The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-30 00:00:00

having conducted the affairs of their country through
so terrible a chaos of calamities as that which has

latterly descended upon Scotland and Ireland, the
Parliament and the Ministry have shown themselves
adequate to any occasion however dismal, and to any
emergency however imminent. And with the exception
of a few fragmentary discussions upon our disruptured
relationship with foreign Powers—discussions which
were absolutely requisite in consequence of the ex-
traordinary occurrences which had recently trans-
pired upon the Continent—excepting these fragmen-
tary discussions, what has been the predominant and
almost exclusive subject of Parliamentary and Minis-
terial labour since the 26th of January but Ireland?
For upon whom have the eyes of the Legislature been
turned if not upon the Irish peasantry ? To what
portion of the British empire has liberality been
evinced, and sagacious statesmanship been applied,
if not to Ireland ? Whither, during this brief but
fruitful interval of two months, have the capital, and
the charity, and the precautions, and the provisions of
England been flowing, if not into the lap of Ireland ?
And all this has been accomplished immediately under
the guidance, at the instigation, in accordance with
the example of the Government. Whatever private
munificence has been displayed towards Ireland—and
there has been much—is alone owing to the emu-
lation excited by a provident and benignant
Legislature. We are depicting no Arabic
fable, we are describing no Oriental allegory ; the
truth of what we utter is viible in the golden boons,
and the wise provisions, and the lavish bounties
which have been showered upon Ireland by the Go-
vernment.

Hitherto the recommendation contained in her
MAJESTY'S Speech from the Throne, that in endea-
vouring to provide for the necessities of the starving
multitude, all party spleen and animosity should be
forgotten or disguised by our Legislators, has been
complied with admirably. Hitherto our Legislators
have postponed their personal or party antagonism
until the gloom of famine and disease shall be
dissipated from the land. Hitherto they have acted
like obedient lieges, like humane statesmen, like
earnest and enlightened Christians. Before the
Easter recess has commenced, however, the suppressed
passions of the representative of Lynn break through
all obstructions. In defiance of the entreaties of his
SOVEREIGN, in defiance of a spurious friendship, in
defiance of all Parliamentary usage, in defiance even
of the commonest decency, Lord GEORGE BENTINCK
utters language the most abusive and calumnious
against Lord JOIIN RUSSELL and his colleagues. Fie
accuses of inhumanity a Government that has striven
with the noblest fortitude against the inroads of
dearth and pestilence. He attacks, as the cause of
the mortality in Ireland, a Government by whose
exertions alone it is that Ireland has been pre-
served from becoming one vast lazar-house. He
endeavours to hold up to popular abhorrence a Go-
vernment whose whole energies have been tasked
unceasingly to ensure the happiness, and to effect the
salvation of the million. The retort of Mr. La.-
BOUCHERE upon these gross and inexcusable asper-
sions was at once so dignified and emphatic as
to render further allusion to them superfluous.
After directly, explicitly, and completely contra-
dicting the assertions of the Member for Lynn, the
Right lion. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland
says—" I apologise for having interfered, even for a
moment, in referring to such a speech as that of the
Noble Lord." We should be induced to apologise
in like manner, did not our duty as journalists compel
us to make this allusion to Lord GEORGE BENTINCL,
and to mention him in terms which must render him
the object of national opprobrium.

Matters have come to the pass we anticipated.
The increase of juvenile criminals has, so far as the
letter of the law is concerned, thrown justice off its
balance. The Judges, actuated by motives of the
highest benevolence, wink at the provisions of the
statute. Youths are placed at the bar of criminal jus-
tice of such an exceedingly tender age, that common
sense resists the supposition that they could scarcely
have been either the conscious or willing instruments
in the perpetration of the offences with which
they are charged ; and humanity revolts at the
idea of the certain consequences, adverse to
their morals and future welfare, that would
directly emanate from their commitment to prison.
Our prison discipline is so imperfect, so deficient
in point of classification, that would admit of
a wise discrimination being exercised between the
different ages and chatacters of prisoners, that the
youthful offender is sure, at the termination of his
sentence, of quitting the gaol far more depraved in
his morals from the contamination he has suffered by
having been mingled with old and hardened
criminals, than when he first entered within its
walls. Thus, upon the whole, we have a fearful
picture to contemplate. We have first crime
gaining a rapid and frightful ascendancy ; next, we
are unprovided with the requisite means for checking
it in a salutary manner ; and, lastly, we have the
Judges shrinking from the strict performance of their
duties, as enjoined by law. Society is diseased down
to its very roots. According to Mr. Sergeant ADAMS;
the judge at the Middlesex Sessions, we are assured
that "experience has proved to a court of justice how
often it happens that parents endeavour, by inducing
their children to commit crime, to throw them upon
the State for support, and that only a few days back
he had four cases where the parents had endeavoured
to rid themselves of the natural burden of their children
by prosecuting them !" Last week, at Bury St. Ed-
munds, a boy of ten years, stood indicted before
the LORD CHIEF BARON ; no counsel appeared,
whereupon the jury were addressed by the Judge in
the following terms :

"He was- unable to comprehend what benefit the
public could possibly derive from the prosecution of the
child. his parents were able and willing to take care
of him ; they were respectable persons, to whom the
task of reclaiming him might vilely be confided ; and
without determining the age at which responsibility
might safely be enforced, or disregarding the possibility
of precocious maturity, he thought that, as the deposi-
tions did not show the boy to have been the tool of
others, the interests of society did not require that this
child should be branded as a felon for life, and be exposed
to the contamination of a gaol. On these grounds he had
not permitted the boy's plea of • guilty' to stand; on the
same grt.unds he should abstain from off..ring evidence
for the prosecution, so that it would be the duty of the
jury to acquit ; and on the same grounds he should cheer-
fully encounter the whole blame, if any was merited, for
the course he now adopted."
One cannot but commend the excellence of the
motive which induced the Chief Baron to take this
step. On the other hand, we cannot shut
.our eyes
to the fact that a precedent has herein been set which
might lead to pernicious results. A dispensing
authority was assumed which the law does not re-
cognise. The Judge clearly stepped beyond his pro-
vince. He is bound to administer the law as he
finds it laid down, regardless of the consequences,
good or bad, in all its bearings ; instead of which he
declined to enforce it, because in his individual
judgment, the effect upon the criminal would
be prejudicial in the extreme. This is, in fact,
to confound the duties of the judge with
those of the legislator. Again, this judicial leniency
may tend to increase the very evil by which society
is beset. Parents may be stimulated, by its exhibi-
tion, to persevere in their atrocious speculation, as in-
dicated by Mr. Sergeant ADAMS in the foregoing ;
for whilst their offspring may escape with impunity,
the parents take the chance of benefiting themselves
by the amount of the property which they
have incited the children to steal. One of
two things must happen ; either the law in
respect to prison discipline, as affecting juvenile
delinquents, must be promptly and materially revised
and amended, or the Judges must be taught not to
go beyond the limits to which they are restrained
by law. The first of these is undoubtedly the task to
which the Legislature should at once devote its unre-
mitting attention. Matters cannot remain as they
are. It is not very easy to provide an efficient
remedy for the disease which is preying upon the
vitals of society. We shall, however, upon an early
occasion, offer some suggestions for future legislation
on this important subject.

Madrid Papers of the 23d have arrived.
The Ministerial crisis still continues. It was, how-
ever, observed that none of the Ministers attended
the sittings of the Chambers on the 23d. It was re-
ported that NAYIVAEZ and GONZALES BEAT° were to
join the Ministry, and that then an appeal would be
made to the army to coerce the QUEEN. There can
be little doubt but that the money necessary
to corrupt the army will be forthcoming from