The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-12 00:00:00

E SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 12, 1844.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PROM TEE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

GLOBE.—We alluded a few days since to Lord
Woreley's notice ot 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 oonsiderable 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 hus-
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 1 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,
comes 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, an 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 threepence, 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
the justices in petty sessions by a fixed salary is, even
in a pecuniary point of view, to be preferred to the pre-
sent system 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
Northampten 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 ho 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 bad 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 its,lf 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
which the s'n 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. Bow unlike either of these
eases is to the state of things exposed at Nor-
thampton, the simplest must be able to observe. Know-
ing how impoisible, 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 of
concealment so exquisitely contrived; and so universally
supported, as to deceive all the world—a system of con-
cealment behind which the grossest licentiousness may
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
Church. 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
1,2001. 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 founda-
tion upon which rests the moral character of our 15,000
ministers of the Gospel, or to fancy that the people of
En land will be satisfied with a low standard of morals
in their religious teachers.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.
(From the Hampshire Telegraph.)
PORTSMOUTH, MARCH 9.—The Resistance, troop ship,
Commander Patey, sailed on Tuesday, with dethchments of
the 2d battalion of Rifle Brigade, and f the 71st Regiment,
on board, for Cork; there to embark a detachment of the
89th Regiment, and then proceed with the whole to Canada.
'The _Prince George, transport,t havingdetach-
mentmponanbyoarofdthaeßoya
a the 20th Regiment, and
Artillery.
The Dee, steamer, Mr. Driver, master, went out of harbour
yeeterday, and sailed for Cork.
The Daedalus is to be converted into a flush deck ship, to
carry sixteen of the heaviest guns.
the Superb, 80, is to be made an advanced ship instead of
the ,Kent, 76.
The Bonetta is commissioned for the Mediterranean sur-
vey ; and the Sparrow, for surveying the Scotch coast.
Moorings are prepared in this harbour for the Queen, of
110 guns, and Indus, 78. Both ships will be, therefore, paid
off here.
The Poictiers and Ann Robertson, Indiamen, sailed on
Wednesday, for Calcutta.
The Pekin and Serge, packet-ships, for Hong-Kong, ar-
tivedfrom the River on Thursday, and will proceed to-morrow.
In Harbour—St. Vincent, Victory, Excellent, Victoria and
.filbert, Dee, Fearless, and Echo steamers; Adventure, tran-
sit.
spo Spithead—Pekin and Serge, East Indiamen.
The
_Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have issued a
elst
shallof Areperieilvneexfivt,aoffie shillingser sof
all ranks dL,'ing
circular,
tiirectindgattxhaut,
fromsecretariesh
t
their half-pay, in addition to their present
secretaries to Admirals are quite irrespective of
spaelraries. diem out °f f
the service, we queltion the right of the Admiralty to inter-
fere in this manner I.•ith the half-pay.)
PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.
PROMOTIONS.—Mate--Frederick Robinson (1835), of the
Comet, to the rank of Lieutenant.
APPOINTME.NTS.—COITIRMIIder—J. S. Brock, to the Bonetta.
Lieutenants--Goorge Newcomen (additional), to the Agin-
court ,J.H. • Veitch, to the Styx ; I. C. Otter, to command
the Sparrow.
'Waste John Penn, to the America, vice Mackey, war-
rant cancelled.
itYrnaster and Purser—John E. Dring (acting) to the

La—rne:
Assist'Ant-Surgeon—J. B. Lawrence, to the Styx.
Chapla. n—Rev. R. Petman, to Chatham Dock-yard,
vice 'white:toad, superannuated.
Clerks—Ja.lles Tinioson, to be Secretary's Clerk to Rear-
Admiral Bowleg, lic43 IVinstanleY, to the Victoria and Albert
yacht ; J. Rober, to the America; W. A. G. Young, from
Sir C. Rowley's SeerCtary'A office, to the St. Vincent ; Au-
gustus Gilbert, to Ronetta (in charge).
Naval Instructor—Mr, F. W. Smith, to quality.
Engineers—W. Jeffery (Ist Engineer), and Henry Lee,
(2d Engineer), to the Comet.

The linendrapers, &c., of Woolwich, Greenwich,
and Deptford have agreed to close their shops at early hours,
viz., eigfit months at eight o'clock in the evening, except
tiaturdays—then at half-past ten ; and in May, June, July,
And August at nine; and on Saturdays at eleven.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
(YESTERDAY.)
MANSION-HOUSE.

Mr. Reed, of Ipswich, the owner of the Colina brig,
which was stated to have been wilfully sunk off the coast
of Holland, according to the arrangement between him
and the captain of that vessel, was yesterday bailed by
two gentlemen in the sum of 5001. each, and his own
surety to the amount of 1,0001., to appear for re-exa-
mination at the Mansion-house, when the witnesses shall
have arrived. Captain Simpson, who was apprehended
by Daniel Forrester, remains in the Compter. The
prosecution is at the instance of the Alliance Marine-
office, whose solicitors are Messrs. Pearce, Bolgar,
Phillips, and Winckworth.
Henri Smith Evans, was brought up in the custody
of Darnel Forrester, charged with having written two
letters to Mr. Hutchinson, the Deputy-Chairman of the
Stock Exchange, demanding by what authority the com-
plainant insulted him, and threatening, if satisfaction
were not given, to post Mr. Hutchinson as a poltroon
and a coward on the Exchange and in the Reform Club.
The LORD MAYOR, having read the letters, said he was
quite satisfied that there was ground enough for accu-
sation.

The defendant said the dispute was one of a peculiar
nature, and that he had been most grievously insulted.
Mr. Goodman (the Lord Mayor's clerk) asked Mr.
Hutchinson whether he apprehended danger from the
defendant.

Mr. Hutchinson—Considering the state in which I
am, with a disabled arm (his arm was in a sling), I
think it probable that he would assault me.
The defendant begged to be informed by the Lord
Mayor how a man who had been grossly insulted was to
obtain satisfaction. Ha was not, he said, a fighting
man. He, however, commenced a volley of abuse
against the complainant, which convinced every one that,
although he might not be a fighting man, his language
was well calculated to provoke quarrels.
The LORD MAYOR—It is on account of the use of such
language as you have just used that it is considered ne-
cessary to require securities. You must find bail, your-
self in 2001., and two sureties in 100/. each, to answer
the complaint at the sessions.
The complainant's solicitor said it was the determina-
nation of his cließt to proceed by indictment.
A well-dressed young man, named John Francis, was
charged with having picked the pocket of Sir Archibald
Keppel M'Donald, Bart., of the Ist Grenadier Guards,
stationed at the Tower, of a cigar-case, containing cigars.
Bissett, a private in the Guards, stated that on Friday
morning, as he was marching along with the regiment
towards the Tower, he saw the prisoner look earnestly
in the face of Captain M'Donald, who was commanding.
He afterwards observed the prisoner follow the Captain
and pick his pocket of something, and he ran after the
follow, who immediately fled, throwing away the cigar-
case, grasped him, • and gave him into the custody of a
policeman.
Captain M'Donald said that he also followed the pri-
soner, and he identified the cigar-case.
The prisoner, who had a watch and gold guard-chain
and some money in his pocket, and who appeared to be
about 17 years of age, said it must be a mistake, as he
never did such a thing in his life as rob a gentleman.
He was committed for trial.

A cripple, named John Carver, who shoves himself
about in a bowl, with wheels to it, was committed to Bride-
well for two months, for having assaulted a policeman.
The defendant was calling a gentleman a d—d, hard-
hearted scoundrel, for having refused to give him alms,
when the policeman arrived, and expostulated with him.
The only answer he condescended to give the policeman
was, a " pitch into him, head foremost."
The LORD MAyou—You are an incorrigible fellow :
the last time you were here you were sent to prison for
a month.

Defendant—Not a bit of it. I never was here afore.
The LORD MAYOR—We'II see whether double the
quantity of imprisonment will not sharpen your memory.
Whitney, the chimney-sweeper, who was charged, a
few days ago, with having sent a lad, under 21 years of
age, up a chimney, for the purpose of cleaning it, was
fined, by Sir Peter Laurie, in the penalty of 54 for the
offence.

The chimney-sweeper said it was a common practice
with sweepers to violate the law in that way, and hoped
the fraternity would be looked after.

Mr. Stevens, the Secretary to the Anti Climbing
society, said ho should be de!ighted to prosecute on every
occasion of the kind ; snd Sir Peter declare.' that he
would never fail to inflict the penalty.

at tho George-street station came to the officer's assis-
tance, and the prisoner was secured.
Inspector Rawley said the constable's right eye was
dreadfully swollen when he reached the station, and he
still suffered very seriously from the injury to his back,
in addition to which he was quite lame.
Mr. GREENWOOD sentenced the prisoner to ten days'
imprisonment.
Frederick Forde, a well-known desperado, was fined
11. for violently assaulting police-constables 54 G and
216 G. _ .
- -

The issue of bad money has greatly increased in the
extensive district over which this Court has jurisdiction.
Scarcely a day passes that three or four persons are
not brought before the sitting magistrate charged
with uttering. Mr. Greenwood observed on the fact yester-
day, and at the same time remarked that most of the
base coin produced were so palpably counterfeit that
the exercise of ordinary caution would enable the shop-
keeper to detect the fraud. The Solicitor of the Mint
does not prosecute unless there are extraordinary fea-
tures of aggravation in the case ; and most of the cul-
prits, who are generally the most depraved characters,
escape with a few days' imprisonment, from the period at
which they are arrested until the following Saturday,
when the Solicitor for the Mint attends.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
HOUSE OF LORDS, March 11.
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 by the High Sheriff, and which
had been called by a requisition very numerously
signed by freeholders. The meeting, he should state, was
called for a very different object than that 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, considerable 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
free trade principles was also brought forward by
way of amendment. This amended petition was car-
ried by a very large majority, and a vote of thanks
passed 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 promoting any societies 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, justified such an accusation. Ile
thought the 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
this matter. His Noble Friend had stated that that
petition had emanated from the major ty of the pers.;ns
present at the meeting. In any assertions he should
make, he did not mean to allude to the Noble
Lord's brolher, the High-Sheriff of the county,
ho 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 inhabitants),
could not be construed into an expre.sion 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 Association. 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 partially 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 be disposed 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 mectino., 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 lion. Gentleman, and the latter 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 iiomersetshire.—(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-
lutien.—(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
Htheatdi a d
meeting not agreoef
further he went west, the more he was convinced that
wthiethwhisies mseonhlecaFmrieenfdrom
Lordt m
the east."
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-
t)isn—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 landowners, 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 him
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.
With respect to the speech of an Hon. Member of the
other House of Parliament, made at Warwick, and
which had been alluded to by the Noble Earl, all he (the
Duke of Wellington) could say was, that he had never
heard of such a speech. With respect to the language
made use of at some of these meetings, (continued the
Noble and Gallant Duke) my Noble and Learned friend
has sufficiently alluded to that subject. My Lords, we
are all abused at these meetings.—(Hear, and a laugh.)
It is our fate—we cannot avoid it—we must bear it as
well as we can. I can only recommend the Noble Earl
to bear it with the same tranquillity as those sitting op-
posite to him.—(A laugh.) All I can say is, I have not
at all changed my opinion on the subject of this petition
brought under consideration to-night. I voted for the
existing corn-law, and I earnestly recommend your
Lordships to leave it as it is.—(Cheers.) That is what
I recommend to your Lordships, and to maintain the
system which it is the object of that corn-law to carry
into execution.—(Cheers.)
The Duke of RICHMOND said le was glad this
everybody.
proved to bee‘u.
discussion had taken place. For the last two or three
years the Anti-Corn-law League had been in the habit
of
tusing
Y.
They Th
They were
rep
repeatedly
dt
stated
al
the country stating things which were as often
the farmers of England in continually
going
were favour of a free trade
in corn. The tenantry of England were independent
men, and they had now themselves
op-
position to the Anti-Corn-law
League,
come forward in
misfortune to the Anti-corn..aweague. It was a great
in-
dulged in inflammatory language
I League that they
It was this that had
induced him (the Duke of Richmond)
protec-
tion society. He thought the conductotfodioeinAna
ti-. Corn
law League had been most atrocious from beginning
to end. He did not say their motives were elTdn.eb7t
their language was violent, improper, and vulgar to the last
degree. It appeared that at the meeting in Somer-
setshire a lecturer of the League had attendd. de had
been in Bridegwater two or three days before, and had
organised a set of men to attend the meeting. This was
the manner in which the farmers had been treated. lie
(the Duke of Richmond) always thought that unbought
opinions were the best, always barring, of eourse, the
opinion of lawyers.
Lord BEAUMONT denied that any attempt was
made at the meeting in Yorkshire to impute criminal
motives to the Anti-Corn-law League. The fact was,
that, at the latter end of that meeting, the persons who

came in, and carried the amendments, were the more
idle and dissolute portion of the town population. He
denied that they could expect so much international
traffic as that anticipated by the Noble Lord. When the
duty upon American ground corn was reduced to 45., was
there any concomitant reduction of the duty upon British
manufactured goods ? What had the people of Bir-
mingham gained by the reduction of that duty? and, by
analogy, what might they expect from any further re-
duction of those protective duties?
Earl RADNOR regretted that his Noble Friend had
misunderstood him. He (Earl Radnor) did not com-
plain of any gentleman explaining his views on any sub-
hect. He did not complain of any gentleman explaining
is opinions at a public meeting. He denied
the assertion of the Noble Lord, that any mem-
ber of the League had ever gone about de-
livering lectures which had the slightest ten-
dency to inflame the minds or passions of the people.
It was with great regret he heard the declaration of the
Noble Duke, that there would be no alteration in the
corn-laws. It was a declaration for protection at a time
when the principle of free trade was making the greatest
progress in France, America, and other countries. (The
Noble Lord then read an extract from a pamphlet re-
cently published by Mr. Colquhoun, a candidate for the
Presidency, avowing his determination to oppose to the
uttermost the principle of protection.) This country
(continued Earl Radnor) had been proceeding for the
last twenty years upon the principles of free trade. It
was absurd to stop short in the progress. They should
e
loCrHMOND go back.--(Hear.)
then presented a petition
from Guildford in favour of the existing corn-laws.
itThehre go
iulfdkoferowr ofd forward
PRIVY COUNCIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

gave notice that he would present a petition to-
morrow from the inhabitants of Bermondsey, corn-
plaining that the Lambeth Water Company supplied
foul and unfiltered water, contrary to their Act of
Parliament.