The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

When we inserted, on Thursday, the report
of the Committee of last Session on Parochial
Registration, we felt that its exposure of the
inconveniences of the existing system was so
plain and conclusive, and its advocacy of an im-
mediate change so strong and reasonable, that it
was almost superfluous to accompany it with
either commentary or confirmation. There is
scarcely a civilized state is Europe where the
local records of births, marriages, and deaths are
so irregularly kept, or so ill calculated to answer
their professed object, as they are in England ;
while there is no country in the world where,
from the migratory habits of our people, the
extent of our empire, and the amount of our
litigated funds (the distribution and ownership,
of which depend upon such records), a com-
plete and accurate registration would be more
useful, or is, in fact, more indispensable. In
nations which are stationary in their political
or commercial condition, where there are com-
paratively few remarkable chancres of fortune in
families, where unexpected windfalls or doubtful
successions are rare, owing to the limited sphere
of their enterprise, or the confined range of
their possessions, parochial or legal registration,
however useful in a statistical point of view,
cannot be looked upon as so necessary for
ascertaining the rights or settling the claims of
individuals. On the other hand, no person who
considers how rapidly and constantly a large
portion of our fellow-citizens are in movement
from one part of the empire to another,—how
many are engaged in our national or commercial
navy, far from their early homes,—how many
occupy public offices at a distance from the
place of their nativity,—how many proceed to
the colonies, where they die possessed of unex-
pected wealth, beyond the notice of their imme-
diate relatives,—in short, how many adver-
tisements we see for the lawful heirs of
those who, perhaps, from the want of
parish records, could not in their lifetime
ascertain the information necessary for the
disposal of their property, and how large the
sum of unclaimed dividends'at the Bank (most
probably to be traced to the same cause), no
person, we say, who takes these facts into con-
sideration, can hesitate for a moment about the
indispensable necessity for the settlement of pri-
vate rights and the protection of domestic inte-
rests, of establishing a full, and certain, and
accurate parish registration. In France, where
accurate records are kept by the civil power of
births, marriages, and deaths, a great degree of
alarm was excited, or at any rate affected, during
the reign of the Bourbons, at the proposal of
the parish clergy to recover possession of these
registers. It was thus imagined by the enemies
of the Church that the partipretre, or the Je-
suits (as they were called) would gain a certain
addition to their power, if not to their emolu-
ments, by managing such annals, and there
can be little doubt, that such would have
been the result. How short-sighted, then,
were some of the clerical witnesses, on the
recent inquiry, who hesitated about con-
curring in a comprehensive plan cf parish
registration, because it might increase some of
their not laborious duties, or curtail some of
their untenable privileges. As Dissenters can-
not be bound to the Church by being obliged
to conform unwillingly to a few of its ceremonies,
against which they protest, in order to attain
certain civil securities, the necessity of being
baptized or of being married within its precincts
ought never to have been made the condition
of a legal entry on the parish records of births or
marriages. But the time has gone by in which
the enjoyment of any civil right or immunity
can be made to depend upon the profession of
a particular religious creed, or the adoption
of a certain mode of worship ; and we
fully agree with the declared opinion of
the Committee that " a national registra-
tion 9f births, marriages, and deaths,
should be established, and that such re-
gistration ahould equally include all ranks
of society and religionists of every class." The
details of such a measure will of course require
mature deliberation, but its principle and urgency
cannot admit of a doubt. The present system,
or the existing law—equally imperfect and vexa-
tious—at once expensive and inefficient—humi-
liating to the Dissenter, who is obliged, in order
to enjoy its securities, to submit to rites which
he reckons impious, and obnoxious to the sin-
cere Churchman, whose conscience must be
wounded at administering sacraments to persons
who object to his religious communion must—
must be altered in the course of the ensuing
session. Its injustice and hardship are so gla-
ring, and its absurdity at the same time is so
ridiculous, that we will venture to say not even
the most unreasonable Conservatives in the
House of Commons, nor the greatest enemies
of improvement in the Peers, will venture to cast
their shields of defence over its offensive details,
or to resist all attempts at a legislative change.
—Times.

We are glad to perceive that one of the
Judges on the rota at the present Old Bailey
Sessions has noticed the novel practice of late
years of introducing into indictments against
prisoners a recital, when such has been the case,
D f their convictions for former offences. This,
we believe, was one of the improvements of the
criminal law introduced by Sir Robert Peel, and
his little coterie of legal reformers, who would
seint in this case to have been influenced by
the sage and equitable maxim of "give a dog an
ill name and hang him." Seriously speaking,
it is exactly one of those cases in which well-
meaning, but inconsiderate people act wrongly
upon right motives. That the previous conduct
of a man can and ought to have to do with the
iature and extent of his punishment for subse-
quent offences we can readily concede. If a
man who has been previously tried and
convicted of one offence turns out to be
an incorrigible offender, whom imprison-
ment cannot reclaim, such a man be-
comes a fit object of transportation, or
of some other severer punishment than
he had previously undergone. But so far from
the Jury who have to try him for the subsequent
offence being apprised of this, they are exactly
the persons from whom all knowledge of that
fact ought to be scrupulously withheld. Vie
talk of persons being entitled to a fair trial, and
of the most notorious offenders being considered
innocent till they are found guilty ; yet in this
mode of administering justice the strongest pos-
sible prejudice is raised against the accused in
the minds of his Jury, who, if there is any doubt
in his case, instead of giving him the benefit of it,
naturally enough do just the reverse, and con-
demn because he is a person most likely, from
his past practices, to
be guilty. In short, the
injustice of the practice is so obvious, that we
wonder the Judges have not long since,
one and all, remonstrated with those whose
duty it is to correct so great an innovation

upon the purity of our legal proceedings ; and
we only trust that the notice which it has now
received will not be of a mere casual nature, but
will be followed up by its early abandonment
altogether.—Morning Herald.
Our Contemporary, the Standard, presumes
rather too much on the ignorance of his readers,
when availing himself of the return of the
churches and chapels, and chapels of ease of
the Church of England, and of the number of
places of worship not of the Church of England,
so far as regards the county of Lancaster, or-
dered co be printed on the Bth July, 1830 ; he
lays it down that the number of members re-
turned as belonging to the different chapels of
Dissenters comprehends the whole of the Dis-
senters. In a former article we pointed out to
our Contemporary the difference between the
members of a congregation, and the whole popu-
lation, young and old, connected with the con-
gregation ; and if our Contemporary could not
understand the matter from what we said, the
manner in which the Catholics are distinguished
from the other Separatists might have led him
to the right conclusion.

" The return (says our contemporary), we must observe
is incomplete as regards locality—no information having
been obtained from parts of the hundreds of Lonsdale,
Salford, and West Derby, severally; the population of
these parts, according to the tables of 1821 (the tables
used throughout), amounting to 98,889. The great
manufacturing towns, however, of Manchester, Oldham,
Balton, Salford, Preston, and the great commercial town
of Liverpool, are all included in the district from which
complete information has been obtained. We, therefore,
are entitled to reject the unreported district and its 98,889
from calculations on both sides ; the reported portion of
the county, and its population of 953,978, are to form
the subject of our inquiry. The return, as respects
Dissenters, specifies the number of places of worship of
the several classes of non-conforming religionists, and the
number of each sect attached to each place of worship,
in the following order :