The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-31 00:00:00

CANON WOODFORD ON THE CHURCH.

The Rev. Canon Woodford, who has been appointed
vicar of Leeds, as successor to the Rev. Dr. Atlay, in the
course of a speech at the annual soirte of the Leeds
Church Institute and Sunday School Union, said there
was no doubt they were met together in times of anxiety
for the Church of England ; but he did not at all
believe they were times which ought excessively to de-
press, for if there were clouds without, he believed there
was never so much sunshine within. He believed there
never was a time since the Reformation when the princi-
ples of the Church of England were so thoroughly under-
stood and so generally accepted as at this time. He was
just going to mention, and not more than mention, one
word which he dared say would call up a number of
different opinions in the place—" disestablishment." Well,
they knew that there were good Churchmen who believed
with him that the Church would flourish more if dis-
established ; and there were others who felt they should be
throwing away an enormous vaiage ground in the sepa-
ration of Church and State, and that both Church and
State would suffer. He believed himself that both would
suffer. But while he said this, what he wanted to add was
this—namely, that the Church must not be afraid of
disestablishment. She need not be afraid of it if she
knew thoroughly and acted up to her own prin-
ciples. She would still flourish and do her work
among the people as a Church. She might have to work
harder ; she might have to contend with greater diffi-
culties of disestablishment, but she was quite able to
stand alone. All their work and all their efforts ought to
be directed to this, that while they would do all that they
could to maintain the alliance between Church and State,
which they believed had hitherto worked well for England,
yet they would, by their zeal and by their increasingly
familiarising themselves with their own principles, pre-
pare themselves not to be shaken if the time came when the
State should cast them off. He believed that the Church
could stand by itself. He believed it, first, because of the
indwelling spirit in the Church, which was its source of
light, whether established or disestablished. He believed
it, secondly, under the government of the spirit, because
of the energy and increasing life among Churchmen, of
which that very institute was itself a beginning, and which
would, he believed, in no mean measure in the time to
come increase and strengthen.

MR. CHARLES BUXTON-, M.P., ON THE

GAME LAWS.

Mr. Buxton presided at the dinner of the Chobham
Agricultural Association on Thursday, and in proposing
the toast of the evening he said there was a subject of
cry serious importance to farmers, upon which he should
like to say a few words—he referred to the game laws. Now
..e was a game preserver. He had just returned from
ix weeks' shooting in Norfolk ; he was fond of the sport,
and he neither wished nor expected ever to see it
extinguished. On the other hand, it was his conviction
that the law of the land went a great deal further than
was reasonable in its support. He thought that the pro-
prietor of a piece of land, whether great or small, had a
right to all its productions—to the live animals that grew
upon it, whether bullocks, partridges, cats, or weasels, or
whatever else they might be—just as he had a right to its
vegetable produce. He was quite sure they could never
allow any stranger who happened to like a day's shooting
to beat through another person's woods or tramp across
his fields to kill the game upon them. Whatever
happened, the laws would have to protect the proprietor
of the land in his right to the game that grew upon it; and
if they did not have a law in favour of the game, they
must substitute that which did not now exist—a real law
of trespass. Few people seemed to be aware that at pro-
sent any man might walk over any other man's land so
long as he did no damage ; the threats of prosecution were
bugbears. But if the landlord had no protection
for his game, he must have that which he did
not now possess—protection against simple intrusion.
So far, he thought the game law reasonable and advan-
tageous. He would now say in what respect he con-
sidered the game law went too far. He thought it a
shame that if a poor man was going along the public road
and saw a hare, and knocked it on the head, he was liable
to be taken up, fined, or thrown into prison as a poacher,
and liable also to pay £23 to the excise for killing
game without a license. He would most certainly
abolish that part of the law. He would give to every
man perfect liberty to kill ground game—either hares or
rabbits—in any way he pleased, so long as it was net
upon another man's property. He also considered it a
shame that if a country policeman thought, or pretended
to think, that any man or woman had game concealed
about them, he might stop that man or woman and search
them to find it. That was a most shameful piece of
tyranny, and he never voted against anything more
heartily than he did against that clause of Sir Baldwin
Leighton's bill. Then, again, he thought this agreat wrong
—that game was put on a perfectly distinct footing
from all other property in this respect. If a man stole a
cow or a chicken, his prosecution was undertaken at the
expense and trouble of the prosecutor, but prosecutions
against poachers were no longer undertaken at the
expense of the wealthy preservers, but at the cost of the
county, and in some counties this formed a heavy item of
expenditure. He also thought it a wrong that a land-
lord's coverts should be exempt from rating. What was
really wanted was not so much a change in the law as a
bolder purpose on the part of farmers not to permit them-
selves to be so ruinously over-ridden, as great numbers of
them were, by excessive and extravagant preservation of
game, especially of rabbits and hares. He believed that if
they agitated this question more persistently, if they made
their voices heard, and especially at election times, game
preservers would be compelled to yield to the pressure of
public opinion, and he was sorry that more had not been
said on this topic during the past few weeks.

SEE OF PETERBOROUGM—The Conge d'Elire arid
Letter Recommendatory leaving been received by the
Dean and Chapter of Peterborough, the dean and
canons assembled in their Chapter House on Friday
morning, and unanimously elected to the Bishopric of
Peterborough the Very Rev. William Connor Magee,
D.D., dean of the Cathedral Church of Cork, and of her
Majesty's Chapel Royal, within Dublin Castle.

CHRISTIAN MORTAR. —ln New York, a maiden
lady has left all her property for the purpose of building a
church, on condition that her body and bones should be
made into mortar in which to lay the corner-stone. What
could have been the leading motive for such a stipulation?
Was it that she was determined to guard against the pos-
sibility of being buried alive, or that she desired, with
her own body and bones, to help to consolidate the Church?
—Builder.

FIRST DAY OF MICHAELMAS TERM.—Monday is
the first day of the term, when the courts will be opened
at two o'clock, at Westminster. At the Lord Chancellor's
breakfast, at twelve o'clock, the " eighteen " common law
judges will assemble, and three newly-appointed, judges
will receive the congratulations of their brethren. Some
extensive reforms are expected to be carried out. The
courts of law and equity re-open with comparatively few
arrears. There is a good deal of business in the Divorce
Court, and considerable arrears in the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council.

We understand that Mr. Justice Blackburn,
Mr. Justice Willes, and Baron Martin, the senior puisne
judges in the common-law courts, are willing to be placed
on the rota for the trial of election petitions under the
new Act. If that is the case they would doubtless be
selected by their brethren for the duty. Only one of the
three (Mr. Baron Martin) has ever been before the public
as a politician, and in his case, while his high personal
character will prevent any suspicion of partiality, his great
shrewdness and knowledge of the world make him
admirably fitted to conduct such an inquiry,—,Solicitor's
Journal. •