The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-21 00:00:00

SADLER' S WELLS.

This theatre was opened for the first time last night after
the recess, with three new pieces—The Temple of Death;
All round my Hat I years a Green Villow ; and Harlequin
and the Witch of Islington—each excellent in its way. Du-
ring the recess the theatre has undergone great alterations,
which possess a merit that alterations cannot always pretend
to be—for they are improvements. We may remark gene-
rally that all the new scenery exhibited last night deservedly
elicited the applause of the audience. The Temple of
Death, entitled in the playbill " A Scandinavian Spectacle,"
is one likely to be attractive to those who wish to be ex-
cited by strange events and startling situations. It is as.
full of horrors as a German romance, and in two or three
of its minor incidents resembles a portion of the romance
of the " Chevaliers du Cygnet' The favourite piece of
the night was the melo-dramatic sketch of " All round my
Hat I years a Green Villow," the hero of which is the iden-
tical Timothy Trueheart (Mr. Vale) whose sorrows hare
been enshrined in a ditty so lamentably pathetic that it
may be rationally calculated that they will form for some
future Percy an invaluable relique" to present to an ad-
miring posterity. Mr. Vale gave with admirable effect the
ballad in which he was encored. The scene of the piece is
not only in London, but every incident in it may be consi-
dered to be performed between Saffron-hill and St. Giles.
Timothy is the hero; the villain is an out and out bad one,
(a King's evidence) the Marplot, a policeman ; and the
heroine Mary Trevors, the woman " vet to stealing never
vas hinclined." It has, too, a truly original character, a no-•
ble-hearted sweep, who quotes Shakspeare ! The piece
ends, as it ought to do, happily—the King's evidence is
transported, and Timothy is united to his Mary, whom it
is admitted never entertained a felonious partiality for the
watch of her mistress. Every scene in this sketch was re-
warded by the applause and heartly laughter of those who
witnessed it. In the afterpiece The Witch of Islington,
which is a comic pantomime, some pretty scenes and amu-
sing tricks were exhibited.

THE DOCKS.—Great progress has been made dur-
ing the winter and spring in the construction of the new docks
at the north end of the town. When finished, they will cer-
tainly make Liverpool one of the first, if not the first, port in
the world for dock accommodation ; and yet so rapidly is the
commerce of the town increasing, that it is still too great for
all the docks united, and will be so when the new ones are
finished. There are at present three large steam boats build-
ing in a single yard, all for the Liverpool trade, and new ships
of all sizes are launched every week. —Liverpcioi Vhrolskie.

•
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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The House of Commons last night adjourned till
the 12th of May. In the House of Lords it is un-
derstood that no public business is to be transacted
until the same day. Thus, then, we have the whole
business of the state obstructed and suspended—and
why ?—For no other assignable reason than that a party
may take vengeance upon the King for abruptly dis-
missing them from offices which the voice of the coun-
try had already declared them incompetent to fill,—
unless, indeed, we may add this other reason,—namely,
that over and above the gratification of not very cre-
ditable resentment, an exasperated faction has thought
it necessary to mark their passion and their power by
thrusting into the Administration of the most important
trusts the most inefficient and incapable of public men.
For a time—it must be very short—puppets may be
pulled to give themselves any, even the most unbecom-
ing airs, with the unanimous applause of those for
whose profit or whose pleasure they live and move and
have their being : but that they can strut even their
brief hour upon the stage with impunity is not within
the bounds of possibility. Punch is made of wood,
and the simplest clown in the crowd will discover the
fact sooner or later. And in the mean time, what is it
supposed that the country will think of such an expe-
riment ? Can any of those who are so fond of talking
about " following up the Reform Act," imagine that
the people did not expect, as the chiefest among the
beneficial results of that measure, their riddance of the
ruinous and disgraceful system of administering the
business of the State for the triumph or the subsidi-

zing of political parties instead of for the welfare of the
community ? They who foster this vain surmise are
egregiously deceiving themselves. The people have
learned at last, that so long as the Government of this
country is made an affair of party or of faction, the
chances are that business will be transacted as expen-
sively as possible, and ill or well as the members of the
predominant section and their dependents may happen
to be skilful or clumsy, experienced or ignorant.
Jockies tell us that " a good horse can never be of a
bad colour;" but on the political turf the maxim is re-
versed. There the colour of the animal is the test of

his excellence. A Whig, though on his last legs,
will be backed by his own party for strength and sta-
mina against the youngest and soundest Tory. Nor
is this surprising when we consider the mode in
which good and evil are judged in this sphere. It
was the founder of the Cynics, we believe, who sug-
gested that " asses should be voted to be horses."
When his proposition was ridiculed, he answered—
" Why, my suggestion is not a jot more absurd than
your practice ; for you every day elect to offices men
who have no other qualification to fill them than your
votes confer." Let our readers look at the names of
some of the existing Ministry, and tell us if modern
practice with reference to advancement in the State has
not surpassed the Cynic's scheme for promotion in the
stable. Now all this would be amusing only, if the
results were not of a character to move to shame rather
than to laughter. It happens unfortunately for the
honour of the nation, and for its interests, that while it
is forbidden alike to the King and to the people to
choose the best public servants from whatever party—
while the choice is restricted to one party, no matter
what their character, or what their capabilities—there
is, in the first place, no security that even efficient,
much less that the most efficient, men will be selected
to fill the most important offices. Secondly, all expe-
rience has demonstrated that the chief object of a mere
party in power is to secure themselves in their posts,
and to provide for their relatives, friends and dependents,
even in the most remote degree. Lucky is that coun-
try which, having paid so dearly for a government,
finds that at last its servants will think of their duty
to the people when their own personal satisfaction and
that of their party leaves them leisure to bestow a
thought upon anything unconnected with aggrandize-
ment or emolument. Again, then, we ask, who is it
that supposes the country cares aught about political

nicknames,—that they desire anything but the ad-
vancement of the common good,—that they will be
contented with the services of any but the best public
men, who are willing to devote their time and talent
to the business of the State ? For our own parts, we
have no hesitation in expressing our conviction, that
but one answer can be given to these questions. We
have no doubt that the public voice will re-echo our de-
claration, that the time is at length arrived when the
fittest men must he selected for office, without reference
to conventional, or party, or factious distinctions. The
country is sick and tired of furnishing the stakes for
which political adventurers play ; and of all substantial
reforms this is perhaps the most desirable reformation,
both for the interests of the nation and the character of
public men.—Times.

It is quite clear that the Whig-Radical Ministry
cannot move a step without the assistance of the Irish
"tail." To it they must hold for support, and should
they halt or flag in their downward path to the politi-
q. Avernus, the tail will lash them on, and the repeal-
agitator will insist upon their uncomplaining submis-
sion, without paying the slightest regard to the Act
for the abolition of slavery. That formidable instru-
ment of discipline and castigation which is held over
the bare shoulders of galley slaves at their daily la-
bour, is not more unsparingly applied to quicken
the flagging movements of the oar, than the " tail"
will be wielded in the vigorous grasp of O'Connell, to
remind the Whig Ministers that he is their task-master,
and that they must row in whatever direction he
pleases, or smart for their disobedience. It is curious
and melancholy to observe that Lord Melbourne
and his colleagues Were, almost to a man, members
of that Cabinet which agreed to denounce O'Connell,
not very long ago, in the speech from the throne—a
most undignified and disgraceful proceeding ; and now,
what a change ! those very Ministers wriggle their
serpentine course beneath the fascination of his
glance, being conscious that the moment they dare to
deviate from the line of policy which he points out,
that moment they draw upon themselves a castigation
such as the monks of the order of Flagellantes never
endured ; and if it does not work their thorough refor-
mation, he cruhes them for ever. It is the sorry boast
of Lord John Russell, to the electors of Devonshire,
that he was placed at the head of the largest and most
powerful Opposition that ever was united against a
Minister of the Crown. But Lord John was only the
nominal leader of that motley band of recreant Whigs,
and fierce Radicals, and Irish Repealers—the real
leader was Mr. O'Connell, who, according to his own
account, came to London before the opening of the
Session, " expressly to organize the Opposition to the
re-election of Sir Charles Manners Sutton to the
Speaker's Chair." If Lord John, during his nominal
leadership, had ventured to swerve from the course
chalked out by Mr. O'Connell, he would have soon
found, that though at the head of the " largest and
most powerful Opposition that ever was united against
a Minister of the Crown," he was still a very small,
a very powerless, and a very insignificant person. He
who denounced the "brutal and bloody Whig speech"
from the Throne, as he designated it, when the Whigs
were in their high and flourishing condition, with Lord
Grey at their head, would soon have silenced the tiny
voice, and extinguished the little leadership of Lord
John, if, imagining for a moment his situation as
nominal leader to be a reality, he had dared to forget
that the repeal-agitator was the Jupiter of the faction,
whose word was fate, and whose nod shook the whole
Olympus of the Whigs. Lord John Russell, in his
address, has the modesty to set up his pretensions to
public support as a reformer, as one of very long stand-
ing, compared with others who have but recently come
into the field. Yet it was long after Lord John came
to man's estate that he wrote a book to refute and ridi-
cule the claims of Parliamentary Reformers to any ge-
neral measure for the correction and purification of the
representative system. He was then opposed most
vehemently to the disfranchisement of the rotten Bo-
roughs. He even endeavoured to prove their useful-
ness, and to show what admirable contrivances they were
for bringing those bashful talents into Parliament which
could not stand the rude gaze, or answer the ruder inter-
rogatories of a popular assemblage. So much for Lord
John's claims to consistency on the subject of Parlia-
mentary Reform. The same power which subse-
quently compelled him and his Whig colleagues to
concede the question of Negro Emancipation, which
they long endeavoured to evade, drove them to enforce,
by the Reforrn Act, as a means of keeping themselves

in office, the principle of a general disfranchisement of
the nomination boroughs, which the Whigs had, at all
former times, most zealously opposed. Whatever
other virtues, therefore, the Whigs may possess, it is
quite certain that consistency is not one, and the less
they say about it the better. Lord John may boast
that the monstrous coalition of parties that cordially
hate and despise each other have succeeded in driving
Sir Robert Peel's Administration from office—he may
boast that the whole of the public business of the
country during the Session has been impeded from the
opening of Parliament up to the Easter recess—he
may also boast that in consequence of those factious
proceedings no public business is to be proceeded with
until the 12th of May. But by and by the country
will find out, if it has not already, that too high a
price has been paid to restore Lord Melbourne and
Lord John Russell to the Treasury benches, and to
make Mr. O'Connell dictator over them.—Morning
Herald.

The proceedings of yesterday in the House o
Commons were of some interest. Lord Morpeth, i

appears, has accepted the Chiltern Hundred,, as a step-
ping-stone to the Irish Secretaryship. The occasion
for this extraordinary proceos in the manufacture of a
Secretary for Ireland was not satisfactorily explained,
and will probably turn out to be the first fruit of that
rich harvest of blunders of which Whig Administra-
tions have, in all times, been so prolific. Mr. O'Con-
nell, it will be seen, displayed that kind of temper
which generally characterizes men who feel that they
are in a false or equivocal position. It would have
been much better for him and for Lord Melbourne had
he been enabled to explain the speech which that
Nobleman delivered in the House of Lords on Satur-
day, in such a way as to reconcile it with the support
Which he intends for the present to give to the ex-
isting Administration ; and to reconcile, at the same
time, that support with his violent opposition to
the same men when in power a few months ago,
and with his own most recent speeches in Ireland.
Some writs were moved for in consequence of new
appointments, the only one calling for remark be-
ing that for Inverness, in the room of Mr. C. Grant,
who is to be Secretary for the Colonies. The remark-
able circumstance connected with this motion is, that
Mr. C. Grant is not to be a candidate for the county
which he vacates, but is to be called to the Upper
House of Parliament, his claim to the Peerage being,
not talent, not services to the State, not personal cha-
racter, not fortune, not position in society, not the fa-
vour of the Crown, but the certainty, merely, that
neither the electors of Inverness nor any other consti-
tuency in Great Britain or Ireland would elect Mr.
Charles Grant, the Secretary of State for the Colonial
Department, as their representative in the House of
Commons. This is an entirely new species of eleva•
tion to the Peerage, the advantage and convenience
of which the Administration of Loid Melbourne
has the entire merit of having discovered. A very
remarkable notice of motion was given by Mr.
Slid. The Honourable and Learned Member,
speaking from the Treasury Bench, announced that
on the first day after the recess he should move
that " No person who should be appointed to an
ecclesjastical dignity should be considered to have
any vested intei est in it which would entitle him to
compensation, in case it should subsequently be sup-
pressed." We suppose that after this the design of
the Popish party to degrade and enfeeble the Church
of England will no longer be disputed. This is in
effect a motion to reduce the Clergy of the Church of
England by degrees to a total and absolute dependence
on the Roman Catholic party in the House of Coin
irons.

That this notice has been given with the con-
currence of Mr. O'Connell there cannot be much
doubt. But has this early step been taken in ven-
geance for Lord Melbourne's speech ? Or is it taken
to show to the country that the Melbourne Administra-
tion, notwithstanding that speech, are prepared to go
all lengths in submission to the O'Connell faction ?
We are anxious to know whether the Ministers of the
Crown in the House of Commons will support this,
motion or oppose it ; and, especially, we should like to
know what Lord John Russell now thinks of the allies
by whose assistencce he has forced himself and his col-
leagues into place. The rebuke administered to Mr.
Sheil by Sir R. Inglis on the occasion of this signifi-
cant notice was forcible and just, as what fats from
Sir It. Inglis always is. Sir R. Inglis merely remarked
that on Mr. Sheil making this motion he would move
that the oath by which this Roman Catholic Membei'
of Parliament, on his admission to the House, had
sworn not to interfere with the rights or endowments of
the Church of England, should be read. Persons
who regard oaths as of any validity will feel all the poig-
nancy of this rebuke ; but, by 'Mr. Sheil, or that sec-
tion of the supporters of his Majesty's present Go-
vernment to which Mr. Sheil belongs, we question if it
were felt at all. The oath may be read; and it will
now be laughed at openly, as it was laughed at in
secret at the period when it was solemnly imposed by
the Legislature as a protection to the Church. The
time is visibly approaching, if it has not already ar-
rived, when even Lord John Russell, unscrupulous and
reckless as he is, must perceive that he has purchased
the support of the Roman Catholic faction at a higher
price than it is worth, and, we may add, when the peo-
ple of great Britain will perceive that no administra-
tion having such support can be worthy of their con-
fidence.--Morning Post.

There is a leading article in the first number of the
London Review, just published, which is not destitthe
of ability nor of mark, though deteriorated somewhat
by a tone of pretence which it assumes, and by an in-
adequacy to realize the anticipations which it creates,
and the prospects which it opens out. There is
nothing especially new in the leading arguments of
this paper, or rather we might perhaps say, without
any assumption on our part, that the basis of the
whole structure of the paper is founded on a dis-
tinction, which we somewhat suspect the author to
have borrowed from a hint of ours—that of " The
Plunderers and the Plundered." Neither party, as
we have stated in similar words, have just reason
to repudiate the nicknames lately attached to them ;
the Conservatives being Conservatives of abuses, and
on that account the enemies to the permanence of the
institutions of the country ; and the Destructives being
destructives of abuses, and consequently their best
friends. The author of this paper, after some diatribes
on the unreasoning character of late Houses of Com-
mons, with which we do not entirely agree, has the
following smart passage on the subject of another class
of nicknames resorted to, to protect the plunderers
while in the act of pursuing their old avocation of dip-
ping into the pockets of the plundered :—" The in-
struments which are chiefly made use of in Parliament,
to cover the renunciation of reason, and render it some-
what less palpable, are a set of hack phrases, serving
each of them as a wrapper for a little parcel of sophis-
try. Thus we have ' not speculation, but practice'—
as much as to say, act like a beast, and not one of the
best of beasts, a 'blind horse in a mill ; Wisdom of
ancestors,'—as if ancientness.of error were better than
truth, or the everlasting repetition of evil converted
into good. Of late, the word institutions' has been
industriously employed to preclude the use of reason.
Institutions,'—in the talk of the anti-Reformers—
is made synonymous with Government and religion ;
' change,' is made synonymous with destruction.
—By force of this new nomenclature, there-
fore, he who desires to reform anything, goes to
the destruction of government and religion ; as if Go-
vernment were no longer government when it is ren-
dered good—religion were no longer religion when it is
rendered pure. What these people mean is, that go-
verrnment is then destroyed, when they are no longer
permitted to abuse its powers, for their own aggran-
dizement, at the expense of the rest of the community ;
religion is then destroyed, when they cannot make use
of it as an instrument for the accomplishment of the
same design. In other words, the mischievous tendency
which has been given to each by the perfidious artifices
of men, is, in their sense, the essence of each. The es-
sence of government, the essence of religion, is the
mischief which can be done with them. Let mischief
no longer be done with them, they no longer exist."
The author of this paper, in describing some diag-
nostics in the present political horizon of the nation,
designates the rapid growth of Reform within the last
twenty years, and its present preponderance, as a re-
markable " sign of the times." The mode in which
he treats the question growing out of it, " Does the

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1835,

pursuit of Reform tend to good or to evil ?" surprises
by its:occasional tameness—when compared with the
spirit of some of the opening passages, as much as by
its " lame and impotent conclusion." We are inclined
to think that the author, though a man of talent,
is somewhat new to the practicpl consideration of
some of the most important political questions;
otherwise in contemplating the character of the future
measures of the Reform Parliament, which he does, he
would hardly have slurred over necessary improvements,
both in the organic structure of the Constitution, and
in the ordinary administration of public affairs. His
correct view of the uselessness of paying the expenses
of the Colonies, only causes us the more to regret his
silence upon questions still more paramount ; and
when we look at his defence of the Pension List, and
especially of the pension of Mrs. Arbuthnot, the ex-
posure of which in the public press he terms " unjust
and indelicate," something of suspicion would mingle
with our surprize, if the charitable view we have al-
ready taken of the author in the light of a political
novice did not mitigate the unfavourable view. He
is quite right in the argument that real Reform
can have no more legitimate object than the general
welfare of society, and, consequently, the preservation
of its great corner-stone—the right of property.
It is Toryism, not Reform, that has hitherto struck at
the root of that right, and still continues to do so—
first, by its shameless system of jobbery and plun-
der, without which it never ventured, nor could
venture, to carry on a Government ; second, by the
profligate immorality or insidious corruption which it
has always exhibited in remunerating individuals of
the Tory clique, either without the slightest service
performed for the remuneration, or for a class of la-
bours to which idleness would be infinitely preferable.
What could be more immoral than the exhibition of
the late Tory Ministry, which carried on business
with a stock in trade which may be described a 3 a
daily recantation of every previous pledge and opi-
nion ? This unexampled immorality tended to de-
stroy all confidence in public men, and thereby to
shake the foundations of property. This was destruc-
tiveness. It is reform which protects property. What
right of property can be assigned to pensions such
as the author wishes to protect, given in reward
for want of principle, public or private ? A large
part of these pensions have been the wages of cor-
ruption. It is an injury to property to assert that
there can be any " vested right" in incomes, the title-
deeds of which are founded in immoral considerations.
At common law all title-deeds of that description are
abrogated, and common sense must and always will
apply the same rule to the largest portion of the
pension list. 'We might, if it were .requisite, or if we
had time, show how the pension list might be got rid
of with benefit to the nation, and without wrong to
any body of individuals. But the public have already
passed sentence upon it, and the majority in Parlia-
ment representing the public, no doubt will soon
carry the general expression of the public disgust into
effect, by abrogating this protracted public scandal.
It would be wasting words, therefore, to reiterate
arguments so often repeated upon this subject. The
author of the paper in question has some good hits
at the excessive vanity of the Tories in proclaiming,
as they lately did, that if they failed no Government
could be constructed. We need not say that we
agree with the author's irony and ridicule on this
point. We have repeatedly expressed our conviction,
that if the Tory party were extinct to-morrow, we
should not " despair of the fortune of the common-
wealth." We will go farther, and say that if the
Whigs—well as they have latterly deserved of the
country—we will go still further and say, that if the
Parliamentary Reformers,—eminent for courage, prin-
ciple, and ability as they have shown themselves, were
politically defunct, or incompetent to form a Ministry,
myriads of " fifteens," as Sir John Cain Hobliouse
said, would be found among our intelligent country-
men to conduct the Administration with advantage to
the country and with honour to themselves. The fri-
volous conceit of aristocratical Ministers up to this
period has misled them, and has been the cause of a
long series of ministerial humiliations and of failures.
Ministries constituted from among the scions of the
aristocracy, which could be supposed to know nothing
beyond the narrow circles of aristocratic exclusiveness
—fourth-form boys—transferred from the licentious
and wasteful frivolities of Oxford or Cambridge, to
Parliament—lucky heirs of the industry of their prede-
cessors, who could not earn salt if placed in the same
position—" these are your Gods, oh, Israel !"—these
arc the only men, forsooth, from whom British Admi-
nistrations can be constructed. A more impudent
insult was never offered to a great nation. Why, we
would undertake to make better Ministries out of the
first twenty merchants' or bankers' counting-houses in
Cheapside ! There are tens of thousands of intelli-
gent men in this country neither caring for, nor hoping
for office, whom it will be but wholesome to tell these
pretending monopolists of wisdom, that if they were
fairly pitted with them, divested of their adventitious
advantages, they would no more be able to vie with
them in ability than a rushlight to vie in light and
heat with the meridian sun.—Morning Advertiser.
The Times remarks on the predominancy of the
aristocratic material in the new Cabinet as a characte-
ristic of Whig taste. "We observed a few days ago
on that supercilious instinct of the Whigs as a party,
which has always led them to look down upon, and,
in their political combinations, to keep at a distance, so
far as they durst, individuals who had not some smack
of the Peera'e to recommend them. This essential
arrogance of the leaders of the Whig party has marked
their proceedings for more than half a century. It was
fe!t not merely in their formation of the first Grey
Cabinet of 1830, but in their demeanour towards, and
treatment of, all its friends in the House of Commons,
throughout the long Reform struggle, when even the,
most common-place social courtesies were withheld
from the Ministerial supporters. In the present Cabi-
net see what a small proportion the private or untitled
gentlemen bear to those members of it who appertain
to the nobility : out of the 12 there are 7 lords—one,
to wit, Lord J. Russell—a Duke's son, and only four
to be found in the class of commoners, one of them
being about to obtain a peerage. Is this from dearth
of plebeian talent among the Whigs, or from a redun-
dancy of the lordly leaven ?" Had the Ministry been
plebeian, it is very certain that the Times would have
found as much or more matter of objection on that
score. It would, in such case, have remarked that the,
Government was composed of men who regarded with
envy and jealousy the honours and privileges of the
superior classes, and were eager to pull down all things
to the level of their own station. It would have ob-
served that the democratic principles of persons of the
class of the people were to be regarded with peculiar
suspicion, as likely to be adipted in mere opposition to
the powers of the Aristocracy, and rather the preten-
sions of inflamed partisans than the results of a just
consideration of the various interests of society. It
would have asked, whether there were none of the No-
bility attached to the popular cause ? and it would
have dwelt on the advantage of employing them, as
their interests would seem to guarantee both the safety
and the sincerity of their opinions. It would have
argued that men of aristocratic station were the very
fittest to advocate the rights of the great body of the
people, as no base envy of the great, or the just ad-
vantages of the privileged orders, could be suspected
of entering into their views. It would have reminded
us that plebeians might be supposed to be preju-
diced in the behalf of the people, but that aristo-
crats who entertain popular principles must have sur-
mounted an opposite bias, and that, whatever might
be thought of the wisdom of their conclusions, the
just spirit which had led to them could not be doubt-
ed. It would have added that these men would
know where to stop, as their sense of right, which
determined their concessions, would also limit them,
and as it could not be conceived that they Would
permit encroachments upon interest bound up
with their own, and entitled to protectiOn. It
would have told us that those who recognised the
rights of others from the pure disinterested love of
justice, would be the firmest in the vindication of their
own ; and it would have illustrated all by the familiar
instance of cutting against the bias to keep a straight
and steady line. It would not have failed to throw in
a crowning clap-trap, to the effect that the people of
England like to see the duties of government (Es-.
charged by their nobility. Indeed, we remember that