The Sun.
London, England, 1835-05-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Whig arrangement relative to the Court of
Chancery excites a general and deep feeling of dissa-
tisfaction both with the public and the legal profession.
IsTo Administration, who had not a peculiar aptitude
for bungling whatever they took in hand, could ever
have thought of manufacturing a Lord Chancellor out
of two Equity Judges, whose own Courts are full of
business, and a Common Law Judge, who, though
respectable and efficient in his own department, knows
nothing of Equity I Can this be the work of a Re-
form nothing
? or has some power behind, but
not of the Government, contrived this arrangement—
the best that could be devised to bring Commissioner-
ships of the Great Seal into public disfavour, and to
make suitors prefer even a political Lord Chancellor,
not overstocked with a knowledge of Equity, to a
judicial triumvirate so constituted that it cannot
transact the business of one Court without neglect-
ing that of others? It is upwards of twenty years
ago since the Vice-Chancellor's Court was esta-
blished, to facilitate the despatch of business in
Chancery, and though it has been very useful in
keeping down arrears of business in that Court,
its own arrears have been, for a long time past, and
sre now very considerable. In fact the business of the
Vice-Chancellor's Court requires the constant and un-
divided attention of the Learned Judge at the head of
it ; yet at a moment when the causes in that Court are
greatly in arrear, the Vice-Chancellor is appointed a
Commissioner of the Great Seal, and must necessarily
neglect the duties of a Commissioner, or allow the
business in his own Court to get more deeply in ar-
rear, to the great delay of justice, and the consequent
increase of expense and vexation to the suitors. Is this
vhat the Whig Ministers mean by Rcform in Chan-
cery I Then, as to the Master of the Rolls, the in-
crease of business in his Court having made it
necessary a few years ago to convert the three-
day evening sittings into daily sittings, has left him
no leisure to take other judicial work on his
bands, without great detriment to the interests of
the suitors in his own Court. But he also is
appointed to take charge of the business in the Lord
Chancellor's Court, and his office as a Commissioner
must be either a nullity or a nuisance—a nullity if he
give to the transaction of business in his own Court all
the time which it demands—a nuisance if he delay
justice to the suitors in his own Court to transact busi-
ness elsewhere. Such are the mischievous conse-
quences of this stupid and bungling arrangement ; but
the absurdity goes further. The Court of the Lord
Chancellor being a Court of Appeal from the two other
Courts, either appeals in Chancery cannot be tried, or
appeals from those two Courts must be heard by the
Judges whose decisions are appealed against, or by
one of them sitting under another roof ! Whether
Mr. O'Connell was consulted upon this arrangement
we cannot tell, but certainly it equals anything of Hi-
bernian blundering upon record. Had it emanated
from Mr. Spring Rice's or Lord Duncannon's de-
partment the public might have supposed it was an
Irish mode of appeal, and adopted to assimilate the
practice of the two countries, and prove the reality of
the Union. The " unlearned" have been in the habit of
thinking that the appeal from the Lord Chancellor in his
own Court to the same personage in the House of
Lords was sufficiently ridiculous; but then in theory it is
quite a different thing from what it is in practice, be-
cause the Learned Lord on the Woolsack is supposed
to be only the organ of the whole House of Lords,
sitting in a judicial capacity ; and in practice, too,
it often happens that one or more law Lords, or re-
tired Chancellors take a part in the proceedings ;—but
as to the appeal, as now established, from the Master
of the Rolls and the Vice-Chancellor, in their own
Courts, to the Master of the Rolls and the Vice-
Chancellor in the superior Court of Equity (for the
Common Law Judge must be left out of the question),
it is nothing but a bare and naked absurdity both in
theory and practice. The latest legal arrangement of
the present Ministry is to make the Chief Justice of
the King's Bench the Speaker of the House of Lords.
In point of personal dignity of deportment and sauvity
of manners, it would be difficult to make a better
choice of an individual for that important office.
The manners of Chief Justice Denman on the
bench are those of a gentleman by disposition,
habit, and education. The tendency to coarse and
intemperate language and rude and personal col-
lisions which has, of late years, rather lowered the
character of the House of Coramons, once so distin-
guished for its polished propriety, requires to be
checked ; and for that purpose it is absolutely neces-
sary to have an example and model of courtesy and
good temper on the Woolsack ; for politeness of man-
ners and propriety of language in that situation might
become as contagious as the opposite qualities of in-
temperance and rudeness. Looking at the question
only in this point of view, the selection of Lord Den-
man for the office is unexceptionable. But there
are other points of view in which it must be looked at,
and in which the fitness is not so apparent. The
union of the office of Speaker of the House of Lords
with that of Lord Chancellor has long been a
matter of just and serious objection. " Well," say the
Whig Ministers, " we will reform the practice—we
will separate the two offices—we will seperate the
judicial duties of the Chancellorship from the political
ones altogether." How do they effect this reform ?
By separating the Speakership of the House of Lords
from the office of Chancellor, and annexing it to the
office of Chief Justice I Surety this is supplanting
one unfit and absurd arrangement by another. We
doubt at present the power of making such an arrange-
ment legally without an Act of Parliament, but we
must reserve our opinion upon that point until we have
time to look a little more into the matter in a legal
point. At present we speak only of the fitness or un-
fitness of the appointment, and surely if the Chief Jus-
tice of the King's Bench gives all the attention requi-
site to the business of his own Court, he can have no
time to act as Speaker of the House of Lords. But
then Lord Shaftesbury is to act for him as Deputy
Speaker. Why, then, not make Lord Shaftesbury at
once the Speaker, as it is quite certain he will have
more to do with the discharge of the duties of the office
than Lord Denman ? We do not like to see a Judge
either placed in a situation where he must of necessity
become a politician. We objected to a political Lord
Chancellor. We object to a political Chief Justice.
We would have the judicial and legislative powers per-
fectly distinct...-Morning Herald.
The Gazette of last night confirmed our statement
of the morning, that, at last, Mr. Littleton was about
to be elevated to the Peerage, as some compensation
for the affront offered to him by his late colleagues, in
leaving him out of their official arrangements. Mr.
O'Connell, albeit he likes not Mr. Littleton, did not
attempt to interpose his veto to this exercise of the
Royal prerogative. It is said that on the subject
being mentioned to Mr. O'Connell, he contented him-
self for the present with expressing his decided opinion
and deep regret that the number of Roman Catholic
Members of the House of Lords is disproportionately
small. To our announcement of the creation of Mr.
Littleton we added that the Whigs intended to
start the Hon. George Anson as their candidate
for the county of Stafford, and that " a good
man and true" was ready to oppose him. Both of
these statements are verified to the letter. Mr.
Anson is in the field on the part of Ministers ; and
the whole Conservative party in Great Britain will ac-
knowledge that we said right in describing the consti-
tutional candidate as " a good man and true," when we
state that the gentleman to whom we alluded is Sir
F. L. H. Goodricke, the present Member for the bo-
rough of Stafford. The conduct of Sir H. Goodricke
manifests a degree of zeal and devotion to the good
cause which cannot be commended too highly ; and we
hope and believe that his spirited enterprise will be
crowned with all the success which it unquestionably
deserves. There are circumstances in the position of
political parties, and in the state of political questions,
which naturally indispose gentlemen to encounter, at
the present moment, the toil and the expense attendant
upon a contested election ; and 'thee it is that so
many of the Whig-Radical Members of the House
of Commons who vacated their seats on accept-
ing office have been permitted to resume them
without opposition. Sir H. Goodricke presents, how-
ever, a noble example of superiority to all selfish con-
siderations. For him it is sufficient that an opportu-

nity presents itself of promoting the cause of wise and
good Government. Magnanimously disdaining all
thought of the inconvenience or loss which he may
incur--disregarding all calculations as to the probable
duration of the present Parliament—he follows at
once, and without hesitation, the path of patriotic
duty ; and, although really in possession of a seat in
Parliament, resolves to afford to the county to which
he belongs an opportunity of ranging itself on the side
of an assaulted Church and a menaced Throne. Of
the success of Sir H. Goodricke we have not the
slightest doubt ; nor have we any that the vacancy
which that success will occasion for the borough of
Stafford will be supplied by some gentleman of sound
political principles, and, therefore, worthy to be the
successor of the high-spirited and patriotic Baronet.—.
Morning Post.
We have now before us the return made to an order
of the House of Commons for " a copy of the pro-
ceedings of an investigation, held at Armagh, into the
transactions which took place in the neighbourhood of
Keady, between the police and country people, on col-
lecting an arrear of tithe due to the Rev. James
Blacker, wherein one man was killed, and another
wounded." A copy of the inquest, and all other do-
cuments connected with that encounter, are included in
the return. The accounts which we receive from the
Irish newspapers, of affrays between adverse parties,
are, generally speaking, so much exaggerated on one
side or the other—and owing, perhaps, also to the im-
perfect organization of the machinery necessary for the
collection of authentic intelligence, are frequently so ut-
terly incorrect—that we seldom venture to reason
upon their statements with any view to show the prac-
tical operation of the Constitution in that country.
But here is a Parliamentary paper, containing a
chapter from the living history of Ireland, upon which
no shadow of doubt can be thrown. The investiga-
tion, of which we have here the result, was conducted
by Mr. Sergeant Greene, a Tory lawyer of undoubted
respectability in his profession ; and although discern-
ing readers must perceive that his political and religious
bias has, unconsciously perhaps, led him to mitigate,
as far as he could, the more flagitious features which
the whole transaction presents to the contemplation of
the Legislature, nevertheless he has furnished us with
a record of ecclesiastical rapacity, tyranny, contempt
for the Constitution, contempt for human life, con-
tempt for every feeling allied to the charities of religion,
and to the preservation of order and the laws, the most
revolting that ever yet disgraced a Christian Church, or
degraded a civilized nation. The parish of Keady, near
Armagh, is almost wholly inhabited by Catholics. The
Rev. Jas. Stewart Blacker is the Protestant incumbent
of the parish, and it appears that in November last
he had a claim upon it for an arrear of tithes amount-
ing in the whole to the sum of twenty-five pounds I
This was an arrear for the two years 1832 and 1833.
If that wretched sum were really of any importance to
the incumbent, he might have obtained it by way of
loan—a loan never to be repaid—out of the million
fund voted by Parliament for the express purpose of
meeting cases of this description. But Mr. Blacker
boasts that he never applied to that fund, whence it
must be concluded that his secular circumstances
did not imperatively demand the addition of five-
and-twenty pounds to his fortune. Moreover he
states that nearly the whole of the parish had com-
pounded for the tithe—that in another year the com-
mutation would include every part of the parish-.--and
that, therefore, after that period his claim would be
only on the landlords, who would give him no fur-
ther difficulty on the subject of his income. But
Mr. Blacker would have the pound of flesh stipulated
for in " the bond." If he wanted the money, he might
have got it from Dublin by return of post ; if he
sacrificed the sum, he would never have missed it ; but
he very much preferred attempting to collect it from the
poorest peasantry on the face of the earth, at the point
of the bayonet I There is a Minister of the Gospel
for you ! It was necessary, however, to ms.l:2 C.:l r,i)-
plication to the Government for the assistance of a
police force ; and, in order to justify the application,
it was further indispensable to procure affidavits
proving some act of forcible resistance, or such other
facts as would show that life might be endangered
or the public peace disturbed, if extraordinary mea-
sures were not employed. The local magistrates
would take these affidavits into their consideration,
and act upon their own judgment and responsibi-
lity ; and, according to Mr. Littleton's express di-
rection, one of those magistrates must accompany
any extraordinary force that might be ordered out
for such a purpose. The latter condition looks
something like a safeguard for the discreet use of
the civil force. It was manifestly intended that
a disinterested person, clothed with magisterial
powers, should interpose his authority between the
people and the claimant, and at the same time enforce
the law in a manner not liable to suspicion. The
necessary affidavits were of course easily procured,
and an order was signed by two magistrates autho-
rizing the attendance of the police, who assembled
under the command of their chief constable, twenty-
nine in number, on the Ist of December, a few days
after the change of Government was known in that
part of Ireland. The presence of a magistrate was,
however, necessary to legalize their proceedings, and
who, think you, was that magistrate ? The Rev.
James Stewart Blacker, the claimant in the case—
the party immediately interested in the recovery of
the tithe ! Why, if such an outrage as this upon
all legal decency, upon every thing like a constitu-
tional order of things, were perpetrated in England,
the table of the House of Commons would be piled
with petitions from every county, city, town, and
hamlet in this kingdom, praying to have such a
man dismissed from the magistracy ; and, if his
Bishop did not discharge him from the service of
the Church, the building in which he attempted to
preach the Gospel of the God of charity, whom he had
offended, would be pulled down about his cars by an
indignant people. The image of an interested ma-
gistrate, directing, in the most tranquil way, the police
force, for his own lucre, is detestable enough ; but, to
behold a Minister of a Gospel, which abhors the
effusion of human blood, ordering an armed body of
men, attending there to direct them to fire upon his
own parishioners, if they resisted the payment of his
tithe, is a spectacle fit only for the precincts of that
region where unpardonable crime is to undergo never-
ending punishment. When the people of England in
their quiet homes, where their liberties are secured by
law, read of these transactions, can they wonder that
the Established Church in Ireland, filled as it is with
such men as Blacker, is not considered by the
mass of its inhabitants as a Church having any-
thing whatever to do with Christianity ? Can
we be surprised that it is hated, that it is warred
against, that it has produced nothing but discord,
that it has generated the Orangemen—that it has
created, by the discontent that pervades the whole
island, the invincible, though irresponsible power now
wielded with such matchless energy and skill by Mr.
O'Connell ? But hear further. Every step we ad-
vance in this narrative has a horror of its own. "It
does not appear," says Mr. Greene, " that any of the
alleged defaulters had been personally required to pay,
or even that any demand had been made at their
houses." In the common course of things, even the
most civil mode of legal process is seldom resorted to,
except by very low attorneys, before the debt is at all
events distinctly demanded : but according to the law
of Ireland, as expounded and practised by the Rev.
Magistrate Blacker, the only mode of obtaining the
payment of tithe is to present a blunderbuss at the
peasant's breast, and demand his money from him in
the idiomatic phrase of the highway robber. The
police force, headed by this exemplary clergyman,
proceeded to action. A cow was seized. "No
attempt was made to rescue it." Four or five
distresses were taken, which " were removed to
the cart without any molestation ;" although by
this time a crowd had collected in the fields.
Will an Englishman believe that the debt for
which the cow was taken was just eight shillings !
that in the other cases of distress the sums demanded.
were severally ss. 6d., 6s. 1 lid. (which the poor man,
having by some accident lost his receipt, was obliged
to pay twice over), 6s. 7*(1., and one or two other
sums, still smaller in amount ? Although the whole
arrear due in the parish is said to have amounted to
25/., yet the sum which Mr. Blacker actually proposed
to collect by the aid of the police was not quite two