The Sun.
London, England, 1836-02-23 00:00:00

The Whigs are " going the whole hog." Our
Dublin correspondent gives an account of the proceed-
ings of Lord Mulgrave's Government towards the
Dublin Society, which for the readers' edification, if
not for the credit of his Majesty's Ministers, NYQ re-
convywnd to notice. It appears that in the above so-
ciety, which is of very many . years St4nding, and was
incorporated by charter far literary and scientific pur-
poses, the members Afe admitted by election. Now
" election," an the face of it, means " free choice."
It appears further, indeed it has become notorious,
that when some months ago (we know not how
many) a certain person, who happened to be' a
Romish priest, and titular Bishop of Dublin, Dr.
Murray by name, was proposed for admission into
the Dublin Society, he had not a sufficient alltilltut
of suffrages in his favour—namely, two-third.; of
the whole number who voted, and N-t as conse-
quently set asides There, one 'Would suppose, the
matter might have and there, in ordinary
eases, it would ,lave ended as a thing of course.
But this tuuwd out to be no ordinary case. It was
triv,, of treason. It was no every-day citizen who had
heen offended ; but no less a personage than a Popish
priest, who had been thwarted in his scheme to get
some preparatory hold of an institution, which had
heretofore been partly supported by annual grants
from Parliament—partly, as we understand, by sub-
sicriptions among the members themselves. This re-
buff, therefore, was nothing short of impiety towards
the nomish hierarch—the next thing to Mse-inajeste
against the O'Connell crown, and could be visited
by no milder vengeance than, at the very least, a
coercive process in the nature of a mandamus from
the Popish Lord Deputy resident at Dublin, corn-
peltind• the members of the Dublin Society to re-
. tl
ceive Into their body as many of O'Connell's myr-
midons as he might be pleased to present to them,
with a cong‘• daire iii their pockets. Accord-
ingly we find that the same description of measure,
which was only threatened in the course of last year
by the Whigs, but which, on consultation, they
found to be too strong for the digestion of English-
men, has been resorted to against the refractory men
of science in Dublin, who were audacious enough
to exercise a choice on the question of who should
be their own future associates. The Whig Ministers
intend, it is said, to stop the supplies, unless the So-
ciety shall consent to the proposition of so changing
its by-laws, or of' submitting to such infringements of
its charter,, as shall enable Mr. Daniel O'Connell,
w:ienever he may think fit, to shoot into it whole cart-
loads of agitators, lay or priestly, and perhaps meta-
morphose its lecture-room or library, by-and-by, into
a diurnal theatre of seditious and revolutionary machi-
nation. But let us ask any honourable and reasonable
man, is tyranny like this to be endured ? Suppose a
Protestant gentleman, or a Protestant clergyman, of
rank no matter what, and of character the mast un-
blemished, had stood candidate for admission to the
Society of which we have been speaking, and had failed
to secure the requisite majority of votes, would there
have been this enormous pother made about it? Would
a King's Minister have been so weak or so wanting in
respect fOr himself, for a Scientific Association, for
his offiel. Illider the Crown, or for the Parliament of
which he was a member, as to complain formally,
that an individual had been excluded by a fair exer-
cise of the free right of election, and that for such an
tt offence," new alike in contemplation of law and ina•-i,
hers, the body at large, and the cause of
self, should be punished ? t- :3e.tene cit.
.Its instance of any
Protestant gentleman I.Nivq lAaoihalled, would not
O'Connell's kigiit en ed the very echoes, had
OCci‘l%ta.llcC- beenasaigncd in the House of
ci.ommolls as a. foastokl for diminishing a pecuniary
grant "t(i .I.o,,Anct r Never was humiliation like to
sg VRlVallet (IT SA de
stalling ; never did Minister
tt 11.i.1.P.50f o.an in the face at outs so ludicrous and
S.CV.Va% as he who, at the beginning of last May,
disavowed all politiCal connection of every kind with