The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-30 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, S ZPT. 28

THE 'VICEROY AND THE DUBLIN CORPORATION.—The
grand Civic Feast on the inauguration of the new Lord
Mayor will take place this day. A deputation of my
Lord Mayor's men waited upon his Excellency with an in-
vitation to the feast, but Lord Mulgrave frankly and briefly
told their honours that be declined dining with them. The
Freeman says his refusal to become a guest was conveyed
in nearly the following terms :—" I refused an invitation last
year to dine with a Lord Mayor whose politics I believed
then to be liberal. It would not be quite consistent in me
now to accept yours. I hopf, however, it will be the last
time that I shall be under the necessity of refusing to dine
with the Dublin corporation." This sensible answer, and
well administered rebuke, conveyed in terms that cannot be
misunderstood, have thrown the organ of the Orange faction
into an agony of mortification. In its spleen and vexation
the mail cries out against the discourtesy of his Excellency,
affirming that his Lordship has most shamefully affronted
my Lord Mayor and his Corporation messmates. The
transaction, quoth our angry Orangeist, is so very uncivil,
as well as impolitic, that we cannot let it pass without re-
prehension. He and his clique may vapour and reprehend
as much as they like, but the nation will laugh at the crest-
fallen faction, while every right-thinking man will approve
of the just and dignified course which Lord Mulgrave has
adopted for discountenancing party spirit.
The Mail, it seems, has an intimate and profound know-
ledge of the Royal mind, and with laughable gravity begs
"leave to assure his Excellency, that his Royal Master (who
knows as well as any man what it becomes him to do) would
not have returned such an answer to the Chief Magistrate
of the second city in his empire."
What answer the King would return to an invite to din-.
ner we confess we have no means of knowing, nor do we
think it worth while to waste a syllable on so insignificant
a subject—but, consistently with his Majesty's manifesto,
directed against secret societies, we feel fully persuaded
that he would best consult his own dignity, as well as what
is due to the kingdom over whose destinies he rules, in
showing, upon all occasions, that his sympathies are with
the nation, not with the once-favoured faction that till re-
cently preyed upon, oppressed, and tore asunder insulted
Ireland. The Mail says Mr. O'Connell is a Repealer. Is
it not notorious that the Hon. Gentleman has laid aside his
hobby, and of late repeatedly repudiated repeal, on the con-
dition that justice should be done to his countrymen.
With what reason then can the Mai/ assert that his Ex-
cellency went out of his way to entertain at dinner a Re-
pealer, and that he has now taken occasion to put an offi-
cial affront upon the Lord Mayor, an anti-Repealer ?
Our Contemporary should keep his temper, and not neglect
his facts.
TRADES' UNlON.—There was a meeting of this body on
yesterday evening at the Corn Exchange-rooms. Mr. T.
Arkins in the Chair. After the admission of some mem-
bers, Mr. Martin read the letter of Mr. Ruthven to the
Trades' Union, from which we extracted the principal
passages yesterday. While it was being read Mr. Rey-
nolds came in, and gave proofs of his perseverance in the
course of impracticability which characterize his speeches.
It was decided that he was out of order.
THE IRISH TREASURY.—We are happy to inform our
readers that this sink of corruption will be speedily cleansed,
if not totally swept away.—Freeman.
PRESBYTERIANISM—The first Presbyterian congregation
of Bangor has done itself the utmost credit, in being the first
to eater its solemn protest against the late intolerant and
tyrannical proceedings of a handful of individuals, usurping
the authority of the Synod of Ulster. Unqualified sub-
scription to the Westminster Confession of Faith, thereby
recognising a power in the civil Magistrate incompatible
with Presbyterian freedom, was unqualifiedly condemned ;
the penal vote of the Synod, in reference to the national
system of education, was totally repudiated ; the late in-
terferences with the rights of the elders were protested
against ; the " thrill-of-horror" exhibition was noticed in
terms of fitting reprobation ; and, in conclusion, the con-
gregation pledged itself to support its excellent minister, in
vindicating their common rights and privileges against the
attacks of their open and covert enemies.—Belfast Whig.
JUSTICE RENT—THE REGISTRIES.—The Provincial

Journals teem with accounts of meetings in aid of the ob-
jects of the General Association ; and we doubt not that
the result will prove as favourable to the great cause at
stake as the exertions are honourable to the people.
PUBLIC MEETING.—At the meeting held in the parish
of Dunkerrin Mr. Fry, of the Established Church, and.
formerly a conspicuous Orangeman, spoke. " Whether by
his entrance there," says the Pilot, " he thought to cast
the brand of division, or whether there be a real conver-
sion, the future conduct of this gentleman will prove. If
the latter, the fact of his having been an Orangeman will
render it more creditable, nor do we now allude to it invi-
diously, but as an element in the proceedings."
FRIGHTFUL STATE OF THE POOR IN THE BARONY OF

TYRAWLY.-Will it be believed in England that such is
the wretched state of our tradesmen here, that it would
make one of them " happy to be employed three days in
the week, from six in the morning until seven at night, at
7d. a-day ?"—one shilling and nine pence a-week to support
a man with five children : this he would consider happi-
ness It is terrible to contemplate such abject misery—
and all this in the heart of the barony of Tyrawly, the
richest barony in Ireland, several of the gentry having for-
tunes of from 5,000/. to 20,0001. a-year. We are blessed
with more than the usual number of " Saints and Bible-
readers" in Tyrawly, who mouth about charity, and suffer
the poor to die of starvation. Surely it cannot be denied
that the rich grind the face of the poor, and "keep back
their hire by fraud," when we consider that it is an ad-
mitted fact that an able-bodied man, employed an entire
summer's day in tho field, after all his toil, sweat, and
labour, can get but 6d. a-day, without food ; and that the
most industrious and active woman, spinning from six in
the morning until ten at night, can only earn three-half-
pence. In fact, many would have perished this year but
for the humane exertions of that maligned and belied body

of men, the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland—they have,
indeed, acted the part of the good Samaritan.

CHILD MURDER AT THE PALACE

OF THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER.

Our correspondent at Worcester transmitted us a brief
allusion to the murder of a child by its mother. We now
give the report of the inquest, taken from the Worcester
.Journal of yesterday :—A report having been circulated
yesterday that a child was found dead in one of the servants'
bedrooms at the Palace, with marks of violence appearing
on the body, an inquest was yesterday morning held before
Mr. Hyde and a respectable jury of 15 of our fellow citizens
in the dining-room at the Palace, when, after a very dili-
gent inquiry, it appeared that a female in the service of the
Bishop, of the name of Charlotte Grouncell, and who has
been with the family upwards of nine years, came from the
Palace at Hartlebury on Wednesday last, with other of
the servants, to the Palace at Worcester, where our
much respected diocesan is entertaining a large party of
his friends. From the evidence of one of the *male
servants it appeared that Charlotte Grouncell had consi-
derably increased in size since July last, and the same
servant stated that she slept in the room \vial Charlotte
Grouncell every night since she came to Worcester till last
night, and that during the night of Monday Grouncell was
evidently in great pain, and groaned so loudly that her groans
awoke her fellow servant. Grouncell would not,
;how-
ever, say what was the matter with her and always de-
-1 nied being in the family way. On the morning of yester-
day, when her fellow-servant left the room, about seven
o'clock, she said she was much better, and should come
down to breakfast ; but not doing so, one of the other sac-
vents went up to her room with some tea, and found Groun-
cell sitting by the bedside, apparently in great pain. This
servant ran down stairs to the housekeeper, and told her
that Grouncell was very ill, and that some medical person
must he immediately sent for ; and messengers were in-
stantly dispatched for Mr. Pierpont and Mr. Hill. The
housekeeper and another servant went directly to Groun-
cell's room, and it was then ascertained that she had been
very lately delivered of a female child, which was after-
wards found dead under the bed. Mr. Hill came at this
time, and he was immediately followed by Mr. Pierpont„
and on taking up the child they discovered a quantity of
blood about it, and that its throat was cut to the extent of
three inches in length and one in depth. Search was made
about the room for a knife or scissors, but none were found.
There was no direct evidence before the Jury of the child's
having been born alive, as no one was present at its birth,
and no cries of a child were heard by any one in the
house. The Coroner, upon this, directed a post 7nortem
examination of the body, to ascertain if the child was
or was not born alive ; and this examination was forthwith
made by Mr. Pierpoint and Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill stated
the wound must have been made with some sharp instru-
ment, and could not have been caused by the act of tear-
ing the child away with the hands, and that from the post
morlent examinaaion he was certain the child was born alive,
for the following reasons, namely—that the lungs of the
child floated in the water, with the heart attached to them;
that on cutting into the lungs the cells were found full of
air : and that air could and was pressed out of the cells,
which would not have been the ease had the child been
born dead. The wound in the neck was sufficient to cause
the death of thm child.
The CORONER briefly summed up, and the Jury, after
some deliberation, returned a verdict of " Wilful Murder'
against Charlotte Grouncell, the mother of the child. , ) .
‘.

...., ... .
In consequence of the injury done to thejittni
crop for two successive seasons, it has been suggliod 0.14 the'
funds of the Agricultural Associations could n t, it,i,c beitit
employed than in offering premiums for the discpverx a tits-
best mode of arresting so serious a calamity. \-_ •.: .

C:‘

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PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

" If (says the Times, alluding to our observations
on the subject of Peerage Reform) the unequivocal
manifestation' of the popular feeling be all that is ne-
cessary to determine the doubts of these seekers after
the truth, how is it that the disgust everywhere evinced
for their master, O'Connell, through his mission, pro-
duced no effect on them ? How happens it that Sir
William Molesworth's loss of a county for nothing but
his advocacy of Peerage Reform has escaped their
notice ? What, in short, can have blinded them to
the numbers, respectability, and wealth of those who,
we may say, from week to week have congregated at
Conservative meetings, &c. ?" We have a short
answer to this. Sir Wm. Molesworth declined stand-
ing again for Cornwall, not because the popular feeling
was against him, but because Peerage Reform had alie-
nated from him certain influential Whig landowners, and
a contest would, in consequence, have demanded from
him a heavier outlay than he chose to bear. Who
ever said that Peerage Reform was popular with the
aristocracy? Since we expressed a wish for the unequi-
vocal manifestation of public feeling on the subject,
that wish has been gratified to an extent we durst
hardly have anticipated at Taunton, Waterford,
&c. ; and we have no doubt that every other un-
packed public meeting will manifest the same unequi-
vocal decision in favour of Peerage Reform. At
Waterford Mr. Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman, a man of
unquestionable integrity, could not prevail on the meet-
ing to listen even to a speech in which he expressed
doubts whether the Lords ought to be reformed. These
are cheering symptoms. We are not aware that any
speaker, however generally respected, has succeeded, at
any meeting of Reformers, in obtaining a favourable
reception when opposing all change in the Peers. In
fact, even at the dinner in Leeds to Lord Morpeth,
which was attended by a select party of friends, the
speakers who opposed Peerage Reform were very coldly
received, according to the Leeds Mercury, the pro-
prietor of which was one of them. The Times, allud-
ing to the letter of Mr. Baines, observes, "He
says to his brother Radicals, Let us send to
the House of Commons a majority of 150 in favour
of the present Ministers, and then should the King
call the Conservatives to his Councils we can stop
the supplies.' This is almost as good a contrivance
as the school-boy manoeuvre for catching birds by
putting salt on their tails. If he will but catch
his majority of 150 in the Commons, we may make
him a present of the power of stopping the sup-
plies." Mr. Baines certainly does not make suf-
ficient allowance for the unprotected state of the voters
in the counties and smaller boroughs, when he sup-
poses that, in spite of intimidation, voters will conti-
nually expose themselves to heavy sacrifices to keep
the Lords in order. We trust there will at the next
general election be a much greater majority than we
have at present ; and from the purifications of the Cor-
porations this result may be expected. But Mr.
Baines, if he reflect a moment, must be aware that it
will very much damp the zeal of electors to know that
their sacrifices, however great (and, from the distribu-
tion of property in this country, conscientious voting is
often attended with serious loss to the elector), leave
the evil principle in full vigour. The people will, we
trust, become convinced some day or other that they
may as well insist on the purification of the Lords.
Such demonstrations as have lately been made at
public meetings will soon effect many converts in the
higher ranks. In the mean time great good is done
by familiarising the people with the doctrine that the
House of Lords must be reformed. Let but the
people be convinced, and the effect will follow in due
time.--Morning Chronicle.

The public attention is anxiously turned, and no
wonder, to the occurrences which are hour)r taking
place in Spain and Portugal ; for on the result of the
pending crisis in those countries is llely to hang so
much of the question of peace or war throughout the
greater part of Europe, as is not of a nature to be
directly determined by the collision of Turkish, Bri-
t:sli, and Russian interests in the East. The contro-
versy which has been raised within this last fortnight,
between the Conservative press and that which acts
under the wise and virtuous dictation of Lord Pal-
merston, is on our side very simple. From the out-
set our proposition has been, that France and England,
since the revolution which was forced upon Queen
Christina at la Granja, were released from all such
obligation of interference between Don Carlos and his
niece as had rested on the provisions of the Quadruple
Treaty. We took occasion to show, that if England
had bound herself to the execution of a treaty, for
certain purposes, with regard to the Peninsula, she
ought to have chosen for partners in that compact
one or more States on whose bona fide fulfilment of their
pledges, and promotion of the common objects of the
treaty, her Government could have reasonably relied.
We showed that so far from such precautions having
been taken on the part of England, her Foreign Mi-
nister had from the very first hour been the dupe, and
tool, and laughing-stock of his incomparable ally, King
Louis. Philippe, which latter Potentate had, shrewdly
and profitably for his personal ends, left the whole
weight of active interposition upon his shallow-brained
confederate in Downing-street, being himself too saga-
cious to encourage the spread of democracy in his own
domains by facilitating its triumph upon its frontier.
This statement of ours was never answered, but only
sneered at by Lord Palmerston and his newspapers as a
slander upon the King of the French. We had no in-
tention to malign or affront that politic and skilful
Sovereign. He did what lie judged most beneficial
to his own Crown, and most conducive to the peace
of his kingdom, It was not on every hedge that
Louis Philippe would find such a convenient cloak
as Viscount Palmerston, nor would any French-
man charge the King with dishonesty for converting
such a God-send to his own uses. Louis Philippe's
game was to keep possession of the Tuileries—our
hero's was to keep the Foreign-office. The King of
the French made a show of sympathy with that which
called itself the Liberal cause in Spain, that he might
blindfold the revolutionary spirits of Paris, Lyons,
and the eastern departments of the kingdom, until he
should gain time to put handcuffs on them. We say
nothing of the morality of such a proceeding, which
is no concern of ours. We but state the fact, and
state it correctly, when we asseverate that Louis
Philippe did not execute the Quadruple Treaty ac-
cording to its spirit—that he did not throw those im-
pediments in the way of Don Carlos which he might
have done, nor furnish such protections and sup-
plies as were easily within his power to Queen
Christina, seeing that he had Lord Palmerston to
deal with, and therefore reckoned on impunity. We
asserted then, and we abide by it, that Lord Pal-
merston courted a Power which had duped him,
and that his schemes for what he termed the
" settlement " of the Peninsula—that is, for the en-
throning of Ferdinand's daughter, and the expul-
sion of his brother from Spain—had been frustrated
by the very means which he employed to effect
both objects. After the revolution of La Granja,
our proposition was distinctly, that to all practical
intents and purposes the quadruple alliance was at
an end ; that Louis Philippe would do nothing as
between Don Carlos and the rabble dictatorship at
Madrid, and that England ought to do nothing. For
each of these opinions we were grossly abused, and
pelted with spiteful epithets. The vilification, indeed,
was divided between Louis Philippe and ourselves-
-Ist, the King being charged with the most odious
perfidy for not marching an army across the Pyrenees
In support of a Government with and on behalf f
which he had signed a treaty of qualified assistance,
but which had already " ceased to reign," being over-
turned by a band of its own licentious soldiery—and
2d, the Times being scurrilized for " not knowing"
that treaties are made with nations, not with Govern-
ments pro tempore. We stuck to our text, that Louis
Philippe would act as if the quadruple alliance was
superseded by the introduction of a completely new
principle—viz./ that of armed democracy—into the
Queen's cause, and Lord Palmerston knows, to his
cost, how fully the French King has realized our pre-
diction. We likewise clung to the text of the treaty,
maintaining it to have been signed with one of two
belligerent parties, instead of with the whole people
of the Peninsula. The belligerent party was one
which aspired (the British Government said rightfully)
to the Spanish crown. But that crown was the sym-
bol of a Constitutional monarchy : it was not the

fool's cap of an armed mob. Our second thesis was,
therefore, that under the quadruple treaty, all duty of
interference as between Carlos and Christina had ceased
on the part of England ; that the duty of neutrality,
which had been set aside by the treaty, now returned
in all its original force ; that the principle of non-
intervention forming the rule, and that of a sti-
pulated interference the exception, the right of
interference was altogether annulled by the re-
moval of those conditions under which the inter-
ference had been stipulated ; that, in fact, Eng-
land now again was free ; that she ought to leave
Carlos unmolested by the marines and men-of-war
which hung upon the coasts in his possession ; and
the Christinos, on their side, unburdened by the mock
support of a corps of hapless Englishmen, who seem
to have experienced little of warfare but its wants and
mortifications. Will Lord Palmerston venture to
make England any longer an inglorious and sneaking
medler in this alien quarrel ? Will he venture to
delay for another hour the recall of our ships and
marines from the Spanish coast, or the provision of
means of transport home for the ruined volunteers of
Colonel Evans, betrayed and sacrificed through the
poltroonery of the Whig Cabinet, not daring to do in
the name of their ,Sovereign and country that into
which they seduced, under incitements which have all
proved false, an unthinking band of their fellow-citi-
, zens ? We were taxed no longer ago than yesterday
morning with having changed our tone, and now re-
proached the Whig Government with not interfering to
prevent or crush the double revolutions of Lisbon and
La Granja. The charge is a pure falsehood. We never
said one word to the effect of urging such an interposi-
tion. With the revolution of La Granja we had no
business to meddle, although its occurrence shows how
little prepared our Ministry have been for the catas-
trophe which has befallen the whole system of their
co-operation, or whatever they please to call it, with
regard to Spain. And this is, if possible, still more
apparent with regard to Portugal. We have accused
Lord Palmerston of a stubborn and conceited disre-
gard of the timely warnings which lie received of what
was about to happen ; that is, we accused him of total
incapacity. His newspaper defenders avow that lie
was prepared for it. Our charge was of " folly"
their defence is " crime." If he knew it the Queen
of Portugal ought to have known it. Had she known
it, she would have besought the British Admiral to
protect her, and appealed to her own subjects in behalf
of her constitutional throne. Neither the Admiral's
protection, nor the loyalty of the nation, would in
that case have been deaf to the Sovereign's prayer. It
is now perhaps too late ; but that it is so, who will not
justly blame the imbecility of what ought to have been
the protecting power ?—Times.
It is now about four years since that important
branch of criminal law reform which concerns the law
of forgery was carried through the Legislature. Offi-
cial documents have confirmed, nay, more than con -
firmed, the anticipations of the advocates of the aboli-
tion of the penalty of death as to time substitution
of a less revolting punishment being more efficacious
for the repression of a crime against which the sword
of exterminating law had been drawn in vain. Among
those advocates were upwards of 1,000 bankers.
whose memorable petition in favour of the removal of
the capital enactment we published and commented
upon at the time. The bigotted adherents of the old
system of strangulation on the scaffold attempted to
work upon the fears of a commercial community, by
predicting that to take away the gallows from the
protection of paper credit would be to pronounce
extinction ! The same sort of appeal to sordid pre-
judices had been adopted to prevent the passing of
Romillv's Bill to repeal the atrocious enactment
which made the privately stealing to the value of jive
shillings in a shop punishable with death I Under
this law the young woman Mary Jones suffered, whose
case Sir William Meredith relates with so much sim-
ple pathos. Deprived of her husband by the barba-
rous practice of impressment, in a state of destitution,
with a child at her breast, she snatched from a counter
in a state of desperation, property amounting in value
to that number of shillings which the law of a Chri s-
hun people had made the price of human life. She
was in fact driven to crime by the Government that
executed her ; but then she died, said the merciless
supporters of the five shillings law, to preserve from
destruction the shopkeeping interests ofEngland, which
never could survive the repeal or disuse of a law so
necessary to protect the contents of their counters from
ruinous depredation. Alas for the prophecies of those
oracles of Draconic legislation how are they falsi-
fied by the results I The Forgery Bill of 1832
abolished the punishment of death for all but two
species of that offence, and commercial credit sur-
vives the shock I The law that inflicted death
for stealing to the amount of five shillings in a
shop has long ceased to exist, and shopkeeping
interests still continue to flourish I—nor are the con-
tents of the counter—the silk ribands, laces, chintzes,
tape, and bobbins, one whit the more liable to depre-
dation, because five shillings worth of those articles
can no longer be weighed in the scales of Shylock jus-
tice against human blood. But a sentence of death
against a forger has been pronounced within a few
days, by the Recorder of London, at the Court of the
Old Bailey. The case of this person—we mean, of
course, the attorney Peacock—is one of the exceptions
in the forgery law—an exception too of Whig origin,
having been proposed by the Marquis of Lansdowne
in the House of Lords, subsequently to the Bill for
the total abolition of the penalty of death having
twice passed the Commons. The Whig accusers of
the House of Lords have not, however, made this one
of their inculpatory items in their Bill of impeachment
against the Peers, for innovating upon the decisions
of the Commons. This last effort to retain some por-
tion of the old and barbarous system, and to hand it
down as a precious relic to posterity, who might other-
wise have doubted that, in Christian and moral Eng-
land, such a law could ever have existed, being the
act of a Whig Lord and a Whig Minister, is not re-
corded among the imputed delinquencies of the House
of Peers, by the Peer-denouncing partisans of the
Ministry. Nevertheless, if the prisoner Peacock should
be sent to the scaffold, the law under which the criminal
suffers, as well as his execution, will be the act of the
Whigs—the pretended disciples and treacherous asso-
ciates of the lamented Romilly, in the work of criminal
law reform. To punish with the death of the murderer the
person who commits an offence of fraud and circumven-
tion, is to confound those internal distinctions of mo-
rality which the all-wise Creator implanted in the mind
of man, and is, consequently, less an exercise of the
legitimate power than the impious audacity of human
legislation. Leaving the crime to all the moral disgrace
and infamy which belongs to it, we cannot confound it
with murder, either in its nature or punishment. But,
independently of religious considerations, there was one
great practical argument urged upon the most abundant
proofs, by the advocates of the total abolition of the
penalty of death for that offence: it was that the punish-
ment of death rather encouraged crime than protected
property, because of the great number of persons
whom it deterred, through motives of conscience and
humanity, from putting the law in motion as prosecu-
tors, or administering it according to evidence as jurors.
On such grounds did the thousand bankers to whom
we have alluded claim protection for their property, by
the abolition of the capital law. The penalty of death
was removed in all cases, except forgeries of powers of
attorney. and wills, because it was the least effective of
all punishments. Why then should that inefficient
punishment be retained for such cases ? Ought pro-
perty under powers of attorney, and wills, to be less
protected than other property? Let the Marquis of
Lansdowne answer that question, if lie can. If he
cannot answer it satisfactorily—and we are sure he can-
not—the punishment of death for those cases of for-
gery should be abolished, as equally impracticable and
barbarous. An execution for forgery now-a-days
would raise a burst of indignation against the Whigs,
which they had better not provoke.—Morning Herald.

Were we not right in describing the " moderation"
of Whig-Radicals as of that kind which exhibits
itself not only in the most foul abuse of their oppo-
nents, but in the most fulsome adulation of them-
selves and their agents wherever they may happen to
be carrying o❑ the work of calumny and sedition ?
Look at the way in which these manly personages
speak of Mr. Villiers Stuart, who made a❑ exposure
of himself the other day at a public dinner in Water- j

ford. We do believe that the most slavish cour-
tier, in the worst era of bad taste, when gross flattery
was mistaken for politeness, never uttered such a strain
of nasty adulation, as we find poured forth by the
Whig-Radical puffers of this Mr. Stuart. His great
fishes, his wonderful family descent, and above all his
" scathing eloquence," are dwelt upon with a sort of
worship which—if not very decent—is at least instruc-1
tive. It shows how sincere are the professions of
Whig-Radicals, who, when it is their cue to beguile
the multitude, affect to care for none of these things,
but to be mightily enamoured of the plain fustian-
jacket and pot-o'-beer school of political philosophy,
wherein fortune, nor family, nor even " scathing elo-
quence "go for much. But is Mr. Villiers Stuart in-
deed this prodigious personage that he is described to
be ? Of his family and fortune we cannot say that
we have before heard ; and his modest panegyrics not
having supplied any details upon the subject, we sup-
pose we must be content to remain in our ignorance,
except we admit as a true light the glare which his fond,
familiar friends have been pleased to cast upon both.
His name looks tolerably well upon paper ; but if,
through it, he claims connection with the illustrious
and unfortunate house whose peculiar principles cost
them the Throne of these realms, we must say that
his family honours are rather an odd theme of eulogy
in the mouths of Whig-Radicals. Upon the Gen-
tleman's prodigious fortune we congratulate him, for
if it be a real thing it is a very agreeable sort of ap-
pendage, even to family honours, and " scathing elo-
quence." But we hope it is not what vulgar in-
quirers into the validity of pecuniary representations
call " an Irish fortune "—that is to say, an estate of
which the annual value is to be ascertained by re-
moving the " significant digits " from before the por-
tentious ciphers in the enumeration of its acres.
We say this, not that we have any information re-
specting the county of Waterford, which enters into
the particulars of the ownership of land ; but the
truth is, we have known but very, very few instances
of Whig-Radicals who were not either very far from
being rich, or very far from being wise. We should
be sorry to throw a doubt upon the wisdom of Mr.
Stuart, and therefore we have, in spite of ourselves,
been driven to the other alternative. But as to the
" scathing eloquence," we must not forget that, because
a specimen of the article is furnished by those who
have puffed it off, and we are thus provided with the
means of judging for ourselves, we do think the
puffers would have acted more judiciously if they had
kept back the specimen. It is as much like " scath-
ing eloquence" as a stinking explosion of brimstone
and nitre at the side scene of a theatre is like the
scathing fire from heaven, which is called (for short-
ness) " lightning." Mr. Stuart may indeed be a very
wise person—a very Socrates in wisdom ; but we
must take upon ourselves to deny that he is a De-
mosthenes in eloquence. In earliest truth, we never
read in all our speech-reading days more sorry stuff
than that of which he was, according to the re-
porters, delivered on Thursday last. There are some
exceedingly sage persons, whom Heaven has not
made orators, nor indeed permitted them the ca-
pacity of emitting common sense when called upon
to speak in public. For two reasons we opine that
Mr. Stuart must be one of these ; first, that,
as he is, and has been for some time, a Member of
Parliament, and is such a prodigy of that is important
in station, and brilliant in intellect, we should pro-
bably have heard something of the gentleman at West-
minster but for the infirmity to which we have alluded.
The attributing to him " scathing eloquence" must be
a joke, of which, for the life of us, we cannot perceive
the good nature. Secondly, this very speech4at the
Waterford dinner is a most miserable piece of sing-
song prose, garnished with scraps of verse, something
like the pages of a young lady's ; and, indeed,'
we must say, that were it not for the unpleasantness
of setting down a man as much more a fool than his
friends represent him to be, we should suspect that
Mr. Stuart's understanding was furbished very much
after the album fashion—pretty, to be sure, but
rather puerile. Mr. Stuart, it would appear, had
screwed himself up to talk about Lord Lyndhurst
and the House of Lords, and wisely mindful that,
if he touched upon any other topic first, he might by
possibility get a little confused, and the fire of his
" scathing eloquence" be obscured by the smoke of a
hazy memory, he dashed at once upon his great theme,
and delivered himself point blank of the following
stupendous sentence :—" Ireland, I have no hesitation
in saying, is an especial object of wrath and punish-
ment by the dominant party in the House of Peers."
There spoke the deliberate wisdom of the wonderful
man whom the electors of the county of Waterford
have made a senator I Who can fail to perceive the
political sagacity of this discovery ? Its truth is only
to be equalled by its verisimilitude—that the House of
Peers should select a particular portion of the empire
for the object of its wrath and punishment is so pro-
bable, that we wonder it was left to the "scathing elo-
quence" of an after-dinner speech in the town of
Waterford to point it out. But we must not curtail
Mr. Stuart's sentence concerning, and against, the
House of Peers of its fair proportions. He is not a
man without his reasons—" for every why he has a
wherefore." After telling us of the select wrath of
the House of Peers, he adds—" and wherefore ?
Because, upon a question of Irish policy it was that
the favourite Administration of that (the Conserva-
tive) party was overthrown, and by the instrumentality
of Irishmen the country was saved from the grasp of
those who were upon the point of trampling its
liberties under foot." Is not this a moderate and rea-
sonable describer of political affairs ? Is he not worthy
the rhapsodical eulogies of the Whig-Radical press, as
the hope and promise of these present times ? But
when the echoes of these eulogies have died away, and
left a little interval of quiet, perhaps Mr. Stuart will
permit us to suggest that there is a .slight mis-
take—not as to the "grasp " of the Conservatives,
or their intention to " trample the liberties of
the country under foot." Mr. Stuart sees through
all that, of course, better than we do ; but
is it not a mistake to say that Sir R. Peel's Go-
vernment was outvoted in the House of Commons
upon a question of Irish policy ? We think it is.
It was upon an abstract question about the appro-
priation of Church property to secular purposes—a
question very important in principle, but which would
have had as much to do with the practical policy in
governing Ireland as the wheat crop which will be in
the year 1876 has to do with the present price in
Mark-lane. Much more might be said about Mr.
Stuart's speech ; but, to confess the truth, we are
rather tired of him, and of it. The outrageous and
most ignorant impertinence which is attributed to him
respecting Lord Lyndhurst should be treated, in our
opinion, with silent contempt.—Morning Post.
The practice lately commenced of the liberal Mem-
bers of the House of Commons rendering to their con-
stituents an annual account of their stewardship is
daily becoming more general. We rejoice that it is so.
This is a most salutary practice ; it brings the repre-
sentatives of the people, and those who made them so,
into familiar intercourse together, strengthens the bond
of union between them, and leads to a most beneficial
interchange of sentiment between the representative
and the represented. Mr. Williams, the Member for
Covenrry, has been rendering an account of this kind
to his constituents ; and the result of the meeting con-
vened for the
purpose was, as it ought to be in
the case of so honest and liberal a representative,—
the passing of an unanimous vote of confidence in
him. The Hon. Gentleman, in the course of his
speech, adverted in becoming terms to the neces-
sity which exists for Peerage Reform. He very pro-
PerlY aske(iwhether 250 hereditary Legislators were
to be suffered to defeat the wishes and frustrate the
hopes of 24,000,000 of men ? There was not a bo-
som in the vast assemblage which the Hon. Member
they shall not."
aTdidiartesaseidt,eftohraint nofot
thinewHarodulysesoafy
'P---eer's is certain, and
not very remote, we have affirmed times without num-
ber. That is a settled point among the people of
England. The only question is as to the nature and
extent of that Reform. Mr. Williams, in his speech,
made some observations on this point, which well de-
serve attention. He, by implication, suggests a plan
which would effect the desired object by the least ob-
jectionable of means. The Hon. Gentleman's plan,
inked, does not embrace any external interference
with the ligpf..* House. It is one which would com-
pel their Lordships. to reform themselves. Mr. Wil-
3

liams's plan is simply to extend the constituency, and
to confer on the people the right of voting by ballot.
He maintains that with an enlarged constituency, and
that perfect freedom of voting which the ballot secures,
the Reformers of England would, at the first general
election, return such an overwhelming majority of libe-
ral men to Parliament as would, by their very numbers,
frighten the Tory Peers from their work of obstruction
for ever after. Lord Brougham, in an article understood
to be written by him twelve months since in the Edin-
burgh Review, proposed, as a sure and unobjectionable
way of inducieg the Peers to pass liberal measures, that
the people should return such a preponderance of Refor-
mers to the House of Commons, as would carry allliberal
measures in that House by such a majority as that the
Lords would not dare to reject them. The error of
his Lordship was that he recommended the people of
England to do a certain thing, without pointing out
to them the way in which that thing could be accom-
plished. He told them to return an overpowering
majority of Liberal representatives, but he did not tell
them how this was to be done. It is clear to every
body that the people of England, in the event of an-
other general election, could not, in the existing state
of the representation, make any material addition,
however great their exertions, to the Liberal majority
of the House of Commons. All that it was possible
to do in this way, they did at the last general election.
Give them however the ballot, coupled with an ex-
tended suffrage, and the next general election, come
when it may, will give the Reform interest in the
House of Commons a majority of 250, instead of the
present small majority of 30 or 40. Would the Lords
reject measures passed by a majority of 250 of the
Commons ? Not they. They would then see resist-
ance to be worse than madness.—Morn. Advertiser.