The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THM PUBLIC JOURNALS

As an instance of the improved feeling towards
the people, displayed by a Reformed Parliament,
we may refer to the appointment of a Committee,
on the motion of Mr. Slaney, " to consider the best
means of securing open places in the vicinity of po-
pulous towns as public walks, calculated to promote
the comfort of the inhabitants." It has been too
much the fashion of late years to consider the people
merely as part of the machinery by which rich per-
sons are supplied with the means of enjoyment. The
village greens, the footpaths have been stolen from
them in various ways; and huge assemblages of
houses, called towns, have made their appearance,
in which the poor are huddled together in unpaved
undrained streets, without any public walks for an
exercise and amusement. Every one who visits the
continent is struck with the care taken, in all the
cities and towns, to provide public walks where the
people may enjoy themselves. One of the conse-
quences of extending the franchise must necessarily
be the supplying the rich with a motive to think of
the poor, not as mere instruments of toil, or subjects
for penal discipline, but as fellow-creatures, entitled
to have their fair share of happiness. It
6s been again and again remarked, that there is no
part of Europe in which the recreations of the poor
are looked on with so evil an eye as in England.
Not only wakes and fairs have been rigorously put
down by busy intermeddling Magistrates, but in
many cases they have endeavoured to prevent
public-houses from having seats at their doors, on
which the poor might enjoy air and refreshment at
the same time. The very sight of a poor man en-
joying any indulgence is like Mordecai at the
King's gate to the diciplinarians of this country.
.And yet we hear wonders often expressed that the
tsoor, towards whom so little sympathy is shown,
should be rude and more mischievous than the poor
of the continent. A working man of Paris or Berlin
does not feel himself degraded as a poor man of
London does. He sees himself everywhere treated
with respect, and he consequently respects others.
The king of Prussia, in his daily walks along the
Linden Strasse, does not separate himself from his
people, or display any of the exclusive feeling which
so unfavourably distinguishes the higher ranks of
England. The Emperor of Austria, at Vienna,
tnixes with the people as one of themselves. No
disposition is shewn to drive the people into holes
and corners, to limit t heir pleasures to the beastly in-
dulgence of intoxication in public-houses. Music, the
great humanizer of mankind, and which con-
stitutes so great a share of the enjoyments
Hof the poor on the continent, is envied the
poor in this country. Let us hope that
better times are at band, and that the various classes
will be bound together by kindly feelings, instead of
viewing eath other with envy and uncharitableness,
as in times past. Several of the Members last night
did themselves much honour by the mode in which
they opposed themselves to the hypocritical attempts
of late times to harass the poor. What fell from
Mr. George Lamb is the more deserving of attention,
from the influence which his situation gives to his
opinions. "He doubted whether much more might
not be done to promote the object of the Hon.
Member (Mr. Slaney) by Magistrates of towns,
which he called local legislatures, than by Parlia-
ment. At the same time he had no objection to the
trial of the experiment, and expressed the great
pleasure it always gave him to see people who
worked hard all the week innocently enjoying
themselves on Sunday. He hoped that nothing
would at any time be attempted to cloud the general
sunshine of the cheerful Sabbath in this country.
—(Much cheering.)" The Magistrates 1 Why these
are the very men who are eternally busy in putting
an end to these enjoyments. Of all the places in
the neighbourhood of London, there is none, per-
haps, upon the whole, more agreeable than Green-
wich, with its Park, and Blackheath. It had been
the custom for years, for pony-chaises and asses with
saddles to ply on the Heath on Sundays for the be-
nefit of the Cockney visiters. This last summer
appeared an ukase, signed by the clerk of a Bench
of Magistrates, by their authority, indcrdicting this
innocent enjoyment to the visiters. The' Princess
Sophia of Gloucester, the Ranger of the Park, is
a humane arid considerate lady; but she has been
pestered to death by these despots to interfere with
the enjoyments of the poor, and to her credit she
has always turned a deaf ear to the applications.
Mr. Lamb will find that benches of Magistrates arc
almost uniformly tyrants of the poor. But when
corporations come to be responsible to the respec-
tive communities, and the system of self-election
arid election for life shall be destroyed, then we may
expect more care taken to provide for the health and
recreation of the poor. These are objects of far
more consequence than vulgar purse-proud men
conceive they are. Kindness begets kindness. A
benevolent man seldom meets with an ungrateful
return. Even a dog cart distinguish between a be•
nevolent and a forbidding countenance. The great
object with all men is happiness ; arid whatever
tends to increase the mass of innocent pleasure and
happiness can never be unimportant to a rational
being. Mr. Portman alluded to the stopping up of
footpaths, and announced an intention of bringing
in a Bill which will render this dishonourable prac-
tice very difficult. Mr. Benett thought clauses
might be advantageously introduced into private
Bills, reserving open ground for the people. These
are all favourable symptoms.-11sforning Chronicle.

Our impression that Ministers would act prudent-
ly in revising so much of the " pacification" Bill as
goes to the establishment r,f military courts in Ire-
land strengthens, the more we reflect upon the sub-
ject. We hold that if there be one maxim of state
policy less liable to exception than another, it is that
which prescribes the exclusion of the British army
at home from the exercise (as an army) of ad but
its regular, professional, military functions. For the
sake of the army itself, for its discipline, for its popu-
larity with the nation, and consequent efficiency,—
for the sake, above all, of the supreme and para-
mount character of our civil institutions, and of the
subordinate and subservient condition in e hich the
military ought to be at all times maintained in refe-
rence to them, the lives, persons, or liberties of Bri-
tish subjects should not be made dependent on the
will of those who constitute the armed force of the
country, save only when, under the orders of magis-
trates, and in execution of the acknowledged laws of
the land, that force is directly employed to put down il-
legal violence and outrage. The substitution of military
for civil judges is necessary when martial law has been
proclaimed, because then it is taken for granted that
the army is inthe presence of either an invading or
a domestic enemy, and the chief of the army be-
coming responsible for the safety of the whole
State, must be enabled to act through a machinery
of laws and instruments, the operation of which,
being familiar with it, he is qualified to regulate and
control. The slow and complex forms of our com-
mon or statute law, if suffered to possess a rival
jurisdiction to the law military, might defeat the
most necessary measures of the martial authorities,
taken in time of open warfare for the protection of
the realm. But is martial law proclaimed in Ire-
land, and the military power given dominion over
every other i) No ; for we find that this Bill up-
holds the authority of Magistrates and police con-
stables in the proclaimed districts, compelling the
army, in some respects, to execute their orders, as
being an inferior and strictly Ministerial power.
Houses to be broken open must be so by warrant
of Justices, and other acts of provocation to distur-
bance are to proceed from the civil functionaries,
having the troops to aid them; thus, by the exer-
cise of a magisterial rigour, which the officers of the
army are unable to mitigate, but are, on the con-
trary, bound to enforce, cutting out work for the
same officers in their other capacity of judges, and
exposing them to a double portion of obloquy and
resentment from the people. This, how well soever
intended, is no way to pacify Ireland, though '
uothing, we are sure, could be designed with more
anxious and laudable solicitude for that unhappy
country. The question is, has Government been
driven by pure lack of better materials to ransack
the army for criminal judges in Ireland ? We can-

not conceive the exi,telice of t,ocli a ,strange
lity. These are at least an hundred Irish barristers
of competent qualification to try the several species
of offences turned over by this Act to two-year-olds,
in sc )rlet jackets. There are the assistant bairis-
ters-30 or 40 of them—for the several Irish coun-
ties or divisions of counties, all more fitted than
military men to sit in judgment on the transgressors
of this Act of Parliament. Such men would not be
liable, as we conceive, to any attempt at intimida-
tion. But, say those friends of Ministers who differ
with us in opinion, " the jurors are intimidated."
There are two modes of meeting this defence ofcourts-
martial
f. The Court composed of three or five barristers would,
we take for granted, be not less worthy of the "double trust"
of judges and jurymen than would the five, seven, or nine
soldiers, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, who are now
to be elevated to that conjoint office.
If Ministers should be disposed to feel as we do, that
the benefits of trial by jury should still be afforded, even under
adverse or difficult circumstances, to our fellow-subjects, so
long as any substratum for such a constitutional tribunal shall
be found, they will summon special juries, which, it is known
by experience, have hitherto faithfully performed their duty,
and have not been affected by any manoeuvres of intimidation
to acquit a criminal whom they ought of right to have con-
victed. It might be borne in mind, though, from what we
hear of the Ministerial vindication, it appears to have been
overlooked or misapprehended, that in our article of Wednesday
last we did not advise that the plan of common juries should
be persisted in—we expressly suggested " special" juries.
Special jurymen would be composed from the very class who,
it is admitted, are generally exempt from the menaces or out-
rages of the offending peasantry. They would be taken from
the same class as are magistrates and grand jurors.
We acknowledge freely that the system of com-
mon Juries has broken down in the disturbed parts
of Ireland from terror, and that another form of
tribunal must be resorted to ; but that admission
dues not extend to a preference for courtsmartial
over courts like those which we have above re-
spectfully recommended. It is still, indeed, our
hope and trust that as his Majesty's Government
cannot by possibility have a different object in view
from that which is aimed at by all other hottest
men, viz., the fair and effective administration of
justice, they may yet reconsider this unfortunate
courtmartial clause. It is stated, and with reason,
in answer to our objection as to witnesses being
still intimidated, notwithstanding the provisions of
this Act, that whatever tends generally to crush
lawless power, and to re-establish a confidence in
the public authorities, Insist of necessity tend like-
wise to restore the self-possession of witnesses, and
their willingness to support the laws; but it is beg-
ging the whole question to say that courtsmartial
will pacify the country. We cannot close these
remarks without once more recurring to that strange
and puzzle-pared feature in the Bill—the power
given to certain parties " to demand admission into
any house the inhabitants of which are suspected
to he absent, and to make forcible entry," if such
inhabitants do not come forth in order to ascertain
that they are really absent Now, since absence is
a crime, and may be ascertained or assumed simply
by the silence or non-appearance of the said inha-
bitants when summoned, it does strike us to be an
eminent and highly ludicrous blunder that an odious
violation of domestic privacy should be put in force
under this law for the sake of proving that which
has been already made abundantly manifest with-
out it.— Times.

We imagine that the introduction of the " coer-
cive measure" in the House of Commons will be a
siop to all other business of interest or importance.
When once Lord Grey's courtmartial shall be fairly
called to the Bar, the payment of the assessed taxes
will be made sub si!entio, and the nation's perfidy
towards Holland will be demonstrated and repro-
bated in vain. The fidelity of our Levellers to their
work of destruction is exemplary. Whenever the
forms of the House allow—and whenever the forms
of the House forbid—they are alike forward to pro-
test against the severity which punishes rebellion,
and the mercy which suffers loyalty to exist. When
they shall have submitted to them so copious a
theme for their eloquence as that which the " coer-
c:ve measure" will afford, it would be doing them
gross injustice to suppose that they w ill waste one
thought either upon our interest at home or upon
our honour abroad. Oh no ! the Levellers will not
easily relax their hold of the " coercive measure_"
Be it good or be it bail, it is a measure which they
who introduce it are utterly unable to defend, with.
out an abandonment of recently expressed opinions,
which, even in our days, is marvellous. The gladia-
tors of the mountain will not overlook so delicious an
opportunity. O'Connell is conning the despatches
of his emissaries; Shed is turning over the Parlia-
mentary debates ; Grattan is softening disappro-
bation into frenzy ; Ruthven is condensing one hour
into six. Whatever may be our opinion of the ta-
lents, of the judgment, of the probity, of the new
House of Commons, we believe, at least, that the
Bill for preserving of life, the securing of property,
the restoring of order in Ireland, will be passed by
a large majority; but we are sure, nevertheless, that
the Agitator has a sufficient force in the House of
Commons to embarrass where he cannot expect to
defeat, and postpone where he cannot hope to pre-
vent. Why do we make these remarks ? That
we may impress upon our friends, in whatsoever
name, Tory or Conservative, they may most rejoice,
the absolute necessity of supporting the Govern-
ment in the passing of this Bill. They must
support the Government not only against ho-
nest opposition, but against factious interruption.
Let their first object—for a time their only object—
be to make the lives of Protestants, and the pre-
perry of Protestants, and the religion of Protestants,
secure against murder and robbery, and profanation.
We exhort our friends to assist the Government in

the carrying or the " coercive measure," because we
know that the Governnment cannot carry the
" coercive measure" without Me assistance of our
ftiends.—Morning Post.

The Right Honourable MICHAEL ANGELO
Tavr.on having been a Member of the House of Com-
mons, with very little intermission, ever since 1784,
is, we believe, the father of the present House. In . the
early part of his political career the Right Hon. Gent'e.
man acquired the appellation of " the Chicken." At any
rate he is no chicken now.

O❑ Monday last, in consequence of instruc-
tions from Lord DUNCANNON, 200 additional workmen
were engaged o❑ the works of the new Palace, in St.
James's Park, his MAJESTY having expressed a wish to
have the marble archway finished, and the boarding in
front taken down, to enable the public to see the Palace to
Inure advantage.
Madame ELIZABETH MARA, the once cele-
brated singer (whose maiden name was Schemling, of
Cassel), died at Revel, on January 20, in the 84th year of
her age. A Russian Nobleman, a few years ago,
solicited the hand of Madame MARA in marriage, stating,
as an inducement to her consent, that she would be called
" Your Excellency." "Ah !" replied the ancient syren,
" there are many Excellencies in Russia, but there is only
one Madame MARA."

THE GAGGING GREY BILL-DROGHEDA.

On Sunday a public meeting, convened by requisition,
was held in the town of Drogheda, to petition Parliament
against the measures cf coercion projected for Ireland.—
Dublin Morning Register.
The four Irish Representative Prelates for the
present Session of Parliament are the Archbishop of Dos-
LIN, and the Bishops of OSSORY, CLONFERT, and KILLA LA.
THE FEMALE NOBILITY OF ENGLAND.—
The Fourth Number of " The Portrait Gallery of Dis-
tinguished Females," just published, contains Engravings
of the Marchioness of LONDONDERRY, the Countess of
GUILDFORD, and Lady J. A. PEEL, with accompanying
Memoirs by JOHN BURKE, Esq. The first three numbers
include some very charming Portraits—Countesses
GOWER, CHARLEVILLE, BELFAST-.—Ladle, BECKET, Do-
sea, J. TrirraNE, J. A. BRYDGES, &c., from Paintings
by LAWRENCE, JACKSON, SHEE, PICKERSGILL, &C. &C.
This attractive Series, which is to be comprised in 24
half-a-crown numbers, we understand is in curse of publi-
cation every fortnight, in order that the whole may be
issued within the present year.
For want of a proper understanding of the law,
or perhaps for want of a law on the subject, the immense
oyster beds in the vicinity of this port are greatly dete-
riorated, and millions of young oysters annually destroyed.
It is intended to originate a Bill, regulating the dredging
for oysters, and to enforce penalties for disturbing the beds
during the spatting months, which are understood to be
May, June, and July,—,Hampshire Telegraph.

cOMMON COUNCIL.

(Concluded from The Sun of y(sterday.)

A report was brought forward from the farringdon-
street Committee recommending the Court to petition
Parliament for leave to bring in a Bill for effecting an im-
provement, by opening a new street from Holborn-hridge,
opposite Farringdon•s'reet, to communicate with the
county of Middlesex, leading to the great North-road,
provided, on a further report from the Committee, that the
Court should agree to adopt a proposed plan and estimate
for that purpose. _ .

The report was negatived by a considerable majority.
'lhe Court agreed with a report front the London Bridge
Committee recommending the Corporation to declare their
di•:sent to the proposed Greenwich railroad.
The Finance Committee presented a report on the state
of the city's finances, which was agreed to,
A report from the Tithe Committee relative to the
claims for tithes at 2s. 9,1. in the pound in some parishes
in Ihe City, and on the subject cf a decision of the House
of Lords on an appeal respecting them before their Lord-
ships in the year 1830, was agreed to, and the Committee
directed to prepare au abstract of those proceedings, and
cause it to be printed for the Members.
A motion was made to petition Parliament against Sun-
d iy trading, but an objection being taken on the ground of
there not being a Court the matter dropped. A requisition
for another Court upon the subject was banded to the Lord
Mayor.