The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

A letter-writer signing "J. P." makes some ob-
servations upon the Bill for putting down disturbance
in Ireland, which seem to us to possess more smart-
ness and force of expression than judgment or good
sense. The objections of our correspondent are di-
rected against two or three among the details of the
Bill. He censures the ceercive spirit of the Act
because it "cannot work permanent good." The
answer is, that no one looks to this Act for more
than the prompt and temporary suppression of im-
mediate violence; it is resorted to as a means for
preventing outrage and anarchy from becoming per-
manent. The " permanent good" of Ireland is ex-
pected from laws of a very different, that is, of a
conciliatory and soothing nature. The Coercive
Bill is for nothing else than to restore the suspended
movement of the machinery of Government, and
thus to insure their regular action to laws remedial
of grievances, as well as to those repressive of
crimes. We have not seen any reasonable man who
denies that some new mode or instrument of coercion
(no less than of conciliation) is demanded by the
lawless state of Ireland at this moment. "J. P."
complains that the authority vested in the Lord-
Lieutenant for proclaiming counties or districts is
independent of the local magistracy. Now, to any
man who has considered the whole subject of Irish
misgovernment, we should think that one of the
snosterving grievances of that country would appear to
be the habitual and general abuse of local power, and
the consequent unfitness of the minor functionaries
f,r the office either of counsel or control in mea-
sures of state policy. In many cases the Govern-
ment has wisely rejected the instigation of the al-
most unanimous magistrates of a county to pro-
claim certain districts in their neighbourhood. We
can imagine cases of an opposite character, where,
if the requisition of country gentlemen to the Lord-
Lieutenant were made a condition precedent to the
proclamation of a county, that requisition might be
withheld through motives as unworthy as the over-
eagerness by which it has at other times been preci-
pitated. As for the cx post facto operation of the
measure, we do not know that any such effect is
contemplated by its framers : if it be, the offending
clause ought to he submitted to correction. But to
the 10 days' notice suggested by our correspondent,
when a district is to be proclaimed, he can hardly
he serious in proposing it : why, a thousaud throats
might be cut, and a county laid waste, before half of
ten days had expired. No; the necessity for a rein-
forcement to the existing law is manifest. The
objections which we have stated to a few of the
provisions in the Bill, as it has come down to the
House of Commons, are founded both on the harsh-
ness of their principle, and on the inefficacy of its
application. The courts composed of military men
are not, forsooth, to be termed " military courts,"
because their members are to be advised by a King's
counsel,—because lawyers are to examine and
cross-examine witnesses, and because their juris-
diction is not to be confined to military offences.
Then why resort to soldier judges at all ? All the
most unpopular and exasperating methods of hunt-
ing out crime, and bringing transgressors to justice,
arc to be practised by country gentlemen in their
quality of Justices of the Peace ; such odious duties
are not taken out of their hands, and transferred to
military officers; then why should the functions of
special Jurymen be held more liable to neglect or
perversion from fear ? In reply to our proposition,
that offences in disturbed districts should he adju-
dicated by gentlemen of the bar, presided over by a
King's sergeant or King's counsel, it has been said
that the great body of Irish barristers are no better
than party or factious men, and incapable of judging
insurgent crimes with temper. What, then, are the
12 Judges of Ireland but barristers, and have they
been accused of incapacity for their office by v;rtue
of factious influences ? But if barristers generally
be accused of partiality (a gross slander on the bar
of either country, we affirm), would there be any
difficulty in appointing a sp. cial commission of three
Judges—one from each of the common law courts,
—to sit permanently, to move, as occasion might
require, from one county or district to another, to
try all dimes, including that of murder ; and either
to rake upon themselves the conjoint office of Jude
and Jury, or to be aided by a special Jury in the in-
vestigation of facts ? We are well persuaded that
the substitution of a tribunal such as that just men-
tioned for the fearful one of boy soldiers.—against
which latter not merely the discriminating sense,
but the prejudices, passions, and habits of a free
people revolt, as did the Roman spirit against the
name of " King,"—we are, we say, convinced
that a permanent special commission of three
Judges, with or even without a special Jury, and
moveable, at a day's notice, from place to place,
would be an expedient more befitting the dignity
of public justice,—more awe-inspiring to wrong-
doers,—more effective as a test of crime,—more
favourable to the reputation of the Government—
that is to say, at once formidable and less unpopu-
lar—than any other that could be proposed for the
existing emergency in Ireland. If Government,
moreover, were at a loss for authentic and valuable
information from the seats of disorder, from what
source so pure, or through what channels so undis-
turbed and certain, could intelligence be communi-
cated as those vigilant, learned, acute, and expe-
rienced persons,—familiar with the state of the
country, and with the characters of men,—skilful to
sift the truth, and to appreciate its value when dis-
covered,—men whom there is no prize to tempt
beyond the love of justice, and whom assassins and
incendiaries have never yet dared to threaten ? For
our parts, we cannot believe that when his Majesty's
'Ministers shall have well considered this question,
they will continue to prefer a bastard and inefficient
martial-law for the trial of non-military offences to
hundreds of forms and modifications of which our
constitutional tribunals are so susceptible, and
which may be so easily, and with such pacifying
effect on the public mind, had recourse to on the
present emergency. The other features of the Bill,
though we like not some few of them, might be al-
lo‘ted to pass ; but, in the name of God, let us not
copy until the last extremity the most disgusting of
all the tyrannical manceuvres of Bonaparte, the in-
famous "'military commissions," and under a Whig
and a reforming Government !—Times.

The discussion in the House of Commons upon
Mr. M. Attwood's motion relative to the Merchant
Tailors' Company was an important one, involving,
as it did, the question whether that and other
bodies similarly situate are or are not municipal cor-
porations, or mere trading companies; and, there-
fore, are or are not proper objects to be compre-
hended in the inquiry which the Parliamentary
Committee upon municipal corporations is em-
powered to institute ? It is our opinion that the
House of Commons decided rightly in coming to
the conclusion that this and other companies of a
similar description are of a municipal character,
though our reason for thinking so is not exactly the
same as that stated by any of the Members who
took a part in the discussion. In order to ascertain
what a municipal corporation is, it may be right to
look to the derivation of the word municipal. The
classic reader at once refers it back to the Latin
word municipium, which meant a " free town." In
the times of feudalism, when the agricultural popu-
lation of England, in general, were villeins or
bondsmen, every borough, the inhabitants of which
were emancipated from feudal thraldom, and esta-
blished into free communities by prescription or
Royal charter, for the encouragement of trade or
manufactures, was that the Romans would have called
a municipium. The customs and regulations by which
such a community was governed were, properly
speaking, the municipal law of the place—though
the phrase municipal law has been since u-ed
in a more enlarged sense, and may, according
to Blackstone, " be applied with sufficient propriety
to any one State or nation which is governed by
the same laws and customs. In this sense it is
that municipal law is spoken of, in contradistinction
to the law of nations or the laws of war. It is
clear, then, that the word municipal has reference to
the government of a political community, whethera
free town in the strict sense, or a nation in the

more liberal acceptation of the term. It is equally
clear that a mere trading company, as such, though
incorporated, is not a municipal body. The incor-
poration for the purposes of trade, when not con-
nected with the Bove nment or police of a town, or
other political community, does not make it amu-
nicipal corporation. It is still but a trading society;
but a trading incorporated company may have a
two-fold object and character. Its original object
must be, as its name implies, for the encouragement
and protection of some branch of trade or manufac-
tures. To this may be superadded the duties and
privileges belonging to a body invested with some
portion of the government or police of a free town
or political community. In that case the company
is both mercantile and municipal, and exactly such
a body is the Merchant Tailors' Company of London
—such are the other civic companies. The Mer-
chant Tailors' Company, like the others, has the right
of manufacturing liverymen, and those liverymen, be-
sides being, until the passing of the Reform Bill, the
great electoral body of London for Members of Par-
liament, also exercise the right of electing the Lord
Mayor, Sheriffs, &c., and do many other things con-
nected with the government and police of the city.
There can, therefore, be no doubt that the Merchant
Tailors' Company is invested with municipal pow-
ers, rights, and privileges. By means of the livery
which it creates it takes an important share in the
Government of the civic community, or municipittin,
and is consequently a municipal body properly in-
cluded in the scope of the inquiry which is about to
be undertaken by a Committee upon Municipal
Corporations. A great deal has been said by the
opponents of all Parliamentary investigation into cor-
porate abuses, touching the violation of corporate
rights and of constitutional principles, which such in-
terference on the part of the House of Commons is
said to involve. It has been stated that the Court
of King's Bench is the only place where such mat-
ters can be properly and legally inquired into. We
admit, without hesitation, as a settled rule of con-
stitutional law, that of civil Corporations, as con-
tradistinguished from those called ecclesiastical or
eleemosynary, the King, being in general the sole
founder, is in general the visitor, and the place ap-
pointed by law for the exercise of this visitatorial
power of the Crown, is the Court of King's
Bench. 'We will go farther, and admit it is esta-
blished law, as proved by the decision relative to
the College of Physicians, in 1753, that if the King
should, by his letters patent, subject a merely civil
Corporation to the visitation of any persons but his
Chief Justice and Judges in the Court of King's
Bench, such appointment will be null and void. In
the case of the College of Physicians the persons
appointed visitors by the Royal Charter were the
Lord Chancellor, the two Chief Justices, and the
Chief Baron—the charter was accepted by the Col-
lege, and acted on for many years; yet when, at
length, the legality of the appointment was dis-
puted, the visitors, after hearing the validity of their
own commission solemnly argued, were of opi-
nion that they had no legal power to act, and
that the person who appealed to their autho-
rity, against the collegiate body, could only
have his remedy by application to the Court of
King's Bench. As to Corporations of which the
King is not the visitor, the Court of King's Bench
has no authority whatever, as was decided in the
celebrated case of Philips v, Blow, which arose out
of an appeal to that Court by Dr. Bury, who had
been deprived of the Rectorship of Exeter College
by the Bishop of Exeter, the visitor of that Corpo-
ration. There the three Puisne Judges of the
King's Bench were of opinion that the decision of
the visitor might be reviewed by that Court ; but
(Thief-Justice Holt was of a different opinion. He
considered the decision of the visitor as final, and
not examinable in any other Court, and uith his
opinion agreed that of the House of Lords, who,
on appeal, reversed the judgment of the Court
of King's Bench. The law, therefore, cannot now
be disputed, that where the K ng is visitor of a Cor-
pora'ion, the office of visitor must be exercised in
the Court of King's Bench; but where the law or
the founder has appointed some other visitor, the
King's Bench is ousted from all visitatorial authority.
How then, it may be asked, can the House of
Commons legally inquire into the affairs of corpora-
tion:, whether the King, or any subject, has the
visitatorial power ? We answer, the House of Com-
mons does not pretend to act as visitor upon the
appeal of an individual applying for a quo warranto,
or otherwise. It acts in such an inquiry in its legis-
lative capacity, with the view to obtain information
on which to found some general legislative enact-
ne nt relative to such bodies. It is admitted by the
highest constitutional anthorit;es, that a Corporation
may be dissolved by Act of Parliament, as Cor-
porations of a spiritual and monastic character were
dissolved at the era of the Reformation. The
visitor, be he the King, or the Ordinary, or any other
personage, can only enforce the existing rules and
regulations of corporations, and redress individual
grievances, in conformity with the chartered regula-
tions and statutes, or prescriptive rights and cus-
toms, of the corporate body. But Parliament has
the inherent right, by its transcendent power, to
legislate anew for any of those bodies, and to give
them new constitutions. If an Act of Parliament
can dissolve such a body, it is surely in the power
of Parliament to re-model it, and, of course, to
make the inquiries necessary for that purpose.
There is nothing new, either in principle or prece-
dent, established by the present measure of subject-
ing corporate bodies to that legislative scrutiny
which transcends all visitatorial power—the only
power, with regard to corporations, which the
Court of King's Bench ever exercises. That an
inquiry into the abuses of municipal corporations is
of vast importance to the public at large no person
can doubt who is aware of what munificent funds,
for charitable and public purposes, have been placed
in the hands of most of those corporations through-
ont England, and the scandalous manner in which
they have been, in but too many instances, jobbed,
abused, and fraudulently misapplied. We hope not
one of those bodies that is a trustee for charitable
purposes will escape the searching ordeal of a dis-
cerning and impartial Committee of the Grand In-
quest of the nation. A corporation forfeits its char-
ter if it violates its trust or abuses its franchises.
How many of them are in that condition! They
tax the subject by tolls and otherwise, but do they
in general, apply the taxes so raised to the public
purposes for which they were originally intended ?
We shall see.—Morning Herald.
We observe that some of our contemporaries are
exhorting the corporations to refuse all information
to the Committee of the House of Commons. We
were too well aware of the importance of these nests
of corruption to the enemies of good Government to
expect that a struggle would not be made for them.
We have, however, one consolation, that the strug-
gle can only end in the defeat of the corruptionists.
When the Reform Bill was carried the borough-
mongers sustained a final defeat; and the various
strong holds of the corruptionists will all be carried
as a matter of course. Corporations must be placed
in harmony with the spirit of the Constitution.
There is no power now existing able to defend these
strong holds of the boroughrnonger faction against
a Reformed Parliament. The Standard of last
night endeavours to show that Corporations are not
bound to furnish evidence either to the King, as the
Minister and representative of the whole Legislature,
or to any one branch of the Legislature.
" If (says our contemporary) the exercise of an inquisito-
rial power by the "Rex in Curia," the Minister and re-
presentative of the whole Legislature, be so intolerable, and
necessarily lead to an extinction of all individual liberty,
c.in it be pretended that this inquisitorial power exists in
one hr,rich of the Legislature, and that which used to be
considered the meanest? In short, has the House of
Commons the right of delegating to its Committees a power
which Vie law has not given to the King in his Court of
King's Bench ? The question may be soon put in issue.
Let the first corporation upon which (what we consider
the tyrannical) demand for its muniments shall be made,
refuse. If the House of Commons dare to coerce a com-
pliance by the only process which it possesses—imprison-
ment of the recusant officer or officers, the sufferer will
then sue out his habeas corpus in the King's Bench. If
the Court decide that it is sufficient return to the writ to

:ay that the party is committed by the order of the House
of Commons, then there is a solemn confession, that
British liberty is no more-1n acknowledgment that we
are at the mercy of an assembly of 658 men, who may
imprison our bodies—and why not hang us?—upon any
pretext, or no pretex-; and that though the subject 81-,,,,A4
he bolted down in the lowest dungeon of Neweate, or
even stand haltered upon the drop before that building.
the Court of King's Bench will not interpose to save him
from torture or death, when once apprised that " les
Communes se veulent." If either King, Lords, or Com-
mons, can claim more than a defensive right of coercion,
independent of the law and of them co-ordinates in the
Sovereignty, then the pretence of a free constitution is an
idle jest, and the King or Chamber having right to make
such claim, is de facto the despot of the country—despot
King—despot Oligarchy—or despot Democracy, for de-
spotism can subsist with either of the three forms. De
spotism of any kind, however, the people of England
' will not bear; and if the House of Commons show itself
in the character of despot, or be so displayed by subservient
tribunals, it will run a fair chance of being effectually re•
formed, body and members.
On the other hand, should the Court of King's Bench
entertain the consideration of merits, upon return of a
habeas corpus on a committal by the House of Commons,
the question is at an end; the Court cannot sanction in a
Parliamentary Committee a power which it has not itself,
and the proposed exercise of which is discountenanced by
the whole policy of the law. All we ask is a fair heating
in a court of justice, to shut up Lord Althorp's Committee.
The corporations, however, have, one way or other, the
whole game in their bands. Resist, we say—resist. Ex-
amples of firmness are what Kings and Statesmen, Lords
and Bishops most want at the present time; and the first
corporation which shall afford that example will not only
achieve the victory that legal courage, supporting a just
cause, always obtains, but commence a revulsion of feel-
ing by which the country may yet be saved from the
spoliation and anarchy that now threaten ; and whatever
the result, he who shall for the first time try the question
whether the Habeas Corpus Act is a dead letter as re-
spects the House of Commons, will he entitled to, and will
obtain, the gratitude of all posterity."
This is taking high ground with a vengeance.
Our contemporary does not mince matters. And
does he really think that the Commons of England,
backed by the nation, will be baulked in their great
object of corporation reform by the paltry shifts
which he recommends ? It is barely possible that
two or three functionaries, possessed of more zeal
than discretion, may venture to resist the demands of
the House of Commons. But the obstinacy of one
or two crack-brained individuals will not prevent
the House of Commons from obtaining more than
a sufficiency of information for the purposes of legis-
lation. The Lord Advocate of Scotland is at
once to bring in a measure to throw open
all the corporations of Scotland. There
is nothing to hinder Ministers from at once
throwing also open all the corporations of England.
Our contemporary cannot suppose that the Ministry
who have carried the great fundamental measure of
a Reform Bill, would have any difficulty in carrying
reform into the corporations. It is true that the
House of Commons, in seeking for information,
possesses no other power of compulsion than that
of imprisoning the party refusing to give it. But
we take it for granted, that, before the office-bearers
of corporations consent to undergo this amount of
punishment, they will consider whether they would
really further their object by it. With respect to
the power of imprisonment, we have always under-
stood that it was no longer subject to question. The
Court of King's Bench, in the case of Sir F. Bur-
dett, after a long argument, decided that it was
sufficient return to the writ of habeas corpus, to say
that a party is committed by order of the House of
Commons. It is not very probable that the Court
will now disregard the decision so deliberately given,
in a case which at the time fixed the attention of
the whole nation. The Court will not, assuredly,
entertain the consideration of merits; and, there-
fore, any member of a corporation may at once
make up his mind to imprisonment, if he refuses to
give to the Committee of the House of Commons
the information of wh ch they are desirous. It is
essential to the Legislature of a country, that it
should possess the highest inquisitorial powers,
to enable it to deliberate with full knowledge
of whatever concerns the nation. It is ridiculous to
attempt to limit the Legislature by the rules which
must govern inferior tiibunals, or even by the rules
which the Sovereign, in his ministerial capacity,
must observe. Parliament is omnipotent, but Parlia-
ment is not omniscient ; and in order that, in its omni-
potence, it may not injure the society who-e interests
are confided to it, each branch of the Legislature
must necessarily possess the most ample powers of
compelling individuals to supply whatever inf-rtna-
tion is required. We are not sure that such a
resistance as our contemporary seems to provoke
would do any harm. It would at once call forth
such a burst of honest indignation from rite nation,
that Ministers would thereby acquire additional
strength for the prosecution of the work. Let the
corporations, then, we say, cut their own throats, if
they will, by a Quixottcal resistance to the demands
of the nation. They will soon find out their mis-
take. There are few men now throughout the
country so ignorant as to be influenced by the argu-
ments urged against inquiry into corporation abuses.
With few exceptions, the funds of the corporations
have been withdrawn from the control of the
respective communities, and grossly misapplied.
Self-election must be destroyed. The servants of
the corporations must no longer be its masters, but
responsible functionaries. We anticipate the greatest
benefits from the placing of corporations on a proper
footing throughout the country. In every town
there are a multitude of concerns, which can only be
advantageously attended to in municipal councils.
Parochial meetings are a very inadequate substitute
for them. There are many matters which equally
concern the whole inhabitants of a town; many
measures which can only be efficacious by being
acted on throughout every part of it. The inha-
bitants of many of the towns that have recently
sprung up throughout the country suffer greatly
from the want of proper municipal constitutions.
We trust that the inquiries of the Committee of the
House of Commons will lead to the reform of all
existing corporations, and to the creation of corpo-
rations in towns not before possessed of them, in
• order that the local concerns of the people of this
country may be attended to in local councils. In
this manner the happiness and prosperity of the
people may be greatly promoted ; and all these cor-
porations, or local councils, will become appropriate
channels, through which the sense of the people can
be most conveniently ascertained.-11forn. Chrou.

EXPENSES OF PROSECUTIONS FOR FE-
LONY.-The following statement of the comparative
average expense of trying prisoners at the Old Bailey and
the Clerkenwell Sessions, has been drawn up from official
documents by order of the Aliddlesex Igagistrates :—ln
1829 there were 1,726 felonies, of which 226 were
capital, tried at the Old Bailey at an average expense of
about 41. 10s. each ; and at the Clerkenwell Sessions
were tried during the same period 189 felonies at an ex-
pense of about 21. ss. each. In 1830, 1,777 felonies,
including 231 capital ones, were disposed of at the Old
Bailey, at a cost to the county of 31. 10s. each, while at
the Middlesex Sessions 191 felonies were tried at an ex-
pense of only 21. each. In 1831 there were 1,846 felonies,
of which 230 were capital, tried at the Old Bailey, at an
expense of 3/. 13s. each, and 153 at the Middlesex Ses-
sions at an expense of 21. 2s. each. Upon striking the
average for the three years it will be found that each
felony tried at the Old Bailey cost the county 3/. 18s. 4d.,
and that the trials at the Middlesex Sessions cost only
2/. 2s. 4d. each. The total of expenditure for the three
years is—for the Old Bailey, 21,9031. 2s. 4d. ; and for
the Middlesex. Sessions, 1,1991. Is. Bd.

The fox is distinguished from other canine
animals by the elongated shape of the pupil of the eye,
which contracts in a strong light, hut opens and assumes
a circular form in twilight or at night. In this respect
the fox resembles the cat, for the pupil of the dog is
round ; in other particulars the organization of the fox
and dog are precisely similar. If taken quite younc, the
fox can be tamed, but he seldom entirely loses his savage
nature. Instances have, however, occurred of a domesti-
cated lox showing nearly as much attachment to his mas-
ter as a dog. The fox's olfactory nerves, as is well known,
are very acute. Like the dog and the wolf, be runs his
game by the scent. Preparatory to the change of weather,
or the approach of a storm, he howls dismally.—Enter-
taining Press.