The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-13 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

THE PRODUCTION OF A PERSON NAMED IN A LEASE OP
LIVES.—Vice-Chancellor Stuart had before him a motion
on behalf of the trustees of St. John's Hospital, Cirencester,
for an order to produce a person named in a lease of lives,
dated in 1839. The motion was made under the statute of
Queen Anne. It was stated that the person referred to
was some years ago convicted of feloky ; that after being
released from prison he worked at his trade of a carpenter
at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, and that he kept up a
correspondence with his friends at Cirencester, but that in
1855 he discontinued such correspondence, and had not
since been heard of. It not being known whether the per-
son named in the lease was living or dead, this motion had
become necessary. The Vice-Chancellor ordered the lessee
to produce the person referred to to the steward of the
trustees at the door of the parish church of Cirencester that
day month.
POINT UNDER THE CRIMINAL LAw.--in the matter ox
the Queen v. Brown, an application was made to the Court of
Queen's Bench for an order, commanding the Commissioners
of the Central Criminal Cour% to present the case for the
consideration of the court. Tho Attorney-General had
granted his fiat for a writ of error, and a record had been
made up, but not the proper record. Brown, with others,
was tried for larceny in stealing and receiving silk.
Objection was taken that the counts for receiving had not
been proved, as they did not allege the property was the
same as that stolen. The Recorder, after considering the
point, said the prisoners must be acquitted, and the deputy
clerk entered the verdict not guilty. The Recorder then
directed the prisoners to be detained in custody, and a fresh
indictment was preferred against them. On the second trial

they pleaded that they had before been acquitted, and on the
production of the minute book it was found that the entry of
the verdict of not guilty had been altered by the Clerk of
Arraigns, and upon that the court declined to receive the
plea, and the prisoners were tried, found guilty, and
sentenced to penal servitude. The learned Recorder had
refused to strike out the interpolation and return the record
of not guilty merely. The court held that there was no
pretence for the application.

THE BISHOP'S CASTLE RAILWAY COMPANY.--LA the
Court of Exchequer a motion was made, on behalf of the
Railway Clearing Committee for an order calling on one
Mr. Plowden, a shareholder in the Bishop's Castle Railway
Company, to show cause why he should not pay £SMS, the
amount of a judgraent obtained against the company. In
answer to a writ issued against the company, the sheriff
of Montgomerysair3, where the company carried on
business, wrote that all the effects of the company had
been sold a month before. Various persons were sent there
and the adjoining county to see if there was anything be-
longing to the company upon which a levy could be made,
and they reported that nothing could be found. The
under•sheriff also said that all the surplus lands of the
company had already been seized. The court granted the
application *as against Mr. Plowden, and also a similar
motion against another shareholder of the company.
SHAM COMMISSIONAIRES.—At the Marlborough-street
Police-court, a man was brought before the magistrate
charged with acting and dressing as one of the London
Corps of Commissionaires without being enrolled in
that body, contrary to the provisions of the Metropolitan
Traffic Regulation Act. It was stated that although
there was no desire to prevent men from earning a liveli-
hood as messengers or shoeblacks, or to establish a monopoly
by means of licenses, the protection of the public required
that such persons if not in the corps must not wear the
uniform of those who were. The magistrate (as the proceed.
ings were taken to establish the law and not to punish)
inflicted a nominal fine and Costs.
THE LATEST SWINDLE.—At the Westminster Volice-
court, a young man named Thompson was charged with
obtaining money under false pretences. The wife of a
butler at a gentleman's house said that the prisoner came
to the house and left a letter addressed to her master,
marked on the top, " Overland Route. Foreign dispatch,
Js. 9d," It was marked " Private "on the back. 'The
prisoner produced a ready-made written receipt, reeeipted
it, and took the ss. 9d. As he was leaving the place wit-
ness's husband returned, and she gave him the letter, and
he, having an idea that it was a swindle from what he had
read in the newspapers, broke it open, and found it con-
tained a piece of old newspaper and an old envelope.
He ran after the prisoner, who ran away, and, having
caught him, took him to Walton-street police-station.
Prisoner was searched, and a dozen letters were found on
him, addressed to noblemen and gentlemen out of town.
The prisoner said he knew nothing about the affair, ex-
cept that he was sent to deliver the letters. He was re-
manded for a fortnight.
THE ALLEGED MURDER BY A BOY AT FINSBURY.—
James Loader was charged beTore the magistrate at Wor-
ship-street, with having caused the death of John Strange-
ways, aged 13. The particulars of the case have already
appeared, and the facts having been proved, the prisoner
was remanded.

MUNIFICENCE OF THE BECKETT-DENISON FAMILY
AT LEEDS.-A very handsome church has been erected
and endowed at Leeds, at a cost of about £15,000, by
Mr. E. Denison and his son, Mr. E. Beckett-Denison,
Q.C., and was consecrated on Saturday by the Bishop of
Ripon. This is the third church built by the members of
this family in Leeds within a few years. The last edifice
has been called the Church of St. Chad, and is a very
noble addition to the ecclesiastical architecture of the
disti :ct.

PICKPOCKETS AT A ROYAL BALL.—A couple of
swell mobsmen eluded the vigilance of the doorkeepers
during the grand ball to the Royal visitors at Liverpool on
'Thursday night, but were identified in one of the drawing.
rooms by Detective•officer Carlisle, who was himself in
full evening dress. The officer watched them for some
time, until, having seen them pick the pocket of a well.
known local lawyer, he quickly arrested them, and had
them locked up in Bridewell. The prisoners were brought
up before the Liverpool stipendiary on Saturday. and
remanded.

STARVATION IN WEST NORFOLK.—Two shocking
Za3C,3 of death by starvation have occurred within a
day or two of each other ; one in King's Lynn
and the other about six miles in the country. One
was the case of a poor woman named Ann White,
aged G 7 years, who was in the receipt of half-a-crown
a week, pariah relief, out of which she paid is. a
week for rent, so that she had ls. Gd. a week to find her
food and clothes with. The evidence at the inquest shewed
that she had been in the habit of sleeping on some mats
and straw having no covering save an old sack or two.
The medical man described the body as being in a state
Of the most extreme emaciation. The stomach and intes-
tines were empty. Death was occasioned by bronchitis,
accelerated by want of the necessaries of life. The other
case was that of a man named Robert Hudson, a sawyer,
who was found nearly dead, lying on the snow by the side
of the road, at Tottenhill. He was proved to have lived
at Watlington, where he was found by the police officer
lying on a bunch of straw—there being no bed or furniture
in the house. Deceased left to go in search of work, and
would seem to have fallen down from exhaustion by the
aide of the road. The post-mortem examination shewed the
istence of pneumonia ; and the jury returned a verdict
" Died by the visitation of God, death being accelerated
w privation and exposure,"

REPRESENTATIVE AND NON-REPRE-
SENTATIVE NEWSPAPERS.

Kingship—the royal hereditary power posses-
sed by the crowned and anointed leaders of the
nation—is becoming every day less honoured, less
influential in Europe ; its essential character is
changedi government is shifting its basis ; power
is passing from the King to a certain class in
the nation. Ibis class is not conservative in its
instincts like the highest, nor destructive like the
lowest, but it is influenced by either and partakes of
the character of both. This great middle class in
Europe preoccupied with its own business and
ignorant for the most part of politics, allows in
most of the countries of the continent the most
incapable or the most ambitious or the most in-
triguing of itsmembers to become its spokesmen
and electors ; and these, in their turn, areeasily
swayed by popular demagogues, by self-consti-
tuted leaders, by organized societies, open or
secret, and by the Press. Acting upon such mate-
rial, the Press creates a public opinion, which ex-
presses neither the wishes nor the interests either
of the bulk of the people or of its most cultivated
classes ; but before the dictates of this fictitious
public opinion, law, legitimate rights, constitu-
ted authority, and religion itself are expected to
give way. Society in Europe—those who govern
and give the initiative to action—are falling more
and more under the power of the Press ; it is
therefore, to say the least, a curious study to watch
and note, each one in his own circle, the influence
and character of these irresponsible guides of the
people, these teachers :of the intellectual Gospel
of the nineteenth century-, these priests and kings
of modern society.
In England the great organ of the unthinking
multitudes in the reading classes is the Times. It
cannot be called a representative paper, for it re-
presents no class, no principles, no opinions save
the fluctuating opinion of the moment. Now
Tory, now Whig, now Puseyite,now Broad Church,
it is the great political and religious weathercock
of the country. It is quick in catching the breath
of every wind, and glides gently round from point
to point without resistance or regret. In the days
when the Puseyite movement was taking the lead
in the country, the Times was only too glad to
place its
nitscloovlumemnens
t. Indeed h
at the disposal greateofitnhfieneneeof th
leadeer
of the
pTliemaessin,
go,r
that itis the reflex of
arimseosrefprorompetrhl speaking
the fact
faet its power of
arguments to enable
they
enable
mcuerrnentot findsojpninistifoyn,toand
themselves rg
theum opinionswish to hold. The conversion of the Times is not
a
infrequent. Sudden events happen which cause
a revulsion in public opinion; this revulsion from
one point to another, as it is sharp and quick, de-
mands an almost instantaneous justification.
There is no time for those gentle gradations
which the Times delights in, and which it is so
consummate a master of. An instance of such a
sudden conversion occurred only the other day
Under the pressure of the Clerkenwell outrage and
of the necessity of justifying the severe measures
of repression which public opinion loudly de-
manded, the Times penned the following sound
and anti-revolutionary declaration :—" The fact
is, we are reminded by this outrage of a truth
which has, perhaps, been too much forgotten—
we mean that treasonable conspiracies, with ex-
ceptions which cannot be taken into account be-
forehand, are not only the highest offences against
the bond of society, but actually bring in their
train the worst kind of ordinary crimes."
This just and forcible condemnation "of trea-

sonable conspiracies as the highest offences againts
society," might have been copied from the late
Papal Encyclical or Syllabus, but sounds strange
in the mouth of the Times—the great supporter
of treasonable conspiracies at Rome, the defender
of Garibaldi and the red-Fenians of Italy—men
who laid barrels of gunpowder in the drains under
the hospitals, and who blew up the Barracks in

that Garibaldianism should be supportedand n
and Fenianism denounced in England, and the
Rome. - But public opinion in England rie traelyd
Times was equal to the task.
paperpare
r ;
it cannotrepprroepseenrltys beno called a
principles, rep rneo-
fisexnSetaducthivae opinions ; it merely reflects, though with sin-
gular accuracy, the passing changes of opinion in
the popular mind. Such a course of conduct in the
Times, though wanting in morality, is profitable,
and its multitudinous readers are not ashamed of
themselves or of their organ. On the other hand,
the Daily News is a true representative paper. It
has views of its own in which it believes and which
under all circumstances it consistently upholds.
Although utterly differing from its principles and
from its liberalism, which is closer to the conti-
nental type than is to be found elsewhere in Eng-
land, there is pleasure and profit in reading such a
paper, not only because it is ably conducted, but
because it represents truly and fully the views of
its party.
The Pall Mall Gazette, the best purveyor of
news in England, is, as far as it goes, a represe-
ntative paper. It represents intellectual unbelief.
But it would be unfair to put down all of its very
numerous readers as supporters of its principles. A
certain number, it is to be hoped, seek only its ex-
cellently digested news, and do not share its un-
Christian ethics.
The Saturday Review, again, is the most widely-
spread and most popular of weekly papers among
the educated classes, but it can scarcely be called
a representative paper, or said to be influential in
creating a school of thought, or of effectually sup-
porting any definite system. Its principles, and
the conclusions it draws from facts as they arise,
are too contradictory and uncertain to create a
lasting impression on the minds of its readers. We
often find, side by side in the same number, or
in closely consecutive numbers, views and judg-
ments diametrically- opposed to each other. Now
we are gratified by a just and thoughtful dis-
quisition on the truths of the Christian religion or
the beauties of Christian ethics, and now we are
startled by the avowal of atheistical propositions
or offended by moral discussions bordering on the
indelicate. Now De Maistre is praised, and no%
Voltaire. The Saturday Review is like an unre-
flective man lost in a forest in an unknown 1 Id ;

_
man
it makes explorations innumerable in various direc-
tions, but works on no settled plan, pursues no
consistent aim, and, consequently, arrives at no
conclusive results. The sum-total of the effect it
produces, where it does not simply lead to mental
dissipation, is an unsatisfied intellectual craving
and a hopelessness of results which is near akin to
scepticism.
The Spectator, on the other hand, has definite
aims in view, which it pursues with vigorous,
almost ruthless logic. Every line that it writes
converges to one end, and there is nothing written
' between the lines. It represents ideas, which it
follows out on every occasion ; it is a powerful,
because a consistent ally of its own school of
thought. It is a representative paper, and, there-
fore, more influential in forming the mind of the
country than journals of a far wider circulation,
which have no definite aims, or are subject to the
action of contradictory principles. The English
Press has no abler representative than the Spec-
tator of the growing intellectual unbelief of the
day. Pity such powers are devoted to such a
cause !
And here we ought to stop, in our brief review
of representativeand non-representative papers, did
it not seem incumbent on us to make a few re-
marks on our Catholic journals. We have, in reality,
no representative paper. The Tablet is the best
known and the oldest established paper, and it has
earned for itself an honourable character foricon-
sistency as a political partizan ; but, in a body so
divided on politics as the Catholics of England
are, this very partizanship of necessity limits its
influence. Besides the party questions to which
it is chiefly devoted are of too narrow an issue to
entitle the Tablet to rank as a representative paper.
The Weekly Register and Catholic Opinion are little
more than industrious if somewhat indiscriminate
purveyors of Catholic news and of other men's
knowledge. Of the WESTMINSTER GAZETTE it does
not beseem us to speak, if for no other reason that
we are now only engaged in laying down plans for
an extensive scheme, the results of which have yet
to come. In the meantime we can only ask the