The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TlMES.—There seems to be but little doubt that
the Duke of Norfolk has left the communion of the
Church of Rome, the hereditary faith of the noble
house of Howard, and become a member of the. Church
of England; Of course we shall be assured by our
Roman Catholic contemporaries that the loss of the
premier Duke and Marshal of the kingdom is to them
a matter of no importance, and that the extraordi-
nary merits of the son amply compensate them for
the defection of the sire. At this particular moment,
however, such an event is full of much significance,
and may possibly be ominous of consequences more
inimical to the spread of the Roman Catholic faith
than any which have been dreamt of in the philosophy
of our Wisemans and Cullens. It is not likely, cer-
tainly, that the convictions under which this noble
personage has acted have been hastily taken up, but
the present conjuncture is more peculiarly calculated
to raise up doubts and difficulties in the mind and
to convert the wavering believer into an open op-
ponent. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be
nothing less than the depository of those superhuman
powers which the Author of Christianity has be-
queathed to her. She is either a great standing
miracle or a gross imposture. Her priests are
either endowed with powers which render the
violation of the laws of nature almost as
common as their observance, or they are
subordinate agents in a conspiracy against the liber-
ties and enlightenment of mankind. In deciding this
momentous alternative it is impossible not to be
guided in some degree by the conduct and profes-
sions of those who claim to be in an especial manner
the recipients of superhuman gifts. In purely
Roman Catholic countries the strongest arguments
of dissent have usually been drawn from the irre-
gular lives of the wealthier clergy, and the validity
of their pretensions has been estimated according to
the strictness or laxity of their morality. It was,
probably, a perception of this truth which induced
the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland to abstain from
taking a public share in that political agitation which
they secretly and actively favoured and promoted, and
to leave the more prominent and invidious positions
to laymen, whose violence and intemperance might
serve the interests without compromising the sanctity
of the Church. Since the passing of the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill, however, this spirit of moderation and
good sense has entirely deserted the leaders of the
Roman Catholic priesthood, and in an evil hour for
their own interest they have determined not only to
agitate, but to play themselves the leading part in the
agitation. The movement is not only for but by
the Roman Catholic Church. All the stale and
worn-out arts of a demagogue of the lowest order—
the impudent mendacity, the unprincipled virulence
whichedittortse without scruple the pleinest facts of
history, and falsifies the most- undotahted conclusions
'clf-reason—are the weapons with which rho Roman
Catholic Church herself has undertaken to carry on
the war against the English Crown and Legislature.
Her priests and dignified clergy utter, without the
slightest scruple, the most astounding statements to
applauding audiences, and, not content with the
momentary triumph of their eloquence, circulate
them in penny and halfpenny publications throughout
the country in which they profess to he ministers of
peace. Take the following extract from the speech
of the notorious Dr. Cahill, which has been printed
for circulation at the price of a penny :—" But, alas !
my beloved country, the poor Irish Catholic, the
child of God and man, is lef; to feed upon briars and
thorns, and perishes of hunger by the wayside, the
handwriting of England is traced in the protruding
bones of his skeleton frame, and publishes in red
capital letters Starved to death by English law. "
This sentence, says the penny report, produced the
most thrilling effect on the entire meeting. We do
not doubt it did. The dish was admirably seasoned
to the palates for which it was designed ; but we can-
not help suspecting that these thrilling effects are not
produced by Boman Catholic priests in person with-
out considerable injury to the cause of the faith of
which they are ministers. It must, we should think,
be extremely difficult to believe that a body of men
who lend themselves knowingly and wilfully to the
propagation of the grossest and most notorious false-
hoods, merely because they are addressing an audi-
dience blinded and ignorant enough to believe them,
can be at the same time that selected few to whom
have been intrusted the supernatural powers which
evidenced the beginning of Christianity. It is hard
to conceive a man as spiritually all truth whom vie
know in temporal concerns to be all falsehood. The
contradiction is too striking, too startling. From
the moment the Roman Catholic priests, under the
guidance and sanction of their spiritual heads, have
taken upon themselves • the vocation of dema-
gogues and agitators they loosen their hold upon
the sympathies and convictions of the more
respectable members of their persuasion, and barter
for the applause of a miserable rabble their solid in-
fluence over educated minds. They seem determined
to prove that a man cannot be a worthy member of
their communion unless he be prepared to set the
Pope above the queen and to violate the law of the
land with the most ostentatious premeditation. We
have been anxiously watching for the effects of this
policy. We were prepared to see the more discrimi-
nating and judicious of the Roman Catholic laity stand
aloof from this clerical agitation, and were not sur-
prised to find the moat judicious organ of the Roman-
ist press pointing out, with much good sense and mo-
deration, the folly of the attitude of defiance assumed
by Dr. Cullen and his coadjutors. The only other
event which has followed this demonstration is the
loss to the Roman Catholic Church of the layman who
has hitherto been considered its head. This, pro-
bably --es not the result which Dr. Cullen ex-
pecte! Jrn the demonstration of the Rotunda, but
while sorting to the worn-out tactics of O'Con-
nell he forgot that the hour and the man were alike
passed away, and that though his Irish supporters
could not be roused to anything more useful than
momentary applause, his English co-religionists
might be irretrievably disgusted and alienated. The
recent converts to the Church of Rome from the En-
glish universities have no sympathy whatever with
the rude and brawling declaimers of the Irish priest-
hood. They are mostly men of fastidious delicacy
and secluded in contemplative habits, who have been
led to embrace the faith of Rome, not from any prac-
tical knowledge of its effects, leu.t from an over-
strained and exaggerated appreciation of the dignity
of the sacerdotal office and the functions of a Christian
church. To such men nothing could tend to operate
as so complete a reductio ad absurdum of their fine-
spun theories as the defiant and undignified att'tude—
balf bullying, half craven—which, under the direction
of her Cardinal and Primate, the Church of Ireland
has assumed. Instead of relying on berg upernatural
gifts, they see her courting the lowest ppularity by
the vilest arts, and seeking aid, not from the spirit of
truth, but from falsehood and misrepresentation. We
can hardly hope that even this result will entirely dis-
abuse the minds of men who have already shown so
absurdities and
_singular a power of ignoring all b
in-
consistencies ; but if this is not to be, we may at any
rate hope for the rise and increase of a party in the
Homan Catholic Church which may respect the law
under which we live, and proclaim that the cause of
true religion is better served by truth, honesty, and
loyalty, than by falsehood, slander, and disaffection.
DAILY NEWS.—The passing of the Act con-
stituting the new court of appeal in Chancery has
been promptly followed up by the appointment of the
judges, the " Lord Justices of the Court of Appeal in
Chancery ;y and the appointments made will meet
with general approval by the prefession and by the
public. The Vice-Chancellors Knight Bruce and
Lord Cranworth are the judges of the appeal court,
it being understood that the former learned person is
4150 to berikibed to the peerage, Of the fitness of

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414 I
both for the important judicial posts t ey are to fill,
.arl the responsible (tutted they will, have to per-
form, no one can entertain a doubt. -And it is more
than probable that the two sitting together will con-
stitute a far better tribunal than either of the& did
when sitting alone. Able as both of them are, they
possess in many respects very opposite charac-
teristics of mind and temper. As Vice-Chancellor,
Sir James Knight Bruce; to a singular acuteness,
which gave his knowledge of the points in cases
when being argued before him almost the appearance
of intuition, united an energy of purpose and an in-
domitable determination to do justice in each case,
which in the great majority of instances worked sub-
stantial justice to the psr:ies in the readiest mode
the nature of the subject-matter permitted. He never
willingly allowed the forms of the court to be used
oppressively, and be often exercised a bold and vigo-
rous discretion to prevent parties using such forms
COO' enforcing their strict rights in a manner calcu-
lated to operate iejurieusiy on their opponents, which
"rajleige sitting in equity had ever previously yen-
-1 rured upon. This was mainly eccomplished by en-
' forcing consents and concessions trona the parties, as
the price of some order v..hich it was discretionary
with the court to withhold or to postpone. In this
way a long and intricate litigetioa was often
nipped in the bud, and !many suitors saved
from all the miseries and exuenses of a pro-
tracted Chancery suit. Tillie for instance
the following: a man in trade died owing some debts
le the way of his business, and possessed of consider-
able landed and house properties, on some of which
there v. ere movgages ; in short, though his estate was
much more then solvent, it was entangled, and re-
quired a little time and some forbearance on the part of
the few trade creditors to be made the most of. His
executors, desirous of preserving the trade, which was
a valuable one, and of keeping the other property to-
gether, delayed for a short time to prove the will until
cited by a creditor to do so, and then they proposed to
the two principal and only trade creditors to deposit in
their hands ample freehold securities for the amount of
their debts until money to pay them off could be realised
without needless sacrifices. This was refused by the
creditors' solicitor, and a claim to administer the estate
was filed on behalf of one creditor. Under such proceed-
ing a decree to administer the estate would have been
quite of course, and all the real property of the testator
would have been sold, and his complex affairs wound
up in the Master's office, and the plaintiffs (the credi-
tor's) solicitor would have bad the carriage of the decree,
and, as a consequence, the lion's share of the costa in-
curred. Anxious to avert such a destructive litiga-
tion, the executors applied to the Court to stay pro-
ceedings on the claim, upon their giving security to
pay the plaintiff's debt and costs then incurred
within a short time. Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce
thought the executors had not been quite so prompt
as they might have been in proving the will, and
refused to stay proceedings, except on the terms of
immediate payment of debt and costs, and he al-
lowed the matter to stand over for a few hours,
that the counsel of the executors might confer with
their solicitor. When the matter was again men-
tioned the money was brought in, and in open
court, by the Vice-Chancellor's direction, handed over
to the plaintiff's solicitor. In the meantime, however,
a second claim by the other trade creditor had been
prepared, through the same counsel and solicitor, and
when the matter was mentioned application was made
to file a second claim for administration. This could not
be dealt with in the same way, the amount of the debt
was larger, and there was an open account between the
creditor and the testator. The executors could only re-
present to the court that they had offered security,
that they were about to raise money on the testator's
real estate fcr payment of his debts, and that such
arrangements would probably be defeated should
there be a suit pending for the administration of his
estate. In ordinary cases, the Court could scarcely
enter into such considerations; and leave to file a claim
would be given to a creditor almost as of course. But
the Vice-Chancellor said, " I see there is a desire and
intention on the part of these executors to pay the
debts, and I must, so far as I can, protect this testa-
tor's estate from destruction," and he accordingly di-
rected the application of the creditor to stand over for
two months, on the executors entering into their
personal undertaking to pay the debt, or consent to an
administration decree at the end of that time. Before
that time had expired, the necessary funds were raised
and the debt paid. Here, by the exercise
of a firm discretion, the Vice-Chancellor
saved the property of a family from anni-
hilation. It is true he spoiled a " very pretty
(legal) quarrel," and prevented the creditor's solici-
tor from getting a very pretty bill of costs out of the
entangled estate, but the suitors and the public will
probably deem his Honour worthy of high praise for
such interference. And so in a multitude of other
cases, familiar to practitioners in his court, the Vice-
Chancellor Knight Bruce has rendered his a court of
reconcilement, to the manifest benefit of all parties.
As a dravt back, it must also be fairly stated suitors
and their-counsel ha're-trett seldom cOmplaked. The
court has decided without giving then) a full and sa-
ti,factory Leering; and thoug4even in such-yeses the
Vice- Chancellor was very aptsfo be right, tee is not
more than other men infallible. It is unquestionable
that many appeals have been made from his decisions,
mainly because all the points in the cases were not
fully argued before him. L )rd Crau worth, on the other
hand, has earned the character of being somewhat slow
in his decisions, and of permitting argument to be per-
sisted in after it has become perfectly plain to the judge
that such argument was untenable; consequently less
business was got through in his court than was ex-
pected. The soundness and completeness of his
judgments, however, when given are undoubted, and
they are very generaly acquiesced in by suitors. As
a Vice-Chancellor, the long absence of Lord Crams
worth from the Court of Chancery, whilst sitting as
a common law judge, was felt to have been a disad-
vantage, for during that period changes of practice
and new general orders had been made, which
affected ma-
terially the business of the court; with these
,
the Vice-Chancellor could not have that complete
familiarity which constant and daily practice in the
court can alone give, and which is so essential to the
dispatch of a large part of the judicial duties of the
Court of Chancery. When sitting as an appeal judge
these points of deficiency will be of no importance,
for there are few appeal cases in which, for some
reason or other, a full argument is not necessary,
and that minute acquaintance with details of practice
is not so much required on the part of an appeal
judge as in a judge of the first instance. The mode
in which the vacant Vice-Ceancelorships have been
filled will also, we believe, afford equal saisfaction
with the appointments to the appeal court. Sir Wil-
liam Page Wood, the late Solicitor-General, is a clear-
headed man and a good lawyer, with an eminently
judicial mind ; and while he is an acute practitioner,
and well versed in the principles and practice of the
court, he has no predilections or prejudices which can
interfere with any changes necessary to adapt the
Court of Chancery to the ideas and exigencies of mo-
dern times. Mr. James Parker also is a man of great
legal acumen and sound knowledge. Ms practice in
the court has been vast and various, and his opinion
on knotty questions d equity law has long been
deemed one of the safest, if not the safest, upon
which intending litigants could set. That
he will make an excellent judge may be cer-
tainly predicted. It is creditable to the Govern-
ment and to the Lord Chancellor as their first.
legal functionary, that, in completing thej udicial force
of the Court of Chancery, party politics have been
thrown overboard, in order to select the best men for
the judgment-seat; for the Vice-Chancellor Knight
Bruce and Vice-Chancellor Turner, and n
IT all
Chancellor Parker, all belong to parties.
opposed to the Government. The questionponoi
na-
turally asked, is—" Who is to be the new Solicitor-
General
?" That he oughtis selectedw from the
to
be
equity bar nobody can doubt,
Now, there
done in the way of Chancery reform which none but
ftoorbtehere
an equity lawyer can perform.properlyYessionand the public
is one man to whom
point—namely, Mr.
seem by common consent
inence as an advocate, adds
Bethel), who, to his pre-ere
the profession
raenfoeramrnewshtnioehssoiroda:ltthriosugmhonlsesoit required to satisfy
in his of law
the demands of the public, and to effect such complete
changes as will set at rest certain wild notions wiaje%
have been broached on this subject.

rADVERTISEMENT.] A Remarkable Cure of
Dropsyof the Chest by Holloway's Pills.—Extract of a letter
fci Mr. Monday, a farmer, Kennington, near Oxford, dated
bec. 2, 1848 :—To Professor Holloway : Sir,--Having on a
former occasion apprised you of an extraordinary cure upon
myself by your invaluable medicine, it gives me great pleasure
to testify again to its efficacy in a case of dropsy of the chest
with which my shepherd was afflicted, to whom, the moment I
was informed of the nature of his complaint, I recommended a
trial of your Pills, which advice was adopted with complete suc-
cess, for by taking a few boxes only he was perfectly cured, and
is now in sound health. —Sold by all Druggists, and at Professor
Holloway's Establishment, 244, Strand, London

BARNET GREAT CATTLE AND HORSE FAIR.--YO"
terday (Thursday) this great fair commenced. It is consi-
dered one of the largest stock markets. The supply of cattle
was unusually large, and a very great concourse of fll,ramseirhs
and cattle graziers was brought together. The stock was
the Here-
good condition. Amoig st :ek, young beasts of
1 . a head, and
ferd and Devon breed made from 91. to 10./1.
were in gr eat demand. Lincoln 3 made t2l.
he, 0 which
Icows
was weehr
one
'laattead, and the
N1121.e,
each
al.r‘ortTg.'ihgt°foprr stallingiprice
r g
goo Sects
mart, being of the
of the finest ever witnessed at publica
prices ranging from 16
choicest Yorkshire breed, and made
SVise cwoilsectsilo.ntoo l
and were eagerly bought
to 19 guineas, small calf inclusive,
Welsh cattle, whteh
up by London milk dealers..
ltne racecourse, there made vely
occupied almost exclusive y
In
the horse market Was
business, at good
prices.
adapted adapted to London purposes, sold
good, and young car.frcoorn
30 to 45 guineas ; and among the
at prices varying
Welsh was a fund of amusement from the
forest colts there
m
manner in which the Welsh ho se-
extraordinary and
daringthe herds of ponies unbroken, and even
dealers rushed amongy
were,
and brought out a selected pony
by the mane t
not haltered, aostine
purchaser. The amount of money which
h ands vesterday was immense ; vast droves of cattle
changed "an - "
left the fair, and much remains to be sold to-day (Friday).