The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-13 00:00:00

MINISTERIAL IMPROVEMENT.

(From the _Examiner.)
" When nations are to perish in their sins,
in the Church the leprosy begins."—CoweEst.
At the opening of the session, this promise
was held out in the King's speech :

" In parts of Ireland, a systematic opposition has been
made to the payment of tithes, attended, in some in-
stances, with atiiictirg results; and it will be one of your
first duties to inquire, whether it may not be possible to
effect improvements in the laws respecting this subject,
which may afford the necessary protection t the Estallshed
Church, and at the same time remove the present causes (f
complaint. Id tin this, and in every other question affect-
ing Ireland, it is above all things necessary to look to the
I,est means of securing internal peace and order."

Who could have conceived, that by this was
meant to improve the condition of the Irish
clergy, which Lord Grey now explains to be the
object proposed . This is not only an insult to •
reason, an insult to justice,—it is an insult to
humanity. Let the words be written on that
wretched land of blood and want,—that wilder-
ness in the expanse of civilization, where man is
to be found nearest to the condition of the naked
savage, but all accomplished in mischief; naked,
starving, but feasting on vengeance ; knowing
every extremity of suffering, and voluptuary
withal in revenge :—the first wants of the creature
miserably denied, the worst appetites of the devil
riotously glutted ;—let it be written on this land
of Cain, that the grand object of our political re-
! generators is, to improve the condition of the
clergy, whose faith is alien to it. Let all who
witness the miseries of Ireland, label them with
those words,—improve the condition of the
clergy. On the very maps where the name ap.
pears which bespeaks all the woes and mischief's
man the master can inflict on man the slave, we
would have written the Grey motto, improve the
condition of the clergy. We would brand the
words on every sign of suffering,—on every cir-
cumstance of misery,—on every sad token of
distress. It should be labelled on every rag of
wretchedness,—on the sea-weed, which the
perishing creatures swallow, against revolting
nature, to stop the gnawings of famine : it
should be written on every cold hearth, and on
every desolate cabin—improve the condition of
the clergy. Let it be graven too, as the hand-
writing on the wall, on the palaces of the pam-
pered prelates, signifying that the cup of abo-
mination is full to the last drop, and that retri-
bution is at hand. Let it be the label of priestly
luxury, the motto of those « who make God's
work a sinecure," as well as the scroll on the
miseries they have pinched, and would pinch still
more. We thank the Earl Grey for his words:
they are as the consummation. Every man who
yt
themh ei r
to own
their
r rules
practice, l e t h
bn eei
reads his Bible, knows how to construe them ; as
every man who reads his Bible knows how to
think of the clergy. B
be tried ; by applying
their vast desertion of God's Word measured.
" Woe to the shepherds that do feed thetngelves ;—ye eat
the fat, and .'e clothe you with the wool ; but ye f!ed not
the Ruck." The verse follOws hard upon it :

" Neither Ishii the shepherds !red thermelves any more ;
(or I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they
may not be meat fur them."
This should be the lesson for the appointed

Fast-day ; this 34th chap. of Ezekiel, which sets
forth the state of things, without the addition of
improving thecondition of the shepherds without
flocks—the shepherds who eat the fat, and clothe
with the wool of the sheep of another's fold.
Lord Grey promises, that all the powers of the
Government shall be employed to enforce the
rights of the clergy ; a third part of which
rights are notoriously composed of the wrongs
of the poor. We shall see how the Earl keeps
his word. We shall see that power, which has
been so weak in vindication of the rights of the
nation against an usurping oligarchy, wielded in
full might, and with all resources, in the cause of
Church exaction, against the miserable people of
Ireland. Here we shall see illustrated the motto
of our Ministry,—the scroll of its spirit,—
Parcere super bis et debellare suyectos. With
the plunderers of the public they have been long
suffering and indulgent, but when they come to
deal with the recusant of tithes, the resisters of
an exaction abusive in itself, (as the third of right
belongs to the poor), and for which there is no
service rendered ; then we shall see the might of
this Ministry put forth,--then will be no parleys,
or reserves, or waivers, but the prompt rigour of
a rigorous law ; for, they will then not be con-
tending
under the banner of the God of Justice,
circumspect and deliberative, nicely weighing, and
scrupulous, but of the God of the High Priests,
which is Mammon, greedy and rapacious, fierce
and forward as a wolf ;—a howl and a spring, a
gluttonous and a merciless tooth.
Readers of the book of mercy, worshippers
of the spirit of charity, and self-renouncement,
which makes the essence of Christianity, we pray
you to mark the words which, unrebuked of
Bishops, passed from Lord Ellenborough in the
House of Mischief. •
" Ile thought it was desirable that the clergy should
be enabled, by some speedy and cheap process, to attach
not only the property, but the persons of the corn tithe
payers, and to recover their dues. As the law now stood
there was no power of breaking up the cumbinators,
nothing could effect that but a cheap and speedy method
of attaching the person."
Such is a mode proposed for improving the
condition of the preachers of that religion, one
of whose precepts it is, that if sued for their
coat, they shall render the cloak also ! Imagine
the disciples of the Most Meek, the apostles of
peace, and preachers against strife and conten-
tion, flinging their fellow-beings itito gaols for
pelf? Well does the Chronicle describe this as
a project for putting Ireland into prison. Where,
it asks, are the gaols to be found ? We will
answer the question. There are buildings which
have never contained congregations, or been
used, except as instruments for extortion, which
might be aptly converted to prisons, as they have
served only to pauperization and to crime. Let
us bring again under the consideration of our
readers, a case which we quoted last week.

" In the county of Louth, a clergyman having served
nearly two hunched processes in his parish, and finding it
impossible to procure a proctor to levy the execution,
called, in his capacity as a Magistrate, on a troop of
Dragoons staioned in the neighbourhood, to aid the col-
lection. The Dragoons came to the spot, and on inquir-
ing how they were to proceed, they were surrounded by
the peasantry, one of whom, a Stalworth Presbyterian,
offered himself to the captain, stating that he had been
sewed regularly with the process—that he hsd no money,
but that he offered his person, and was ready to proceed
to Dundalk gaol, if the officer chose to arrest him. This
was a signal for the rest, and a number of them made a
similar tender."

The Dragoons (what servants of the Apostles
of Christ !) faced about, and nothing was done.
Nor can any thing be done ; for, as Mr. O'Con-
nell has stated, there is no violence in the resist-
ance of the people. The law is allowed to take
its course ; but when the cattle are distraitted,
there are no bidders. Against this passive re-
sistance, force is unavailable. Let Earl Grey
take his measures for improving the condition of
the clergy—let Lord Ellenborough give up the
bodies of the miserable debtors to the Church
creditors—let the men of mercy fiil the gaols
with them, and call upon the Government to
provide a dozen more gaols for every church
without a congregation :—let all this happen,
and more, and out of this bruising of humanity
a precious and redeeming essence shall come,

"Like crueh'd rrfurnesexhaling to the skier."
Out of oppression is squeezed retribution, or,
as Sheridan finely said,—" Wherever the heel
of oppression is raised, trodden misery springs
up, and glares around for vengeance."
Lord Grey declares, in contradiction of the
benign sentiment of the King's Speech, which
prefers peace to all other considerations, that
obedience to the law, coute qu'il coute, shall
first be compelled. But is the justice of the law
not to be considered, before severe compulsion
be attempted ? Gesler, when he condemned
Tell for not doing reverence to his cap on a spear,
only punished lawlessness; he doubtless argued
with Lord Grey's apologists,—the law must be
vindicated, whatever it is,—the habit of obedience
must not be distutbed ; but in the issue, he found—
." Midst tumult and alarm,
The might that slumbers in a peaiant's arm."

•_
It is more than questionable whether a tax, a
considerable part of which has for ages been mis-
applied, and continues to be diverted from its
original applications, can any where be justly ex-
acted, but certainly, least of all in a country
where there is not the pretext of service for any
part of the impost, and where nothing but
offence is rendered for it. The followers of the
all-suffering Apostles, do not even appear in
Court as prosecutors with clean hands. The
Church is not recites in Curia. Let the clergy
renounce their trespasses before they complain of
the trespasses against them. Let them cease to
withhold from the poor-box its third: let them
restore the other third to the maintenance of the
Church, and live apostolically in blessed poverty,
so beloved by Heaven, on the remainder. Let
the Bishops, too, make good the first fruits for
their brethren whose little incomes need addi-
tion. As things are now ordered, when we hear
" Church robbery" bawled out, we feel inclined
to ask the question Sheridan put to a gentleman
who exclaimed, " Have you heard of my son's
robbery?" " No," said the wit—" Whom has
lie robbed?" When we hear of Church robbery,
we think of the poor.
The Chronicle, whose labours in the province
of Church Reform exceed all praise, observes, in
apology for Ministers—
" No man of any sense could ever suppose that any
government of this country, constituted as every Govern-
ment must be, of the Aristocracy, at any time contemplated
any material Reform in the Church."
Can we believe, then, that they have really
contemplated any Reform in Parliament ? That
Reform involves all others, and as it is so feebly
conducted, while Ministers are so vehemently
hostile to objects for which it is sought, what
are we to thinkiorni n
ofathceei r
osfin ctehreiitry
t?ask Nothingcan
deliver'n ow ,
but the pr
them from the worst suspicions. But from pre-
sent signs we should infer a disposition to open
a quarrel with the people (who have so nobly
supported them), by the ostentatious adoption
of the most hated abuses. Patience is sorely
tried—but let us yet give them the free course
on which to found their glory, or find such
disgrace as man never before achieved.

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY, FEs. 11.

MR. MABERLY'S BANKRUPTCY.

Te-day the agent for the estate under this fiat
met the agent for the Aberdeen creditors, in order
to verify the powers of attorney under which the
latter yesterday proved the debts of the Aberdeen
creditors. It was in virtue of the authority given
him by these powers, that Mr. Gordon yesterday
put the assignees who were chosen in nomination,
and insisted upon signing the choice on behalf of
every creditor for whom he proved, in order that if
any dispute should hereafter arise on account of
neither of the assignees being creditors, he might be
backed by the number of names put to their ap-
pointment. The number of powers of attorney
verified to-day was about 130. These were all from
Aberdeen creditors. Only one Edinburgh and one
London debt have yt't been proved. The greater
part of the deposits in the Abet deen hank appear to
have been made by poor people. There are only
two of 3,0001., one of 2,8001., and one of 1,1001.;
the remainder being for the most part of very trading
amount.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

HATTON-GARDEN.

ALLEGED ATTEMPT AT " BURICING."—On Sa-
turday a notorious fellow of the name of Wedderburn,
formerly a soi-disunt Methodist preacher, afterwards
connected with the Cato-street gang, then a dealer
in blasphemy, sedition, and obscene books, and,
finally, the keeper of several brothels of the lowest
description, was brought to this office before A. S.
LAING, Esq., the Magistrate, together with a
woman named Atkinson, two boys named Mason and
Ross, a girl named Ann Andrews, and a woman
named Ann I'Vhittingham, by Waddington, one of
the principal officers, charged with being concerned
in attempting to destroy a female by strangling her
with a cord.

Mr. Davis, the landlord of the Distillers' Arms
Tavern, in Saffron-hill, stated, that about nine
o'clock that morning he was passing down Field-
lane, and heard cries of murder at No. 8, which was
kept by the prisoner Wedderburn. Several per-
sons assembled round the house, and as the cries be-
came fainter they resolved to burst into the house.
They proceeded along a passage till they arrived at a
vault at the back, and a more shocking place he
never saw in his life. In the vault he found a
woman with her legs tied, and a cord round her
neck. Her hands, which had been tied at the back
of her neck, she had unloosed; but the cord still
remained round her neck very tight, and she ap-
peared to be in a dying state. The cords were re-
moved, and she was carried to the workhouse,
where she continues in a very dangerous state.
Witness added that the woman had informed him
that the prisoner, Wedderburn, had tied her arms
and legs, and nearly strangled her by twisting the
cord round her neck.

The prisoners Mason and Ross also said that
Wedderburn had done it.

Waddington, the police officer, said that part of
the house was kept as a brothel, and in the front
Wedderburn sold obscene books and prints, some of
which, the most filthy th it can be imagined, the
officer produced.
Mr. LAING asked Wedderburn what he had to
say to the charge.
He replied that the woman came to his house at
seven o'clock in the morning, quite drunk, and in
a state of madness. She pulled the clothes off the
lodger,' beds, and threw a kettle of water over
them. He could not get rid of her. She used to
come to him at another house, which he was in-
dicted for keeping; and that morning he tied her
legs and hands, and placed her in the vault, to keep
her there till she became sober.

Mr. LAING asked him what he had to say about
twisting the cord about the woman's neck.
He made no reply; and all the prisoner: were re-
manded till a future day, when the woman shall be
sufficiently recovered to be able to attend to give
evidence.