The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-25 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1846.

Their Lordships met at Five o'clock.
A somewhat lengthened conversation took place, on the
subject of the new Houses of Parliament, in the course of
which Dr. Reid's plan of ventilation, as far as the House of
Lords was concerned, was acknowledged to be a failure.
Their Lordships then adjourned.

The SPEAKER took the Chair at Four o'clock.

Mr. C. Woon, Lord DALHENY, Mr. B. ScO:rr, Sir W. so_
zsnvir.LE, and Lord CLAtDE HAMILTON were sr►orn at the
table to try the merits of the Bridport election, and appointed
to sit to-morrow at eleven o'clock.
Mr. B. COCHRANE trusted the House would not adopt its
usual eourse in this case. He had been told that he was
charged with bribery, and at the present moment, the .night
before the Committee was to sit, he did not know the Par

ticular case that was to be made against him. His agent
had been served with ninety-six cases of objection, but what
these objections were he could not even surmise.

After some short discussion,

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said the House ;had nothing to I
do with the question—it lay with the Committee.
The Committee was then ordered to meet to-morrow at
eleven o'clock.
Sir R. PEEL, in answer to a question from Mr. B. Coch-
rane, said that the Government had done all it could for the
relief of the families of Captain Stoddart and Captain Co-
nolly, and that any further relief must be looked for to the
East India Company.
On the motion for the resumption of the adjourned debate,
Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN wished to know from the Noble Lord
the Member for Lvnn whether, supposing the Government
were to bring in a-Bill proposing to allow corn to be brought
into Ireland duty free, he would support that measure. The
Hon. Gentleman, in putting the question, went again at
ing among teople in
con-
siderable length into the alarming condition of I
herelpand, and
the state of want and misery
different parts of that country.
Mr. Roche, Mr. Stafford
Mr. O'Connell, Mr. P.
O'Brien,LordG Biern. tisner,mAalrn.
Crawford,V. Smith,
Scrope, and Mr. Cobden, having addressed the House,
Mr. S. O'BRIEN wished to know if the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman was willing to accept the terms of his offer?
Sir R: PEEL said that he had no hesitation in at once say-
ing that he could not accept them.
Mr. DISRAELI rose to charge the First Minister of the
Crown with cheering an expression in the Hon. Member for
Stockport's speech, namely, that the inhabitants of the
"towns should rule the country party." The Hon. Gentle-
man having very warmly adverted to the circumstance,
Sir R PEEL said " I totally deny the fact."
Mr. MAURICE O'CONNELL moved '
the
adjournment of the
House.

A warm discussion then arose, as to the previous misun-
derstanding, in which several Hon. Members joined in stating
that Sir Robert Peel did not cheer at the time alleged.
Mr. DISRAELI then explained, and apologised for his
mistake.

The adjourned debate having been resumed, Mr. JOHN
O'CONNELL addressed the House at some length, after
which, on the motion of Mr. M'CARTHY, the debate was
adjourned to Monday.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of and the
House adjourned.

Lord CAMPBELL, who has already distinguished him-
self so highly by the judicious legal reforms he has in-
troduced, last night added to his well-merited reputation
by moving the second reading of two Bills, viz., the
" Deodands Abolition Bill" and the " Death by Acci-
dent Compensation Bill."
It is difficult to conceive why the law relating to
deodands has been permitted to remain so long in its
present state ; it is one of the relics of the darker
ages. The principle on which it was originally
founded was, that anything by which human life was
destroyed, or its loss was caused, should be forfeited, and
its very name " deodand," or a gift to GOD, implies its
original object, viz., that its value should be applied in
pious uses, for the repose of the soul of the deceased
person. When the State no longer recognised such an
object the' Crown retained the forfeiture for its own use,
and in every coroner's inquest a part of the duty of the
jury was to find what was the thing by which the death
was caused, and what was its value. For many years
it was usual for the jury to assess a nominal sum
as the value of the deodand, but when numerous
deaths ensued from railway accidents—many of them
resulting from negligence on the part of the servants or
officials of the company—the almost obsolete law was
revived, for the purpose of inflicting a punishment
where no adequate one was in existence, and largo sums
were assessed as the value of the engine or carriages
causing the accident. The magnitude of the
fines inflicted
.induced the parties interested
to remove the proceedings into the Court of
Queen's Beach, in which they were almost invariably
quashed. Mr. WAKLEY, who has applied his great ex-
perience to a subject so peculiarly within his province as
one of the coroners for the county of Middlesex, has
stated that no benefit whatsoever arose in any instance
from deodands under the present law. This being the case
it is surely high time that so useless a law should be
abrogated. And we are happy to find that
by the second Bill, which is intimately con-
nected with the former, an efficient and
valuable enactment will be substituted in its place.
Hitherto, by a strange anomaly is the law, although
a person could recover pecuniary damages as compen-
sation for any minor injury he might sustain, caused by
the default or neglect of another, yet, if the greatest
injury of all was sustained—if death ensued—there was
no remedy for his bereaved family, who might in a
moment be reduced from comfort and affluence to
misery and destitution, without being enabled to obtain
any redress from the person by whom so heavy a loss
was occasioned. A better state of law exists in Scotland
and in all the continental states on this subject. We
have lately seen a sum of two thousand pounds awarded
to the relatives of a person who met his death by an
accident on one of the Scotch railways; and in France,
a sum of twenty thousand francs against Monsieur BEAU-
VALLON, as a compensation for the death of the gentle-
man who unfortunately fell by his hand in a duel,
although he was acquitted of the capital charge ; and
we have no hesitation in saying that such decisions
were received with approbation by the public. The
present state of the law forms an exception to the
general rule—that wherever there was a wrong inflicted,
the law should give a compensation. The Noble Mover
seemed to fear that in the Commons difficulties would
be thrown in the way of the Bill passing into a law,
from the strength of the railway interest in that House.
We eannot think so badly of our Legislators as to sup-
pose it possible that private interests should be suffered
to impede the progress of a measure so just and equitable
in itself, and one in favour of which there is so strong a
feeling on the part of the public.

At the commencement of the present month we
gladly seized an opportunity which enabled us to give a
voice to that general sentiment of loathing in the public
mind towards the hideous scenes enacted in too many
of our London churchyards, and which sentiment,
though shrouded by something very like apathy in the
parties towards whom we are entitled to look for repa-
ration, is, we might undertake to avouch, more
prevalent and more earnest than possibly any
other excited by a social grievance. The op-
portunity to which we refer was the introduction
of a Bill, by Mr. MACKINNON, for the removal of burial
from towns, the prosecution of which laudable project
has, however, been prevented by the extraordinary pro-
longation of other discussions in the Lower House.
Nothing further has transpired in Parliament
in refeeence to this very important matter, by which
additional comments have been either alto-
gether precluded, or rendered to a considerable extent
useless. In this manner an affair involving not only the
cleanliness, but the decency ; not only the decency, but
the health ; not only the health, but the morals of the
populace, has been left in abeyance. The evil is still

rife in some of the most dense and populous quarters of
this great city, and no effort has been made to alleviate,
much less to eradicate, the nuisance. Clear passages are
carved through the heart of St. Giles's ; the few
tenements still remaining are by that means exposed to
a salubrious ventilation ; and by a recent parochial re-
solution, we observe that it is proposed to root our some
of the most infamous dens in the vicinity of West-
minster Abbey, and transform the neighbourhood into re-
spectability both in its appearance and in the character
of its inhabitants. Those, undoubtedly, are admirable
approval movementsfar
theyrig h
as t
go—butdirection,
t they
hey are deserve all
The sanatory position of the people is regarded in one
essential particular, but in anoter it is forgotten or
efacarraeortnenseds
simply
erp,ral
3the
contemned—the homes of the living
homeswha
twhatever.
ofe rthe
Now,
deadi
ra
wr e treated re
at
considered as
thutoghueagsrhee
i
yeihn; i :coos
rrl epogitirs
ahln l ateuetnmdodrass
n,weiwtfi
ythht.ehot
the most
Tretr
ahrhieeniesi -yrt
f
their political influence, they would fully
tt
mr eesst ,
este
tehinegrethmaett
easltl
oparhahittalihogveseuoiprt
systems excessive a barbarism,
reverence
f
knew that any decay of feeling in this regard would
tend inevitably to subvert some of the most humanising
principles of our common nature. As an evidence
of
this esteem even for the perishable remains of their
fellow-men, we may incidentally mention the costly
sarcophagi and perfumed mummies of the Egyptians,
the mausoleums which flanked the principal roads of
entrance to the Eternal City, the solemn funeral cere-
monies even of savages, but especiaNy the impressive
'and beautiful rites of death peculiar to Christianity.
Everything conspires to prove that some respect either of
heart or of formality is requisite to maintain the com-
monest sentiments of decency and humanity among
the people. Experience shows this, so also does reason.
But there are other and no less important lights in
which the matter can he regarded. Due attention to in-
terment is necessary for the preservation of bodily
health, as well as for the cleanliness and adornment of
our towns. These things are so manifest in them-
! selves, we have already so fully exposed their
sufficiency in The Sun, and circumstances of a
most harrowing nature have so adequately demonstrated
the truth of such conclusions, even within the bounda-
ries of the metropolis, that any amplification of the like
arguments would now be superfluous. A pamphlet, very
recently published, with the quaint heading of " Burial-
ground Incendiarism," written by Mr. G. WALKER, an
untiring advocate for the suppression of interment
within cities, will afford any one unacquainted with the
details of our London churchyards a frightful bird's-eye
view of the occurrences enacted in those pernicious nests
of decomposition. He who is a stranger to the facts
will shudder over their dismal record ; he will hear of

coffins and human bones piled up into bonfires, and
burnt to make room for a fresh supply of the
dead ; he will be told of gravediggers driving
their spades into the ground hap-hazard (with
injunctions to dig through whatever may intercept their
progress), and casting up shovels full of flesh, and hair,
and shrouds ; he will even hear of one REUBEN ROOM,
who asserted upon oath that he had at times stood up to
his knees in human flesh, stamping with his feet to com-
press it into a narrow compass; he will read tl;lese things
and possibly throw the pamphlet aside as an
exaggeration—as a fiction. But those disclosures are
all true—and more! It is from the hideous character
of the facts, and from the terrible consequences which
result from those facts, that we derive so much satisfac-
tion on finding a movement just now reviving for the cor-
rection of similar abuses in Spafields Burial-ground—a
spot notorious for their recurrence. The heart has a
spontaneous impulse of joy at intelligence so much in
accordance with its better feelings, with its reverence
for the dead, and with its affection for the living. 11€ nee
do we look forward to the continuation of Mr. Mec-
KirotoN's efforts in a cau,e so politic and so venerable,
while we are fain to anticipate that ecclesiastical inter-
ference in its behalf, of which Sir JAMES GRAHAM has
spoken with so much confidence.