The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-11 00:00:00

Ctirb Wtittion

10 to 1 agst Pagan
13 to 1 agst Sir Robert
18 to agst Pharaoh
28 to 1 agst Tacita
30 to 1 agst Celeste
30 to 1 agst The Prior

DERBY.

6 to 1 agst Rattan
7 to 1 agst Ugly Buck—taken
16 to 1 agst Orlando
20 to 1 agst Cockamaroo
20 to 1 agst Leander
20 to 1 agst T'Auld 'Squire
40 to 1 agst Apprentice
66 to I agst Sir Isaac
100 to 1 agst Boots

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SUN OFFICE, Seven o'Clock.

•
SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE 'EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—We alluded a few days since to Lord
Worsley's notice of-motion, which stands for to-morrow,
for a Select Committee of the House of Commons, to
inquire into the amount of fees paid on summary con-
victions within a given period ; and also, into the ap-
pointment, duties, and mode of remunerating clerks to
the justices in petty sessions. The returns obtained by
the Noble Lord last session, with a view to this inquiry,
are understood to be of a most astounding character, so
far as the heavy fees payable on summary convictions
for trifling offences are concerned. The provincial
journals every week record striking instances of the
oppressive operation of the existing system ; and
by so doing render considerable assistance to its
abolition, by directing the attention of the Legisla-
ture, and the public generally, to its practical injustice.
The following instance—one of a vast series—will
serve to show the magnitude of the evil which Lord
Worsley has applied himself to remove. At the Petty
Sessions held at Petworth on Saturday last, the Earl
of Winterton in the chair, Mary Daughtrey, the wife
.of a labouring man living at Amberley, pleaded guilty
to doing wilful damage, to the amount of threepence,
to certain trees, the property of the Hon. R. Curzon,
of Parham. The defendant was ordered to pay the
amount of damage. This she—or rather her bus-
'band—might have done without material inconvenience.
But the costs upon conviction were to be added to the
penalty, and these amounted to nineteen shillings
and sixpence ! The imprisonment of this labourer s
wife, as a personal infliction-for her husband's inability
to pay this heavy amount of costs, was twenty-one days!
What an accumulation of mischiefs are concentrated
within the above simple narration of facts I A labour-
ing man is deprived of the society of his wife, and his
humble home is rendered desolate—his children, if he
have any, are left without the fostering care of their
mother, and this for three weeks; not because the hus-
band and father of this now destitute family is unwilling,
or unable, to satisfy the damage done by his wife in a
moment of thoughtlessness to the Hon. R. Curzon's shrubs,
to the extent of threepence, but because the costs conse-
quent upon conviction for this petty damage are seventy-
eight times the amount of fine inflicted by the Bench for the
offence. Thus far, the woman thus dealt with, and her
husband and family, are the immediate sufferers. There
are other consequences which necessarily result, in a
great variety of instances, from the visitation of heavy
costs upon summary convictions in such petty cases,
The party, whether man or woman, if previously well-
disposed, cannot be the tenant of a gaol for several days
or weeks, and the associate of such characters as are
usually found there, without danger to, if not positive
contamination of, their moral habits. The man or
woman who has been consigned to a county prison,
Collies forth with the brand of conscious degradation '
upon their brow. The self-respect—which is the best
incentive to and guardian of virtue—has passed away,
perhaps never to return. A disinclination to employ
the man who has been in gaol is felt by those who
would otherwise employ him. He becomes destitute,
and is rendered reckless. Many a poor wretch has been
thus plunged into crime, and pursued a course of plunder,
until the gallows or the hulks has terminated his
career, who would have been preserved to society, but
for the sentence which—in default of paying an exor-
bitant amount of costs upon a summary conviction, for
which a fine of thitepence, or sixpence, was deemed
a sufficient infliction—consigned him to a felon's
fate for a considerable period. We again re-
mind the parochial and county-rate payers that
this question is one which peculiarly presses
on their pecuniary interests. Let them estimate the
immediate and contingent burdens to which the exist-
ing system subjects the parochial and county-rates,
and they will at once perceive that to pay the clerks to
thejustices in petty sessions by a fixed salary is, even
in a pecuniary point of view, to be preferred to the pre-
sent systrm of remunerating them for their services by
the always objectionable, and in the present instance op-
pressive mode of paying them by fees.
STANDARD.—Most of our readers will have read
with pain the report of the disgraceful case tried at the
Northampton Assizes, but the pain which the pe-
rusal of such a case naturally excites, will be found
to carry with it some consolation. The traveller
who blessed his good fortune when he discovered a
gibbet upon a shore believed to be desolate, had
good reason for his self-congratulation : he saw, by
whatever melancholy proof, that he had arrived in
the abode of men, and of men also who punished the
crimes that unhappily must arise wherever human so-
ciety exists. The person who occupies the most dis-
graceful position in the Northampton trial is a clergy-
man. He is one of fourteen or fifteen thousand minis-
ters of the Established Church. It can hardly be
said that the fall of one or of one hundred of so numerous
a body can by itself reflect disgrace upon the
unsullied and faithful majority ; but though by itself
such a lapse of an individual can leave no possible
stain upon his brethren, a case may be imagined in
hich the sin of even one would extend its foul dis-
honour to the whole body. Such a case would arise
if the clergy used arts to conceal the guilt of the
transgressor, or if the habits of the clergy generally
were such as to cause the exposed guilt to
be regarded as venial. How unlike either of these
cases is to the state of things exposed at Nor-
thampton, the simplest must be able to observe. Know-
ing, how impossible, among creatures so corrupt as
mankind, is the existence of a class wholly free from
the common vices of our nature, we confess that
we look with suspicion, not unmingled with alarm,
at the seeming existence of such a class. The ex-
terior semblance • of such perfect purity of thou-
sands cannot—for nothing can—prove that such perfect
purity exists, and therefore it must prove a system o'
coneealment so exquisitely contrived, and so universally
supported, as to deceive all the world—a system of con-
cealment behind which the grossest licentiousness may'l
be, and therefore certainly will be, freely indulged in :
of this we' may, perhaps, see something in Ireland.
In the Roman Catholic countries of the Continent the
vices of the clergy are scarcely concealed with more
decency than the vices of the laity; they are treated
lightly, and in the same proportion the clergy are
objects of contempt or dislike, or both. Now what is
the just inference, as regards the position of the English
clergy, to be drawn from the proceeding at North-
ampton ? A wretched man who, perhaps, may be
most charitably described as a sensual idiot, unhappily
obtains admission into the orders and the service of the
Chuich. He falls into sin, and " his sin finds him out."
One of the companions of his sin uses her knowledge of
his guilt to extort money from him under a threat of ex-
posure. Now, in some Roman Catholic countries a priest
might smile defiance at such a threat—confiding in the
armour of concealment assumed by his order, which
would render the threatened imputation incredible ; in
other Roman Catholic countries the priest might again
smile defiance at the threat, relying upon the indulgence
which the public accord to the licentiousness of the
clergy. In Protestant England the guilty clergyman
has happily neither resource ; his brethren will not
soil themselves by sheltering him, and public opinion,
taught by the general pure character of the clergy, will
regard him somewhat in the light of a monster ; he has,
therefore, no resource but in buying up, if he can afford
it, the evidence of his crime ; and this was the course
pursued by the wretched man who prosecuted his para-
mour at Northampton. From first to last he paid her
1,200/. for hush-money; and it was not until her rapacity
had outrun his means of satisfying her, that he resorted
to that miserable prosecution which has brought the
disgraceful history to light. The object of the prosecu-
tion was probably to frighten her, as a foreigner un-
acquainted with our laws, into silence, without
carrying the case into court. If such was
the 'fact the project failed, and the public has
certainly no reason (after the first shock) to,
regret the failure. The lesson is a useful one, not to
the clergy—who want no lesson of the kind—but to
those who might be disposed to doubt the solid foutida-
tion upon which rests the moral character of our 15,000
Ministers of the Gospel, or to fancy that the people of
England will be satisfied with a low standard of morals
in their religious teachers.

TATTERSALL'S.-THIS EVENING.
QUARTER TO SIX O'CLOCK.
CHESTER CUP.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Wool-
sack at Five Minutes after Five.
The Earl of RADNOR presented a petition from
the county of Somerset, praying for the removal of
all duties on the
.necessaries of life, and that there
should be a revision of the whole system of the taxa-
tion of the country. The petition was agreed to at a
meeting presided ,over bybthe High Sheriff, and which
had been called by a requisition very numerously
signedby freeholders. The meeting, he should state, was
called:fur a very different object thairthat which was
the result of it. It was called for the purpose of
passing `resolutions in favour of what was called pro-
tection. That was the avowed object of the meeting.
A motion was made in support of legislative protec-
tion, considerifile discussion took place upon it, and
an amendment, embodying free-trade principles, was
submitted. This was put to the meeting; and, as
decided.by the High Sheriff, it was lost—the original
resolution in favour of protection being declared
by him to be. carried. On this, parties became
dissatisfied, and much altercation ensued. The
Sheriff was required to put the resolution a second
time, and he,refused to do so. But in consequence of
this, when a petition' to Parliament embodying the
resolution was brought forward, a petition embodying
4eiterivAiiill ;es was also brought forward by
ftErcrt— n . This amended petition was car-
ajority, and a vote of thanks

pa ssed to the Anti-Corn-law League. These were
the circumstances as represented to him. In general
it happened unfortunately that the protectionist party
objected to discussion. Their meetings were select
and exclusive. This he could speak to from personal
experience ; for only the other day. he went to a meet-
ing called (as the notice said) to discuss this
question, but when he got there he received an
intimation that it was of a private character,
and he consequently withdrew at once. The
Anti-Corn-law League had been accused of
sending their emissaries through the country_for the
purpose of creating discord and disunion. Now he
denied distinctly and emphatically that the
Anti-Corn-law League was at all capable of
any such act as either forming any, society that
would have a tendency to promote disorder or discord,
and he defied any one to show that they had ever, by
word or deed, instigated such an accusation. He
thought that subject of free trade was one of such im-
portance as to call for a distinct expression of opinion
on the part of those who were entrusted with the in-
terests of the country.
Lord PORTMAN wished to say a few words upon
upon this matter. His Noble Friend had stated that
petition had emanated from the majority of the persons
present at the meeting. In any assertions he should
make, he did not msan to allude to the Noble
Lord's brother, the High-Sheriff of the county,
who presided upon the occasion, but still he (Lord
Portman) thought that a meeting which was composed
of only 3,000 persons (and those mostly town inhabit-
ants) could be construed into an expression of the opinion
of a county containing upwards of half a million of souls.
For his own part, he had all along abstained from tak-
ing part in the proceedings of either the Anti-Corn-law
League or the Anti-League Associations. For, on the
one hand, he thought it dangerous to carry, by a legisla-
tive enactment, the total, immediate, and unconditional
repeal of the corn-laws; and, on the other hand, he
thought it equally dangerous to affirm that the
present sliding scale should not be interfered
with, because it was at one end a system of pro-
hibition. Under these circumstances, he was a sort of
amphibious animal, between the two parties, and could
take part with neither. He hoped yet to see the day,
when both would budisposed to meet upon his view of
the question.
Lord BROUGHAM wished to explain the circum-
stances under which he had made the observation re-
ferred to by his Noble Friend (Lord Radnor).
He (Lord Brougham) had not been present at
the meeting, but he had received a com-
munication from a highly respectable gentleman
connected with the county of Somerset, who assured
him that the account of the proceedings which had been
published were altogether erroneous. He (Lord
Brougham) differed altogether, upon this question, from
the Hon. Gentleman, and the atter had thought that on
that very account he was a fit person to be applied to, to
give an impartial version of the conduct of the High She-
riff(Mr. Bouverie), who seemed to have acted very fairly
and justly, according to the way in which such things
are done in Somersetshire.(A laugh.) The resolution
first submitted to the meeting was in opposition to the
views of the League. An amendment in favour
of the League was then proposed, which, after some
discussion the Sheriff properly put.to the meeting before
the original motion, according to the usages of both
Houses of Parliament and well-regulated meetings gene-
rally. Mr. Bouverie, upon the show of hands, declared
the amendment to be lost, and the original re-
solution carried. A great part of those assem-
bled then went away, and afterwards the
amendment was again put, and declared to be carried
by a larger majority than had carried the original reso-
lution.—(A laugh.) That was a course of proceeding
peculiar to Somersetshire.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.)
But it reminded him of what was once said by an old
sergeant-at-law, upon the Western Circuit, that "the
further he went west, the more he was convinced that
the wise men came from the east." He did not agree
with his Noble Friend Lord Portman, that a meeting of
3,000 was not adequate to express the sense of a county
containing 500,000. He had some experience in county
meetings,_ and thought 3,000 were more adequate to
express the sense of the county, and to discuss a ques-
tion, than 40,000 would be.—(Hear.) He disapproved
as much as any one could of the violent charges which
were made against the League, that they were inciting
the people to capital crimes.—(Hear, hear.) But
it was to be recollected that there was as great
a fault on the other side. A gentleman, lecturing
in favour of the League, once asked his auditors, what
could they expect from the IrOn Duke—meaning his
(Lord Brougham's) Noble Friend the Duke of Welling-
ton—who had put to death men, women, and children at
the siege of Salamanca—(A laugh)—a place at which
there was no siege.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.)
It was a very common thing for certain persons to im-
pute murder to the land-owners, because they advocated
protection. It was also said, too, that they were blas-
phemers whenever they read the Lord's prayer. Persons
using such language as this did more harm to their cause
than they did to their enemies.
Lord RADNOR explained.
The Duke of WELLINGTON said, that after what
his Noble and Learned Friend had stated, it was hardly
necessary for him (the Duke of Wellington) to address
their Lordships. He had received a letter from
a gentleman- in Somersetshire, giving hiin
an account of the meeting which had
been held there. That gentleman stated that after the
original resolution was carried, an amendment was
moved, and was carried by a considerable majority;
but he stated in the strongest terms that
that majority consisted, not of the persons by whom the
meeting had been called in the first instance, but were
persons not capable of deciding such a question.
(LEFT SPEAKING.)