The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-07 00:00:00

nto;F IA?. of his moral character. Moreover Mr: riatil.tEtt
that by what he called a aanst corrupt and igno-
rant majority, my " twit *as its completely filched from me
as ever a litlfge was stolen from n pernn oh the highway."
The gentlemen of the dense of Commons, who make severe
laws against illthing purses, must have been keenly itensible
to this unpleasant comparisrn) AA probably felt almost as
much anger as Mr. POULTER himself. The crowning
passage, 110 a-ever, of his address, was Otis t--" It het seem
to me that I have been made the victim or a aegree
of iniquity, compared with which the irregular acts of oil
former Committees may fairly claim to stand excused."
To be more iniquitous than the Hull, Dublin, (last ses-
sion) Ipswich and other electier, Committees, is enormous
guilt, and we approve of ivlr. BLACKSTONE shaking it off
his shoulders: Another circumstance, width that gen-
den-teal seems to hive felt very nitwit, was the possibility
that Mr. FOULTER wrote his letter on the Sabbath-day ;
at least he nursed his anger all through one Sunday, and
having a character for saintship, that was no doubt reckoned
to him as an aggravation of his offence : " The letter said
Mr. BLACKSTONE purported to he written on the 4th of
April. It was not written under the excitement of the
moment, and even the Sabbath-day intervened between the
knowledge of the determination of the Committee and Mr.
l'oeurna's writing the letter." Tohave written such a very
angry letter on the Sabbath was very wrong indeed in Mr.
POULTER ; and Mr. BLACKSTONE, who made a moderate
and judicious speech in bringing the subject under the no-
tice of the House, acted properly in condemning it.
After he bad made his complaint, Mr. ELLIOT, who had
been a Member of the Shaftesbury Committee, gave some
explanation of' its conduct, which he happily characterised
as an " honest perversion of justice." He found the evi-
dence produced so strong, that on it, he said, " in a case
of murder he would have hanged a man ;" but the majo-
rity, from the most proper and honest motives, took a dif-
ferent view, and " perverted justice honestly." Captain
MATHEW, the winning Candidate, very kindly made a sort
of apology for Mr. PouLTER, and requested the House to
carry the matter no further. Lord WoasLEY wished the sub-
ject postponed, till the evidence taken before the Committee
was printed ; but that was resisted. Mr. O'CONNELL
thought there was no occasion to bring the printer to the
bar, as Mr. POULTER would certainly avow the letter ;
but that suggestion was overruled, lest the letter should be
a bad hoax, to which some person had forged the name of
the irritated loser. Lord JOHN RUSSELL expressed his
approbation of Mr. Pot: urea for not sheltering his charge
under an anonymous communication, and then the House
agreed to Mr. BLACKSTONE'S motion. On Monday the
late Member for Shaftesbury will appear at the bar, to an-
swer for complaining of an Election Committe in too strong
language. What the House will do with him, after it has
been obliged to submit to charges of perjury, delibe-
rately urged and repeated within its own walls, we
cannot conjecture ; but we presume the most trifling apology
will be gladly accepted, that the House may escape from
the business. We pity the Commons, who seem, on the
subject of Controverted Elections, to be something like a
man who is by " habit and repute" a thief, and who is
obliged to bear all kinds of contumely, lest an appeal to a
Court should confirm the public verdict., and bring on him
punishment into the bargain. Their once great and ter-
rible privileges, the bugbear of public writers, seem prac-
tically to have fallen almost into desuetude ; and they dare
not act on them, even when the strongest accusations are
made against them, lest they kindle the public indignation.
Truth and justice are in fact more powerful than privilege ;
and those who habitually violate them, must patiently bear
taunts and insults.

To several questions asked by Mr. HALL last night re-
specting the projected alterations in the rate of postage,
the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER replied, that the
reduction of the 4d. postage had been carried into effect—
that the 3d. postage was to be reduced to =2.d.—and that
when he was ready to introduce the use of stamped covers,
he gave it up at the suggestion of its friends in the House,
who said that it would be an unfair trial of the plan.
If we are not mistaken, the friends of Mr. HILL'S plan
proposed that, as the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
was averse to the sweeping reduction of the present rate of
postage to Id. per half ounce for all distances short or long,
it would be best to try the experiment first with the Two-
penny Post-office, and if the result should prove favourable
to the revenue, then the penny system might be adopted
in the General Post-office. Now this is a very dif-
ferent thing from the scheme of the CHANCELLOR.
" I have no objection," said the Right Hon. Gentleman

(" to try your plan ; lot us have the :tamped covers by all
means ; and as to the payment in advance, it is quite de-
lightful." But the part of the plan upon which its whole
efficacy depended, namely, the reduction of the postage to
a single penny, was unfortunately omitted. The stamped
covers, and twopence in advance, was the experiment by
which Mr. SPRING RICE would have tested the produc-
tiveness of Mr. HILL'S plan, and the consequence would
have been, had it been carried through, that it would have
failed. For the only effect produced would have been to
make the writer of a letter pay the postage instead of the
receiver—a condition by no means calculated to increase
letter-writing, unless a bribe be administered in the shape
of greatly reduced postage. To give Mr. HILL'S pro-
posal fair play, as applied to the Twopenny Post-office,
the postage ought to be reduced to a halfpenny or even a
farthing.

But whether the plan be tried in the first instance in the
(Twopenny Post-office or not, one thing is certain—the
present rate of postage must be very greatly reduced, and
that without delay. The public have had facts laid before
them demonstrating not only the practicability, but the int-
ense advantages, moral, political, and even financial, of
uch a reduction ; they have taken up the question, not
_ astily and passionately, but coolly and de:iberately, after
caring all that was to be said on bath sides—if the question
an be sail to have more than one side—and having deter-
ined that their interests and their wishes shall be con-
ulted in the matter, they wait for the report of
Ir. WALLACE'S Committee now sitting, more as a pro-
' eeding of form than a 3 necessary to sanction the altera-
ion about to take place. Why the Committee should sit
ith closed doors it is not easy to conjecture, on any other
upposition than that they have made up their minds upon
he subject, and want no ad litional evidence. For surely
here can be no secrets connected with this investigation,
"nd had the evidence been allowed to be published daily in
mall portions, it is sufficiently obvious that it would have
attracted infinitely more attention,and consequently produced
-Quell more benefit, than when it comes out in a huge volume
that fey can have access to, and still fewer courage to wade
through. In the meantime, let us ponder over one or two
" They are such as must come home to the mind
even of the most unreflecting person. How, we ask, is it
to be accounted for that, while the commercial transactions
of this country have increased so enormously within the last
20 years, and while population and education have also been
greatly augmented, there has been no increase in'the num-
ber of letters sent through the Post-office ? How comes it,
ilso, that the revenue of the French Post-office, where the
postage is much lower than with us, has increased one-gal
since the year 1821 ? And, lastly, is it not somewhat extral
ordinary, that the revenue of the Post-office in the United
States, where the postage is still lower than in France, has
been more than tripled during the 20 years, that ours has
been at a stand still ?

'acts.

The King of IT4Novg4 his followed up the expulsion
of the seven Professors, with an edict in perfect consi.tency
with that arbitrary and unjust act. These men were driven
From Gottingen because they would not take a false oath.
Several of them have since been appointed to chairs at
Leipzic, and a number of the students who had studied
under them, and were desirous to complete their course
under the same masters, had followed them to that Uni-
versity. But this King ERNEST will not permit, and
he has accordingly issued an order prohibiting all
Hanoverians from studying at Leipzic, and recalling
all those who may be there for that purpose. Those stu.
dents, therefore, who had proceeded to that place must
either return, or relinquish their rights as Hanoverians ; for
su,th is the character of the man, and such is his idea of
kingly power, that his next step would be to make them
outlaws, and deprive them of whatever property they may
be entitled to in that blessed country. Even the purest
despot, educated in a camp, and ignorant of constitutional
liberty, would not, in the nineteenth century, commit such
an outrage on public feeling as has been committed by the
brother of WILLIAM IV., and the heir Presumptive to
the British throne. Only another edict is wanting to make