The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-28 00:00:00

elloning 21t11;

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1849.

The so-called Religionists are at it again ! Again
are our ears stunned with the cries of" Sabbath
Desecration !" Of all elasses certainly in the United
Kingdom these gentlemen are the most thin-
skinned and sensitive. Call a mackerel in the streets,
and they are all but fainting. Let the potboy go his
rounds precociously, say by two minutes, rattling his
cans against the area railings, and summoning the
cook with his feline cry of " Be-er !" and they are
very nearly in a state of asphyxia. Let an ungodly
engine come wheezing up to any one of the platforms
on the Scottish Central Railway on a Sunday, and
they are ready to expire, or explode, or give some
other alarming indication of their astonishment. It
is recorded of EBENEZER SCROOGE that when he saw
the two back buttons of his coat through the
transparent ghost of JACOB MARLEY, he then
recognized for the first time how true the
neighbours had been when they declared of his
deceased partner that he had no bowels. We require
no such evidence from an apparition to remove any
incredulity as to the same observation applied to
thewsanctimonious Sabbatarians. After their humane
and magnanimous proceeding towards her Grace the
Duchess of SUTHERLAND it would be rather difficult
to view each a remark when directed towards them

as in any degree libellous. We have learnt by a
• bitter experience that although they might, and
would unquestionably extricate, on any day out of
the seven, the ox who had fallen into the pit for the
sake of their pockets, they would be disposed to
bellow out ',pretty loudly against whosoever might
presume to cull the ripe corn• ears in harvest time,
at any hour between sundown on Saturday and
sunrise on Monday. For all that they would do
to remove the possibility of such calamities—the
aged parent might breathe his last without seeing his
children, the victims of sudden disease might remain
unaided by the skill of a physician, the merchant
might be ruined, because a train should not run, a
hack should not be saddled, a letter should not be
posted at certain weekly intervals. Manifestly these
persons pray according to a punctilio. They may
disclaim any sympathy with the " mummeries" of
this or that order of the priesthood, but it is never-
theless sufficiently clear that they are themselves im-
measurably more stringent sticklers for the forms of
worship and the ceremonies of morality. They dream of
escaping condemnation by a strict attention to the
rubric—they dream of going to heaven by the card.
01 a truth these men must be none other than the
lineal descendants of those foolish Galatians whom
Saint PAUL reprimanded fur their excessive attention
to rules, days, and seasons. They would love GOD
according to the Rule of Three. They would work
out their salvation as they would the veriest sum in
arithmetic—the laws of the Kirk the " Divisor" and
everlasting felicity the " Quotient." It may be that
for inasmuch as we cannot remain silent when
Cant b3comes thus rampant, and when Humbug
assumes a tone so exquisitely and intolerably domi-
neering, it may be that we, for protesting thus

ditinctly and emphatically against the dictum of
Hypocrisy, stall fall under their reprobation as among
„,,, the outcast and the reprobate. As ErHaAm SMOOTH,
-P'-in thocomedy, avers to Lady AMARANTH, "Verily, I
was blireeted by SATAN in the form of a young
maiden ;" these EPURAM SMOOTHS of society may ex-
claim that verily they were buffetted by BEELZEBUB in
the guise of a carnal-minded and heathen journalist.
We care not—but must speak, and speak plainly too,
for our whole soul abhors this miserable mockery of
religion, this pestilent assumption of sanctity,
this contemptible and pitiable masquerade of
holiness. Away with it ! or we shall witness
here, us elsewhere, the excessive recoil produced by
the principle of reaction. If these Sabbatarian folks
be permitted to rush into one extreme, the rest of the
community may be driven into the other, out of that.
' sentiment of sheer opposition. Loving and ,reve-
rencing goodness as •we do from the innermost core
of our nature, we are compelled) by the very depth
of that devotion, to protest against this wretched

affectation of sanctity—this atrabilious pretence of
sobriety—this cynical sham of all that is pure, and
beautiful, and divine in Christianity.
Recent improvements in many of the venerable
Country edifices dedicated to the service of the Omni-
potent GOD have brought to light proofs of
.an ignorance, a pig-headedness, a stupidity,
and a barbarism in some intermediate generation of
our ancestors, such:as it would be found impossible to
exceed or even parallel elsewhere, we believe, even in
the most benighted community. Exquisite tesselated
pavements have been found to have at some period or
other been caked over with earthen tiles; the
sculptured. shafts .of marble pillars to have been
covered with the commonest plaster; and very lately,
in one of the village churches of England it was dis-
covered that the rich oak pews and reading-desks had
been whitewashed t Now, morally these Sabbatarians
are to us as these tiling,'plastering, and whitewashing
dolts were actually ; the hiders of all
that is most lovely, attractive. and effi-
cacious in the ordonations of religion. We feel
towards them (only in an infinitely greater degree)
as we have always felt towards that miseral ignoramus
who had SHAKSPERE'S bust at Stratford-on-Avon—a
bust originally giving the colour of his eyes, the hue
of his hair and beard, and the bloom of life upon his
countenance—scraped, or washed, or treated in some
other equally horrible and sacrilegious manner. Pre-
cisely in this way, only to an intensity multiplied in
proportion to the degree in which our reverence for
morality exceeds our homage for SHAKSPEKE, do we
feel towards these miserable little emmets of Sabba-
tarians.

They have been putting themselves out of the way
vastly during the last day or two, And all about
90me- cock-and-a-bull Story respecting a reported

alteration in the arrangements of the General Post
office. Meetings have been agitated, petitions have I
been drawn up for signature, abusive letters have
been written and printed, elaborate diatribes have
been concocted and put into circulation. SATAN
had got hold of the authorities at Saint Mar-
tin's .le-Grand ! Ungodliness had: descended like
a pall upon the Government ! There was to be joy
and exultation in the ranks of infidelity, for the
abomination of desolation had already entered
into the heart of London, within the very
shadow of Saint Paul's Cathedral—there was
to be a metropolitan delivery and transmission
of letters on Sundays, the sorters, the clerks, the
postmen were to be given over en masse to the
Wicked One, seeing that henceforth they would be
prevented from attending Diviue service on the
" Sabbath." Well I and after-all this fuss—the- whole
affair turns out to be a mere flarn ! No little shrimp
of a schoolboy was ever more egregiously cheated
by a tallow-candle, a sheet, and a turnip. Here have
these pious gentlemen been roaring about another
desecration of the Sabbath enough to split the drums
of our ears—and lo! the cause of all this unearthly
hubbub proves on examination to be—nothing more than
a false report! In another colunin of this very evening's
impression of our jourual will
,be found an authenti-
cated statement that the measure in question has
been " altogether misunderstood." The new ar-..
rangements, it will be :seen from that announcement,
" instead of adding to' the SandaY duties In the
Post-office department, will, on :,Me.. whole,s_very
greatly reduces them; end will not bring in or take
out a single • London letter." So I Messieurs the
Sabbatarians, having made yourselves supremely
ridiculous, we have the honour to wish you good day
for the present—and no more nightmares !

When in former leading articles we adverted to the
distressing massacre at Dolly's-brae, and the subsequent
investigation, we did so with a gentle hand—we were
unwilling to wound the feelings of those who gave
countenance and support to a demonstration termi-
nating in so fearful a catastrophe. We wereun-
willing to believe that men of high station, and amiable
in private life, could knowingly and wilfully sanction
and encourage proceedings if they could have
anticipated that such proceedings would eventuate in
scenes of spoliation and bloodshed. We did not give them
credit for wisdom, but we were unwilling to believe
them wicked ; we had hoped that when they saw
the fearful results of their folly that, impressed with
feelings of the bitterest remorse, they would
submit to the laws they had so disgracefully violated,
and which many of them had sworn to vindicate and
maintain. With feelings of pain are we obliged
to confess our error. We now see that we gave those
men credit for feelings which they did not possess.
We are now constrained to believe that their wicked-
ness is paramount to their folly, and that there can be
no peace in Ireland—and we would aimost say there
ought not to be—while such men are allowed to
exercise the slightest power or authority fiver any
portion of their fellow-subjects.
To these conclusions we have been led by the
appearance of one of the most rampant and atrocious
manifestoes that ever disgraced the pen or lips of even
an Irish Orangeman, emanating from a Mr. WILLIAM
BEERS, one of the Orange magistrates, who took a
most active and disgusting part in the law-breaking
and blood-shedding at Dolly's-brae. This gentleman,
holding her ]MAJESTY'S commission of the peace, ap-
pears to glory in the valorous achievements of his
blood-thirsty brothers. He says, " The defeat and
capture of the dastardly and contemptible ruffians are
things to be gloried in and to be thankful for." Yet
this is a magistrate, sworn to dispense equal and
impartial justice between those same "dastardly and
contemptible ruffians," in the shedding of whose blood
he glories, and the deluded and ignorant Orangemen
of the North, whom he holds in a blind and servile
obedience, stirring up their worst passions by keeping
alive the remembrance of bygone feuds, and holding
them ever ready to be hallooed against their fellow-
man, to gratify a base", unmeaning, and malignant
spirit l This minister of piiace reminds his inof-
fensive brother Orangemen of the memory of
Scullabogue, tells them of the musket, the pike, and
all the deadly armoury of " Popish miscreants," uses
every ferocious epithet tending to stir up rancour,
hatred, and ill-will amongst her MAJESTY'S subjects.
He omits no scene of strife or blood calculated to
make the sanguinary scenes of Dolly's brae per-
petual. This justice of the peace goes farther. He
dares—defies the British Government to interfere
with his loyal and harmless brothers in the gallant
sport of shooting their fellow- subjects. He says—

But, brethren, be convinced that the impudent and
artful dodge will not do; and that if the Government
of the country, through any pretence whatsoever, to please
either priests or rebels, lend any, the slightest counte-
nance or suiction to any foul play against the Orange
body or Orangemen, they will be only cutting their own
throats, weakening their own power, showing forth their
own inconsistency, and earning for themselves both the
distrust and scorn of those on whose strong right arms
their chief reliance was placed in 1848."

'We cannot follow this gentleman farther in his fa-
tuous
strain of brutish bombast—the cool audacity
with which he puts forward the preposterous notion
that the Government of this country mainly relied on
the strong arms of a handful of paltry bigots, in a
narrow corner of Ireland, to put down an anticipated
insurrection. Our forty thousand troops were as
nothing compared with the loyal heroes of Dolly's-
brae, with two or three parsons and the valorous
BEERS at their head. This man's braggadocio under
other circumstances would only excite ridicule or con-
tempt, and we should be disposed so to treat it, if the
due administration of justice were not concerned. We
believe the British Government is well aware where
to seek the support of unconditional loyalty. We
believe the British Government would place more re-'
liance upon the moral influence of that slandered and
loyal priesthood which Mr. BaEus, in his rampant
bigotry, places' in the category of rebels than in the
arms of Mr. BEER'S "ragged regiment." These
Ulster Loyalists would find themselves more at home,
regaling themselves on the good things of
their Grand Master at Tollmore Park,
than in facing the deadly pike the
weapon they appear to hold in such horror—on the
mountains of Tipperary, one-half of the stalwart na-
tives of which county would, we believe, charge every
Orangeman in Ireland into the sea. We trust the
Government of this country will know how to: deal
with Mr. BEERS and his brother justices. It is im-
possible to suppose that that this gentleman can any
longer be allowed to bring discredit on the justice.
seat, the law into contempt, and the country to ruin.
Can this man, who could scarcely prevail on himself
to call the shedding of the blood of; his .fellow-man
" a blot on the triumph of the day," be longer con-
tinued a justice of the peace? If so, we can only
say we can neither expect peace nor justice in Ireland.

POST-OFFICE SUNDAY DUTIES.
We are authorised to contradict the statements
which have appeared in several of this morning's
papers as to the intentions of the Postmaster-General
with reference to Sunday mails. The object of the
measure in question has been altogether misunder-
stood; instead of adding to the Sunday duties in the
Post-office deortment, it will, on the whole, very
greatly reduce them, and it will not bring in or take
out a single London letter. It is unnecessary, there
fore, to say that there will be neither delivery nor
collection of letters in London on the Sunday. Out
of London the Sunday deliveries will be reduced.

COURT-MARTIAL ON LIEUT.
GRAHAM AND MASTER ELLIOTT.
TO TEE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SlR,—Owing to a fatal mistake in pronouncing
sentence on the above persons, I think that a court of
law would liberate them on a writ of Habeas Corpus.
The mistake consists in first dismissing them the ser-
vice, and then sentencing them to imprisonment. By
the sentence of dismissal they became civilians, and
no longer amenable to martial law, consequently they
are illegally imprisoned Had the Court first sen-
tenced them to twelve months' imprisonment, and after
that period to be dismissed the service, no person
could cavil at the sentence.
I am, Sir, your constant reader,
SPECTATOR.

THE Brsnor OF LLANDAFF.-----
We are gratified to
learn that accounts were received in town yesterday
morning from Hardwick° Hall, near Chepstow, which
convoy
more favourable news of the Right Rev. Prelate's
health, Most sanguine hopes are entertained of his phi•
mate restoration to health.

THE SUN,