The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

• We observe by an Ordinance, countersigned
by the Nlinister of Commerce, that the French
Government have reduced the tonnage dues
upon British vessels entering the ports of France
from the United Kingdom, from 4f. 12c. to
If. 50c. The settlement of this question, which
has been under discussion almost from the date
of the Navigation Treaty of 1526, was under-
stood to have been one of the objects of the visit
of Mr. Poulett Thomson to Paris last winter,
and the principle upon which the reduction was
claimed was then fully admitted, although, owing
to the difficulty of adjusting the exact sum
which the French Government were authorized
under the treaty to levy, the ordinance directing
the reduction to be carried into effect has been
delayed till the present time. By the treaty of
1526, the French Government engaged to levy
no higher port charges or tonnage dues upon
vessels of either nation arriving from the United
Kingdom in the ports of France than are exacted
in British ports. In France, the whole of the
tonnage and light dues being in the hands of the
Central Government, only one fixed charge is
made throughout the whole kingdom ; but in Eng-
land, their dues varying according to the different
ports, and being very generally either granted to
corporations or belonging to individuals, great dif-
ficulty necessarily arises in ascertaining what is
the precise rate of charges to which vessels in
this trade are subject, and of course in fixing the
standard which should regulate the charges to
be made in France. Even now there remains
some doubt as to the precise amount ; the French
Government contending that the average charge
made in Great Britain is nearly 21. ; whilst the
English esteem it at not much more than lf. or
If. 20c. A mean of 1f.50c., has therefore been
adopted, until any more exact calculation can be
made. This reduction, however, to the extent
of nearly two-thirds of the former charge, will
be of considerable advantage to our shipping,
of which upwards of 100,000 tons are annually
engaged in the direct trade with France. We
hail it, likewise, as a proof of the disposition of
the French Government to examine the com-
mercial relations between the two countries in a
friendly spirit, and with a view towards their im-
provement; and we trust that the present mea-
sure will prove a forerunner of others yet more
important to the interests of both countries,
founded on the inquiry into the whole system
of their commercial legislation, which was com-
menced under the same auspices, and has since
been carried on by Commissioners left in Paris
for that purpose.—Morning Chronicle.
The public-spirited and gallant Reformers f
the borough of Stamford are, we fear, by the
result of the motion of Mr. Tennyson, last night,
on the Boundary Bill, to prevent the proposed
extension of the borough, again condemned to
the temporary slavery of the Marquess of Exeter.
We have before stated our strong opinion of the
practical injustice rendered by the Reform Bill
to the burgesses of that town, by the intended
addition of a parish wholly belonging to the
Noble Boroughmonger, and including even his
domain, and which thereby places the two seats,
as we understand, in the nomination power of
the old patron. The parish of St. Martin, now
added to Stamford, is stated to be in another
county, and not within the municipal jurisdic-
tion. It is absurd to talk of the impossibility of
violating a principle assumed by the Boundary
Commissioners. All general rules admit of ex-
ceptions ; and in this affair—rather mysterious
—the standard of extension did not relate either
to the gross population, or to the numbers of
the possessors of the elective franchise. If
district divisions are to form the principle of elec-
toral arrangement, a wider limit ought to have
been taken, or the ancient boundaries of the bo-
rough ought to have been preserved. Indeed, we do
not hesitate to assert, that a great preponderating
aristocratic property ought to have been in
many cases counterpoised by the addition of
other and independent properties. We fully
admit the right to the legitimate influence of pro-
perty, which ever has had, and ever will have,
its due share of political power in any represen-
tative system, whether regulated by open voting
or ballot. But the case of Stamford is most
cruel and deplorable. Be the consequences,
however, what they may, we urge the indepen-
dent electors of that Borough to unite and con-
test every inch of ground with the Marquess of
Exeter and his nominees. Ile may send down
his Newmarket jockey or challenge any rival
man of the turf to run for the stake of one of
the seats at Doncaster or any other races, but
let him pay for it. The smart-money will soon
bring its own cure, and victory will be ultimate
defeat to the boroughtnongers. They may rely
on the fact that there will soon be an end
of the object of expensive contests. Colonel-
ships in the Guards and steps in the Peer-
age will not be again purchasable with borough
influence ; and a manly and determined contest
with the Marquess, every heat, will soon take the
running out of hint. The Noble Marquess, as
an experienced racer, and accustomed to the cal-
culations of a " book," will speedily find his
account at the day of settlement in giving up
the contest. When nothing is to be gained,
nothing will be ventured ; and if the Marquess
should prove a stubborn animal, a Reformed
Parliament will soon break him in by a cui b on
his old habit of ejecting independent voters.
There is a mode—secret suffrage—which even
anti-ballot men will support, if no other cure
can be found. Indeed, we expect the Tories
will, in self-defence, from the necessity of the
peaceable exercise of their franchises, become
advocates of the ballot ; and may be the Duke
of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel may live to
make another turn in its proposition. We sin-
cerely regret this vote of the House, because the
exertions of this excellent borough, and of Mr.
Tennyson, in the common cause of Parliamen-
tary _Reform, claimed consideration. We have
recently, and, as we thought, justly and
pointedly, animadverted on a speech of Mr.
Tennyson's on the creation of Peers. But a
difference of opinion, however great, on the part
of a public man, affecting judgment and opi-
nion, rather than political principle, will not
make us unjust. Mr. Tennyson has been
throughout his Parliamentary career an inde-
pendent Member of the House of Commons,
a constant friend of Reform, and particularly an
advocate of the fullest extension of the franchise.
Any of the Western Metropolitan Boroughs, or
the newly enfranchised Boroughs in the North
of England, would do well to consider his claims
as a Reformer, when he is excluded from Stam-
ford by the Boundary Bill, and, with his family,
have sacrificed three close seats in schedule A—
Bletchingly and Sal task,--.Morning Chronicle.
The champions of the Duke of Wellington
do not find it convenient quite to abandon Sir
Robert Peel. The Right Honourable Baronet,
though mistrusted and generally despised by the
honest and the Ultra-Tories, is, nevertheless,
in their political exigencies, esteemed " a good
card to play," as the Manager of a Theatre said

of a celebrated actress—" She has dreadfully
uncertain ways, but we must give her an en-
gagement." The Ex-Secretary for the Home De-
partment is the most practised performer in the
present Company of Boroughmongers, particu-
larly in the part of Joseph Surface, mid there-
fore is essential to the " theatrical business."
But even the Protestant Jesuitism of our able
contemporary the Standard cannot dress up
the political actor so as to conceal the protru-
sion of his personal character. The Standard
does not really forget or forgive the blackslidings
of the Right Honourable Baronet on the Catholic
Question, but has now found it convenient to
endeavour to prevent a split between the Ex-
Secretary and the Duke of Wellington. The
Times acutely hints that Sir Robert Peel, in his
memorable and suspicious defence of himself at
the expense -of the Field-Marshal, had a long-
sighted view to aggravate, by discussion and so-
phistical commentary, his Grace's deplorable fall
in public opinion. We think our contem-
porary will do well to abandon his futile attempts
to Roman-cement the time-eaten reputation of
the Right Hon. Baronet, or he will incur the
same suspicion—of a secret desire to aid the
Ex-Secretary in the same way that the dog led
the blind man into the duck-pond.—Morning
Chronicle.

Ministers, we trust, will not, after all that has
passed on the subject of the Bank of England,
have the weakness, or worse than weakness, to
demean themselves on this occasion as if the
Bank had a freehold in its monstrous monopoly,
indefeasible by any act of the legislature,—as if
the Government and people of this country were
at the mercy of the Directors, and dependent on
them, while the corporation of Threadneedle-
street were our sovereign lords. The commercial
interest and the nation expect to be liberated
from the trammels of this autocracy of coiners.
If the dominion be prolonged, without more im-
portant qualifications, not merely will much and
bitter disappointment be the consequence, but
great suspicions against Ministers themselves
must pervade the whole monied community. It
will be said that there is some mystery of ar.cient
date, in the relations subsisting between the Go.
vernment and the Bank of England, which Mi-
nisters have not courage to unveil, and for smo-
thering which the price to be paid is no less
than a renewal of the monopoly. The Govern-
ment, indeed, can hardly be in debt to the Bank
of England in a larger amount than has yet been
made known to Parliament or to the public; but a
slovenly inquiry, brought to a precipitate and un-
seemly close, must, unavoidably, give rise to con-
jectures that all is not what it appears to be. A
correspondent of ours alleges no more than the
truth, when he states that Government ought to
have paid off the debt of the nation to the Bank,
by a sufficient funding of Exchequer bills, be-
fore they entered upon any investigation into the
affairs of that dangerous establishment, or into
matters affecting its future connexion, if any is
to be maintained, with the State. Government,
it is plain, cannot be independent or impartial
as between the Bank and the people of England,
and, undoubtedly, it cannot gain credit for being
either, so long as it attempts to execute the du-
ties of a judge under the yoke and bondage of
a debtor. It is, we say, impossible for Minis-
ters to be true to the public interest, in a ques-
tion betweeen the Bank and the country, so long
as the relations of debtor or creditor shall exist
between them ; no settlement can be fair or free
where the parties are noton an equal footing. Some
thing more than justice will be demanded in the
way of general privilege, by the party having un-
satisfied claims upon the other; and some thing
more will be conceded by those who do not pos-
sess, or have not employed, the means of afford-
ing satisfaction. Let Lord Althorp, then, begin
by getting rid of duns : let him tell the Bank,
"Here is your money, gentlemen : and now I
care not for all your menaces or murmurs—
I will see that the nation has no more cause to
complain than you have." But there is a danger
to the Bank itself, and no slight one, in ally
abrupt or improvident proceeding on the part of
Ministers. If the public be embittered towards
the Bank of England by a violent disappoint-
ment of the hope that we may now throw off
the thraldom under which it has placed us for a
century, is there no fear that in the excitement
so produced there might be a popular run upon
the Bank, of which the outstanding obligations
are between 20,000,000/. and 30,000,0001.,
while its funds of metallic currency do not
exceed 6,000,000/. ? It is difficult to guess
what course or form the national resentment
might assume under such provocation, or what
measures—neither authorized by principle nor
wisdom, but plunged into from uncontrollable
passion—might be the result. Would Lord
Althorp sign an order in Council to save the
Bank from the effects of his own folly, by an-
other abolition of cash payments ? If not,
where else would be the remedy for an evil such
as we have imagined ? A preventive is easier
to be found. Let the inquiry be deliberate and
perfect. Let the decision be upright and inde-
pendent. A Reformed Parliament will not be
apt to confirm any other.—Times.
It will be seen by our extracts from the French
papers of Wednesday, that the second military
commission has pronounced another judgment.
The sentence in this case is not capital, as in the
first ; but the penalty is so severe, that the pri-
soner has declared in favour of death, as a miti-
gation. The name of the prisoner is Margot,
a Belgian by oriain: the charge was, that in the
late disturbances he fired on the National Guard;
and the sentence is fifteen years of hard labour.
The attention of the Parisians is for a time
diverted from the proceedings of these courts-
martial, and even from the more alluring subject
of the legality of the ordinance for declaring
Paris in a state of siege, tc rumours of the exa--
minations, and a persual o the correspondence,
of the three Istinguished Carlists lately arrested,
whose rank, station, and celebrity, throw the
almost anonymous insurgents of the faubourgs
into the shade. M. de Chateaubriand has pub-
lished a letter, and the Duke of Fitzjames a
protest,
which have furnished a topic for the
day, and afford an agreeable variety amid the
common-place wrangling of party politics. M.
de Chateaubriand cannot put pen to paper
without producing something striking, and fixing
a kind of dramatic interest on himself, on his
friends, and upon all his concerns. His writings,
like the play of figures in the kaleidoscope (a
pretty toy, so much admired some years ago)
are always varied and vivid, though, like these
same figures, they often present no destined form
or object, and consist of worthless ingredients.
His judgment is so completely subordinate to
nis fancy (for we cannot call it imagination),
.hat its operation can scarcely be detected amid
the glittering confusion. Thus, in the present
lettter, among fine and feeling compliments to
an old friend—amid expressions of affection and
regret towards the companion of his life—amid
well-earned declarations of confidence in the
judges and tribunals of his country, he draws a

distinction between the social and political obli-
gations and duties which cannot, for a moment,
stand the test of law or reason. His prate about
allegiance is mere trash. By the laws of all ci-
vilized nations, his allegiance, as a Frenchman
residing in France, was equally due to his So-
vereign, as if he had taken as many at once as
a great diplomatist is said to have taken in the
course of a long life of political vicissitudes.
He is as much amenable to the laws of France
when he tries to overturn a dynasty which he
declines formally to recognize, as when he breaks
any enactment of the civil or criminal code for
which he reserves, and to which he professes to
limit his obedience. His refusal to take the oath '
of allegiance,—such professed dissatisfaction in
a man so exalted, may be a good reason why the
Government should watch his conduct and
suspect his motives, even when free from
blame. But it cannot afford him any ex-
cuse for resisting examination under a judicial
charge of treason or sedition. The declaration,
then, of the Noble Viscount, that he would
not answer even to his name on a political
charge, lest it should be inferred that
he was
more a subject of Louis-Philippe than he wished
to be considered, implies an absurd and miserable
sophism. The protest of the Duke of Fitzjames
is, like the character of the man, more rational,
consistent, and manly. He assumes that lie is
subject to all the laws of France, civil and poli-
tical, though, like his distinguished friend, he
may reject some of its privileges ;—he assumes
that no Government, whether formally acknow-
ledged or not, can permit plots for its overthrow ;
he even appeals for protection to the political
laws of the revolution, and pleads the charter
against the erection of new and extraordinary
tribunals, by which he is to be tried. The pro-
test of the Noble Duke might be signed by the
1,500 republican prisoners about to be sent be-
fore the Courts-martial, or by all the Peers and
deputies who have taken the oath of allegiance
to new dynasty. One point strikes every body
who contemplates the present state of things in
France. Marshal Soult is a bad imitator of M.
Casimir Perier. M. Perier displayed the vigour
and daring of a powerful intellect, which, how-
ever, always calculated the chances and pro-
portioned the effort to the occasion. M. Soult
exhibits the bustling tyranny of a military
Martinet. The former description of energy
may engender hatred as well as fear : but it coin.
mands respect and even admiration. The latter
produces contempt and disgust, and ends most
commonly in general mutity. It is hoped that
the presence of M. Talleyrand will obtain milder
and more rational measures.-2'irnes.
Our sentiments are too well known on the
subject of the brutal and man-degrading punish-
ment of military flogging to require to be re-
peated, but laiat took place in the House of
Commons, on Mr. Hunt's motion to discontinue
that mode of punishment in the army for one
year, calls for a few observations. It is remark-
able that Sir Francis Burdett, who, many yeas
ago, used to make the nation ring with his elo-
quent denunciations against the ingenious and
elaborate cruelty of the cat-o'-nine tails, which,
for the dextrous infliction of exquisite torture,
surpasses the scalping knife of the savage—it is
remarkable, we say, that Sir Francis Burdett has
been uniformly absent from the discussions on
this subject of late, and has left the cause of ci-
vilization and humanity to other advocates. This
is the more extraordinary, seeing that he used
formerly to charge the predilection for this cruelty
upon a government of " boroughmongers:'
Well, the government of boroughmongers is
overthrown. A Reforming Ministry occupies
the seats of power—flogging in the army and
navy still goes on—brave men, for violations of
discipline, which can be best repressed by a
steady and judicious moral control, are still tor-
tured, and their flesh torn from their backs with
ignominious stripes—and Sir Francis Burdett is
silent, and Westminster appears to be satisfied.
Another cause of similar satisfaction to West-
minster must be found in the conduct of its other
Representative—Sir John Cam Hobhouse—he
of the " hundred-and-one " speeches against all
sorts of Tory oppression and misrule. Ha-
ving succeeded to the situation of Secretary at
War, rendered vacant by the dismissal of Sir
Henry Parnell, for refusing to vote against his
conscience and interests of the country in the
Russo-Dutch loan job, Sir John is under the
necessity of attending in his place, and showing
how the placeman can preserve the character of
the patriot, and how he can represent the humane
sentiments of his liberal constituents, by resist-
ing a motion even for the experimental suspen-
sion of the disgusting operation of the instru-
ment of military torture for a single year. It
was true he was able inform the people of Eng-
land that, in conjunction with Mr. It. Grant,
and with the sanction of the Tory Noblemen
now holding the supreme command of the army,
he had been able to reduce the number of lashes
from 300 to 200 inflicted by regimental courts-
martial, and by garrison courts-martials from
500 to 300. Mighty concession to public opi-
nion !—wonderful triumph of humanity ! Eng-
land hears that, under a liberal Government—a
Reforming Government—a Government of
" intellect," and of the " schoolmaster," not
more than 300 lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails can
be inflicted on the bare back of a British soldier
by the sentence of a garrison court-martial ! and
this, too, after it had gone forth to the world
that the King was so averse to this brutalizing
mode of enforcing discipline that it was his
Majesty's wish it should be abolished alto-
ther. We recollect that when the Duke of
Wellington, Sir George Murray, Sir Henry
Hardinge, and other military men, formed
the principal part of the Government
of this country, Sir Francis Burdett, as if con-
verted from the errors of his doctrine about
" standing armies," by a sudden military inspira-
tion, declared that " the army was the best
school for statesmen." Need we wonder, then,
that Sir John Hobhouse would rather apply to
the Tory comnruader-in-chief for his permission
to abate a portion of the cruel and ferocious
punishment which degrades men who take up
arms for the defence of their country below the
ttnoertnutrefi?,r aT legislativreductione
abo
condition of the brute, than to come to Parlia-
otif? abolition this
tnhuismmbeilritaroyf
lashes has no weight with us, who object to the
use of the British knout—worthy
only of Russian
barbarism—on principle, and do not take
" Cocker" in our hands to regulate the degree
of the infliction—but, in the name of civiliza-
tion—of justice—of morals and humanity, de-
nounce the practice altogether. To cut a single
string from the scourge dripping with blood is a
paltry compromise. What the country wants is,
L
that the instrument of human degradation shall,
by legislative 'force,be wholly and for ever struck
from the hand of power. The reform introduced
by Sir John Hobhouse as to flogging in the
army, reminds us of that
introduced
into the
criminal law by Sir Robert Peel, with regard to
the penalty of death for privately stealing in the
dwelling-house. As the former takes credit to

himself for having the practice of military
punishment so ameliorated that regimental Courts-
martial can only inflict 200 instead of 300 lashes,
and garrison Courts-martial 300 instead of 500,
so the latter considered himself entitled to the
public. approbation for raising the price of human
life from 2/. to 5/.—an effort of improvement
which could not excite much alarm among the
conservators of sanguinary law. We have spoken
of men being reduced below the condition of the
brute. We have not, in saying so, indulged in
any exaggeration, for there is a penal law to pre-
vent the brutes that graze the fields or drudge for
our convenience in the streets from being treated
with any thing like the cruelty which may be
lawfully inflicted on British soldiers. Why is there
no " Martin's Act" to punish any one who lace-
rates with the scourge the back of a human
being in a way in which no man with impunity
dare tear and torture the flesh of the beast that
" wants discourse of reason ?" If such an in-
human practice were, indeed, necessary for the
preservation of discipline in the army, it would
be, as we remarked on a former occasion, the
most cogent argument for the abolition of stand-
ing armies of any we have heard. But it is not
necessary to brutalize men in order to preserve
military discipline—the best governed regiments
in our service, it is well known, are those' that
know least of the use of the lash. Captain
Granby Calcraft said, in the debate the other
night, that " the result of his observations,
during the period that he had had the honour
to hold a commission in his Majesty's service,
tended to convince him that the regiments where
floggings were most practised were the worst
disciplined in the service, and that the soldiers
who were so punished became from that moment
lost men." Nor is this to be wondered at. The
manly feeling—the sense of shame—that senti-
ment of honour which judicious treatment can
reach even in the rudest minds, are extinguished
by a punishment which degrades the soldier be-
low the caste of humanity—destroys all self.
respect, and brands the wretched sufferer, if he
survive the torture, with a stigma that no good
conduct can obliterate. What wonder, then,
that one so branded should become obdurate in
evil courses, and perish the victim of reckless
desperation ? The incidents narrated in Mr.
Shipp's book, one of the bravest soldiers that the
service ever had, ought to suffuse with blushes
the cheeks of those Statesmen and Legislators
who allow such a system to disgrace the country
and human nature itself. One of the anecdotes
quoted from this work by Mr. Hunt is particu-
larly valuable, as showing, in contrast, in the
case of the same person, the different effects of
brutal violence and moral treatment on the
human mind. It is that of the soldier who,
having been often flogged for drunkenness
without any good result, and being tied
up to the halberds, once more awaiting
the lash, was reclaimed. How ? By a severer
flogging from a more vigorous arm ? No ;
the Colonel, at last, tried the experiment of
moral treatment, which had been heretofore ne-
glected. He appealed to his feelings. The
appeal was not in vain—he burst into tears.—
The Colonel forgave him, and promised him
promotion to the rank of corporal, if his future
conduct would justify his promotion. He be-
came from that hour one of the best men in the
regiment, and received the promised promotion.
This is stated to have been the only instance
that came within the writer's experience where
any man who had been flogged had ever again
recovered his self-respect. It was the only in-
stance, we presume, in which such an experi-
ment had been made. Another case in-
stanced by this writer is also very characteristic.
It is that of the Irishman who, for being drunk
on guard, having received 600 lashes, said to his
commanding officer, on being loosened from the
halberds, " You will never get a day's work out
of Paddy again." On the mention of this case
there was something like a laugh from some
Members of the House of Commons. The
persons who could indulge in merriment at the
idea of the writhing and mutilated wretch, who, in
his agony, thus simply expressed his conscious-
ness of being rendered useless to himself and
others for the remainder of his life, must have
minds admirably constituted for the duties of
legislation in a civilized and Christian land! We
should like to see their names published, for the
information of the voters at the next general
election. The discipline of the French army is
not upheld by the lash. The punishments have
a reference to the sense of honour and shame
in the mind of the soldier, and tend to keep
alive the feeling of self-respect. Why should
French soldiers be treated as rational men, and
British soldiers as unreasoning brutes ? The
punishment itself creates the distinction. Sink a
man below the level of his species, and his ac-
tions will soon correspond with his degradation.—
Morning Herald.

The idea of Mr. Baring being a candidate for
the county of Middlesex is quite preposterous,
and, if put forth as afeeler, ought to be met by
an imm
ediaterespectability
of how
eßeaaltnt: it is felt.
ing
bear
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commercial
valuablehich he
i
uponulercaill
subjects connected with the trade and finance of
the country, yet it is equally undeniable that Mr.
Baring has, somehow or other, contrived to
render himself one of the most unpopular of that
unpopular class of politicians to which he has
of late thought proper to attach himself. Whe-
ther we look at his uncompromising hostily to
the great cause of Reform, or the tone of aris-
tocratic hauteur with which he treats every topic
connected with the liberties of the people, we
should say that he is one of the last persons
who can, with any reasonable show of preten-
sion, present himself either to the old or new
constituency of the metropolitan county, for the
high honour of representing them in a Reformed
Parliament. We do not go the length of saying
that we wish to see such a man as Mr. Baring
excluded from a seat in Parliament, but what we
do say is that the electors of Middlesex, who
have fought so nobly in the cause of Reform,
would stultify themselves irretrievably were they
to confer the first fruits of their victory on one
who has so strenuously opposed their obtaining
it. riling Herald.

Mr. Warburton's amendment, which provides
that all Coroners' inquests shall be held in open
Court, and which was carried on Wednesday
night in the House of Commons, is likely to be
very generally approved of, notwithstanding the
fright into which Mr. Frankland Lewis was
thrown upon the occasion. Mr.- F. Lewis is a
true Conservative of the Tory school, though,
if we mistake not, he was once a Whig. The
great principle which runs through the whole of
this gentleman's political creed is that change is
an evil. Hence his horror of the Reform Bill,
and of everything that savours of reform, down
to the opening of the Coroner's Comt. He
considered the latter one of those " great and
i
fundamental changes n the Constit6tion” against
which the country ought to be protected. The

change, be it observed, was from secrecy to pub
64y—from darkness to light; and there is this
great objection to all such transit Ams—that there
is an implied appeal to public opinion in every
open Court, and consequently a breaking down
of that irresponsible power which it is the great
object of a certain class of politicians to exercise
and abuse. But, though this objection may
have its full weight with such reasoners as Mr.
Frankland Lewis, it is hardly to be expected
that the people will concur with him, to the pre-
judice of their own claims. He may think it a
good thing, and even a kind thing, towards the
people, to keep them in ignorance of what
passes in Courts or in Cabinets ; he may think
it a good thing to perplex and mystify the public
accounts, so that no one can understand them
but those who, for certain reasons, do not wish
the understanding to become too general. We
do not say that Mr. F. Lewis actually holds
this opinion, though it is in perfect consistency
with his dread of publicity that he should ; but,
whatever evils he may apprehend from the
throwing open of Coroners' inquests, it comes
with rather a bad grace from a Representative of
the people to take fright at every step of their
advance, as if some calamity were at hand which
it required only an increase of strength and in-
fluence upon their parts to put into active ope-
ration. The time, however, is fast approaching
when Members of Parliament will be slow to
acknowledge such a prejudice, even if they
should feel it ; and we think that, before Mr.
Baring talked of " the blackguards in the street,"
as he elegantly described the casual passengers,
he should have remembered that he must repre-
sent something else in the next Parliament than
the weight of his own purse—if, indeed, he
represents any thing—for though some allow-
ance may be made for the prejudices of a mo-
neyed man, there can be none for his insolence.
The plain principle on which the majority de-
cided for throwing open the Coroners' inquest
admits of no answer. It is right that all Courts
, should be open ; and those who call that prin-
ciple revolutionary are ignorant of the constitu-
tion of human nature, as well as of the spirit of
British law.—Plorning Herald.
We beg to point the attention of our readers
to the important result, so far as regards the fu-
ture representation of the City, of the labours of
the Committee appointed on Tuesday last, to
draw up such resolutions, in the name of their
fellow-citizens, as might most effectually conduce
to give an efficient representation of the City,
and set an example to the rest of the country.
They are important, and they are well put—they
are creditable to the liberal and independent
spirit of the City, and, if adopted by the great
body of the Livery, will give a tone to the
election proceedings of the country of in-
calculable benefit to its future welfare. Re-
presentation, it will be seen from the docu-
ment alluded to, is no longer to be a name
for a thing that is not—but a reality—a represen-
tation to the letter, as well as of the spirit—an ex-
hibition by the person representing, of the
wishes of those represented. Many honourable
and right honourable gentlemen, will, we doubt
not, kick at this innovation on the independence
of legislators, as a worse visitation than even
the uprooting of Gatton and Sarum ; but let
them bear in mind that their long enjoyment of
unbridled and mischievous license has brought
things to this complexion—that the people did
not seek to fetter them until they had been again
and again deceived—until they had lost all con-
fidence in public men, and were driven by the
dire necessity of the case to seek protection un-
der specific and written pledges. We like also
that part of the resolutions of the Sub-Com-
mittee which declares that " those to whom the
law now commits the sacred trust of the power of
choosing Members who are to represent their non-
resident neighbours as well as themselves, ought
to be scrupulously careful to choose no man on
whom firm reliance cannot be placed, that he
will obey the wishes and directions of his consti-
tuents." The resolution is highly creditable to
their good feeling towards their non-resident
neighbours, and is as ably followed up in the
matter of the pledge to be exacted from, or the
declaration to be signed by, those who may
aspire to the honour of a seat in Parliament for
the City—a declaration worthy of the Livery of
London, and which will carry as much terror and
dismay into the camp of the Conservatives, as
the reading of schedule A did on the first bring-
ing in of the Reform Bill. The Livery are de-
termined to have neither lazy nor dishonest Mem-
bers ; for, in the first Session of Parliament, they ,
must bind themselves to do every thing in their
power to cause " a total abolition of tithes!"—" a
repeal of the assessed taxes ! and of the taxes on
malt and soap !" This is pretty well for one pledge;
but the City is not to stop short here in the
career of Reform, for as soon as the above
taxes have been repealed the City Members are
to press for an immediate co.iaideration of the
policy of revising the corn laws, and to cause the
abolition of all sinecures and unmerited pensions,
and especially to effect a repeal of that Act of
daring usurpation called the Septennial Act !
This is the way to give efficiency to the Re-
form Bill, and to enable the country to derive
those fruits from it which is so well calculated
to afford—this is the only sure means of shutting
the door against Tory intriguers, and of defeat-
ing the designs of hollow pretenders to Re-
form. Let but the country generally follow the
example which is thus set in the City of Lon-
don, and in due time tithes and assessed taxes—
corn laws and Septennial Acts—pensions and
sinecures, will become matters of history in-
stead of burdens on the country.—Morning
Advertiser.

It will be seen that Mr. Gisborne, in reference
to his abrupt adjournment of the House on
Thursday, explained that he acted without any
premeditation, and without having previously
communicated with any person. It is not for us
to doubt the assertion of the Hon. Member, but
when we consider that a vitally important sub-
ject, viz. an inquiry into the state of Ireland,
stood for that evening, we must pronounce it at
least extremely unfortunate that Mr. Gisborne
should, without any motive whatever, have caused
the opportunity of investigation to have been lost,
irretrievably perhaps as far as the present Parlia-
ment is concerned. The concurrent postpone-
ment of the same question in the House of
Lords is also a curious coincidence which may
give rise to some suspicions• Unquestionably
there is no subject so worthy of the con-
sideration of the Legislature at this moment
as the state of. Ireland, and in whatever em-
barrassments the imbecile policy of the pre-
sent Ministers may-have involved them respect-
ing it, we say it is due to the age in which we
live that the great problem of the degraded
state of the Sister Country, a country boast-
ing natural advantages superior to almost any
other in the. world, should at length meet with
solUtion and explanation. Ireland is highly
favoured in natural position. Her harbours and
bays are numerous and most conveniently situ-
...tied. Her soil is every where luxuriant, and her

mineral products abundant and diversified. Valu-
able fisheries offer themselves in all directions on
her coasts ; and yet we view at this moment
the striking picture of a country thus circum-
stanced wholly without the ability of giving any
permanent employment to its population ; boun-
ties of nature unenjoyed by man, and starving
beggary in the midst of all the materials of
opulence and plenty. If the peasantry of Ire-
land are in a state more utterly depressed and
wretched than that of any ot her country in Eu-
rope, it is not to the sterility of nature or to the
neglect of Providence that we are to look for the
cause; but to the non•attention of those who
have the means of alleviating the evils of Ireland,
and whom a liberal spirit might be expected
to urge to afford that assistance which might
convert into civilization and comfort the means
so abundantly bestowed by Providence. Half
measures and temporary expedients can be of
little or no avail. An effective and permanent
plan for giving employment to the destitute
peasantry, and thereby diffusing tranquillity, sub-
ordination, and prosperity throughout the coun-
try, must be the result of the deep and anxious
consideration of the subject by the Legislature.
England has but one half of the advantages of
her civilization and prosperity, while Ireland is so
far from the enjoyment of either. Ought we,
then, to look with insensibility on the destitute
condition of our Irish brethren ; ought it not
rather to be considered both an interest and a
duty to inquire in what way their distresses can
be most surely relieved ? Though this is a
question which a Reforming Parliament appears
inclined to answer in the negative, we trust and
believe that there is a public spirit in this coun-
try that will tend to the speedy removal of the
stigma cast upon the empire at large by the ano-
malous situation of Ireland.—Morning Post.