The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-26 00:00:00

an object of the Government. I should be giving a
very narrow view of the importance cf the oeca%ion
if I were to tell you that this was an object of the
nation. I could only be giving a true account of the
occasion if I were to tell you that it was an object
beneficial to all nations." This enlarged and cosmo-
politan view of the character cf the Exhibition it is
which has induced the Royal Commission to abandon
the original contracts and to throw themselves en-
tirely upon the country. That the country
will respond to the generous confidence of the
Commissioners we are satisfied, especially
after witnessing the rapid increase of the preliminary
subscription from the first few hundreds to the pre-
sent total of more than 11,0001. Before 1850 has
expired we are sanguine that the preparations for
the proposed Exhibition will be so far advanced that
we shall await with security the new year and its
splendid demonstration.

It is, indeed, difficult to conceive the grounds upon
which the re-admission of Mr. WILLIAM HENRY
Paanea, to whose fearful and heartrending, hut
most unmerited sufferings, we recently alluded, to
the active duties of his profession can be resisted.
What can be the objects of the Incorporated Law
Society in exposing that cruelly persecuted and ill-
used gentleman to new and formidable expenses, and
vexatious and harassing delays ? Under the peculiar
circumstances of his case his application should at
once have been conceded ex debits justitim, or,
at the very least, the accusations should
be of a direct and
.tangible character, sustained
by prima facie evidence sufficient, if unanswered, to
justify the expulsion of the party from the list of at-
torneye, if then in possession of his certificate. Tne
former charge of being concerned in the vile for-
geries, with a guilty knowledge of the frauds, had
been fully adjudicated on by the only authority re-
cognized by law, by which the erroneous decision of
a jury upon facts could be revised, or modified.
After the most stringent:and searching inquiry, after
maturely weighing every circumstance of the case,
not as a jury would do, where the benefit of
any reasonable doubt should have been given
to the party on trial, but as a judge
in a civil case, deciding on the balance of evidence,
Sir GEORGE GREY arrived at the deliberate conclu-
sion that Mr. BARBER was " free from any guilty
participation in the frauds, of which he had been
made the instrument." Here, then, the subject was
finally and for ever closed. The innocent and much
injured man could not be subjected to a new trial
at the prosecution, we had almost written per-
secution, of an irresponsible body. If he had even
evinced a want of due caution, which we most em-
phatically and positively deny, and on which we would
willingly join issue with his oppressors, has he not
already far more than sufficiently expiated the over-
confidence in the character of his wealthy and, as he
believed, respectable client ? Is the breaking up of
his former connexion, the loss of the position and
standing in his profession, to the very highest point
of which he was rapidly progressing, to be accounted
as nothing ? Is the total annihilation of five of the
best years of his life, during which he would unques-
tionably have acquired a handsome independence by
his own indefatigable exertions, and the necessity of
commencing his labours de novo, to be considered
s light or trivial punishment for a simple
act or acts of indiscretion Above all, is the weary
and tedious voyage, for more than one-third of a
year, as a manacled felon, in a floating dungeon—
the miserable captivity in that earthly hell, Norfolk
Island, for nearly three years, during which he was
compelled to perform the most degrading offices—a
slave among the most miserable and wretched of
slaves, and in which he was deprived of the scanty in-
dulgences allowed to the most criminal of his guilty
associate?, to be altogether involved in oblivion ? Nu!
if the vague and unwarranted suspicions of his
worst enemies, his most unrelenting antagonists, were
even as well-founded as they are really false and un •
justifiable, be has endured hardships and privations,
he has sustained heavy and irretrievable losses, far
more than sufficient to have atoned for every fault
of omission or commission that had ever been
ascribed to him, and he should now be received with
open arms by his legal brethren, and cordially wel-
comed back to the arena of his former labours—the
busy scenes of professional life.
What then, we again ask, can be the ob-
jects or motives of the Incorporated Law So-
ciety, which is supposed to represent the great and
influential body of attorneys and solicitors, not only
in the metropolis, but throughout the entire king-
dom, in bringing their entire strength to bear against
a single individual whose means of resistance have
been so greatly reduced by previous misfortunes ?
the duties which the association has underteken,
and for which it was constituted, are simple and
clear; they are to take cognizance of any improper
or unprofessional conduct by members already
admitted, and to guard against the introduc-
tion of persons whose characters were so blasted,
and reputations so totally destroyed, that they would
reflect disgrace upon an honourable profession. But
in the proper and efficient discharge of these impale
tent duties, the society must deal with facts and not
with surmises ; they must bring forward distinct
and unequivocal charge?, which may be fairly grap-
pled with and successfully rebutted ; they must not
establish a domestic inquisition, prying into the most
secret events of an entire life, on the mere possibility
cf establishing some grave offence ; they must
not call upon the suitor to perform a literal
impossibility, " to prove a negative," to show
that he has ever been free from blame
or imputation ; they must not call for proofs
and evidences such as no tribunal that was ever
established has ventured to demand. They attempted
in Mr. BARBER'S case to institute an inquiry into his
entire private and professional conduct, to produce
unknown and unnamed witnesses to establish charges
openly alleged or fairly put forward, but which were
concealed in the thoughts, or rather the suspicions, of
the managing committee.. That attempt most sig-
nally failed. The Learned and eminent Judge (Par
TESON), to whom their application was preferred, most
properly refused to notice their vague insinuations, or
to sanction an investigation which was wholly without
a precedent in the entire history cf British jurispru-
dence ; and yet, although their failure was so signal,
they have succeeded is protracting the inquiry for
nearly an entire year, at an enormous expense and
most serious injury to Mr. BARBER.
It is a trite remark, that members of a public and
irresponsible body will, in their collective character,
be guilty of acts of which, as private gentlemen,
they would blush to be supposed capable. It has
been, we fear erroneously, supposed that a numerous and
important association could not be influenced by private
or personal considerations, and that its every act must
be regarded as emanating from the purest and most
straightforward motives and intentions. But, un-
fortunately, there are but too often " wheels within
wheels ;" there are secret machinations and concealed
influences in operation, of which the public can know
nothing, and which they can scarcely understand or
conceive as being within the bounds of possibility.
A preliminary mistake often leads the erring
parties to lengths which they themselves
would shrink from, if placed fairly before
them in the first instance. They speedily cease
to struggle for justice, the contest becomes one for
victory—for victory—we say, to be obtained under ,