The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM TDB monNtr:G PAPERS CF TIT'S DAY.,
TIMES.—Mr. John O'Connell has put the coping-
stone to his previous reputation for judgment and dis-
cretion. It is with a mixture of indignation and a strong
feeling of the luiicrous that we announce to the public
that they must remain in ignoreece of what passed in
the House of Commons last eight for the space of more
than two hours owing to the intervention of such a per-
son. There is an old form of the House of Commons
which provides that, if any Member take notice that
strangers are present, they must instantly retire, re-
porters and cll. Of this form Mr. John O'Connell took
advantage last night. The House of Commons vies
actually " tiled in ' like a Freemasons' Lodge for a
couple of hours, by the judicious interference of this
bright ornament of the British Senate. What is to be
done for it when children are trusted with knives,
or fools with fire? Cut fingers and a coalsgre.tion
are the natural results. The extreme power we
have mentioned was allowed to remain unrcvoked,
simply because there was a generel reliance on
the good sense and discretion of the Members
that it would never be called into operation unless
the occasion should justify the step. Suppose Lord
George Gordon to be busy preaching up a riot, the mob
to have actually risen, the prisons to be opened, and the
town in flames—suppose the fleet at the Nore to have
mutinied, a captain or two to have been run up to the
yard-arm, lied a suspicion abroad that the infection
imagine, in such cases, that it might be policy
might spread to Portsmouth and Plymouth—we can just
to keep
the actual certainty of what passed in either House of
Parliament from the knowledge of the public for a few
hours. Nothing short of such an emergency could justify
the act of excluding the reporters frostthe House, and
consequently depriving the public of the knowledge of its
proceedings. Mr. John O'Connell is of a different opi-
nion. Unfortunately for the country (since he is a Mem-
ber of the House of Commons), and still more unfortu-
nately for himself, he is extremely conceited, and not very
apt to calculate consequences. The leading journals and
we ourselves most freely plead guilty to the charge, and
will not encumber our space with two or three columns
per night of the senseless declamation be is in the habit
of pouring forth. Hence this immortal pendeavouringJohn O'Connell is endeavouring to starve us into com-
aanrcee'n o f
tosvb admittedil l n
wewe will
w to reportth
saokwryn.
not. We will stand between the e
public and this ;afflic-
tion. So long as we can lay our hands on any marvel-
lous American anecdotes; an accounts of wonderful
Scotch salmon; any reports of the at
tdoiltus
We orationseare
proceedingS of turn-
pike meetings in Wales, or of Protection gatherings in
Essex; while a single fanatic raves on Kennington-

common, or a single German professor perorates in the
Assembly at Frankfort, we are sure of being able to lay
before the public more entertaining and useful matter
than will ever issue from the lips of Mr. John O'Con-
nell. It is for the country to decide whether it is content
to remain in ignorance ef the, proceedings of its re-
presentatives, when such a person as Mr. John O'Con-
nell is the only obstacle that "stops the way."
Mr. John O'Connell is an exaggeration and ca-
r,4i c,
ea t ufi reed ofh mt h ee v
enr a tiino nal
extremes. de fec t s
Hoef
ish his y.
lc
f‘oe,urenxwt
erhyi
a'amtthehinee.
ation. He has
wouldsthr
an
gcearl
ul "
us tpheonp pt ihneg s
ltihgeh t
es us
tp ppl
rooyvso'e'
but one weapon, and that one a shillelab, which he
handles on all occasions like a ten-tumbler man at Don-
nybrook Fair in the palmy days of that Irish festival.
What could be his meaning in excluding strangers last
night? We have a strong suspicion that he must him-
self have been on his legs for a considerable portion of
the time. Nothing came to the cars of the reporters out-
side but a concert of groans and hisses. Is it very unna-
tural to infer that Mr. John O'Connell was prominently
before the House ? We do not absolutely say he was
speaking, for of course the proceedings were all snug and
under the rose. For aught we know, he may have been
dancing a jig on the floor of the House after the fashion
of the Mulligan of Ballymulligan. The hisses heard out-
side might have been the expression of the value Hon.
House performance.
with
the sons of the "Rearing Beggar,
Hg een
might
n set upon
n or the " Shan Van
pheanveMbjre jnolleante;
the
°rCaitnininngtli's
Voeht." The tokens of feeling heard outside would not
from their nature exclude such an hypothesis. He might
have been enumerating the great pecuniary sacrifices
the O'Connell family had made for the benefit of the
poor Irish. We are left, in a word, to float upon a sea
of conjf cture, and can only catch at one probability,
which is, that Mr. John O'Connell was in some way be
fore the House. The groaning and hissing would seem
the judgment of the public. Now, this sort of thing is
to point out thus much—but we must leave the matter to
all very well for once in a way, but a remedy shoul t be
provided. Where there is a madman in a family, com-
mon discretion seems to indicate the propriety of keep-
ing razors out of his reach. Cases there are in which it
might be advisable for the House to sit in secret con-
clave,should never be excluded unless by
order of the majority of the House, or at the very least,
but strangers
not without the concurrent request of a considerable
number of Members. The would retain for the House
what
egenseful for the
public time r
service, and at the same protect us from the
The notion of the
House
m Member.
ad sallies of an individual
of Commons sitting with cloned doors to discuss
the affairs of the nation and legislate for the people, is
might on occasion prove a privilege
exclusion belonged
to be dwelt on for a moment. This form of
belonged to other ideas acid other times. The
sooner it is abrogated the bet`er, now we know there is a
man in the House of Commons capable of enforcing it
without some strong public necessity. Mr. John
O'Connell might happen to be taken with one
of these insane freaks when some matter was
under discussion upon which the public felt a very
strong and a very legitimate curiosity. It is im-
possible to say what may not follow from trusting power
in such improper hands. The adoption of the sugges-
tion we have offered above would very sufficiently guard
the public from the recurrence of this nuisance. Mean-
while, we beg most distinctly and directly to contradict
the assertion upon which Mr. John O'Connell based the
announcement of his intention to exclude strangers from
the gantry. There was no misreport in the Times of
what occurred during the last discussion upon the Oaths
Bill. The assertion is but the hallucination of a brain
overheated with disappointment and vanity. As usual,
all the important points and important arguments of the
debate were given, and every speaker whose words carry
weight with them out of doors, or who spoke to the pur-
pose, was reported at length. When even upon this system
the Parliamentary debates run to the length which they
actually do, the public may judge of what would
happen if we daguerreotypest—if we may be permitted
the expression—the very words which issued from the
mouths of the Parliamentary speakers. Were we to
adopt such a course, a double Times might be filled five,
or at least four times a week during the sitting of Par-
liament with the endless circumvolutions of speech and
oft-repeated phrases which Honourable Gentlemen are
in the habit of indulging the House. Meanwhile, let it
go abroad that such an individual as Mr. John O'Con-
nell, from private and personal pique, and because he
finds the London journals, in place of reporting him at
length, give only the substance of his orations, has
grossly and wantonly abused a privilege intrusted to
Members for eminent public emergencies. If he would
think prudently, sot discreetly, and speak briefly and to
the point, he would be far more likely to attain his end
than by pursuing his present course. We are not in a
conspiracy to pus down either honesty or talent.
CHRONICLE.—We have already disclaimed, with
perfect sincerity, the wish to bear too hardly upon the
frailties of Mr. Hudson. Those who reflect on his con-
duct with unmerciful severity should beware of that re-
action offceing which often conve its the bitterly-abused
delinquent into the martyr. Some evidences of this
sympathy were manifested on Thursday night, when a
sort of explanation of the charges against him, voitin-
teered by Mr. Hudson in his place in Parliament, was
received with tolerant indulgence by the House. The
candour of some and the consciences of others must
have told those who listened to the apologies of the
great Railway Autocrat, that his conduct, if not
morally defensible, was at least not devoid of " extenu-
ating circumstances." The vastness, the novelty, and
the avowedly speculative character of the enterprise
in which he had bean engaged ; the wide and
undefined scope of the powers thrust upon
rather than solited by, the great favourite of fortune: the
implied commission to him to use his own free judgment,
untrammelled by scrutiny or control; and the virtual
sanction of bis financial obliquities, by the acceptance of
dividends which credulity itself could scarcely believe
fairly earned;—these are the considerations which, as
between Mr. Hudson and his Eastern Counties
conduct.consti-
itshat
r. H
adMoreover,son di
de
oi ft taihnvetaoialshslesi
irtetoi
sowennl
ft epeoft
crkuheei
his
a smay
cheats,ay ought
fairly not
assumedto be e excluded utdhe in a
be the absence
stftoesthtie-
of impartial
proo
cmoantteraorc, h
position at the board to put money that
by the operations in the sheres—lf he is in the same
boat with the rest of the proprietary, and has lest a large
private stake in the reckless game that he played
with his own property as well as theirs—it must- be
owned that the case against him is relieved
of what
would otherwise have been its heaviest aggravation.
With regard to another allegation under which he at-
tempts to shelter himself—viz., that other chairmen and
directors have done the like, and that deceptive dividends
have not been confined to the companies over which be
has presided—the plea is not, indeed, of much moral
weight, even although the fact be true; but naleat quan-
tum, Mr. Hudson may be allowed to take the benefit of
it. The above are some of the grounds on which we
think the late Chairman of the Eastern Counties Com-
pany may claim a qualification of some at least of those
merciless censures which have been fulminated against
him as regards this particular railway. The share-
holders who pressed him into the chair in 1845, and
who asked no questions when he inaugurated his reign
by trebling their dividend, are not entitled to cast a
stone at him. If they wilfully shut their own eyes, they
have no right to blame him because he has led them into
the ditch.
lIERA.LD.—We have never been among the servile
idolaters of Mr. Hudson, nor yet among his furious as-
sailants. We have never doubted that in 1845 he was
absurdly overvalued; nor have we failed to see, that, in
1849, he is just as absurdly depreciated. The simple
truth is, that Mr. Hudson is an energetic, hard-headed
Yorkshiremao, with, we believe, an average share of
honesty and common sense, but scarcely able to bear up
against the crowd of temptations which must have beset
' him in the year of railroad excitement. We have felt
no obligation to interfere between him and the public,
in the various discussions which'have been lately carried
on. There could be no question, that in the excessive
hurry of the railroad y ear, Mr. Hudson had been involved
in various transactions which would scarcely bear a close
investigation. But then, on the other hand, it was
very clear, that many of the men who are now bait-
ing him with accusations, were just the very persons
who, in 1845, were foremost in pressing upon him the
most absolute and plenary power. We had no inclina-
tioa to interfere in this matter until we read the very
unjust attack which appeared in yesterday's Times. The
well-known system of that paper, is to go with the