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

SPIRIT CIF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE BIR-
MINGHAM RlOTS.—Since we last wrote, Birming-
ham has been for three clays under the alternate
rule of mob law and military law. Two whole
streets have been sacked, a Roman Catholic
chapel has been attacked and seriously damaged ;
it was rumoured cn Thursday night that an assault
was contemplated on the Catholic cathedral ; the
Mayor has had 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
" the greatest excitement and fear prevail" through-
out the the town. And what, our readers may ask,
is the meaning of all thin? Are the Birmingham
people so exceptionally riotous, or are they com-
mencing a Reform agitation when a Reform Bill
exceeding all that' the most sanguine of agitators
can have looked for is already making its way through
Parliament ? Nothing of the kind. Birmingham
certainly had a bad name for its revolutionary vio-
lence during the Reform agitation of 1832, and it
was there that a Church and King mob in the
last century pulled down Dr. Priestley's Unitarian
chapel. In the present case, however, though we
ecauntinroeltycaxgcuresee
wthiethcothnedumctuyoofrtthheat ptehoep ,
moral,we must
not
legal, responsibility of what has occurred doe if
does not
belong
in o t
Birmingham he . The
of
c at zhcsuat bel
notorious
i i si
agent
mp l the
of pre-
sencethe "
London Protestant Electoral Union," William
Murphy—an illiterate Irishman " with all the
Popery knocked out of him," according to his own
account—whose vocation it has been for some time
fpoarstthteo rpouarmpoasbeouotf thinesuc ol
tulini
gt,r yi
na s
tah
eh i rgerdo s
s lecturer,
s t
and
of mosthe rindecenty, ms asnunh
jeeretths
.e relln igione or
esf
paebeotut
certainlya third
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 and
freedom 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 or his
" passionate pilgrimage," Mr. Murphy came te( Bir-
mingham to deliver a five weeks' course of lectures
on the Errors of Romanism. He could hardly 6ve
chosen a town in England where such an experf-
meat 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 comes 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
da sdt r
wo yheod
obpye
utsh
he
smagistrates t opf r
oNr)Vaogl
av
ne rdhaa
bmyp ttohne,
conciliatory announcement that " every Popish
priest is a murderer, a cannibal, a liar, and a pick-