The Sun.
London, England, 1825-06-04 00:00:00

E7PIORNING BERALD.]

In the debate the other night on the subject of
releasing Richard Carlile and others from prison,
the Attorney-General said that the prosecutions
in question had had this benefit—that " Palmer's
Principles of Nature" had been put out of
print or circulation altogether. Now the Attor-
ney-General said that which is not true, because
the book is easy to be procured. Had that pub-
lication, however, never been prosecuted, it
would for the most part have been a dead weight
on Carlile's or any publisher's hands. In the
first place, the price was ss. or is., and therefore
the poorer and the middling class did not
purchase it. Secondly, the wording of it
was so far fetched, and so unintelligible to
people possessed of merely common under-
standings, that like many of the productions
of Mr. Jeremy Bentham of late years, people
might have read it, but would have been incapable
of comprending it. When Palmer's book was
prosecuted, we sent for it ; we had never heard
of it, and we asked our acquaintance if they had
heard of such a book ; most said they had not,
some said they had, and had looked at it, but
could not tell what it meant. Of course, our
curio,ity being excited, we turned over a few
leaves. We thought how wrong the Attorney-
General was to have advised the prosecution of
such a book,one thathad comparatively never been
heard of—a book that can hardly he said to have
had an existence. But the cant of that particular
period is fast subsiding. It would not have lived
then, had it not been for Mr. Murray and others
interested in goading on the Association for the
prosecution of Blasphemers. But Mr. Brougham
justly observed, while the Association were pro-
secuting a man for publishing that book, they
had, deposited in their book-cases, books written
by Hume, Voltaire, and others of an infinitely
more dangerous nature, so far as Chrianity was
concerned, and such books they called classical.

THE TEuEs.]
The Bill for the alteration, and not, as some
have supposed, for the abolition of the Quaran-
tine Laws, was read a third time, and passed,
last night. We have alread stated, that all
which was unnecessarily vexatious in the system
ought to be got rid off ; and this alone is the ob-
ject of the present bill. As to the necessity of
caution in a matter so important as a nation's
health, we have more than once expressed a
strong opinion, and most happy are we to see our
view of the question entertained by such men as
Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson. Their autho-
rity, backed, too, by the judgment of the ;ate
eminent Dr. 13ai11ie, will go far to extinguish the
crude theories of two or three rash and hasty
sciolists,even though supported by the credulous
dulness of those who mistake pretensions far sa-
gacity, and oddity for genius.

The management and conduct of Private Com-
-mittees came before the House of Commons, and
was briefly discussed-, on Thursday night, on the
occasion of Mr. W.. 11. Whitbread presenting
a petition against the proceedings of one such
committee on the Oil Gas Company. • It- it
rather singular that all men of hon Our should-
reprobate the practices of these job-committees,
and yet that each should continue by his- pre-
sence to support the existing mischief. From
suclr an imputation, however,- two Honourable
Members rescued themselves,. by declaring that
till the system of private committees was alter-
ed, they would never sit • upon another. Mr.
Calcraft proposed, and we think with reason,
that provisions similar to those of the celebrat-
ed GrenVille Act on elections, should be ap-
plied- to the choice of private committees. It
was stated, that Members but too frequently
came down to the House to vote on questions
which they had 'lever heard discussed. We
should wish to see a more decent practice intro-
duced into Committees first, and then that re-
formation might ascend from the less to the
greater body ;. not that the impurity of the greater
body should be pleaded in palliation of the less.-
-

[MORNING POST.]
• In the House of Commons, last night,. Mr.
,Brougham having discovered that his Bill for
establishing a London University, came within
:th6 description of Private Bills, and ought to
'have been introduced as such, moved that the
Order of the Day for its second reading be dis-
charged, and expressed his intention of. present-
.ing a.Petition on Monday,• for leave to bring in
another Bill in conformity with the.rules of the

House. He then stated that the main object was
to provide education for that very large class who,
from a variety of reasons, were unable or unwilling
to send thtsirsons to Oxford or Cambridge.
The
expence of these Universities could not be less
than 2001. a year. He was stating it lower than
the average really was, and the evil was one of
rapid growth. The regulations of the New In-
stitution, in respect to its expence, would be
that the attendance upon three classes, includ-
ing every branch of education, should be nine
guineas, or three guineas for each class, and one
guinea for the general support of the Institution ;
making in the whole ten guineas annually, instead
of one hundred and eighty or two hundred gui-
neas, the lowest rate at which a person could
educate his son at one of the existing Universities.
A short conversation afterwards arose on the 3d
reading of the Quarantine Bill, in the course of
which Mr. Secretary Canning reprobated the ab-
surdity and evil of the speculations on such topics
as the Plague, as these speculations in England
had induced Foreign States to make their
Quarantine Laws more severe against us. If
these Gentlemen wished to make experiments,
it should be on their own persons and not on
the interests of a whole nation. The Bill, it
now appears, proceeds on the principle " that
the present quarantine system is to be main-
tained as strictly as ever." A Bill for re-
storing to the Mauritius all the advantages
which that island enjoyed during its connection
with France, by placing it on the same footing as
the British West India colonies, was read a se-
cond time last night, after some opposition, and
a division, in which it was supported by a ma-
jority of 37 to 14. The Bill to allow the Uni-
tarians to celebrate their own Marriages was de-
bated in the House of Lords last night; on the
question of the second reading, and rejected by a
majority of four ; the numbers being—for the
Bill 52, against it 56.

[MORNING CHRONICLE.?
That men of the rank and station in society
of Members of Parliament, should have such
very loose notions regarding justice, as to vote in
Committees on private Bills without hearing the
evidence, would hardly be believed by foreign-
ers, who are almost incessantly stunned with eulo-
gies oli("the high and honourable feelings of
English Gentlemen. Yet, of the twenty-eight
Members who divided in the Committee on
the Oil Gas Bill, there were many who never
hear a word of the evidence, and who were ut-
terly unacquainted with the merits of the ques-
tion on which they yet. presumed to vote. Several
of those who voted were, no doubt, parties inte-
rested; but we are not now speaking of them ; we
are speaking of those to whom no direct interest
can be traced for.the part they acted. They pass
as honourable men in the world, and if invited to a
dinner, they would not imitate the conduct of some
of the Sicillian Nobles at our mess dinners when
our army occupied their native country—they
would not carry off the fragments in their pockets,
an act of meanness, which being new to the
one party, was of course Viewed with due abhor-
rence. If it were not, however, customary for
honourable men of rank in this country to
consent to perpetrate an act of gross injustice
merely to oblige a friend, we think that the
perpetrators themselves would 'admit that it i 4
not easy to do a more wicked thing. But cus-
tom is every thing. 14,-t us see what it is •that
the Member who contents to vote on such a case
does. lie deprives one party of property with-
out a cause—that is, he literally itts that
party. If a person were to say to anoihkr, oblige
me by going into the street, and take the 'hat
from that man's head and bring it to me—the.
person so addressed would stare at the person
making such a request to him. But in what
would this act differ from groundlessly- voting
away property from one party to another ?
Only in this, that • the one act can be done
with impunity, and the other cannot. The
Italian in the neighbourhood of a sanctuary, had
as little scruple with regard to lending his arm
to a friend, as certain Members have in lending
their votes. It was the custom of the. coun-
try. When Buonaparte made it a point of
conscience to execute summary justice on every
assassin, the Italian conscience received a new
light. In this country petty transfers of property
are punished,—wholesale transfers escape un-
punished. The Highlander, charged with steal-
ing a cow, indignantly exclaimed that he had not
stolen one cow, but twelve cows. If the magni-
tude of an evil form a justification of it, the voters
in question in Committees have such a justification
with a vengeance.