The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-16 00:00:00

EVENING SUN

RETIREMENT of LORD ABINGER.

Many have been the rumours respecting the
.retirement of Lord Abinger from the Bench.
7Virst of all he was to retire in favour of
his son-in-law, the late Attorney-General; that
proved false. Since the accession of the pre-
sent Government to office, the Conservative
press has stated unhesitatingly that his Lord-
ship was to retire in order to make room for
S',r Frederick Pollock, so that Sir William
Follett might be enabled to relieve Lord Lynd-
hurst.
But to-day it appears in the Govern-
ment organ in all the dignity of a first
leader, and apparently upon authority, that
the Noble Lord has actually " intimated"
Ws wish for retirement, in the proper quarter.
.All former rumours have been falsified by the
lapse of time. We have, therefore, only to deal
with that which appears in the Post of yesterday ;
and we are fully authorised to give it a flat contra-
/fiction. The Noble Lord has never even contem-
plated retiring from the Bench, far less has he
" intimated" any wish to that effect to the
Government.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM TILE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—While the wretched man who suffered
this morning was yet living, we forbore from stating the
opinion we hold in favour of the execution of the ex-
treme sentence of the law. We have even admitted
arguments on the opposite side into our columns. But
there is no reason for further reserve of our own opi-
siert, or of the grounds of it. Let it be shown
Ito us that there is no terror in canital
punishment for brutal natures, and none will be
more anxious than ourselves for its abolition. If
there is any such terror excited—any such sense of the
force of law, and the certainty of its execution, as to
make those pause whom no moral abhorrence would
withhold from the deed of murder or violation—capital
executions are justified. They are justified in the eyes
of all except of that respected society in whose eyes war
is not justified, even in national self-defence. Why the
possibility, or even the certainty, of a murderer, a
ravisher, a traitor or two, suffering on the scaffold, at
considerable intervals, should excite such a vast deal of
sympathy as to drown all sympathy for their victims, and
absorb all care or concern for the millions of inno-
cent citizens whom the rare severities of the law secure,
in some measure, from crimes of violence during those
intervals—we are unable to explain, except from similar
perversions of feeling to those which make sympathisers
with Jack Sheppard, or hero-worshippers of Guy
Fawkes. We say, without hesitation, that except in
the case of " Friends," who arc consistent in this doc-
trine—and of a few speculative and phrenological phi
lanthropists (whom we way notice some other time).
we believe that what really is at the root of
most of the outcry against all death punishment, is a
lurking hostility to the social system as it exists. We
do not mean to impute this as criminal, or to stigma-
tise any of the opponents of capital punishments, but
we do mean to say that such feelings operate and are
highly dangerous. Flow else does it happen that
such extreme tenderness of human life in the case of
criminals, is so often accompanied with such utter in-
difference to it, when destroyed in the way of " wild
justice," as it has sometimes been termed, or of
wholesale massacres, when those have been made on
popular pretexts ? We distrust some of this popular
philanthropy ; we believe it to be one-sided. It be-
longs to the age of " bowie-knives," and dastard dag-
gers " for xll:defence." We distrust it ; we do indeed
—we have seen its " uprising," and are "acquainted
with its ways." We should expect to meet it at a
minor theatre, gloating on scenes of mixed outrage and
licentiousness, and enjoying the mimic murders which it
'can't bear to see punished in earnest. We should ex-
pect to meet it in scenes more serious' were the terrors
of law, and the bonds of order, relaxed in the degree
which philanthropists of this sanguine complexion call for.
STANDARD.—The appointment of a Bishop of
the United Church of England and Ireland to exercise
episcopal functions within certain limits of the Levant
is atu event too important to pass unheeded or un-
laenented by the enemies of our venerable Establish-
tricot. We find the Spectator and the Morning
,C.lironicle already drawing from it the darkest pre.
sages and the worst consequences. As far as English-
men arc concerned, we apprehend little evil from all
that our Coatemporaries can say ; but as some of their
remarks are calculated to excite the jealousy of foreigners
by surmising it, a few words of explanation may be
-useful. The Church of England, though happily
established in these islands, is, in the belief of con-
scientious Churchmen, something more and some-
thing infinitely higher than a mere temporal establish-
ment. It is a body of Christians spiritually united by
eue adoption of a common faith and a common form of
aiiscipline. in this view, if the Church disclaims all
'civil authority on the one side, as all its sober members
do, it can acknowledge no local limits on the other.
What is true, and decent, and orderly in England
and Ireland, must preserve the same charac-
teristics every where ; and we are not to withhold the
benefit of the blessing from others who may seek it,
thougla separated from us by the accident of place or
the accident of diffarent civil institutions. " Show me," said
the late Mr. Howells, of Long-acre Chapel," a man who
would be contented to go to Heaven alone, and I will
'show you a man who will never go there." Plato
had said the same thing before, though in a less
lioraely style. If we believe the system of the
Church of England—understanding by the word
system the compound of creed and ecclesiastical
discipline—the best calculated for the religious
improvement of man—and that we do is proved by
oar adoption of this system—we are surely bound
gis let all mankind participate in it if they please ;
rmore especially bound to secure its advantages to
:all who are entitled to them, as Englishmen are by right
.of birth. The title of Bishop A,exander, as a Bishop
of the United Church in Jerusalem, ought, one would
think, to have rendered unnecessary any caveat
against the suggestion of any of those objections that
are offered—ought to have obviated the parallel of the
Irish Roman Catholic Prelates' claim to be Bishops
of certain dioceses in Ireland. Tile King of Bel-
gium was a few months ago kin!: in England, and no
doubt during his visit to hie Royal Niece he may
have exercised some acts of Royalty in this country—
though certainly not in relation to the Eng-
!jell neople—in relation to his own subjects. Tile
Intimendence of England was surely not invaded
by either his Majesty's presence or his acts. On
the other hand we are all gratified by the pre-
sence of a Prince who in other times had taught us
to respect and love him, and who, by his visit,
added to the enjoyments of • our bsl ed Ci ices.
There is, too, another and an important differ-
ence in the cases of the new Bishop in Je-
xuaaletn, and the Irish Romanist Bishops. Bishop
~A.lexaader has sworn no obedience, civil or
R y i
eclV,iaStiCal. to any authority in England,' and by
staking the late Act be is exonerated
froml the necessity of
even the oath of allegiance.
that he is a British subject. The Ramant
mere Catholic
i d
pe,rt.,t
ishops of the several dioceses in Ireland, are, on the
,othor hand, strictly sworn to a civil and ecclesiastical
'obedience to the See of Rome, and must ba taken from
NteC. trained in the most submissive service to that See

XXTRA.ORDINARY
OY MURDER BY
-
A B

On Saturday last John Smith, aged nine years,
ne years, wis
went by his father, aof baker,saot
fr.oer,,di d i_nisiz.:o7,
Edward Kearsey,
.mile, with a basket of cakes for sale ; whilst on his
-way thither, George Barber, aged ten years, aceern.
hi parried him (as 1
has since confessed) to Shotford-
'
bridge, which crosses the river Waveney; here the boys
loitered, and Smith upon and sat astride the para.
.. got
pet wall thereof.
in that position, Barber took
one of the cakes from
Whtit
hlseba
his father, and immedi-
et and ate it, when Smith
cried, and said he would tell
ately Barber pushed him off the bridge and ran away ;
this took place between four
'The evening closing in, and ,:ad five o'clock, P.M.
the child Smith not
Makin; his appearance, his parents became exceedingly
anxious about him. Search was made for him imme-
dietely ; truly he had not been
at Mr. Keergey's,
although expected there. The fe.ilowing day and Mon-
-4l ay the river was carefully searched, but nothing was
found to bear out the supposition that he was drowned.
On the latter day towards evening a basket wisbrough
by a female to the elder Smith, who immediatelyi re-
cognized it to be the cake basket his son had with him
ton Saturday ; it had been found in a shed upwards
ef two miles distant from Shotford-bridge, near an
Far
m,
in path leading to Skeet's Mere
in the parish of Needham. Information was given
on Monday that the boys had been seen together
ton Saturday afternoon, and Barber's habit.; being very
'irregular, having previously absented himself from home
several days together (arising, it is reported, from the
extreme negligence of his father-in-law, Rogsby), imme-
diate steps were taken to find him, which was soon ac-
complished, he having returned home that morning.
He denied having any knowledge about the boy
Smith ; but afterwards the parish constable of
Pulliam (Rogaby, the father-in-law, residing in that
parish), extorted a confession from him, that he did ac-
company the deceased to the bridge, that he pushed
Lim into the water, and then ran away ; that he ate the
remainder of the cake,, and slept in the shed on Sa-
turday night where the basket was found. The body
was found on Tuesday, and an inquest held thereon the
same day before J. Muskett, Esq., Coroner, and after
two hours' deliberation the Jury returned a verdict of
wilful murder against George Barber, who was imme-
diately comaeitted to the Castle to take his trial at the
5ext,,a4,..-..-.ATovfollc Chronicle.
.A •
LiK • ', •!..
I :g; `fT4-:,-The Itei.,Pytiney Smith, on being told by a
2-
friend that the weather- had greatly
..1'
.... birth of a Prince, is
_said to have i
improved since the
replied, " Yes, but I
\,a gsuppoae, izistead Of rain, it will now be all hail 1"