The Sun.
London, England, 1840-08-22 00:00:00

1.1,+

LONDON:
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1840.

kt Norwich
know not whether the Ecclesiastical Court
hu"°rwich be called a Court Christian in mockery,
teertainly a more unchristian proceeding than is
N e crated in our report of what occurred in that
t°llrt on Monday cannot be conceived. Ten suits,
; aPpears, have been commenced against persons
ail the
parish of St. Margaret's Lynn Regis, on ac-
%oun,
nil of Church-rates, On these cases being
as d °n, the solicitor for the recusants proposed,
021,1 the suits were exactly similar, that only one
hi:(111'd be tried, the parties to the other nine
eve
ing themselves to submit to the decision, what-
°r it might be, in that suit. 'The Judge
t f the Court stated that he had no power
e direct such a consolidation, but he re-
e°llThlended the solicitor for the Church-rate,
:14'g-stealing, party to assent to the proposition
vra3 positively refused, because the prospect,
lua threat of a suit in the Ecclesiastical Court
1:14 compel persons to pay who otherwise would
t The solicitor would not encourage resistance
Church-rates by giving up any one of these pro-
:eelltions. The Court Christian is to be used,
4 letafore, as an instrument at the discretion of
teiieit°rs, who are sure to pocket large fees on every
12-I:t' they can institute, to persecute conscientious
I:senters into the payment of Church-rates.
It
is said that torture is abrogated in England ;
the 4 thumb-screws and the rack, to extort a confes-
ti
in °f guilt, may be ; but, as long as a Court
Iristian can entertain suits for Church-rates, and
ill
t° acknowledge
those who decline paying, and decline
acknowledge the Christian power of those
C°Urt') like THOROGOOD—so long will it be a
r'ss error to assert that torture is abolished in
4114 rid. 'o,re species of torture for one object is
p:l,ished, but torture to extract money out of the
48geta of conscientious Dissenters is now as rife
it eta
to extort money from the Jews in the
4443:,8 of RICHARD 11. It is more systematically
41q regularly applied, we admit ; it assumes, we
law admit, the gown of justice, and the form of
; it is clothed in the sacred character of the
ic.°teetot of society, but that only adds hypo-
th''Y and fraud to torture, and makes
the present practice more revolting than
e former practices towards the Jews, on the
game
principle as a COURVOISIER or a GREEN..
who enjoys the confidence of his victim, is
more detestable than a common but bold highway
tuffian.

f At the same Court a son appeared to answer
°r his father, a blind old man, but the Court
w°111(1 not listen to him, and told him his father
must employ a proctor. We apprehend, however,
tthat it is the inalienable right of every individual
aPpoint of his own free-will whomsoever he ma
Nettle to represent him. The utmost the Judge

can or ought to do is to refuse to hear
any person but the party. But he can
have no right, when he consents to waive hear-

in; the party personally, to declare what manner of
man the party must employ. Individuals select
Barristers and Proctors to conduct their causes
from confidence in their knowledge and skill ; and
though we know that the Judges in some Courts
refuse to hear any persons but Barristers, we main-
tain that such conduct on their part is an infraction
of the rights of her MAJESTY'S subjects.
From the Proctors of the Ecclesiastical Courts,
as from the Barristers of the Common Law Courts
the real Judges of the Courts Christian are taken ;
and the Judge in one Court, very often filling the

office of Proctor in another, has a very stro►►g

pecuniary and selfish reason for laying
down such a rule, which the people have no such,
reason for obeying. The rule enriches and aggran-
dizes a profession at the expense of some sufferers
from injustice. Let us add that the Judges of these
Courts are appointed by ecclesiastics, and all the
proctors, therefore, must have a leaning to the
Church and against the Dissenters. In all ques-

Lions of Church-rates, therefore, there is a strong
reason why the recusant should not employ a
proctor, and, if possible, he should plead his
own cause, or employ as his representative some
person wholly independent of the Judges, and the
Bishops who appoint them. We cannot conceive
that the Judge has the power to make any person
appear in Court by a proctor : if he appear himself,
or appoint a representative, the Judge is bound to
be contented, and the more unfit the representative

the worse for the party. We further conceive,
therefore, that the blind old gentleman in question
would be fully justified in refusing to
appoint a proctor, in insisting or delegating his
power to his son to appear for him, and in appeal-

ing to the Common Law, to the Parliament, or to
public opinion for protection, should he be punished
for contempt, against this new and most arbitrary
assumption of the Judge of the Court Christian.
A little discussion is going on amongst our Con-
temporaries, as may be seen by our extract from
the Morning Post, concerning the duty of persons
to obey the law, and the right to resist it, which
may be well applied to this case. The Standard,
having become an Orange democrat, argues for the
right of resistance. We openly confess that we side
with the Standard, and as it has long ago been
justly observed that a soldier cannot be reduced to
implicit obedience, for he must be left at liberty to
decide whether he is to shoot another man when
ordered or not, so each individual must be left to
decide whether he will obey the laws or not. in
fact, it is utterly impossible to take that right from
individuals, though the State may visit dis-
obedience with heavy penalties. The question of
obey or not to obey, must therefore be decided by
each man for himself, and if he think the law un-
just, and think on the whole that the consequences
of disobedience will be more beneficial than of
obedience, he will, as a conscientious man strong
in the conviction of his own integrity, refuse to
obey. On the question of Church-rates we will
only add, that by common consent it is most unjust
to make one man pay for that priest and those
religious services, which he thinks mischievous and
damnable.

Some of our Contemporaries, both metropolitan
and provincial, are exulting at the revival of trade.
We wish we could exult with them but having
within this week had occasion to notice a proposed
reduction of wages at Carlisle, Nottingham, and
Coventry, and hearing from all these places, which
resemble in this respect all other manufacturing
towns, that the workmen had before a most scanty ,
and miserable subsistence, and that the proposed
reduction will absolutely leave them with only half
a scanty subsistence, we cannot exult at such in-
creasing misery ; which is pregnant, as our Coven-
try Correspondent, and as the handbill of the Car-
lisle weavers stated, with danger to the country. If
trade be reviving, and if the masters can again hope
for a reasonable profit, we arc much afraid that their
success is founded on applying an additional
pressure to the working classes, which will
aggravate the terrible discontent already exist-
ing amongst them. We are extremely earnest
on this subject, and must recur to it again and
' again, it is from a deep and thorough conviction
that the condition of the working classes, their dis-
positions, and their sentiments, are of far greater
importance to the public welfare, than almost any
subject which is habitually discussed in the public
Press. Some capitalists may flatter themselves
that things are coming round, and that business will
again be brisk ; but an increase of business, with
the present low and decreasing rate of wages, and
at the present prices of corn, is hardly to be desired,
and will do nothing to lessen that vast mass of just
discontent in the labouring classes which makes
society closely resemble a volcano, and no one can
tell how soon the crater may belch out flame and
ashes, and overflow with a destructive flood of fire.

The Rev. HENRY ERSKINE HEAD, who some
time ago excited the ire of the Bishop of EXETER
for presuming to doubt the infallibility of the Right
Rev. Prelate, and who received a severe castigation
for this act of rebellion, shows as much courage
and perseverance in proclaiming the abuses that
prevail in the Church as any Dissenter, not even
excepting JOHN TIIOROGOOD. Having to a cer-
tain extent settled his account with his diocesan, he
next attacks t he Bishop of LONDON, and at the
same time makes a most grave charge against the
Primate of England. This looks something like a
breaking up of the system. Dissension and rebel-
lion have sprung up, not only among political Tories
but among the Tory fathers and sons of the Church,
and their bewildered followers are utterly at a loss
which side to choose. In a Letter addressed to the
Bishop of LONDON, the Rev. Mr. HEAD thus ir-
reverently describes the Thirty-nine Articles :
" The fact is, the clergy do ' take them in any sense
they please.' The great giant who was shut up in a
little box—MILTON'S angels, which were all of
a sudden transformed into pigmies—suffered less
in their corporeal dimensions than the Articles
suffer hi their grammatical sense. They are made
to be, contrary to their own nature, so wonderfully
and notoriously elastic, as to suit the creed of every
clergyman in the QUEEN'S dominions, from the
stumbling Pelagian to the supralapsarian Calvinist."
Not satisfied with attacking the clergy and the
creed which they profess, this Church Reformer
accuses the Archbishop of CANTERBURY of
making reckless assertions, and describes the cham-
pions of the Church as " dumb dogs that cannot
bark " while Popery is penetrating into the very
vitals of the sacred Establishment. Does the New
Church Discipline Bill provide no punishment for
such an
.attack as the following on the Most Re-
verend the Archbishop of CANTERBURY ?—" The
champions of the Church, for the most part, avert
their eyes from those things which imperatively
demand their attention. The Archbishop of
CANTERBURY asserts that there is nothing in
our rituals to give offence to any denomination
of Christians, or some such reckless assertion,
which his Grace never appears to have retracted.
Many of our preachers are so busy in preaching
the Establishment that they have no time to repair
its breaches ; and many more surrender their minds
and judgments to the Oxford tract writers,—men as
much opposed to the true Gospel of Christ—the

faith which was once delivered to the saints"--as
the idolators in EZEKIEL worshipping their idols,
and turning their backs upon the Temple of the
Lord." The declaration of the Bishop of LoNDoN
in the House of Lords against any alteration in the
formularies of the Church, not even in the damnatory
Athanasian Creed, gave rise to the letter, and the
Bishop most justly comes in for his share in the
crime of making young parsons swear to what he
knows not one-tenth of them can believe. He thus
accuses the pious Prelate of defending the atro-
cious Creed of Athanasius from interested motives:—

" I have no hesitation, my Lord, in asserting
that it is barely possible for any man having a clear
view of the leading principles of Scripture, to
remain in the Church of England as a minister ;
and quite impossible for such a man to enter it as
a minister, owing to the stringency of clerical sub-
scription. This is the fact, though, of course, it
will be denied with the utmost virulence by those
who are interested, my Lord, in concealing the
truth."

The pamphlet altogether possesses great interest.
It has only one fault—it is too short. And we re-
commend Mr. HEAD to take it as a text for a se-
ries of letters or discourses on the abuses of the
Church, and the selfishness of those who profess to
be the guardians of religion and morality.

The Capitole, the National, and the Commerce,
are the only Paris Journals of Thursday which dis-
play decided hostility to England on the Eastern
question. All the other papers hare articles on
the subject, but they are written in a pacific, con-
ciliatory spirit. The Journal des Debats has ac-
tually discovered that the French Government
should have come to a decision on the Eastern
question without consulting INIEriEmET ALI, and
that too much respect has been paid to the wishes
of the VICEROY by the President of the Council.
The Constitutionel complains of the offensive tone
of the English press ; but an extract which it quotes
from an article in The Snit satisfies us that the
complaint is not directed against anything which
has appeared in our columns. And yet with such
an article as that which disgraces the columns of
the Commerce of Thursday before them, it is not
strange that some English journalists should lose
their temper.
The following is an extract from the article on
the Eastern Question in the Journal des Debats
" We were told, a fortnight ago, of a communication
made in London by Prussia and Austria to our Ambas-
sador. He was told that there was reason to hope that
England might be induced to concede Egypt hereditarily
and Syria for life to the Pacha, and M. Guizot informed
the French Government of this communication. M.
Thiers says that this was not a proposition, but a sim-
ple communication by Austria and Prussia. He speaks
truly, but the communication was important. As Prus-
sia and Austria announced the hope of being able to
bring England to the adoption of these bases, it showed
that they considered them to be just. To have welcomed
this communication, to have used all possible means
of converting it into a proposition, and to have been
three in the conference, instead of one against four,
would have been the natural course of proceeding. The
Ministry seems to have had an idea of this kind, for the
Revue des Deux Monde: states that our Ambassador
was desired not to reject the overture, but not to go too
far forward—to wait. But why should he have waited ?
M. Thiers says it was for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the Pacha would accept of these propositions,
and he sent M. Eugene Perier to Alexandria to con-
sult him. V‘, e are very Egyptian, and we think that the
cause of thePaeha is in a great measure the cause of France,
but that does not prevent our thinking that, on the pre-
sent occasion the Ministry was more Egyptian than
was necessary. It is not intended, we should imagine,
to make France the mere instrument of the wishes of the
Pacha of Egypt. We have not surely made up our mind
to adopt all the views of the Pacha, even to impossibi-
lities. We are, and we ought to be, judges of the jus-
tice and equity of the propositions which are made to
him, and where we consider them to be just we are
bound to tell hi'n that we will support him
to that extent, and no farther. We think,
therefore, that the Ministry might have weighed
the communication of Prussia and Austria with-
out asking the consent of Mehemet Ali. In-
stead of waiting, it ought to have accepted these over
tures, if they were considered acceptable. Were they
acceptable ? The Revue des Deux Mondcs does not
say the contrary, and observes that the concession of
Syria, even for life, appeared to be a reasonable ar-
rangement, and satisfactory as to the future. The con-
cession of Syria for life had the great advantage of set-
tling the question, and turning aside all cause of dissen-
sion between France and the Four Great Powers. The
Ministry was right, therefore, in approving of the ar-
rangement, but it was wrong in consulting the Pacha,
and in not meeting with more promptitude the friendly
disposition shown by Austria and Prussia."
There is no general intelligence of the slightest
interest in the French Papers. The following ex-
tracts from them supply all they contain in the
shape of news
The itioniteur denies an assertion contained in La
Presse and several other journals—" That M. De St.
Aulaire bad left Paris on a mission to offer the media-
tion of France to the Court of Austria, and that his
mission had failed." This double assertion, it says, is
absolutely false.
The Courrier Francais, in a notice of the kind recep-
tion given to M. Guizot at Ramsgate, says :
" M. Guizot is certainly a man of great merit, and
he represents a Ministry which, having in view when it
came into power the cultivation of the alliance between
the two countries, was entitled to the sympathy of the
English. But it is not because our Ambassador
is called M. Guizot, nor he is the Envoy of the
Cabinet over which M. Thiers presides, that the inha-
bitants of Ramsgater suddenly got up this ovation. They
were desirous principally of protesting against the po-
licy which would compromise hn alliance necessary to
the peace of the world."
Another strious fall in the funds took place in a
most alarming manner, towards the close of Thursday's
Bourse. The Three per Cents. came suddenly down
from 79f. 50c. to 77f. 45c. Various reports were in-
stantly put into circulation. Among others it was
stated that France had made a second Ancona coup at
Candia, and had taken possession of that island, with
the intentioa;of occupying it. It was also said that the
ordinance for the mobilisation of the national guard had
been signed by the King. A third rumour alleged that
the convocation of the British Parliament had been an-
nounced by telegraph.
El Castellano, a Madrid Journal of the 13th inst.,
states that an expedition under the command of Colonel
Sir Charles Smith was organising at Gibraltar. It was
to consist of the 331 Regiment of the Line, a com-
pany of artillery, and another of artificers, and a frigate
had been ordered to prepare to receive those troops on
board. Their destination, however, was unknown,
some saying that they were to be conveyed to Barce-
lona or Mahon, and others to the coast of Syria.
It appears that the Powers which have signed the
treaty of London did not all of them consider with suf-
ficient attention the state of their finances, before they
engaged in the great enterprise which now engages the
public mind. We are assured that applications have
been made (by Russia in particular), to the principal
bankers in Europe, and that in England and Germany,
as well as in France, they have completely failed.
The cautious good sense of the money holders has
been every where the same. It would be curious if this
'amour coalition of Empires should be baffled by a coa-
ition of bankers.—L' Univers.
A letter from Boulogne of the 18th of August says—
The King and the Queen arrived at eight o'clock
1.4:)m Calais at Boulogne. His Majesty went on foot

to the Theatre ; he was received there as well as on
his entering the town with an enthusiasm which it would
be difficult to describe, both by the citizens and the nu-
merous English residing there.—Journal des Debate.
The King will leave the chateau of Eu, rt is said, at
the beginning of next week, and the Ministers who ac-
company him will return on Friday or Saturday.—
Courrier Francais.
We know that the squadron which sailed from Toulon
on the 14th July, under the command of Admiral
Rosamel, arrived on the 19th of July off Tunis, since
which date there is no direct news of it. We are as-
sured, however, that at the beginning of August it ap-
peared in the Bay of Naples, and exchanged salutes
with the forts, but that the English men of war in that
station did not salute. We give this, however, merely
as a report.—Le Commerce.
BOUR SE. —PARl.sir,Thetts t
Lo
, Atwmeo
.20.
First Highest
Last
Price Price. Price. Price
French per Cents
112 no 112 41 ... lie 50 ... 110 70
5
4 per Cent lOl f.O ~„ All 50 ... 101 5e 101 50
3 per Cents 79 25 79 25 ... 77 25 77
B Lnk of trance
Laflitte Bank I,ooof. 1080 —.lOBO ...luso
5,0001. Sti 5120 ...5120 ..5:oo
Bel gian Bank
1102 ... 902 50 ... 900 900
jug% 100% ... 100
5 ger Cents
25 6S 50 ... N
3 er Cents
Spanish Active 2SX, ... "2-”4 25V2 ... 25,4
Passive 6l,§ (. 6 Ai
2.*;€ 1.21,g 21,,2 21y.
Portuguese 3 per Cents
Neagentan
10) ... 100 ... 90
Boman 100V,... 10% =9 % ...

RAILWAY SHARES.
S'. Germain
Versailles, R, I; 475 ... 475 ... 470 ... 4 0
L.B.
Orleans .
S:rasburs to Bale 350 .i. 350 ...:477 SO ... 377 so