The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-10 00:00:00

w. re strongly excited. Mr. O'Connell declared
that Irish tithes were defunct. This is the conse-
(pence of contempt of long continued and aggravated
evils. The state of the law was the first cause of
complaint, the legal grievances of which have been
re,ently excellently stated in the publication of
" Ob-ervations on Tithes and Tithe Laws," by the
late Sir George Wood, one of the Barons of the
Exchequer. Those grievances were treated with
in:t tention and contempt; the whole system and
principle of remuneration is now impugned I. Thus
the insane crusade of the Duke of Wellington,
aeainst any Reform of the representation, will end
it, the destruction of the borotighinongers. Our
cootemporaiy, the Standard, has a long and laboured
article in support of the dying Church, and in the
spirit of its argument contends, that the lands occu-
pied by the Church and the tithes are the pro-
p, sty of the clergy, and ludicrously maintains
that they have not half enough, which, as
far as concerns their own desires, we do
not doubt. The argument of Lord Grey and the
St indard was essentially the fdlacy of Burke, so un-
aeswerably refuted by Sir James Mackintosh (when
y 'wig) in his Vindicice Galliacce. There is 'a wide
distinction between trust property and private pro-
pr-rty. No public servants are proprietors. They
rue sata ied by the State for the performance of
certain duties. Judges are paid for the distribution
of justice ; Kings for the execution of laws ; soldiers
for the public defence; priests, where there is an
established religion, for public instruction. The
mode of their payment is indifferent to the question.
It was generally in rude ages by land, anti in more
civilized times by money. A Cerrito ial pe,.sion,
however, is no more property than a pecuniary pe.
sion. Although in the various changes of cedars
siastical remuneration of labour, the State intrusted
the priests with a portion of land as the source
and security of their pensions, they are no'niore
:he proprietors of it than other State servants are
of that portion of the revenue from which they are
paid. The lands of the Church have none of the
requisites of property ; they are not originally held for
he benefit of those who enjoy them. The priesthood
was a Corporation, endowed by the country, and
destined for the benefit of other men. They are
only entrusted with the administration of the lands
farm which their salaries are paid. The attempt to
sanctify Church property as inalienable, and not the
property of a trust, is absurd as well as futile. The
Druids, doubtless, set up the howl of sacrilege, when
the first Christian Legislature took from them their
temples and possessions. The Scottish Episcopacy
made a similar outcry, when its revenues were alie-
nated in support of a new establishment. The State
is the sole proprietor of an Established Church.
This is an inconvenience to which the " alliance be-
tween Church and State" subjects all hierarchies;
awl thus they contain in their own constitution the
seeds of mortality. The doctrines of Lott] Grey on
lis subject are the worn-out opinions of by-gone
ages. His Lordship cannot coerce a Catholic people
to maintain a Protestant Establishment. The pro-
ceedings in the House of Commons last night, on
the presentation of the anti-tithe petitions, will prove
to his Lordship, that the Irish people will have an
Tholition of tithes, and nothing less. The Irish
Tithe Committee is jocosely denominated the Coro-
tier's Inquest. His Lordship, if in office five years
hence, will find work enough to patch up the Eo,::lish
tithes, and may find it convenient to leave Irehiroi
it) herself on that question. Already we see that
the great towns—imodon, Ehriburgh, Thrming-
teim, Leeds, and Shefihid—will not pay Church
rates, and the Protestant Dissenters are taking their
ground on the principal of a free trade is religion.
The people have discovered that the clergy do not
render them service in proportion to their pay, that
the drones rob the bees. Tire periodical season of
shaki,g the hive is approaching. The Church must
and will be again reformed. Voluntary contribution
will be substituted for tithes levied by policemen and
aimed proctors; the salaries of the working clergy
fill be equalized and more liberal, their dirties „ii!
be better executed, their lives will be more irre-
oroachable: and even if the Bishops retire from the
!louse of Lords, they will thereby add respect and
power to the Church and State. If the Church
power in England and Ireland outlives Lord Grey,
it will not survive the nineteenth century. Irish tithes
have indisputably died a natural death—their longe-
vity only is miraculous. The people of the United
Empire begin to discriminate between Priestianity
and Christianity.—Morning Chronicle.
From the days of the revolution of July, 1830, to
.he 3d of February, 1832, the blood of no French-
man was shed upon the scaffold in the metropolis of
France. During all that time the apparatus ofjudi•
cial death, the horrible guillotine, which was worked
with such tremendous activity at the period of the
rormer revolution, remained in a state of perfect
The great traitors who had conspired to sub-
vert the liberties of their country, and who com-
menced the short reign of despotism by military
execution upon the citizens of Paris, received the
indignant mercy of a people, who did not stain their
glorious triumph by making the name of justice sub-
servient to the passion of revenge. Thus the great
criminals being spared as to their lives, and left in
captivity to meditation and repentance, the French
Government thought, very properly, that it would
look inconsistent and unequal to punish with death
culprits whose crimes were as inferior to theirs as
their power to inflict evil upon society was compara-
tively limited. There was also a natural repugnance
on the part of the people to see human life taken in
any case, when even the crimes of the Ex-Ministers
were thought not tojustify it. Therefore the guillotine
had rest; nor did Justice feel herself defrauded of her
rights, because the axewhich fell not on the necks of
illustrious culprits ceased to drink the blood of vulgar
criminals; nor did crime increase in Paris because
the work of judicial extermination was suspended,
and the axe of death rusted in its place. On the
part of the French Government the show of hu-
manity was only for a purpose; and, that pur-
pose being served, an experiment was made, some
time ago, to get the guillotine at work once more
its the Place de Greve; but the people, considering
he ground of that spot consecrated by the blood of
the martyrs of liberty, gave indications of opposing
the execution, and the design was then abandoned.
An attempt was afterwards made to carry the sen-
tence of death into effect ou the Place Vauban, be-
hind the Hotel des Invalides ; but the protest of
the occupants of that establishment was effectual in
preventing the infliction of what they c rnsidered an
ignominy on the neighbourhood, and in some degree
on themselves. The third experiment was more sue-
' cessful; the terrible apparatus of sanguinary law
was finally erected on the Place de la Barriers St.
Jacques. The axe, cleared from the rust of a long
interval of repose, has again drunk human blood ; and
the Ministry of Louis Philippe, whose father perished
by a similar machine, have ascertained the gratifying
fact that the guillotine need not be discarded in Paris
as a necessary part of the machinery of the State.
Upon this subject one of our Paris correspondents
made the other day the following judicious remarks:
—" The renewal of these revolting scenes in Paris
is lamented and condemned almost unattimiusly by
the public. The penal code was considerably ame-
liorated in the passage through the Chamber of
Deputies of the law for revising the criminal laws,
and will undergo further modifications in the Cham-
ber of Peers, before whom that law is about to be
brought. A powerful effort will, I am sure, be
made to abolish the punishment if death altogether;
,s hick effort some pretend would have succeeded,
but for the alleged necessity of making examples in
case.; of high treason. The abolition of the penalty
psi death is riot likely, therefore, to rake peace in,
France immediately; but the day is notd
when capitol punishment will cease altogether. I
nere,
Novthe word think I may venture to predict, howe'er,
except murder and treason. d trea-
son no
crimes will in future be punished with death
d Judges under most Governments have
lawyers arid
been very much given to the ptaeuce of adop:ing
such a latitude, with regard to the con
sou is a very comprehensive
struction of
preriensive word, and Crown
diet word, as to make it I.lcl a drag-net to cotcli

rest.