The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-07 00:00:00

ivi4VlVill II -"-)1111

LONDON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1844.

The present aspect of parties in Ireland is the most
grotesque and eccentric it is possible to conceive. All
is shaos and bewilderment—doubt—stupefaction—
mingled hope and despondency. No one appears to
know himself, but to entertain a sort of hazy, im-
perfect consciousness that he is somebody else. A few
years ago two Irishmen met on Westminster-bridge.
" How d'ye do, Flannaghan ?" said the one; " pretty
well, I thank you, Mahoney," replied the other.
" My name's not Mahoney !" rejoined the former.
" And my name's not Flannaghan," retorted the
latter. " So we looked at each other," adds the
narrator of the anecdote, " and we found it was
neither of us !" Now we strongly suspect that if, at
the present crisis, an Orangeman were to meet a
Repealer in Dublin or elsewhere, and each were to
look at the other, each would have occasion to exclaim
with his countryman on the bridge, " we found it
was neither of us." The former, on being saluted as
an Orangeman, would, most likely, protest that he
was no longer a strict Orangeman, but was something
else—what, he did not exactly know ; while the
latter, equally at a loss for a definite answer, would
say that he was not a Repealer, but, to the best of his
belief, he was a Federalist, or something of tl-ipt sort!
While thus parties are in such a state of glorious con-
fusion that no one knows what he is, or what
System of Irish policy he may be induced to
advocate six months hence, forth steps Mr.
Salem O'Bitins to increase the general perplexity
by these extraordinary remarks. " I care not by
what name
a fellow-countryman may denote himself.
Let him cling to the designation, ill-omened thoughit
be, of Orangeman. Let him adopt the new and
undefined appellative of Federalist. If he love Ie
land—if he labour to promote its welfare—if rhe-
cherish its glory as he prizes his own personal honour
—that man is our brother. his interests and ours
are the same—a common success will reward our
united efforts. I sincerely feel that nothing is re-
quired except internal union." It would appear
fkora the above passage that Ireland's welfare

may: be promoted by the Orangemen equally
as well as by the Federalists--4hat, in fact
there is no earthly difference between them except
as regards mere name, and that, therefore,
they are bound to cottibine their energies in support of
their common country. But what are they to combine
for ? Is it for Federalism ?—is it for Repeal ?—or is
it for a restoration of the old Protestant ascendancy
system ? The Orangeman, if he still calls himself an
Orangeman—to which, by the bye, Mr. O'BRIEN has
not the slightest objection—will scarcely agitate ,for
the two former crotchets ; while the Repealer will
scarcely struggle to revive the days of the SAURINS,
the NORBURTS, the LEFROYS, &C. ! What then, we re-
peat, are they to combine for ? This is a question more
easily asked than answered. At any rate we, who are
DAVUS, not Enirus, can give no satisfactory reply
to it. Mr. O'BRIEN'S strenuous exhortations to
union increases not a little the rich effect of his re-
marks. What possible chance can there be of union,
when Mr. O'CONNELL has just sown the seeds of dis-
sension among the Repealers by introducing his half-
way project of Federalism, and split them into two
distinct factions, each of whom in a short time
will begin to regard the other with the same
placid feelings of charity with which a High-Church
Bishop regards a stiff-necked Dissenter ? What
chance can there be of union, when the
Protestant party are all at sixes and sevens—one
portion of them calling themselves Orangemen,
another rejoicing in the title of Conservatives, and
both agreeing in nothing but their hatred of Repeal
and their distrust of Federalism ? When oil lovingly
amalgamates with vinegar—when the Bishop of
LONDON hob-a-nobs with Mr. Fox, the Unitarian, at
Fulham Palace—when Dr. PHILLPOTTS ceases to
bewail the loss of his rich Rectory of Stan-
hope when these impossibilities shall come
to pass, then—but not till then—we will be-
lieve that there will be a union among all
parties in Ireland for the furtherance of the cause
of Repeal ! We grant that of late the Orange-
men have evinced more moderation and liberality of
sentiment than is usual with them, and that the Re-
pealers, in the hope of bringing them fully round to
their own views, are administering to them " soft
solder" in pretty copious doses ; still, for all this, there
is less chance of a real, hearty union among parties than
ever ; and we will add, too, that so far from advancing,
the question of a Repeal of the Union has been daily
retrograding for the last three months and upwards,
and will not survive a year longer—except as the
mere clamour of a small faction—if Sir R. NEL
will only make up his mind to come forward with
such remedial measures for Ireland as she has a right
to anticipate from the Imperial Government.

The account we have read of the proceedings that
took place a few days ago at the " Watlington Petty
Sessions," before Lord CAMOYS, has impressed us
with a momentary doubt as to whether we are really
living in free England, or writing in the Year of
Grace 1844. We are obliged to the Oxford Chro-
nicle for a report of the business transacted at
this justly•designated " PETTY" Sessions. Offences
of a character more trumpery ;—the invocation of
penal justice on account of more flagrant abuses of
legislation, under the name of " Game-laws ;"—a
more painful or contemptible exhibition of magis-
terial sagacity under the high-pressure action of
statute-vouched absurdity—we never heard of. The
whole account makes us blush for the point of civil
degradation we must have touched, when such
"serious fooling " as this—involving the personal
liberty, property, and action of fellow-countrymen,
whom, in our waking dreams, we have been wont to
term fellow freemen (!)—when such intolerable op-
pressions as these—can be openly enacted, in a legal
tribunal, with the forms of law—and tolerated by
the boasted majesty of public opinion. We have,
ourselves, a passionate attachment to field sports ;
but we feel a stronger, because a better-reasoned,
attachment for our own species. It is well, we
think, that country gentlemen and landed proprietors
should be confirmed in their habits of rural residence
by any reasonable and legitimate means of encou-
ragement. But if the enjoyment of the sports we
mention be essential to this end, and form an im-
portant element of those means—that enjoyment
must be qualified, and those means must be sane-
Lioned—in reference to higher and more extensive
interests. They must not, for a moment, come into
collision with the first great principles of human
liberty and individual action, as these are reduced
but ascertained, controlled but protected, by the
enactments of general laws, and the usages of per-
mitted custom. They must not interfere with that
reserved liberty which these laws leave to man even
after this incorporation into the system of civilised
society, in things indifferent. Among these " things
indifferent," it would be difficult to show, on the
enunciation of the abstract propositions, that such
matters are not included, as how a man shall walk;
on which side of him he shall look ; what weapon he
shall carry in one locality that he shall not be
allowed to carry in another ;—what vermin he may
kill, and what he shall not touch, though others may
destroy it ad libitum. Now, the present Game-
" laws," as they are called, although they may be
the concentration of land-owning wisdom as developed
by its representatives for Sussex, and Hampshire,
and Wilts—for Norfolk, and Suffolk, and Essex—
for the East and the North, the South and the West
of broad England—cannot override the established
orders and ranks instituted by nature through all
the kingdoms of creation. Weasels and stoats she
prompts us to look at, intuitively, as vermin. They
are destructive and sanguinary. Hares are not
sanguinary, but they are very destructive, as the
poor cottager and small farmer, whose rising crops
are ravaged by puss's furtive propensities, know to
their cost. The Game-laws kindly concede to the
cottager and the small farmer the privilege of de-
stroying, by wholesale, stoats and weasels, which
neither consume their green corn nor devour their
turnips, nor commit petty larceny on their cabbage-
plants. Hares, and even rabbits, those great de-
stroyers, the Alarics and Attilas, of garden devas-
tators—they must not even wound, nor unlawfully
detain in snare or springe. Not but these animals,
by their very fecundity, are vervain ; not but that
their community of habits with weasels and stoats,
in many respects (despite of their natural antagonism),
as in burrowing, &c., are vermin. But they are not
good for eating when shot at. Rabbits and hares are
good eating when shot; but then—small farmers,
or cottagers, or labourers, are not held good enough to
shoot them. Now, let us see how these canons of
squirearchical equity operate in practice.
At the Watlington Petty Sessions, ABRAHAM
BIRD was charged by a gentleman's gamekeeper—
we shall quote the words of the Oxford Chronicle's
report—" with the crime of carrying a gun across a
field leading to Stoken Church." Have the Irish
people so long assumed to themselves, as an "exclu-
sive grievance," the being subjected to an "Arms
Act," occasionally, whilst our English yeomen are
living under the infliction of a permanent tyranny of
this kind ? For what was BIRD'S defence ? The
gun had been left at his house for sale, and he was
only carrying it to its owner. To his solemn assevera-
tion of this fact, the informing gamekeeper himself
attempted no denial—opposed not even the suggestion
of a doubt. The Bench adjourned the decision of
this knotty case for a fortnight ; and at the end of
that period, the man was fined 11., and costs! These
county SoLosrs might just as well have fined one of
Mr. PURDY'S workmen, " detected" in the act of
carrying home a new double-barrelled piece to a
customer.

JOHN HAWKINS was charged by another man's
%
1 gamekeeper (Lord MACCLESFIELD'S) with actually
throwing a stone at a hare—not in any copse, or any
park or field, in which he had trespassed, but on a
footpath. The informer (a gamekeeper) admitted
that he was 200 yards off at the time from HAWKINS,
and that HAWKINS was 30 yards off the hare when

he threw. It will be anticipated that the hare was

not hurt. llAwilms suggested an excellent reason

for this, for he denied that he had thrown at all.

The prosecutor knew nothing else against him. What
Should the Bench—(which seemed fully imbued with
that degree of wisdom that the hare itself will suc-

teed to next March)—what should the Bench have

done with so trumpery a charge, thus utterly
unauthenticated by proof, and presumptively clis-

credited by the fair character of the accused ?
Dismiss it with contempt, and costs, or at least a
reprimand, to the gamekeeper ? Oh, no ! Their
worships, or his Lordship and his worship, seemed
almost sorry that if the man did throw, he had not
proved himself a, better shyer. Limuum had not