The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

We have often had occasion to remark on the procrasti-
nation of the most important Ministerial measures till the
end of the Session, and we lately impressed upon Lord
Melbourne's Administration the absolute necessity of a
complete alteration of the system of legislation. If the du-
ration of the Session—the distressing physical duties of
Members of Parliament, who are pent up in foul air for
hours past midnight—if the utter want of division of legis-
lative labour, and of practical preparation on the part of the
Government continue—we shall find no competent public
men to undertake the public service. At this moment
some of the most important Bills of the Session are
pending, on the eve of a prorogation ; and the benches
of the House of Commons are almost empty, many
of the most valuable Bills . being necessarily postponed
till next year. The Irish Tithe Bill, by far the most
important and conflicting question of the Session, is
likely to be mutilated, if not destroyed, in the House
of Lords, when half the Members of the Lower House
have retired to their country seats. 'We are, there-
fore, some way advanced in the month of August,
with the prospect of Parliament sitting (or a frag-
ment of it) for another fortnight, and the imminent
hazard of a collision'between the two branches of the Le-
gislature. The system must be radically changed. Next
year Ministers must meet the Parliament prepared with
their Cabinet measures—declaring what they will do and
what they will not undertake to do, and must manage mat-
ters very differently. We are most glad to observe indica-
tions of such an altered policy in the recent declaration of
Lord Althorp on the subject of corporate reform, and in
some general remarks of the Marquis of Westminster last
night. Appearances, and the resolute character of Lord
Melbourne, point to greater decision and practical prepara-
tion. The Marquis of Westminster, at the close of hie
judicious observations on the absurd privilege of " Proxies,"
sensibly said—
" He trusted, too, to see other measures adopted. That most
disgraceful statute, the Septennial Act, ought to be brought to an
end, anti he trusted 'that reform would be carried into various abuses
in the most piercing and searching manner. Unless these ques-
tions were undertaken with a desire to settle them properly by the
Government, they would not satisfy the reasonable part of the in-
habitants of the country, and they would not long he able to hold
their places.'•
This is coming to the point, and a salutary "hint to the
new Ministry. No Government can longer " hold their
places" unless they respect th7s seasonable recommendation.
We will only instance one measure of the deepest impor-
tance, involving a great constitutional change—driven off
to the last moment—we allude to the " Bill to provide for
the trial of general (and, as the Lords have amended it,
extensive) Bribery in Cities and Boroughs sending mem-
bers to serve in Parliament." This Bill has just been ma-
terially altered in the Lords. It will not be printed and
distributed in the Commons, with the amendments, till
this morning, and it stands in the Commons' Votes
for consideration to-night. Nothing can be so ab-
surd—nothing so insulting to the country,—as the
indecent haste of such rapid legislation. A great
number of the active Members of Parliament have
left town ; no time is allowed for the public discussion of a
measure of the deepest importance to the whole consti-
tuency of the kingdom. In fact, a cursory perusal and
consideration of the proposed amendments of the Lords
demonstrate the evil of such hurried legislation. What is
" extensive" bribery, and why is such a limitation intro-
duced ; and why have the Peers studiously excluded the
general and comprehensive words " and corruption" in the
'original Bill ? Do their Lordships mean to overturn the
Statute and Common Law of the land, and to ordain that
the interference of Peers—the fraudulent manufacture of
fictitious votes—the various ways of coercing Electors—
the infamous system of Treating, often a direct and illegal
bribery—the various election arts of intimidation and riots,
do not vitiate the freedom and purity of election ? Does
this Bill mean to restrict the proofs of bribery to the
written lists of cases directed to be given in previous to
inquiry, when it is notorious that often the most
important discoveries are involved in the examination
of witnesses ? Do they, for instance, retrospectively
involve the case of Liverpool (specially comprehended in
this Bill) and seriously require a separate notice and issue
in the case of every corrupt freeman ? This curiogsly
amended Bill is distinguished in the Lords' print by italic
paragraphs which denote the original paragraphs added by
the Lords' Committee, and by " black letter" the para-
graphs left out by that Committee. In twenty-eight pages
only six pages of the original Bill are left entire. Thirteen
pages are wholly omitted, and nearly eight pages of new
matter added ! The amended Bill proposes to constitute a
new tribunal for the trial of " bribery," a sort of co-ordinate
jurisdiction of Lords and Commons in the nature of a Com-
mission. When a Commons' Committee report the neces-
sity for these proceedings against a rotten borough, and ad-
dress his Majesty to issue a Commission, a Jury of five
Peers and seven Commoners is to be impannelled, under
the presidency of a Judge of one of the Courts of Record at
Westminister. This motley Jury is to be chosen after the
following fashion :
"And be it enacted, that the House of Lords shall, on a day to
be appointed by the Lord Chancellor or Speaker of the House of
Lords within a month after the commencement of each Session of
Parliament, proceed to choose by lot eighty-five Peers from among
all those who have taken their seats in that Session of parliament,
and after they shall have been so chosen, the Lord Chancellor shall,
on a day to be named, not less than five days afterwards, openly in
the same House of Lords name ten of such Peers, and fifteen
others shall be chosen by lot out of the remaining seventy-five ;
and in like manner within the same period the House of Commons
shall proceed to choose one hundred and twenty members by lot
from among all who have taken their seats during that parliament,
and after they shall have been so chosen the Speaker shall, on a day
to be named, not less than five days afterwards, openly in the said
House name thirty-five of such members ; and as often as a Com-
mittee of the Commons shall report that further proceeding is ne-
cessary touching any borough, as aforesaid, and such report shall
have been communicated to the Lords, the House of Lords shall
choose by lot five names out of the said list of twenty-five, and the
House of Commons shall choose by lot seven names out of the said
list of thirty-five, and the said five Peers and the said seven Com-
moners thus named shall form a court to inquire of the truth of
the matters contained in the said report."
Carrickfergus, Liverpool, Hertford, and Stafford, are to
be sent to this forlorn hope. Now we protest altogether
against this unconstitutional extension of power over the
representation of the people, to the Peers Spiritual and
Temporal. The Lords are notoriously jealous.of their own
privileges, and allow no interference of the Commons with
them. And is this the period when we are to invest the
Peerage with such a new power of interference with the
rights of popular representation ? Are the Right Rev.
the Bishops to be eligible on a Jury to try corruption, and
reform corrupt electors ? Has the conduct of the Peers
in the Penryn and East Retford Bills, in the recent Dis-
franchisement
Bills of Liverpool and Warwick, entitled
them to the confidence of the country ? And how have
they shown their preliminary notions in erasing the im-
portant word, " corruption," and craftily inserting the
convenient word " extensive " bribery ? Nor can we
altogether approve the unlimited principle of recognizances
for costs. There may be and have been many instances
in which the necessity of security may be a complete denial
of justice ; and unquestionably the propriety of requiring
sureties ought to be discretionary in the Commons and de-
pendent on circumstances. It is impossible that any po-
pular Member of the House of Commons can allow this
monstrous and crude production to pass at this period of
the Session. It involves principles and results of the
deepest importance, and ought rather to be entitled, " An
Act to limit election. corruption to Bribery, to perpetuate
the corrupt practices of the Schedule B Boroughs, and to
license the Freemen of England, Wales, and Ireland, to
receive bribes, and get drunk at the expense of Can-
didates." If there is any Reformer in the House of Com-
mons, he will vote against this abomination, and also sup-
port Lord John Russell's motion to-night, against the issue
of writs for Warwick, Hertford, Carrickfergus, and Stafford.
—Morning Chronicle.
Whatever may be the distress and misery of a large por-
tion of the people of this country, it cannot be denied that
we have a laughter-loving house of Commons. The " merry
England" of the poets, who celebrated our golden age of
rural happiness, exists no longer ; but a merry Representa-
tive Assembly we certainly have—an Assembly that loves
a joke whether in season or out of season, or without much
caring whether the joke be a lively or a dull one—coarse
or refined—delicate or gross. One would be tempted to
believe sometimes that Momus himself presided over this
Assembly, so completely is the gravity of legislators merged
in the passion for a laugh. Well would it be for the na-
tion if the fund of wisdom at the disposal of the House of
Commons was equal to its fund of jocularity. The people
might then have cause to be cheerful ; and their Represen-
tatives, correcting the vices of misgovernment, and distin-
guishing themselves for an honest pre-eminence in the arts
which stay the decline and restore the prosperity of States,
instead of struggling for their own selfish interests, might
" Scatter plenty o'er the smiling land,
And read its history in a nation's eyes."
A sad people and a merry House of Commons may be
sign the times ; but
thought by some to be no auspicious of
of all subjects of legislative merriment we know none more
melancholy than the consideration of the deplorable con-
sequences of the prevailing vice of drunkenness, and the
best mode of eradicating that baneful habit from the com-
munity. We should have thought it impossible that any
sober legislator, when called upon to devise some mode of
stopping up the; great source of crime and pauperism in
this country—the intemperate devotion to ardent spirits—
we should have thought it impossible, we say, that any
sober legislator, when called upon to suggest some means
of staying this pestilence in the land, could make it the
subject of a sorry jest !—but we stand corrected—our
legislators can be sober when they treat the lamentable vice
of drunkenness as a matter of good fun and ridicule. But
admitting their sobriety, what can we say of the qualities
of mind d heart which they bring to the work of legis-
lation ? 4! acknowledge the difficulty of repressing the

vice of drunkenness by legislative enactments, yet we do
not, therefore, think it useless or absurd to bring the sub-
ject under the notice of Parliament. In proportion to the
difficulties to be overcome should be the efforts to
surmount them. The love of intoxicating spirits is not
a natural deformity of the mind, and consequently the
maxim, "naturam expellers furcd, tamen usque recurret"
does not apply to it. A vice artificially acquired may be
artificially got rid of ; but supposing the present race of
drunkards incorrigible, that is no reason why measures
should not be adopted to prevent the curse from shedding
its baleful influence on future generations. The grave and
decorous treatment of the subject in the Legislature might
of itself do much good, by awakening reflection in the
minds of many of those who have not yet reached the last
stage of degraded subjection to the power of strong drink ;
but when this fatal passion, so withering to the morals ofthe
people—so destructive of domestic comfort—so fruitful in
misery and crime—is made a topic of levity and laughter in
the House of Commons, the moral consequences must be
bad, and drunkards must become much less ashamed of the
habit that subverts the reason than ever. We by no means
consider Mr. Hawes a felicitous specimen of a reformed
repreientation. His conduct with regard to the Malthu-
sian Poor Law Bill showed that he could be very sober
and very absurd ; but we were not prepared to find him
making the exhibition which he did on Tuesday night, when
Mr. Buckingham brought up the report of the Committee
to inquire into the causes of drunkenness, and the best
mode of prevention. He spoke of the interests of his
constituents being compromised by the recommenda-
tions of the report ; but when the Poor Law Bill—the
" boon to the female population"—was under discussion,
the consideration of their interests did not appear to have
the same weight with him. His constituents told him that
this unconstitutional and immoral Bill was opposed to their
interests and to those of the community at large, yet he
supported the Bill. Now his reasoning goes the length of
allowing us to infer that he would rather the land should be
deluged with drunkenness than that the interests of his
constituents should be compromised ! The cause of in-
temperance,
equally destructive of the morals and the health,
filling the gaol, the workhouse, and the untimely grave with
the victims' of its poison, must be held sacred, forsooth !
lest the interests of the gin-temple should be compromised,
lest the profits of the gin-demon should be diminished by
rescuing its infatuated votaries from their influence.
All who know any thing of the causes of crime, know
that a great proportion of the crimes which our laws
are enacted to punish, are the consequences of that
temporary bereavement of reason which drunkenness
produces. Though Mr. O'Connell chose, like some
others, to be facetious on this subject, he ought rather
to have wept at thinking what moral devastation the love
of ardent spirits produces in his native land. The barba-
rous habits of those clans who meet periodically to butcher
each other with the most savage ferocity, like the Coleens
and the Lawlors the other day, are preserved and perpe-
tuated by being steeped in whisky. 'The source of the chi-
valry of the heroes of the ensanguined banks of the cabin
was the whisky-booth at the fair ; and despising even the
admonitions of their Priest, because they were not then
in a state to worship any idol but the whisky bottle, they
revelled in blood and drunken glory. Solit will ever be as
long as the " finest pisantry in the world" are so apt to
" put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains !"
The Rockites are stimulated to their work of nocturnal
outrage, burning, and assassination, by whisky, which mad-
dens the heart and fires the brain. And so in this country,
at least three-fourths of the crimes of violence and blood
—the crimes over which the terrors of the gallows are
suspended—emanate from the diabolical inspiration
of ardent spirits. Is it not a task more worthy
of an enlightened and Christian Legislature to
prevent those crimes, by removing their cause,
than to brutalise the people still further by execu-
tions, which, although they exterminate the offender, leave
the offence always growing and ripening into a luxuriant
crop, which the scythe of death again mows down, only to
shoot up, once more, in greater abundance ? When we
see these things—when we look around and behold the
masses of misery, pauperism, and debasement which gin
drinking and the tippling of the beer-shop create, we cannot
but regard those persons who exert themselves, eiths,,by
Temperance Societies or by raising discussions in PAClia-
ment, to extirpate this dreadful vice, as patriots who look
for other than selfish triumphs.--as benefactors to their
country and the human race. We have enough of im-
postors seeking their own ends, under the name of political
reformers, but to the advocates of social reform no loaves
and fishes of the State are offered. They are consequently
fewer and more sincere ; and of all sorts of social reform
the most beneficial to society would be the eradication of
that fascinating vice, which bows the strength of man to
the dust—unseats his reason—inflames his passions—and
extinguishes in his degraded mind all moral perceptions, and
all regard for the decencies of life.—Morning Herald.
There are rumours of the Opposition Lords intending to
throw out the Irish Tithe Bill. They may do it, but they
are greatly mistaken if they imagine they will thereby throw
out the Ministry. They may reduce the Irish clergy to
beggary, by defeating a Bill which secures to them, with
ease and certainty, a greater income than they could hope
to obtain through violence and bloodshed. They may pro-
bably agitate in Ireland, and fortify those habits of lawless
insubordination which may end in resistance to rent as well
as tithes. If agitation can get the better of the Saxon
clergy, will it not, it may be said, be an equally efficient in-
strument against the Saxon landholder ? He may distrain
like the parson, but when his distress has been made, who
is able, who will be daring enough, to purchase the chattels
of a whole kingdom ? The clergy must in the meanwhile
starve or beg, or dig their potatoe grounds in order to main-
tain their families ; not a farthing can they expect from the
House of Commons, to relieve a calamity produced by the
perverseness of their pretended friends.—.llforn. Advertiser.
Vestries are assembling and parishes meeting, now
that the chance of success seems almost expiring, to stop
this inroad on our ancient laws—the Poor Law Amend-4
ment Bill. We are still not without hopes that the mis-
chief May be checked. We have often spoken of the prin-
ciple of the Bill ; but of all the clauses, that upon which
the Bishop of Exeter intends this night to move a strang-
ling amendment, is that at which manhood revolts most.
Defeat that clause, my. Lord, defeat it ! expose its cruelty
in every way your fertile mind can suggest and your elo-
quent tongue express, and you will do more for the rights
of nature and the people of England than any prelate has
done since the time that Burnett drew up his celebrated
declaration for William 111., when he came to liberate
us from Popery and the tyranny of the Stuart race.
There is, perhaps, nothing that speaks so much for
the humanity of the people of England as their rooted
aversion to this new Poor Law Bill. They have been
oppressed by rates ; they have dreaded the call of the
overseer. The poor have behaved perhaps not always well ;
" but still," say the people of England, the rate-payers,
" they are our brethren, they have a right to support ; we
cannot give them up to hired Commissioners ! we cannot
resign them to the tender mercies of men whom they never
saw before !" This is the feeling of the people of Eng-
land with respect to the Bill generally. But with respect
to that clause which exempts the father of what is termed
an illegitimate child from all anxiety, or care or duty of
providing for his own offspring, in what bosom timid the
exception of such a clause be engendered ? The woman is to
be the only sufferer ! Is she the only sinner ? We will
not palliate her guilt or excuse her frailty. But look at the
thing coolly ; view it as a mere matter of interest to parishes.
Who by the law of nature can inflict the greatest loss on a
parish, the man or the woman ? The latter is fixed in her
locality, and limited in her competence to do mischief. .The
former may range free, and indulge in unbounded license :
stop him in his career by making him once pay the penalty
of his profligacy, and he is fixed too : you see the extent of
the mischief. The bastardy clause, then, in this most omi-
nous Bill, inverts the whole order of legislation. It punishes
the weakest—it oppresses her who contains the least means
of mischief in her nature ; it dismisses the strongest, and
sends him loose and disengaged into society, whose power to
injure society, and to tax it by vices, is unlimited. Was
folly like this ever heard of before in man ? The Bishop
of Exeter, we have no doubt, will enforce with his peculiar
eloquence all these points on the House of Lords this even-
ing. We cannot yet believe that such a clause can pass the
House.—Tinges.

A small balloon was found by a shepherd boy in
the manor of Priorsdale, near Alston in Cumberland, a short
time since, with a label attached to it, stating that it had
been set off on the 2d of June, at Rotterdam, by Mr. Green,
the celebrated aeronaut. —Newcastle Journal.
DESOLATION OF SARDIS.—A much more in-
teresting object was now the Acropolis of Sardis rising before
us, and presenting a striking resemblance to the mountain
above the town of Zante, and the soft sandstone rock distorted
and rent in the same extraordinary manner, and perhaps by
the same agency of earthquakes. With our eyes fixed on this
crumbling monument of the grandeur and nothingness of man,
and looking in vain for the city whose multitudes lie under the
countless sepulchral hillocks on the other side of the Hermus,
we arrived at what was once the metropolis of Lydia. If I
should be asked what impresses the mind most strongly on be-
holding Sardis, I should say its indescribable solitude, like the
darkness of Egypt, darkness that could be felt. So the deep
solitude of the spot, once the " lady of kingdoms," produces a
corresponding feeling of desolate abandonment in the mind,
which can never be forgotten. Connect this feeling with the
message of the Apocalypse to the Church of Sardis, " Thou
hest a name that thou livest, and art dead ; I will come on
thee as a thief ; and thou shalt not know what hour I will
come upon thee ;" and then look round and ask, where are the
churches, where are the Christians of Sardis ? The tumuli
beyond the Hermus reply, "All dead!" suffering the infliction
of the threatened judgment of God, for the abuse of their
privileges. Let the unbeliever then be asked, Is there no
truth in prophecy ? no reality in religion ?—Arundell's Disco.
veries in Asa Minor.