The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.)
Mr. Joseph Sturge and the Herald are employed in
the agreeable occupation of quoting one another, and
trying to show that the opium meeting of Friday last
was of some importance. They accuse a portion of
the London press of endeavouring to depreciate the
said meeting by the use of " falsehood and ridicule."
Of the former they must know we were not in-
tentionally guilty, as we stated the numbers on the
authority of the Post—accurately we still believe. On
Monday the Herald became angry, called names, and
said at one period the room contained SOO persons ; and
to-day it is a thousand, and " crowded." We were not
there, but should be glad to know at what hour " by
Shrewsbury clock" it would have been difficult to
swing a cat in the crowd. At this rate of progres-
sion we shall not be surprised to hear in about
a week that many hundreds of respectable per-
sons—" in buckram suits"—were unable to obtain ad-
mittance. Mr. Sturge says—" A conclusive proof, if
any further were wanting, of the number and respecta-
bility of the meeting, was the triumphant defeat of a
large and apparently a regularly organised number of
persons who attended the meeting for the purpose of
opposing the objects for which it was convened, and
moving amendments on the resolution." Yet this nu-
merous body, according to the Herald, mustered only
five hands in support of their amendment. No doubt
the majority was with Mr. Sturge, but that is surely no
proof of the respectability of the meeting. That,
moreover, is a point which we did not dispute. We only
said that it was unimportant, and that the only names
which we had ever heard before were those of the Chair-
man, Mr. Burnett, the Reverend Boatswain Smith, and
Mr. Sturge. Had any other person whose name was
given ever said or done anything worth mentioning, we
do not doubt that Mr. Sturge and the Herald would
have told us. In the absence of all information on this
head, we still hold that the meeting was insignificant.

(From the Standard.)
It is well to remind the Duke of Wellington and
his friends, as the Times does with characteristic abi-
lity, that no one of the conditions, upon the fulfilment
of which it was intimated that a favourable conside-
ration might be given to the Municipal Bill, has,
in fact, been fulfilled : far from it—every one of
the abuses guarded against by these conditions has
been practised with shameless effrontery ; but we
say again, that if every one of these conditions
had been fulfilled with perfect fidelity, new proofs of the
danger of the Municipal Bill arising in other quar-
era ought to be decisive against entertaining it. And
hare we not these new proofs in the present tem-
per of the Irish Romanists, which is said by the
Morning Chronicle to be, in a " fierce flame," and
whose " agitation " we learn from the same authority
"is stormy and universal." And why ? Because it
is proposed to prevent the practice of fraud, and
personation, and perjury at elections. Is this the
moment for conferring power upon persons animated by
" flames" and " storms ?" Are persons who can be so
easily affected by a danger threatened only to perjury,
fraud, and personation, exactly the men in whose
hands it is safe to place at any time the govern-
ment of their more peaceable fellow-subjects, with
a power of taxation ? Again, is the repeal of the
union likely to be retarded or to be accelerated
by incorporating the masses of repealers by char-
ter, and giving them money and authority to
promote their objects ? But some one will say,
perhaps, though we can scarcely imagine the notion to
come from any one who has not " outslept Endymion"
—concede the Municipal Bill—let Lord Stanley with-
draw his measure of reform, and the Romanists will,be
content. To such simple slumberers of the last twelve
years we reply, in the words of Mr. Daniel O'Connell
himself at his mob-meeting of Tuesday-
-4‘ Why, they did not give us religious liberty until the
year 1829—and then did they give it to us, even? Was
it a free gift? Were we not imploring them to give it to us
before they consented? Oh ! yes, we were imploring, to
be sure, but we implored with five or six millions at our
backs. Whenever you want to persuade a stubborn fellow,
who won't go on, bring five or six and twenty fellows with
you—if you want to cow a fellow who won't do what is right,
by all means have as many of your neighbours looking at
you as you can. So we took five or six millions to look
at Weliington and Peel and Co., and behold they took
the infection just as if we had the cholera. Peel and
Wellington took the emancipation cholera, and we suc-
ceeded in infecting them.—(Great cheering.) Yes, we
got the emancipation, and how ? We got it, and no thanks
to them—that is the way we got it."
This is the gratitude to be expected from Mr.
O'Connell and his party, this is the peace that is bought
by concession.

[Gratitude truly ! Gratitude for what ? For granting
what could no longer be refused—Catholic Emanci-
pation! This is sheer absurdity.—En. SON.]
(From the Courier.)
The assassination of Mr. Claudius West, the bro-
ther of the late Conservative Member for Dublin, is an
addition to the enormous mass of guilt, which a bigoted
and infuriated faction have accumulated upon our un-
happy Sister Kingdom. After this atrocious murder, it
will be difficult for the most unscrupulous advocate of
the system that preserves an Administration in offices,
of which it does not appear to comprehend any one of
the duties, to contend that the measures of the Whigs
for the government of Ireland arc not calculated to
render life and property there worth the purchase of a
day, or even an hour. The murder of Lord Norbury,
which took place on his own grounds, in the broad light of
day, and with the foreknowledge of the vicinity, through
whose criminal misprision the assassins have hitherto
eluded the hands of justice, ought to have caused an
immediate and thorough revision of the Whig system of
misgovernment. To these murders we may add the
numerous crimes of all descriptions arising from poli-
tical
brought
htha es r agitationbee n prooftreducedto
o g
the
light
d priestly b
by Lord
miserable
rd e r
Rtho:cti
e Ministersn scondition t encouragement,o ‘,%
n which were
Committee.hliych A
continue
e-
to receive unearned salaries, is found in the official
returns on the state of crime, which, although somo
were obviously garbled, corroborated the tact, that the
Roman Catholic population of Ireland, under the
auspices of the Liberal Whigs, render
their country a
blemish upon civilised Europe.

STEAM-BOAT COLLISION.--
On Monday
raf-
ternoon, about two o'clock, a collision tookpal acaheaa Greenwich
.bstt eleynbetehne
Anthracite, a new iron steam-vessel, which
running between London and Woolwich, n
steamer. The vessels were proceeding in different directions,eenich
and met near the Shadw ell entrance of the London Dock, when,
owing to some mistake, each taking the course intended by the
other, they came in contact, with a tremendous crash, to the
great alarm of the passengers. The Greenwich steamer, beirg
the stoutest vessel, received trifling damage, but the paddle-box
and wheel of the Anthracite were shattered to pieces, her
main beam split, and part of her bulwarks stove in on one side.
The vessel brought up, and was unable to proceed farther, and
her passengers were transferred to the Greenwich boat: No
one was hurt, but the fright amorgr, the people on board the two
stearners,particnlarly the,females, was extreme. Tho Anthral
aite has been so named from the peculiar description of coal
which supplies her furnaces.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, APRIL 30.
(Sittings in Banco.)
SCALES V. KEY.

This was an action which had been brought by Mr.
Michael Scales against Sir John Key, who was Lord
Mayor of London in 1831, for a false return to a man-
damus. It will be in the recollection of our readers,
that in 1831 Mr. Scales was elected Alderman of the
Ward of Portsoken, but that the Court of Aldermen
refused to swear him in, whereupon he obtained a writ
of mandamus, calling upon the Lord Mayor and Court
of Aldermen to admit him. The return to the man-
damus stated that, from time immemorial, a right had
existed on the part of the Court of Aldermen, not only
of examining into the details of elections of Aldermen,
but also into the qualifications of persons elected as
Aldermen, and if, on a petition from any persons in-
terested, they should find a person so elected was not a
fit and proper person, then the Court had always
exercised the right of rejecting such person.
To try the validity of this return the present
action had been brought ; it had been tried before
Lord Denman, and the Jury had found that the custom
had existed from time immemorial, up to 1699. This
the Lord Chief Justice had ordered to be entered as a
verdict for the defendant. The counsel for the plaintiff
had requested the Learned Judge to ask the Jury if the
right had existed since that period ; this his Lordship
had refused to do, saying the Jury could not find that,
as it was a matter of law. In 1834 a rule had been
obtained to show cause why the verdict should not be
entered for the plaintiff, or a new trial had. The case
had, however, been put off from time to time, as the
very same question had arisen in the case of Scales v.
Johnson, which had been carried by writ of error into
the Exchequer Chamber, and eventually into the House
of Lords, and by the decision in that case the present
case would be regulated.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL and the RECORDER of the
CITY of LONDON this day showed cause against the
rule, and Mr. MICHAEL SCALES was heard in support
of it in a long rambling speech, during the course of
which he was frequently interrupted by their Lordships,
and desired to confine himself to the matters before
the Court.

The arguments having been concluded,
Mr. Justice LITTLEDALE having gone into the facts
of the case, said that the custom having been proved to
exist up to 1699, it remained to see if any thing had
occurred since that time to set it aside, and he consi-
dered that all the Acts of Common Council and the
Act of George 11., which had been relied on as having
done away with the custom, had nothing on earth
to do with it, but related solely to the elections of
Aldermen by the Wardmote, and not to the
manner in which such elections were afterwards
dealt with by the Court of Aldermen. The question
had already been decided in the Exchequer Chamber,
but if even it had not been so decided he should have
been of opinion that the verdict of the Jury was
rightly entered as a verdict for the defendant, and,
therefore, that the rule must be discharged.
The other Judges concurred.—Rule discharged.