The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-18 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

We regret to find that the Magistrates in the neighbour-
hood of Manchester are charged with reluctance to dis-
charge their duty. The Manchester Guardian, alluding
to the constant incitements to incendiarism and assassina-
tion, the calls on the labouring classes to arm and drill,
with the ultimate view of taking by force what the Legis-
lature may choose to deny, and in the meantime of wreak-
ing vengeance on those they presume to be their enemies,
observes—
" Apparently nothing will be done until some frightful
popular outbreak, or some dreadful secret assassinations
shall have taught the Magistrates by bitter experience
that they have grievously neglected the duties which they have
taken upon themselves. . . . . We understand that
some of the Magistrates in the neighbourhood profess to
rely upon the assistance of Government in this matter;
expecting, we suppose, that Lord John Russell will
either act in their stead, or advise them what they ought
to do in each particular case which may be presented to their
notice. If any such expectations are entertained by the Ma
gistrates, we would advice thole gentlemen to dismiss them at
or.ce ; for most assuredly it is neither the usual practice nor at
all the duty of the Secretary of State to act in such cases, or
to advise the Magistrates how they shall deal with any specific
offence, or any particular offender. They have the law to re-
sort to; and if they see that it is daily broken, to the imminent
danger of the public peace, it is their duty to act at once, with-
out waiting for advice or assistance from the Government, or
from any other quarter. If they do not know when the law is
broken, or if, knowing it, they have not the courage and firm-
ness to interpose for the protection of the public, and the
punishment of the offenders, they are not fit to continue in the
Commission of the Peace, and ought at once to resign the
duties which they are not competent to discharge."
This disposition to rely on others in cases of danger and
difficulty is, we fear, but too common. Magistrates are
most efficient in times when there is no danger ; but we
have generally seen that when there is danger they dread
exposing themselves, their property, or their families to
popular vengeance. Sir Robert Peel sad some years ago
that we had outgrown many of our institutions ; and we
have no doubt the conviction will soon become general
that the police of the country must undergo a thorough
reform. It never will do to leave it to this or that Ma-
gistrate to trust to his neighbour, and make good the pro-
verb that what is every body's business is nobody's busi-
ness. There must in every district be some functionary
specially responsible for its peace, and against whom it
would be a matter of grave impeachment if disorder were
to gain a head. This winter will try severely the value of
our institutions. In most of our great towns there is a
tolerably good police force modelled after that of the me-
tropolis. But throughout the smaller towns and villages
there are really no means of repression. The army is
comparatively small, and cannot be everywhere. It will
be necessary to organize a rural police, or we very much
mistake the signs of the times.—Morning Chronicle.
It was towards the end of November that the Times
newspaper, in referring to the affairs of Ireland, put the
interrogatory to Lord Melbourne's Cabinet—" My Lords
and Gentlemen, what do you mean to do ," We asked
them how far they meant to crawl at the feet of Messrs.
O'Connell, Crotty, &c. ?—of Mr. O'Connell and his Pre-
cursor crew, who, more inveterate than ever in the perse-
cution of Protestants, and of their religion, in the scheme
of utterly extinguishing the Protestant Established Church
—in the conspiracy for overturning the Reform Bill, the
grand " crack" achievement of the " Reform Cabinet,"
by deluging the House of Commons with fifty or sixty ad-
ditional Irish caterans, and robbing the constituency of this
country of an equal number of independent English Pro-
testant votes ? Nobody will deny that such an appeal to the
Queen's advisers was natural, seasonable, and founded on
justifiable reasons. The Queen's Ministershad made avowedly
an original compact with the Romish demagogues and
priests of Ireland to carry on the Government in a Romish
spirit ; that is, by ostensibly upholding O'Connell's pla-
carded measures, and practically bestowing their patronage
on O'Connell's friends ; while the Agitator agreed on his
part, for " self and tail," to make a return in kind, that is,
by the votes of self and tail in Parliament to support these
accommodating Ministers. When, therefore, Mr. Daniel
O'Connell brought forward his prospectus of a new system
of political convulsion, wherein all the worst features of
the original demands produced at Lichfield-house were
frightfully aggravated, and some before unheard-of out-
rages were for the first time insisted on—when the name
of " Precursor" was significantly affixed to an associa-
tion of which the three main objects—that is, the pro-
fessed ones, were to extirpate the Established Church,
to exact Universal Suffrage, and to repeal the Reform
Bill, which purposes were to be accomplished by a
federation of conspirators, bound together by the above
engagements, and operating upon the fears of the Sovereign
and Legislature by an exhibition of physical force, engraft-
ing the seditious or rather insurrectionary denomination of
" fighting men" upon the lawful title of " petitioners,"—
when, we say, such a plot was promulgated by the very
men on whom notoriously the Ministers depended for their
only tenure of office, it was time to ask them (was it not ?)
" What now do you mean to do ?" It is, we acknowledge,
fair to recollect at what period of the year this fresh ini-
quity of the Popish demagogue was prepared. It was
just before the season of his annual extortion from the pau-
per multitude of Ireland. It was just a few weeks previous
to the " riot day," after the general harvest had been got
in, and a portion of it turned into money. He left himself
just breathing time to travel through the country—to call
meetings—to bellow forth brutal denunciations against the
Church and State and British monarchy—to fill the empty
heads of his hungry dupes and half-clad contributors with
chimeras of Irish power, of Popish ascendancy, of an Irish
majority in an Imperial Parliament, an efficient majority,
because it (that is he, O'Connell) would never fail, with
a band of followers so numerous, to hold the balance be-
tween any two parties of English politicians ; or if such
projects could not be realized—nay, if any one of them
should fail of success, why, then he would inflame the bar-
barous crowd to frenzy with threats, and vows, and boasts,
and assurances that the alternative should be nothing short
of a repeal of the Union, and that millennium of all
mockery, a College-green Parliament. This, then, was
before that desecration of the Sabbath called " Rent-Sun-
day." But what happened since ? The rent went on, and
its quantum for the year was decided. The Precursor
agitation went on, and the shilling collection progressed
simultaneously with the rent, to what amount we know
not. O'Connell, after adjuring the country to grant
him a conscription of 5,000,000 of men, about 3,500,000
more than there are adult male Papists in Ireland,
boasted afterwards, or somebody for him, that the
Precursors had subscribed, not five millions of shillings,
but exactly one hundredth part of the sum, viz., 50,000—
no bad haul neither—in augmentation of the rent, being
precisely 2,500/. Well, but, as we said before, what hap-
pened? It happened that after the rent had been collected,
and the popular, or pauper, excitement had done its work
—but not before, observe—the Ministers bethought them-
selves of turning the whole thing to account, and screwing
a trifle of reputation out of it. Accordingly Lord Nor-
manby let it be understood, to the entire amazement of
those "Patriots" who were not in the secret, that no "Pre-
cursor should obtain any description of office under his
Government." Through other channels, likewise, it
was made known—(a letter, for instance, from Mr.
Ponsonby, was one of them)—that the Whigs had
too much conscience—or too little nerve—to come up
to O'Connell's giant standard of precursorship. What,
then, was left for the Agitator ? Oh. it was all right—
only luff up a little. So what does this political trickster
do ? After pocketing—mark the double plunder—the
O'Connell riot, and the entrance money of the Precursors,
be resolves to bag the same amount of patronage from
the Crown as ever, and actually assembles once more
those unspeakable dupes the " Precursors," telling them—
" Herea3tary bondsmen, know ye" this, that I have begged
or bullied you out of your 50,000 shillings for the de-
clared purpose pf destroying the Established Church, of
wringing from the Legislature Universal Suffrage, and of
giving you the Precursors 50 more Representatives in
tee Imperial Parliament, or of forcing a repeal of the
Union. But, as I find on good authority that other
people, to wit, my heretofore obedient vassals the Whig
Ministers, have become for the first time in their lives a
little squeamish, and have even boggled somewhat about
granting the same number of offices on my recom-
mendation as formerly, I now propose that we change a
name or two iu our vocabulary of revolution—that we add
an ounce or two of hypocrisy to the other ingredients of
this Precursor dose, and leave a loophole for Lords Mel-
bourne, Normanby,
&c., to escape through, by striking,
the
for a short time, our insurgent
flag,
decency and hoistingla
" Union" instead thereof,
less shocked, while the corruptthat so
o bargain between me
publicyand
Downing-street remains on the
same comfortable and lu-
crative footing as before.
Yes ; this the manceuvre
is
which the scamp has just been executing b
of the whole world. He has got his money—he has not
lost his patronage—be has done nothing but add some
dozen fresh lies to his catalogue—he has no doubt made
•
his peace with Father Crotty, and is not an atom worse
in quarter
of
in character than he has been any time this
of a century.—Times.

The Roman Papers mention that Cardinal Charles
Odescalchi, aged 53, has resigned the purple, and retired
into the convent of Jesuits at Verona. Odescalchi was the
prelate whom the Romans would have prefered to see ele-
vated to the Papal seat ; but Austrian influence has
hitherto forbid it.

An inquest was held yesterday on the body of an
an Irishman named Ryan, about forty years of age, a porter
in Covent•garden Market, who fell down while attempting
to lift a moderate load, and died shortly after, vomiting
blood. The Jury returned a verdict of "Died by the
Visitation of God."