The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-04 00:00:00

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE;
BRA DFORD REFOInE ASSOCIATION.
Sir,— On Wednesday the 27th, motion was made
to bring in a Bill to legalize marriage with a deceased
wife's sister. Some alteration has taken ;:lace in the
complexion of the opposition, since the Bill was pro-
,
posed in last session. By dint of pains, it has been
beaten into the Opposition, that their quotation frcm
Leviticus is one authorising such marriages and not
forbidding. Nothing has in all ages been more re-
markable, than the pertinacious vitality of what
Milton calls "the gloss of theologians." Prove that
their quotation contains the negative to what they
represent, and like Proteus they slip out of your
hands, and appear in a new shape nothing the wony
for damage done to the original. On the present
occasion they admitted that their quotation proved
permission ; but then they stood upon " the myste—
rious incorporality." They admitted that the Jewis,ii
law did did not forbid. But this, they urged, was
the reason why the Cinistian law must. For if the
Christian law is better than the Jewish, it is bound
to forbid what the other does not. Such was the
argument. 7 hey stood therefore on this, and on
" the mysterious incorporality ;" but showing no
reason, by what they intended by that term, was to
be continued atter death which dissolves the "incor
porality" in its simple form. By such figments
should we be governed in Acts of Parliament, if hap-
pily the information of the public was not in all
directions rising in arms against such Middle Age
decrepitude.
Another opponent of the Bill urged something
still more refined and imaginative. I could only
fragmentally collect it, though near the orator;
and as I can find no traces of it in the press, the pro-
bability is that it utterly transcended the reporters'
apprehension. The words I heard were, that the
phrase " a wife to her sister" meant " putting one
board to another," and the book of Ezekiel was
named, in a way which made it probable that there
the confirmation was to be looked for. As the words
of an adversary are always to be assumed to have the
most meaning 'which can be given to them, I venture
to surmise that the point meant to be stated was, that
the phrase " to her sister" was in Oriental phraseology
found applied even to inanimate things,.where a certain
degree of fellowship or mutuality was to result; and
that in proof of this, it was found applied to the put-
ting one board to another by a carpenter. On which
it will immediately occur, first, how little propriety
there is in applying the metaphor of one board put
to another by a carpenter, to the case of a prohibited
second wife forced into rivalry with one who will be
anything but a "sister ;" and secondly, how poor a
pass the opponents are reduced to, when they are fain
to hurry their favourite passage off the field, by con-
struing it into a general prohibition of polygamy, to
escape the effect their own passage produces against
themselves.
On the whole therefore, the resistance to the Bill
for any assigned reason, may be said to be aban-
doned. Or at all events it rests on the "mysterious
incorporality," and the " putting one board to
another."
On Thursday came on Mr. Hume's motion for
amending the National Representation. The case
was ably stated by the mover and those who followed
him. The answer of the Prime Minister will probably
be sifted with sufficient severity by portions of the
press, without doing more here than pointing to one
of those glaring unfairnesses in argument which a
good lawyer takes care to avoid before the most
rustical assemblage of jurymen. In reply to the state-
ments of the unfairness of packing fourteen or fifteen
thousand constituents like those of Manchester and the
Tower Hamlets, into boroughs sending no more Mem • ,
bers than those of three or tour hundred constituents in
other places, the Premier asked why the complainants
did not compare the borough population with the
county. " There is Oldham,' he said, " with 42,000
inhabitants and two Members, and Bradford with
34,000, and Dorsetshire, exclusive of the boroughs
(sic in orig.), with 170,000 persons, sending no more
Members to Parliament than Oldham or Bradford."
The merest babe in politics might answer the
Noble Lord, that the Borough representation is on
one scale, and the County on another, and therefore
borough ought to be compared with borough, and
county with county. But if borough is to be com-
pared with county according to the Noble Lord's
theory and practice, the complainants have a right to
extend their complaint, and compare Lyme Regis and
its population of two thousand, with the West
Riding of Yorkshire and its population of a million.
An argument which it would have been very
damaging to the complainants, to have been found ad-
vancing for themselves.
One very important point was conceded nemine
contradicente from all quarters of the House. Which
was, that the thing must come. Nobody pretended to
believe, that it was not in the ordinary course of
events, as much as the appearance of one of the
comets in our system, though perhaps nobody has the
power of pointing out to a month the time. This
then is a great point to act upon, for all who are
engaged in the campaign. What everybody says
must come, is much nearer coming, than before
such general opinion was admitted.
On Friday, the Bill fur increasing the number of
Irish voters was proceeded with in Committee. The
opposition was not precisely of the same kind as on a
former evening; but still resolutely slow. As was
said by a Member present, it was a contest pro aril
et focis, or at all events for their seats, with many of
the defenders. So much light begins to be thrown
on the connexion of the present position of things
with the condition of the Suffrage, that it is to be
hoped it will end in turning the bull's-eye in aid of
the darkness of the Minister.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
AN OLD REFORMER.
London, 4th March, 1850.