The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-28 00:00:00

THE THREE-YEAR-OLD PARLIAMENT.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.-TIIIS DAY.

The Daily News. in an article under this heaillng, notes
that the House of Peers has been deprived by, death of
fifty-eight of its members. Their names are :—The Duke
of Northumberland ; Marquises—Camden, Exeter, tans-
down°, Salisbury, and Waterford ; Earls 13antrS,,
Bathurst, Beauchamp, Brownlow, Camperdown, Car-
digan, Chesterfield, Craven, Dottoughmore, Gainsborough;
Harrington, Kingston, Kinnoul, Lanesborough, Lime.
rick, Mayo, Moray, Pomfret, Rosebery, Bosse, Roselyn,
and Shrewsbury ; Viscounts Clifden and Gort ;
the Bishops of Hereford, Lichfield, and Rochester; Lords—
Aveland, Bayning, Brougham, Byron, Calthorpe,
Carington, Clinton, Colchester, Cranworth, Dunfermline,
Feversham, Fitzhardinge, Gray of Gray, Glenelg, Kings.
down, Llanover, Monteagle, Northbrook, Plunket, Pol.
warth, Ponsonby, Rivers, Vernon, Wensleydale, and
Wrottesley. In this long list the two oldest peers
were the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Brougham,
both of whom had completed their 80th year ; the
two youngest were the Earl Brownlow, who died at
24, and the Earl of Harrington, whose death was
announced at the early age of 21. These, however, were
exceptions to the long life which is usually enjoyed in the
peerage, for the average age of the 58 deceased lords is 67
years. The earldom of Cardigan has become merged
with the xnarquisate of Ailesbury, and the following nine
peerages are extinct :—The earldom of Pomfret, and
the baronies of Bayning, Cranworth, Dunfermline,
Glenelg, Kingsdown, Llanover, Ponsonby, and Wensley-
dale. These have been far more than counterbalanced
by the creations, which in so short a time have nob
been equalled since the days of Earl Grey and
Lord Melbourne. Twenty-five new peerages hare
been added to the list, an average of eight every year.
Ten were made by Earl Russell, viz.:—Earls Destroy
and Kimberley, Viscount Halifax, Lords Barrogill, Cler-
mont, Kenry, Meredyth, Monek, Northbrook, and
Romilly. Twelve owed their elevations to Lord Derby:—

INIARLBOROUGH-STREET.

DISTURBING HOSPITAL PATIENTS.---J. Flaherty,
an Irish labourer, was charged before Mr. Tyrwhitt
with being drunk and disorderly at the Middlesex
Hospital.
Mr. Henry Custard, superintendent and secre-
tary of the Middlesex Hospital, said that, hearing a
noise in the courtyard of the hospital, he went out
and found the prisoner, who was drunk, making a
great disturbance, much to the annoyance of the
patients, and threatening and trying to strike the
porter. The sister of the hall accident ward came
out and complained that the prisoner was disturb-
ing the patients, and as he refused to go away he
gave him in charge.
The prisoner said that Messrs. Holland and
Hartnett, the contractors, had some work going on
at the hospital, and he went to see Mr. Hall, the
foreman.

Mr. Tyrwhitt told the prisoner that it was shown
that he was drunk.

The prisoner said he was not drunk.
_ _

Mr. Tyrwhitt said the prisoner had no right to
go to the hospital and make a disturbance and
annoy the poor people who required rest, and he
would have to pay a fine of 10s. or seven days.
STEALING PROVENDER.—CharIes Wedge, horse-
keeper in the employ of Messrs. Ledstone and
Scarlett, butchers in New Bond-street, and Fre-
derick Simpkins and Robert Brown, the former a
carman and the latter a labourer, were charged
before Mr. Tyrwhitt with stealing a quantity of
horse provender, the property of Messrs. Ledstone
and Scarlett.

Lords Brancepeth, Cairns, Colonsay, Fitzwalter, Hartis-
mere, Hylton, Kesteven, Lytton, O'Neill, Ormatbwaite,
Penrhyn, and Strathnairn. Three patents have bee*
issued by Mr. Disraeli :—The earldom of Feversham, the
Viscountcy of Bridport, and the Barony of Napier.
The mortality in the House of Commons has been
siderably less than that in the lords. Only 22 members
have died, viz. :—Mr. G. R. Barry, Mr. Crossland, Mr.
Dillon, Hon. J. C. Dundas, Lord Dunkellin, Sir M. Far.
qubar, Mr. Foot, Mr. F. D. Goldsmid, Sir B. Guinness,
Mr. Hanbury, Right Hon. H. Herbert, Mr. E. James,
Colonel Lowther, Mr. Mackie, Mr. C. W. Padre, Lord
Palmerston, Mr. Lort Phillips, Mr. Scholefield, Mr. Steel,
Mr. Treherne, Colonel Lloyd Watkins, and Mr. Wick-
ham. The oldest member was Mr. Steel, 82; the youngest
was Mr. Barry, 42. The average age of the deceased
M.P.'s is 58. Changes from a variety of other causes
have been very frequent. For instance, 23 mem-
bers have become peers, either by succession or by
creation, 19 have been unseated on petition, 12 have re-
signed their seats, and 12 have accepted judgeships. Thus
88 new members have been returned, while 50 others have
been re-elected on their appointment to office. The
numerous contests have had very little effect upon the
balance of parties. The gains, however, have been on the
side of the Liberals, and victories have been won in many
constituencies of size and importance. The Conservative
gains, fewer in number and less significant, were almost
uniformly made in small boroughs.

It appeared from the evidence that Mr. Scarlett,
baying noticed the bad condition of one of his
horses for some time paSt, and suspecting all was
not right, communicated with the police, and Henry
Dawson, an energetic officer of the C Division,
watched the prisoners, and succeeded in detecting
them in stealing provender from the prosecutors,
which ought.to have been applied to their horses.
Mr. Sayer, from the office of Messrs. E. Lewis
and Co., Great Marlborough-street, who appeared
for the prisoner?, declined to address the magistrate
on the prisoners' behalf, and Mr. Tyrwhitt com-
mitted them for trial.

WESTMINSTER.

DISGRACEFUL OUTRAGE IN TILE STREET.—Wm.
Maguire, a powerful man, was charged with the
following disgraceful outrage :
John Petit, waiter at the Royal Standard Music
Hall, Vauxhall-bridge-road, said —At half-past
four o'clock yesterday afternoon I was walking
along the Horseferry-road, Westminster, when the
prisoner came up and hit me and knocked me down.
Mr. Arnold—You wi:re walking along the Horse-
ferry-road when this man came up and hit you and
knocked you down. You must have seen him be-
fore cr something I should think.

Complainant—lndeed, I had not. He was quite
a stranger to me. I had never seen him before,
nor spoken to him. I gave him no provocation of
any description. After I got up from the first blow,
he forced me down again, and then I defended my-
self.

ELECTION INTELLIGENCE.

BEDFORD.—The Conservatives have selected Mr. E. L.
O'Malley (son of the eminent Queen's Counsel; to join
Captain Polhill-Turner in contesting the representation
of Bedford against Mr. S. Whitbread and Mr. James
Howard.

Mr. Arnold—Was he sober ?
Complainant—He was not, but he kept pitching
into me after I persuaded him to go away.
Williiam Thomas, messenger at the Chartered
Gas Works—Defendant followed one of the men,
and tried to pick a quarrel with him. He came
into the works, and the watchman shut the
gates ; then the defendant turned round and struck
the complainant, who happened to be passing.
Defendant, in reply to the charge, said I—have
just recovered from a bed of sickness ; I am sure I
don't know what I was doing yesterday afternoon,
but I feel that I must have been knocked about
very much.
Mr. Arnold—You seem to have knocked this man
about very much too.
Defendant—l am very sorry, but I don't remem-
ber it.

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 28, 1868.

POOR,

THE RELIGIOUS EDUCA7ION OF THE-

Alluding to the Count-out on Thursday night,
the Times says
The Cattle Market Bill was not the only piece
of important business interfered with by the
Count-out of Thursday night. The consideration
of the Poor Relief Bill was to have been resumed
in Committee, and clauses of some importance
would have been discussed. On Monday night
the Committee entered on the clauses of the bill,
which are designed to secure greater religious
liberty to the inmates of workhouses, and, not-
withstanding a somewhat vehement opposition,
the principle of these clauses was affirmed, and the
first three or four of them were passed. As far as
relates to adult inmates, the improvements pro-
posed by the bill are probably secured. A subse-
quent clause, however, is intended to protect the
religious rights of chi!dren, and will probably re-
quire some watchfulness on the part of the friends
of religious equality. A good deal of resistance
has been offered to similar provisions on some
recent occasions, and it may be worth while to
give a brief account of the facts of the case.
It may be remembered that some time ago Arch-
bishop Manning, in one of his ad Irerses, drew a
:pathetic picture of the number of Roman Catholic
children who were forced to abandon their parents'
faith and were educated as Protestants. We ac-
knowledged that such a complaint was just in
principle, but we expressed a certain scepticism as
to the facts alleged. We confess we could not
easily believe that any body of men would find it
worth their while to create such a grievance.
Guardians of the poor do strange things occasion-
ally, but that they should deliberately transform
little Papist paupers into Protestants was a charge
which seemed to require some confirmation. We
are bound to acknowledge that this confirmation
has been furnished, and that Dr. Manning has
distinctly made out his case. A Parliamentary
return obtained last year shows that within the
previous seven years as many as 10,000 Roman
Catholic children have been received into the
Metropolitan workhouses. Of these about 8,000
have been discharged, but the remaining 2,000
to quote round numbers—had been transferred to
district schools. These children, although known
to be Roman Catholic, and so returned in answer
to Parliamentary inquiries, are systematically edu-
cated as Protestants. It is probable that about
1,000 of these children are in the district schools
at a given moment, and the Guardians are, there-
fore, exercising the proselytizing powers of Poor-
Law administration upon a thousand children in
the metropolis alone, This is one of those facts
which cannot be evaded. In the debate on Mon-
day several gentlemen laboured to show that the
present law gave all the
:facilities necessary for
perfect religious freedom. It was no doubt de-
signed to do so ; but it may fail in practice, and
Mr. Villiers properly observed that " as a matter
of fact" Roman Catholic children are educated 1;
as .Protestants. The returns we have quoted
show that the law does fail ; and the Roman Ca-
tholics suffer unquestionably under a matqrial
grievance.