The Sun.
London, England, 1834-02-10 00:00:00

and vote sufficiently according to their real sentiments,
When bodies of men are obliged to act together, con
cession, to a certain degree, is indispensably necessary.
If every Member were always to be governed by his
own views and opinions, no party administration could
act with vigour or consistency, and the Government
itself would soon become powerless and contemp-
tible. But there are limits which every honest
man is bound to set to this sort of compliance ; and here
we are afraid is one of the duties most frequently neglected
by Members of Parliament. It is not easy to resist the
torrent. Let a man of the soundest head and heart find
his way now into the House, and he will soon find himself
so entangled and perplexed, that he hardly knows how to
do justice to himself or service to his country. He must
have a party and a press. The multitude of applications
which almost every Member receives from his consti-
tuents, compels him, whether attached to administration
or not, to receive favours, of one kind or other, from
almost every department of Government.
" Besides this, there is something in the very atmo-
sphere of the House unfavourable to bold and uncom-
promising conduct. It is, de facto, a sort of overgrown
Club. This is the worst part of the wl ole business.
Things are every day admitt.d in private, amongst the
Members, which are studiously denied or concealed in the
speeches reported from the Gallery. Whoever, therefore,
should endeavour to rend asunder that veil, which, by all
parties in the House, is held up before the public, would
lose his character and his caste. He would be treated
with coldness by those whom he wished most to ap-
proximate, while he might feel insuperable repuenance
ro unite with those who were most willing to receive him.
A less of independence more to the individual, or in-
jurious to the commonwealth, cannot well be pictured."—
(pp. 270-1-2. )
The offence of Mr. Sheil may be a very
heinous one in the eyes of Mr. O'Connell ; but
if there be any foundation for the above re-
marks of the Quarterly Review, there are strong
reasons why the House should not make a
scapegoat of the Hon. and Learned Member
for Tipperay. The farce of an inquiry will only
lead to a persuasion, on the part of the
public, that there is more hypocrisy in
the House than there really is. We again
enter our serious protest against this illegally
constituted courtmartial, to try how much Nlr.
R. L. Sheil exceeds, equals, or falls below the
fair average of political sincerity. If such an
extraordinary jurisdiction is established by the
vote of a Committee on the contradiction be-
tween the public votes end the private opinions
of Mr. Sheil, we see no limit to the inquiry.
The fact is, that the virulent conduct and offen-
sive manner of several of the Irish Repealers
induced Lord Ahhorp to throw himself at once
in the gap, in order to show them that gentle-
men would not suffer themselves to be brow-
beaten in that way. No one doubts that
his Lordship would not express his belief
without having had good evidence to go
on. But what is the situation of the gentlemen,
who must if called upon, enable him to maintain
his position ? Unquestionably the relators
of the private conversations did not contemplate
the possibility of being called upon to prove
them. These gentlemen are placed in a most
awkward and disagreeable situation ; and we
really think that the House of Commons would
do well to pause and reflect on the consequences
of erecting a tribunal for inquiry into all sorts of
political gossip. We do not desire, by sup-
pression of the inquiry, to deprive Mr. Sheil of
his just means of vindication ; but we ask whe-
ther a private and honourable reference would
not better dispose of this delicate and difficult
situation. The Speaker was, we think, bound to
have protected the House against its being in-
volved in this awkward situation. He may still
effect its deliverance, and we believe that the
only disappointment will be the rescue of the
prey of Mr. O'Connell. Surely a British
House of Commons will not place English gen-
tlemen in the obnoxious situation of informers
against the indiscreet persons who in private
conversation have denounced their votes as in-
consistent with their real opinions. We con-
fess we look forward to the proceedings of to-
night with no common anxiety and solicitude.
Mr. Sheil is not the only person who can be
accused of the habit of a Thames wherryman
—" sitting one way and rowing another.—
Morning chronicle.

A notice of motion relative to medical reform,
we are glad to find, has been given in the House
of Commons, by Mr. Warburton. This ques-
tion is of such deep importance to the health and
lives of his Majesty's subjects that it requires
no apology for our pressing it upon the especial
attention of Parliament and the public. What
Dr. Warburton's plan of reform is we know
not ; but it is quite certain that, without some
comprehensive, searching, and enlightened mea- '
sure to correct existing abuses in medical insti-
tutions, and to open to talent and education
those avenues to professional distinction from
which they are but too generally excluded by
nepotism, corrupt patronage, and presumptuous
quackery, the medical profession must remain
far below the level to which it would have arisen
but for the artificial obstructions thrown in its
way, while medical institutions, founded for the
noblest purposes,must continue to be more produc-
tive sources of profit and advantages to indivi-
duals than of benefit to the public. During the
contest of a recent election for the office of As-
sistant-Surgeon to the London Hospital, we
took occasion to allude to the existing necessity
for reform in that and similar establishments.
The circumstances of that election confirmed
our view of the necessity for some remedial
measure, to throw open the field of fair com-
petition to talent, which relies on its own
strength—some measure to break down the
power which patronage and favouritism exercise,
and against which superior merit too often urges
its claims in vain. Another branch of medical
reform which we have adverted to is that which
relates to the remodelling, upon judicious and
liberal principles, the Royal Colleges of Physi-
cians and Surgeons. The former has, we un-
derstand, lately adopted some ameliorations of
its very narrow and illiberal system—but of that
institution and its reforms another time; at pre-
sent we mean to confine ourselves to the Col-
lege of Surgeons, than which no chartered body
stands more in need of the visitation of public
opinion, to enlighten its darkness, and, by
making its defects and abuses manifest to the
world, prepare the way for the correction of the
one and the abolition of die other. We have
now before us the printed copy of an oration
delivered before the Medical Society of Lon-
don, by Mr. Salmon, a Fellow of the Col-
lege of Surgeons, on the necessity for an en-
tire change in the constitution and government
of that institution. This little essay is written
in a reasoning and temperate manner. It is
worthy of the respectable station which its author
occupies in a liberal profession, and the interests
of which profession he is anxious to promote by
proving the necessity for surgical reform. He
does this without indulging in coarse or violent
attacks upon those who are opposed to him. He
confines himself to the real merits of the ques-
tion, and adduces, in support of his view, of it,
strong facts and convincing arguments, clothed
in the language of a cultivated mind. It is not
our purpose, nor have we space to enter into the
details of this question. Our chief object is to
draw public attention to a subject of such