The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The sentence upon O'Connell and his co-defend-
ants is now before the public. We shall be excused if we
abstain from comment, at least for one day. The astounding
severity of the infliction, personal and pecuniary, espe-
cially upoh Mr. O'Connell, will, we fear, tend to de-
prive the law of that reverential respect in which even
its terrors -should be held. Except in the estimation of
the Ultra-Protestants of Ireland,, for whose special gra-
tification the finale of the State prosecutions seems to have
been reserved, as a compensation for the delays of ven-
geance of which they so bitterly complained, there is no-one,
let his party politics be what they may, who will not deplore
the extreme severity of the sentence. The effect. upon
the public mind in Ireland, will, we fear be dangerous
in the extreme. But we will not trust ourselves with
the use of those burning words of indignation which are
prompted by the vengeful visitation upon a political offen-
der. It will remind the people of Ireland of tip incarcerations
of the reign of terror in that unhapppy, Cogtry ; while in
England it will be compared with the int( i s'of pains and
penalties in the days when Castlereagh' es,i4 outh sought
to suppress agitation by a severity in wh- t?' 'judgment was
untempered by mercy. It remains to be seen whether the
sentence will be carried into execution pending the writ of
error. Previously to the sentence being passed, notice was
served on the solicitor for the Crown, on behalf of the
traversers, that they intended to " apply to the Court, that
whatever sentence the Court should think fit to pronounce
upon the respective traversers, shall be directed not to
commence until such a day as the Court in their dis-
cretion shall think it right to order, to enable the tra-
versers to prosecute their writ of error, and have judg-
ment thereon between the said time of pronouncing
the said judgment and such day as shall be 46'14+)
pointed by the Court." The law requires that sentifffee
should be passed before an application could be made tv.
suspend its execution until the writ of error is decided by the
House of Lords. To-morrow's post will bring the decision
of the Court on this application, and, place the entire proceed-
ings at the close of the State prosecutions—so far as the Court
of Queen's Bench is concerned—in the hands of the public.
STANDARD.—The House of Commons re-assembled last
night. Mr. Fitzroy Kelly moved for leave to bring in a Bill
establishing a Court of Appeal in cases of felony. The Hon.
and Learned Gentleman. urged the necessity of an appellate
jurisdiction in an exceedingly able speech, supported by many
melancholy examples. Sir James Graham, without oppos-
ing the motion, or unreservedly condemning its object,
expressed doubts of the necessity of any change of the law in
the particular referred to, grounding these doubts upon the
high character of the law of England, his own experience of
,its just administration, and the inconvenience of multiply-
ing courts and judges. Now, we cannot admit these reasons
;without very considerable qualifications. As respects the
character of the law—the law is one thing, the mode
Of administering it another—and the law may have and de-
serve the high character that it maintains, in defiance of any
'little irregularity and injustice practised at Kingsgate-
street, at the police-offices, or at the Central Criminal
Court. We fear that if the law were to be held respon-
sible for the manner in which cases of life and death
are often slubbered over in the last, the law would
soon have a very unenviable character. But the charac-
ter of the law of England has been maintained in spite of
its most vicious administration—it flourished even when the
administrators of the law applied the peine farte et dure ex-
hibited the rack, would not allow the prisoner to defend him-
self by sworn witnesses, while
.the depositions of absent wit-
nesses were heard against him ; when juries were punished by
imprisonment and the
.pillory for verdicts displeasing to
,the Court, while prisoners were not allowed to be
heard by a single counsel. The character of the
'law has, therefore, really nothing to do in the case.
Sir J. Graham, again, is satisfied with the general result of
the present administration ofjustice ; but Sir James, with all
respect, is no competent judge in the matter; for he himself
it is who produces those results which are satisfactory, not
only to him, but, as we gratefully acknowledge, to the
country. He may think that every other Home Se-
cretary would act with the same conscientious dili-
gence, the same sagacity, and the same humanity which
distinguish his administration of the department ; but
though the opinion is natural to an honourable, candid, and
modest man, it is not our opinion ; ni.,r is it, as we believe,
the opinion of the public. We all know that there is
nothing, for example, to prevent such a man as Mr.
being a Home Secretary ; and we also know
that if Mr.
month ago, Mary Furley would have been hanged
by the neck until dead, on the 6th ult. The truth is, that
the appellate jurisdiction, which Mr. F. Kelly calls for as a
public tribunal, sits already as a secret tribu.rpl,, and the ad-
ministration of justice would be intolerable without it. The
disadvantages of secresy in such a matter are, however,
very great. A secret tribunal may be negligent,
' cruel, unjust, corrupt, which in a free country
•an open tribunal can never be ; and though the
Home Secretary, in whose breast the constitution of
the tribunal lies, will be commonly a man of decent cha-
racter, it is a rare and a happy accident to bave a Home
Secretary as zealous, acute, humane, and just, as Sir
James .Graham. The shocking sacrifices of life previous
to Sir Robert Peel's accession to office, prove that a
very respectable nobleman or genfikman may be a very
insufficient court of appeal in criminal cases. There
is, besides, another injustice, arising out of the want of a
public appellate jurisdiction in cases of felony, which cannot
come under Sir James Graham's notice—we allude to the
number of improper acquittals. Juries will frequently demand
a higher amount of evidence than the justice of the case war-
rants, when they believe that their verdict must be final,
and thus it will happen too frequently that dangerous cri-
minals are let loose upon society, who would not, so escape
were it publicly known that there existed a court of appeal.
As to the difficulty of finding judges, we can scarcely think
that Sir James Graham will, upon serious reflection, find that
difficulty insurmountable. The qualifications for a good
judge are, different from those of a great lawyer—some-
times a little at variance with them. All of profes-
sional qualification that is wanted for a judge is an ele-
mentary and scientific knowledge of legal principles
good sense, integrity, patience, and a modest diligence will
do the rest. The young and comparatively inexperienced
men who are sent to the colonies make excellent judges, ab-
solutely equal, and relatively superior, to the judges of West-
. minster Hall. Meanwhile, it is satisfactory to know that the
Government has promised a candid consideration to Mr.
Kelly's proposition.

THE SUPPOSED MURDER AT WIMBLEDON: On
Thursaay afternoon, at three o'clock, W. Carter, Esq., the
Coroner for East Surrey, opened a Court at the Dog and Fox
inn, Wimbledon, to inquire into the circumstances attending
the death of Charlotte Hall, aged thirty-eight, who, it was
alleged, had met her death by strangulation, by the hands of
her husband, who has since absconded. After a long investi-
gation, in which, however, no facts of any importance were
elicited beyond those which have already appeared in our
columns, the jury, after nearly an hour's deliberation, returned
a verdict—" Died from natural causes." Notwithstanding
this verdict the police will not relax their exertions in ap-
prehending the accused.
ATTEMPTED SUlClDE.—Yesterday, a few mi-
nutes before nine o'clock, a female threw herself from the
second recess on the Middlesex side of Waterloo-bridge. An
alarm being given, a waterman put off from the shore, and
succeeded in getting her out, having been in the water about
two minutes only. She was immediately taken to Portugal-
street Hospital, where, on examination, it was found her
I left leg was broken. The poor
woman
appeared to be in a
state of destitution. •