The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-16 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

BREACH OF PROMISE.—Iu the Court of Queen's Bench
their lordships made the rule absolute for a new trial in
the case Smith v. Clapham. The circumstances arc some-
what peculiar. The defendant had in 1803 seduced the
plaintiff, and was summoned before the magistrates at Hull,
and the usual weekly allowance was made for the support of
the child. Nothing further occurred between the parties until
1860, when the defendant went over from Hull to the
plaintiff's house at Woodmansey, and whilst there wrote a
document stating that he was engaged to the plaintiff.
After that he got married to another person, and in an
action brought against him at York .Assizes the jury
awarded £lOO damages. It was stated that the defendant
was drunk at the time that he wrote the document, and
there being some corroboration of the statement, the court
made the rule absolute.

DAMAGR3 FOR ILLEGAL DISTRESS.—In the Bail Court,
in the case of Bowen v. Russell, the jury awarded £5O
damages. It was an action for illegal distraint. The
plaintiff, a pewterer in the Euston-road, was tenant to the
defendant of a factory in Bath-passage, adjoining the
Euston-road, and fitted it up with lathes and other machi-
nery worked by steam power supplied by the defendant.
The defendant distrained for rent due, and some of the
machinery was seized while it was at work, and sold under
the distress. It appearing clearly that there was an
illegality in levying the distress, the defendant's counsel,
in the course of the evidence, consented to a verdict for
the plaintiff for £5O.

THE ACTION AGAINST THE " KENTISH MERCURY:u—
rn the Court of Common Pleas the hearing of the case of
Keen v. Hartnoll was resumed. The defendant, the pro-
prietor of the KentisA Mercury, was alleged to have com-
mitted a libel in stating that the plaintiff received a profit
from a co-operative company, and that the said company
was not " limited "as meant by the Limited Liability Act.
The evidence of the plaintiff and his co•directors and
others proved that there was no truth in these statements,
that the association was registered, that they acted
quite gratuitously, and had no arrangement to receive
any sum whatever, and never had received anything,
and that there was no arrangement with the
wholesale. dealers that the association should re-
ceive 10 per cent. Those who bought 2s. Gd. tickets
from the association got that advantage in dealing
with certain tradesmen whose names were given. These
statements were sail to be founded on the information of
their shopman, a person named Annegram, with whom
they Lad quarrelled. Per the defendant A nricgram was
called, and he swore they were true, and that some tea
which cost 2s. a lb. had been sold at 3s. a lb., or at an ad-
vanced rate of per cent. This was denied, and it was
stated that an average of 4.1. per lb. was placed on tea to
pay the cots of the association and the rent. It was said
that the object of these amateur shopkeepers and govern-
ment c!erks was to ruin the shopkeepers who paid the
taxes of the government. After bearing the summing up
of the Lord Chief Justice the jury found for the plaintiff ;
damages, £lO.

£l,OOO DAMAGES AGAINST A RAILWAY COMPANY.—In
the Court of Exchequer this was an action• brought by a
minister of the Methodist Free Church to recover compen-
sation in damages for an injury he had received through
the train in which he was travelling from Manchester to
Bristol, en route to Exeter, coming into collision with a
goods train. The negligence of the company being ad-
mitted, an arrangement was made by which a verdict was
entered for the plaintiff ; damages, £l,OOO.
SENDING UNWHOLESOME MEAT TO MARKET. —At the
Guildhall, Mr. Joseph Roberts, a meat salesman in
Newgate-market, was summoned before Mr. Alderman
W. Lawrence, M.P., and Alderman Causton, charged
with sending, and also with causing to be sent, to Newgate-
market, 7001 b. weight of beef intended for human food, the
same being diseased, unsound, unwholesome, and unfit for
the food of man. After hearing the evidence, Alderman
Lawrence said he bad come to the conclusion that it was
a very bad case. All the parties connected with it were
fully conversant with meat and the meat trade. The
evidence before the court was that a meat salesman of
Newgate-market, carrying on business for years, had
bought meat which was killed when it was on the point of
death, had had it dressed for sale as human food, and sent
it himself to the London market for sale in the usual way.
It was a case which he could not deal with, and he must
therefore commit the prisoner for trial. He was then
fully committed for trial. The bench consented to accept
bail—himself in £230, and two sureties in £lOO each.

1,200 tons of new potatoes from the Channel
Islands and France were imported into Southampton"last
week. •

The Reeordersbip of Portsmouth has become vacant
by the death of Mr George Pouldon, of the Inner Temple.
Thorirppointment is in the gift of the Home Secretary.

Ludy Napier and her family are in London, await-
ing the arrival of Sir Robert Napier, who h expected
home within the next fortnight. Sir Robert intends
to stay in England lit a few weeks, to settle various ques-
tions of expenditure with the Indian Office, after which ho
will return to Bombay.

FATAL ACCIDENT IN A MILL.—A roller turner,
named Ralph Greenhalgh, vas about descending by a
hoist, at the mill of Messrs. Hargraves, Bolton, on Satur-
day last, when he accidentally seized hold of the ascending
rope, and was dragged to the top of the mill, and then fell
a depth of about sixty feet. He was dreadfully injured,
and died almost immediately.

REDUCTION IN COLLIERS' WAGES.—The colliery
proprietors in the district of Little Ifulton are reducing
the wages cf the colliers in their employ. The reduction is
equal to 15 per cent. The men at the Bank Colliery
struck work last week, but they have since gone in
at the reduced rate. Mr. F. Charlton's men have been
out all the week. Considering the bad state of trade
throughout the district, there is no doubt that the reduc-
tion will be accepted and work continued.

SHOCKING • RAILWAY ACCIDENT. —An accident of
a shocking and fatal character has occurred at the Great
Northern Railway Station, Doncaster. Two men were
engaged repairing an engine, when it was discovered that
they wanted some longer screws than they were using.
One of the men, named Ephraim Ormanroyd, went to
fetch them, but in doing so was knocked down by an
engine and tender they were shunting. They both passed
over his body, and the poor fellow was manged in a most
terrible manner, his limbs being torn off, and scattered
about the line. Death was, of cours:.,, instantaneous. No
blame appears to attach to anyone, the only wonder being
that. the man did not see the approaching engine.

The text of the Government ipill to amend the
of 1.; gistration, so far as it reLtoi to the present
year, I:as been pub!i;'hed. The bill is divided into two
pal tF, and contains twenty- three clauses. The ninth
clause of this bill proviies that where, ly reason
of the disfranchisement or the alteration of the boundaries
of any borough during the present sessfm of Parliament,
any person who would not otherwise be so entitled be-
comes entitled to a county vote, the time for making a
caim shall in such case this year extend to the
25th instead of the 20th of July. The eleventh clause pro-
v'des that in the event of a dissolution taking place this
year, the first meeting of Parliament after . the dissolution
may ta,'te p:aea any time after the lapse of 28 days freß the
dp,tc Qi the pmlaulgtiolit 1-^

POPE HONOIIIUS AND PAPAL IMAM-

BILI7Y.

(From the Westminster Gazette.)

As their fashion is, uncritical disciples too
often exaggerate the errors of their masters.
Such is the case with Mr. Renouf. What
Dr. Bollinger insinuates, or implies, or infers
from arguments which he adduces, Mr. Renouf
rashly asserts as facts, which are denied only
by mendacious writers—from 'Abbot John to
F. Perrone—or disputed merely because of
the alleged necessities of a theological system.
The points which Mr. Renouf maintains in
his pamphlet : " The Condemnation of Pope
Honorius," are —lst, That Pope Honorius
held. the Monothelite heresy ; 2nd, That he
pronounced an heretical definition ex cathedra ;
3rd, That he was condemned by Popes and
Councils for teaching heresy ; and 4th, That
the Theory of Papal-. Infallibility is demon-
strably untenable.
Against these conclusions of his thesis, Mr.
Reiiouf listens to no argument, accepts no evi-
dence however entitled to consideration, and
rejects every interpretation of Pope Honorius'
words but that put upon them by the Monothe-
lite heretics. themselves ; and, with an assump-
tion of contemptuous disregard which ill be-
comes a Catholic writer in so grave a question,
puts aside the almost unanimous testimony,
as F. Schneemann abundantly proves, of Catho-
lic writers from the days of Honorius down to
our own. Our business, however, is to dis-
cover for ourselves what authorities beyond
the few writers whom he refers to, Mr. Renouf
has for his singular assertions. The chief
authority whom Mr. Renouf evidently relics
on, and whom it is most strange that he
does not cite by name, or even allude to
throughout his pamphlet, is Dr. Dollinger.
Is this " economy,' which Mr. Renouf so
freely attributes to Popes and saints, caused
by the ill-repute on account of his anti-Papal
tendencies, which of late years Dr. Dollinger
has fallen into among Catholics, both in Ger-
many, in England, and in Rome ? It was
chiefly to refute the recent opinions of Dr. Bol-
linger on Pope Honorius, for they are not those
maintained in his history al 'the Church, that
F. Schneemann wrote his famous justification
of Pope Houorius, which neither Dr. Dollinger
nor any of his disciples have as yet been able to
rebut.

Putting, then, Mr. Renouf aside, let us in-
quire into the value and authority of the few
Catholic writers who, during the 17th and 18th
centuries, have accused Pope Honorius of
heresy, and briefly examine the arguments on
which that opinion is based. It is noteworthy
that the two most important impugners of
Pope Honorius' orthodoxy in modern times
brought forward their accusations under the
pressure of external circumstances, not to say
at the instigation of motives hostile to the
Papacy, and that both these writers, in doing
so, contradicted the deliberate conclusions
arrived at by calm and critical study in works
which will deservedly hand down their names
to the admiration of posterity. These twin de-
famers of Pope Honorius are Bossuet and Dr.
llinger. Bossuet, in his " D6fense de la de-
clarations du Clerge Gallican," and Dr. Dol-
linger in his " Papstfabeln." Yet Bossuet in
his classical work, " Discours sur l'histoire
universelle," speaking of the Monothelites,
says They concealed their poison under
ambiguons phrases ; a false love of peace
prompted Pope Honorius to propose to them
not to speak either of one or two wills. The
Pope, deceived by their artifices, in his generous
mercy consented to a silence in , which false-
hood and truth were alike suppressed." Further
on, he says :—"The Council of Constantinople
did not spare Honorius because he had spared
the heretics." Thus wrote Bossuet before he
became a tool in the hands of Louis XIV., at
whose command, as is well known, his de-
fence of the declaration of the Gallican clergy
was written, in which, as a necessary defence
of Gallicanism, he brought against Pope
Honoring the charge of heresy. In like
manlier Dr. Dollinger, in his " Lehrbuch," in
which he deliberately and critically treats of
the doctrines of the Church, says that Pope
Honorius did not distinctly declare himself in
favour of the Monothelites, and that if he
maintained that there was one will in Christ,
in saying so he only meant the conformity
of the human with the divine will. This in-
terpretation of Pope Honorius' words is the
natural interpretation put upon them by the
almost unanimous judgment of Catholic theo-
logians and historians. How comes it that
now Dr. Dollinger has suddenly veered around,
and put on Pope Honorius' language a con-
trary construction? "If the Monothelite heresy
was so emphatically and so distinctly contained,
as Dr. Dii'linger now asserts, in the letters of
Pope Honorius, how was it," asks F. Schnee-
mann, " that the great Church historian had,
for so long a period, not been able to detect
it F" Whatever may have been Dr. Dollinger's
motive in now adopting the Monothelite in-
terpretation, the use, he makes of the alleged
heresy of Pope Honorius is so to circumscribe
the limits and the relation of Papal Infalli-
bility to the Church as to destroy its essential
character.

In addition to Dr. Dollinger, Professor
Hefele, in the " Tiibin ger Q uartalschrift" (1857,
vol. 1), and in his "Coneiliengeschichte"
(-01. 4), has treated of the question of Pope
Honorius. Professor Hefele says, as to the
result of his investigation, that Honorius had
given expression not to heretical, but to un-
clear thoughts, and consequently did not intend
by his words to convey a heretical meaning,
and only by his prohibition of the expression
" two energies," and the improvident use of
the technical term of the heretics—one will—
did he become a participator in their heresy.
But Professor Hefele makes use of too strong
an expression when he says Honorius forbade
the expression " two energies," for in reality
he only advised its discontinuance. The words
he used were not jubemus, but only hortamur ;
and moreover he made the messengers of
Sophronius promise only conditionally not to
use the expression in case that was that their
opponents did not retain the expression " one
energy."

In examining the authorities whom Dr. Del-
linger cites in support of his view, F. Schnee-
mann observes that the best of the Gallican
writers, such as Tourney, Natalis Alexander,
Languet, and De Marca vindicate Pope Hono-
rius from the charge of heresy ; and he then
proceeds to examine the value of the testimony
of the writers on which Dr. Dellinger relies.
One of these was Richer, a friend of the noto-
rious Sarpi and Dupin, both of whom were
banished by the French Government on ac-
count of their un-Catholic opinions. Dupin,
especially, was charged by Bossuet with hold-
ing un-Catholic doctrines, and was denounced
by Pope Clement XI. as a man of very bad
principles. And Richer's work, moreover,
was proscribed by two French' provincial
Councils, as well as by Rome, and at the
Council of Pistoja, the development of his
principles was condemned as heretical. , But
it may be alleged that Bossuet, in his "Defense
de la declarations du Clerge Gallican," which
was the great bulwark of Gallicanism, adopted
the opinions of these writers ; but what little
value as an independent and critical testimony
is to be attached to this chef d'aviture of Gal-
licanism may be learnt from the external his-
tory of this work. It was written, as has
already been said, at the command of the King,
in order to defend the Gallican articles, which
had incurred the disapprobation of the Holy
See, and it was never published during Dos-
suet's lifetime. Up to his death he was engaged
in introducing emendations, and so doubtful
was lie as to the justice of the cause be had',
unwillingly undertaken to defend that he did
not venture to publish this book daring his
lifetime. Indeed, he entrusted the manuscript
to his nephew, on the express condition to give
it only to the King, whom he besought not to
allow of its publication, unless it was abso-
lutely required on grounds of public necessity.
Forty years later this book was published with-
out, however, the numerous emendations made
by the author, without the consent of the