The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-04 00:00:00

House of Peers which has betrayed the trust reposed
in it by the Constitution, and instead of holding the
balance, absurdly entrusted to it, with an even hand
between the Monarch and the people, has been guilty
of the most shameful violation of the intent of the Con-
stitution, by flinging the shield of its protection around
the many inveterate and monstrous abuses existing in
and defiling the various departments of Church and
State. " And why," asks the noble author, " have
you done so ?"
" Because your own interests, the interests of your follow-
ers, your favourites, your dependents, and proteges are identi-
fied with those abuses. You cherish them because you profit
by them. The plunder of the public purse, filled by
the taxes wrung from the fruits of the daily toils of the
people, is portioned out amonst you. To you exclusively are
open all places of emolument and power, all civil, military, and
ecclesiastical preferments, without reference to the capabilities
or qualifications requisite for their discharge. In the present
order of things you obtain a patent at your birth for the pos-
session of all mental and physical endowments. The world
then, is not to be astonished at your zeal in endeavouring to
uphold and perpetuate an order of things so favourable to your
first moments of life, so prospering and so cheering to the har-
vest and the winter of your years. You alone are destined
to ascend, with the buoyancy and rapidity of a balloon,
to the highest honours and distinctions, while your com-
petitors of another caste, but your superiors in acquire-
ments, are, by the weight of untoward circumstances,
kept bound to their native earth. If the army is your
destination, you are fondled in the nursery as Colonels and
Generals in perspective ; if the navy is allotted to receive
you, you issue from your mother's womb equipped at all points
as future Commanders and Admirals. Should you betray an
inclination for the Church, or rather for the wealth of the
sanctuary, the Curates of yesterday, you are the Rectors to-
day, and well-conditioned Bishops to-morrow. You and yours
alone surround the Throne; you stand at the ear of the Sove-
reign, and intercept or misinterpret the complaints of his sub-
jects ; you stand before his eyes, that they may not be pained
by the flash from the light of political truth. You call the
people's wrongs, justice—the perpetuation of oppressive
abuses, the maintenance of our ancient institutions'—the just
murmurs of an outraged people, vicious discontent—their cries
for redress, insolence—and their assemblies and meetings to
petition for the removal of grievances, the work of incendiary
agitators and demagogues. All these things the people say
and believe of you, and is their belief unfounded or unreason-
able? Is not the picture I have sketched a faithful represen-
tation of the foul reality ? I have chosen, I must confess,
rather a limited ground for a full display, at one view, of all
the facts that might be grouped together; but a successive
series may be found to answer all the purposes of one grand
panoramic exhibition of lordly excellence and aristocratic
virtue."

An unbroken chain of graduated abuses serves to
connect the interest, reciprocate the dependence, and
conduct the mutual sympathies of the hereditary
Peers with the lowest and vilest dependent on munici-
pal patronage. To expose, assault, exclaim against a
single abuse, is to peal the tocsin of alarm through
all. The Lords in the plenitude of impotent fatuity
rise up in defence of national robbery and local injus-
tice ; they stamp the earth, and command silence on
the turbulent democrats. Such an attitude of lordly
imperiousness in the present day is more ridiculous,
but less amusing, than the frowns and menaces of a
mock despot on the stage. The people contemn the
exhibition, and the conviction is rapidly and fixedly
taking possession of the public mind, that if their
Lordships' concurrence were altogether dispensed
with, as not being essential to the restoration and
final establishment of the just rights and liberties
of the nation, we should arrive at a speedier and
happier consummation of good government.

This," observes the writer, " if carried into practical
effect, would amount to the annihilation of all your present
boasted privileges, render your titles as mere appendages to
your names for • the purpose of singling out the wearers as
objects of vulgar insult and popular contempt. Your utility
disclaimed, your mischief acknowledged, your importance over-
thrown, your influence lost, you become worse than political
nonentities. Better you had never been, than to have been,
and yet have fallen from your high estate,' to be the scorn,
when you failed to be the scourge, of mankind." _ _ .

Their Lordships are called upon to pause before it
is too late to retrace their steps. They have cut up,
hacked, and mangled the Municipal Bill. They have
vainly imagined to preserve the blood-nurtured tem-
poralities of the Irish Church, by cutting out the vitals
of the Bill for its reform ; but when the measure of
popular indignation becomes full, and it is filling fast,
the remotest points of the earth will hear the explo-
sion of this bloated nuisance, the foulest, the most
odious, and the most monstrous incumbrance that
ever a nation was cursed with, under the blasphemous
pretext of a religious establishment. If their Lord-
ships hope to continue their legislative existence, let
them " recall the Bills"—and pass them as originally
presented by the representatives of the people. They
are the people's Bills, and the nation is the best judge
of its own interest. The people will no longer be the
slaves of their hereditary task-masters. The doom of
the Lords is fixed—their fate is inevitable if they
rouse the people to a conflict ; but what. do we say
—the conflict is already commenced. The Peers, it
is true, may yet propitiate the people ; but if they
stand in opposition, the tide of democracy will pour
along with more impetuosity, and all who resist will
be buried in its waves.—Morning Advertiser.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.

' At the conclusion of the regular business of the Justice-
room yesterday, a very extraordinary scene took place be-
tween two gentlemen of the bar, Mr. George Thomas Wil-
liams and Mr. James Williams Goodgc, who entered, both
of them apparently in the custody of a policeman, named
Parish.

A shopkeeper had directed the policeman to take the
two gentlemen into custody for raising a violent quarrel
before his house, causing a most intolerable nuisance and
obstruction.

The parties were so excited that some time elapsed be-
fore the LORD MAYOR was put in possession of the facts.
Mr. Williams appeared as the complainant on this occa-
sion, which was one of signal ingratitude and outrage on
the part of the defendant. In fact, the defendant, although
obliged to acknowledge the nature and extent of his obli-
gations, accused him everywhere as the violator of his (de-
fendant's) domestic happiness. Here Mr. Williams de-
clared that in what he had done for the defendant he had
been influenced by the purest motives ; notwithstanding the
assurance of which, repeatedly made to the defendant, that
gentleman had done everything he could possibly do to
blast the character of his benefactor by the most vile and
calumnious misrepresentations. Under these circumstances
both parties met near the Mansion-house, the words " vil-
lain" and " scoundrel" were used, and the defendant com-
mitted an assault upon the complainant, who admitted that
he looked at and acted to the defendant in such a manner
as was calculated to provoke a blow.
Mr. Goodge said it was true the complainant had con-
ferred upon him some pecuniary obligations ; but those obli-
gations were conferred in order to accomplish the most pro-
fligate designs upon one of his family, designs which, be
lamented to say, he feared had been too successful, for,
amongst other proofs which he had detected, was a cor-
respondence which he himself intercepted, tending to show
that the writer was most dear to that false friend.

Mr. Williams declared most solemnly that a more scan-
dalous falsehood was never uttered.

Mr. Goodge said that the whole transaction was a nefa-
rious scheme against his honour and happiness. The of-
fence of the complainant, too, was aggravated by the fact
that they had lived in chambers together, had been called
to the bar together, and had been on the most intimate
terms. Unfortunately he (dafendant) had fallen into pecu-
niary embarrassments, out of which the complainant had
volunteered to rescue him. The complainant, who had
married a lady of considerable wealth, the command of
which gave him facilities of perpetrating the desperate in-
jury he meditated, took advantage of the poverty of the
man he pretended to sympathise with, and afterwards in-
duced a tailor to arrest his credulous friend.

Mr. Williams—Never, by heavens ! On the contrary,
I visited him in prison, and gave him the means of support,
and I supported the lady whom he thus calumniates while
he was confined, and it is in this way I am repaid.
Mr. Goodge—Yes, you gave her money and jewellery.
I am perfectly aware of that.
Mr. Williams—You treatedher with the greatest cruelty,
and you have gone round and made our disagreement a
matter of public notoriety, at the same time traducing her
character and mine.

Mr. Goodge, in continuation, said that the complainant
had prevailed upon him to accompany him on the Western
Circuit, and that at the post-office, while on that circuit,
he (defendant) saw a letter directed to the complainant, in
the hand-writing of the lady alluded to. The letter con-
tained matter which most unequivocally proved the nature
of the acquaintance between the lady and the complainant.
He (defendant) called complainant out, but an apology, in
the following words, was made by the latter :—" I never
shall think of my past conduct without remorse ;" and lie
(defendant) was led to believe that the lady had acted
foolishly, without acting criminally. The subsequent trans-
actions, however, convinced him that the complainant had
succeeded completely in his designs. The lady had con-
trived to destroy the written evidences of the complainant's
guilt, but there was still evidence for a Court of Justice.
The LORD MAYOR now asked what the defendant had to
say to the charge of having struck the complainant ?