repeal of the duty on
newspapers.
Mr. HUME moved for returns of persons confined
in England, Scotland, and Wales, for offences against
the game laws. He moved for these returns, because as
a new game law had passed, it would bring to the notice
of the Government the number of persons confined, with
the hope that the present was a very fit opportunity for his
Majesty's Ministers to recommend their liberation.
Mr. HUNT could not let it go forth to the world that
the new game law had repealed all former ones, fur all the
Acts regarding night poaching were still in full force, and
therefore that description of poachers would still be
liable to the same extent of punishment.
Lord ALTIIORP said it was true that the law regard-
ing night poaching was still the same. Several of the ,
game laws were however repealed.
Mr. ROBINSON said it certainly was the general im-
pression that all the former g one laws were repealed.
Mr. HUME presented a petition from John Wilson, of
Paisley, for a reduction of taxation ; also a petition from
the inhabitants of Clerkenwell, signed by some thousands
of inhabitants, complaining of the assessed taxes. The
petitioners stated that there were 6,000 houses in that
parish, chiefly occupied by tradesmen, who paid 25,0001.
annually for their poor and police rates, besides being
burthened with other heavy rates and taxes. Tile as-
sessed taxes pressed heavily and unequally on the public,
and the Hon. Member hoped that his Majesty's Govern-
ment would pay early attention to this subject, with a
view of reducing and equalizing them.
Mr. SADLER supported the prayer of this petition.
He said the assessed taxes fell very unequally on the people;
all warehouses and other large premises were exempted
from the house and window duty, and yet a shopkeeper was
obliged to pay duty for his place of business.
Tile petition was ordered to be printed.
Mr. HUME then presented a petition from John Bar-
row, complaining of the taxes on clerks and other ser-
vants ; and also a petition from Joseph Townshend Moul-
moan, praying for a repeal of the law of arrest for debt.--
The Hon. Member said he was happy to hear that
it was in contemplation to remove entirely the power of
arrest for debt, and to limit the law of imprisonment for
debt, so as to assimilate the law to that of Scotland, which
was, that as soon as a person gave up all his property, his
personal liberty was no longer to be restrained.
The HON. MEMBER next presented a petition from cer-
tain land-owners in the parish of Kirby, in Kendal, in
the county of Westmoreland, upon the subject of tithes.
The petitioners stated, that for 250 years moduses had been
paid in lieu of tithes, to the Master and Fellows of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and now it was attempted to set aside
the woduses, and to insist on the payment of tithes in kind,
for which object no less than 220 actions had been
brought.
After a few words from Mr. WARBURTON and Mr.
CAMPBELL, the petition was ordered to be printed.
The Hon. MEAtBER also presented a petition from
Chichester against the pensions on the civil list being con-
tinued after the demise of the Crown.
THE BIRMINGHAM PETITION.

Mr. HUME then presented a petition from certain
persons forming the Council of the Birmingham Political
Union, which had originally been sent to the Hon. Mem-
ber for Kerry (Mr. O'Connell) for presentation, and he
took the present opportunity of stating that he considered
the complaints made of that Union as roost unfounded.
They had associated together for a legal object, and from
communications which he had had with many of the mid-
land counties, he could state that wherever these Political
Unions had been associated not the slightest disturbance
had t,ken place. It there had been one of these associa-
tions at Derby, and another of them at Nottingham, none
of those di,graceful and shocking scenes which had lately
taken place there would have occurred ; and he was in-
formed by a member of the Birmingham Union, who had
been at Nottingham, that such were the arrangements made
by the Union, that if the slightest dispsition to violence bad
been manifested at Birmingham, it would instantly have
been repressed, and the peace would have been preserved.
He could state of his own knowledge, that in Glasgow and
'Edinburgh the same associations existed, and the members
of them used their influence in preserving the public peace.
They knew that it was only-by such conduct that their