The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

In the debate on the second reading of the
Irish Church Bill the Ministers appear to have
had no trouble hut with the high church party—
Sir R. Inglis, Mr. Shaw, and Co., and, indeed,
not much with them. The old twaddle about
the "sacredness of (what is miscalled) church
property"—the danger to private property from
any intermeddling with that of the clergy—the
degradation to the church from the intended
consolidation of Irish bishoprics,—all these
threadbare absurdities were brought once more
into use, only to be torn to pieces and scattered
to the winds the instant they were opposed to
discussion. The question —" whether the Bishops
or the lessees of Bishops possessed any property
of which the Bill went to deprive them ?" was
well set at rest by Mr. Stanley. The Bishops
can legally let their lands for no more than 21
years, but they nevertheless have always contrived
to get a rack-rent out of them under the name of
fines on renewal. The Bill secures to the Right
Rev. Prelates an equivalent in perpetuity for the
rents thus ingeniously screwed up ; so far, there-
fore, as concerns my Lords Bishops, there is no
spoliation of property. But how is it with the
lessees under them ? These lessees are not in any
case entitled to an interest of more than 21 years in
the land. Should the Bishop choose t o run his life
against that term, and happen to survive it, as many
of them have done, he is free to turn the old
tenant adrift, and to relet the land to his own
family. But the Church Bill vests in the op-
tion of the lessee a right which he never before
possessed ; it gives him the power of converting
his terminable leasehold into a perpetuity, with-
out diminishing the income, compounded of
rent and fine, annually payable to the Bishop,
but at a rate of purchase so extremely moderate
as, in fact, to create for the tenant a new
property, which before existed neither in the
church nor in the Bishop, and which no power
but that of the state itself could bestow upon
him. There is an end, therefore, of the bug-
bear term "spoliation" as applied to this well-
meant but very inadequate measure. With
regard to the " suppression" of bishoprics, so
bewailed by Sir R. Inglis, as treason, or sacri-
lege, or something worse, the Hon. Baronet
seems to know very little of Irish history. There
are few countries where the consolidation of
bishoprics, or the union of two sees under one
prelate, has been carried further than by the late,
Pro-
testant Church of Ireland.* On looking over
the sees as they now stand, there are no less than
eight consolidations, one comprehending three
bishoprics—that is, there are what Sir Robert
Inglis, if' he were consistent, would term nine
" suppressions." But that is all beside the only
serious question at issue. The principle which
must be supported is, that the temporal church
is no more than a political institution, and
therefore amenable in all its parts to the
will of the Legislature, which acts for the
whole community. If all property be the crea-
ture of the state, so is
.church property its
creature. If an imperium in inzperio be a poli-
tical paradox, then there can be but one su-
preme power in the country ; and the question
is, shall a church, so constituted as to throw
civil society into confusion, be held secure and
;ntangible in its worst abuses ? or does there
exist of right on earth an authority by whose
correcting hand that ill-constituted church may
be stripped of its injurious tendencies ? That
question happily remains not now to be decided.
The decree has gone forth ; political, any more
than moral crimes, can no longer fly for sanctuary
to thealtar. We have already expressed surprise
and regret that a measure of reform a thousand
times more important, with reference, at least, to
the peace of Ireland, than the Temporality Bill of
Lord Althorp, should not yet have made much,
or, indeed, any apparent progress towards com-
pletion—we mean the promised commutation of
Irish tithe. The country looks to that measure
with intense impatience. But we presume, that
with an exposition of the Bill itself will come
likewise one clearing up the causes which have
so unhappily delayed it.— Times.

Even in England there are precedents of consolidated
and of suppressed bishoprics. Among the former are
Exeter, Lincoln, and Norwich ; among the latter, West-
minsteeand Hexham.

A subject which cannot be contemplated
without alarm was last night discussed in the
Lords, on the presentation of a petition agreed
to lately at Exeter Hall, by the Duke of Sus-
sex—We mean the state of the criminal law.
The petitinners prayed for the abolition of ca-
pital punishments. The Duke of Sussex seemed
to have doubts whether such punishments could
be in ail cases abolished with safety. The oc-
casion was seized by Lord Lyndhurst to con-
demn an anomaly in the English criminal law,
introduced on the proposition of Lord Wynford,
the taking from the judges all power of mitigating
the punishment of transportation, in the case of
stealing five pounds in a dwelling house.
" When the Bill (saidhis Lordship) was brought
up from the other House, it did not contain that
clause. It was introduced here as an amend-
ment ; and when it went back to the other
House, for its concurrence, the other House
was averse from assenting to it, and only did so
rom an apprehension that the Bill would be lost
,-;f it resisted the amendment." His Lordship
then proceeded to show the mischievous effects
of ti;is anomaly : " It was absurd to carry such
~ jaw ;;nto effect in all cases. Suppose a man
''.ied for stealing five pounds in a dwelling
house, and foinaa guilty, it was imperative on
the judge to sentence him to transportation for
life, and the sentence, as the returns showed, was
sure to be carried into effect. The next person
might be tried for breaking an entrance and
stealing ; that was a capital offence ; and if he
were fbund guilty, the judge might sen-
tence him to one year's imprisontnent and
to hard labour. The punishment, then,
for the inferior offence was transportation for
life, and for the capital offence one year's im-
prisonment." Discretion ought to be taken
from the Judges in all other cases, or left to
them in this. " The whole system of our
toriminal code (said Lord Lyndhurst) was
founded on discretion, except in that case in
which the Parliament had thought it right to
take away all discretion under the circumstances
stated. If it were right to take away the dis-
cretion of the court, that principle should be ex-
tended to all cases. If it were right to admit
the court to exercise a discretion, and if that were
the principle of the law, why this exception ?"
The operation of the Act has been harsh beyond
messure. Out of 300 convictions, only 10
have been commuted ; and in these 10 the
punishment was remitted because the crimes
were committed before the passing of the Act.
Lord Lyndhurst suggested to Lord Mel-
bourne the making farther improvements in our
criminal law. ~ He -would (he said) call his
attention to the return, and to the results which
they showed. In the course of the last twenty
yews, crime had increased in the proportion of
three to one in this country. in 0312, the

number of commitments to gaol did not exceed
6,000 ; they exceeded 20,000 in 1833. Taking
t he seven years ending with 1818, he found that
the whole number was about 60,000; but,
taking the seven years ending with 1832, he
found the whole number was about 127,000.
This increase was not confined to any districts—
it was the same to the manufacturing towns
and in the agricultural parts of the country—
the same in the metropolis and in the
most remote parts of the empire. This
was not a sudden increase ; but it had
been progressive from one year to another,
ever since 1812." It has been the fate of the
criminal law of England, never to be viewed as
a whole, and in connection with the state of the
country. While the people and the law were
equally sanguinary—that is, during the greater
part of the last century—the severe punishments
being carried into effect were perhaps efficacious.
But when the people began to look on capital
punishments in nineteen-twentieths of the cases
for which it was awarded by the law with hor-
ror, a change of system became necessary.
Unfortunately, we have in our secondary punish-
ments been committing one blunder after an-
other. Transportation, instead of a punish-
ment, operated in most cases as a reward to
an adventurous people like the English, whose
imaginations were filled with accounts of con-
victs having become possessed of fortunes equal
to noblemen at Botany Bay, and of the delights
of' an Australian climate. Their imprisonment
on board the hulks, or in correction houses, so
far from being a punishment, acted in many
cases as a premium on crime. A very sensible
pamphlet was published a few years ago by Mr.
Ridgway, written by the keeper of a correction
house in Sussex, in which it was stated that
many persons were so sensible of the advantages
enjoyed in a prison, compared to the ordinary
life of a labourer, that they were in the habit of
committing some crime before winter set in,
which might subject them to an imprisonment
which would end with the spring. The master
of the Manchester workhouse, when examined
several years ago before a Committee on the
poor laws, stated that there was no keeping the
Irish out of the workhouse. If the gaols and
correction houses throughout the country are made
much more comfortable than the cottages of the
peasanty, which they are now, and if the diet is
better, as has been shown by Mr. Chadwick, in
his report to the poor law Commissioners, are we to
be astonishsd that the reluctance to enter gaols
should be diminished ? " nom the official re-
turns (says Mr. Chadwick) it appears that
nearly all the prison dietaries are twice as good
as those of the agricultural labourers; and that
many of them are much better than the work-
house dietaries. * 4* In no workhouse
have I found the paupers supplied with other
than white or wheaten bread ; nor have I been
able to learn that brown bread is used in any of
the prisons. Mr. Hewit states that the convicts
have held up some of their white bread to the
soldiers in derision, using such expressions as
Look here ! Brown Tonzmy (the name of the
soldier's bread) is good enough for you, but it
will not do for us.' Prisons in this country
will, se fear, never become places for the re-
formation of criminals. They have hitherto
been the schools of crime. We fear we must
renounce the idea of prison discipline ever
effecting any moral improvement in criminals.
As places of punishment, and punishment
alone, prisons must be considered. By punish
went we do not, of course, exclude the making
reparation to the party aggrieved, and the com-
munity at large, by a judicious system of prison
labour ; and we hope that some benefit will
result from the inquiry, now set on foot, into the
state of the American Penitentiaries. At pre-
sent, however, it appears that prisons are not
places of punishment to that great portion of the
population who are most tempted to commit
offences against property. And there is a fear-
ful consideration which ought not to be lost
sight of. Every increase of crime leads to a
still greater increase, and the increase must ne-
cessarily be in an alarming progression. Whet.
punishments are of rare occurrence, the in-
dividuals punished are shunned by society.
There is no compromise between honesty and
dishonesty. Notwithstanding Lord Lynd-
hurst's assertion, that crime has increased from
one extremity of the empire to the other.
we do not, for instance, believe that there
has been any increase in the purely agricultural
districts of Scotland, in which the abhorrence of
crime has never yet been impaired. But in
England—and In..:re especially in the South—
the having been in prison is too often made a
joke of by the working people. In that part of
Kent which adjoins the metropolis, it would ap-
pear as if every person in humble life had, at
one time or other, been at Maidstone. We
have been assured by farmers, that the present
system of punishment, so far from encouraging
prosecution, deters from it. A fellow who has
been five or six months in prison, on leaving it,
gives a significant nod to his prosecutor ; who,
dreading that his stacks may be fired, prudently
puts up in most cases with the loss, and refuses

to prosecute, So much has dishonesty gained
ground of late, that we have been assured by
sensible men, that they believed that a labourer
N.ho refused to steal like his comrades, would
feel his situation most uncomfortable ; he would
be looked on as an unsafe associate. Our own
opinion is, that great mischief has been done in

this country by- the obstinate refusal of the
Tories to admit of any improvement in the
crriminal law, which led to piecemeal changes in
the system, and mischievous anomalies. The
law—the state of our prisons—transportation—
the procedure in triah—should all have been
considered as parts of our system. Reform
would have been an easy matter, when Sir Sa-
muel Hominy first called public attention to the
subject. With our present enormous gaol po-
pulation, it will be difficult to deal in an effective
manner. No subject is more deserving of the
attention of Statesmen, than that to which we

have been alluding. The distress of the work-
ing classes will not account for the evil. The
subject ought to be grappled with without delay.
Morning Chronicle.
Disapproving as we do of the conduct which
Sir John Hobhouse has pursued for some time
past as representative for Westminster, and more
especially considering the act of resigning his
seat at the moment when he ought to have en-
tered the lists to fight the battle of his consti-
tuents, we cannot but express our indignation at
the conduct of those persons who degraded the
constitutional exercise of a great political fran-
chise by riotous conduct and personal violence.
They are not the friends of a good cause who so
disgrace it. True freedom is as different from
licentiousness as moral power is from brute force.
Englishmen should reject the candidate who has
deceived them ; but while they conduct them-
selves with violence, however just their cause,
they will appear to act rather under the guidance
of blind passion than of well-directed reason,

To prevent a candidate, whatever his conduct or
opinions, from exercising the privilege of speech
in his own defence, by raising a stupid brute-
like howl at every attempt of his to address
them, would, Heaven knows ! have been bad
enough ; but to pelt him with mud or missiles
—to attempt to inflict personal injury on him
by a combined assault—a multitude against an
individual, is an act not only of irrational and
savage fury, but of outrageous cowardice, de-
grading alike to the civilization of the age
and the capabilities of the human species.
If ruffians, capable of such conduct could
be supposed to argue, we would ask them
whether it could serve the cause they pretend
to favour to prevent the candidate who had
done wrong from exhibiting his weakness, by
submitting his defence to the dissection of com-

petent adversaries? But no, they never argue.
It is impossible to suppose that the real electors,
that any persons who had votes to tender, took
part in the disgusting scene before the hustings.
We have reason to believe that the pelting,
though actively performed, was in reality per-
formed by a few persons, most of them ragged
boys, though some were adult and experienced
ruffians. It is a pity that the electors do not
take some means of putting a stop to proceed.
ings, the occurrence of which is discreditable to

themselves, though they take no part in it. What
are the constables, or what are the police about ?
How often have we to lament that the enemies
of popular rights find such countenance for their
peculiar theories in the practices of such dis-
turbances ! With respect to the election itself,
it would he premature to venture an opinion as
to its result. Little can be inferred from the
proceedings we allude to. But those who have
other means of judging seem to think that the
return of Sir J. Hobhouse is more than doubt-
ful. We should be disposed to think so our-
selves if the nature of the opposition which he
has experienced was not calculated to produce a
re-action in his favour. Do those who outrage
common justice and decorum reflect that they
may be serving in a more material point of view
the very men against whom they direct their
senseless and brutal fury ?--illorning Herald.
It will be seen from a paragraphical notice in
another part of this day's paper, that a deputa-
tion from the committee intrusted with the
protection of the interests of the licensed
victuallers, had the honour of an interview

yesterday with Lord Althorp on the subject of
the inclusion of their houses in the proposed
alteration of the duties on houses and windows.

The deputation was very graciously received,
and although, as will be seen, his Lordship de-
clined to give any positive answer, we have
every reason to believe that they will succeed in
the attainment of their object. It would be
most unjust indeed were that portion of the com-
munity, which is, of all others, not only the most
heavily taxed and rated, but the most exposed
to the lash of the magistrate and the perjury of
the informer, to be shut out from any boon
which is extended to other retail dealers ; and
more especially would it be unjust in their
case, seeing that within these few years
they have been plundered by the Beer Act of a
great portion of the value of their property, and
exposed to a competition, than which nothing
can be more unfair, or injurious to the best inte-
rests of the country. Mr. Spring Rice remarked,
we observe, to the Westminster deputation, that
he believed the business of tavern and hotel-
keepers to be in a much better situation than
that of other classes of tradesmen ; but no asser-
tion is more destitute of foundation. The li-
censed victuallers are suffering in all quarters
quite as much as any other class of tradesmen,
if, indeed, they do not suffer more ; and Mr.
Spring Rice, if he doubt the fact, may assure
himself of its correctness in a few minutes' walk
through any street in the metropolis. Many
houses will be found to be shut up in almost
every quarter in consequence of the decay of trade,
and the smallness of profits; while, on the other
hand, between those which still hold out there
exists so much competition, as wholly to destroy
the possibility of their being in a flourishing
condition.—Morning Advertiser.