The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-13 00:00:00

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." Her "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 officer,
but that it was wrested from him. A gun
was afterwards produced by him, which
shared 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 I 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. Mais
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, he cannot say," suggests
" that the conversion of Don Camilleri and his bride
at the moment of bringing themselves together ought
to have excited the Bishop's suspicion." So then,
according to this great Puseyite authority, a Bishop
ought not to have countenanced two persons in
abjuring the errors of Popery, and becoming com-
municants of his own Church ; and still less ought
he to have consented to marry them by the rites
of that Church on which alone they could hare had
any claim. A Roman Catholic priest, whether a
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 mast 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
extend to the compulsory restoration to the bereaved
mother of her children ; for it is impossible that the
civil courts of Malta can have a legal right to annul
a marriage and remove children from the protection
of their natural guardians, if those guardians are the
subjects of a country in which the Protestant religion
is the religion of the state.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OP THIS DAT.

TIMES.—The Chancellor of the Exchequer on
Thursday last made an announcement, on which, as it
somewhat regards ourselves, we may be excused for
commenting. He then intimated, that it was the in-
tention of Government in future not to furnish a re-
turn of the stamps issued to each individual news-
paper, but to give the aggregate of those used by all
of them. And the reason assigned for this recurrence
to ancient custom was one the fairness of which we
readilyadmit, inasmuch as it appears that the returns,
as hitherto published, have been prejudicial to the
circulation of some of our Contemporaries ; those of
them which have been but lately established, and
others which had not yet formed a connexion, having
made earnest remonstrances against a system which,
by a premature disclosure of their condition, too effec-
tually prevented them from improving it. As for us,
we are by no means sorry to see Ministers revert to
the practice of former days. This practice was first
infringed by a Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer for
the express purpose of injuring us. Mr. S. Rice,
whose political connexions had naturally made him
suspicious of trickery and cunning in every
department and profession, had lent himself
with too facile credulity to the notion that, for
the purpose of deceiving the public, we were
in the habit of purchasing an unnecessary number of
stamps, and selling those we did not require to other
papers. Hence the distinctive die—an invention
which, like many other shabby devices, instead of
effecting the harm it designed, was of great advan-
tage to us, and, we flatter ourselves, ultimately
visited its own authors with condign retribution. In
the amount of our circulation they have furnished
the public with a gauge of their own unpopularity.
They hare given to our humble efforts to expose
them and their misdoings a weight—not altogether
factitious—but which we never could have obtained
for them ourselves, by enabling us to publish a quar-
terly evidence of our success. When we bade adieu
to the Whigs, we remember well the auguries of
failure by which we were beset. We had de
serted, it was said, the canse of the nation, and the
nation would desert us. We had dared to separate
ourselves from the public opinion to which we owed
our strength, and public opinion would avenge itself.
The contrary has happened. It is not too bold to say
that the English nation has sanctioned the sentiments
which we then dared, at some hazard, to express. If
ever the circulation of a public journal testified the
accomplishment of a great revolution in public opi-
nion, such an evidence is to be found in the increas-
ing amount of support which we have ever since
enjoyed, and, most of all, which we at this moment
enjoy; and for the official, incontrovertible, and con-
tinually recurring proof of this support, the Whig
Ministers of 1834 have only themselves to thank.
However, gainers as we have been in every way by
an innovation which owed its origin to the most con-
temptible spite, we are not unwilling to forego an ad-
vantage which can be obtained only at the expense
of our Contemporaries. It is true that each succes-
sive quarterly return has exhibited our continued
au. periority both in circulation and advertisements—
it is. true that the prestige thus obtained itself reacts
by.mcreasing the success to which it owes its birth—
it is true that to Mr. Spring Rice's manoeuvre we
areindebted for the most satisfactory, because hostile,
testimony to that position which it is our pride to
have achieved, as it must be our ambition to maintain;
yet we willingly abandon these advantages, convinced
as we are that we can well afford to dispense with
those guarantees of success which are furnished by
the indirect depreciation of our brethren of the press.
TIIE

LONDON GAZETTE'
(THIS EVENING.)
CROWN-OFFICE, Aua. 13, 1844.
MEMBER RETTRNEE, TO SERVX IN TXIS PRISENT
!ARMAMENT.

Bonoucs OF DUDLEY.—John Benbow, of No. 26,
Mecklenburgh-square, in the county of Middlesex, Esq.,
in the room of Thomas Hawkes, Esq., who has accepted
the Chiltern Hundreds.

W.HITEHALL, AUG, 8,
The Lord Chancellor has appointed John Cornthwaite,
of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, Gent. to be a
Master Extraordinary in the High Court of Chancery.
_ _

BANKRUPTCY SUPERSEDED.
EDWARD RILEY, grocer, Stratford-upon-Avon.
BANKRUPTS.

CHARLES JAMES BANISTER, woollen draper,