The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-11 00:00:00

THE noun OF LORDS.

A speaker at one of the recent Conservative
demonstrations spoke of the Lords as the descendants
of the Runnymede Barons who forced John to sign
Magna Charta. The Daily .Yeses has been seeking
for the truth as regards this statement, and it dis-
covers that of the barons who responded to the
writs of of summons issued by Simon de Montfort,
Earl of Leicester, 600 years ago, the descen-
dants of three cnly now sit in the Upper
House. They are Lords Hastings, De Ros, and
Audley, the baronies of the two former dating
from 1264, and that of the latter from 1296.
By the same paper it is stated there are four peerages
of the fourteenth century, seven of the fifteenth,
twelve of the sixteenth, thirty-five of the seven-
teenth, ninety-five of the eighteenth, and 233 of the
nineteenth. Tile new patents issued since Earl
Grey's accession to power in 1830 are 103 in number,
and of these 123 were created by Liberal, and 40 by
Conservative, Governments. Of these 34 were
issued by Earl Grey himself, 39 by Lord Melbourne,
11 by Sir Robert Peel, 24 by Earl Russell, 23 by
Lord Palmerston,_!:- by the Earl of Derby, and four
by Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Gladstone has created three.
Although during the last forty years the Liberals
have created so many more peers tlum the Conser-
vatives, the 'first are a long way from redressing the
balance disturbed by the excessive creations of Mr.
Pitt and Lord Liverpool.

BISHOPS, DEANS, AND CANONS.
The reply of the Archbishop of York to "Ancona
(anagram for a Canon) has elicited a very smart
remndor. Commentine upon • tho MO1)1311068

hreinark as to the " harmlessness " of Violate rooming,
" Ancona" wishes to kniti,v what its object was, and
adds, " A friend of mine who has been a good deal
in the East (Dean Stanley ?) suggests an explana-
tion from a practice which he tells me pre,-ails in the
' Indian bazaars. The stores of the dealers in rice
and vegetables are very apt to be plundered by stray
cattle, which roam through the market and
help themselves in a most lawless manner
whenever anything particularly tempting strikes
their eye. As the animals are sacred to
Brahma, forcible resistance is, of course, as much out
of the question as it would be to a House of Com-
mons elected by household suffrage. It is, however,
as consistent with the principles of tha Hindoo reli-
gion as with the interest of the Hindoo greengrocer
to distract the attention of the sacred bulls from one's
own stall, by skilfully directing it to the booth of a
neighbour, and this ' harmless step' is very generally
resorted to by natives no less in repute for orthodoxy
than for skill in business." Clearly the bishops
with their strong opposition to Lord Lyttelton's pro-
posal for bishops of less than £5,000 a year, and with
their askance looks towards the deaneries, are ex-
citing a good deal of suspicion just now.

" Common Sense" discusses, in the Morning Post,
the proposed cathedral reform. lle believes that
a reform is inevitable; he believes also that to
stop short at the reduction of canons from four to two
will be impossible, and that the same argument
which applies to the abolition of one moiety will
soon to be applied to the abolition of the other.
These sinecures and the deaneries were originally
intended as the rewards of learning, but now there
is nothing to prevent the least learned of the clergy
from being appointed to them by the Prime Minister
of the day in consideration of political support. If
the present system is to be preserved—

"The dean should be the real and constant leader of the
perpetual worship of the cathedral, with a properly paid
precentor to assist him. The canons should all, as a rule,
reside, and join in common devotions. They should never
be appointed except in full chapter. They should have
defined duties, and their past literary, or parochial, or
scholastic, or missionary toils, recorded. The cathedral
should be a school of piety and a library of wisdom,. sur-
rounding itself with the needful institutions of a Christian
diocese. The old canouries should be restored and the
stalls re-endowed. Finally, the bishop should be ordinary
in every cathedral and abbey, and his rightful place
upheld once more, as presiding amidst his chapter as his
council."

If sinecures are to be abolished altogether we shall
deal a fatal blow at the social hold of the Church on
the people ; for none but inferior men will enter a
profession in which all the rewards of skill and
industry are suppressed. If deans are not wanted
let us say so plainly, and convert them into suffragan
bishops. But let us have a real cathedral reform,
not " cutting down " canonries, but converting them
into living realities.

" The noblest intellect of the Church should find its
haven in our cloisters, and the very poorest of the half-
paid parochial clergy would then feel raised by the dignity
of their cathedral ; not with the ignoble feeling of hoping
(as is coarsely said) for ' the prizes of the Church,' but
with the holy esprit de corps which recognises the glory of
the one body throughout all its remotest parts."