The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-17 00:00:00

TAKING THE VEIL

THE PETITION OF CRAVEN FITZHARDINGE BERKELEY
TO THE HON. THE COMMONS OF THE UNITED KING-
DOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND IN PARMA-
-INIENT ASSEMBLED
Humbly showeth—
That he intermarried with Augusta Talbot, the widow
of George Henry Talbot, who was the half-brother of
th© present Earl of Shrewsbury.
That the said George Henry Talbot left two children
him surviving, namely, John, who was heir presumptive
to the Earldom, and Augusta, an infant, now of the age
of 19 years and upwards.
That the said infant, Augusta Talbot, resided with
your petitioner and her mother up to the time of the
death of the latter, which took place on the 25th day of
April, 1841.
That since that period and up to the month of Septem-
ber last the said intent, Angusta Talbot, has resided with
the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury-.
That in consequence of the death of the said John Tal-
bot the said infaut, Augusta Talbot, became absolutely
entitled to a sum of 80,0001., or thereabouts.
That the said infant, Augusta Talbot, is a ward of the
Court of Chancery.
That in the month of September last the said Earl
and Countess of Shrewsbury placed the said infant,
Augusta Talbot (notwithstanding she is a ward of Court,
as aforesaid), at the convent called the Lodge, situate
at Taunton, in the csunty of Somerset, not as a pupil
or visitor, but as a postulant, with the avowed object of
allowing the said Augusta Talbot to take the veil and
become a nun. _

That in the month of September next the period of
probation or postulancy will have expired, and the said
infant, Augusta Talbot, will be compelled by the rules
and regulations of the said convent, and by the priest-
hood of the Roman Catholic Church, to take the white
veil during her minority, and notwithstanding the said
infant, Augusta Talbot, is a ward of the Court of Chan-
cery.
That having taken the white veil, there is no retreat
for the said infant, Augusta Talbot, and she will be com-
pelled to take the black veil in September, 1852, or
shortly afterwards.
That on the 6th day of June, 1852, the said infant,
Augusta Talbot, will attain her 21st year, when she will
become entitled to receive the said sum of 80,0001.
That being a nun at that period, the 80,0001. will
become confiscated to the said convent, or to the eccle-
siastical revenues of the Church of Rome, or to the en-
dowment, enrichment, or maintenance of some bishopric
or deanery or other ecclesiastical benefice of the said
Church of Rome, or the said infant, Augusta Talbot,
will bo compelled by some assurance in the law to trans-
fer all right and interest in the said sum of 80,000/.
That it is one of the doctrines of the Church of Rome
that no member of the said Church shall be permitted to
exercise his or her private judgment in religious mat-
ters, but that in all such religious matters he or sho is
bound to submit to the authority of the said Romish
Church, and to the direction of the priesthood thereof.
That in a certain work by Nicholas Wiseman, who is
a high ecclesiastical authority in the Romish Church, on
the principle doctrines and practices of the said Romish
Church, under the head of " Lecture 1.," introduction,
page 16, the following passage occurs:—" The Catholic
Church is thus as a city to which avenues lead from
every side, towards which men may travel from any
quarter by the most diversified roads, by the thorny and
rugged way of strict investigation, by the more flowery
path of sentiment and feeling, but arrived at its pre-
cincts, all find that there is but one door to the sheep-
fold—narrow and low perhaps, and causing flesh and
blood to stoop as it passes in. They may wander about
its outskirts, they may admire the goodliness of its edi-
fices and its bulwarks, but they cannot be its denizens
and children if they enter not by that one gate of abso-
lute unconditional submission to the teaching of the
Church."

That in the said work, under the head of Lecture 111.,
page 76, the following passage occurs:—" For the
moment any Catholic doubts, not alone the principle of
his faith, but any of those doctrines which are thereon
based, the moment he allows himself to call in question
any of the dogmas which the Catholic Church teaches as
having been handed down with her, that moment the
Church conceives him to have virtually abandoned all
connexion with her, for she exacts such implicit obedi-
ence that if any member, however valuable, however he
may have devoted his early talents to the illustration of
her doctrines, fall away from his belief in any ono point,
he is cut off without reserve, and we have in our own
times seen striking and awful instances of this fact."
That the above opinions and declarations of the said
Nicholas Wiseman are the true doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church, and that the said infant, Augusta
Talbot, has had them instilled into her mind to the ex-
clusion of all other principles; and that the said infant,
Augusta Talbot, is bound to submit to the will and dic-
tation of the superior of the said convent, and to the
priesthood of the Church of Rome.
That your petitioner is deprived of all communica-
tion and connexion with his stepdaughter, the said in-
fant, Augusta Talbot ; and your petitioner's daughter,
the half-sister and only near female relative of the said
infant, August Talbot, is also prevented from cultivat-
ing those natural feelings of affection which but for the
reasons aforesaid would exist, and grow up between
them, to their mutual comfort and support.
Your petitioner therefore humbly prays that the
Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland will be pleased to take peti-
tion into their serious consideration, and that they will
be pleased to engraft a clause in the Bill entitled the
"Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill," now before
their Honourable House, which will prevent such
practices as are detailed in the said petition from
taking place; and that they will introduce a clause en-
acting that no infant, whether a ward in Chancery or
not, shall be permitted to be placed by her parents
or guardian, or any other person whomsoever, in any
convent or seminary, or place of education, or
other institution attached to the Church of Rome,
as a postulant during the minority, of such infant, for
the purpose of enabling or compelling any such infant
to become a nun; and that in the event of any infant or
infants being now or hereafter placed within the walls of
any convent, seminary, place of education, or other in-
stitution attached to the said Church of Rome, as a
postulant, for the purpose of becoming a nun, that the
property, whether absolute or contingent, of any such
infant or infants shall vest in and enure to the use of
her Majesty, and shall and may be disposed of as her
Majesty shall be pleased by warrant, under her sign-
manual, to direct or appoi▪
nt; or that a clause may be
introduced into the said Bill for throwing protection
round young persons who now aro or may be hereafter
placed in convents with a view of taking the veil therein,
and appropriating their property thereto, either by
placing such establishments under the supervision of in-
spectors, appointed by Government, or by such other
means as to the Hon. House may seem best calculated to
put a stop to the aforesaid practices.
And your Peti▪
tioner will over pray.
CRAVEN FITZHARDINGE BERKELEY.
'-house, Spring-gardens.

Berkele:

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE BRADFORD
REFORM ASSOCIATION.
Sir,—On Wednesday the 12th, the County Rates and
Expenditure Bill was read a Second Time and commit-
ted to a Select Committee; the Magisterial intere>t
(if that is the proper term) being with great difficulty
prevailed on to allow it to be read without a division.
The object of the Bill is manifestly to take down that
interest quietly; and the allowing the Bill to be read
without a division, is evidence that a consciousness of
weakness has penetrated to the proper quarters.
On Thursday there were no more than thir►ty-six
Members present at four o'clock, and consequently there
was no House, Various causes havo been assigned for
this; and among others, a desire on the part of the Go-
vernment to see certain questions got out of the way,
before they encounter certain others. Which, unless a
Government is bound to be inconsequential because its
assailants are, is nothing but what might reasonably
suggest itself to anybody else under the circumstances.
On Friday the debate was resumed on the Ecclesias-
tical Titles Assumption Bill. It is a poor thing at best,
and every successive alteration makes it poorer. It would
have been difficult to devise anything more unfortunate
than the clause last proposed to be added ;—that
" This Act shall not extend or apply to the assumption
or use by any bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in Scotland exercising episcopal functions within
some district or place in Scotland of any name, style, or
title in respect of such district or place, but nothing
herein contained shall be taken to give any right to any
such bishop to assume or use any name, style, or title
whioh he is not now by law entitled to assume or use."
What is this but to propose to sooth the excited Ca-
tholics with an enactment, saying that Peter shall be
punished if he is a naughty boy, but Martin and Jack
shall not be punished for doing the selfsame thing, only
this assurance shall not give any right to Martin and
Jack to do the thing for which they are not to be pu-
nished ? Compare the effect of these.puerilities, with
that of a short Act reviving the law as it was two years
ago, with practicable penalties.
The interesting point in the night's debate, was the
speech of Sir Robert Peel. lie is an unpractised speaker,
and consequently in attempting to speak a volume, he
could not remember the order of his chapters. But
this is what mends with use, and with a more
limited direction of the mind to particular objects. What
makes his speech the more remarkable, is that (if there
be no mistake in identity) his addressei to the electors
of Tamworth, though praised by his hereditary friends,
were meagre. The difference clearly lay, in the differ-
ence of audiences. If the Government are wise, they
will take him on their staff, if it were only to satisfy
the public longing that they would take somebody. On
the present question, ho is the only man who has shown
anything like being equal to the subject.
It was in the latter part of his speech, that he came
out; and it showed in him the germ of the man; who, first
or last, must direct the foreign policy of England. Men
may bury their faces in their ledgers, as the ostrich is '
said to hide its head in a bush; but the truth is every-
day pressing itself on men with their eyes about them,
that unless England assumes something resembling her
attitude after the Revolution of 1688, the days of her ex-
istence as a respectable independent power are num-
bered. I may be jeered on the strength of word-splitting,
as was done a night or two before my last; but the
very thing I then said on the subject of the American
President's statement of two million tons of shipping
applicable to warlike purposes, I see in the published
letter of the first admiral of England, wbo was sitting
in the back benches, and am content. What does it
signify whether the President called it "commercial"
or anything else, so long as it was "applicable to war-
like purposes;" any more than whether it was painted
blue or yellow? The fact stands out, that America,
whose popular literature promises within the life of man
to change the flag at Windsor Castle, has a steam power
afloat, a mere fraction of which, every one towing a sail-
ing vessel of equal tonnage, might if America should
press a quarrel in conjunction with the despotic powets
of Europe, in three weeks bridge over the Channel and
Baltic for all the hordes that could be collected from
Naples to Petersburgh, with all the railways on the
continent aiding them to move. And this with a strong
party in England, who would seek political power by
assisting there as they assist the Pope, and would readily
adhere to a proposal to admit England into the
Union, on condition of the abolition of all tarifs iu Ame-
rica. There is no use in giggling; fools giggle, and
then " Who would have thought it?"
On another point, I would not have you believe there
was anything brought against me but word-splitting. A
Member declared he did not say " income-tax." He
only said " budget," and had a notice on the Votes
demonstrating the income-tax to be what he objected to
in the budget.
But to return, I will again urge upon you, what:l
endeavoured to express on a late opportunity, though as
neither relating to breeches pockets nor to railways it
is not to be supposed anybody heeded it, that the de-
fence of the country lies more with the Minister for
Foreign Affairs than with either the First Lord of the
Admiralty or the Commander-in-Chief; and that unless
a return is made to the policy of our ancestors, beginning
with Cromwell and continued under William, of alwayS
having somebody on the continent interested in keeping
the despotic powers in check, you will as certainly have
to stoop to Absolutist law, as over your forefathers
would have bowed to Louis XIV if they had had the folly
to sit with their mouths open and see what chance would
send them.

I am, Sir, yours very sincerely,
AN OLD REFORMER.

London, 17th March, 1831.

LAW OF SETTLEMENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
the debate upon agricultural distress, Mr.
Disraeli and Sir James Graham each made reference to
the necessity of change in the law of parish settlement.
The President of the Poor-law Board has also expressed
his intention of submitting to the consideration of Par-
liament, in the course of the present session, a measure
for an alteration of the law relating to this matter.
It is, therefore, desirable, that all parties should dis-
cuss this intricate question, so that when brought before
the Legislature a perfect measure may result; this is
the more desirable, for it is impossible to describe the
injuries inflicted upon the agricultural and other labour-
ing classes under the present law of settlement.
The scenes of contention and confusion continually
arising in the counties which have been visited are pain-
ful beyond contemplation; the most undignified contests
ensue between the representatives of the authorities
and the receivers of relief, as to the parish to which they
belong, and the needy from their wretched sick beds or
heaps of straw utter horrid curses upon the law; the
distressed have to contend against the manoeuvres of in-
terested parties, who strain every effort, and resort to
every expedient to send them any where and every
where in quest of a home or settlement ; thus every pa-
rish becomes the labourers' enemy, by means of this
aw, having an interest in driving or otherwise placing
difficulties in the way.
Sir James Graham, in his speech, states that there
now exists through the law of settlement 1,500 circles
for the purpose of pauper removals, and that union
settlements would reduce the circles to 600; this, it is
obvious, will not abolish compulsory removals, and for
the continuance of this oppression the ratepayers w ill
still have to pay. Now, if Sir James's argument is good
for 600 circles, why not a less number; or why not sim-
plified to a single circle? This it can be, and that
equitably, too, shown by a petition* presented to Par-
liament last session, signed by 65 guardians, which em-
bodies a plan for the total abolition of the law of parish
settlement, without interfering with local management,
and rendering relief to the necessitous whenever and
wherever it may be required, and without change in
the present executive department of the law.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
W. B. WEST.

6, Hollywood-place, Fulham-road,
March 15, 1851.
See Public Petitions, Twenty-first Report, March,
850, Appendix 445, No. 6,116.

EAST ANGLIAN RAILWAY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE S
SIR,—You have always evinced a consideration for
shareholders, many of whom, like myself, have struggled
on to pay the calls in this line.
Our prospects have improved, a powerful company
(whose line will be one of the best paying in the king-
dom) is buying up our shares.
An enormous amount of cattle, which has hitherto
been driven from 20 to 30 miles from the Algerkirk
station of the Great Northern to the pastures in Nor-
folk, will pass on our line; the coal traffic also will
be large.
I would earnestly advise my brother shareholders not
to part with their stock at the present great discount.
I hope to see our shares at par at no very distant day.
I have the honour to remain, Sir, &c.,
LYNN and NORFOLK.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Stn,—A statement appearing in your paper of Mon-
day void of truth, has caused me to write to you on the
subject, and in justice to the hundreds of parties who are
at the present moment preparing for visiting London on
the occasion of the national fair, which will must cer-
tainly take place at the opening of the Exhibition. Iu
reference to Mr. Batty's application, he made no offer,
neither did he apply for a fair, the nature of his applica-
tion being for a Hippodrome for himself, which he has
arranged for. As to other applications, no refusal has
been given, and a great fete is in active preparation. I
think, in justice to your numerous readers, you should
contradict your announcement of Monday last.
Your obedient servant,
J. 11. SRILLIBEER.
March 15, 1851.

ucklersbur;

THE GREAT EXHIBITION...--INTERIOR VIEW OF
TILE NAVE.—On the sth December last, Mr. Owen Jones
had the honour of submitting to her Majesty an admirable
water,.srt l colouri, drawing of the interior of the nave of the
PI a glace, as it will appear when opened for the admix •
usio3n-of visitors; this has since been drawn on stone in three
tints, by Edmund Walker, from which impressions have
been struck, and were recently published by Messrs.
Ackermann. The size of the engraving is 39 L.:, by 28
inches, and in which the prospective is admirably deli-
neated, displaying the three fountains down the centre, with
several groups of visitors, while on either side may be
ob-
served the statues, models, and other works of art, andii
the galleries, in tastefully flowing order, are tapestries, car-
pats, and other similar works. The whole print possesses
most interesting features, and is highly creditable both to the
artist and publisher.

DRAFTS FOR THE CAPE.—The following detach-
ments will arrive at Southampton this day (Saturday), for
embarkation on Monday next on board the Peninsular and
Oriental Company's ship Singapore, to join the head- ct,uar7
ters of their regiments now stationed at the Cape of tioo.d.
Hope :-6th Regiment, 2 officers and 50 men ; 45th Regii
ment, 1 officer and 80 men ; 73d Regiment, 3 officers and 61
men ; 91st Regiment, 2 officers and 100 men; total, 8 officers
and 291 meti,.. United Service Gazette.