The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The new year of 1832 opens upon us with
cheering prospects for the " Nation's Bill."
Every thing now announces that this great re •
starative of a decayed Constitution will be
realized. The Sovereign is, as he ever was,
stanch to his conviction, and to his royal word
once given : in the Cabinet there is not a sha-
dow of difference upon the course to be pursued.
The people of Great Britain are alike unanimous;
what, then, can an expiring party do ? The
Tories feel that their sun has set for ever—
that there are no materials in the mind of Eng-
land
whereof even one week's support of a sys--
tcm of Tory policy could be constructed. The
Anti-Reformers, therefore, may repeat, when
they like, their objection to a Reform of the
House of Commons, because, with any
uimi-
nution of political dependence or profligacy in
its members, no Ministrr tan carry on " the
King's business !" To these memorable words
used by a late Minister, the country will rejoin
—that the business of a Constitutional Mo-
narchy is the " people's" business no less than
that of the King ; and that the habit of thought
which suggested such an expression was itself .•
the strongest evidence of the necessity for some
law of searching, sweeping, and substantial
Reform. Lord Grey goes to Brighton in the
course of to-morrow, when it is probable that
an importaat measure, preliminary to the passing
of the Bill through the House of Lords, will he
finally arranged, with his Majesty's gracious
concurrence.—Times.

Mr. Cooke has presented to us a second ek.
position of his views upon the subject of Irish
first fruits ; from which it would appear that we
had mistaken the drift of a former cornmunica-
cation from the same gentleman. He insists,
that according to the law of Ireland, the amount
of first fruits justly payable by the Church of that
country ought not to be calculated as in Eng-
land upon the 26th of Henry VIII., which sta-
tute no longer regulates the Irish revenue called
first fruits, having been superseded by the Irish
statute, 2 George 1., which enacts that " the
profit of one year's revenue of each new inculn••
bent was to be" (thenceforth) "tehotirs paid to
the revenue of first fruits." If this be really the
law of the case as now existing (although it is
but fair to say that the law officers of the Crown
in Ireland have not so understood it), Mr.
Cooke makes out the debt of the Church of Ire-
land actually owing, at this moment, to the
Board of First Fruits, to be no less (see his
letter) than 4,613,8771. This, at least, deserves
investigation. Undoubtedly, with such a fund
at their disposal, it must be considered monstrous
that the Board of First Fruits should come so
often as mendicants to the Legislature, demand-
ing hundreds of thousand pounds of public mo-
ney to be transferred to them for building and re-
pairing churches, glebe houses, &c.,—the very
purpose for which, by the Act of Queen Anne,
that fund had been appropriated, as a saving of
expense to the parishioners. But, as we have
already stated, the misapplication of the first
fruits constitutes a very secondary portion of the
evils which have now to be remedied, and which
result from the relation subsisting between the
Irish Church and people. From all that we
learn of the state of Ireland by the letters and
papers of each succeeding day, the continuance
of the main branch of the Church revenue itself
—we mean the tithe system.—is not only alto-
gether impossible, but if prolonged by law, after
it may be said to have perished in fact, could
operate no otherwise than as a wanton delusion
upon the unfortunate clergy of the Established
Church of Ireland, whose reliance on such an
unreal source of maintenance for themselves and
families must, of necessity, be disappointed, and
those more reasonable measures frustrated,
whereby a certain and not unpopular income
might be secured to the ministers of the Gospel.
We publish from another correspondent, who
signs himself " Thomas Bermingham," a list of
what he regards as remedies for some of the
most prominent among the evils of the tithe
system. As for making the Tithe Composi-
tion Act compulsory, or retaining tithe at all
in any form, whether for the benefit of the incum-
bent or the lay impropriator, we incline to fear
that the most prudent plan will be to dismiss it
wholly from our contemplation. Tithe may, as
we have said before, be perpetuated by law upon
the Statute-book ; but as it will not be paid
voluntarily, and cannot be levied in spite of the
repugnance of an entire people, is it not better to
yield with a good grace, and engage the wisdom
of Parliament to employ itself upon the discovery
of some snore productive and less vexatious sub-
stitute, whereby the Irish population may be
pacified, the ministers of religion be maintained
in decency and comfort, and the wants of the
wretched and destitute peasantry relieved ? No-
thing can be more deplorable than the actual
condition of the parochial clergy—not even that
of the very lowest of the labouring, or idle, poor
around them, to whose level, so far as physical
suffering is concerned, hundreds of clergymen of
the Church of England are at this moment re-
duced. We do not believe that, in many cases
there exists any rancorous or vindictive feeling
among their Catholic parishioners, towards those
unhappy gentlemen ; on the contrary, if they
were to he provided for through some less
invidious expedient than this direct tax upon
industry,—this frequent pretext for tithe-proctor
oppression, and provocative to retaliatory outrage
from the poor,—it seems probable that no class
of resident gentlemen would be more esteemed
or looked up to. A commutation in the shape
of land, we are afraid, would be of all other at-
tempted substitutes for tithe the most diffi-
cult ; we might perhaps callit, as a general
measure, impracticable. But to a fixed land-
tax there could be no such objection, and in de-
termining its amount, due allowance ought to be
made for the wants of the Catholic as well as of
the Established Clergy. As far the property of
Bishops, colleges, and other ecclesiastical cor-
porations, it stands—especially collegiate pro-
perty—on a different footing from tithe, involving
a number of questions which touch upon the
rights of property in general, and which it there-
fore will require much skill and discrimination
to settle. The Bishops, undoubtedly, have too
large a revenue ; and as the life of each drons in,
the Legislature may fairly exercise its right of
interference, either by curtailing the income, or
diverting it (on the abolition or fresh annexa-
tion of the See), in like manner as the estates
of Dean and Chapter, on the successive drop-
ping of lives, might be turned to the building
and repair of churches. The summing up of the
matter is, that no time should be lost. Embar-
rassments of a political character are pressing
with a sufficient weight upon the Legislature with
regard to Ireland ; so that, if possible, the feuds
connected with religion ought to be composed
at once, rather than permitted to mingle with,
and still further complicate and embroil, such
questions as those which are hourly raised by

' O'Connell's indefatigable turbulence, or revived by
Orange insolence, violence, and injustice.— Times.
We publish a letter from a correspondent,
calling attention to a disgraceful piece of negli-
gence on the part of the. different Boards of
Health which have been formed in the metropolis
in contemplation of the appearance of the cho,
lera. In all probability before spring, some part
of our vast city ray Le I-sited with that new
and frightful ibtersi of calamity, while We believe
that no receptacle has yet been provided for re-
ceiving
cholera patients. If any hospital has
been prepared, the people are not madr;
ac-
cquaittted with the fact ; so that if a man were to
drop down in the strect3 from an attack of the

disease, noly_.,dy would know where to convey
him for medical aid or necessary shelter. Ano-
ther point, of nearly as much importance to the
public, and connected with as great negligence
on the part of the Board of Health, is men-
tioned by a second correspondent, who expresses
his surprise that no case has yet been published
by the Board with the mode or treating it.
" The medical part of the nation," he observes,
" ought to have been supplied with some in-
strwaions on the subject. They might have
been informed of the best mode of treatment
known in die country,—the medicines to be
given, and the result to be expected,—in order
that when the disease did make its appearance, it
might be met with some skill and experience."
There is a great deal of truth in this observation,
and we earnestly recommend it to the Board of
Health, and to the profession in general.— Times.
The part which Mr. O'Connell. is playing in
Ireland would be very amusing if he had erected
the stage on which he exhibits his political
gambols in any other region of the world. In
Ireland, however, fun has a sort of national
tendency to end in fighting, and it is, of all
places upon earth, the scene where the principal
droll of a farce is most likely to become the
hero of a tragedy. It has excited a good deal
of wonder among sober, reflecting Englishmen
that on this side of the water Mr. O'Connell
" shows no sport ;" that every thing Irish, with
the exception of his brogue, evaporates the mo-
ment he touches the English soil, and he enters
Parliament as quiet, plodding, and manageable
a being as the high• mettled racer when he left
the glories of the green turf for the patient
drudgery of the interior of the mill. Even the
learned John Doherty was not afraid to bestride
him in the British House of Commons ; and,

indeed, he mounted from his back to his present
elevated position on the Bench ; but, once upon
the native sod, it is quite another thing : there
the Marquis of Anglesea, though the first
cavalry officer in the British service, might as
well think of guiding the winged Pegasus with
hit and rein as to subdue the fiery and
prancing spirit of the Great Agitator to his
will. It is true it is not long since the
Irish Attorney• General did make him ap-
pear somewhat tame, and, while the impres-
,ion of fear lasted which had been pro-
duced by the experimental application of the

sharp edge.of Crown law to the temper of his
patriotism, he was the humble admirer and
panegyrist of the Whig Ministers, whom he had
just before been denouncing with all the vehe-
mence of implacable hostility. They rewarded
him with a silk gown and a patent of precedence,
which placed him above all the King's Counsel
at the Irish bar, with the exception of the At-
torney and Solicitor-General. He returned to
Ireland to agitate the country with more fierce-
ness than ever, and to denounce the Whig Mi-
nisters once more. We are now told, by the
Irish historians of his versatile career, that he no
longer conceals his intention of wishing to turn
the Whigs out of office ; but if his recent speech,
touching the defiance which United Irishmen
could give to England and to the universal
world, mean any thing, it means something be-
yond the mere civil and peaceful triumph of
turning the Whig Ministry out of office. It is
not necessary for the achieving of that object to
tell the world that in Ireland " every mountain
is a fortification, every field a redoubt, and every
ditch a defile." It is not long since the paper
called the Dublin Times, which is understood
to be the special organ of the Marquis of An-
glesea's Government, addressed a good deal of
rather coaxing and wheedling language to the
Great Agitator, as if it was thought that by
some smoothing down he might be made gentle
and safe enough to go again in harness : but it
did not do ; and now that journal, casting aside
all show of forbearance, exclaims, " Mr. O'Con-
nell has cut the Gordian knot, and hassuperseded
the functions of King, Lords, and Commons.
Thisaudacious usurper—the Cromwell of his day
—with all his hypocrisy, but without his courage,
has had the unparalleled effrontery to issue his
writ,' and has actually convoked an assembly
of the Peers and Commons of Parliament to
meet in Dublin on the 9th of January next, to
take into consideration the high and mighty af-
fairs which appertain to his kingdom of Ireland,
and this upon pain of his mighty displeasure."
Now, we cannot, for our own part, well con-
ceile the abstract idea of a Cromwell without
courage. Military genius and great foresight,
and deep political design, were not more neces-
sary to the formation of the character of Crom-
well than the courage which achieved the en-
sanguined trophies of the field of Naseby, and
retrieved the fortunes of Marston Moor. We ac-
quit Mr. O'Connell of the foul accusation
brought against him by Lord Anglesea's Press
of being a Cromwell. We acquit him of all as-
similation to the character of that great and suc-
cessful rebel, either in talents, in courage, or in
ambition. Cromwell was, no doubt, a usurper,
but he was also a statesman. He said, on at-
taining sovereign power—and he kept his word
—that he would " make the name of an Eng-
lishman as respected throughout Europe as that
of an old Roman." He was neither a protocol
manufacturer nor a boasting babbler, but a man of
thought and action. Mr. O'Connell is only a de-
magogue—and by a demagogue we mean a person
who wields the passions and employs the credulity
of the multitude to purposes of vulgar and
personal ambition. The Irish Journalist would
have been nearer the mark if he had called him
the Wilkes, not the Cromwell, of his day ; but
Wilkes had the talent requisite for working on
the feelings of a people of colder temperament
than the Irish ; he was also far superior to Mr.
O'Connell both in moral and personal intrepi-
dity—he never shrunk from a contest with the
law officers of the Crown—he never pleaded
"guilty" to any State prosecution—he never de.
precated the day of legal judgment by panegy-
rising the Ministers whom he had previously
pointed out to public indignation, and then
showed his gratitude for mercy received by
turning round, and becoming their most virulent
calumniator. When we find a paper like the
Courier, which professes to be an organ of the
Ministry on whom Mr. O'Connell now lavishes
his abuse and scorn,
.holding this versatile de-
magogue up as
.a man of " unrivalled talents,"

and approaching him with a sort of awe, which
seems to fa\our the notion of himself and his
followers, that his political ascendancy with the
populace of his native country intimidates the
people and the Cabinet of Great Britain, we are
obliged to restrain the expression of the feeling
Which such a prostration of opinion in England
at the footstool of his mob-supremacy
inspires. What does the Courier mean by
Saying "It would be highly improper to raise
Mr. O'Connell to any post- (y. d g,ntly without
first obtaining from him a declaimer of all de-
sit-e for a repeal of the Union, and a pledge to
separate himself from the factious and turbulent
men who would build upon their country's ruin
the elevation at which they aim Has that
Journal been authorised by Ministers to throw
out this preliminary suggestion, which is to open
the way for a treaty of alliance, offensive and de-
fensive; between the convoier ofthe Parliament
of Dublin and the Ministers of the British
Crozun ? Are Ministers then prepared to capi-
tulate with the Agitator, and to raise him to a
post of dignity, if lie condescends to accept the
terms, and sign an Anglo-Irish protocol to that
effect ? We cannot believe it. Such a mode
of rewarding the most extravagant turbulence of
conduct in Mr. O'Connell would, indeed, be a
premium on a,?itation. He has already obtained
his thousands 9f pounds from the pockets of
the misguided Irish people, by soliciting sub-
scriptions, because there is nothing personal in
his patriotism. If he should succeed in terrifying
the Government into his terms, other dema-
gogues will arise, and perhaps more dangerous
than himself, to make a traffic of the wrongs and
grievances of Ireland. Let Ireland be governed
with wisdom and justice, and the reign of Mr.
O'Connell's agitation will be at an end.—Morn-
ing
The Dublin Protestants, as the Orangemen
call themselves have published an address to the
King. In this document, all manner of charges
are brought against the Catholics. The mob
that attacked the police in the county of Kil-
kenny were collected by the ringing of the bells
of the Roman Catholic chapels in the neigh-
bourhood ; and as bells may be converted to such
a bad use, they ought to be strictly interdicted to
the Catholics. The conduct of the Catholic
priests in stimulating the people to evade, by all
lawful means, the payment of tithes, is loudly
complained of. This conduct, it is contended,
is most ungrateful, as the public money has
been lavished on a seminary for rearing Catholic
priests. This Maynooth is a terrible eye-sore to
the Orangemen and fanatics of Ireland. The
Church of one-sixteenth of the people may re-
ceive nearly two millions a year, but why should
the Catholics receive anything from the public
purse ? The parable of the ewe lamb is appli-
cable here. While the Orangemen seem thus
determined to abate nothing of their illiberality
to the Catholics, Mr. O'Connell has caused no
small alarm by his burst at the meeting of Dublin
tradesmen :
" England, strong as she is, with Scotland and Wales
pouring. in on her—l will give them France too—paltry
Spain, Portugal, the States of Italy, and they may add
the Russian Autocrat ; and in opposition to these, let
only all the Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, and
Dissenters of Ireland, put shoulder to shoulder in the
field, and we will defy them.—(Tremendous cheering.)
Every mountain in Ireland is a fortification—every road
is a defile—( Query Knocktopher ?)—and, in fact, such
military positions and advantages no country ever had—
and, if agreed amongst themselves, what country ever had
ouch a garrison ?"—(Loud cheers.)
" I speak to my countrymen with a certainty of liberty
the moment we deserve it. I have been carried away in this
hui at !! ! Bat it has relieved my heart !! !"
They who seek for more than justice, fre-
quently obtain less than justice. If it be wished
to retain Ireland, we must part with all distinc-
tions which remind the Catholics that they are a
conquered and degraded people.—Morn. Citron.
In looking back to the political occurrences of
the past year, our first and chief attention is de-
manded by the important and melancholy events
of which our own country has been the scene—
to the fearful struggle which is yet in progress
between those who appreciate at their just value
the unspeakable advantages which Great Britain
has derived from her unequalled Constitution,
and who are therefore determined to maintain
that Constitution in all its essential features,
with patriotic energy, perseverance, and self-
devotion ; and their opponents, who, intoxicated
with the spirit of reckless and insane innovation,
and regardless of the warnings which past history
and actual observation unite to enforce, have
resolved to rush forward in pursuit of the chi-
mera of theoretic perfection—who would madly
dash the beneficent and venerable institutions
of the State down the fatal precipice which
intercepts their career. Our regards are also
mainly directed to the follies and crimes
of an Administration which has lent the
authority and strength of the Executive Go-
vernment to the cause of revolution, conscious
that to submit its practical errors and failures to
the cool and deliberate scrutiny of a settled Par-
liament would have been equivalent to a volun-
tary resignation of its political being. In the
early part of the year a project of a new Consti-
tution of the House of Commons was brought
forward by Ministers. It was crude, revo-
lutionary, and iniquitous. It disturbed the
established perfections of the representation
which the Constitution had assigned to the
different parts of the empire. It annihilated
the influence of the Crown, the influence of the
Aristocracy, the power of the landed interest in
the House of Commons ; and gave an absolute
and irresistible dominion in that assembly, the
preponderating authority, or rather the centre
of all authority, in the British Government, to a
single class of the inhabitants of towns—to a
class inferior to the rest in moderation, integrity,
good sense, and public spirit. Upon this class,
the keepers of small shops and low public-
houses in the towns of England, the Ministerial
Bill of Reform conferred the dominion of Eng-
land, so effectually indeed, that these new rulers
of the State would, under the operation of that
measure, have had an absolute veto on the ap-
pointment of the King's Ministers, the full con-
troul of the public purse, the power of dis-
banding the army and of dismantling the navy.
These, however, were not the characteristics
of the measure which chiefly recommended
it to the favour of its authors. It was fore-
seen that no such measure of sweeping Re-
form as Ministers when in opposition had
pledged themselves to produce would expe-
rience a favourable reception in the existing House
of Commons ; hence would arise the necessity
of a new election, and hence the policy of so
framing the Bill as to excite the passions of the
giddy and thoughtless multitude. It was fore-
seen that in a fair and equal contest for political
power the party to which the present Ministers
belong must still be defeated, as heretofore they
had been defeated, by the more able constitu-
tional and patriotic party of their opponents ; and
hence the new scheme of representation was art-
fully contriyed to .depress the latter party in the
state and relatively.to exalt the former. The

measure presented a gross spicimen of party selfish-
ness, seeking to disguise and attain its objects
by the flattery and delusion of the democracy.
The measure which we have thus accurately
characterised was received with little approbation
by a House of Commons elected in the ordinary
action of the Constitution, and in the settled and
habitual condition of the public mind ; and Mi-
nisters resorted to the measure of a dissolution
of Parliament in order to obtain the advantage
in the popular branch of the Legislature which
was likely to arise to them and their cause from
the temporary frenzy which their rash and despe-
rate project, aided by a corrupt or revolutionary
Press, had excited among large masses of the
people. Unfortunately they succeeded at the
elections in a great majority of instances, in pro-
curing, by means of rabble clamour, violence, and
threats, the return of Members to the new Par-
liament devoted to them as a Ministry and as a
party, and bound by pledges, which the mobs
who surrounded and governed the hustings ex-
torted from them, to support the Administration
in carrying into effect its revolutionary project.
—Morning Post.

In commencing a new year of existence—a
year which will either establish the peace of the
country on a permanent and satisfactory basis,
or terminate in convulsion and anarchy,—it may
not be altogether useless to recapitulate a few of
the leading events of the past, and to say a few
words in anticipation of what we deem likely to
be the results of the present. And what a year
has that been which is now past ?—how preg-
nant with events—how fertile in projects and en-
terprises—how marked, from the beginning to
the end, by insurrection and political animosities
—by Court intrigues and national quarrels—
by the attempt of one party to regain its unjust
and ill•gotten power, and the honest and ardent
efforts of another to regain possession of its inhe-
ritance ! In looking back upon the events of
the last eighteen months, we see a perpetual
struggle between the Good and Evil Prin-
ciple—a contest, as if for life, and to the
very death between the spirit of darkness
and the spirit of light—a dreadful and
unflinching contest between the spirit of
tyranny and the spirit of freedom. Would we
could add that the battle had terminated, and
victory declared itself in favour of the right !
But it is not so. The advantage has, on the
whole, been in favour of that principle which
would perpetuate slavery and darkness among
the people of all nations, and confine within the
small circle of Sovereigns and Aristocrats the
possession of knowledge, of wealth, and of
power. In Belgium a momentary triumph has
been, indeed, obtained, which, we trust, there is
just ground to imagine may become permanent
—and in France, also, the just wishes of the
people have been consulted by a popular Govern-
ment—the march of improvement in national
institutions prosecuted with admirable zeal, and
the dome,tic peace of the country, we would fain
hope, secured by such a consolidation of its
representative institutions as may not, for many
years, call for further change or modification.
But, in every other quarter, the aspect of the
past is forbidding and melancholy. In Spain
the bigotted Legitimate, to whom the destinies
of a once gallant and enterprising people are
confided, still holds possession of the throne—
in Portugal the " monster of his kind" is equally
all powerful, though apparently on the eve of being
hurled from his usurped seat ; while in the south
of Italy the spirit of freedom had no sooner ma-
nifested itself than it was extinguished by the
iron pressure of despotism, on the one hand,
and the almost treacherous complaisance of
the new-fledged Monarchy of Philip, on the
other. Unfortunate Poland closes the scene of
disaster for the present, and who is there
who does not lament her fate, and the unsuc-
cessful result of the patriot efforts of her gallant
men ? Nay, who does not feel the " burning
blush of shame on his cheek" when he thinks
of the fair opportunity that was offered to the
civilized Powers of Europe by their brave and
persevering efforts, and lost by them, to
" Smite the giant whilst he reeled,"
and re-establish Poland as a free and indepen-
dent nation. Well, indeed, may we exclaim, in
the language of the poet of liberty—the author
of the " Pleasures of Hope"—
" All their gallant blood has gushed in vain !
And Poland, by the Northern Condor's beak
And talons torn, lies prostrated again.
0, British patriots that were wont to speak
Once loudly on this theme, now hush'd or meek !
0, heartless men of Europe—Goth and Gaul !
Cold, adder deaf to Poland's dying shriek ;
That saw the world's last land of heroes fall—
The brand of burning shame is on you all—all—all!"
Returning from Poland,—which, like the
phcenix, will yet, we anxiously hope, rise from
its ashes into more fresh and vigorous life,—to
scenes and things at home, we find the same
spirit predominating—the people defeated—the
sovereign insulted—the oligarchy supreme. The
people petitioning for their rights—they sought
by prayer what they ought to have demanded,
and the result proved at once the ignorance both
of the petitioners and of the petitioned—the
ignorance on the part of the former, of the feel-
ings by which the oligarchy are actuated, and the
ignorance of the latter, of the fixed and un-
alterable resolution of the former to have
their rights, at whatever cost, or whatever
peril. Had greater vigour presided at the
helm, the country would not now be in
the situation of " aut victrix aut Ultrix." In
anticipation of the results of the present
year, it would be impertinent to indulge. Eu-
rope is still in a troubled state, and a war may
be now pending for the sake of gratifying an in-
dividual, and endeavouring to effect time triumph
of legitimacy, of which, as yet, we can scarcely
be said to have heard even a distant echo ; but
with regard to our own country, there is but one
hwope,ch —the
catnriuinmdpuiligeo, of the
but one
we can entertain—that it will be defeated. Ifm
the latter be the result, a revolution is the un-
questionable consequence—if the former, peace,
prospirity, union, strength. Quod faustum,
felixque sit, is the hope as well as the belief
which we entertain of the result ; but if it be not
so, are we wrong in exclaiming with the poet—
" Eheu : quantus equis, quantum adest viris
Sudor ! quanta moves funera Britannw
Genti! jam galeam, Pallas, et Irgida
Currusque et rabiem parat."—Morning Advertiser.

THE LOWTHER ARCADE.—This arcade
i• no, open every day, and will be opened in a way of
business, it is understood, a month or &x weeks hence.
Some of the shops have already been let, and there are
bidders for those which still remain undisposed of. In
all, there are five and twenty of them. They appear to-
lerably spacious, and, for an arcade, have a very fair por-
tion of light ; four of them have a very excellent frontage
in the Strand, at the east entrance therefrom; and two
more of them possess a similar advantage in Adelaide-
street, into which the other entrance of the arcade opens.
At this entrance to the arcade the church of St. Martin-
in-the-Fields stands nearly opposite, and forms a handsome
feature in this greatly improved situation.