The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURINALS.

" THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE BIR-
MINGIIAM RlOTS.—Since we last wrote, Birming-
ham has been for three days under the alternate
rule of mob law and military law. Two whole
streets have been sacked, a Ranan Catholic '
chapel has been attacked and seriously damaged ;
it was rumoured en Thursday night that an assault
was contemplated on the Catholic cathedral ; the
Mayor has bad a stone thrown at his head, the
Riot Act has been read in three different places, a
policeman lies dangerously wounded in the hospital,
above a hundred persons have been arrested, and
mce isax
enct
nhe
:eel
" the greatest excitement and fear prevail" through-
out the the town. And what, our readers may ask,
meaning of all this ? Are the Birmingham
rpceearortplailiaenmlsyeonetx:eptionally riotous, or are they com-
iadnvignegiaoaoßlkleetfdhofarotmrtishanagiirtmeaatoidsotynmsawankhgjeounginiaets
ofw a Reformya tghirtagitators
tußootyirlhsl
vio-
lence during
was there thtialet
Nhaoathinnagmoof
fotrheitkairnedv.olußtiironmairnyghvr_
last centu
had a
RaecfohrmurnahgiatantdioiL onfglmB3o2h, ainndthite
cannot excuse the conductc ofe
ry pulled down Dr. Priestley's Unitarian
chapel. In the present
legal, responsibilitirhoof
cause
thhoew
people,ever, thoughw o
mustwe
saytorhbaths aotectuherrmedordaol,esif
not
entirely agree with the
ham of thaat notorious is.
sbeenlocnegmtoßtirhmemin.g
oruionuiosnag,,en:voilflitahme
simply the pre-
t( London Protestant Electoral
" wall all the
tsoomhies
timeo
Murphy—an illiterate Irishman
account
w knockedhose
voouotaotifohni mi
t, 'h' accordingaa
been
fo;
past to roam about the country as a hired lecturer,
for the purpose of insulting in the grossest and
most indecent manner the religion of about a third
of her Majesty's subjects. In one respect certainly
all the Popery, if we may at all credit his own de-
scription of Popery, has not been knocked out of
him ; for if ever there was a person on whom a
double portion of the spirit of persecution rested,
that person is Mr. Murphy, who exhibits
his championship of " freedom of speech andfreedom of conscience" by the fierce pro-
mulgation of sentiments whose only practical:
corollary would be the execution or the murder of
every Papist. On Sunday last, in the course of his
" passionate pilgrimage," Mr. Murphy came to .lir--
mingham to deliver a five weeks' course of lectures
on the Errors of Romanism. He could hardly have.
chosen a town in England where such an experi-
ment as his would be more both of an impertinence
and a blunder. There is at Birmingham a consi-
derable Roman Catholic population, living on ex-
cellent terms with the rest of the inhabitants ; it is
also, as our readers may be aware, the residence of
Dr. Newman, and of a Roman Catholic bishop.
The Town Hall is frequently used for Catholic
meetings and bazaars, and the local charities are
freely supported by Catholics and Protestants in
common, and by collections made in their re-
spective churches. It was only the other day.
that Dr. Manning, not unfairly, quoted Bir-
mingham in illustration of the " silver age of
controversy," when all bitterness of feeling between
rival sectaries should be laid aside. Such is the
place selected for his five weeks' course of anti-
Popery declamation by the hired agent of a prose-
lytizing society, himself a renegade from the religion
he conies to denounce, who signalised himself the
other day by the publication of a pamphlet so
filthily obscene that it was ordered to be seized and
destroyed by the magistrates of Wolverhampton,
and who opens his Protestant propaganda by the
conciliatory announcement that " every Popish
priest is,a murderer, a cannibal, a liar, and a pick-