The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-15 00:00:00

After a smart discussion between Mr. HO/OMAN and
Mr. GLADSTONE, on the subject of the-Bishop of GLoU-
CESTER
and BRISTOL and the Horfield estate,

The House then went into Committee of Supply upon
civil services, civil contingencies, and commissariat esti-
mates, the discussion occupying the remainder of the
night.

One of the most satisfactory sales which has as yet
taken place in the Irish Encumbered Estates Com-
mission Court was that of the Langford property, in
the county of Meath, on Friday last. The biddings
appear to have been made with spirit and rapidity,
and a sum of 100,2851. was obtained without any
difficulty for a rental of 5,7881. per annum, being at
the rate of all but seventeen years and a half pur-

chase. This, we would fain hope, is a token of in-

creased vitality on the part of the purchasers of land
in Ireland. It cannot be denied that many estates have
already changed owners on terms below their in-
trinsic value, although, in the majority of instances
we believe fair prices to have been obtained, notwith-
standing the general absence of competition on the
part of wealthy capitalists. Whilst we should regret
to see purchasers make a ruinous investment, 00 the
other band there is something very deplorable in wit-
nessing the forced sale of ancestral acres at a depre-
ciation likely to swamp alike the interests of the in-
heritor and of the tail creditors, and we therefore
gladly recognise a favourable symptom of a healthy
tone in the land market of the sister kingdom.
There is one peculiar feature consequent on the
operations of the Encumbered Estates Com-
missioners, and which cannot fail of being
ultimately highly beneficial to the interests
of the island, and that is, the creation of a
middle, or yeoman class. That great element, so
conducive to the soundness of the social system in
England, was in Ireland, we may say, ahogether un-
known. It now, however, appears, from the report
1114 furnished by the Commissioners, that out of the
estates sold up to the 31st ofMsrch last nearly one-
half have been purchased by parties for sums not ex-
ceeding 1,0001. Thus is gradually constituted a
class of small but independent landed proprietors,
scattered throughout the extent of the country, form-
ing, as it were, the advance posts of civilization and
the rallying points of industry and self-reliance.
These men, although of fortune and education
sufficient to ensure the respect of the peasant class,
are yet not so far placed above it as to excite sensa-
tions of envy, such as cannot fail to exist on the part
of the poorer ranks of society towards those elevated
far above their heads, in a position which they can
never expect to attain. The opportunities now af-
forded to persons of moderate means of acquiring the
social position and importance of " a landed pro-
prietor," cannot but tend to foster and develope an in-
dependence of feeling, a habit of self-thought, the
want of which has been one of the most grievous
defects in the Irish character hitherto. The
example, too, of these small proprietors will be found
to confer upon the localities in which they reside bene-
fits of a nature both new and important. Where the
suggestions for agricultural improvement which ema-
nate from a wealthy proprietor are viewed with dis-
trust by those who have no money to expend on
" hobbies," the improvements made by a practical
farmer in the neighbourhood are regarded with a
very different eye. He is known to look to the re-
turn of the money sunk as the primary consideration,
and to keep an accurate account of the actual amount
expended. The humble peasant will not hesitate to
copy his improvements, to the extent of his sphere and
his ability, nor Will he have that backwardness
in seeking instruction by oral inquiry which would
unavoidably exist with respect to one of the landed
aristocracy, feeling himself somewhat on level ground
and emboldened to a frank intercommunication and
consultation on private affairs and difficulties. In
many cases, indeed in most, these small purchasers
become proprietors of ground on which their own
manual labour had been formerly employed. An
estate which thus happily passes into industrious
bands, into the proprietorship of a score of active and
hardworking owners, from that of a single landlord,
embarrassed, despondent from his debts, unable to
manage his hopelessly involved affairs, and, of course,
to assist othere, will speedily present thriving and
smiling aspect.
The great national resources of Ireland will be
materially brought into play by the institution of this
new class of independent yeomen, in whom we may
confidently expect to find " the friends of industry,
the supporters of the laws, the advocates of order,
the instructors of the poor."

Extramural interment becomes every day more de-
sirable. Hence we cannot be deterred from dragging
this of -debated question again under discussion.
However much we have been di.appointed in our
hopes of i I,provement, however much we have found
our retnopstrances disregarded, however much wit
have at intervals despaired of witnessing any genuine
amelioration in regard to ;in evil so immediately and
largely affecting the health and morality of our me-
tropolis, we nowhere discover reasons for neglecting
the consideraiion of the enormous difficulties which
in the matter referred to still remain to be overcome
by the advocates of sanitary innovation. On the
contrary, we perceive in the indifference manifested
reference to this subject, both by the Legislature
and the Administration, additional cause of soli-
citude, and more powerful inducements to reiterate
again and again the arguments which are
none the less true because they have
been sl resolutely and pertinaciously despised. Hav-
ing from the very outset predicted the insufficiency of
the measure of last session affecting the burial in-
terests of London and Westminster, we may be per-
mitted to peal: with the more emphasis as to the ne-
cessity still existing for the interposition of her Ma-
lESTY'S Government. Experience has shown with
only tco melancboly distinctness the circumstance
that the Bill here mentioned has proved altogether
inoperative. Apparently to the undiscerning and un-
inquisitive it promised to relieve the atmosphere of
the capital from that mephitic contamination which
bad hitherto resulted from the detestable and irreli-
gious practice of burying our dead in the very midst
of our most crowded thoroughfares, and in the heart
of our most densely-populated localities. Tested,
however, by the considerable interval whie has
elapsed since the period of its being passed into an
enactment, the measure has turned out in every re-
spect a failure, and one the more lamentable from the
fact of its having been looked upon so confidently by
many as the inauguration of a vast and beneficent
improvement. Repeated announcements are con-
tained in our columns, and in those of our contempo-
raries, of the interments made in defiance of the newly-
established law in the already occupied burying-
grounds of our metropolis. Under the very window
of the apartment in which we write the ashes of the
departed are occa-ionelly disturbed to make room for
the remains of others of our fellow-creatures recently
deceased. This, be it remembered, in the little graves
yard of the Savoy, generally speaking one
of the best regulated pieces of interment
to be tound within the entire circumfer-
ence of the capital.. Generally speaking, ibs
aPpearaece is that of a grass-gr..wn enclosure,
sprinkled with memorial etones in a state of excel-
lent preservation, and resembling in its refreshing
greenness the verdant precincts of souse village church,
those beautiful and pieturesqae localities where "the
rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," their rest undis-
turbed and venerated. Such, nevertheless, is by no means
the aspect of the two hundred other receptacles of
the dead which are intermingled with the abodes of
the living in a metropolis containing no leas than two
millions of inhabitants. Several of them, for exam-
ple, like St. Clement Danes, being literally nests of
the filthiest abomination, generating disease among
and converting
but
a semblance
the
dences 'aGno3ltghointhas of the British
g
the surrounding popultiahnteitosoen
(if sanctity. ot. dissolution
Seeingperini
metropolis still tttd to rankle amongst us like
veritable manufactories of contagion, we find our-
selves compelled to recur with undiminished earnest-
ness to a matter which we have already discussed so
repeatedly.
Our present revival of the question of intramural
interment is perhaps principally attributable to the
fact of our having very recently observed the publi-
cation of certain revelations in reference to grave-
yardable amounteeatedsniidt
co
rtf.
aanditeoien
tur fullbc u le
on-ypdta. ehratelilie2,nurlgol
camtfr:s
management, revelations indicating a
verbatimconsider-
f
oo Leeds,t
he ltotthihfmetewsopeh,a
iricpnt
haotrfhwt
eti
echcrueoellagurmisv clergyenints
f
may 1), Per''-dred at a glance that the ire:fairy lately