The Sun.
London, England, 1836-04-13 00:00:00

dual wrong committed, cannot, we apprehend, be
denied ; and a wrong, too, without a remedy, un-
less the House of Commons, in a Committee of
Supply, has the manliness and the justice to re-
pair the injury by a vote adequate to cover these
heavy consequences. On the general question first
alluded to—viz., suits on the prosecution of the Crown
for duties and penalties, the remedy perhaps is not so
obvious, for in such cases were the Crown to pay costs
when unsuccessful, it would of course be entitled to
receive them upon verdicts obtained in its favour,
which, as they form a proportion of nine out of '
every ten, the consequences upon defendants would be
greatly enhanced. But the case is different in prose-
cutions instituted upon votes of the House of Com-
mons. In such cases, when they fail it is the Repre-
sentatives of the people oppressing those whom they
represent ; and though we are far from wishing to see
the House of Commons shorn of any of those privi-
leges which they hold in trust for the benefit of the
people, we see no reason why they should be entitled
to inflict an injury, merely because they can use a
name in their legal proceedings which protects them
from consequences to which their constituents, under
parallel circumstances, are one and all subject. The
plaintiff-in a failing action is compelled, in common
justice, to pay the defendant's costs. Why is the
latter to be placed in a worse situation when the House
of Commons (sometimes, perhaps, for mere party pur-
poses) chooses to become his prosecutors ?—Morn-
ing Herald.

His Majesty's Ministers and all their train seem
to regard the blowing up of King William's statue i❑
Dublin as a very superior stroke of pleasantry. Now,
it may be a very good joke, but we confess that we do
not see the point of it, and it would be but considerate
on the part of those grave personages who cannot allude
to it without an ecstacy of laughter to intimate to the
more simple wherein the merriment of the thing lies.
We are really quite in the dark as to the fun of an ex-
plosion of gunpowder in the public streets of the me-
tropolis of Ireland—an explosion which blows some
three tons of lead up in the air, and then causes it to
fall with a tremendous crash into the public tho-
roughfare,—the drollery of this, however exquisite,
is too deep for us. It is true that the explosion took
place in the dead of the night, when most people
were in bed, and the smashing of the lamps and
shaking of the windows, as well as the terrific noise
occasioned by the explosion, must have caused
many to start suddenly from their slumbers ; but
there is hardly enough in this to move a Ministry
to unutterable mirth, or to convulse one side of
the House of Commons with laughter. We are,
therefore, still at fault for the source of the mer-
riment, and cannot divine why this particular outrage
should be more a matter of amusement than other out-
rages are. We can, indeed, understand that the de-
struction of a statue which was dear to Protestants,
as a memorial of their great leader in a time of im-
minent peril—we can, we say, understand how this
might be a matter of ruffian exultation to the bigotted
and Protestant-hating scoundrels who committed the
outrage. Nay, we can believe, that to some persons,
who are at once the associates of the lowest black-
guards, and of the King's Ministers, this insolent out-
rage on the part of congenial bigots and blackguards in
Dublin might give a great deal of satisfaction ; but we
cannot believe that the Ministers participate in the low
brutalities of these persons, though they feel it neces-
sary to court them for the sake of their political sup-
port. It was stated yesterday by the Ministerial
papers, that when the subject was alluded to in the
House of Commons great mirth was immediately ex-
hibited, and Lord Morpeth, with what is described
as at once marked and mocked solemnity, informed
the House that he had not received any official
information on the subject. This, at least, was no
jesting matter. An outrage, which certainly was very
daring and alarming, and which had been the cause of
very great excitement in Dublin, ought surely to have
been mentioned to the Irish Minister by his Deputies
in Dublin. The villains who perpetrated the outrage
had wantonly put the most important part of the city
of Dublin in the greatest danger. It is absurd to sup-
pose that they could have exactly calculated the quan-
tity of powder necessary to overthrow the statue, and
that the explosion did no greater mischief is no lessen-
ing of the crime which they have committed. A few
ounces more of powder, and the houses would have been
blown down, many lives lost, the great door of the
Bank of Ireland, which was close at hand, blown in,
the Bank probably robbed, and the business of
the city suspended. Is it fit that a great crime,
which caused much disturbance, and was very
near leading to consequences much more serious,
should be matter of mock solemnity for the Mi-
nisters, and cause great laughter in the senate ?
We did not think that we had come quite to that yet;
but what is there we may not prepare for when Mr.
O'Connell gives the cue to the Ministers, and the
Ministers to the rabble, in, and out, of the House of
Commons ? Lord Morpeth's exhibition of himself in
the character of a droll is not surprising, since the
discovery has been made that his face is an exact fac
simile of the ugliest and most laughable of our comic
actors ; but there are times and places for all things,
and since, from his Lordship's modesty, he is not
much in the habit of displaying talent of any kind, we
would recommend him not to waste his jocoseness upon
unfitting occasions :
" For though his Lordship has much wit
He's very shy of using it,
As being loth to wear it out,
And therefore bears it not about,
Unless on holidays, or so, .

As men their begt apparel do."
It was so near the Easter holidays that Lord Mor-
peth forgot they were gone by. This is a common
thing with schoolboys, bout his Lordship ought to be
pleased to remember that, however absurd and incre-
dible the fact may be, it is nevertheless a fact that he is
not a schoolboy, but Secretary of State for Ireland. We
must own (at the risk of provoking more laughter from
Mr. O'Connell's merry men on the Treasury Benches)
that we do think this blowing up in Dublin a very se-
rious affair, not so much on its own account—though
even that is far too important to be treated with ridi-
cule—as that we consider it symptomatic of a new
and terrible resolution on the part of the
,Irish
Papists. The election for the county of Clare, in
defiance of law, was the discovery which carried Ca-
tholic Emancipation. The blowing up •of the statue
of King William may prove to be the discovery
which, by general application, will soon remove
the Protestant Churches of Ireland, which are such
an eyesore to the liberal Papists. If a statue may
biel e bblownpug
up icri
spotthe very
within centre
tll e
i o.
limits
theis o f metropolis,th at
m etr
metro-
polis, n
tst.
tly blow
places,
3l
a upces
, ‘vithout
a
polls, and if the outrage is seen to be but a mirthful
occurrence in the estimation of the Government, how
great is the temptation and (comparatively) how easy
the r
t tasklii l
o oTie
churches,
lany
one which
areto g
forua r thed
them
em most?
pa
Numbers, audacity, and gunpowder, may do anything
in the way of destruction, and if at the commence-
ment the Government will laugh, instead of punish-
ing, it may find, in the end, punishment instead of
laughter. The system of the Whig Government for
these five years has been to show the Irish Papists
that whatever law they are daring enough gene-
rally a
land. t: resist, must from thenceforth be held to
be null and void. They resisted the payment of tithes,
' to which they were bound by law, and tithes the
Government proclaimed must cease to exist in Ire-
rhey have but to blow up every building which
common
is offensive to them, and Government will, after their
laughter has sufficiently subsided to enable them to
speak, admit that Protestant Churches must not exist
if Papists are resolved to destroy them. We put it to
the
"holy
to say whether if a " holy stone," such as Irish Pa-
pists mon sense and candour even of our opponents
ignorantly worship, had been blown up, or a
well" had been destroyed, the British Minister
for Ireland would have dared to have made a jest of
it in the House of Commons, or have even refrained
from the expression of his indignation. Who does
not know that the soul of such a creature as Lord
Morpeth would have sunk within him at the appre-
hension of Mr. O'Connell's displeasure, and that he
would have run with the speed of a hound to express
his deep
concern for the outrage? But Protestant
feelings are not, it seems, worth caring about, and
what they look upon as an insult is to be treated with
mock solemnity and laughter. And this must be
borne ? Yes, for the present it must ; but a day of