The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-08 00:00:00

" the nearest road between two given points." If
improvements of the nature now reprobated continue
at the rate at which they have been recently carried
on, the humbler classes will be obliged to make all
their movements on the highways; they will not be
able to stir out of them—to take a step but from their
cottage-threshold into the public road; where, parti-
cularly in the vicinity of populous towns, persons
drawing towards one extremity of life (the old) are
every day more and more exposed to the danger
of being run over, from the increasing rapidity of
public conveyances, and persons at the other extre-
mity of lie (the youthful) have their ears assailed,
and are liable to be corrupted by the foul language
of drovers, waggoners, and pig-jobbers. The green
fields will be interdicted to the poor, except it be to
sweat and toil in them. Ye mighty owners of the
soil ! What a pity it is ye cannot also interdict to
them the light of Heaven, and the air that fans their
weather-beaten brows! But we warn you that you
have no right, by your dirty obsequious tools, to
stop up foot-paths, and then insolently to tell those
against whom you stop them up, that another road
is " more convenient"—" shorter"—" leveller !"
If you cannot live except alone,—if you and your
mansions may not be approached by the sun-burnt
sons of labour—your toiling fellow-creatures—seek
solitudes, do not make them ! above all, do not
make them in England where the poor have,
till within the last half-century, been as flee to range
almost as the native birds. But we know from whence,
in a great degree, this anxiety to stop up foot-
paths proceeds. Your game is accessible from
them ! When every foot-path in our estates is ex-
tinguished, then the hapless wanderer may be seized
and interrogated, " What were you doing here ?
There is no road or path 1 What business could
you have ?" But we will tell you, grand
Seigneurs, what your dullness cannot discover—
that when you have succeeded to the utmost, and
prevented all approach to your domains, they will
then just become the places where murders may be
committed with impunity, where a gamekeeper may
be shot without the risk of evidence. Perhaps
s metimes the more criminal master may also drop.
You are drawing a cord tight, which will at length
strangle yourselves or your posterity. The French
Noblesse excluded their poor peasants from their
chateaux ; but they approached them with a ven-
geance at last ! Where are they now—the
chateaux with their folding gates and their lofty
walls ? and the home park, and the deer park, and
pheasant preserves, and hare preserves? How are
they all vanished ! There are paths in abundance
in France now. In truth, there is hardly a hedge
or a fence from Calais to Nice. We will add to the
above remarks, the observation that the subject
particularly deserves consideration at present, when
a general commutation for tithes is contemplated.
There is nothing which has tended so powerfully to
exclude the poor from a flee passage across lands
contiguous to their place of labour, as partial com-
position for tithes. Where the tithe-owner had
access to draw his tithe, the peasant had access like-
wise. But in many parishes where a composition
for tithes has long prevailed, the very roads by which
they were carted to the tithe-barn have become
almost obliterated, and are distinguished with diffi-
culty. If a general composition take place, it will
require great care to mark out and define and pro-
vide for the perpetual maintenance of the roads.—

SECOND EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'clock.

IMPERIAL PAR LIAM ENT

THIS EVENING.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Shortly after Three o'clock the SPEAKER took his seat.

CITY OF DUBLIN ELECTION.

Mr. R. GORDON brought up the report of the Com-
mittee appointed to try the merits of a petition against the
return for the city of Dublin. He had to inform the House
that Robert Harty, Esq. (the Lord Mayor of Dublin)
and Louis Perrin, Esq. were not duly elected; that
the last election was ♦oid, and that the petition, and the
opposition to it, were not frivolous or vexation.. He was
further directed by the Committee to acquaint the House
that the Committee had come to the following resolution,,,
viz.—

" Resolved,—That Robert Harty, Esq., and Louis Perrin, Esq.,
were, by their agents, guilty of bribery and treating at the last
election for the said city of Dublin.
" Resolved,--That it appears that certain persons, holding °di_
cial situations in Ireland, or considered to be connected with
the Irish Government, did at the last election for the city of
Dublin, in contravention of the resolutions of the House
of Commons, use undue influence in favour of, and
aiding and assisting in, the return of the sitting Members.
" Resolved that the Chairman be instructed to move that
the report and the evidence be printed and laid before the
House.

The Hon. Gentleman then moved that the report be '
brought up and ordered to be printed, which was agreed
to; the evidence was also ordered to be brought up and
printed. He then moved that the Speaker do issue a new
writ for the city of Dublin in the room of Messrs. Harty
and Perrin.
Mr. HUNT said, that as the proceedings of this Com-
mittee, of which he was a Member, were now at an end,
he had to state that it had been his intention to op-
pose the issuing of the writ, or to move for its
suspension for a week, in order that the evidence
might be in the hands of the Honourable Members
of the House, and that the House could then consider
what ulterior proceedirgs should be adopted. But as the
majority of the Committee were opposed to such a step, he
did not now consider himself justified in moving to suspend
the writ.—( Hear, hear.)
Mr. C. PELHAINI thought that sufficient had already
appeared in the report of the Committee to make it as
strong a case for inquiry as that of Liverpool.—( Hear.)
In this case Government officers were implicated, an ! the
House ought to protect its own rights by at prm sent sus-
pending the writ.—;Hear.) He, therefore, moved that
" the writ be suspended for a week."
Mr. O'CONNELL seconded the motion. There was
something exceedingly loose—indeed, he might almost say
unsatisfactory in the report respecting persons "supposed"
to be connected with the Government having interfered in
the election. He wished the House was in possession of
the facts connected with the granting the freedom
of the city of Dublin ; for if public fame were not
a public liar, there had never yet been a contested
election which had not been interfered with by
some persons "supposed" to be connected with the Go-
vernment. The franchise was given by the Corporation
to persons solely for party purposes, and not less than
4,000 persons had been voted the freedom of Dublin at
one sitting. At the late election he believed it would be
found that a very considerable sum from a fund,—he be-
lieved, the Tory Fund—had been conveyed from Lon-
don to the Committees of some of the candidates.—
He hoped the writ would he suspended, that evidence
might be received at the bar of the House, so that the
House would be able to institute a full inquiry into these
proceedings. The House was, perhaps, not aware that
there was a plan kept up at an enormous expense to retain
the corporation of Dublin in the interests of Government.
The Police Magistrates were also removable at the pleasure
of Government. The whole of these things ought to be
enquired into, and he was happy in seconding this motion.
The SPEAKER suggested that the best way would he
to alter the amendment for the adjournment of the debate
to this d my week, and Mr. Pelham agreed that his amend-
ment should stand " that the further debate on this ques-
tion be adjourned until this day week.
Sir C. BURRELL hoped th it no proposition to hear
evidence at the bar of this House would be agreed to (for
it was a very unsatisfactory mode of ascertaining the
truth) until the House had the power of administering
the oath to witnesses.—(Hear, hear.) He had found in
such cases very contradictory evidence, which had been
rendered void when the question was carried to the house
of Lords, or before a Committee.

Mr. LEADER agreed that there were strong grounds
for adjourning the question until the evidence was printed,
but he objected to receiving evidence at the bar of the
House.

Mr. CRAMPTON said there was a great distinction
between this case and that of Liverpool. In the Liverpool
case there was a resolution of the Committee reflecting
great blame upon the voters, and stating that gross
bribery and corruption prevailed ; then there was a
good cause for suspending the writ. This report, how-
ever, cast no imputation on the electors of Dublin.
He was glad the motion had been made, for lie was not
adverse to any inquiry into the proceedings at the late
election, feeling satisfied that the charge against his Majesty's
Government in Ireland, " that certain persons considered
to be connected with the Government" had eseicised an