The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-05 00:00:00

DUBLIN.

(FROM OyR OWN CORRESPONDENT.
Sir Robert Peel makes so many protestations of Reform,
that it is unpleasant to doubt his sincerity. If alteration
means reform, and a total departure from the course of his
predecessors savours of innovation, we cannot without in-
justice deny him the honour he lays claim to. A recapitu-
lation of a few of the doings of the Government in Ireland
will supply the best comment upon the sayings of its head
at Tamworth, and show in what " spirit" he is likely to
proceed, if the people and their representatives allow him.

The elevation of Messrs. Shaw, Lefroy, and Gregory to
be members of the Privy Council evinces a jealous regard
of' popular rights. To revoke the appointment of Lord
Roden, while those three lights of the age were brought
forward, looks like straining at a gnat and swallowing--not
a c.unel indeed, but—three great big blue-bottle flies.
" The Trinity College Orange Lodge" addressed his
Majesty on the change of men, and Mr. Goulburn did not
reprove the insolence of an illegal society, in darinto
avow its factious designation to the Sovereign. No ;but
he writes to the Secretary fo assure him that the address
has been " most graciously received." The address of an
Orange Lodge most graciously received ! Think of that
from the Home Secretary!
The Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief issues an
order, thanking the soldiers employed in the " melancholy
collision at Rathcormac," for having conducted themselves
so as " to call forth the most unqualified approbation on
the part of the magistrates :" the said magistrates, be it
remembered, still lying under a charge of wilful murder on
the oaths of thirteen of their fellow-countrymen!
While the addresses of large and respectable portions of
the King's subjects, remonstrating against the late unprece-
dented exercise of the prerogative, are unnoticed, or ac-
knowledged in a tone of haughty superciliousness ; while
such men as Lord Durham are " slighted off," the Premier
himself disdains not to indite a long autograph to the Reve-
rend John B. .21/PCrea !! ! and bandy compliments with
him—the Master of the Calvin Orange Lodge, who, about
two months back, in preaching to his congregation of
respectable, and, as the cant goes, " Christian Dissenters,"
predicted that he should live to see the " Popish priests of
Ireland fall victims to the (perhaps) unrighteous indigna-
tion of a people, the blood of whose forefathers cries to.
heaven for vengeance against the Man of Sin!"

The Castle of Dublin itself assumes all the appearance
and character of an Orange Lodge. Preferments are
lavished upon persons who have never been known, except
as Oran factionists or the sons of factionists ; and all of
them the crzintures and nominees of that mighty autocrat,
Mr. Frederick ,:Shaw Mr. Striven, his next-door neigh-
bour, and, I believe, his father's tenant, is made Register
of the Bankruptcy Court. Mr. Robinson, his colleague, as
Secretary to the Sundkj School Society, is made Assis-
tant Barrister of the Co my of Carlow. Mr. Lendrick,
one of his Committee at the College election, is made
Assistant Barrister of some otter county. In fact, Shaw is
the government de facto of Irelacd ; and his friends openly
boast of it. They assert, that as tho confidential friend and
near connection of the Earl of Rode,'', he has been in-
vested with a sovereign power in Irel,lnd. Poor Lord
paddington is Viceroy under him ; and even Sir Henry
Hafdinp hides his diminished head, and bones his fiery
spirit—before Shaw !
The Lord Lieutenant is grossly imposed on, or else he
must be a very weak-minded and ill-judging person. He
has made the Archdeacon of Kilmacduah, more familiarly
known by the name of Tommy Magee, his Chaplabl ;
and at a dinner given in honour of his Excellency last
week, by the Lord Mayor, the Church of Ireland was re-
presented by that little dignitary, supported by the Rev.
Marcus Beresford and the Rev. Charles Boyton ! !

As if these things were not enough to prove how the spirit
of the Bill is to work, under the veteran Reformer who has
taken the helm in his hand, the party have recourse to the
most infamous fabrications and perversions of the plain and
simple truth, to secure for Ireland a full measure of Tam-
worth anzelioration and protection. Not only is the influ-
ence of the Roman Catholic Clergy at the elections shame-
fully misrepresented and exaggerated, to afford the villainous
renegades of the London press a pretext for demanding
fresh invasions of popular freedom, but downright lies are
invented and propagated to rob us, per fas ant nefas, of
the niggardly measure of Reform which has been al-
lowed us.

If such falsehoods merely appeared in the c6Jumns of
the Times, or other kindred journals, on the credit of their
anonymous mercenaries, they would be perhaps, unwa,-thy
of notice ; but when noblemen connected with the govern-
ment are induced to lend them the sanction of their great
names, it is high time to speak out.
Lord Chandos has been made a dupe of some designing
enemies of this country, and its liberty ; and his noble na-
ture been imposed on to disseminate calumnies utterly un-
founded and malicious. The following extract from his
Lordship's speech at Newport Pagnell, on Wednesday last,
places him in an unenviable light ; and for the clearance of
his own honour he is bound to expose the,knaves who have
attempted to put a stain upon it, by making him the uncon-
scious vehicle of a fabrication so foul and atrocious :

" He had bean told that many Irish • members were re-
turned, not only through intimidation; but he was told that
at many elections blood was shed, and that many electors
did not live to return home and tell their wives for whom
they voted ; but that they had left the polling books and
the boothes, stained with their blood."

The Noble Lord's informant told him a most egregious
falsehood. Never were elections conducted with more
order or regularity. The only bloodshed we have heard (j;
was that of A WOMAN, who was shot BY A POLICEMAN
at Cork.

ROMANCES OF MANY LANDS.—WC are requested
to state that the " Romances of Many Lands, with Sketches
of Life and Manners, Comic and Serious," will be published
by Mr. Bentley, New Burlington-street, on Tuesday next,
the 10th inst. Orders should be transmitted forthwith to the
various Booksellers to ensure the early delivery of this work.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The party journals are already beginning to nibble
at the Commission of Church Inquiry, and, perversely
enough, at Sir Robert Peel's Government, for having
issued any commission whatever. Upon the latter
point his Majesty's Ministers are taunted with imitat-
ing an example which in their Whig predecessors they
condemned, viz. an overfondness for the appointment
of Commissions to lnquire. But to justify such a
,
censure upon the present Administration, sometnmg
ike a parallel cae ought first to be established. One
topic of just animadversion upon the former Govern-.
ment, and on which we ourselves took the liberty of
remonstrating more than once, was the immense nunz-
her of Commissions and Commissioners by which ever'
department of the State, and almost every district
of the country, was overrun :—central commis-
sioners, local commissioners, commissioners in chief,
subordinate commissioners, commissioners to in.
quire, commissioners to execute—if we won't mis-
take, there were :.o less than 13 distinct Com-
missions, and of Commissioners heaven knows how
many, enumerates' on one oii:casion in this Journal,
and commented upon as. it gross abuse of the public
patience. But, betides, very nearly the whole of these
Commissioners were paid more or less largely out of
the nation;'!purse, and the sum total of the expense
was felt by all descriptions of people to be a grievance
of no ordinary magnitude. Now we presume that few,
if any, rsons will allege it as a crime against the
present Ministers, that they have thus early, that is to
say, within little more than two months after their ac-
cession to office, Yet their shoulders fairly to the wheel
of Church Reform, like men no less alive to the solem-
nity of their own promises, than to the pressing obliga-
tion imposed upon them by the universal desire of the
country, to root cut all accessible abuse in the organi-
zation and discipline. of the temporal church of England.
There is, indeed, OW class of politicians who may be
disposed to look in at this prompt endeavour of
the Conservative Cabinet to fulfil its own implied en-
gagements, and to realize the expectations of the people.
The members of the late Cabinet, for instance, and
their immediate partisans and dependents, of which
number we never were, though always wishing them
well, and cordially supporting them when we thought
they deserved it, calthot feel very conlfortable on re-
flecting, that they: from first to last, were four years in
office, without ever doing half so much towards a prac-
tical reform of the Church, as their successors have
effected within syen weeks from the hour of Sir Ro-
bert Peel's arrival in England. When Lord Althorp
was interrogated on the subject, he never failed to make
his escape by pletralieg the difficulties which attended
any such rneasuJe, and the consequent necessity of
delay. Let us rl,;k, ha,-1 Ministers not appointed this
commission—and pray recollect that it is, unlike a long
list of others which we might refer to, a commission
which does not cast the State one farthina—would
there have ever been an end to the outcry against
sham pledges," " hollow assurances," " equivo
eating manifestoes," &a., interlarded with no small
allowance of scurrilous virulence against the Times
for having dared to believe a Conservative Adminis-
tration, upright in its announcement of a reform po-
licy, whether in Church or State P—Times.

Vi're have long, and we trust we may now add, not
altogether unsuccessfully, advocated the amelioration
of our criminal law by the abolition of the punishment
of death, with respect to the numerous offences to
which.it was attached as a penalty, with such a want
of discrimination and nacalled-for severity as wholly to
defeat its object—the effect being, that prosecutors
were unwilling to come forward, juries to convict, and
the Executive, CV!!!il after conviction, to inflict the
punishment. Perhaps to no offence did these remarks
apply more stronL4lv than to that of stealing to the
amount of 5/. in a 'dwelling-house. But it was only
at length, and after much opposition, that by the
2d and 3d William IV., c. 62, the punishment of
death with respect to this crime was abolished.
Agreeing as we did in the arguments which were
urged in support of this change, and considering that
iro punishment can be effective for the suppression
of crime which is not certain of infliction, it is
with some regret that we notice what occurred on
Tuesday last, at the Central Criminal Court, upon
a trial of an offender before the Common Sergeant.
The case we allude to is that of one William Dayton,
aged seventeen, who was indicted for having stolen, in
a dwelling-house, a desk and work-box, with their
contents, valued at 161.• The offence was clearly
proved, and, as far as we can judge, there were no ex-
tenuating circumstances in the case; yet the Jury,
whether for want of sufficient direction, or whether
acting under an erroneous idea that the law, with re-
spect to the punishment, had not been altered, found
the prisoner guilty, but of stealing under the value
of 51.1 This species of pia fraus, as we have
heard it termed, we have never been able to justify
—a Jury should recollect that they are sworn to
find according to the facts ; but on this point we
need not, we are sure, remark. Our chief object in call-
ing attention to the case is to mark our disapproval of
what fell from the Learned Common Sergeant, who,
upon the return of the verdict, is reported to have said
to the prisoner, that as this teas Iris first offence,
if he could get any one to speak to his character, his
punishment should be mitigated. Without alluding
to the particular circumstances of the case, we must
observe that this is a most mischievous doctrine—viz.,
the holding out to such offenders that the law win not
be carried into effect as regards them for their first
offence. True it is, that on the first semlAance, this
doctrine may appear to be founded in humanity ; but
we think it easy to show that it is not actually humane,
even to the unfortunate delinquents themselves, while
a great and serious injury is inflicted upon the
public at large. With respect to the juvenile de-
linquent, the eff,:ct is to encourage him to the com-
mission of further crime, by allowing him to discover
how slight a punishment may be. And, as is most
justly observed by Archbishop Whateley, in his
" Letter to Lord Grey, on Secondary Punishments,"
" If the infliction of steering were the desired object,
we might console ourselves that such young culprits
would be pretty sure not to escape ultimately ;" and it
is then aptly observed, " the fisherman who throws
back the small fish in expectation that when they are
grown large he shall catch them again, has seldom
better ground for being confident of this, than we have
for expecting that he who in childhood has been en-
couraged by the prospect of impunity to commence a
a career of crime, will persevere in it as he grows up
—will have formed early habits, too strong to be sub-
sequently eradicated by the denunciation of punish-
ment against the man, and will probably end his days
on the gallows or in the hulks. The Archbishop's
maxim is, " take care of the children, and the grown
people will take care of themselves." The injury to
the public may be collected from the above, but, in ad-
dition, society is left exposed to the designs of more
cautious and hardened criminals, who, aware of this
fallacious doctrine, use these young, and as yet uncon-
victed thieves, as their tools, for the perpetration of
crimes ; thus, actually creating a demand for these
young thieves to do the work which the older offen-
ders, on account of the severity of the punishment
which would fall on their heads if convicted, dare not
touch themselves. While thus deprecating this false
mercy which is thus disposed to pass over what are
termed first offences, but which are too often clearly
only first convictions, we do not by any means contend
that there should not be a graduated scale of punish-
ment for all classes of offenders. We consider that
there should be different degrees of punishment allotted
to first, second, and third convictions ; but this we wish
to have clearly and definitively laid down by the Le-
gislature, and not left to depend upon the uncertain
temperament or discretion of the Judge before whom
the criminal may have the good luck, or the bad for-
tude to be tried.—Morning Herald.
We have obtained possession of a copy of a letter
sent, or to be sent, by a Member of the late and pre-
sent Parliament, to Sir Charles Manners Sutton,
which we 'have inserted elsewhere. The Sir Charles
Sutton of 1833 is not the Sir Charles Sutton of
1835. No Reformer can now vote for him, though
in 1833 there might be reasons (we never thought•
them valid) for voting him Speaker. An argument
on which some stress is laid is, that Mr. Abercromby
is a party man as well as Sir Charles Manners Sutton,
and that no Member can be found possessed of the

qualifications requisite for Speaker who does not belong
to one party or another. But the objection to Sir
Charles Sutton is not that lie is a party man,
but that when Speaker of the late House of Com-
mons he forgot that all party ties ought to have
been sacrificed to his paramount duty to that
House. He ought to have replied to his Majesty in
the language of Lenthail—" I have neither eyes to
see nor tongue to speak, in this place, but as the
House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am."
Sir Charles Sutton had eyes to see what he ought not
to have seen ; and so far from speaking only al_ the
House was pleased to direct him, he intigned for the
destruction of the House whose ".ervant he was. His
pocket-peerage is . the re:;,,nrd treachery to the
".;ces in breaking un the Melbourne
House. His ser
Ministry rraj, procure for him a more hearty welcome
into
ouse of Peers ; but in the same degree
(hey ought to deprive him of the confidence of every
Reformer. Whoever votes for Sir Charles Sutton
ought to be looked on with distrust by all good Re-
formers. He has, indeed but a short way to go to the
extremes of Toryism.—Morning Chronicle.
" COPY OF A LETTER SENT, -OR TO BE FENT, FROM A MEMBER
OF THE LATE AND PRESENT PARMA MENT, TO SIR C. M. SUTTON.
" Dear Sir—As I cannot, consistently with -my sense of
public duty, so far indulge my personal feelings as to vote for
you at the ensuing election of Speaker of the new House of
Commons, I think it right to address you direct with my rea-
sons for that determination :

" I was, as you are aware, a Member of the first Reformed
Parliament; and I voted for you in 1833, because, although
your opinions were certainly known to me at that time, still
there was nothing eitbcr in your language or conduct which
distinguished you as a strong party man, whilst your expe-
rience in the Chair seemed to point you out as the person
best qualified to regulate the proceedings of a House sub-
staatially composed of new Men:hers.
" The case is now materially altered : there are but few
new Members in the present Parliament ; whilst you, Sir, ever
since the abrupt and unceremonious dismissal of the Reform
Government, have made yourself, while Speaker of the House
of Commons, most conspicuous as a partisan of the present
Tory Ministry ; and it is solely because it was considered that
you would most effectually serve the cause of this Ministry, as
Speaker of the new House, that you are not now a Member
of the Cabinet.

" It will be of the first consequence to us, raid to our expe-
riment (say the Tories) to have an avowed and active partisan
in the Chair of the new Hou3e. at this juncture. The selection
of such a man will at once give the House a Tory complexion,
and afford the first proof of public ,:nrifidcitc:, in a'Tory .Admi-
nistration.

" This, sir, is the language of your party, to my know-
ledge ; and the exclusive advocacy of your cause by the
Morning Post, and other Tory journals, must satisfy you that
you have not been reserved for the chair of the new House
from any notion of 3 our fitness for the office, but as the tool of
their party ; for, if your opinions and conduct at the present
crisis had been as liberal and popular as they have been the
reverse, and if, instead of advocating the_bigotry and intole-
rance of Cambridge, you- had represented the wealth and rising
interests and intelligence of Manchester, not one word should
we have heard from them, except against your re-election.
No, sir, it is chiefly because you are a high Tory, and have
recently distinguished yourself as a partisan, that you are now
so eligible as their Speaker. The Reformers are dared to
oppose you. Your friends, who are our enemies, are already
chorussing this their first triumph. You are, in short, the
Tory nominee, and your victory is to be the signal of our first
defeat.

" For these reasons—vicwin, you in your new character as
a mere partisan, and • need-b 3 member of this unprincipled
anti-reforming reforming Ministry—l not only cannot vote for
you, but shall feel it a duty, as all old and sincere Reformer,
to exert myself to the utmoA against you, should you persist
in being a candidate for the Speakcrship of the present Com-
mons' House of Parliament.
" Londonr4th February. I am, your's faithfully."