The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-20 00:00:00

THE ROYAL

ic WEDDING SUN"
OF MONDAY, 10TH INST.,

CONTAINS TWO BEAUTIFUL

MEDALLION PORTRAITS
OF

THE QUEEN

AND

PRINCE ALBERT,
EXECUTED IN THE VERY FIRST
STYLE OF THE ART. THE LIKE-
NESSES ARE PRONOUNCED BY
COMPETENT JUDGES TO BE AD.
MIRABLE.
THE EXPENSE OF PRODUCING
THESE PORTRAITS HAS BEEN
VERY GREAT; BUT THE CHARGE
IS ONLY ONE SHILLING.
THE SUN, CONTAINING THESE
PORTRAITS, MAY BE RECEIVED
BY POST IN ALL PARTS OF THE
KINGDOM. PARTIES IN REMOTE
PLACES CAN REMIT A SHILLING
OR TWO, HALF A SOVEREIGN, OR
A SOVEREIGN,-FOR ONE PENNY
BY THE POST ; AND THEIR OR-
DERS WILL BE PUNCTUALLY AT-
TENDED TO.
THE SUN ALSO CONTAINS A FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE AUGUST CERE-
MONY, WITH ALL PARTICULARS
APPERTAINING TO SO INTERES-
TING AN OCCASION.
ORDERS FOR THE " ROYAL WED-
DING SUN" WILL BE RECEIVED
BY ALL NEWS-AGENTS AND POST-
MASTERS THROUGHOUT THE
KINGDOM, AND AT " THE SUN"
OFFICE, 112, STRAND, LONDON.

The demand for the ROYAL WEDDING
SUN on Monday was beyond all precedent. The
Printing Machine, which is one of the best in
London, was at workfrom the hour 9f publica-
tion till the departure 9f the Mail, throwing
of 7,000 per hour ; and even this vast number
was not equal to the demand. We may say it
;without vanity, because it is truth, that in all
Ms history of the Newspaper Press there never
was such a quantity cif Newspapers published
within the same time.

NOTICE TO THE ,' WEDDING SUN*
SUBSCRIBERS.

We have received numerous letters complaining of the
non-arrival of the " ROYAL WEDDING SUN."
We regret the disappointment of Subscribers, an
repeat that the blame does not attach to this Office.
Every order has been attended to, and it is remark-
able, under all circumstances, that so few Papers
have miscarried. Our readers will be surprised to
learn that, though several letters were sent without
the address of the writers, and many thousands of
Papers were despatched in great hurry and confu-
sion, both here and at the General Post-ojfiee, not
more than a hundred have failed to reach their
destination. In order, however, to oblige our Sub-
scribers, we request those who have not received the
Paper according to order, to advise us to that erect,
and it shall be sent again without any Additional
Charge.
N.B.—On all occasions of great emergency or public
interest, we have received similar complaints of
the non-arrival of THE SUN. Whether this is
to be attributed to the Post-office, or to some of the
Parties through whose hands the Papers ought to
pass, we cannot take upon ourselves to say.
Sun Olive, 12, Strand.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
" Fair Play" is perfectly justified in resenting the insult offered
to his profession by Sir Edward Sugden in the House on
Tuesday evening. Such an allusion to attorneys' clerks
came from him with a very bad grace.
Why does "No Turncoat" pervert facts? No such answer
was given to " Justice," and, besides, a report of the meet-
ing did appear in 7'he Sun. We suspect our correspondent
is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
To oblige a fair correspondent, we will endeavour to find room
for the lines by E. M. K. to-morrow or on Monday.

NIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE TOMORROW.
Meriting IS minutes after 3 I Evening...... 24 minutes after 4.

LONDON:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, IS4O.

The Peers did not assemble yssterday.
In the Commons a considerable number of petitions
were presented for Church Extension, for the release
•of the Sheriffs, for the repeal of the Corn-laws, against
the intrusion of Ministers (Scotland), in favour of copy-
right from authors and publishers of London, and from
Mr. STOCKDALE to be heard at the bar in his own
cause and that of the Sheriffs.
Lord SEYMOUR brought down Prince ALBERT'S
Answer to the Message of Congratulation.
On the 27th Mr. EWART is to move for a Select
Committee on the School of Designs Bill.
On the motion of Mr. ORD, after a short conversa-
tion, the Members contained in the panels on Election
Committees were ordered to attend on the 12th and
15th of March, and be in attendance till the Commit-
tees were sworn.
Mr. PAKINGTON moved the second reading of the
Sale of Beer Act Amendment Bill. The Hon. Mem-
ber stated that it was thought generally that the Got
bur
they had refused. He drew an additional ar an
s'
,for
u cizrnt:
at
his measure from the late disturbances at Neg
be had ascertained that in Wales there wew great
number of houses for the sale of spirituourselqrau:sirs.
He also nailed down the Government, by a deelat
of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, that the present system of beeorn-
shops was injurious to the country. On these and
Some similar grounds he rested the second reading of
the Bill, which went to establish a property-qualifica-
tion for selling beer, such as now exists for voting for
Members of Parliament, only making it higher in the
town, and varying it
for the country. It is not to be
a uniform 101. qualification. This piece of impudent
quackery—we like to g
ive things their proper names, how-
ever much that may offend Squires like Mr. ?AXINGTON
...was thrown out on a technical objection.

' Mr. NVARBUIITON called the attention of the House
to a Standing Order passed in 1772, by which all laws
affecting trade must be, in the first instance, referred to

It was well observed by Mr. LEADER in the de-
bate on Monday evening that it was the Newspaper
Press, and not the Blue Books published by Messrs.
HANSARD, which gave the public the informa-
tion concerning the proceedings of the House of
Commons which it most values. The Hon. Mem-
ber might with equal justice have added that
though the House appears so extremely anxious
now to preserve the privilege of publication, in
order to instruct the people, it has never
taken any direct means for giving the public
the most desirable kind of informs ion. It has
undoubtedly of late years facilitated report-
ing its debates, by affording the reporters
some mechanical conveniences ; but it has not ac-
knowledged them, and still less has it given the
reports published in the newspapers the protection
of privilege. Far from that, the information of
what is said in the House is always given to the
public in spite of the privileges of the House,
which are actually opposed to the publication of
the debates. It is still in the power of any Mem-
ber at any time to move the exclusion of strangers,
and confine the knowledge of the debates to the
Members of the House. Between the careful
preservation of this privilege of restraining the
publication of the Debates, and the anxiety
professed by the House to give information to the
people, there is a gross inconsistency, well calcu-
lated to make the whole proceedings of the House
on this subject offensive to the nation.
If it be alleged that the House now never exercises
the privilege of forbidding or preventing the publica-
tion of its debates, we answer that it did prevent the
publication as long as possible, and probably would
still have prevented it, had not the public been more
powerful than the House. Supported by the pub-
lic, the press fought with the House for the privi-
lege of publishing the debates, and, step by step,
overcame its reluctance, and compelled it to allow its
privilege to be openly set at defiance. Nevertheless,
the House still retains the privilege, and might
have used it--though with what effect on the public
it is hardly necessary for us to say--to exclude re-
porters while it was debating the question at issue
between it and Mr. STOCKDALE. The country would
then have seen man after man, the Sheriff's after the
author, the attorney after the Sheriffs, the son after
the father, the clerk after the master, committed to
prison without knowing why or wherefore, and
would have been roused into resistance to
what would then have appeared an intolerable
tyranny. The violation of its privileges by the
public press, which has made known its motives
and brought all its proceedings under the public
eye, as they were carried on from day to day, has
saved it from such a fate. What its leaders and
great men in past times thought one of the most
important of its privileges, what they struggled to
preserve entire as long as possible, and which is
still nominally retained, had it now been acted on,
would have inflicted on the House a very great
injury, or even ruined it in the public estimation.
The House itself has benefited, therefore, as well as
the public by one of its privileges having been
overruled and set aside by the p:iblic. We infer
from that circumstance that the House need not
stickle so anxiously for what it calls its privileges,
and that it may rely on the good sense of the public
securing for it at all times the authority and power
necessary for its usefulness. At present the exer-
cise of its privileges is connected with the hateful
characteristic of injustice, and inflicts more weak-
ness on it, and more injury than would the resig-
nation of all its privileges.
We have already said more than once that the
chief blame for the present unseemly collision be-
tween the House of Commons and the Court of
Queen's Bench rests on the former, because the
Judges must walk by a prescribed rule, and decide
according to their conscientious knowledge of that
rule ; while it is the business of the Commons to
make the rule by which the Judges are guided. If
the rules are bad the fault lies with the Legislature,
not with the Judges. Nor is it the least excuse for
the House of Commons to set forth the pretext that
the House of Peers will not assist them to settle this
question on such grounds. The House of Com-
mons has not tested the House of Lords ; it re-
jected Mr. DUNCOMEE'S motion, which would
have tested that body, and till it does test that
House the public will consider its charges of un-
willingness or hostility in the House of Lords as
calumnies which it declines to prove. Far from
acting in any rational way to secure its privileges,
the House has blustered from the first about main-
taining them, and would hear of nothing but
doing that after its own manner. It is, how-
ever, plain, from the example we have quoted, that
it really has not the power to maintain its so-called
privileges, and, moreover, that they may be over-
ruled in opposition to its will greatly to its ad-
vantage.
There is more than one rational method of se-
curing its authority. A declaratory law as to pri-
vilege is one, a law regulating publication is
another, but neither of these will the House of
Commons adopt ; and it goes on, night after night,
committing innocent men to prison—men who
are doing their duty to their fathers, their masters,
and their clients, and making itself generally odious.
It seems to us no better than a wayward child,
which is resolved to have its own self-willed way,
and cries and stamps, breaks its toys, and does all
the mischief in its power, under the influence of its
blind passion. The House of Commons, however,
ought to recollect that great interests demand its
attention--that day after day the weighty affairs of
the State, already much in arrear, accumulate—that
to neglect them involves great and irreparable evils
—and that if it do not take them in hand, they will
gather additional power and be to themselves a law,
which will set at defiance all the laws of Parliament.

The manner in which the Tory journals have
spoken of her MAJESTY, for not having inquired
after the health of the. Duke of WELLINGTON, is
most offensive. His Grace, as our readers are
aware, was taken ill a few days ago; and because
her MAJESTY, whose present situation would ex-
cuse many omissions, and who is probably not
quite so well acquainted with the movements of the
fashionable world as the compiler of paragraphs for
the Morning Post, did not immediately send, and
send twice or thrice a day, to inquire after his
Grace's health, her MAJESTY has been spoken of
as guilty of heartless inattention and ingratitude.

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