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

ON, FRIDAY. MAY 1, 1840.

The blame, however, we must confess, does not
rest solely with the parsons. The parishioners are
quite as much in fault, for they passively submit to
this overbearing insolence of deportment. They
willingly bend their necks to the yoke, which, with
a very small degree of exertion, and a little display
of spirit, they might shake off. Why did the
rate-payers of Taunton suffer the chair to be filled
by any person not chosen by themselves ? And
why do so many other parishes do the same thing ?
By such supineness do they not deprive themselves
of all right to complain ?

Letters from Constantinople of the Bth and 9th
ult., bring advices from Tabriz of the 4th of
March. The SCHAH was then at the head of
30,000 troops, with upwards of 200 waggons and
a park of artillery, marching towards Ispahan, after
having plundered the towns of Cashan and Na-
thuns, for rebelling some time ago against him.
'Pie unfortunate inhabitants of Ispahan and Shiraz
were destined to meet with a similar fate. Such is
the morality of Kings !
At Constantinople serious alarm begins to be
felt, that MEHEMET ALI will fight for his inde-
pendence. In his last letter to KHOSREFF PACHA
the Viceroy declared that unless they. settled the
question without foreign intervention he would raise
the standard of the Prophet, and trust to GOD and
the devotion of the followers of ISLAM to his
cause. From Alexandria the latest adviees would
teem to prove that the PACHA is in earnest. We
find it also stated in a letter before us that—

-----
The interruption given by the British ships of war to
the pas;age of several hundred volunteers from Albania to
Alexandria, in vessels under the lonian flag, to recruit the
army of Mehemet Ali, had so much irritated tho latter
that in his communication with Col. Hodges he threatened
to produce a revolt in Albania and Asia Minor. Colonel
Hodges answered, " If you persist in the use of language
of this nature, England will pulverize you ero three months
expire I'l The Consuls of the other foreign Powers suc.
ceeded, however, in patching up the quarrel. The Gorgon
steamer was reported to have carricd to Alexandria a formal
demand for the immediate restitution of the Turkish 11,,et,
and that in case of refusal the English Consul, and other
British subjects there, were forthwith to depart.

Madrid Papers of the 23d ult. have reached us,
with advices from Agua Viva, ESPARTERO'S
head quartets of the 23d. Three rebel battalions
had disbanded themselves. The Carlists were in
despair. CABRERA was Still alive, but too shat-
tered to take the field.

Brussels and German Papers, both of the latest
ates, have been recei7ed this morning. The

ormer bring no news of interest. It was rumoured
hat the question of a political amnesty would be
soon brought before the Chambers. Letters from
Lossy of the 9th of April state that the last ac-
counts from Odessa represented the Russian army
there as quite inactive. The French Consul-Gene-
ral at Tiflis was performing quarantine ; and a
great number of French ships laden with timber
Were waiting for a favotnable wind to sail for
Tculon, Bordeaux, and Brest. The Circassians
had taken the fortress of Sudscha, near Anapa, on
the east coast of the Black Sea, together with a
large quantity of military stores. The Russian ,
garrison wag almost cut in pieces. 'The first news
of the utter failure of the expedition against
Khiva has also been confirmed—iotelligence which
a letter, dated the 4th of April, from the Turkish
frontier states has set the Mussulman population
quite wild with joy.
Count PAHLEN is represented to have expressed
a conviction in the diplomatic circles of Berlin, that
the return of M. TRIERS to the Ministry is fa-
vourable to the amicable settlement of the Eastern
question. His Excellency added that larger con

lainous,and sordid murders, the heart-rending infan-
ticides, which too frequently disgrace the metropolis,
the abode of the Court, the seat of the Legislature,
and the residence of the Bishops, the Nobility, and
the Gentry of England.

Mr. O'CONNELL is evidently now willing to
make his peace with the working classes and Char
tists of England. In another part of The Sun
appears a letter which he has addressed to two in-
dividuals, but which is obviously meant for the
hulk of the population in the manufacturing dis-
tricts. He gives them good advice, and if he can
succeed in his design of winning them over to a
union with him, and to a professed reliance on
moral force, Lord STANLEY and the Church will
End him a most ugly customer. They, however,
have provoked his hostility, and from him they de-
serve no quarter. Amongst the working classes there
is, however, so far as our knowledge goes, no inconsi-
derable hostility to Mr. O'CONNELL, which he will
have some trouble to conquer. His letter is well
adapted, however, to attain his ends. It falls in
with their views as to their want
of representation,
though it does not coincide with them exactly as to
what they should seek, and it repudiates in the
strongest manner all appeals to physical force.
Though the attempt may not be successful, we can
but admire Mr. O'CONNELL'S policy in making
it ; and if successful, it will be for him a most
powerful arm,

Our readers will find under the head of " Her
Majesty's Theatre" an account of a disturbance
which does not say much for the good breeding or
the justice of those who were the prime actors in
it: We may be mistaken, but the thing altogether
has the appearance of a plot got up by certain in-
terested and certain duped parties, to deprive the
Manager of his undoubted right to manage his own
establishment. If M. LAPORTE has failed in ally
engagement with M. TA NIEURINI, there are means
of redress without having recourse to the abuse
and dictation of a mob. But this will not satisfy the
instigators and leaders of the riot. They would com-
pel the head of an establishment to employ a singer,
and on his own terms too, right or wrong, thereby
taking from him the power of regulating his ex-
penditure, and of controlling those for whose ser-
vices he pays. In the programp-
merits made and to be ma-' ...e of the enaa.e-
of February, TArt.r: ‘, published on the lyr
antiNl
's name is not men.
tioned, and on what principle of justice, then, even
in the m "I,st extended sense, can the subscribers
c+err plain ? We should be glad to see this excel-
lent singer engaged, but not at the expense of fair
play and common sense. Lessees of theatres have
enough of difficulty to keep their heads above
water, without being oppressed and ruined by such
a combination as this----the object of which is not
only to force an actor on a manager, but also to
let him fix his own price. It would be difficult to
find a similar attempt at unmitigated tyranny.

We invite the attention of our readers to the
Church-rate outrage which will be found detailed in
another column. We see in this case, as in so
many others, the mischievous consequences of that
incongruous mixture of religious with civil matters,
which constitutes the essence of a State religion.
What business have Clergymen to interfere in the
imposition of Church-rates ?if a Clergyman be a
rate-payer, he may in strict law be entitled to
attend vestry meetings, though it would be much
more decent and much more to the honour of his
cloth, if he declined to use his right ; but what
gives him the privilege of acting as Chairman of
vestry meetings ? Except in a few local Acts of
Parliament made of late years, there is no legal
authority for such a practice. Every meeting must
be supposed capable of regulating its own proceed. ings and •n_e of those proceedings is the appoint-
ment of a chairman, whose sole duty it is to act as
the organ of the meeting, not as a dictator invested
with independent powers. Yet we constantly
see the proceedings of vestries embroiled, the
greatest uproar and confusion created on the spot,
and the peace of a parish disturbed by the refusal
of these 'clericalusurpers to put to the meetings over
which they have taken upon themselves to preside,
motions regularly made and seconded, and approved
of by the majority !