The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-19 00:00:00

DEC. 17.

Remained at last report 1
New cases '2
Died
Recovered 0
Remaining at this date 3
From the Commencement of the Disease.
Cases, s.—Died, 2.
(Signed) WM. MACLEAN, Secretary.

We regret to learn, by a communication in an.
other column, that the cholera has appeared at Hull

The second reading of the Reform Bill was passed
on Saturday night (or rather on Sunday morning)
in the House of Commons, by a majority of 324 to
162, being a majority of just two to one in favour of
the Bill. The debate throughout was animated
and interesting, and less tinged with rancorous party
venom than usual. Sir R. INGLIS opened the dis-
cussion, and insisted that if the Bill passed it would
make the House of Commons the repository of the
entire democracy of the country, an innovation which
he strenuously deprecated. Mr. S. WORTLEY also
opposed the Bill, whence we conclude that his
father, Lord WHARNCLIFFE, has not yet become
convinced of the imperious necessity of allowing it
to pass into law. Sir C. WETHERELL spoke with
his usual acrimony against the measure, and was
replied to at length by Mr. STANLEY, in one of the
most sensible, appropriate,and energetic speeches ever
delivered in the House. The Right Hon. Gentleman
not only successfully defended the conduct of Mi.
sisters against the imputations alleged against them
by Sir C. WETHERELL, but demolished point by
point all the elaborate sophistry of Mr. J. CROKER,
and convinced that Right Hon. Gentleman that
his knowledge of history was on a par with
his knowledge of classical literature. Sir R. PEEL
in a lengthened but not intemperate speech, avowed
his continued hostility to Reform, which he depre-
cated not so much on its own account as because it
would be fatal to the prerogatives of the House of
Lords, and pave. the way to concessions without
number to the democracy, which would have neither
reason nor justice to recommend them. The Right
lion. Baronet entered at considerable length into
details respecting his change of opinion on the
Catholic question, and fully convinced the House, as
we are sure lie will the country, that as a statesman
of spirit, intelligence, and patriotism, he could not
have acted otherwise than he did, on that memorable

OCCa6iOD.

It is clear from the persevering hostility evinced
throughout the whole of last week in the House of

Commons, that all the efforts at conciliation made
by Lord GREY and his colleagues have wholly failed
of their effect. They have therefore but one re-
source left, viz. to create a bufficient number of
Peers to enable them to pass the Reform Bill, in
spite of all the intrigues and chicanery of the fac-
tion. This resource should be put into in-
stant operation. There is no time for delay.
As for any further attempt at conciliation,
it is evident that the very idea is preposterous. The
Lords will a second time reject the Bill—even with
the experience of the past before them—unless they
be effectually sluiced with new Peers. We hope,
therefore, that Ministers will no longer hesitate to
adopt that line of conduct, which the vital interests
of the country, and their own characters, as States-
men, imperiously demand.

The riot at Kilkenny has occurred in a very op-
portune moment for the consideration of the Com-
mittee to whom the important question of the Irish
tithes has been referred. Lamentable as it is, it
affords a useful illustration of a state of things in
which a Christian Minister is forced to despatch a
constable and forty policemen, to serve his flock with
the process of the law for the recovery of tithes, and
in which the policemen are attacked by the multi-
tude, and many of them barbarously murdered. This
16 the result of that scandalous system of injustice
with which Ireland has for centuries been misgo-
verned; and it is, unhappily, only one proof out of
thousands of the crimes and outrages to which this
odious tithe-system has led. Call any thing be con-
ceived more inconsistent with the Christian religion,
than a troop of policemen going forth to enforce the
dues of the parson ? and, that, at a period when the
feelings of the people had been known to be gene-
rally roused to a pitch of excitement against tithes,
which must have foretold some such catastrophe as
that which has unfortunately happened to the Rev,
Dr. HAMILTON'S forces ? We should be sorry to
speak lightly of so dreadful a sacrifice of life—but
nothing can be plainer than that the blood of the
slain is on the head of the tithe-system, and the
abettors of that unfailing source of mischief.
There are several courses open to the recommen-
dation of the Committee. The first is to extend,
generally, the compositions which have already bee❑
brought into action in some parts of Ireland ;—the
second, to throw the tithe upon the landlord, by de-
claring that the tithe-receipt shall in all cases form
a legal deduction from the rent ; the third is, to re-
deem or commute the tithe wholly, and for ever,
and to substitute for it a fairly adjusted provision
for the Protestant as well as the Catholic clergy.
It would be premature to anticipate the Committee's
recommendation, but to suppose that any thing
short of a permanent commutation will remedy the
evil, is a most delusive hope in those who entertain
it. It is contrary to common sense, that a popula-
tion such as that in the south and west of Ireland,
where the Catholics are to the Protestants, as twenty
to thirty, and even forty to one, in a parish, can we
be at rest till they are fairly rid of this grievous
burthen. The impossibility of collecting tithes any
longer is now admitted, even by Sir R. PEEL,
and the question for the Protestant Churchmen,
ought in prudence to be, how they can secure to
themselves that decent and respectable maintenance
for their establishment, which the Government and
the country are desirous should be kept up. The
Protestant Law Church is as deeply interested ill
the commutation of tithes, as the House of Lords is
in the pa4sing of the Reform Bill, for it is the only
apparent means whereby its existence can be much
longer upheld.
That very voluminous document, the Report of
the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Inquiry in Ire-
land, contains a mass of information, which though
not intended to bear directly upon the tithe ques-
tion, illustrates very strikingly the multifarious
abuses to which it has led. The unions of be-
nefices, under various pretences, has been carried to
such an extent, that the Commissioners found, upon
inquiry into the sate of the province of Armagh,
that there were in it 356 parishes, and that those
parishes have been consolidated into 110 Unions of
Benefices, so that each incumbent in the province
has upon an average more than three parishes for
his living ! The proportion of the several Bishoprics
in this province is reported as follows :
Armagh l5 Unions, consisting of 49 Parishes..
Meath 47 ditto,
Derry " 2 ditto,
Kihnore...... 6 ditto,
Clogher ...... 1 ditto,
Dromore..... 5 ditto,
Down 7 ditto,
C0nn0r........ 18 ditto,
Raphoe...... 2 ditto,
Ardagh 7 ditto,

The Commissioners have recommended that re-
quisite measures be raker' for dissolving parochial
Unions, where practicable,—as well as the disap-
propriation of benefices from Church dignities,—
and other Reforms within the limits of the inquiry
confided to them. Let us hope that the Parlia-
mentary Tithe Committee will equal them in
diligence, and surpass them in that comprehensive
and bold view of the question, which a Parlia-
mentary Committee alone is well qualified or -likely
to take.

On this distressing subject we quote the follow•
ing observations from the Kilkenny Journal o
Saturday last, and which being on the spot has give'
the full particulars of the calamitous scene :

" HO ItRIBLECONSEQUENCES OF THE TITHE SYSTEM.
" In another part of this day's Journal, we perform the melan-
choly duty of laying before the public the details, so far as known,
of the death of sixteen human beings, originating in an oppo-
sition to the enforcement of Parson Hamilton's tithes. On
Wednesday next, we shall endeavour to give a short historical
sketch of the circumstances which gave rise to this tragedy, by
detailing the several transactions which have taken place be-
tween his Bible-reading, money-loving Reverence, and his
parishioners since the period of the hurling meetings ; but we
shall dismiss him as much as possible from our recollection even
for the present.
Is even this transaction,we ask, decisive of the fate of tithes?
Will the Government and Legislature persist in leaving the lives
of the people and of the civil power exposed, for the sake of pre-
serving a horrid system, which every disinterested man in every
part of the empire abhors and contemns ? Can the opinion be
entertained that any tax or impost can be continued, when once
it requires generally the aid of the bayonet to collect it? Or,
will we be told that it is not pure despotism to persist in the levy.
ing of any tax, when the people generally declare against it, in r
country where the first principle of the Constitution is that in
man can be taxed without his own consent ? Few men,webelievc
are now so ignorant, or so prejudiced, as to uphold sec.
opinions ;
and, if among those few there be one member of thi
Government or Legislature through whose influence the. settle-
ment of the tithe question shall be an hour delayed, to that man
We say on your head be the consequences which may hereafter
ensue. It will be seen by our report of the careless
inquest of twenty minutes, what the police version of thi
story is. It will also be seen how different are th
statements of the two police witnesses. The one swear
that the firing took place in the front, the other that it tool
place in the rear. The one swore that the process-serves
was knocked down ; the other agrees with the people,
and swears that instead of being knocked down, an attempt
was made to drag him from among the police. Thr
one swears that an immensity, and the other that too, stones
were thrown. The one swears that eighteen police were knocked
down before any firing took place; the other ventures not to
swear at all on this point. The second witness agrees in almost
all the material points on which he gave testimony with the vcr
sion of the story believed in by all parties previous to the inquest
and which we also give. Without meaning to impeaci
the veracity of the first witness, we may, therefore, has
our doubts of the accuracy of his statement,—at least the pubi
will be very apt to conclude that the confusion of the momei
drove the regular order in which the circumstances occurre
from his recollection, and that, of course, without meaning an,
thing wrong, in bringing them to mind afterwards he made
slight mistake, and said that the police were killed belie
the firing commenced. This is, indeed, the only point
which his account differs much from that on the othi
side. We regret to say that the slovenly and very !lasi
manner in which the inquest was conducted, was not ca
ciliated to bring all the facts before the public, or to dissipate th
doubt which the different stories given even by the witness(
were calculated to raise.
" The inquest was badly attended by magistrates; negligent
got up ; and hurriedly conducted. All the public are likely
knew is that Doctor Hamilton's tithes were the remote cause
16 lives having been lost, while the immediate causes which
to that frightful and deplorable catastrophe remain enveloped in