The Sun.
London, England, 1838-06-11 00:00:00

8?IR

OF THE PUBLIC JOURNA ,LS.

How t:r'..e high judicial situation, vacant in Iredietn'eby
the death of Chief Baron Joy (a man whose Bterl,.ag pri-
vate clue dities merited a better fate_ than a peenegyrie in
the Times), will be disposed of by the Gies-
ernment, we
are r.ot infiermed ; nor do we feel in the least uneasy upon
the sithireet, knowing, from the former promotions in the
Irish. law department, that the office will assuredly be be-
sto wed upon a law)er of reputatiore and a gentleman of
-w.ietes. The Times, whose zeal fo r the purity of the Irish.
'ert;.ne is above all praise, evinces the most lively anxiety
.aboat the appointment of the Chief Baron Joy's successor.
he be a Protestavie A friend to British eon-
-election ? A friend of the Established Church ? Will lse
by a protector of the Clergy ? Will he assist them in
-the legal recewery of their tithes 9 And, finally, v file
le select lists of reputable gentrnmen and Jez,
. 44,
subjects for the office of High S'aeriff?" All t ‘jese
interrogatories, except the first, we have no he.sie
atioa to answer in the affiranatiee. Whet}-
ter the
mext Chief Baron will be a Protestant or not •,s e cannot
say ; but we think we can rece:steet a certain Aet of Par-
'Bement (for which the Time', was once as I.olla a blusterer
ets Boreas) which declares '.tat it is a peleVect 'matter of in-
difference whether the, C'aief Baron, or any other public
7unetionary (with tao 41* three exceptions), be a Protestara
or a Papist, The new chief will, however, mest certeirely
be a fritter'. to Be itish connect ion. He could not pos
be an enemy tcv it, unless Lord Mulgrave wee to I?itele
upon an. Orangeman, a thing not much to be dreaded. He
,will ale t, in all human probability, be a friend to the Ji.sta-
iblishe,!i Church, the best act of friendship to that in stitu-
lat ing to lop off its superfluities, area to cut it down
:into 'proportion to justice and Chrielianity. A prraector
'of the rights of the clergy will he be, and an 'enforcer
of all their claims, legal or equitable ; foe., whether
he believe or disbelie-ee in purgatory, the, 'litres mas
.be sure that he wil'a be a nean of probity and honour,
a fearless assertor r)? the law& of his country, witree,ut re-
gard to their -pol.'<ey, and a man in wheem, as in Judge
Perrin and Baron Richards, the Jr beesole will re-
.teive an aven-handed dispenser of justice- viithout regard
to person or to party. Lastly, the n eve r,liief,
we venture
to preclhet with the utmost ccrifid'4lt,e, will select for the
.< tfice 'of Sheriff " reputable gen.!)
.emen and loyal subjects,"
axtl none other ;but even were no to neglect his duty in
,his point, and select Orange-
.nen, as so many of the Irish
:Judges are in the habit of, l'eoing, the Times Italy comfort
itself by recollecting that teord Mulgrave is able and wil-
ling to correct the mist Ake, as he has done already in so
many striking inseances. The Times has far more pro-
phetic skill than Murphy, the author of the Weather
Almanac. We are ready to stake our existence upon t 1
fulfilment of ear; contemporary's prediction, that the •:a.cant
judicial hortieer will be carried off by some on, of the
Woulfee, 'O'Loghlins, Perrins, and R,iehatelses," names
'Very properly selected as types o':‘ every intellectuel,
moral, private, and professioreal endowment that nualifi.es a man to hold the scales of justice in any
country. Upon what individshel shoulders the ermine
.411 fall we repeat again that 'ere have no knowledge. We
mere, however, in a situation to assert that the new Chief
Baron will neither be Xt.. Blackburn, nor yet Mr. Ex-
Sergeant Lefroy. O'er heart bleeds as we write the name
of the latter worth h( and pious gentleman. If ever a.ose
devout eyes decl:.ned from their celestial contemplat'ems to
visit with their spiritual lustre any one of the vile. objects
of secular aenbition, that object was the sit ue'Lion of Chief
Baron ! ever thought of avarice forced ar, entrance for a
moment into that holy breast, it was in the robes of the dignity
now ve.cent that the glittering devil bro'e into the tabernacle! If ewer the melodies of earth mingle.d in those ears with the harpings of angels and the hale -d
of the saints, the
style and title of " Chief Baran Lefroy" ravished his spirit
in its secret calculation's. • Dr. Lefroy received the melan-
choly tidings of his AP -3 demise with
feelings
0,
C bu'S
Macheth when int'o..lied of his lady's premature depar-
ture.: the Ex-Se,- seeant we suppose, exclaimed—
. a should have died hereafter I"
Those who have seen the disappointed doctor since his
favourite dr
"lain of judicial elevation vanished through
tg of vory describe the working of the inner upon the
outer map as a most afflicting and terrific spectacle--
"Black he stood, as night,
Fierce as ten furies."
Al ‘a. alas, in all Gilead there is no balm for this wounded
spiree. The very Standard will not weep over his sorrows,
io r Dr. Lefroy is down in the list of the igNaruin pce:ts,
and was offered a few evenings ago "a, cheap bargain" to
anybody dispose d to purchase eo perfect a specimen of a
Tory crossed i.n the love of pl.acee_Morning Chronicle.
The Ministerial prints have been labouring, with a pro-
fligate and unwearied contempt for truth, to slander the
"miuct 'of Sir Robert Peel in respect of the three Irish
question es. In a weekly paper of yesterday, which has
often served Ministers as a channel for those falsehoods
wb.ith there seemed any pressing necessity to circulate on
t•I _el Sabbath, the leading article begins by expressing- a so-
'4enan apprehension that the " co»zpromise upon the great
national question of Irish poliey is likely to have no result
but that of sad disappointment to the empire at large ;" and
the writer ea.n find no better way of accounting for this al-
leged danger than by bringing against Sir R. Peel a charge
of downright treachery—that is, of palpable inconsistency
bet ween his announced intentions as to the Municipal Cor-
po cations Bill on last Tuesday se'nnight, and his subse-
all sent treatment of the same measure on the motion
for its committal by Lord John Russell on Friday, the Ist
instant. Now, if ever there was a pure and unmixed ex-
eaaple of steadiness of purpose and fidelity to engagements
eon any political occasion, it may be alleged of Sir Robert
Peel's conduct with reference, not to one merely, but to
the whole of those Iris Bills. From the first he declared
-that, as regarded the Church Bill, he would have nothing
to do with an appropriation clause ; that in the Poor-law
Bill he would supreort a system of rating which might be
rendered availab;e to the establishment of a qualification
for burgesses ,ander the Municipa', Bill ; and that he would
consent to ao qualification of hewer value than 101., to be
determineeA byan actual rate, i.enposed after the returns made
by sworn valuators appoirsted for that purpose. What
evidence, therefore, or -what particle of suspicion,
against the fairness a'"..sd honour of Sir Robert Peel's
Peel's whole conduct atm be drawn from the above recorded
facts ? Wherein /hoes he swerved a single inch from that
path which was 'etialkeci out by the Duke of Wellington in
the former se esion, and by himself in this, as ,the course
which had
...len deliberately resolved upon, and would be
rigorouslei adhered to by the Conservative party ? The
Right Ts--lon. Baronet's refusal to admit a lower franchise
than 'chat of a rated 101. qualification is a direct fulfilment
of }' ,is original promise to guard the interests of the Este-
-IIF :shed Church and of the Protestant community through-
-out the whole empire ; and his breach of such an obligation
wo not merely be despised as a weakness, but resented
hX-ere people of England, and by the sound portion of the
people of Ireland, as a heinous political injury. Firmness
wand the reputation of firmness) itself is power. The
statesman truly tenax proposal, at the head of but a hun-
dred votes in the House of Commons, would be,
and ever has been, in the eyes of Englishmen, more
formidable than a waverer with the command of
thrice t-,e number. A consciousness of this truth,
and a reliance on it, should never be absent from the mind
of ar, English politician who is really desirous of making
Pui.die opinion the instrument of public good. Those news-
PApers which have hitherto been recognized as organs of
the Ministerial Whigs would frighten the friends of law and
order in Parliament, by declaiming against a solid quelifica-
lion for Irish electors, both political and corporate, on the
ground, of its not being " popular" enough. If the word
Pereuler" had an equivalent meaning in Ireland to that
whf:ch it bears among ourselves, there might be some colour
oaf reason in such objections. A " popular franchise"
among Englishmen conveys to one's mind the notion of a
franchise uncontrolled and independent, exercised by the
holders of it according to their own free will. A popular,
cr in other words a very " extended," franchise, across the
Chanuel, signifies in practice nothing more than a privilege
vested in an ignorant and superstitious rabble, inflamed by
their ambitious priesthood against the Protestant—that in,
the British—Government, and in abject vassalage to
that hostile and rebellious priesthood. Nominal demo-
cracy, therefore, in Ireland is a real, grinding, overwhelm-
ing monopoly, directed and exercised by the Romish
hierarchy against the Protestant Church, the British State,
and all those institutions whereon our civil rights and liber-
ties are founded. No such genuine hatred of human free-
dom in any one department of public or private life can be
found as your clamourer on behalf of so-called " demo-
crehy," in the priestridden state of Ireland. A multipli-
ration of such nominal rights in that degraded country is
but furnishing the spiritual Briareus with his hundred
arms. But who are they that in the present instance cry
out for the grant of a factitious id est, an indefinitely low,
qualification to the Irish Papists? Messrs. O'Connell and
S hail—the 4 ehildree, champions," and sedulous tools of the
priesthood. We have alreadyrecommended to the reader's
notice some statements made by Mr. E. Macdonnell upon
the fitness of these persons to sway the judgment of any one
Member of the Impeial Parliament upon questions re-
lating to Ireland. We urgently repeat that recommenda-
tion on behalf of an important letter in this day's Times,
illustrative of the sincere, straigh°war
Respecting Mr.
f r d, and trustworthy
character of the above two gentlemen.
we
need not quote—the
Sheileit is enough to point out
Mr. Eneas Macdonnell recalls the
ween the assurances uttered by the
before the Bill for abolishing the
and his obstreperous and terma-
since that period against the ens-
led Church—his assurances before-
excitement ever could or would be
Catholic priests or laymen, if the
were once conceded by a relief
would ever again possess a shadow

striking terms in'whicb
scandalous contrast betty
member for :Tipperary
‘
„.--werid"ecia,raittiopikever s
of ttiostestablishe
ibat norftgioisej)f ex
j..„ ielor4d. to n C
;11k.:4: ter
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