The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-24 00:00:00

and, above all, the sptcific accusations laid be fore the
House in that of the freeholders of Kerry, wherein
they charge the Popish Priests with the most undis-
guised and diabolical perversion of their sacerdotal
functions to the immediate ends of political fac-
tion, giving or withholding the services of baptism,
marriage, and in case of sickness or approaching
death, those of spiritual consolation, according to
the manner in which the families appealing to them
had exercised their elective franchise. The petitioners
state, that they had supplicated the " Intimidation
Committee" to receive the testimony which they had
to offer in proof of their case from the mouths of sixty
credible witness ; but that the Committee, having laid
down a rule, by which they had debarred themselves
from examining more than two witnesses in any case,
the matter of the petitions could not be proceeded in
before that tribunal. We must add, that one circum-
stance of no inconsiderable moment, and not demand-
ing support from prohibited evidence, was affirmed by
Mr. Scarlett—namely, that the petition from the free-
holders of Kerry was " signed by nearly every Pro-
testant freeholder in the county, and by several re-
spectable Roman Catholics. The signatures to it,
in fact, embraced the great body of the magistracy,
and of the respectable freeholders in that county."
The charges, as we have remarked, comprise an
infinite variety of wicked and impious acts of the
priests, in disgracing the name of religion as they
have done, and desecrating its most venerated rites
and uses, by the vilest subserviency to the fiercest
purposes of faction. Yet these are the hypocrites
who deafen us with their clamours about " the cruelty
of molesting any man because of his religion ;" about
the essential separation between the holy Roman Ca-
tholic church and all temporal or worldly concerns
whatever ; and about the scandalous falsehood of as-
serting that the Popish priests ever meddle with any
thing beyond the sphere of their own religious duties,
and the instruction of their flocks in the ways of
Christian piety. Denouncing men from the altars,
expelling them from all intercourse with, or access to,
their neighbours—refusing to marry—refusing to
christen—refusing to attend the sick or to bury the
dead, if those by whom they are applied to for such
professional assistance do not take an active part
in promoting the cause of repeal and virtual in-
surrection ;—these are blessed specimens of the in-
nocence of the Romish clergy of Ireland, and glar-
ing proofs of the wisdom and patriotism of clothing
such wolves in the garb of clergymen, with power over
the interests of a free and enlightened country like
Great Britain, or over the rights, independence, and
possessions of our national church. Nor are the crimes
against the freedom of election, dwelt upon by the
freeholders of Kerry, confined to the proceedings of
the Popish priesthood. The ferocious pranks of Mr.
Daniel O'Connell are pretty well emblazoned by those
against whose political rights and personal safety they
were directed ; nor does it appear to us morally pos
sible that the House of Commons should be influ-
enced by any earthly motive to abstain from making
the existence of such heavy imputations upon the ho-
nour and morality of one of its Members the subject
of a most solemn, searching, and severe inquiry. The
Member for Dublin, as in duty bound, and by nature
and long practice fitted, declares the " petition to be
full of gross and scandalous falsehoods." This satis-
factory assurance of the learned person will no doubt
he taken for precisely what it is worth. In the mean
time, it may be edifying to watch the manoeuvres of
some of our self-styled Liberals, in treating a question
which so directly involves the rights of freeholders
under the Reform Bill, and the purity of the repre-
sentation.—Times.

To-night the Irish Church Bill enters Committee.
The Lords have done wisely in allowing it to be read
a second time. The art of the Whigs is ever to con-
neet the consolidation of their power with measures ap-
parently of popular amelioration. By entertaining the
Whig propositions, and allowing their Bills to be read
a second time, the Peers show that they are not adverse
—as is basely asserted—to the improvement of society,
while in Committee they have an opportunity of eradi-
cating the fatal factious virus that envenoms these
measures ; so that they are thus converted into laws of
general arid national, instead of partial and sectarian,
benefit. Among much other objectionable matter,
there are three points in the Irish Church Bill to
which it behoves the Peers to extend their particular
consideration, and devote their principal attention.
These refer, first, to the re-opening of the tithe-
compositions ; secondly, to the substitution of a
new corn average ; and, thirdly, to the appropria-
tion of an asserted surplus. if this said re-opening,
this substitution, and this appropriation be carried,
then we have no hesitation in saying that since the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, of which, by a
strange coincidence, this clay is the anniversary, so
much injustice, and so much cruelty, such a violent
outrage of the first principles of the social compact,
have never been perpetrated or encouraged. By Mr.
Goulburu's Composition Act of 1823 and 1824, and
the subsequent statute of Lord Stanley, a composition
took place of the universal tithes of Ireland. These
compositions were in most part voluntary—in some
part compulsory ; but their justice, save in an isolated
case or two, has never been called in question. They
extend over a period, reaching, in many instances, to
the year 1852, and in all cases as far as the year 1841.
Now, the Whigs propose to give the power to re-open
all these compositions that have been fixed by legal
arbitration or the voluntary consent of parties. The
consequent position of the Clergy of Ireland is
too dreadful to contemplate. Every clergyman
in Ireland may be called on to defend not only
his own temporary interest, but the permanent
interest of the Church, in these compositions.
In many instances the present incumbents have
not been parties to them. Conceive the situation
of men thus circumstanced ; men without funds for
the necessities of life, much less for the luxuries of
law, called upon to establish before a most expensive
and extraordinary tribunal the title which the Legisla-
ture has itself created, but which it has shirked from
guaranteeing. Fancy these unhappy clergymen called
upon to produce evidence which has been destroyed,
and appealing to witnesses who are dead ! All these
compositions have been founded upon an average price
of corn, formed upon the experience of years now past.
Following the example of opening the old composi-
tions, the Whigs have determined also to substitute a
new average, because, as is, unfortunately, the noto-
rious case, corn is now much lower in price than when
the acknowledged and existing average was ordained.
It appears to us that these two regulations alone, that
this legislative violation of the solemn compact which
the Legislature itself has so recently sanctioned and
encouraged, are of sufficient potency to effect the ruin
of the English Protestant Church in Ireland. And
every reason which is' alleged in favour of these deso-
lating expedients would equally justify a violation of
faith with the public creditor, and tampering with the
currency, to-morrow. As for the appropriatiofi clause
it involves partly a question of fact, and partly a ques-
tion of principle. Is there a surplus ? And if a
surplus, shall it be applied in the manner herein pro-
vided ? Thereis not a surplus, and, therefore, there
is no necessity to consider in what manner it should be
applied ; nevertheless, the course of events has ren-
dered it necessary that the House of Peers should de-
cide in what manner it should not be applied. The
people of Great Britain and the British inhabitants of
Ireland look to them with confidence for their decision
to-night. Who can doubt it will be a decision in fa-
vour of the honour of the Crown, the sacred stability
of the Church, and the integrity of the empire ? To-
night the Protestant Peers of England struggle with
the Papacy. That is the contest.—Morning Post.

A YANKEE HURRICANE.—During the late hurri-
cane in Canton, Illinois, the wrecks of houses, furniture, fences,
&c., were hurled about in the air. In one instance, a fence_
rail was driven through an ox Torrents of rain fell, which
soon turned to hail ! Some of the hail-stones are said to have
been as large as a goose egg 1 The Sangannon river over-
flowed, in some places to a width of four miles.—American
Paper. _ _ _

HYDROPHOBIA.—(From the Medical Gazette.)._
Victor Legras, aged 19, was bitten, on the night of the Ist of
January, 1835, by a furious cat. The wounds were merely
washed with salt and water, and no further notice was taken
of them ; but on the 11th of April, 101 days after the bite,
Legras became pensive, indolent, and averse to food. Next
day he was nervous, convulsed occasionally, and the symptoms
of hydrophobia were but too plainly marked. Blood was taken
largely from qte arm, but nothing availed : he died on the
night of the 166.—M. Mopinot, in the Gazette iiirddiCit