The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
!ROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The close of the session produced at
least one measure of considerable promise. Though
long delayed, it will--if perfected in conformity with
the outline, as explained by Sir James Graham—be
the means of obviating a host of grievances that are
now inflicted on the poorer classes of society in the ad-
ministration of justice. We allude to the Bill which
Sir James Graham laid on the table of the House of
Commons on Thursday evening, for regulating the
appointment and mode of payment of clerks of the
peace, clerks of petty sessions, and other officers of the
inferior criminal courts. The Bill was read a first
time, and was ordered to be printed. It will, we
presume, be introduced early in the next session. In
the meantime it will be considered by Noble Lords
and Hon. Gentlemen, who, as members of the Legis-
lature, will be called upon to discuss, and determine
upon, the principle and provisions of the measure,
33 well as by the public generally. Every class
of society is deeply interested in whatever re-
lates to the purity and impartiality of punitive
justice. The substitution of salaries for the present
mode of paying magistrates' clerks, and similar func-
tionaries, by fees, will be regarded with satisfaction.
The disproportionate amount of fees on summary con-
victions, upon which fines are inflicted ; and the de-
mand of fees by clerks of the peace, clerks of the
arraigns, and other functionaries, on the charge of
defendants who had been tried and acquitted on in-
dictments for misdemeanors, have been often adduced;
and shown to be as unjust in principle, as they are op-
pressive in practice. Lord Worsley has applied himself,
with praiseworthy diligence and perseverance, to bring
this subject under the notice of the Legislature and
the Government; and has developed the fearful extent
of oppression which the existing system has caused
throughout the kingdom. The returns his Lord-
ship moved for and obtained, by a vote of the
House of Commons, furnished evidence so con-
clusive as to the character and extent of the evils
complained of, that the Government was induced
to take the subject into its own hands. A promise
was given by Sir James Graham that the Government
would prepare a measure, which should place the
whole of the functionaries alluded to on a basis at
once better calculated to ensure competency for their
duties ; and at the same time relieve the public from
the fees they were in the habit of exacting. The
measure we have alluded to is the tardy ful-
filment of that promise. If we are not greatly
mistaken, Sir James Graham will have to encoun-
ter strong, if not formidable, opposition in car-
rying his measure through Parliament. The emolu-
ments derived by clerks to justices, both in boroughs
and in counties, from the present system, are
very considerable ; and their endeavours to prevent a
change from fees to a fixed salary will be great. The
greater number of these magistrates' clerks are active
electioneering agents in the Tory interest. They wield
extensive influence in their respective localities. The
Parliamentary representatives, to whom they have ren-
dered material services in contests for the seats they
hold, will be applied to. These Honourable Gentlemen
will be urged to bring the weight of their influence to
bear against the Bill ; which, if it become law, will
curtail the emoluments of these functionaries. To
this influence, partly from gratitude, and partly from
hope of future benefits, the Members will yield, and
will endeavour to prevail with the Government
to abandon, or mutilate the measure. We, therefore,
thus early, invite the attention of the Liberal
Members to this proposed beneficial change in
the existing law. The Bill will, we presume be
printed without delay. Let its provisions be consi-
dered ; and every effort used to render it complete,
as a remedy for the evils it is designed to cure.
When it comes before the Legislature, it will, we
trust, be watched and guarded with vigilance against
the intrigues that will be in motion to defeat the ob-
jects it is designed to accomplish.
STANDARD.—A statement, evidently ex parte,
which appears in a rabid Popish Maltese newspaper,
has been greedily seized upon by a contemporary,
as a pretext for a truly jesuitical attack on the
Bishop of Gibraltar and the Governor of Malta,
for an imputed disregard of the feelings and preju-
dices cf the Roman Catholic portion of the inhabi-
tants of the latter dependency. The facts of the case
appear to be these, and we derive them, be it under-
stood, from the very suspicious authority above
referred to. Some ten or twelve months ago Don
Michael Angelo Camilleri, about 35 years of age,
having become a convert to the Protestant religion,
left Malta for Gibraltar, for the purpose of being
married to a lady—said to be the widow of a Maltese
Roman Catholic, who had also embraced the Pro-
testant religion—according to the rites of the
Anglican Church, of which they had become mem-
bers. So soon as the news of this marriage reached
Malta, the mother of the lady's husband claimed
the right to tear from her son's widow her two chil-
dren, in order that she might train them up in the
Roman Catholic faith ; and after a trial in the Royal
Civil Court—the whole of those officials are, if we
mistake not, Roman Catholics—her appeal was de-
cided in her favour ; and the verdict confirmed
by another Court, presided over by Judges of
the same tolerant faith as that professed by
the complainant. Of course, nothing then
remained but the execution of the sentence;
and a warrant was accordingly issued to deprive
the mother of her children, the execution of which
was confided to the usual officers. " Nothing" (says
the Portofoglio Maltese) " could be more regular,
more formal, or more solemn" than this attempt to
drag the two infant orphans from the arms of their
mother. The whole ceremony was, in fact, per-
formed secundem artem. "It was not to be expected,"
says the grave journalist to whose account we
must be content to be indebted for the facts of
the case, "that the Marshal would separate these
unfortunate orphans from their mother, without some
resistance on her part." Tier " tears and lamenta-
tions" appear, however, to have drawn her husband to
the spot ; who, finding how matters stood, seized a
" thick stick" and would have struck the offieer,
but that it was wrested from him. A gun
was afterwards produced by him, which
Oared the same fate ; after which the mother
,and her husband were overpowered and the
children torn from them, and delivered into the
hands of the " paternal grandmother," who, with her
priest was, no doubt, in attendance to receive them.
A complaint was then made in the police court of
the resistance offered by Don Camilleri, and the
" very moderate penalty of twenty days' impri-
sonment" inflicted upon him. The Popish jour-
nalist is quite scandalised at the extreme leniency
of this sentence on a clergyman. But " his senses
were overcome by an unexpected weight," when
the frightful fact transpired that " the Execu-
tive" had commuted his imprisonment to a fine
of twenty-seven shillings and ninepence ster-
ling ! This decision is described as "an attempt
to destroy the happiness of a faithful people," and
" compromise the honour and integrity of the
supreme Government ; and a series of cases evidenc-
ing the utter unfitness of the native Maltese to
administer the laws of the island are quoted, which
do not appear to have attracted the notice of the
Government. It was only some twelve or eighteen
months ago, that a young British officer, sta-
tioned at Malta, was sentenced to a long im-
prisonment, because, whilst enjoying his dessert
at an open window after dark, he happened to dis-
encumber himself of a few nutshells at the moment
when some idolatrous procession was passing through
the street. It was not enough that several of the
witnesses for the prosecution proved that the act
was wholly unpremeditated; that the night was so
dark, that it was impossible to say which of the
three parties seated at the table was the offender ; and
that the aforesaid nutshells struck no person who
formed part of the procession. The most savage
sentence it was possible for these Popish judges to
inflict they did not hesitate to award, and had it not
been for the consideration of the Governor, the young
gentleman's prospects in life would have been irre-
trievably ruined. It is surely time that the adminis-
tration of the law should be taken out of such hands,
at least so far as Protestants are concerned. iliais
revenons a nos moutons. A Morning Contemporary,
on the assumption of the very respectable autho-
rity above quoted, that the release of Don
Michael Camilleri was obtained at the instance of
the Bishop of Gibraltar, attacks that estimable
gentleman, and having reminded him that " the mar-
riage of a priest who has made a vow of celibacy is,
in Catholic countries, a great crime whether canoni-
cally, or civilly, or both, hecanno t say," suggests
" that the conversion of Dc,en. Camillerisstogether ought
and his bride the moment of bringing themselves
to have excited the Bishop' suspicion."sin ei
So then,
according to this great Puseyite authority, a Bishop
ought not to have countenanced two persons •
abjuring the errors of Popery, and becoming in
com-
municants of his own Church ; and still less ought
be to have consented to marry them by the rites
of that Church on which alone they could
whether ld haerteehrad:
any claim. A Roman Catholic priest,
titular bishop or not, would, we suspect, have
little hesitation in qualifying two Protestants at
the altar by their conversion on the spot, did
such course appear feasible. The conduct of the
Bishop of Gibraltar appears to have been perfectly
unimpeachable. " Probably," says his monitor, in
such countries the law provides for the removal of
children born of Roman Catholic parents from under
the roof of a person who has embraced another faith."
If it do, the sooner such a law is abolished in a British
dependency the better. In the case in point, how-
ever, the mother of the children as well as her hus-
band, had abjured the Roman Catholic faith ; and if
there be any law in Malta which empowers relatives
to drag from their mother her children, because she
happens to have embraced the Protestant religion, it is
a most iniquitous one, and one "more honoured in the
breach than in the observance." We trust that the
interference of the Government in this matter will j
extend to the compulsory restoration to the bereaved J
tr..mLnirg •