The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-24 00:00:00

~.!'4:. brtlling .', lilt

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1851.

The protracted and apparently interminable debate
on the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill has been
agreeably diversified by the episode of Miss AUGUSTA
TALBOT. That young lady, whose misfortune it is to
be entitled to a handsome fortune of some 70,0001. or
80,0001. sterling, has been made the subject of a peti-
tion to, and a rather animated discussion in, the
House of Commons, has occasioned a lamentable de-
gree of "epistolary imprudence" on the part of one
of the new hierarchy, for whose appointment " all
true Catholics ought to be profoundly grateful to the
Sovereign PONTIFF," and finally has had two petitions
presented in her name to the Court of Chancery by
two different persons, each claiming to be the next
friend of the wealthy ward.

It is fortunate, indeed, for the youthful subject of
these multifarious proceedings that the public attention
has been so strongly directed to her case as to pre-
vent the possibility of the project, which, it appears,
was more than contemplated (the very disposition of
her property having been manifestly considered by
the Right Rev. Gentleman, who, strange to say, had
no " authentic information" as to its amount, " hav-
ing never made any inquiry on the subject"), from
being carried into execution. If Miss AUGUSTA
TALBOT is now to become a nun, renouncing the
pomps and vanities of the world, it must be of her
own free will and accord, the result of her own
calm and deliberate determination, and not occa-
sioned by the acts of those, :who in sending her to a
convent, without the permission and even without the
knowledge of the LORD CHANCELLOR, thus abusing
the authority confided to their hands, were guilty of
a high contempt of court, which might subject them
to very unpleasant consequences, had the young lady
actually assumed the veil.

The history of the case is instructive, and a brief
summary of the facts cannot prove uninteresting to our
readers. It appears that under the will of CHARLES
late Earl of SHREWSBURY, Miss TALBOT and her
brother, the children of the Honourable GEORGE
HENRY TALBOT, the brother and heir-presumptive of
the present Earl, would, on attaining their respective
majorities, become entitled to 30,0001. each, with all
savings that might accrue during their minorities.
There was a clause of survivorship, by which the
young lady, on the death of her brother under age, be-
came entitled to both sums, with all accumulations.
Mr. TALBOT died in 1839,and his widow subsequently
intermarried with the llon. CRAVEN FITZHARDINGS
BERKELEY. The minors, who had been made wards
of Court, continued to reside with their mother until
her death in 1841. From that time Miss TALBOT re-
sided with her uncle, the present Earl of SHREWS-
BURY and his Countess, except during the intervals
when she was sent to reside at a convent called
" The Lodge," near Taunton. We believe that
during the earlier period of her sojourn in
that establishment she was there for the pur-
pose of receiving instruction. The place of
education was selected, however, without the
assent or knowledge of the Court. The order
made in 1843 granted the custody of the young
lady to the Earl and Countess of SHREMBURY,
with a view to her going abroad with them, but
in place of taking her in pursuance thereof, she was
left behind, at " The Lodge." Such a change in the
destination of the infant should only hare been made
by leave of the Court, first duly had and obtained ;
but it seems that the ordinary rules respecting
wards of Court were totally disregarded all through
this extraordinary case. Last year it appears that
there were some proposals respecting a marriage,
which was not approved of by the LORD CHANCEL-
LOR, and, we believe, not agreeable to the young
lady herself. It was after the termination of that
negotiation that Miss TALBOT was again sent to the
convent in September, 1850 ; and on that occasion it
would seem that there could be no doubt that
the intention was to make her a professed sister,
by which her large fortune would be devoted "to
ckritdble and religious purposes"—a praise w orthy pur-
pose, according to Dr. HENDREN, when he considers
that " Me Catholic Church in England 28 very poorly
provided," that " everywhere we (i. e. the Doctor
and his party) want churches and chapels, and schools
and hospitals, and orphanages, 6-c , and cannot find
the means for erecting them, still less for endowing
them."

But, however desirable the acquisition of so large a
sum as 70,000/. or 80,0001. sterling, it cannot be ob-
tained in England by illegal or unjustifiable means,
by coercing or enticing a ward of Chancery, at the
very time when she is under the protection of the Court.
The LORD CHANCELLOR ever takes the most stringent
precautions against a female infant under his juris-
diction being persuaded to take any irrevocable step
affecting her person or property without the most
searching inquiry and the full sanction of the Court
being given, or its being found to be for " the benefit
of the minor." In every order fixing a scheme of
residence, the party to whose care she is entrusted is
particularly enjoined to take care that she forms no
matrimonial connexion, or takes any steps that may
lead to such a connexion at a future time. If any
undue intimacy is encouraged that may lead to a
violation of the order, all parties implicated will be
treated with the utmost severity, and the fortune of
the ward will be so settled as to defeat any sordid
designs that may have been entertained with respect
thereto.

Now, we confess that we cannot perceive any real
difference between entrapping a female ward into a
clandestine marriage and inducing her to become a
nun, and thus contract a spiritual nuptials, the sanc-
tion of the Court being totally disregarded. Why
should ❑ot the fortune of the victim be taken equal
care of in either case, and the sordid designs of the
speculators disappointed ? Miss TALBOT was not in-
formed, as appears by her petition, that rshe was con-
sidered as a postulant, neither had she any notion
that she was going through the course that would
end in her becoming a nun, "if found qualified for
the conventual life." The veracious Dr. HENDREN,
however, asserts, that " the LORD CHAN•
CELLOS, decided that she should return as
a boarder to the convent where she had
been educated, if they would receive her" (this
statement being totally contradicted by Lord Tauuo),
and again that on being refused, " because at
that convent no boarders were received,
Miss TALBOT proposed to beg admission as
a postulant, that is, as one intended to
become, in due time, a nun, if considered to be pro-
perly qualified, and accordingly she wrote a most
supplicating letter to that effect." This second
statement being conflicting with that of the
young lady herself, we now leave the final
decision of this extraordinary case in the
hands of Lord TRURO, satisfied that he will pro-
nounce such an order as will preserve Miss TALBOT
and her property from being devoted, to
any purpose, however laudable, to which
she herself cannot yield a cordial assent,
and at the same time that will prevent the
possibility of any other female wards being sent
into religious establishments of any denominations
without the leave of the Court for that purpose being
first duly had and obtained on a clear and explicit
statement of facts, and, possibly, a personal interview
being had with the minor herself, that her own feel-
ings and wishes may be clearly ascertained.

Compel any man to be virtuous merely by Act of
Parliament, and he loses all merit in living according
to the benign and admirable principles of Christianity.
Obvious as the truth of this consideration is, there
are yet those who would proceed in direct defiance of
it, and would transform
ofhu a divine religion into a mere
arbitrary code
rankeafdonrctehrdegulations. Among the
e HthoenousruanbdleayGelntrlaedminagn
number
di
throughblnleeaday
ao
tbshelicdso
intolerableo reading.
endcasi
twwheehohfoalvyen Preventionoof veryl
laws
ws
s frequentlyim isimilar
ton to o
measureinsist
interference, that it requires a really large share of
patience to deal calmly with the representative of
Lambeth in controverting his obsolete and thread-

bare arguments. It was rather unlucky, by the way,
for Mr. WILLIAms to adduce as a justification of his
present proceeding the course pursued in this matter
by the House of Commons during the reign of King
CHARLES IL When he maintained that the Bill
now before Parliament was no innovation whatever,
but merely the carrying out of the principle of legis-
lation established under the regime of the Merry Mo-
narch, he assuredly lost sight of the inappositeness of
that circumstance as an enforcement of the advisa-
bility of the measure. Much good did the enactment
under CHARLES 11. effect in diffusing morality and
sobriety among the papulation! Here was a proof of
the good results of prohibiting Sunday trading,
with a vengeance I The godliness of the land
under the sway of the licentious Prince
whose habitual associates were ETHEREGE
and ROCHESTER, was truly entitled to be taken as a
model for religious observance 1 If we are to fall back
upon the legislative system of any reign prior to that
of our good QueenVicToaxA, in Heaven's.name let it be
one more calculated to inspire respect, and to arouse a
decent emulation, than the profligate age which fol-
lowed immediately upon the downfall of the Common-
wealth.

Nothing, we are fain to believe, could have induced
the representatives of the people to consent to the
second reading of the measure here particularised,
but the two concessions made by Mr. WILLIAMS to
his very energetic opponents. First he consented
that the Bill, if allowed to proceed so far, should be
referred to a Select Committee up stairs ; and, se-
condly, that this Committee should have full power
to examine witnesses according to its pleasure. Now,
in all this, we only recognize a little quibbling way
of thrusting labour upon the attention of our legisla-
tors at a time when more important subjects should
be engrossing their mind, and upon a matter that
really and actually admits, in no way whatever, of le-
gislation. But for the stipulation of these two things,
as securities that the Bill as, it is at present drawn
up should
Snot be forced upon the notice of the
[louse, " with all its imperfections on its head,"
so dragging down upon Members the penalty
of an interminable series of amendments, and
upon each amendment an interminable se-
ries of discussions—the measure for the pre-
vention of Sunday trading would, we scarcely
doubt, have been burked offhand, and not reserved
for the grand slaughter of enactments in embryo,
known familiarly as the Massacre of the Innocents.
Even then, however, we should not have been secure
from the horrors of a revival ; we should have re-
mained still liable to intermittent efforts on the part
of the over-zealous religionists to force sobriety by
means of the policeman's staff down the throats of an
unbelieving generation. So long as there shall sur-
vive upon the face of the globe the emulators of the
Pharisee mentioned in the parable, who prayed aloud
in the Temple, with his eyes cast upwards, in the
confidence of an acceptable adoration, rejoicing that
he was unlike his neighbour the Publican—so long
will the children of the earth be troubled by the
sticklers of a rigid and sanctimonious observance of
the Sabbath, in submission, not to the persuasive ut-
terances of the Gospel, but of the mundane force of an
Act of Parliament.

Nevertheless, it must not he imagined that we are
in the smallest degree inimical to the tranquil and
orderly observance of the Sunday. We have too
frequently before now pronounced eulogiums on this
day of rest as a religious institution to leave our ideas
upon the subject matter of doubt with the majority
of our readers, much less of anything like misappre-
hension. It was said in a mood of preternatural daring
by ROBESPIERRE, that if GOD did Rot already exist
it would be necessary to invent Illm—meaning thereby
that the world could not roll on with its inhabitants
even for a comparatively small interval in tranquillity
without the aid of that belief. Almost in the same
way, we might say of the Sunday, that if it had not
been ordained by religion it would have been neces-
sary to assert it otherwise. For, as a means of car-
rying on the toils of every-day.life more satisfactorily,
as a means of bringing about a thirst for social im-
provement, as a means of maintaining a state of po-
litical quiescence, of reconciling all classes to their
position in regard to society, of ameliorating in par-
ticular the condition of the working members of the
community, the Sunday is altogether beyond the
reach of exaggerated panegyric. It is to the social
economy what sleep is to the animal economy—the
period of repose during which the powers ac-
quire to themselves new energies for the resumption
of those efforts which must otherwise exhaust all
ordinary capabilities for exertion. The merchant
from his counting .house, the clerk from his desk, the
trader from his shop, the huckster from his stall, the
pedlar from his pack—all relieved for a time from the
pressure of their occupations, and from the weight of
their responsibilities, find in the first day of each
week leisure for recruiting their strength, and for
nerving themselves for a continuance of their several
avocations. Were it not for this, they must groan
under the toil of business as under an intolerable incu-
bus. The Sunday enables them to count up the
successive weeks of the year with a feeling
of genuine satisfaction ; and, therefore, it is
that, socially speaking, we regard that day of rest
with a peculiar, and even affectionate, reverence.
But it is something more than all this—it is a law of
religion—a command of the Church—a mark of
Christianity. As such it is of course entitled to the
respect of all men, and to the homage and obedience
of those who regard that sublime creed as an emana-
tion from the Divinity. Yet for this very reason it
is that we conceive anything approaching to legisla-
tion upon the subject as little short of being abso-
lutely blasphemous. It is as if the Word of GOD re-
quired the ail of man for its enforcement! As if re-
ligion was to be degraded into a bundle of statutes !
As if virtues were to be extorted by threats
of penalty coming from the will of a Par-
liament and exercised by the authority of a
magistrate ! Than this we can concieve nothing
more derogatory to the dignity of the Scriptures.
Surely, allow the poorest man amongst us to perform
his acts of religiou3 obedience according to the dic-
tates of his own conscience, and not in servile sub-
mission to the thraldom of a legislative enactment.
You maintain that it is needless to allow these
articles of food to be sold on the Sunday morning, be-
cause the labouring man can buy his dinner for the
day of rest on the evening of Saturday. If this he
really the case, then let him, by so employing his
wages betimes, evidence voluntarily his obedience to
the commands of religion. You say he must
not go into the barber's on Sunday morning
for the purpose of being shared. But assuredly
you cannot presume to insinuate here tkat he
can get shaved over-night on the Saturday. As well
tell him to eat his breakfast at the same unseasonable
time and to dispense with that meal on the so-called
Sabbath ! And pray you—you, Dives, with your
damasked razor, inlaid with a mother-•o'-pearl handle, or
a case of tortoiseshell, with your gold or silver toilet
service, and your other appurtenances of luxury—do
you never shave on the Sunday morning ? Do you
never go smugly and cleanly shorn to display the
binding of your morocco prayer-book to the rest of
the congregation in that respectable chapel of
ease in May-fair ? Do you evince this wholesome
love of neatness and propriety on what you call
the LORD'S Day (but which, as far as the poor
are concerned, you would transform into a Day of
Dirt), or do you pass with bristles on your chin and
mud on your boots, and hair uncombed and coat un-
brushed, int* your pew, to the horror of the verger
and the dismay of the beadle ? And yet, what you
do for yourself, you will not let others do for your
poorer neighbours. What you let others do for you,
you will not permit your poorer neighbour to do for
himself! " And so the world wags." So repulsive,
however, is this pseudo-sanctity to us, that we recoil
from it upon all occasions, and shall ever show our-
selves eager to hunt it down to general derision.
Hence it is that we have alluded thus pointedly to
the second reading of the Sunday Trading Preven-
tion Bill, and for a like reason we shall continue to
follow it in precisely the same spirit into "Private
Committee up-stairs," or back again into the House
of Commons, or any where, in short, until such time
as it has been contumeliously rejected by the Legis-
lature.

INCORPORATED SOCIETY or MERCHANT VEN-
TURERS, BRISTOL.—On Saturday the freedom of the Society
of Merchant Venturers was given to Mr. P. W. S. Miles, one
of ..the Members tor the city of Bristol, in consideration of
his services to the mercantile body in Parliament, and in the
evening be was invited to a banquet in the society's magni-
ficent hall.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of Saturday
and of yesterday.
The committee on the Departmental and Mun-
icipal Organization Bill has determined to
recommend that a special electoral law shall
be framed to regulate the communal elections.
Should this be carried, the communal elections will
most probably be by universal suffrage, and that
would establish a precedent for the election of the
PRESIDENT of the Republic by universal suffrage
also,

In the Legislative Assembly, M. RAUDOT
asked some explanations from the Minister
of War relative to the expedition which, ac-
cording to report, the Government was about
to commence against Kabylia. General RAUDOT
replied that it was not a war that was intended, but
an expedition of six or seven thousand men, for the
purpose of keeping open the communications. M.
It UDOT hoped that the Assembly would not allow of
any such expedition without its authority. A de-
bate arose on the question, which was adjourned till
Monday.
M. ODILON BARILOT has, it is said, refused to form
a Cabinet,

The Fiie per Cents. closed at 94f. 25c.; Three per
Cents., 57f. 85c.; Bank of France Shares, 2,180 f.

BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS Al THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, 51.tRof 22.

Boulogne and Amiens, 1012—Dutch Ithenish, 31h— East
Indian, 15%,Luxembourg, 1 —Ditto, 25,4—Maria Anto-
nia, 7%—Ditto, New, 3—Namur and Liege, B%—lierthern
of France, 15L1—Orleans and Bordeaux, 4%—Paris and
Strasbourg, 11.7-Sambre and Meuse, 41A1—Toura and Nantes,
6k—`Vest Fianderß, 2%.

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 18th have arrived.

In the last meeting of the Committee on the regula-
tion of the National Debt, the President of the Coun-
cil delivered himself to the following effect :
"He declared that the Government, from delicacy,
could not themselves modify the project, but that the
Cortes were at liberty to modify it in all non-essential
points, to ',Lich the Ministry would not object.
He added that when once the project was ap-
proved all dividends on our securities should be
paid, and in case the national resources should
be found insufficient to cover the liabilities of the Trea-
sury the Government would not hesitate to give the
priority over all other obligations to the obligation
which it regarded as supreme—that of paying the debt."
MADRID BoLM, MARCEL 18.—Three per Cents., 35-1-;
Five per Cent% 17k. Exchange on London, 50 70
paper.

dif
4, 0 "1-- •
',lt • 'T."'
,4r • ;,tos` -3 a.
047- '`.4 DII