The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-12 00:00:00

COURT OF CHANCERY.

Mr. AGLIONBY moved for a return of the total
number of attendable warrants granted by each of
the taxing masters of the high Court of Chancery in
England, on each day in Hilary Term, 1848, and
the most remote day or period at which any such
warrant, granted on each and every of such days,
or was made returnable.—Agreed to.
ADJOURNED DEBATE ON THE JEWISH
DISABILITIES BILL.

On the question for reading the order of the daj•
for the adjourned debate on the .Jewish Disabilities
Bill being put, a number of petitions were presented
for and against the measure.
On the question being put,

Mr. C. PEARSON rose and addressed the House. He
could not pretend, he observed, to be altogether unini-
tiated in the mysteries of a deliberative assembly, but so
many years had elapsed since he had taken part in
public discussions, and, moreover, as he was at the pre-
sent moment labouring under the fashionable complaint
of a severe cold, he hoped he should receive that indul-
gence which the courtesy of the House invariably
awarded to new speakers. He regretted exceedingly,
in common with other speakers, that this subject should
require the introduction of religious topics, which were
but little suited to the atmosphere of a political assem-
bly. He hud hoped that, from the mild and moderate
manner in which the Noble Lord at the head of her
Majesty's Government had brought forward the ques-
tion, it would have been discussed solely upon the broad
principle of civil liberty. But many of those who had
addressed the House had, from conscientious motives,
given the discussion Si religious direction. Those, there-
fore, who represented large constituencies might them
themselves bound to take that ♦iew also of the subject in
order to prevent their conduct from being misunderstood
by those to whom they had to give an account. But if this
subject were to be discussed a 3 a religious subject, it be
hoved them to be exceedingly careful that, while they
used great frankness and candour, us well as great
courtesy, they should especially strive to avoid encroach
ing upon the feelings of those whose sentiments upon
the subject were opposed to their own. He, for one, felt
bound to state that he did not participate in the senti-
ments expressed by the Honourable Member for Buck-
inghamshire (Nlr. Disraeli), who, although he intended
on this occasion to vote on the same side of the question
as he (Mr. C. Pearson) did, had arrived at the seine
conclusion with himself, not only by a different, but by
a directly opposite route. That Honourable Gentleman
had expressed himself in favour of a religious conformity,
taking the shape of religious truth. He (Mr. C. Pear-
son) could support the Bill upon no such grounds. It
appeared to him that if the House adopted that view of
the case; they must be prepared to return to the
Test Acts, the Corporation Acts, the Act of Confor-
mity, and the Act of Uniformity. The State had no
right to coerce the consciences of men and cast them in
the mould of conformity as a condition for their obtaining
public employment. He should support the Bill upon
the principle of religions liberty. He was aware it had
been said, and he adhered to the proposition even to its
fullest extent, that the ultimate result of this measure
would be the admission of Mahometens into the House
of Commons. Now, he did not hesitate to say, that if
the sou of Ramohun Roy, iuheriting his father's virtues,
and imitating his conduct, should receive the confidence
-v, and be returned to that House,

—lid be prepared to recognise
..ncl religious liberty, and
Tt had been said by the

Hut.
cation, an,

;►rivation was not perse•
Jai office was not to be con•

sidered that u r .cu of disparagement of which the
Jews had any right to complain, so long as we did not spit
upon their gabardines and call thew Jews. Now, of all the
treatment to which the Jews, in the long history of the
persecution which had been directed against them, had
been subjected, there was no disparagement that more
severely wounded their feelings than that of being called
Jews and the spitting upon their gabardines. But if to
spit upon their gab ardines and to call them Jews was
considered persecution, what were they to say of the impu-
tations, and those of the severest character, which,
within the walls of the House of Commons, had recently
been cast upon that body ? The speech to which he
inure immediately referred, and upon which he should
make a few remarks, had since assumed a place among
the literature of the country. lie regretted deeply that
the lion. Member, he meant the Hon. Member for
Midhurst (Mr. Walpole), should have permitted him-
self to have given it, this prominent position, containing,
as it did, expression s in regard to the Jews, that con-
veyed imputations which he had no right to cast upon
them. It had been :said that the exclusion of the Jews
was conformable to, other exclusions sanctioned by the
law of the laud; awd the Honourable Member for Mid-
burst instanced the- cases of age, sex, and property as
being tests applied to all persons, whether Jews or
Christians. But ohe only reply he (Mr. C. Pearson)
thought it necesste to make to such an argument was,
that it was not proposed to admit either Jewish minors,
Jewish women, or Jewish paupers into Parliament. All
that the Jews claimed, or rather all that was claimed for
them, was the right of eligibility; a right to be elected
in common with my ery other individual in the country.
He stood there as an elector of the city of London, which
had returned this gentleman (Mr. Rothschild)—one of
between 6,000 and 7,000 persons who composed the
ancient livery corapanies of the city of London, consist-
ing of the merchants, bankers, traders, and inhabitant
householders of the first commercial city in the first
commercial country in the world, and who in the exer-
cise of their rights and the discharge of their duties had
thought fit to elect as their representative one of the
most eminent of their commercial men, whose name
was known in every port of the world where
the peaceful flag of commerce floated. Why should
this gentleman not to be returned to that House? The
first reason assigned was his inability to join in the
prayers with which the proceedings of the Howe were
opened. It had been stated that he could not join in
prayer with other Members of the House without awful
blasphemy towards God and hypocrisy towards his fel-
low-men. He had known many Jewish gentlemen
during the course of the last 35 years, and he solemnly
declared that he had,never heard from the lips of any
one of them any such expression as that our Saviour was
a " crucified impostor," or any other expression which
could hurt the feelings of the most delicate and fastidious
Christian. On a late occasion, a Jewish alderman of
the city of London attended at Bow Church, having, as
was always expected from an alderman of London, the
.Riot Act in his pocket; but although there was a great
tumult, and the words "mockery, mockery" echoed from
pew to pew, those sounds did not proceed from the Jew,
but from the Christian portion of the assembly. lie recol-
lected when, in 1831, the Protestants of Rio Janeiro were
unable to obtain a piece of ground on which to erect a place
of worship that Mr. D. Samuel, a Jew, obtained from the
Emperor an edict sanctioning the grant of a piece
of ground for that purpose, and laid himself the founda-
tion-stone of the new building; and he had in his pocket
new the copy of a vote of thanks addressed to that gen-
tleman for his liberality. That gentleman was now in
England, and if this Bill passed he might probably be-
come a candidate for a seat in that House, where he
(Mr. Pearson) had no doubt he would comport himself
during prayers as he had uniformly done on other occa-
sions. He understood, however, that the attendance of
Members during the time of prayers was entirely volun-
tary, and that the only object of attendance was to se-
cure seats; for he believed that, excepting during the
honeymoon of a new Parliament, not more than twenty
Members of the House were usually in attendance
at prayers, and therefore a Jewish gentleman might
perform all the duties of a Member of Par-
liament without any blasphemy, and without any in-
terference with the feelings of others. 't he Honour-
able Baronet (Sir R. Inglis), who had spoken so well and
so long on this subject, had divided the history of
our country into three periods, and had challenged the
future historian to point out any period, from the time
of Edward the Elder and Alfred to that of Praise-God-
Barebones, from the time of Praise-God-Barebones to
the Revolution, and from the Revolution to the present
time, in which the taking of some Christian form of
oath was not a condition precedent to holding office.
He had taken the trouble to turn over history in refe-
rence to these particular periods, because, as they had
been selected by a gentleman of such good taste and
sound judgment, he thought that he could not do better,
as a young Member of the House, than walk in that
course. He would refer then first to the time of Ed-
ward the Elder and Alfred. It was a very remarkable
circumstance that the precise period which had been
thus designated for the attention of the House was
the first period in our history which he could
find in which there had been any attempt to coerce
conscience, and force an oath upon individuals in-
consistent with the faith they held. The Parliament
or Council of Alfred had just then struck out of the
Decalogue the second commandment, and had mutilated
and restored it in a diminished form, which authorised
the worship of relics and images. At the same time, in
the 44)133i5h Church they had struck out the second