The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC_ JOURNALS.

Those who are in the habit of reading Par
mentary reports cannot have overlooked the com-
parative frequency with which the daily Press wa,
alluded to by Hon. Members in the course of last
week's discussions; nor will it be forgotten with
what species of notice the political character of the
Press was honoured, or by what side of the House.
The " venal" Press—the " tyrannical" suggestion,
of the Press—the " shameful and audacious me-
naces used by the Press to deter Members from the
conscientious discharge of their duty the im-
pudent dictation of an arbitrary Press, which, base
as it was, had acqnired such an ascendancy in tht
country, that there was now no resisting it,"—the
" violent persecution" cf the Press against Mr.
Baring, &c. There is no question (and we de-
voutly trust there riev! r will be any) that the News-
paper Press of England, regarded as a whole, does
exercise a great ascendancy over the nation. As
Englishmen, no less than journalists, we fee;
a deep interest not only in the immediate pre-
servation of that moral influence, but in ifs
continuance and extension for ages after we
and our labours shall have been alike forgotten,
because our firm persuasion is, that tile Press of

England concentrates, represents, and distributes
that power by which a civilized community can best
be held together—the force of opinion as contrasted
with that of the bludgeon, the firebrand, and the
lode. When Members of l'arliament get up in
their places and employ strong terms of reproach
against the Press, because of its hostility to their
party objects, does it never occur to them how un-
:viee they are to confess their own little estimation
it, that quarter with which the Press must, by the
very nature of things, be identified—we mean the
whole reading body of the people ? 'We affirm, that
the portion of the Press which sways in arty sensible
degree the mind of political society, cannot en-
joy such influence but through honest and sa-
lutary means. If a newspaper, or any periodi-
cal production, were to insult its readers by state-
ments which were generally, or indeed more than
very rarely and accidentally, untrue,—with appeals
to feelings which were not warranted by justice,—
by a resort to arguments not founded on reason, or
a subserviency to interests which were not broad
and national, but on the contrary, selfish, mean, and
narrow,—what would be the consequence to the
proprietors of such Journals? Why, they would
excite against themselves the disgust and contempt
of the great mass of society, whose welfare it was
their aim, or at least their tendency, to impair; and
they would leave a victorious field for the sagacity
and ambition of rival Journalists to act upon; and
thus their efforts at mischief, or their incapacity for
good, would cease at once to be lucrative to them-
selves, and injurious to the rest of a community.
We regretted to see Sir Robert Peel, the other
evening, expose himself, as he certainly did, to
ridicule, by the mode in which he attempted to reta-
liate upon the hostility entertained and expressed
towards his present line of conduct by the Times.
But if Sir Robert Peel lost his temper, we shall
take warning, and not follow the example. We
may help to explain what it is that constitutes the
real power of the Press, and what would assuredly
and almost immediately effect the downfall of its
most prosperous members, by alluding for a moment
to the relatim between this gentleman and ourselves,
since the cause of Reform so fiercely contested
within the walls of l'arliement has been the object
.of unanimous approbation throughout the country,
and more especially with regard to the mode of our
attack upon him. and his reply to us in Thursday
night's debate. Had we been so iniquitous and ma-
lignant ac to mix up with our attack upon Sir Re-
bert Peel's guidance of the Anti-lieform opposition
in the House of Commons, any such aspersions
on his private character, as the weekly (and we
are ashamed to say the daily) prints, which affect
to be the present organs of the Tory party,
pour out everlastingly against the Miniaters and
other reforming Statesmen, the brutal wickedness
would not have injured riir R. Peel, but would have
recoiled upon ourselves. Had we accused the Terry
Baronet of being an unkind mastee, an oppressor of
the poor, an inhospitable neighbour, faithless
friend, a heartless brother, an undutiful son, a pro-
fligate husband—or liar! tire, like the miscreants
above alluded to, barbarously :laddered the vir-
towns females of iris family—nay, even oe points of
smell comparative importance, had we denie.q. Sir
Robert to be a scholar and a gentleman, or a multi,
a-Icent encourager of the arts—what again would
have followed ? Should we have exhibited the re-
sit:gess power of the Press ? Should we, in any
cue sense, have justified the foolish theory of those
who ascribe to the daily Journals a sort of black
magician's force, neither capable of opposition nor
explanation ? No, no '; The Times would have
then been a traitor to the Liberty of the Press,
All ifs own contemporaries would have con-
demned it to the same infamy As that into
which the weekly rereiles have . feller). No
Member of the House of Commons would Kaye
owned to reading such ignominious rubbish, and Sir
Robert Peel himself, instead of being worked up
into a fury of " ind titfence" at our sudacious lan-
guage, would have enjoyed silently that "con-
tempt" with which our real " baseness" and iglue
ranee of the ceiling of. honourable journalists must
have inspired him. But private character is held
sacred by this Paper. " Contempt," however, is
an ugly term, and that appears among the reported
expressions of Sir Robert Peel, in alluding; to the
Press in genera!, and as it would seem intended
snore directly fur the Times. It is impossible for
Sir Robert Peel to entertain contempt for the
Time:, and his affectation of the sentiment only
got him laughed at. It is impossible, we repeat,
for any intelligent man like Sir Robert Peel
to despise a power which acts so vigorously,
but which crumbles into dust the- moment in
which its moral foundations of truth, pod sense,
and general integrity, sink frorrr under it. Where
has the Press any other than forces like these to
rest upon ? Where arc to be found its bayonets ?
Where its predatory boroughs ? The Press is called
by some babblers, venal! What is the evidence for
such a charge ? If venality be imputable to any cla-s
of Englishmen, look not to the columns of newspa-
pers for your proofs,—tool: to the red book,—to the
reports of Parliament,—to the lists of pensions and
sitiecures,—to colonial functionaries twenty deep,—
to mercenary Lords, to pamphleteering, jobbing,
mitre-bunting dignittries of the Church,—to the in-
numerable tribes of vermin, bred within the folds of
that poisonous mantle, which has wrapped for ages,
and gradually numbed the Herculean might of Eng-
land, Even on any Aristocratic prineiple, Sir
Peel lute no right to take airs in talking of azt isitel-
'cease! power, wielded in malty instances by me.-r
who, accordiug to the drawiegaeoorn sense of the
word,—a sense which he no doubt despises as e
do, but better undastood, and more fond!), che-
rished, by some of the aight Hon. Baronet's 'fore
friends,—miglit call thereee:res " his betters!'
Sir Robert Peel owes his wealth to the homeli-
nese of his origin. There are gentleesee, we be-
lieve, cennee:ed with the Press, proprietors of ;tend
writers for it, who might have. been as rich as he,
if their fathers had not been, to use ;:,he silly language
of that day, too well born to condescend to the
condition of weaver.:' Is that to their coedit?
- Bah!, Or a reproach to #fir Robert Peel's history
The rational world honours Nal and iris immediate
ancestor tin. more. But it is a bone to gnaw for
thoge wretched puppies who yelp out theierteerulous
insolence from day t.o. day, as if English jourrtai;sts
might not be found win: were, even in their own
cliddisli view of thing., ae ells other respects,
" their betters." Will any of thes individuals pre-
person, a geestleman
slime to ad'dr'ess by nasees or in
connected in any
departmera of .
the Presa, the dut.itea!
of which require liberal education:,lai.riguage_
\Tr-
plying disparagement .to him or his prosession ? e
suspect not.
't' not There ig, however, another eider of
libellistr, for it is plain that the ass can be libelled,
who speak of it as being " a thing of straw'
"7
-as
thing without "prop erty," without a stake in the

country,"—as here to-day, arid migiatory to-morrow
These men may not be reprehensible for more than
a total ignorance on the subject. A London news-
paper is not " a thing of stia,,v." Uur contempc-
raries, and thousands of other well-informed persons,

tvill hear us cut in saying, that there is nothing more
difficult to establish, no property more impossible to
remove or to transfer, without at once destroying it.
Mr. Baring may have warehouses all over Europe,
for aught we know, or in the United States, with
the commerce of which his house has been as much
connec!ed, whether in peace or war,— that is, to the
extent to which the law allowed of,—as with English
commerce. Mr. Baring's partners, or those who
were his partners, might transport themselves and
their clerks, and their bills of exchange, and sell their
counting-houses, and be off next week to any part
of the habitable world, and there carry on a trade as
flourishing as here, and create new interests and
imbibe fresh sympathies, and feel no more concern
for England than if they had never seen her,—no
more than any partnership of Jews. In that sense,
merchants hare no country. Is it so with that species
of property which we manage, and which (considered
as property) supports us in return ? No stake in
the country ! Drive a London newspaper from
England,—nay, from London itself,—and what be-
comss of the 1, hole concern ? It is extinct. Mr
Bating might as well freight a sh'p for New York
with his borough of Callington, as we move our
establishment to any other spot upon the globe. The
Times office is as much fixed and rooted here, as is
Lord Fitnvilliana's estate in Yorkshire. Carry off

the types if you will ; but what becomes of the
connexion ?—what of the readers ?—what of the

100 families and upwards which it here maintains
—all in decency, many in comfort, some in a liberal
independence, a few in considerable affluence? No
stake in the country ! Deprive England of her in-
ternal peace, her order, riches, intelligence, and
prosperity, and see what class of professions or of
property will experience a more signal downfall than
the successful portion of the now existing Press;
and if such be our stake in the public weal, has the
nation no stake in ours ? What may be the pre-
cise case with some of our respectable brethren
we know not, but the receipts at the Treasury
can tell that this single journal pays per annum more
than 70,0001. for stamps! Which of the small
coxcombs who torment the House of Commons, but
who will never more find access there, has so con-
tributed to the necessities of his country? We shall
probably not notice further the mock-heroic decla-
mations against the daily Press. They are not ut-
tered, except in the single case of Sir Robert Peel,
and that in an angry moment, by those whose judg-
ments or general character need give us or our bre-
thren much uneasiness. The value of the Press as
a moral power is, that it cannot live after it ceases to
be approved by the reason of an enlightened people ;
and that when any member of it wants Reform,
that member must reform itself, or if not perish—
sink into hopeless misery and contempt. If printing
and publishing were all that is required to form the
" power" complained of, Carlile, Taylor, and Cob-
bett, would have as much influence over society as
this or any other journal. What has become of
them, we demand, and what are the causes of their
ruin ?—Times.

It has long been the boast of our constitutions,
writers, that all the privileges of Parliament which
obarruct the course of public justice are abolished
and at end; and yet a Committee of the House of
Commons has been occupied the greater part of the
past week in hearing the argument of some of its
own Members in support of one of the worst of
those privileges, and which, if established, will, be-
yond all doubt, annul by far the most useful branch
of the jurisdiction now vested in the Chancellor.
This is to us no small matter of surprise; but our
surprise is, we own, immeasurably increased when
aria men as Sir James Scarlett and Mr. Serjeant
Wilde are found leagued with the P—ls and the
C—hs in arrogating for a guilty Member of the
body to which they belong an exemption from that
punishment which the law of the realm has most
wisely awarded to other, but less exalted, offenders.
Sir James had, indeed, already impaired his cha-
racter as a friend of public liberty—but not so his
learned coadjutor; and yet, prole pudor ! the first
act of hint whom the nobie-minded electors of
Newark have sent to Parliament as the champion of
a free and equal participation and enjoyment of civil
rights, is to claim for himself and colleagues an im-
munity which would render null a large portion of
the authority of a Court, than which, as he well
know:, ;one is better adapted to protect the per-
sons and preserve the properties of the most help-
less part of his Majesty's subjects—by frustrating the
heartless scheme of the fortune-hunter, and detect-
ing and punishing the secret fraud of the guardian
and trustee. Lord Broughanr's order for the corn-
Initial of Mr. Long Wellesley to the Fleet was
obtained upon the application of Sir Edward Sugden,
and v;ei: consequential upon an order made by Lord El- •
don, and subsequently affirmed by the House of Lords
(so that the contempt was two-fold—of the highest
Court of Judicature as well as of the ,Great Seal) ;
and no Judge who ever sat in a Court of Equity,
no advorate who ever practised in it—not paid to
argue ditierendye--ever doubted that such a power
is inherent in the Chancellor. His right is derived
from the Clown—the general and supreme guardian
of c',l infants—and lie is still entitled to use the
same sumeoary and coercive means for the protec-
tion of the persop of his wards as were formerly
exercised by the King, and aftenyards by the tJuncii
or the Parliament. Several Statutes have made the
offence of Mr. Wellesley a criminal offence ; but no
lawyer, •unialtireneed by faction or by vanity, will
venture to assert that it was not such by the corn.
aeon law—or that before the jurisdietion became
tested in the Chancellor, the Serjeant at Arms,
who, althougla he attends 'the Chancellor, is still
the officer of the House of Lords, was hot com-
monly employed by the Parliaeereot arid the Council
to seize and incarcerate those who withheld the
persorie of wards, although Peers, Knights of
tbu
Shire, or bt:rg,2.sses, and in despite of a privilege
which, indeed, was ',ever heard of until now. In
truth, all those conversant with the history of the
Court of Chancery are aware that the only means
which that tribunal formerly possessed of enforcing
is decrees ws by imprisonment, arid those who
affirm the existence of this privilege should be
prepared to show in what way the Court, at
.that period, executed the numerous decrees against
Peers ari4 Commoners, which are still preserved
at the Tower and the Chapel of the Rolls. The
jurisdiction is, from x,he nature of it, a mixed juris-
tion, partly criminal arid partly civil. No order is
requisite to constitute an infant ward of the Chan-
cellor. It is sutilelent that such infant be a party
to a suit; and then, although the object of the suit
be altogether foreign to the administration of the
inisaa property, and the existence of the suit be
unknown, re..cent to the parties and their solicitors,
yet all persons' aa.;;;:tiog in carrying off the ward
have always been punished oe, guilty of a gross con-
tempt., That punishment is close i...-pprisoninent;
nor are there any fixed limits to its doration,
Although it has I:aro:My terminated upon the execu-
in.)n of a settlement of the iiefapt's property, expressly
framed to prevent the wrong doe: from deriving
any peei,toary advantage from his offence. This is
the law of the IL:ourt of Chancery, and this for cen-
turies has been tire general law of the land ; from
which neither Peer or Comtpotic; has been hitherto
exempt. 7t would be strange indeed, if Acts ex-
pressly passed to restrain the privilege of Parba-
ment, which derogated fecrn the common law, were
construed to create an immunity Elia, wee previously
unknown. We trust, however, that the Commit.
tee has.: teeo much sense to report in favour of tire
exemption conteo4eof for; but should they be mis-
led by the miscalled ft;e;;d: of liberal itistitutiorP,
there can be no doubt the House repudiate
and re:,,e.ct a privilege that. would only serve io open
its doors tow hosteof adventurers against whom a
writ of sequestration c..euld be of no avail. Since
writing the above it occurs to us to inquire what
will become of the summary jueiadietion of the
Mort° over c•trorner, should the pernicious priyilege