The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

One of the favourable signs of the times is the total
failure of the plan for throwing Ireland into confusion.
The majority of the Peers who rejected the Irish
Tithe Bill, in deference to the Beresfords and the more
violent Orangemen, have now discovered that they gave
those parties credit for greater power to work mischief
than they actually possess. It is much easier to boast
of assembling 40,000 armed Orangemen than to bring
such a number of armed men together. We have a
proof of this in the " Great Meeting of the Orange-
men of Cavan," respecting which there have been so
many pompous anticipations in the Orange newspapers.
The Dublin Evening Post of Tuesday last publishes
a communication from its reporter, from which it ap-
pears that the " Great Meeting" was a miserable fail-
ure. The meeting took place on Monday last, in
front of the Court-house, Cavan, and a platform
erected under the portico was in due time occupied by
the Rev. Marcus Beresford, the Rev. Mr. Martin, and
" several shovel-hatted brethren ;" but in place of the
" 40,000 men in Orange buckram," the whole number
of persons present, including a good sprinkling of wo-
men and children, did not exceed five or six hundred.
• " I arose this morning at seven o'clock (says the Re-
porter of the Dublin Evening Post) for the purpose of wit-
nessing the marching into town of the Orangemen, the
meeting being to take place at ten o'clock ; but how great
was my astonishment at not seeing the slightest indication
of a gathering, nor any bustle which might have been expected
on such a ' grand occasion ! ' About half past nine o'clock
small parties of Orangemen, not amounting to six or seven
persons, came dropping in, all armed with sticks of various
calibre; I saw one man with a stick, or more properly speak-
ing, a barber's pole in miniature, orange and blue being
painted on it after the manner of that Esculapian insignia,
and he figuring it away, declaring at the same time that al-
though the orange colours were forbidden to be worn, he
would not be prevented from flourishing his stick. At ten
o'clock I attended the Court house, but there was no meet-
ing. At eleven o'clock I attended ; still no meeting, and
very few persons assembled ; but at half-past I saw a gather-
ing on the platform, towards which I immediately proceeded,
and through the kindness of Mr. Bell, the under-sheriff, who
took me under his protection, I was enabled to get a seat
at the table allotted to the gentlemen of the press ; but
owing to the miserable arrangements made by the getters-
up, that seat and that accommodation could not be of the
slightest use to me or any other reporter present ; and if
the Rev. Mr. Martin's speech be reported (two hours in du-
ration) he will be his own "trumpeter." I have, however, a
full report of the speech made by the Rev. Marcus Beres-
ford, in which he announced himself not only a minister of
the gospel and an. Orangeman, but a Purpleman,' and in
which he took especial care to deny one sentence -of the
speech which he made at the Mansion-house."
About twelve o'clock the chair was taken by Mr.
Rathbourne, the High Sheriff, who opened the busi-
ness of the meeting. He was followed by Colonel
Clements, Mr. Oliver Nugent, Mr. Lucas Clements,
Mr. John Godly, Mr. Burrowes, the Rev. Mr.
Martin, and Mr. Alexander Haywood.
" The Rev. Marcus G. Beresford came on next (says the
reporter), and addressed his fellow Christians and Protestants
of Cavan, for a few moments, when he suddenly stopped, and
introduced his brother Orangeman, Samuel Gray, from Balli-
bay, on whom his eyes had rested. Samuel Gray, after being
lauded to the skies for his patriotism, and what not, by his
Reverend panegyrist, addressed the meeting in a short speech,
the only sentence of which that caught my ear was as follows :
Speaking of the Orangemen of the county of Monaghan, be
said, ' We are best prepared with arms and ammunition, and
if a storm should arise, you have only to give the signal, and
we will be at your backs in a moment.' Marcus then went on
with his speech, which was most bloody, and truculent in the
extreme. I have taken a full note, and will give every word
of it on Thursday."
The ravings of the Rev. Marcus Beresford are only
of importance in so far as they reveal what his more
prudent associates take care to conceal ; but as the
attempt to agitate Ireland has experienced so signal a
failure, his truculence may be disregarded. It is un-
fair to the Protestants of Ireland to suppose that they
are generally chargeable with abetting the frantic
,ex-
hibitions of the Beresfords and the Orangemen.
Addresses of the most satisfactory description have
been presented to the Lord Lieutenant from the Synod
of Munster, the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster,
and the Presbytery of Antrim. An attempt has
been made here to cause it to be believed that the
Presbyterians of Ulster generally abet the agitation.
So far from this' being the case, at the late meeting of
the,§ynod of Ulster, in Derry, a considerable majority
of the Ministers voted in favour of the new system of
national education. The Dublin Evening Post con-
tains an able letter from the Rev. Henry Montgomery,
of Belfast, in refutation of another letter, containing
the grossest mis-statements on the subject of the Pro-
testants, with the signature of." Presbyter," which ap-
peared in the Standard: a letter of which he says,
" the spirit is only equalled by its matter—the one is
diabolical, the other a collection of profligate fictions."
" Nothing (observes Mr. Montgomery) can be more
opposed to the fact than the reiterated assertion of un-
principled partisans, that the Protestants of Ireland, as
a body, are hostile to the present Government. The
Orangemen may generally be so, as well as some of
the less informed classes, whose minds are deluded and
embittered by envenomed misrepresentations of ambi-
tious demagogues, who cant about religion to sow the
seeds of hatred and sedition ; but the sober-minded,
disinterested, and truly Christian portion of the Pro-
testant population, are the steady and consistent friends
of rational improvements. He adds, " Three Protes-
tant bodies have unanimously come forward to sup-
port a potriotic Government. Has one body advanced
to aid the new agitation ? Not one. Presbyter,'
says the orthodox Presbyterians, are in its favour ;
let him prove it ; let him even call that Synod,
which he and his partisans have so long ruled with a
rod of iron. He dares not. Let him even give his real
name, that the Presbyterians of Ulster may know that
he has calumniated thgir brethren and misrepresented
themselves?' It is a toTtably good sign that the agita-
tion has failed, when we find our contemporary (the
Standard) calling anxiously for peace. " The Con-
servative party (he says) seek nothing but peace, and
a pause in innovation of sufficient length at least to
allow a fair judgment upon the experiments that have
been tried, and to enable the new institutions to take
root, unless we adopt the doctrine that Government—
' is intended
For nothing else but to be amended.'

This is at least a reasonable desire. The views of the
opposite party are in all respects the worse. They
would continue the strife of faction by the eager pur-
suit of novelty, and even by personal proscription."'
Our good contemporary must not suppose that we are
to be caught by sophistry like this. The organical
reforms that were effected had for object, not that we
should remain with our hands folded, but that we
should remove the abuses which at length exceeded the
patience of the nation, and lead to the irresistible de-
mand of the reform. We must have the consequences
of the Reform Bill for which that Bill became neces-
sary. We must have a number of improvements in
the Church and State—we must have our corporations
purified, our laws amended—the Dissenters freed from
a number of vexatious distinctions. There is yet much
to be done, and a long time must, we fear, elapse be-
fore we can say we have done enough,9 and now we may
rest from our labours. There can be no peace with
in justice.—Morn ing Chronicle.
The state of Greece exemplifies what we have often
stated would be the result of the policy which severed
that country from the Porte, only to prepare it for pass-
ing under the yoke of Russia. This, it is true, was
not the intention of the English and French " pacifi-
cators" of Greece ; their object was to make Greece
independent of both powers, but they sadly bungled
the business, either through their own stupidity, or the
artful management of the Russian diplomatists, who
are by far too clever and indefatigable for the shallow
and lack-a-daisical politicians of the Palmerston school.
Instead of making Greece really independent, by giving
her a native Government and national institutions, a
beardless youth was transplanted from the Royal house
of Bavaria, which is itself servilely subject to Russian
influence, and to the hand of this inexperienced boy,
who ought to be still under the rod of the schoolmas-
ter, was intrusted the- sceptre of the new kingdom—a
kingdom which was to be new modelled and regene-
rated, and which, of course, required a Government
of great wisdom and consummate experience. To
relieve the incapacity of the beardless youth
a Regency was appointed, from which the most able
and influential men of Greece were carefully excluded.
They began, like all pseudo-liberal Governments, by
denouncing and extinguishing the liberty of the press.
But discontented public sentiment which has no vent
through a free press, is sure to work in a more dan-
gerous way in the minds of men, and only gives warn-
ing of its existence by political explosion. So has it

been in Greece, and to counteract the effects of the
tyrannical and stupid policy by which the press was
put down, the guillotine was introduced as a machine
of civilization. So much for the Bavarian " school-
masters" in Greece, who differs very little indeed from
the Turkish schoolmaster, under whose castigatory and
coercive discipline the unfortunate descendants of the
ancient civilizers of mankind had so long
.expiated the
splendid prowess with which their heroic forefathers
clove down, in the field of freedom, the armies of des-
potic barbarism. The Bavarians, as if desirous of
thoroughly disgusting the Greeks, have appropriated
to themselves the offices of power and profit. They
have treated Greece as if it were a Bavarian settle-
ment, and the Greek inhabitants were strangers and
intruders in their own land. The Russian emissaries,
of course, take advantage of the discontent thereby pro-
duced--they sow the seeds of commotion, by which
they intend to profit, and Greece, like Turkey and
Poland, stands fairly in the way of becoming a Russian
dependency.-Morning Herald.
The Legislature has furnished a fine illustration of
that sort of blunder which is called " penny wise and
pound foolish "in the tax of ls. on registration. This
paltry exaction, which has been the cause of so much
irritation, is equally impolitic and anomalous. One of
the obvious effects of it is to enable those who are so
disposed to disqualify themselves ; and far from incon-
siderable is the number of persons who would decline
the franchise rather than make themselves liable to the
solicitation of candidates and the displeasure of par-
ties. Others are disgusted at the shabbiness of the
exaction, and ask why they should pay for taking
upon themselves a public duty, and why the consti-
tuency should be charged for services in which the
whole nation is interested ? They object that elec-
tors might as fairly be required to defray the expenses
of the House of Commons, as to pay the agents in the
business of registration. The principle, too, is vicious.
The elector should, lie made to feel that he is intrusted
with an important duty, analogous to that of the jury-
man, which is matter of social obligation ; he has
conscientiously, and perhaps at some sacrifice of his
immediate personal interests, to give his verdict on the
claims of the rival candidates, and he asks why he
should be required to pay the smallest price for enter
ing on a service which, if honestly performed, is as pro-
fitable to others as to himself ; or more to others, inas-
much as non-electors have the benefit of the judicious
election, ivithout any share of the trouble and annoy-
ances. What would be thought if, on the plea of
paying any officers of the Law Courts, persons quali-
fied to serve on special juries were subjected to one tax
annually, and to another on making their returns of
qualification ? Every one is interested in the admini-
stration of justice, but the class from which special ju-
ries are taken would complain of being charged one
stiver for their liability to an onerous though a paid
service, and the greater number would procure their
disqualification by refusing to pay the tax. They
would say (and paid as they are, their case would be
far less strong than the electors') that society had
enough from them in having their valuable time at a
rate below its value, and the benefit of their judg-
ment ; and that the administration of justice being the
concern of all, the charges should be borne by the na-
tion generally. The tax on the franchise would have
harmonized with that sysrem in which votes were
bought and sold. The smallness of the sum in ques-
tion it is needless to talk about ; the tax is disliked as
a petty extortion against a just principle which should
have been most scrupulously observed in the Reform
Bill. There is also something provoking in the pre-
tence that the money is to be applied to the relief of
the poor, when the real purpose is to pay the expenses
of registration. This, however, is wonderfully mysti-
fied in the act. With something like hypocrisy, the
exaction is graced with charity, and then a part of the
expences of registration and of the officers employed in
elections are fixed upon the poor rates. This arrange-
ment reminds us of the demand of Saint in Foote's
prologue :
" Good people, pay your money at the door,
And, if I like, I'll give it to the poor."
It is declared that the shilling on registration, or the
notice of claim, shall go to the same purposes as monies
collected for the relief of the poor ; and it is enacted
that certain expenses incurred in registration and giving
effect to the provisions of the Reform Bill are to be
defrayed out of the monies for the relief of the poor.
Thus, when the elector pays his shilling for registra-
tion, it is to go to the poor ; and when lie pays his
poor rates, a small fraction of them is to be applied to
the charges of registration, &c. This is thimble-rig
practice. But, shabby and inconsistent with the just
principle as we admit the tak of the shilling to be, we
yet repeat with respect to it the argument we employed
in our last publication: We say to the 101. house-
holders, pay it, and then use your influence with your
representatives for the repeal of the obnoxious provi-
sion. It is clear that if those who object to the
exaction shut themselves out of the constituency, the
constituency will want precisely that class of electors
who should press their representatives to exert them-
selves for the alteration of the law. The revising bar-
risters may decide differently in different districts, and
to pay the annual shilling will be safest ; and, indeed,
for notice of claim, the payment of the shilling is essen-
tial to validity.—Times.
Next to the gratification which results from the
pursuit of a manly and honourable course of conduct,
may be classed the pleasure of seeing that conduct
applauded by one's fellow-men, and its results such
as they expected and desired that they should be.
Both these gratifications, those who, with ourselves,
advocated the amendment of the Poor Laws, through
good report and through evil report, are likely to enjoy
in all their purity and perfection; for brief as the
time is which has elapsed since the passing of the
Act, and many as have been' the obstacles which have
been thrown in its way, it has not only already pro-
duced the most satisfactory results, but even those
who were inclined to doubt its efficiency have begun to
be sensible of the good which, when fairly in opefa-
tion, it cannot fail to produce. " Wherever the
new Poor Law Amendment Bill has been brought
into operation (says the Sun) the results have
been such as to realise the best anticipations of
the advocates of its principles. Already has it
effected a reduction of one shilling and two-pence
in the pound,-,in the parish rate of St. Luke, Chelsea
—an immense saving when it is considered that the.
Act has only come into operation a few weeks. This
is the opinion of the overseers, who anticipate a much
larger reduction when the whole of the provisions of
the Bill are acted upon, without, in the slightest de-
gree, trenching upon the comforts of the real and legi-
timate objects of parochial relief." Similar testimony
is borne in other quarters to the efficacy of this great
measure of reform—the greatest, we make bold to say,
in a practical point of view, which, next to the im-
proved representation of the people in the Commons
House of Parliament, either the present or any other
Government ever carried into effect, and which, while
it will relieve the industrious portion of the population
from the burden of supporting the lazy, the ignorant,
and the dissolute, will also communicate a more healthy
and sound tone to the sentiments and conduct of the
community generally.—Morning Advertiser.