The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-20 00:00:00

in resisting his bill, and the bills which
they themselves introduced ; for, while they con-
tended against him that Church-rates were a sacred
inheritance of the Church, they themselves brought
in bills to exempt Dissenters from paying them.
Besides the head of their Government had himself
abolished the cess or rate in Ireland, hitd confiscated
the revenues of the bishoprics and given up to the
Irish landlords one-fourth of the:tithes ! He justly
stigmatised the absurdity of pronouncing that an
inheritance at all, which the Lords themselves had
decided, as a court of law, to be contingent on the

Chancellor has declared in its regard—certainly
somewhat extravagantly—that it is worth all
the measures of Law Reform passed during the
sixty years of the reign of her MAJESTY'S Royal
Grandfather! Lord BROUGHAM indeed, has said
somewhat sternly, in reference to this hyperboli-
cal praise of the Common Law Procedure Act by
his learned successor now upon the woolsack, that
—remembering only Fox's Libel Bill, the Nulluin
Tenzpus Act, and his (Lord BROUGHAM'S) own act,
making the Slave Trade Piracy—this eulogium, to
say the least of it, was one of the grossest exagge-
rations he had ever heard of ! Granted that the
encomium as uttered by Lord CAMPBELL upon the
Common Law Procedure Act probably as
Lord BROUGHAM hints in reference simply
and solely to the mere mode of procedure—

-vote of the majority.
Sir JOHN TRELAWNY was quite right in de-
fending Dr. FOSTER and the Liberation Society for
their candour and outspokenness. It had been
alleged that this was the cause of his not gotting
so large a majority. The truth is, that the Pro-
rate party made use of the ultimate views of the
Voluntaries to rouse, if possible, the sleepy on their
own side, and in this they were partially success-
ful. But it was little better than a hoax to parade
the views of anti-State Churchmen as a reason for
retaining Church-rates. They take up the rates as
a subject falling in their way, and pressed on
them by their supporters ; but in every way for
th.''e 20 years they have been openly teaching their
anti_Otate Church doctrines ; there has been no
conceal.:nent -whatever ; indeed, they are the last
kind of ',Nil to be guilty of hiding their light
under a bushel- In fact, in regard to those ulte-
rior measures, DI which they so openly aim, they
themselves acknowledge that the longer the sup-
porters of •the ChOrch maintain Church-rates the
better for them. They are in the position of being
obliged to do battle, in which defeat contributes more
to their grand object than victory could do. The
truth is, the Legislature has nothing to do with the
motives which actuate the different advocates of
Church-rate abolition ; they' may be and are very
various; the pubiie policy of the measure is all
that a Government and a Legislature have to do
With.
Sir JOHN TRELAWNY had his theory for the
failure of the Reform Bill, and in•vmeral terms it
was the same as our own. Why did it fajl? he asks:
" I believe for this reason, because it did not ,ceem to
offer anything which would go to the hearts of the
people." It embodied no great principle whic;l/4
could rouse public enthusiasm. He thinks House-
hold Suffrage, which is his favourite suffrage, would
have done so. It might then have been urged that
practically Taxation and Representation were co-
extensive. It would have been no paltry distinc-
tion of a pound more or less in the rent of a
dwelling, but a ground of voting whieh any man
might equally hope to occupy. We should have
added another point in which we shall cer-
tainly have Sir JOHN'S concurrence ; we
cannot but think, that if the measure 11
had included the Ballot, this would have "come
home to the heart of the people"—both of the pre-
sent electors and of those proposed to be enfran- ,
chised—as nothing else would have done. The
shout for electoral liberty would have run through
the land, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL would have
been the GARIBALDI of electoral emancipation
in England. The allusion is correct in more points
than one, for the proposal of the Ballot looks as
small and hopeless before the Whig and Tory anti-
Reform forces as ever GARIBALDI'S two thousand
volunteers could appear in comparison with the
hundred thousand regulars of the King of NAPLES
—but, like the former, aided by the upbounding of
innumerable oppressed hearts, it would have driven
all the old stately combatants before it, and car-
ried a Reform Bill with it to that political Gaeta,
the House of Lords.
Sir JOHN noticed almost every point of public
interst, and we need not say was radically ortho-
dox on all. He intends to have another trial
next session at the county rate business ; and
this time he hopes to carry his bill. It is cer-
tainly a most anomalous state of things that the
rate ',should be voted, not by the ratepayers, but
by the county magistrates, many of them men,
new and young clergymen for instance, who Lave
but the slightest possible acquaintance with
what they decide about. Our enormous
war expenditure, of course, came in for
his censure, but even he acknowledged that our
foreign policy merited commendation ; it was not,
however, to Lords PALMERSTON and RUSSELL or
Count CA YOUR alone that the merit of it was due,
but to the British people. And what, we may ask,
enabled the British people to speak so effectually,
and to make their voice respected as well as heard ?
We reply, a Navy which could not be trifled with,
and 150,000 Volunteers. The cost has been heavy,
indeed, to us, but we fully believe that but for these
we should have had the insatiable Frenchman
intervening afresh in Italy.

granted that the encomium thus uttered was in
itself glaringly and monstrously extravagant, as an
" amendment in the mode of procedure," the import-
ance and value of the Act could really in no way
hardly be exaggerated. That, recollect, was one of
the law reforms of last session actually accomplished.
The rest we have, before now in these columns, for
the most part enumerated. As to the omissions of
1860 in regard to Legal Reform, those are less
noticeable numerically than for their individual
importance. Conspicuous among the " few " great
legal improvements thus unceremoniously given
the go-by in 1860hy an overburthened Administra-
tion and an exhausted House of Commons, being,
of course—(there are surely not many, but will an-
ticipate the close of the sentence)—those giving pro-
mise a year ago of the speedy revision and reorga-
nisation of the laws relating to Bankruptcy.
Recollecting how Sir RicuAnD BETHELL'S great
measure to this end was summarily pitchforked out
of the House of Commons towards the close
of the last session of the Legislature, it is consolatory
at any rate to know (as nearly as we can know
anything of the kind) for certain, that that admir-
able Bankruptcy Bill, proposed by that almost
unrivalled lawyer, will be introduced to be passed,
and not merely to lie talked about,in the next session,
and that it will be introduced, too, after having
been enhanced in value by several most judicious
amendments. There is every probability, moreover,
that—we doubt not, with the generous co-operation
of Sir HUGH CAIRNS, its originator—the long
i ,13oked-for bill upon the subject of the transfer of
'at a will be now in a very few months brought
before Parliament ! And, together -with this,
a bill fo: the consolidation of the Joint-stock
Companies' 1Z cts—a reform, this last, in every
way so desiraNef and in
.effect by many
so eagerly and anxiOusly desiderated. The Law
Amendment Society's report in council further
gives us apparently good reason to hope that the
next session may result, among other great legal
reforms, in an expurgated edition of the statutes—
preliminary, of course, to their final consolidation.
Already we ourselves have directed public atten-
tion to the augury given the other night, through
the columns of the London Gazette, the happy, and
we will trust in no respect illusory, augury of
the concentration, now before much longer, of all
our hitherto scattered law courts under the roof-
beams of a Palace of Justice worthy of
London, worthy of being the grand central
arena, for the administration of the
laws of England. Other improvements of
a more or less important character are urged
anticipatively upon the attention of the Legislature
by the comprehensive report of the council of the
Law Amendment Association. Noticeable among
these comparative subordinate suggestions being
the hinted advisability of the amendment of the
' private bill legislation ; the extension and more
accurate definition of the jurisdiction of the Divorce
Court, particularly in reference to domicile; toge-
ther with the reconsideration of the question as to
the admissability of the evidence of the parties in
cases under trial, the evidence of the parties them-
selves—with a view to the extension of that—
privilege shall we call it ? or peril ?—so as to apply
it not only to civil but criminal cases also ! It is
worthy of note that the Law Amendment Society
forgets not, as usual, to refer towards the close of
its report yet once more, to what it truly calls
" one of the most desirable and important altera-
tions that could be made," namely, of course, the
1 establishment of a Department of Justice ! Even
within the brief interval which has elapsed since
the last session of the society closed, what fright-
fully impressive additional evidence has there not
been demonstrative, more strongly than ever, of the
urgent necessity there is in England for a new ad-
ministrator of justice, under the name, style, and
title of the Public Prosecutor !

TILE THEATRES.

HER MAJESTY'S.

The last scene of the Stepney Tragedy was
enacted yesterday outside the grimly walls of
Newgate. The hoary murderer of old Mrs.
EMsLEY, that heartless ruffian JAMES MULLINS,
who designed to be the assassin of poor EMM,
striving by all sorts of clumsy devices to fix upon
that innocent man the guilt of the very crime he
himself (MuniNs) had committed, with a view to
the handling of the bloodmoney offered for the
discovery of the actual perpetrator of the
sanguinary deed he had done—this dreadful
criminal, at once Murderer, Perjurer, False Wit-
ness, and as we cannot but deem him also deliberate
Liar to the Almighty upon the very threshold
of the grave, yesterday morning died the death of a
dog by the hands of the hangman in expiation of
his almost unparalleled atrocities. The statement
written by this wretched creature upon the case,
and deliberately signed by him before the morning
of his execution, is a document in every way as pain-
ful to read as any we can at this moment, from all
the abundant records of crime, recall to recollection.
It is particularly observable in regard to this docu•
ment that it deliberately conveys, in one sentence,
a formal, though manifestly wholly unintentional,
acknowledgement, on the part of the writer,
of his own guilt as the murderer—of his guilt
of that crime of which throughout that very do-
cument he is solemnly protesting his innocence
before GOD ! Scoring out some other words with
his blundering pen, MULLINS has there written in
place of the words thus obliterated—"l beliereEmms
to be innocent of the murder of Mrs. Emsley !" In
the presence of that admission—what becomes of
the whole "plant" by means of which MuLLINs
strove to swear away the life of the very man
whom he now Thus solemnly avers that he believes
to be innocent ? The parcel with its contents, the
very tape-string tying it up, the threads or strands
of that tape-string, the lens—above all, the
cheque !—each of these things separately, all of them
collectively, now that MULLINS confesses at least,
"I believe EMMs to beinnocent of the murder of Mrs.
EMSLEY," all now manifestly and by necessity fix
the guilt upon MULLINS himself as the murderer !
The cheque, observe, tha wretched man never once
accounted for, never once attempted to account
for ! He never alludes to it once, directly or indi-
rectly, throughout the whole of this statement.
The tracing of that cheque to his possession was,
as the learned judge who tried the case insisted in
his masterly snmming up, the one damning fact in
the evidence pointing to MULLINS as the murderer.
With a lie upon his lips, made in this incidental
examination of EMM, the unhappy felon has died
, by the just mandate of the law upon the scaffold.

The Law Amendment Society has again begun
in earnest its useful and laborious exertions, under 1
the presidency or chairmanship of the greatest law
reformer :of his age, the venerable ex-Chancellor
Lord BROUGHAM. The first general meeting for the
session of 1860-1861, the eighteenth session of the
association, took place last evening, at the society's
rooms (No. 3), in Waterloo-place. It was strictly a
preliminary meeting, at which the annual report or
address of the council was read by the secretary,
and, after a few passing objections, which were,
however, in no single instance insisted upon as in
any way insuperable, adopted without amendment.
The council's report, while regretting the dis-
appointment of the hopes of the Society in many
particulars last session, augured well for the pros-
pect of law reforms opening before us in the ensu-
ing session of Parliament. It may be remembered
by some of those more deeply interested in this
most important branch of legislation, that very
recently one of our learned Recorders—it was the
learned Recorder of Hull, who though (detri-
mentally for himself, no doubt, in a strictly pro-
fessional point of view) one of the most popular
of our living novelists is also at the same time, it
should be remembered, one of the most able among
our living juriseonsults—epitomised in a few lumi-
nous sentences the principal law reforms for which,
in spite of all its indubitable shortcomings, the last
session of the Imperial Legislature was really re-
markable. Massed together thus, by Mr. WARREN,
in his last singularly judicious charge, the law re-
forms of 1860 made no such sorry appearance after
all. Nevertheless, while acknowledging this, while
allowing that, comparatively speaking, " much had
been done," it was impossible to regard that retro-
spect, even through the coleur de rose medium of
Mr. WARREN'S charge, as altogether satisfactory.
• It
was impossible even while reading that charge,
even while glancing duwn that by no means insig-
nificant catalogue of legal improvements, not to see
at once that " much (yet) remained todo ;" that our
hopes had been in numerous, and some of them
very important directions, grievously disappointed ;
that the chariot wheels of the Law were still deep
in the ruts, requiring many a herculean effort
before they could glide smoothly upon level
ground. It is true that among the law reforms of
last session there was one of such indisputable
value and efficiency, and one at the same time of
•such unusual magnitude in the scope:of its bene-
ficent operation, the reform embodied in the
Common Law Procedure Act that the Lord High

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 20, 1860.

And now that he has passed from the scene—now = [ E
that the reward of £5OO is about to be distri-
buted among those who took a prominent part in
bringing that great criminal to justice—we would
earnestly suggest in that sacred name of Justice—
in the name of that justice which was so heinously
outraged by the atrocities of this double-dyed mur-
derer, we would earnestly suggest in the name of
justice that the largest portion of those £5OO
should be given to—as it belongs of right to EMM.
Extm, the innocent man, who, although perfectly
innocent, stood at one time, in this matter of the
murder of Mrs. EMSLEY, in such deadly peril !
EMM having actually earned the chief part of those
£5OO by the simple fact of his evidence being the
most important evidence of all, bringing MIILLINg'
summarily to his conviction on the 26th October,
and to his execution on the 19th of November.

here also.

r

Ler dignitaries.

" Martha" was performed here last evening for the first
time this season before a crowded audience, and with very
great success.
The principal characters were supported by Madlle.
Titiens, Madame Lemaire, Signor Vialetti, Signor Mer-
curiali, Signor Castelli, and Signor Giuglini. All these
performers were uncommonly careful and zealous, and
rarely, if ever, distinguished themselves more honourably.
Madlle. Titiens was in the fullest possession of her magni-
ficent voice, and obviously in the happiest possible vein
throughout the opera.
Signor Giuglini, by his impassioned acting, and exqui-
sitely beautiful singing as Sir Lionel, showed that he has
entirely recovered from the severe indisposition which re-
cently deprived the musical public of his invaluable ser-
vices.
The mist en scene of the opera deserves high praise ; and
unqualified eulogy is due to Signor Arditi, one of our very
best conductors.

E

:(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)
ROME, Nov. 17.
The number of Bourbon troops who entered the
Papal States was only 16,000.
A convention has been signed, according to which
the troops will be sent back to their own country.

TURIN, Nov. 19.

The public funds are firm, although a rise in the
discount is apprehended in Paris, and probably

BELGRADE, Nov. 19.

The Berat of investiture has been read in
presence of the Pasha, the foreign Consuls, and

Prince Michael replied that he should reign
according to the double tradition of his dynasty—
viz., fidelity to the Suzerain Power, but the jealous
maintenance intact of the rights of the Servian
people.

MARSEILLES, Nov. 19.

The Vectim, with the above mails, put into
Toulon at four p.m., owing to very bad weather.
The mails are sent forward to this place in charge
of the purser, and will leave for London at ten this
evening.