The Sun.
London, England, 1835-11-03 00:00:00

;SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

the inevitable destruction to which they are hastening.
Conservatism, or rather Toryism, let us call it by its
true name, was never placed in greater jeopardy than
by bringing these questions; " The Use of the
Lords?" and " Who are the People?" in juxta-
position. The design may be to divert the, popular
mind from the close and necessary investigation of the
utility of a second Chamber of Legislation—but it
must doubtless fail of its object, as the evils result-
ing from hereditary legislation have excited a resolve
in the country too deep and determined to be effaced
or estrayed by such flimsy artifice and chicanery. The
question—" Who are the People ?"—need be met by
one only reply—the millions—who are resolved on
the reclamation of their rights—and the prostration of
the ruthless oligarchs who have so long trampled on
their liberties. Rights are not now to be meted by
the standard of property. Men will not now receive
as a boon that freedom which is their birthright, nor
stoop to acknowledge as superiors those whom nature
has placed on an equality with themselves. " Who
are the Lords ?" This is indeed a question which
involves difficulty in its solution. • It is not, however,
our intention to trace them to the barbarous credulity
and ignorance in which they originated : it is sufficient
for-the living generation to know that their factious
supremacy is doomed to speedy demolition. Some
insensate Tories affect regret that the " sport, which
they anticipated in seeing the combined body of Whigs
and Radicals rush against the impregnable walls of the
House of Lords, and fall shattered to atoms beneath its
bulwarks," has been spoiled by the moderation of Mi-
nisters. If, however, this regret be sincere, its cause
will be speedily removed by the simultaneous effort of
all genuine Reformers to correct the abuses or annihi-
late the existence of hereditary legislation. And, for
the comfort of the' Tories, be it known that the event
will be rather accelerated than retarded by any change
of administration. As in other cases, the delay will
serve only to increase the measure of popular Reform.
Hereditary. legislation—the fertile source of all na-
tional ill—is based only on absurdity and imposture.
'With a liberal Ministry, however, an extensive reform
of the House of Lords might allay public excitement ;
but, should the Tories again attempt to resume the
helm of the State, the annihilation of a second cham-
ber will be the inevitable consequence. With regard
to the questions—" Who are the people ?" and "Who
are the Lords ?"—the course of events vv- ill, ere long,
furnish a'. indisputable solution.—MorrtingAdvertiser.
In our paper a few days since, we gave a- copious
extract from a Scotch paper, on the subject of the
late Appeal Court at Inverness for the six northern
counties. It seems that the " working" of the
Reform Act was a little awkward, in consequence
of no provision being made for the event of six
Judges sitting to determine appeals, and the pos-
sibility of their being equally divided in opinion.
The Scotch amended Act provides for the event of
four Appeal Judges being so situated, and declares
that the Sheriff, against whose judgment the
appeal may have been brought, shall have no
voice in case of such equality. But for six Sheriffs
so situated, which /would only happen in this dis-
trict, it was not thought expedient to apply a
remedy. Accordingly, in deciding some cases of
appeals against the decisions of Mr. Sheriff' Jar-
dine, in the Registration Court for Ross-shire, he
six Sheriffs being equally divided in opinion (and Mr.
Jardine himself not declining to be reckoned), the ap-
peals were dismissed, because no judgment in such
circumstances could be given. Now, in this county,
where the two great interests are so nearly equipoised,
the loss of several votes to the Conservative candidate
by such means looks more than accidental. We re-
gret that Messrs. Gladstone, of Liverpool, have for
the present been deprived of the franchise for one of
their Scotch estates (in Ross-shire) by the extraor
dinary result in the Appeal Court to which we have
alluded. But, notwithstanding, we rejoice to hear
that the state of matters in this county now leaves no
room for doubts as to the triumph of the Conservative
cause at the next election.—Morning Post.

What is to be the result of the hostilities now waged,
with all the energies of the State, and all the bitter-
ness of personal rancour, against the Press, and against
liberal sentiments under every form in France, it is
perhaps not very difficult to -foresee. The Assize
Court of the Seine has been wholly occupied during
the last week in prosecutions instituted by the Procu-,
Teur General against public journals. The Charivari
Us been raised from obscurity into notice by a so-
3eran accusation that it had attempted to bring the
Xing's Government into hatred and contempt. Let
us look at the facts of this case. A few narratives are
collected together of scenes which occurred in Paris
during the contest for liberty in July, 1830, during the
merciless massacre of the people in the Rue Trans-
nonain at a subsequent period, and of some of the in.:
cidents which took place during the insurrection at
Lyons. It was not even insinuated on the part of the
Crown that so much as one of these statements was
false. They were founded upon irrefragable authority ;
they were cited from the pages of the Ministerial jour-
nals; they already compose a portion of the history of
the country. Unless the evidence of the living gene-
rations of France is to be obliterated from her annals
.--7 unless her history is to be henceforth a compilation
of panegyrics drawn from the fertile inventions of a
Guizot or a Thiers—we know not what crime could
have been charged against the editor and printer of
the Charivari. In fact, their sedition was alleged to
consist not of the matter, but of the ink in which it
was printed I The printer chose to clothe the journal
for that day in the livery of the House of Orleans—he
printed his pages in red ink, and in the colour of his
letters, not in their substance, was found the grave
intention of bringing the King's Government into
hatred and contempt. In black ink it would have
been history—in rouge it becomes treason. We are
not acquainted with any law in France which prohi-
bits the use of red ink to a public journalist. It is one
of the three colours borne on the national ensign. It
was a favourite colour with all the early typographers,
who were in the habit of interspersing their pages with
rubrics. But according to the decision just recorded
in the Assize Court of Paris, the use of red ink is
henceforth to be deemed sedition. The new laws of
the Press allow a journalist to animadvert upon the
. conduct of the Ministers. The person of the King is
inviolable, and justly is it ordained that he should not
be exposed to the censure of public writers. Never-
theless, if the Minister be utjustly accused, he has his
remedy, can prove the falsehood of the charge, and sub-
ject his adversary to fine and imprisonment. But here,
;hough the facts were undeniable, the party is found
efui.'tY, by reason of the colour of his ink ! There is
no example of such Ministerial folly, of so violent a
determination to tyrannise . over the Press, and of
using any pretext, however petty, however dis-
graceful, for the accomplishment of its purpose,
to be discovered in any other country. What a
noble occupation, to open a crusade against ru-
brics. Rut this is not all. M. Gregoire, the printer
of the Charivari, was acquitted because he proved
that he was not at the office on the day of publication,
and knew nothing of its arrangement for that clay.
rut M. Simon, the editor, was found guilty, altlniugh
on the same day, and for some time before and after
it, he was actually a prisoner at Pelagic, a prisoner an
secret, :rigorously excluded from communication with
anybody, and denied even the use of pen, paper, and
ink of any co:enr. We admit that in England, absence
from the office, or ignorance before hand of the con-
tents of a newspaper publishing libellous matter, is no
excuse before the law. But in the case of the Cha-
rivari, that excuse was accepted on the part of Gre-
goire who was at liberty, and who ought to have known
the arrangements of the paper ; while Simon, who
could not by possibility have had any share in the
business, was found guilty, and condemned by the
. Court to two months' imprisonment, as well as to a
fine of 2001., the maximum which could have been
inflicted. We look upon the whole of this proceeding
with unmitigated disgust ; and we must add, that the
only persons connected with it- really guilty of bring-
ing the King's Government into hatred and contempt
are the Ministers who directed such a pitiful prosecu-
tion. Another specimen of the sort of construction
zrhlch the Ministers have directed to be affixed to the
new laws—laws, they said, that left the Ministers open
to every species of animadversion by their political op.
ponents—was exhibited in the prosecution of the Bon
Sens and Quotidienzze. These two journals translated
from a London paper some remarks upon those laws, not
distinguishable from the attacks of the British Press in
general. We all, Whig, Tory, Radical, condemned
the restraints imposed on the French Press without a
dissenting voice—some with great energy, others in a
tone of moderation, which was, perhaps, not less dis-
agreeable to the delicate nerves of the Doctrinaires. But
those Gentlemen, not able to attack our Press here, or
to bring it into unison with their views by intimidation
or corruption, chose to try an experiment with it in
'France, by seeing how far they could prevent English
sentiments from being translated into French. The
Editor of the Bon Sens considerably modified the ori-
ginal, by leaving out several strong phrases ; but this
act of prudence upon his part was deemed by the re-
presentative of the Crown as an augmentation of his
guilt ; it showed, said the Advocate-General, " that
he wrote with reflection !" Both the parties accused
were acquitted, and thus the assault upon the British
Press has failed ; but the fact that it was made, and
made, too, in violation of all the fine promises which
were given at the time, that the Doctrinaires were ut-
terly fearless of discussion, amply confirms all that we
have said froth time to time of the impossibility of re-
conciling the continuance of a Doctrinaire Ministry in
France with anything like a Liberal Constitution.
Either must perish in the contest, and we venture to
predict that it will not be the Constitution.—Morning
Chronicle.
In Blackwood's Magazine for November, there is
an article on the state of Naples under the Bourbons
and Bonaparte, characterized by more candour than
v e should have expected in anything appearing in
such a publication. On the authority of the History
of Pietro Colletta, the,dangers of secret societies are
shown in the case of the Carbonari. " The profounder
politicians employed by Napoleon in his kingdom of
Italy, warned King Joachim that all secret societies
were inimical to established Governments." The Car-
bonari, like the Orangemen, seem to have thought it
depended on them who should be King of Naples.
They were at one time for King Ferdinand, at another
for Murat. If the records of the Carbonari could be
produced, we have no doubt there would be found
many such indications of contemplated rebellion as that
given by Colonel Fairman, in his letter to the Mar-
quis of Londonderry of the 30th July, 1832 :—" In
my letter of Saturday I omitted to mention that we
have the military with us, as far as they are at liberty
to avow their principles and sentiments ;" and in his
letter to the Duke of Gordon of the 11th of August,
1832, " if we are to be arrayed in hostility to a Re-
publican Ministry, we ought to be in a condition to
check their subversive courses ;" and "we inculcate
the doctrine of passive obedience and resistance too
religiously by far." It is, by the bye, stated by Mr.
• F. Fox Cooper, that there are 50,000 Orangemen in
London alone. When we reflect on the anxiety to
obtain the control of the policejorce, and on the lan-
gugge held by the bosom friends of the chiefs, to say
nothing of the attempts niiade on the servants of an
illustrious personage, we can hardly be surprised that
strange things pass in men's minds both at home and
abroad. The following extract from a .letter dated
Bilboa, 13th October, may serve as a sample :—" I
can assure our dear friends, the Tories, that at the end
of our two years' service in Spain, we shall be a fine
body of troops to throw into the scale ip favor of the
Ettle Princess Victoria, if ever our Don Carlos is mad
enough to play the part of his worthy brother at Du-
rango. '—Morning Chronicle.
The question—" The Use of the Lords?" is now
attempted to be met by the defeated, shattered, yet
insolent Tory faction, by the stupid and monstrous
interrogatory, " Who are the People ?" It would be
difficult to conceive a greater stretch of temerity and
absurdity than is involved in this inquiry. In fact,
we would scorn to reply to it, were it not that a desire
of protecting an infatuated fraction of the community
from the fate which their idiocy provokes, induces us
. So tear aside the veil which conceals from their eyes

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, ISS3Q