The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-24 00:00:00

Otioning

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCII 24, 1848

Last evening the Bill, introduced by the Hon.
Gentleman the Representative of Manchester, for
the total and immediate abolition of the Game Laws,
was very innocently and unintentionally burked by
the Hen. and Learned Member for Bolton. In a fit
of mental abstraction, Dr. BOWRING moved the ad-
journment of the House—seeing that the question of
the adjournment of the discussion had just been
negatived by an attenuated majority of five, and
being solicitous, as he generously acknowledged,
that the convenience of the Legislature should not
be disregarded. The amended motion was of course
carried with a certain enthusiasm, and poor Dr.
BownING received the cordial felicitations of his
opponents, to his excessive chagrin and un-
utterable amazement. He had overleaped his
mark—instead of adapting the wishes of the
dissentients to the aspirations of Mr. BRIGHT,
he entirely thwarted the intentions of the
latter, and threw over for some considerable
time the project of the Honourable Representative of
Manchester. Howevermuch we may seriously re-
gret the blunder which has led to this lamentable
procrastination of a very necessary improvement in
our criminal code, it was impossible not to view with
some amusement the hobble, or rather quandary, into
which the Member for Bolton plunged himself so
magnanimously overnight. It was what WRIGHT
might have called, in the interlude about SHAKSPERE'S
birthplace, " a regular sell," and had an effect as ludi-
crous as the most laughable equivoque in MLLIERE.
For several reasons we are disposed to regret the
postponement of this most exigent question of inno-
vation. First, because the evil which the Bill of the
Hon. Representative of Manchester would dissipate
is every day accumulating ; secondly, because that
evil is not only of a pecuniary and physical character,
but tends in like manner to the extreme demoralisa-
tion of the community; thirdly, because the penalties
inflicted according to the present atrocious sys-
tem for the preservation of game are more than
ever without the most shadowy palliation ; and
fourthly, because last evening there were several
admirable remarks delivered by Mr. BRIGHT
himself, as well as by those who coincided with him
in the gist of his proposition.

We will not avail ourselves of the interrupted
debate of yesterday for the purpose of recapi-
tulating all the more forcible, but hacknied, argu-
ments against this execrable remnant of feuda-
lity ; we will not call to recollection the old and un-
answerable references to the hunting days of Nismon,
or to that primeval chapter in Genesis, in which the
beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, and the
fishes of the sea, are delivered over to the human race
without discrimination ; we will not debate upon the
miseries of incarceration incurred by poachers of all
ages, and the graduated descent of the victims of this
infamous scheme of legislation from such excusable
infringements of the law to the most reprehensible
acts of villany and licentiousness. These facts are
already notorious ; they are as notorious as that
saying of Mr. Fox, in 1797, " That the infraction of
these laws prepared criminals for the infraction of all
other laws," or as the report of the Committees of 1818,
of 1823, of 1828, and of 1845. Fresh illustrations come
more forcibly than the very wisest, if those wisest
have been weakened by frequent repetition. Such
illustrations we mean as were recounted last night by
Mr. BRIGHT himself, in a speech of remarkable
ability, as well as those which were introduced to the
attention of the Commons in the sententious
and forcible observations of Mr. W. P. Woon.
Three of the examples mentioned by the Honourable
Gentleman the Member for Manchester deserve
particular attention. First, the murderous fight of
HARRIS and MEADOWS with GRANT, the game-
keeper of the Marquis of AYLESBURY. Secondly,
the chasing of THOMPSON and WALLACE with
bloodhounds by the keepers of Mr. BEAUMONT,
of Northumberland ; and, thirdly, the shoot-
ing of DAVID DAVIE 3, assistant gamekeeper at
Cardiff, by a party of three poachers. There
is reason, therefore, to abhor the present mode of
encouraging the sports of English gentlemen, if
only because it leads to the revival of such devillish
means of detection as that of the bloodhound.
Another illustration of the cruelties resulting
from the continued enforcement of the laws
against poaching was given shortly afterwards
by the Hon. Gentleman the Member for the city of
Oxford. The incident was simply this :—A boy,
aged sixteen, was brought up at the sessions at
Woodbridge, in Suffolk, charged with stealing;
and it was stated by several farmers that
because, three years ago, the prisoner had
broken some pheasants' eggs, they had received
directions from all the adjacent squires (their land-
lords) not to give him any employment—abandoning
the unfortunate wretch to earn his livelihood by
petty larceny. This is the justice—this is the mo-
rality—this is the humanity of this degrading and
atrocious system—a system which sacrifices the hap-
piness of the peasantry to the chances of a Latta, and
the morals of the labouring population to the osten-
tation of property.

The true character of the great revolutionary
movement now affecting the whole of Continental
Europe is sufficiently attested by one very significant
fact. In every kingdom in which that movement has
as yet made itself vi,ible the first demand insisted on
by the people, the first boon conceded by the Govern-
ment, has invariably been the liberty of the Press.
France it is hardly necessary to enumerate—France
where the editor of a newspaper has become one of
the chief members of the Provisional Government.
In Prussia, the KING, anxious to forestal the
Popular demand,, and rightly surmising what
demand was likely to be the first and the most
eagerly sought for, voluntarily established the
freedom of the press throughout his dominions. In
Austria—in Austria!—the first paragraph of the
Estreaoa's recently published proclamation declares
that " liberty of the press is allowed in the form
under which it exists in those countries which have
hitherto enjoyed it." In Bohemia and other king-
doms proclamations to the same effect have been
issued ; in Saxony a similar one has been decided on.
In fact, as we have already said, wherever the great
liberal movement has manifested itself, there the
freedom of the Press has been almost immediately se-
cured. This fact is, to our thinking, a sufficient
evidence of the spirit which has inspired
and swayed the present European Revolution—the
portentous but pacific Revolution of 1848. It is an
evidence that the people are not only resolved on ob-
taining their rights, but that they have learned to ap-
preciate what their rights really are. They no longer
endeavour to prove and exercise their power by re-
sorting to violence and bloodshed, neither are they
covetous of the empty pageantry and pride attending
our own immediate interference in State affairs. They
have happily learned the folly of such desires by the
harsh teachings of experience. Now grown wiser, they
only seek to obtain less imposing, but not less important
benefits. They demand, and with an earnestness ,

which admits of no refusal, a concession of their just
privileges and prerogatives—a free constitution and a
liberal form of government, but more especially they
demand that privilege which ensures the possession
of all the rest—the privilege of being honestly repre-
sented by a Press unfettered by any censorship.
Were we inclined to doubt the efficacy and excellence
of such a mode of representing popular opinion, our
doubts would be speedily dissipated on witnessing the
eagerness with which every nation awakening
to a consciousness of its nationality has insisted upon
obtaining it, and those doubts would be furthermore
dispelled on remarking how resolutely and obstinately
every despotic and unjust Government has hitherto
refused such a concession. It is natural that such a
Government should so refuse, for such a concession
would be the signature of its own death-warrant, at
least as a despotic and unjust Government. And
it is equally natural that every nation resolved
to assert its independence should insist upon obtain-
ing that concession, for the establishing the freedom
of the press is its manumission from the Flavery
under which it had hitherto groaned, and the magna
charta of the liberty it desires to enjoy hereafter.
But in the present day it is not necessary to dilate on
the importance of a free Press : in this country, at
least, it has long been duly recognised and univer-
sally acknowledged—it has become as essential
to us as our national existence. It is
now hardly possible to conceive the state of
society in England before newspapers existed, or
even during the long period in which they remained
in their infancy. How could society now exist
without a daily chronicle of the world's affairs ? But,
more especially, how could political measures be
equitably carried on—how could the welfare of the
community be promoted, and our national liberties
secured—if there were no means of exposing the
wants and wishes of the poor, and no means of keep-
ing a check upon the doings of the powerful ? It
is hardly possible for us now to realise
such a supposition. It is hardly possible for us now,
in turning over the pages of Parliamentary intelli-
gence which fill the daily papers, to be able to under-
stand such a state of affairs as that of which HORACE
WALPOLE, if we mistake not, tells us, when notes of
speeches in Parliament were taken down in secret,
and published a considerable time afterwards in a
mutilated form and without the real names of the
speakers. Of the political morality of that
period, when unrestrained by a supervising press,
that same HORACE WALPOLE furnishes us with a
correct specimen, when, in making a comparison be-
tween his father, Sir ROBERT WALPOLE, and a
Ministerial predecessor, he observes, in allusion to
their practice of purchasing support, "that while his
predecessor only dipped his finger in corruption, Sir
ROBERT plunged up to the whole elbow I" But, as
we have already said, it is wholly unnecessary now
to demonstrate the vast and inestimable in-
fluence exercised by a free Press. Our object
is rather to call attention to the convincing proof of
the liberal, the moderate, the practical nature of the
Revolution in Germany afforded by the simultaneous
establishment of liberty of the Press in Vienna and
Berlin, and the greater part of the minor kingdoms
and states. It is in Germany, more especially, above
all other nations, that the Press should be invested
with peculiar power and privileges. The poet
CAMPBELL, in his very earnest and animated " Ode
to the Germans," in which he imagines "the
spirit of Britannia" inciting her sister Allemania,
" to burst the tyrant's chain," declares that

" Hallow'd thrice the band
Of our kindred hearts shall be,
When your land shall be the land
Of the free—of the free !''
more especially observes as additional incitement to
the assertion of Allemanian liberty :
" The Press's magic letters,
That blessing ye brought forth,—
Behold ! it lies in fetters,
On the soil that gave it birth

Happily, that indignant reproach is no longer
true. The land of GUTTEXIBURG may now justly
exult in its most glorious invention—the Press—free
from the restrictions which have hitherto disgraced
it, in its own fatherland.

Madrid journals and letters to the 17th have ar,
rived.

A private letter says that the public attention in
Madrid is now almost exclusively engrossed by two
subjects—viz., the expected arrival of the Duke and
Duchess MONTPENSIER in Madrid, and the renewed
attempt on the part of MARIA CHRISTINA to procure
the capitalization of her pension. " The sending for
the Duke DR MONTPENSIER to Madrid," says this
letter, "is considered as an insult offered to Spain,
and men of patriotism are at work, night and day, to
avenge it. No one would be astonished, if, on the
day of the entry of the Duke of MONTPENSIRR into
Madrid, an explosion should take place ; notwithstand-
ing the 30,000 bayonets of NARVAEZ. It is also
known that MARIA CHRISTINA is negotiating with
NARVAEZ, MoN, and PIDAL for the capitalization of
her dowry of 3,000,000 of reels, by the immediate pay-
ment to her of 100 millions. She declares that she
has lost thirty millions of francs by the French Revo-
lution, but that is not much for a woman who has
invested in the English funds above 120,000,000 of
francs. NARVAEZ and MoN ask twenty- fire per
cent. commission for the job. PIDAL, who is some-
what less usurious, offers to undertake it for ten per
cent. The report of these shameful transactions has
caused a great sensation in the public mind in Spain,
and there is every probability that the people will be
at length aroused, and will expel from their territory
the authors of these scandals.

MADRID BOLSA, AlAucu VT.—Three per Cents,
23 buyers, 231 sellers; Five per_Cents. 131 buyers
141 sellers ; Passive Debt, 4i buyers, 5 sellers ; Cou•
pons 10 sellers.