The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-08 00:00:00

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LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 8, 1836.

The Meeting which was held yesterday at Guildhall, for
the total abolition of the Stamp-duty on Newspapers, will not
fail. to produce a powerful effect, not only in the quarter
from which relief is expected, but throughout the wbole
country. The advocates of a monopoly of knowledge—

those heartless and sordid wretches who would debar the
people from political instruction to fill their own pockets—
will not now say that the citizens of London are indifferent
to this great question. The proceedings of yesterday afford
a noble, and to many we doubt not, an unexpected illustra-
tion of the popular feeling of the metropolis on this vital
point. Those who have had the longest experience of City
Meetings, declare (that they never saw one so numerously
attended, or one which excited so intense an interest. Not
only was the immense Hall completely thronged, but thou-
sands of persons were unable to gain admission.
We. need not say, that the object of the Meeting has our
most heorty concurrence. If there is one thing which
ought to be more free than another to the people, it is
Knowledge ; every thing, therefore, that impedes its widest
dissemination is an encroachment on their rights. It is
also an insult to their understandings. For what do the
monopolists say ? Why this—" We do not deny that
the people have a right to the most extensive circula-
tion of Knowledge, but we are afraid they would
make a bad use of it." This is their argument, and a more
ridiculous one never was broached ; for upon the same prin-
ciple, the Press ought to be extinguished. Who does not
know that the greatest blessings under Heaven may be
abused? But arc we, on that account, to deny ourselves
the blessings? Shall we not breathe the air, because we may
inhale infection ? Are we not to swallow food lest we
should be poisoned? Must we put out our fires for
fear of being- burnt to death ? And, lastly, must our
reason—that divine principle which distinguishes us
from the brutes—lie dormant because its exercise may
sometimes lead us to erroneous conclusions? Yet not less
absurd is the argument of those who arc afraid to trust the
people with KnoWledge.
The speeches delivered on this occasion were excellent.
The iniquity of the tax in principle, and its pernicious con-
sequences in practice, were illustrated by several speakers
with great effect.
Mr. TRAVERS spoke with great point and force.
Mr. GROTE opened the business of the day with an
argumentative and luminous address. Mr. HuME
and Mr. B. WOOD showed, by comparing the Newspaper
circulation of ether countries with that of our own, how
mischievously the tax operated ; and Mr. O'CoNNELL,
—who, by the bye, was received in a manner that must
have satisfied the most boundless vanity—delighted the
audience with one of those eloquent harangues which never
fail to electrify his hearers.

Lord FRANCIS EGERTON brought forward last night,
what some wag of the Wetherall school taught him to de-
nominate an " Amendment" upon the Irish Corporation
Bill ; the debate upon which occupied the House of Com-
mons during the greater part of the evening, and was
finally adjourned over till this day. In their desperation
the Tories are resolved to play a deep game. They were
Conservatives—idolaters of the wisdom of our ancestors—
worshippers of old parchment about a month ago ; now
they are Destructives in the most sweeping sense of that term.
They are no longer for calm and deliberate approaches to
the citadel of corruption ; they no longer entreat Eng-
lishmen to pause and consider what a SHERLOCK or a

SACHEVERELL would Lave thought of moving at
a qu:elc race in tl e path of Reform. They can
see without Convocaticn spectacles ; and understand with-
out consulting RYmEn, or those black-letter authorities,
who if they do not supply arguments to convince, afford
dust wherewith to blind a political opponent. The leaders
of the Tory party have taken the lead of the Radicals.
They are for no mending—no patching up of a rotten
system. Where Ministers propose to employ the pruning-
knife, they are for substituting the axe. " The Irish Cor-
poration tree is unsound," argue the Ministers ; " then
why cumbereth it the ground ?" shout the Tories in virtu-
ous indignation. "If you dress it, an enemy may gather
the fruit ; let us then destroy it root and branch. You are
pledged to abolish abuses ; what has no existence is liable
to no abuse." Thus, self is the root of all Tory patriotism.
The heart of that corrupt faction—now nearly extinct—
never felt a throb in favour of genuine liberty. Its chiefs
never cared a rush for the Constitution of Great Britain,
except so far as it might be made the instrument OT enrich-

ing themselves. Thus, the moment the Legislature proposes
to reform the municipal Government of the country—to
give the majority of the citizens a right to controul the
expenditure of their own money, and to elect those by
whom they arc to be governed—the Tories start up, and
in utter disregard of all that they have been in the habit of
urging for the last hundred and fifty years, protest that, the
Corporations are so bad, that the evil can only be eradicated
by abolishing them altogether. We hear no more of

the venerableness of civic institutions—of the neces-
sity of toasting, at the public expense, the " Glori-
ous and Immortal Memory"—nor of the impossibility
of wresting from the champions of the Church mili-
tant those arms with which, in the language of the faction,
" they have beaten down the altars of Popery." Oh ! the

ingratitude of these Tories ! Have they so soon reconciled

themselves to abandon early recollections and associations.
as thus to goad on Ministers to the destruction of their
youthful haunts—of those bowers of bigotry and hot-beds
of persecuting intolerance, which supplied them with the
political going-stools:vrhich enabled them to tread the mazes
of official aggrandizement ? Have they no bowels of com-
passion, that they thus kick down the idols of defunct

'
Orangeism ?
The most celebrated of SOLOMON'S judgments is that

in which he detected the spurious mother, by her willing-
ness to sacrifice the child, rather than it should be given to
her opponent. The real parent preferred the safety of her
infant, to the gratification of her maternal yearnings. In
the precedent left us by the King of ISRAEL, we have an
exact counterpart of the Whig and Tory struggle for the
reform of the Irish Corporations. The Tories—the spu-
rious guardians of liberty—are for abolishing the munici-
palities, rather than allow the majority of the Irish people
to participate in the advantages conferred by institutions,
which, according to themselves, not twelve months ago,
" could not be abolished without endangering the Con-
stitution of these kingdoms." Before it was contem-
plated to compel corporators to admit Catholics into their
body, no Associations could be more pure—more unpreju-
diced—more zealous for the honour of - the Crown and the

Freedom of the people—more eager to promote the peace

and prosperity of the country—more free from bigotry and
all sectarian uncharitableness—more enlightened, liberal,
and patriotic—more lavish of their purses, on all occasions
of public and private distress, than were those cedars
of Lebanon, those pillars of English Episcopacy—the Irish
Corporations. But now that it is proposed to make the
will of an ignorant, bigotted, besotted faction, subservient
to the happiness of a great nation, the crime of immacu-

lacy is changed into a fierce denunciation of errors irre-

trievable, and abuses so foul and so monstrous as to be
only eradicable by the destruction of the system in which
they were engendered.
No evidence can be more conclusive of the mal-admi-
nistration of the Corporate Government of Ireland, than
what is furnished by the zeal of the Tories to de-

stroy the system, rather than suffer its management to
pass out of their bands. Those who never pointed
their guns against an enemy would never think of spiking
them before quitting the town. The chiefs of the all but
defunct faction, now in opposition, feel that their tools trem-
ble at the thought of being placed on an equal footing with
their Catholic countrymen—that the memory of their inso-
lence, and their oppression, is fresh in the minds of an in-
jured and triumphant people. Such fears are natural
enough ; but happily, there exist no grounds for them.
The Catholics have proved that they know how to enter
upon the exercise of their just rights, without descending to
the meanness of noticing the by-gone insults heaped upon
them, by petty jobbers in bigotry and faction, no longer in
a condition to resist the course of public justice.
Lord MORPETH, however, in a speech fraught with
sound constitutional views, destroyed the hopes of the
Tory Destructives. His Lordship confounded the
SHAWS, the PERCEVALS, and the JACKSONS, by de-
claring that they were mistaken in supposing that the
Government was disposed to overlook the happiness of the
people of Ireland, merely to gratify the ambition of a nume-
rically insignificant Sect ; or that offices existed only with a
view to their being filled by the partizans of Orangeism.
It would appear, in fact, from the tone assumed by the
Irish Tories, that they had never before considered them-
selves in any other light than as the Irish nation ; and that
without them England would not think it worth her while to
legislate for the Irish people. Henceforth they willbe taught
a new lesson. If nothing less will serve, experience will
soon teach them that British toleration has no political or
personal limits ; and that the happiness of the Irish people
is of much more importance in the eyes of an English Par-
liament than either their adherence to, or their renunciation
of, the superstitions of Popery.

The question of the Orange Lodges was brought be-
fore the House of Lords last night by the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY, and gave rise to much warmth of feeling
on the part of the Tory Peers who engaged in it. The
Earl of RODEN, in particular, was alternately pathetic and
indignant, while he dwelt on the virtues of the Orange-
men, and the way in which those virtues bad been recom-
pensed by an ungrateful Government; and expressed his
apprehensions that his afflicted brethren would never sur-
vive the shock of their dissolution as a Society. Accord-
ing to the Noble Earl, there never yet were such an imma-
culate body of men heard of. Their forbearance was only
to be equalled by their sagacity, and their sagacity by
their more than Spartan patriotism. They never aimed at
Protestant ascendancy in Ireland ; they never attempted
to perpetuate a system of monopoly or exclusiveness ; they
never signalized themselves by their inveterate hostility to
their Catholic fellow -countrymen—none of these
things did the Irish Orangemen ever do, or even dream
of doing : not they ; they were always patterns of
meekness and philanthropy, recognizing no distinctions of
creeds or sects, but desirous only to promote the general
welfare of their beloved country. And yet Ministers, insti-
gated, no doubt, by the Evil One, had suddenly come to a
determination to put them down ! Well might Lord
RODEN lament such a determination. The subject was
one admirably suited to his pathetic powers of fancy. But
if the Noble Earl was plaintive, the Noble Marquis was as
usual diametrically the reverse. He was full of a lofty and
intrepid indignation, to which we should have had nothing
to object, had it been in the slightest degree amenable to, or
regulated by, the dictates of common sense. But in the ex-
cess of his party wrath, his Lordship set all reason at de-
fiance. He was argumentative, but against Orangeisrn—
convincing, but against himself. His was the rare luck to
prove everything which he most wished to disprove. But
indeed in all matters of reasoning the Noble Marquis is a
perfect scorpion, and never fails to sting himself with his
own tail. In allusion to this delicate infirmity, Lord MEL-
BOURNE archly observed, " he had said on a former occasion
that the Noble Marquis stood completely exculpated, but he
could not say that he was precisely of that opinion, now
that he had heard his defence." See what comes of undue
loquacity ! We have no desire to speak irreverently of
this unlucky Peer ; but we must say that he never appears
to such advantage in the House of Lords, as when he is
holding his tongue. Silent meditation becomes him. He
should indulge in eternal reverie. His whole explanation
last night was a mere rambling tirade of words without
method or meaning, except as telling against himself and
his party; and had no other effect than to drag from the
Duke Of CUMBERLAND, and Lords WYNFORD, WINCIITL-
SEA, and RODEN, an admission that they were still rank
Orangemen at heart, and submitted to "dissolution" with the
worst grace possible. But this was not the only disastrous eon-

sequence of the Noble Marqui,2s explanation ; for it had
the still further effect of drawing forth from Lord PL UN
KETT one of the most unanswerable speeches ever deli-
vered in Parliament ; in which his Lordship reduced to
their proper level all the lofty professions of Orangcism, and
showed how incompatible such a system was with the wel-
fare of Ireland. But it is useless to pursue this subject
further. The Ascendancy system is extinct ; and not even
the eloquence of a LONDONDERRY will be able to revive it.
He must now look about him for some other " mare's nest ;"
and exercise his ingenuity, in the discovery of some fresher
grievance. We should not omit to state, that his Lord-
ship and his Orange colleagues expressed a degree of sore-
nese, almost without parallel, at the attacks to ►which
they had been lately subjected at the hands of
a " licentious Press." The Noble Marquis said "he
had been the object of perhaps the grossest and
most malignant attacks ever heard of;" the Duke of
CUMBERLAND observed that, " for the last six month's he
had been abused, accused, and treated in the most cruel
manner ;" and Lord WYNFORD added, that he " had
been wickedly and infamously charged with a design to
change the succession." What a set of injured innocents!
When abuse is levelled against them, nothing is so cruel,
nothing so unjustifiable ; but when it is their adversaries
that are attacked, then the abuse is all just and proper.
You may vilify a Whig, but beware how you say aught to
the disparagement of a Tory, for what is a virtue in the
One case, degenerates into a vice in the other.

We have received the whole of the Paris Papers of
Sunday. Their contents, with the exception of an artic!e
which we copy from the Debots, arc unimportant. The
Times, however, in a second edition, publishes the following
express from Paris—dated several hours later than any of
the Evening Journals of Sunday :
" PARIS, SUNDAY, 10, P.M.-The French Government has
received a telegraphic despatch this afternoon from Narbonne,
announcing that, on the 28th of February, 3,000 Carlists had
surprised and killed, or made prisoners, 600 of the Queen's
troops in the defiles of Olania.
" On the Ist of March the Queen's troops were beaten by
General Brujo, near Ripol, which was closely pressed by
Brujo's division, and by that of Tristani.
" On the 3d the 300 men which occupied Ribar were driven
back on Doris, and it was asserted that General Mina had
set out on the 2d for Manresa. Fresh disturbances were ap-
prehended at Barcelona."
" In a second despatch it is stated, that on the sth of March
4,000 Carlists, with 100 horse, were near Reycerda, threaten-
ing the town. The peasants of the plain were flying in crowds
for refuge to the French territory."

We shall offer no comment upon this communication, as
we have no means of ascertaining whether it be not a fa-
brication of the Carlists, with a view to promote some
stock-jobbing speculation. It is altogether a very sus-
picious-looking affair.
The following is the article from the Journal des Debats,
and if the facts stated in it be correct, MINA deserves to
be hanged. None but a monster of cruelty could so dis-
grace the just and Constitutional cause of the Spanish
patriots
" The Memorial des Pyrenees of the Ist of March contains
the following statement, which, however, we can hardly bring
ourselves to believe, as it relates to a crime of so atrocious a
die, that for the honour of Spain, and of its Government, we
are still inclined to entertain some doubts as to its authenti-
city :
It is with a painful shudder that we copy from the
Diario of Saragossa the following order of the day. We read
it over several times, in order to be convinced that we had not
formed an erroneous interpretation of such atrocious regula-
tions signed by the Commander-in-Chief, Augustin Nogueras :
The moment I received your last despatch I forwarded
it to the Captain-General of this province, not thinking myself
sufficiently authorized to punish the mother of the rebel
Cabrera for the atrocities committed by her son; in fact, I
was not vested with the necessary powers for exacting such an
expiation. I have just now (6 o'clock in the evening) received
despatches by a courier from Catalonia containing an order
from his Excellency, in which is included another addressed to
you, and by which I learn that your wishes have been acceded
to. Consequently at 6 o'clock to-morrow morning the mother
of the cruel Cabrera is to be shot, her three sisters shall be ar-
rested this evening, as also the nearest relatives of the rebel
chiefs and officers, in order to prevent these barbarians from
continuing in their system of atrocities by interesting them in
the fate of those who adhere to them,
PARIS, Marten 6.—The Ministerial journals announce that
the Government has received the official news of the accep-
tance of the mediation of Great Britain by the Government
of the United States.

The Inzpartial rectifies, as follows, the reports of interven-
tion, which have been circulated on 'Change :
" It has been said that the intervention in Spain has been
decided in the Council of Ministers ; the question has not
been at all discussed in the Council, in which M. Thiers
only expressed, in strong terms, his opinion respecting the
legitimacy of Don Carlos, declaring that France would never
recognise that Prince, even though he shall succeed in getting
himself crowned at Madrid."
The Phare gives a curious extract of a letter from Madrid,
dated Feb. 24.

" It was decided in a Council of Ministers, the day be

fore yesterday that the buPs of the Pope should no lon-
ger be obeyed, and tint the ecclesiastical supremacy should be
in the person of the Archbishop of Toledo. The Court of
Rome has well merited this decision, for you know that it has
not yet recognised our young Queen."
A new application of the laws of September was made yes-
terday by the Correctional Tribunal. M. Dcshayes, a litho-
grapher, was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and a fine
of 1,000 francs, for having exposed to sale, without being au-
thorised, a print representing the execution of Fieschi, Morey,
and Pepin. The trial of the Priest Delacollonge is not yet
concluded. —Messager, March 6.

THE NEWSPAPER STAMP.—We are happy that
Birmingham is about to stir in the contest of light against
darkness, now being waged in so many other towns. A pre-
liminary meeting of the Council of the Political Union, and
others favourable to the extinction of the taxes on knowledge,
was held on Wednesday, when it was unanimously resolved' to
call a meeting in the Town-hall, on Wednesday, to petition
Parliament on the subject. We trust it will be well attended.
It is the cause of every man who wishes the community to be
either free or peaceful.
TAX ON NEWSPAPERS.—A petition is now
in
course of signature at Carlisle for a repeal of the Stamp Duty
on Newspapers. It prays for an entire abolition of the tax.
Another petition in favour of the repeal of the tax upon news-
papers has been most numerously and respectably signed in
Brampton.
A labouring man of the name of Hunwhries, hung
himself at Kenn, lately. He was going to be married at
Lady-day. No cause is assigned fur this act.
GREY MEMORIAL.—A public meeting of sub-
scribers will take place on Friday next at Kelso.
DEATH OF A WIFE FROM BLOWS INFLICTED
By SIRE HusnAND.—On Thursday morning last a female,
named Hughes, the wife of Hugh Hughes, the keeper of the
Saloon, in Williamson-street, L.was iverpool, expired, it
ru-
moured, in consequence of blows inflicted upon her by her hus-
band on the preceding Sunday night or Monday morning. He
was apprehended •tori Friday in St. John's-market. An in-
quest was held on Saturday, in the Court over the Police-
office, for the purpose of inquiring into the circumstances
which bad led to the death of the deceased. Mr. Jeffrey,
surgeon, deposed, that he was called to attend Mrs. Hughes
on Monday last. She complained of extreme pain over her
heart, stomach, and right shoulder, and generally of pain all
over her body. She was extremely faint and low. Her body
exhibited bruises over nearly its whole surface. These were
particularly obvious over the right breast, and on the left
breast over the heart ; there were several livid marks upon her
shoulder, upon the left hip and thigh. The legs, foot, and
ancles were covered with bruises, bearing all the appearance
of blows or kicks, and which must have been produced by ex-
ternal violence of some kind. Witness was of opinion, that
the death of the deceased had been occasioned by external in-
juries which she had received. The rupture of the spleen was
sufficient to cause death. The prisoner said nothing in his
defence. The Jury delivered against the prisoner a verdictof
Manslaughter. The Coroner committed the prisoner to gaol,
to remain for trial at the next Assizes. The witnesses were
bound in recognizances of 1,0001. each.—Liverpool Albion.
REVERSE OF FORTUNE.—BRUNSWICK, FEB.
21.--Some time ago a packet, charged with heavy postage,
was received here by a man in indigent circumstances, named
Lefebvre. He was not able to pay the postage, and his son,
to whom it was afterwards offered, was on the point of refusing
it, when a fellow-workman of the latter, named Gille, said,
One cannot tell what good fortune it may bring ; I will
advance the postage for you." The packet was opened—the
astonishment of the poor man may be conceived when he read
a decree of a French Court of Police, informing him that his
father Lefebvre was the sole heir of Marshal Lefebvre, Duke
of Dantzic, and that he had only to come and receive the eight
millions left by his illustrious relative. Lefebvre (the father)
mmediately set out for Paris, accompanied by a good lawyer.
The Devil quoting Scripture was seen last Friday
in the Cornwall Royal Gazette, disguised as a correspondent.
In the book of Proverbs, saith the sable preacher to Sir Wm.
Molesivorth, in the book we are told, Rejoice not when
thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when lie
stumbleth."—From the same book we are commanded, " If
thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat, and if he be
thirsty give him water to drink." In the New Testament we
find our Lord impressing the self same lesson upon his fol-
lowers : " Ye have heard it has been said, thou shalt
love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy ; but I say unto
you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully
use you." How little must these doctrines have impressed
themselves upon the heart of the member for East Corn-
wall, for we find him in his ill-judged and vindictive speech
on the subject of Orange Lodges, saying " He who spared a
foe, inflicted a wound upon himself." The Bible tells us that
for acts of mercy to an enemy " The Lord shall reward thee."
Electors of East Cornwall—does this man represent or misre-
present you in the great council of the nation ?