The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-11 00:00:00

' the evils of drunkenness, the depraved condition of the
lower classes, their insatiable thirst for spirits
and malt liquors, especially on the first clay of
the week, then call on the Legislature to pass a
law to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors ; in other
words, to shut up every public-house throughout Eng-
land and Scotland on Sunday. The Bishops take a most
active part in this business, and fur that reason, indepen-
dent of others, we view the attempt a ith well-grounded
suspicion. We never knew the clergy, as a body, attempt
any reform in the condition of the lower classes,
except by brute force, by the strong arm of the
law, by enactments which a layman would hardly
venture to recommend, their sacred calling and their
own unspotted life, being, is their vain conceits, a suffi-
cient guarantee that they would propose nothing unjust
and nothing except what was absolutely necessary for
the regeneration of the people under their care. The
amusements of the people, and even their harmless re-
creation; who they on Sunday or Saturday, they view
with a sort of horror. The Bishop of LONDON de-
nounces skittles and playing a certain number of games
fur a quart of beer, even on a week day, as a most
dangerous en, rmity. Another would put an end to cricket
and every healthful exercise, because hard• working peo-
ple should devote their little spare time to more solemn
duties, and especially the duties pointed out by Mother
Church. The Bishop of ST. DAVID'S gees a step fur-
ther, and not only calls for a Bill against the sale of
intoxicating liquors on Sunday, but blames the
Government for doing nothing—not even giving any
notification of their intentions with respect to this
grand scheme for regenerating drunkards. The
Bishop has a bad memory, or he wilfully forgets a
most important speech made by Sir JAMES
GRAHAM a few years ago. A scheme was then in agi-
tation to extend the public-house law which applied to
London to the entire kingdom, but this was vigorously
opposed by the Home Secretary, who said, with great
truth, that when a labouring man had either to walk a
considerable way to church or was engaged on a jour-
ney, whether to see his friends or for any other lawful
purpose, he could see no harm to religion by allowing him
to refresh himself with a crust of bread and cheese

and a glass of ale at a public-house. No rational
man could see any harm, but merciless bigots and sel-
fish churchmen cannot see as men of practical know-
ledge see, and would reduce every one to theix standard
by the severest penalties. It is but right that the lower
classes should have something to say in this matter,
and they might well ask the Bishops—" What
have you ever done for raising our character by
encouraging education, or in what way have
y(.O tried to allure us to the Church ? In every
instance you have opposed education for the people; no:,
openly, it is true, but in a more effectual way—by ex-
citing among Churchmen a horror of Dissenters, and
weekly sermons against every species of education
which did not accord with the Thirty-nine Articles and
the Athanasian Creed. And what example have you
shown to us uneducated men ? Have not the crimes
committed by the clergy for some time been the
universal theme of reprobation ? Have not
deeds been brought to light, and left com-
paratively unpunished too, which bring disgrace
upon the nation ? Have not one-half of you treacher-
ously broken the solemn vows taken at the altar ; an I,
while professing to be Protestants, and receiving the
esnolurnents of the Protestant Church, have openly ad-
mitted the tenets of Popery, and exerted yourselves to
the utmost to undermine the Reformed religion,
and rob us of all the Wessings conferred by
the Reformation? Have you made any attempts
to reform yourselves ? No. You reserve all
your reform for us, and because ore man in a hundr, d
conducts himselr improperly, you will runish the whole
class." Never was th( re such a barefaced attempt to
pass a tyrannical Act under hypocritical pretences.
The law is already sufficiently strong to punish evil-
doers, as the poor peasantry know to their cost. Have not
the justices unlimited power over the publicans—cannot
they ruin them, by taking away their licenses—and is not
that alone sufficient to make a publican preserve order, and
call in the police when any attempt is made to dese.
crate the Sabbath ? But that will not satisfy these un-
charitable men. They will have a law which shall apply
to all the middle and the lower classes—they will hind
them down like wild beasts, make no distinction between
the good and the bad, and thus the thousands upon
thousands of steady, hard-working artisans, who enjoy
themselves, with their families, on a Sunday afternoon,
the only day they have for beholding the face of nature,
will be debarred, they and their children, from all re-
freshment, even in the most sultry weather, because the
Bishop of ST. DAVID'S had observed some disgracefu

scenes among the mountains of Wales and the bigots of
E2L.-1:.11 would bring inc faith and practice of every
man to their pet feet models.

Although, as might readily have been anticipated,
nothing definite or conclusive was arrived at -on Friday
evening in respect to the final reading of the Corn and
Customs Bill, some not unsatisfactory deductions may
be drawn from the very discursive discussions which
thereupon transpired in the House of Commons. From
the general characteristics of that debate it is percepti-
ble that, granting them an allowable proportion of dis-
appointment at the recognition of their own discomfiture,
the Protectionists are less inclined than heretofore to pro-
crastinate matters by their obstinacy, that they perceive
at length the abstract futility of their opposition, and
are, to a considerable extent, prepared to testify their re-
signation at the overthrow of their very obsolete princi-
ples. Such at least are the most rational inferences to
be deduced from their behaviour overnight; and, unless
SCID4 fresh paroxysm of pertinacity goad them on to ad-
ditional demonstrations against the measure, we may in-
dulge our hopes of a speedy settlement of the free-trade
Bill, that is to say, as far as the Lower House
of Parliament is ceneerned. We are in-
clined to regard the matter in this sanguine
light from the consideration that the speeches
delivered on Friday, ostensibly fur the championship of
agriculture, contained in reality the last bubbles of fer-
mentation upon the subject from the lips of the anti-
Ministerialist faction ; and this we conceive was espe-
cially recognisable in the sickly acid of personalities
with which those harangues were severally flavoured.
It was the last feeble ebullition of expiring spleen and
subsiding acerbity. These personalties, however, whe-
ther uttered by the Noble Member for Lynn or any
other adventuring representative, we possess neither
the inclination to elucidate nor the appetite to con.
Nevertheless a quotation from EDMUND BURKE, as
uttered last night by Lord G. BENTINCK, forms in itself
such a ridiculously appropriate parody upon his Lord-
ship's present behaviour and manifest ambition as to be
deserving of particular mention. " The people of E 'g-
land," said the Noble Lord, " hal that aversion to poli-
tical vacillation and political inconsistency, and political
tergiversation, that, as BURKE, he th eight it was said,
they thought that a man to be fit to be the represents.
tive of a great constituency should be a man of At ible
mind I" Never was adjective more susceptible cf a sar-
castic and malapropos signification ; it is an unintended tra-
vestie and an unfortunateidentification of the speaker him-
self. In an anterior portion of the discussion, however, the
attention of the House was occupied with explanations
of infinitely greater importance, explanations indeed
which, to a certain extent, may be numbered among the
most interesting of the present session. Our allusion
is obviously directed to the language uttered by the
Right Honourable the new Member for the Falkirk
burghs, the Secretary for Ireland. Lord LINCOLN appears
to have been dragged into these explanations
without any previous warning on the part of his inter-
rogator, Mr. G. BANKER. He is abruptly called upon by
that Hon. Gentleman to give some explicit corroboration
of the Government statements about the scarcity cf pro-
visions in Ireland, or, in case of his incapacity to do so,
to acknowledge the exoneration contained In tht.se
statements. Notwithstanding, however, this unusual
method of catechising a Minister, and interrogating him
"by the baok," the Noble Earl by a few simple facts
altogether refuted the notion that Government had been
tampering with the credulity of Parliament by an ex-
travagant representation of Irish poverty. In this re-
tesipoiecellineteghfrueoemtsreiaarlitleasdi
mint hialeanrinmesrpuus
ptthai
cteii oonn ss,
mostu pon himself and his
and
dkelyto tpolaecexotnheeria.nte.
tegrity of the Cabinet and the destitution of Ireland in a
true and incontrovertible light. Far from the picture
pofartipentilavra,tioze over-colouredbienisnigsted,np on
e
laruitshhori tpyo,pultahtaiton thew
ere preponderatingvisitcmost in
ainudyubsiitangbllee
d nwdithillaass oof
the
remark-
auguredume-anintsstantcheadt
extenti, of
their own greater extension. He
calthough"the
able accumulation of Want,:
h
otthebemuonsitievmrspahlatthic.reoteuergllns:
tLhiemdeirsi
distress
sasn
was most
Clare
ta as
leaorumnintigeai nan'wd•
island, Ile
hseeamrcaitiLaminigehdtinn
that it was both "general and decisive." Within the last
twenty-four hours, be himself had been the recipient of a
ofeustsethdethisalat
very imperative communication from the county Kerry,
informing him that the people in that neighbourhood,
contrary to their own expectations, had exhausted their
stock of potatoes, both by necessary consumption and
unforeseen disease, insomuch that they were now left
wholly unprovidcd with nourishment. With reference
to the inuendo uttered by the Hon. Member for Dor-
chester, that the Government hal tended con-
siderably to increase the difficulties of the Irish