The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-16 00:00:00

ROME.

Mr. MASTERMAN presented two petitions again&
diplomatic relations with Rome.
THE LAW OF SETTLEMENT.

Mr. STAFFORD presented a petition from North-
ampton praying tor an alteration of this law.
Mr. COWAN presented petitions from Edinburgh
against the sale of spirituous liquors on the Sabbath.
Several petitions were presented from various parts of
the country to the same effect.
Sir D. DUNDAS presented a petition from a place in
Sutherland in favour of the Sites for Churches Bill.
LANCASTER ELECTION.

The Members appointed to try the merits of the
Lancaster election were summoned to the table, and
sworn.
Mr. HUME presented a petition from Gloucester, in
favour of a reformed toll-gate system; also a petition
from a Nottingham branch of Odd Fellows, praying the
Benefit Societies' Act might be extended to them; and
several petitions in favour of the Sites for Churches Bill.
Lord BERNARD presented a petition, signed by
several aldermen of the corporation of Cork, complaining
of the inflammatory language used at public meetings in
Ireland; also another petition from the county of Cork
against the national system of education.
Sir. TENNENT presented a petition in favour of the
sites for Churches Bill. se...
..........
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
Mr. HUME postponed the following motion, which he
had given notice to bring forward to-day, for a fortnight:
—That it appears by papers before this House, that Par-
liament, in 1833, when passing the Act to emancipate
all slvaves in the British colonies, gave the sum of twenty
faltabtohuersatomethteimoew, nceornstebmypsluacteh
theem aconncitpinautiaon%
millions sterling, in payment of the estimated proportion
obut l ocisisd 9,
of the cultivation of sugar in those colonies, and the
gradual training of the negroes to regular and indus-
trious habits by means of the apprenticeship that was
then established. That the apprenticeship was after a
time, put as end to by Parliament before its object had
been attained ; but that then every assistance was
promised to the colonists towards procuring an
adequate supply of free labour, to enable them to
compete with foreign slave labour. That the success of
the great experiment of slave emancipation then de-
pended, and still depends, en such adequate supply of
free labour, accompanied by the removal of all restric-
tions tending to prevent a fair trial of the free labour
system. That by orders in Council,:and other restrictions,
this adequate supply of free labour has been withheld
from the colonists, and wages have thereby been raised
to an extent that has rendered the cost of production in
the British colonies far greater than in Cuba and Brazil,
thus disabling the colonists from competing with the
produce of slavery. That the home market for sugar,
during the progress of the experiment, was guaranteed
to the colonists by Act of Parliament at the time of
Duffield, of
- emancipation, but that market has since been opened
WHITEHALL, APRIL 22. by the Act of 1846, and slave-grown sugar admitted be-
The Lord Chancellor has appointed William Ward fore the experiment has ever been fairly pat in operation ;
Chelmsford, in the county of Essex, to be a
Master Extraordinary in the High Court of Chancery.
Robert thus depriving the colonists of the benefit contemplated
by the former Act. That the great experiment of slave
BANKRUPTS. emancipation, alike called for by humanity and sound
surrender, may
Rwitt, licensed victualler; Bennington-lane to policy, and as an example to other nations, must fail if
26, at half-past twelve, and June 27,' at the British colonists are unable to compete with the
twelve, a
t the Court of Bankruptcy. Yhitmore, official foreign slave states; and in that case the United King-
assignee,_Balinghall treat • Brown, Finsbury-place.
John Smith,
past one, and June 28, atone at the Court of Bank-
jewellser, Regent-street, May 24, at half- dam will be forced mainly to depend for its supply of
sugar on those very slave states to whom the
,ruptcy. Johnson, official ~British colonies, . and the cause of :Cmancipa-
John Vaughan, leather dresser, High Holborn, M
assignee, Basinghall-street ;
Orchard, Hatton-garden, lion, will, in fact, have been sacrificed. That,
26, and June 23, at half-past one,'at the Court of Bank- it
taking all these circumstances into consideration,
it ii incumbent on Parliament to give adequate en-
ruptcy. Pennell, official as,iniee . ,_,
. .1 , .1. . r...uwards, Nelson- coeragement to the colonists, and to allow them a rea-
„qaere, Eilagjerriars-road..
aixd
ji.ine.,2g3h,-asttrieztet, South- sonable time to make a fair trial of free labour, by tIA
George William. Dean, jeweller; Hi removal of all improper restrictions in the obtaining and
wank, May 26, at. three, employment of labour; to enforce in the colonies the
same strict system of Vagrant laws which are in force in
Court of Bankruptcy. Groom,
church-lane; Holmer, Bridge-street,Southasige.e, Ab- England, and to make them applicable equally to the
'Eusebius Langley, innkeeper, liednesford, stok,,d_ black and to the white population; and to allow the
shire, May 31, and June 22, at half-past ten, at the Bit.. colonists to reduce their establishments and fiscal charges
°fUial a. i .one at the
mingham District Cotirt. Valpy, official assignee, Bin_ to the lowest amount they shall judge requisite for the
mingham ; Blair, Uttoxeter ; Motteram, Knight, andpolice and municipal services of the colony..
rated to the poor at th
IRELAND.
Emmet, Birmingham.
number ratedabove
George Morrell, innkeeper, Belper,. Derbyshire, may Mr. BATESON moved for returns of the number of
persons in each county in Ireland whose tenements are
eleven, at the Birmingham District
ton official assignee, Not-
Court, Nottingham. Biddies ,
26, and June 23, at
Derby ; Enfielda, Not-$l.
anedannnout al
xceedvalueingof
It ;; oafboth
vee
101. and not exceeding 12/. ; above 121. and not exceed-
tingham ;
tingham.in 15/ •
Williamson and
.Shaw,
g • , above 151. and not exceeding 181. ; above 181.
Thy Holt, rope manufacturer,_ Bury, Lancashire, and not exceeding 20/.
May 30, and June 20, at one, at the Manchester District 25/. ; and above 261. ji above 20/. and not exceeding
Court. Fraser, official assignee, Manchester; Bndger Mr. BRIGHT geed
.to.
presentedpetitions from Heywood and
and Blake, London-wall, London; Dodge, Liverpool. Ashton•under-Lyme, pre i that
Thomas Hair, attorney at law, Miles-street, South k
ue passed to limit the lain of intoxicating some measure should
Lambeth, May 22, at two, and June 26, at twelve, at Sunday ; also a petition from a Mr. Holland, liquors on
surgeon,.
the Court of Bankruptcy. Turquand, official assignee,
Manchester, praying the House not to make any impor-
Guildhall-chambers; Smith and Co. Bedford-row. tent alteration in the provisions of the Health of
George William M'Arthur Reynolds, publisher, Wel- Towns Bill.
lington• street North, Strand, May 26, at half-past two, Lord CASTLEREAGH presented a petition in favour
and June 23, at twelve, at the Court of Bankruptcy. of the Sites:for Churches Bill.
Groom, official assignee, Abcharch-lane; Davis, Holles- INDIAN MAILS.
street, Nottingham. Mr. HENLEY asked the following questions of the
John Jossett, boot manufacturer, Loughborough, Secretary of the Admiralty, respecting the conveyance
May 26 and June 23. at eleven, at the Birmingham of the Indian mails :-1. Whether, in accordance with
District Court. Bittleston, official assignee, Nottingham ' •decided the opinion
expressed by the Committee of the
Inglesant, Loughborough. House'
execution oof Lords, any inquiry has been instituted into
the cost of the
Robert Turtill, saddler, High Holborn, May 26, and f the former contracts
-
July 8, at eleven, at the Court of Bankruptcy. Green, i for co erin. g the mails from England to Alex-
official assignee, Aldermanbury; Downes and Co., Fur- , • 1".
into the in which -the service has
manna; into the manner
rival's lan. .
William tit4TE2s, saddler, "Taunton, Bowersetshirei -

Viscount Palmerston, bet -"Majesty's principal Secre-
tary of State for Foreign Affairs, Las received a dispatch
from her Majesty's Minister at Copehagen, inclosing a
note from Count Knuth, the Danish Minister for
Foreign Affairs, dated the Bth instant, announcing that
neither the Mouth of the Elbe, nor that of the
Weser, not any other port in the North Sea, will
for the present be blockaded ; and also that the
bloekade of Pillar, Dantsig, Stralsund, Rostock,
and Wismar, will cease on the 16th instant;
and further announcing, that Kiel, with the Mouth
of the canal of Schleswig. at Holtenan, and
Swinemiinde, will remain blockaded, :and that this
blockade will be extended, from the 16th instant, to the
three Mouths of the Oder, namely, those of Wolgast, of
Swinemilnde, and of Cammin.

tractors. 2. By whom such inquiry has been made. I
3. Whether the Government proposes, on the part of the
public, to continue to pay the present heavy charge for
such communication. 4. Whether, in any future con-
tracts, the Government propose to adopt the suggestion
of the Committee of the House of Lords, that the public
shall be secured, by adequate provisions in the contracts,
a participation in the profits, when they shall exceed a
certain per tentage on the capital; access to the accounts,
and a full knowledge of all the transactions of the several
companies with which agreements may be entered into.
5. Whether any department of the Government, and if
any which, will be responsible to Parliament that the
contracts about to be entered into shall be just and proper.
Mr. WARD stated, in reply to the first and second
questions, that he thought it was generally understood
that the Admiralty had no power, under the contracts,
to insist upon such an inquiry as that pointed
out ; but the Commissioners had consented
to admit an agent of the Admiralty to in-
spect their books, and as the Admiralty intended
to satisfy itself in the matter, Captain Ellis had been
appointed to make the requisite investigation. With
respect to the third question, he had to state that the
Admiralty had taken the best precaution they could for
reducing their charges, with a view to the public in-
terests. With respect to the fourth query, he was in-
structed to state that the Admiralty did not think it
advisable to appoint an auditor, believing that they pos-
sessed a much more effectual check, in opening periodi-
cally the contracts and accepting the lowest tender; and
for the proper carrying out of the contracts the Admi-
ralty was responsible.
THE MAURITIUS.
Lord G. BENTINCK wished to ask the Hon.
Gentleman, the Under Secretary of State for the
the
Mauritius
pt
Colonies, if he had any objection to lay on the
table
here of receivedthe on
condition
Satur-
day
lasth fromve offir
very
i al
different
Association," which
gave
of the colony compared with that drawn by the
Hon. Gentleman last evening.
Mr. HAWES had not the least objection to lay the
taeleffte t which
memorial on the table ; in fact, he was indebted to the
Noble Lord for calling the attention of the House to it. It
only arrived last evening. lie maintained that his state-
ment was perfectly correct, and he did not wish to retract
may portion of it whatever, namely, that the aecceunts
received up to the 4th of February were more favourable
than former communications had given them reason to
Anticipate. The memorial stated that in February the
price of sugar was higher in the Mauritius
than in the home market, and attempted to de-
duce from this fact that this proved the distressed
condition of the colony, and when it was laid upon the
bible the House would judge whether the statements
were worthy of credence or not.
TOBAGO. •
Mr. GOULBURN wished to know from the Under
Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any infor-
mation had been received by the Government relative to
Tobago?
(14Mr. HAWES said that the Government had not re.
wed any information. - '
CATHEDRALS AND COLLEGIATE CHURCHES

Mr. HOKSMAN then rose to move, pursuant to
notice, that an humble address beehuprrcehseens,tedwtiothhear
vMieaw-
jaensrtyn,atphreadyrianlga
at hnadt
es
nh
lel e
gi willat ebe graciously pleased to
direct an inquiry tes be made into the state of
of ascertaining whether they may not be
rendered • more conducive to the services of the
Church and the spiritual instructions of the people.
His proposition was shortly this. These establishments
were formerly endowed for public purposes, they were
invested with large powers and large properties for en-
couraging charity and promoting education. For a
functionsourig and
long series of years these establishments performed the
for
ewffebichet
owthteyti.a.wisertee•
%year, they had fallen
into a etate- of sterpor- which- was greatly detrimental -originally- founded with
to the interest -of • the Church,- and utterly opposed to
every principle of Christianity. • To convince the House
of this he need only ,bring under the attention of Hon.
Members the present state of ,the , see of Canterbury.
In that see there were nine members nf. the Chapter,
who,. besides dividing, amongst themselees 17,00 a a
year, derivable from lands wad property attached to the
see, had- in their possession the patronage of 40
livings, and were in the receipt of annual sti-
pends amounting to upwards of 8,0001. each.
The question naturally to be asked then was, what did
these functionaries do for all this money? What ad-
vantage was derived from their services or conferred
upon religion? He had made an inquiry into this ques-
tion, and it was melancholy to state that they did abso-
lutely nothing that was at all calculated to promote the
interests of religion. Bearing in mind the large provi-
sion that was made for the comfort of the chapter, let
them now see what the chapter did for the public. The
services performed at Canterbury—of the character of
which he should have something to say directly—were
two a day; and he had obtained a return of the number
of persons who attended these services on two of the
finest days last week. At the morning service the offici-
ating parties nearly equalled the congregation, the num-
bers being 22 against 25; while in the afternoon the num-
bers were 23 as against 53: but Canterbury presented a
favourable aspect in this respect compared with other sees.
AtiDurham the return was so extraordinary that he had
it taken over again, and for three days, instead of one,
and he found that on the morning of the first day the
number of official functionaries was thirty two, and the
number of the congregation four.—(Laughter.) In
the afternoon there were thirty-three functionaries pre-
sent, and the congregation numbered thirty-seven•. and in
the two following days the attendance was nearly the
same. Taking the three days together, the number of
officials present was one-third more than that of the
congregation.—(Hear, hear.) Oxford was also remark •
able in that respect, for the officials numbered fifteen,
and the congregation eighteen; and at Lincoln the
congregation only consisted of eight persons, whilst
the number of officials present was 24.—(Hear, hear.)
And as far as he had been able to judge, those richly
endowed institutions which ought to give every encou-
ragement to persons to attend the services, were shunned
by the public. At Canterbury, out of a population of
15,000, the average attendance at the cathedral was only
39. Indeed, it was an universal fact that in proportion
to the richness of the cathedral institutions the poorer
were the churches in the city, and from a me-
morial which was presented by some clergymen
of Canterbury to the Ecclesiastical Commission,
it appeared that the highest salary of a clergyman
there, with the exception of one, was 1401., andithe lowest
751., and that the salary of the whole
not amount to more than the salary of one member of the
chapter. The Hon. Gentleman then called the attention
of the House to another return, showing that the attend-
ance at the Established Churches at Canterbury was
5,700, and the attendance at Dissenting Chapels 4,800.
Thus the Established Church bad 8,000, and the Dis-
senters 3,700. The largest attendance at the churches
of the Established Church was 3,200 ; at those of
the Dissenters, 2,67 o—whilst the number of scholars
who attended the former was 647; that of the
Dissenters 830,—(Hear)--so that the whole attendance
in favour of the Church was one-seventh, and one-
fourth in favour of the Disst nt.rs in this richly endowed
City ,of Canterbury. In the fifteen churches
belonging to the Church, there was service in
ten only in the morning, in the afternoon in
seven, and in the evening in five : so that
in fact one third of the churches were shut up on Sun-
days in which morning service should be performed,
and more than two-thirds of them were closed in the
evening. Now in these fifteen churches twenty-
two services only were performed, whilst
in the nine dissenting chapels as many
were performed, showing the great activity
of the Dissenters.—(Hear, hear.) If this was the state
of the churches of the city,, it could not be expected
that the Chapter took greater care of those in the rural
districts, contiguous to the town. Ten of these were
visited by the district committee, and it was found
that in nearly the whole of them but one ser
vice was pertormed on the Sabbath. In severs
of their service was only performed on alternate Sun-
days ; few had a resident incumbent, and none pos-
sessed any schools. In the poorest parish—Trinity
parish, in Dover—the incumbent either came himself or
sent his curate once a fortnight, and the one or the
other preached either in the morning or afternoon,
but in the winter months there was no service whatever.
—(Hear, hear.) Then there were several hospitals
in Canterbury under the ex officio management of the
chapter—hospitals for the decayed poor of the town.
The nomination of • the poor men laid with canons,
and what did the House suppose was the ;course that
had been adopted by that body when, instead of nomi-
nating poor men they had nominated servants
of their own, and Mr. Archdeacon Croft had
actually appointed Mr. Austin, me of the most wealthy
men of Canterbury, one .of ' the poor , brothers, and
Miss Austin one of the pber sisters.—(Hcar; hear.)
But that was not all, Archdeacon Croft had a stall in the
cathedral of 1,0001. a year, and oth a. Church emolument
amounting altogether 10
3,6001., and with all thathe hadnot
-
hesitated-to adopt the OGurse to which he had referred.
Nothing, in his opinion, could
1e justify the carelessness
_
that robbed the poor people of Canterbury of the benefits
that were intends:4'W them. by the benevolence of their
ancestors. He had dwelt at some length u.pon the case
of Canterbury, and =he would now call upon the
House to look to the" case of Lincoln. The course
that had been taken of the Commissioners at
Lincoln was mos.,
se remarkable ;, they made
.
reduction in the stalls of all the cathedrals
of the kingdom, • but they made no reductiond
but instead of that they created
a the stalls of Lincoln,
a new one. There the Chapter was left in as uncontrolled.
power as before the appointment of the Comzitiahstohn;
There were some very curious facs connected
chapter had 2 , 0001.
see of Lincoln. The members of the
what duties they
performed. year each; but it was difficult to say
been able toy
performed. He confessed he had never
discover from any one any accurate account of the duties
performed by the members of the chapter.
. The
some Eccle-
siastical Commissioners attempted to obtain
infor-
mation upon this point ; but it was certainly not very
ample. The Dean, for instance, was asked what
were the duties of his office. The reply. was that the
duties of the office were the ordinary duties of a cathe-
dral dean—not very definite certainly. The sub-dean was
then asked, what were the duties of his
office ; the reply
-
was equally 'as definite as the
former. The reply ws,
that the duties of his office were to assist the Dean in his
cer was no less
office. The answer of the third of
lacer
duties of his
sotis-
factory, for the Chancellor stated thathet
dral Chancellor
office were the ordinary duties of a Cat
ve them so
hilt the answer of the fourth member g; the me-
thing like information. , The answer o .
superintend the
in
variably devolved
choir, which, by the way,
to preach a sermon
upon the singing-master,
and
once a-year.—(Hear and laughter.) But there was
of Canter-
something in connexion with the sees ,
bury and
1 Lincoln still more singular than
this.
In Canterbury the Commissioners pro-
P""1 to reduce the number
of the chapter from
"VW. to four, but the chop* protats4 that twelve