The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY s, 1847.

Even the reports of Imperial Parliament are be-
ginning to show the proximity of a general election
of representatives. Last evening the House of Com-
mons was occupied with a sort of incidental delibera-
tion upon the Registration of Voters Bill, and not-
withstanding the paramount importance of the subject
and the attenuation of the time yet allotted to the
present session, the committal of the Bill was pro
crastinated until another score of hours had elapsed.
There is something wonderfully significant in this
postponement ; it indicates the mingled yearning and
terror with which the hustings are regarded by the
popular representatives. Knowing that to many
those hustings are shadowed by the gloom of a
Nemesis, the Nemesis of an indignant democracy,
we cannot marvel 't the disreligi evinced fr)r
rformsuce of those senatorial duties which mast b •
iaoviccl by the clo ••i4; of the lobbies of
St. Stephen's. The preparations already making
among the constituencies of the provinces has a por,

•
tentous aspect to those Members who have battled
against the principles allied with the progress of
society, the diffusion of knowledge, the mitigation of
sufferings, and the amelioration of grievances. The
gravamen of the charge already looming before those
affrighted candidates is visibly indicated in the ear-
nestness of their particular electors, among whom the
yeast of political and polemical differences is be•
ginning to ferment. Happy for those who possess
moral audacity enough to brave the brunt of local
disaffection before the rancours of an electioneering
contest have found an opportunity for their de-
velopment; happy for those who have sufficient
rhetorical fluency, sufficient confidence in the inte-
grity of their motives, and sufficient knowledge of
the arguments best calculated to propitiate their en-
franchised antagonists, to seek an interview and volun-
teer an explanation, as the Hon. GEORGE SYDNEY
SMYTHE has just done with his constituents at
Canterbury.
No unusual movement is visible among the Parlia-
mentary electors of either cities, boroughs, or coun-
ties. A somewhat bewildering quiescence, or rather
stagnor, preludes the general appeal to the house-
holders, the freeholders, the leaseholders, and the
copyholders of the United Kingdoms. Those, how-
ever, will be eminently deserving of discomfiture who
anticipate, from this apparent tranquillity or indiffer-
ence in the popular mind, that the trick of
the elections can be played with as much
facility as a hand at ecarti. Under this ostensible
languor there is a terrible accumulation of energy.
When the intelligence is actually bruited about the
islands that Parliament is dissolved, that energy
will be therewith summoned into activity; and woe
unto those who cannot on the emergency make a
clean conscience of the Past, or sketch out for the
satisfaction of their voters a propitious and accept-
able Future !

Unlike any preceding elections, the present wir
evoke not so much the spirit of Party as the spirit of
Patriotism. Principles will be the watchwords, not
Names. Faction has been so grievously trampelled
under foot in the triumphal progress of Liberality
and the Parliamentary ovation of Truth, that
it cannot very well show its bruised and
battered visage in the publicity of a general
election. That is a consideration as satis-
factory as it is self-evident. Again, in the selec-
tion of candidates, the questions requiring a satisfac-
tory response will no longer be questions of a factious
import ; they will embrace the most humane and, in a
great measure, the most sublime principles of legisla-
tion. Such an example of wholesale reformation has
been afforded of late as to render anything like a re-
turn to the pottering system of patchwork modi-
fication heretofore in vogue unpalatable to the
multitude, and consequently incapable of long con-
tinuance. The legislative improvements immediately
brought under the consideration of the country at this
juncture are of three distinct classes—firstly, of a
moral or religious character; secondly, of a
social or municipal character; and, thirdly, of a
commercial or financial character. Under the first
of these divisions are comprised the questions, as to
the advisability of a comprehensive alteration in our
Criminal Code, the endowment of the Roman Catholic
priesthood, the further removal of Disabilities from
the Hebrew population, the extension of the blessings
of National Education to persons of all creeds without
distinction, the removal of certain obsolete Penal
Enactments, &c. &c. &c. Under the second division
are implied the problems of sanatory improvement,
of poor-law modifications, of all the minor methods
for ensuring the better health of the community, the
' construction of parks, the establishment of gymna-
siums, the building of washhouses, &c. &c. &c. Under
the third division are comprised the reconstruction of
the currency, the revision or abrogation of the laws
relating to navigation, the full development of the
principles of free trade, the re-arrangement of the
stamp duties, the complete reversal of the system of
taxation at present adopted, namely, from articles of
consumption to actual property, &c. &c. &c.
There will, consequently, be not one apple of dis-
cord, but a thousand. Supposing, however, the key
throughout be remembered, supposing the sincere
purpose of all parties, or at least of the majority of
all parties concerned in the approaching contest, be
the discovery of truth and the attainment of justice,
then that prevailing discord may be resolved into a
lasting harmony. We shall continue as journalists
to bring the questions which are to be decided
during the approaching strife severally and promi-
nently forward, as circumstances may dictate. Until

the last candidate is returned this course :shall be
pursued ; and we shall meanwhile remain as sanguine
in anticipation as we are fervent in aspiration that the
cause of the People may prove to be the cause of the
new Parliament.

The consideration of the Lords' amendments to
the Juvenile Offenders Bill took place yesterday in
the House of Commons. Several alterations had
been introduced by their Lordships into the measure,
all of which were assented to with two excep-
tions. The latter, however, were of an important cha-
racter, and such as would have increased the severity
and harshness of the measure, and the strongest ob.,
jections were entertained by all classes of politicians
against their adoption ; the views of Mr. BANRES were
acceded to by Sir JAMES GRAHAM, and acquiesced in
by Sir GEORGE GREY. Where so singular an unani-
mity existed between leading members of the three
great parties in the House, it is almost unnecessary
to say that the amendments were rejected, and the
Bill restored to its original character in these respects
The first point of difference respected the right of
the accused party, if he denied his guilt, to appeal to
the verdict of a jury of his countrymen before he
could be subjected to the pains and penalties con-
sequent upon conviction. While the representatives
of the people gave to magistrates in certain cases the
great and unconstitutional power of deciding sum-
marily as to the guilt or innocence of any British
subject, conceiving that less injury might be sus-
tained by a prisoner of tender years from such a
course than if he were exposed to the contamination
and demoralizing influences of a gaol, and an inter-
course with the depraved and abandoned characters
with whom he would there be associated, they re-
served to him the option and privilege of appealing to
the decision of twelve of his countrymen. He still
retained the right to a trial by jury, which was
his birthright, the palladium of his liberties, if
he conceived it desirable to demand the ordeal.
Their Lordships would have taken away that power;
they would gladly permit the magistrate to decide
whether they would deal with the affair sum-
marily, or send it to trial, but the ac-
cused in a matter of such deep and serious
importance was to be deprived of any option.
The trial by jury was henceforth to be with-
held from all juvenile offenders, and the pros-
pects of their future lives were to be placed alto-
gether, and without any possibility of an appeal,
in the hands of country magistrates—persons, per-
haps, wholly unaquainted with the principles or
practice of the law ; men of that class, whose errors
and mistakes are of almost daily occurrence. It
will not be a very difficult task for those appointed to
assign the reasons for dissenting from their Lordships'
amendment to adduce conclusive and unanswerable
arguments against its acceptance.
The other point in dispute, although of much im-
portance, was not of so serious a character as the
first. It related to the future consequences of sum-
marync convictions over and above the immediate sen-
tetutese,apna7setail more the
upon thbeyoifender. By many o
f o
partycourts,of
sub-
jected to a great increaselie
unf punishment on a second
h
be sentenced to transportationexafonricatathseadt
mwohsitehproNsb,aoubllyd
otherwise be sufficiently
as an in-
b. y a short
term of imprisonment. A person
a certain extent, a second time thus,
is thus, to
sh
unished for
the same offence, because he is looked ul)
corrigible offender, of whose reformatpinonn
well-
founded hope can be entertained. Their Lordships
decided that the child who had committed some s
tri-
vial offence—who had improperly abstracted a few
apples or gooseberries from his neighbour's
garden, or cut a stick in his plantation—should
he branded in this manner, and an indelible
s't:in Ifflixe(l l'n his character--that the nun
of mature age, who had perhaps conducted himself
wish propriety for many years after attaining man-
hood, should be held responsible for his juvenile
peccadilloes, that could not possibly be made the sub.