The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY,

STANDARD.—It is amusing to remark the shifts to
which the Leaguers are driven to extenuate the disgrace -of
their defeat in South Lancashire. They generally rely upon
the less majority by which Mr. Entwisle has been returned
than that by which Lord Francis Egerton and Mr. Wilbra-
ham were returned seven years ago, but they
overlook the fact that if the Conservative majority
in 1844 is less than in 1837, the aggregate of vot(s
polled, and the registry are much less also ; surely they
ought not, when exulting in the momentous fact that Mr.
Entwisle has polled ninety-eight votes less than returned the
late Member (and this is the whole reduction), to forget the
recent and constant boast of their own League Committees,
that they had actually struck off 2,800 Conservative votes
from the registry—a reduction that ought to have made
a somewhat greater difference than ninety-eight votes.
Mr. Cobden, who hurried to town last night, to console
the Leaguers at Covent-garden, and to assure them that
their defeat was a great victory, ascribes all the success of
the Conservatives to landlord influence. Now, landlord
influence is about as powerful in South Lancashire as
it is in Middlesex; and the return of the renowned
Middlesex goose some years ago will tell what land-
lord influence is in the metropolitan county. The
correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, too, more
honest than Mr. Cobden, admits that the Conservative
landlords very handsomely declined the exercise of any in-
fluence. This correspondent, however, has a solution of
the defeat, and a somewhat droll one—the landlords were pas-
sive, and their principal agents were passive, but the bailiffs
and gamekeepers " have done it all." We were not at all
aware of the power and popularity of these classes.
In London, indeed, we know that the bum-bailiffs consti-
tote a formidable body, particularly in the suburban districts,
and for that reason Mr. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe very
judiciously invited to sit as chairman'of his principal Com-
mittee a burn-bailiff of extensive practice, though how Mr.
Duncombe could know anything of such a functionary
must be of course a riddle. We do not, however, see
that this influence of the bum-bailiffocraey in Fins-
bury—formidable as it may be to Mr. Duncombe's
supporters affords any analogy for the authority
of under-bailiffs (farm-bailiffs we presume) in South
Lancashire. The farm-bailiff has no authority save
what he derives from his employer, and the gamekeeper has
no concern except with poachers. But it will not be pre-
tended that such noblemen as the Earl of Derby, Lord Skel-
mersdale, &c., professing neutrality themselves, would be
guilty of the meanness of allowing their influence to be em-
ployed for a party purpose by their lowest servants. The
hypothesis is not more insulting than absurd.
GLOBE.—The Ecclesiastical Courts Bill will—in accord-
ance with the arrangement proposed by Sir Robert Peel—be
discussed to-morrow evening, on the motion that the Speaker
do leave the chair. "So help me God, I have no interest in
this measure!" was the Right.llon Baronet's solemn declara-
tion when the measure was on a former occasion before
the Moose. This unusually strong disclaimer of "in-
terest," hi a Bill introduced to Parliament by the Govern-
ment, naturally excited some surprise. It was commented
upon at the time it was uttered; and will doubtless be
remembered, if it be not alluded to to-morrow evening, when
the principle and details of the measure are under discussion.
With all due respect for the asseverated disinterestedness of
Sir Robert Peel, we still consider it our duty to press
upon the attention both of the House of Commons and
the public, two points in the Bill, which certainly wear
the appearance of one of those jobs by which the law re-
forms of the present Ministry have acquired for their authors
a bad pre-eminence. The first of these two points is, the
provision of an income of 1,200/. a year for Dr.
M.P. for Cardiff, one cf his own supporters. The second,
is to the sop thrown by the Bill to a hybrid class of
professionals in the provinces, who exercise the double
avocations of proctor and attorney—occupations differing
as widely, in regard to the education necessary for
their respective followers, as midwifery and horse-dealing:.
The endeavours we have hitherto employed to ex-
pose- the palpable jobbery sought to be perpetrated in
favour of Dr. Nicholl by means of thin Bill, have been par-
tially successful. Dr. Nicholl within the last few days has
deemed it prudnt or decent—or he has possibly been advised
by one or more of the superior Members of Government,
possessed of more discretion than himself—toresign his post
of Vicar-General. That office is now held by a venerable
practitioner of the Ecclesiastical Courts named Burnaby.
The salary proposed originally brDr. Nicholl (in his Bill).
as the annual remuneration for the duties of this sinecure,
was 1,203!. We now find the sum of 5001. ,suggested, as a
sufficient salary. Thus the aged Dr. Burnaby is to do the
work hitherto performed by his very-much-junior brother
Nicholl, at 700/. a year less than was modestly proposed by
Dr. Nicholl for himself ! The public are so far advantaged.
The substitution of 5301. for 1,200/. per annum causes a
duction, in favour of the public, equal to 7001. yearly. As
the office is one that involves no work, the holder has no
right to complain. The change, however, suggests a ques-
tion which, we think, Dr. Nicholl should be called upon to
answer.; viz.—lf Dr. Burnaby, be deemed quite as -capable
as Dr. Nicholl of doing nothing, why is the difference now
made in' the contemplated remuneration of a Vicar-
General ? Was the difference—viz. 700!. per annum—to
be a " consideration" to Dr. Nicholl for his Parliamentary
support ? and is Dr. Nicholl willing to advocate 5001. a
year as the salary to a man in every respect his superior,
when he (Dr. Nicholl) considered 1,200/. a year the proper
reward for his own services in the very same post.? Dr,
Burnaby will scarcely apply to him the words of Horace :-,
" Liberum munivit iter, daturas

Plura relictis."
'We will at present add no snore on this subject than the
expression of our best wishes for Dr. Burnaby's good health ;
and that, neither by his death nor " resignation," the office of
Vicar-General may be re-opened to the acceptance of its late
holder. And so mach for the first of the two points to ;which we
have adverted. We have materially damaged the scheme ofj eb-
bing contemplated by the authors of the Ecclesiastical Courts
Reform Bill; we may, possibly, even at this stage of the
measure, shame the sensitive Premier into a consent to
modify some of the more prominent objections involved in
the construction of the second point, to which we have
referred. In many of the country towns there is found
a species of the genus lawyer, which certainly cannot
be likened to the animal which its exhibitor described
as " a hanlinal wot couldn't live in the water, and died
on the land ;" inasmuch as the members of this tribe contrive
to live everywhere ; in everything ; and on everything : they
are omnivorous and übiquitous. In fine, they are both Proc-
tors and attorneys; or, like the Centaurs of old, two distinct
species in one undivided body. Has a case of assault oc-
curred? They are ready to conduct the cause at common law.
Has a lady called another by a naughty name? They are
equally ready to follow up the offender in a suit for defama-
tion in the Ecclesiastical Court. In fact, whatever be the
subject of litigation, whether horse causes, assaults, defama-
tion, slander, breach of promise, divorce, murder, larceny, sub-
traction of tithes, church-rates, lay-baptism, or what not, in
each and all of these, this half-and-half kind of practitioner
is at all times ready to do his best; and to fight the battles
of his clients at Chancery, common-law, criminal-law, eccle-
siastical-law, at the sessions, or before the poor-law guar-
dians—in fact, anywhere, where law in any shape whatever
obtains—Jack-of-all-trades, and very frequently master of
none ! The grand feature of these gentlemen is, however, their
active agency at Parliamentary elections—most efficient when
working, like the mole, under ground. This pertains to the
second principal objection we have urged against this Bill.
By Sir R. Peel's adhesion to, or consent modify this part of
the measure, the public will be prepared to test the sincerity of
his solemn asseveration—" So help me God, I have no interest
in this measure I" The Bill, if it pass in its present shape, is
to framed as to throw a very great increase of business, and
consequently of profit, into the hands of the Centaurs
of the legal profession in country towns. To ad-
vantage these, and these only, the public is to
be driven out of the old and accustomed course, which
has always been open to them, of having recourse for
probates of wills, &c., to the fountain-head at once, if they
should think fit so to do. By this Bill they will, no/elites
volentes, be forced to go with the wills of their de-
funct friends to some outlandish country Ecclesiastical Court,
without the choice being permitted to them of applying direct
to the Central Court at Doctors' Commons. And why
Simply because Sir Robert Peel wishes to conciliate the
country proctor-attorneys, and thus buy off their threat-
ened resistance to other parts of the Bill. These are the two
points on which we have principally rested our opposition to
this production of combined wisdom and virtue, by a Cabi-
net, which, as the Times says, " is composed of a snug party
of independent gentlemen, with a good deal of leisure thue on
their hands."

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OF CHANCERY, May 30. .
IN TIH MATTER OF DTCE SOMBRE, A LUNATIC.
Mr. WAKEFIELD, upon this case being called, stated to the
Court that his Learned Friend, Sir Thomas Wilde, and him-
self bad had a communication from the other side, proposing
l certain arrangement. They had nt.t had sufficient time
to determine whether they would accede to it or not; and
he had therefore to request that the Court would allow the
matter to stand over till to-morrow morning.
Mr. BETIIELL considercd that the arrangement was for the
benefit of all parties, and trusted that it would meet with the
sanction of the Court.
The case was then ordered to stand over till to-morrow
morning.
Lord St. Vincent, the father of Mrs. Dyco Sombre, was in
Court.