The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-05 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1869.

The summary course pursued by the Government
in regard to the Mayor of Cork, will, among all ex-
cept Fenians, yield universal satisfaction. The
majesty of the law never required to be more
promptly or more signally vindicated. And the
announcement made, therefore, last evening, by the
right hon. gentleman the Attorney-General for Ire-
land, cannot but be welc)med with the utmost satis-
faction throughout all parts of the United Kingdom.
Remembering that, as the responsible law officers of
the Crown took occasion to remind the House of
Commons yesterday, a functionary in the position of
the Mayor of Cork can, in that capacity, according
to the Charter of that ancient city, sit with
her MAJESTY'S Judges of Assize as a Com-
missioner of Oyer and Terminer, it becomes
imperatively necessary that the present occupant
of the post should, without a moment's loss of time,
be removed from his office, after the utterance of the
disgraceful and disloyal words used by him very re-
cently upon a public occasion when he was presiding
as chairman over a banquet of sympathy given to a
couple of released Fenian Prisoners, named WARREN
and COSTELLOE. Sitting as the Mayor of Cork does,
ex officio as a Justice of the Peace, neither the Exe-
cutive Government nor the local administration and
the vice-regal powers appertaining to the Lord-Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, possess the capacity to remove him
from the office of Mayor, or of Justice of the Peace,
or from any office of magistracy whatever. To deal
with the delinquent official, summarily, to deprive
bim of his authority as Chief Magistrate of the City
of Cork, to deny him altogether from thfs time forth
the capability of ever again receiving any trust what-
ever of the kind from the hands of his Irish fellow-
countrymen—it requires the supreme power of the
Imperial Parliament. That authority of the Legisla-
ture, it is gratifying to know, is at once to be invoked.
The incendiary language of the Mayor of Cork is
to be silenced and punished. He himself is to be
degraded and dismissed. Ilis—outrageous inti-
mation of his confidence in Mr. GLADSTONE
and Mr. BRIGHT simply enhances his guilt as an
outrager of public decorum—that intimation
having been made, only too manifestly, with a
Clew to ward off from himself, if possible, the
penalty—he must evidently have felt that be had in-
curred by words expressive, if they had any meaning
at all, of admiration far assassins and of encourage-
ment to atsassinatiou. Men in the position of the
First Lord of the Treasury and of the Pre.ident of
the Board of Trade, men more particularly of the
personal character and historical antecedents of
Mr. BRIGHT and Mr. GLADSTONE, arc happily
enough, however, not so very readily com-
promised. The expression of confidence in their
regard, to which the Mayor of Cork was announced
to have given utterance, was consequently regarded,

THE SUN, LON

as we have already observed, as an enhancement rather
than in any way as a mitigation of the guilt already
imputed to him. The result is, as we now see, that
those last disgraceful utterances of the Mayor of
Cork, have not saved him from the punishment to
which his previous speeches had renden d. him
liable. The extraordinary and exceptional course
pursued in his regard by her MAJESTY'S
Government, will have, we feel certain, a most bene-
ficial effect in suppressing these lawless and insurrec-
tionary movements latterly " frighting the isle from
its propriety" on the other side of St. George's Chan-
nel. The conduct of the Executive in thus dealing
with the more flagrant disturbers of the public
peace in Ireland, cannot by possibility, under
existing circumstances, run the smallest hazard
of being in any respect whatever miscon-
strued. For, never, certainly, have there been inducted
into offica as the responsible Government of the
Crown any Ministers mare generously disposed
i❑ their policy towards the vaat majority of the
population of the sister island. Upon the compre-
hensive character of that policy, and upon the task
of its being carried into effect practically and ener-
getically, they have staked their existence, they have
pledged their reputation, they have devoted all their
energies since the first moment of their for-
mation into a Ministry. It is all the more
imperative upon them, as we cannot but think, how-
ever, for that very reason, that they, as the respon-
sible Ministers of tha Crown, should act, precisely as
they are now acting, in their conduct towards a reck-
less and foul-mouthed sympathis:x with assassins and
insurgents like the Mayor of Cork, now happily,
within a very brief interval, to be Mayor of Cork no
longer.

THE Bishop of ST. DAVID'S is a very able man,
but he bungled most strangely in his speech on
Monday night. To point out how very little there
is that needs the supervision of a bishop,
to shew how very well dioceses can get on with
physically incapable heads, is scarcely the way
to impress Parliament or the nation with
the importance of the episcopal office. It
is useless for Church newspapers to denounce as
ribald those who ask whether bishops after the type
described by Dr. THIRLWALL are really worth £5,000
a year. It is the bishops themselves who force the
asking of this question. To give them their due, the
Church papers have themselves fairly acknowledged
and lamented the present state of the Episcopate, and
especially the attitude assumed by the bishops
whenever anything is urged as to the increase of
their number and the greater efficiency of their
order. It is painful to say so; but after reading the
recent debates on the subject, we are compelled to
draw the conclusion that some, at least, of the
bishops are so determined to maintain their tem-
poral position that they will even depreciate their
office in order to meet the objection that, if they are
incapable of discharging its duties, they ought
t 3 resign it. Clearly the bishops were appointed,
in the first place, on the supposition that the office
was important, and for that reason they received
most liberal payment. -Now, having secured the
money, they turn round and tell us that it does not
really greatly matter if their duties are performed
by themselves—who, as in the Bishop of WINCHES-
TER'S case, get £10,417 a year for fulfilling
them—or by men who do not even belong
to the episcopal order. Once more we
warn the bishops that they are doing more than has
been done by all the efforts of the Liberation Society
to abolish the Episcopate, or at all events that mani-
festation of it called a spiritual peer. If they have
not utterly lost common sense they will support the
bill which has been drafted by Sir JOHN COLERIDGE,
and is to be introduced by the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY, for the retirement of infirm and aged
prelates.

THERE are boroughs and boroughs. There are
boroughs which even millionaires refuse to " touch
with a pair of tongs," and which receive the fit
punishment of their depravity in the shape of dis-
franchisement, as Totnes has done; and there are
boroughs in which electoral purity is rewarded by
the large number of distinguished men who seek for
the honour of membership whenever it becomes vacant.
LiskeArd is in that happy position. It may have the
pick of Mr. GLYN'S list. It may choose any aspirant
it lies from the Reform Club or BROOKES'S. No

need for the little Cornish town to fall back upon
rich nabobs or upon merchants of great wealth and
damaged reputation. Liskeard may, if it will, have
an orator, or an ex-Cabinet Minister, or a rising
politician, or a local magnate. Each and all of these
is ready to come forward ; some of them are some-
thing more than ready. It is only for the electors to
exercise that careful judgment which is necessary in
selecting when there is an embarrassment of riches,
and they may have a candidate after their own
mind.

Mr. HORSMAN seems to be fully alive to the
eligibility of the constituency, and to the keen
competition there is likely to be for the honour of
representing it. Without waiting for " the last sor-
rowful rites " to be performed, he has addressed the
electors. That Mr. HORSMAN is an able speaker
there can be no doubt; in fact, the House of Commons
is, by his rejection at Stroud, deprived of
one of its most incisive orators, who is a
thorough master of the art of invective. Yet it
cannot be denied that Mr. HonsmAx has proved a
political failure. He was placed in a very responsible
office, that of Chief Secretary for Ireland, but so
formed its duties that while Irish members
were loudly. complaining that they could never get
an interview with him, he was complaining that he
d nothing to do. He resigned his post in
disgust, and it cannot be said that anyone
regretted his resignation. Since then he has
been an Independent Liberal, his independence being
shewn for the most part in opposing the measures of
the Liberal party. He attained his greatest promi-
nence nine years ago, when his opposition to Lord
JOIN RT SSELL'S Reform Bill, and his extravagant
Gallo-phobism, made him one of the most con-
spicuous members of the House. In 1865 he was
threatened with opposition by the electors of Stroud,
but, owing to the assistance of the Conservative
party, he was re-elected at the head of the poll. Last
year he could not count upon this assistance, for the
constituency being quadrupled by the Reform Bill,
the working classes were so strong that there was no
chance for an Adullamite, and Mr. HORSMAN did
not even venture to stand, though he had been for
fifteen years connected with the borough. His
attempt upon a Scotch borough met with no success,
and he thus found himself out of Parliament after
having had a seat there for more than thirty years.
Ile is now of the same age as the late member—
rather an advanced period of life to be making new
connections.

Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE, who is an undoubted
favourite with a considerable number of the electors,
has had a political career in some respects greatly
resembling, Mr. HonsmAN's. He too has held office
not altogether satisfactorily ; he too has had his feud
with the Liberal party ; he too is willing to make it
up. In one respect Mr. °sum:NE differs from Mr.
HortsmAN. The latter gentleman has represented
but two constituencies, Cockermouth and Stroud ;
the former was once called by Mr. DISRAELI " the uni-
versal representative," for he has been member for
Wycombe and Middlesex and Dover and Liskeard and
Nottingham. His treatment of the Cornish borough
four years ago scarcely entitles him to expect a
renewal of his relations with it. Learning that he
was to be thrown overboard, he, on the eve of a
general election, resigned his seat, in the hope that
the electors would not be able to find a substitute.
Th's little act of spite failed of its purpose, but was
not the less unworthy and ill-tempered. There is,
however, a graver objection to 31r. OSBORNE.
Liskeard has honourably identified itself with
social legislation, especially with the Permissive