The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-18 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPIIvxON.

The Times of yesterday observes, in reference to
the blunders made by the Counsel on both sides, at the
commencement of the Irish State trials, on Monday .
" All this is very funny, and makes people laugh, and
relieves the uniformity of Court proceedings. It is very
amusing to see Counsel making mistakes, and forgetting
facts, and to see the Judge looking annoyed and angry,
and snubbing them ; and the " Just wait a minute," or
the " We shall be ready in five minutes," and " Really,
Sir Colman O'Loughlin," and all that, is exceedingly
entertaining, as a national specimen of Court manage-
ment. But we must say—really, Sir Colman O'Lough-
lin, and really, Mr. Moore, and really learned gentle-
men of the Irish bar, we wish you would be a little
more business-like and regular in your proceedings. We
feel interested in your Court as a Court of Great Bri-
tain, and an institution of British law ; and we wish,
Saxons though we are, that you would deign to take a
hint from our more sober and regular English practice
on such occasions."
The Chronicle remarks in an article on the state of
parties in France :—" The first reflection which strikes
one on observing the attitudes of parties on the opening
of the French Chamber, is the total disappearance of
anything like a Liberal Opposition. M. Guizot's ,is
avowedly a Conservative Ministry, based on the principle
of no change, no concession, no augmentation of popular
rights, no limitation of the jurisdiction of the Peers.
And yet, in the face of this parti borne, as it is called,
this party whose God is terminus, not one man or deputy
is found to raise the banner of progress. The left--for
one is really at a loss how to designate the parties in
opposition—has given up Liberalism as something worn
out and common-place, and quite uncalculated to com-
mand the sympathies of the country. For the old prin-
ciple of Liberalism they have substituted a false, base-
less, and puerile Anglophobia ; not that they deem it
just, not that they have the least idea of its being useful,
but merely because it is a stirring topic, a kind ef big
drum, by thumping which they can attract a crowd of
listeners, if not adherents."
The following is from the Post :—" Whatever may be
thought or said by violent partisans who are disposed to
deem everything right that may be done by such a per-
son as O'Connell to thwart the proceedings of the
Crown in a Criminal Court of Justice, we are persuaded
that all fair and impartial men will feel something like
disgust at the continued attempts which are made to
hinder a judicial investigation of the accusation against
O'Connell from taking place. Why should these at-
tempts be made, and made as often as abuse of legal
technicalities will permit ? If Mr. O'Connell be inno-
cent of the offence charged against him, why should he
have so strong a reluctance to come to the point of inves-
tigation ? If he be not innocent, why should he take so
unworthy a method of dealing with the circumstance as
that of merely formal and untenable objections to pro-
ceeding to trial ?"
The Advertiser says :—" The landlords are at length
beginning to move. Naturally they are a lasy class.
Hitherto they have had matters all their own way, and
they had fondly fancied that things Would go on in the
same smooth, easy manner, until the " last syllable of re-
corded time." A change, however, has come over the
spirit of the country's dream, and the landocracy are be-
ginning to feel the effects of that change. They are be-
ginning to discover that inglorious easewill no longer
avail them. They begin to fancy that if the monopoly
on which they had fed and fattened for so long, a period,
while millions have been starving of hunger, is to be
maintained, it can only be by hard fighting. They have
made the discovery rather late. The League have evoked
a spirit in the country, which is not to be laid by any
efforts which the adverse party can make. The monopo-
lists may now fight as courageously and resolutely as they
please, but they will fight in vain. Their desperate re-
sistance to the League will only hasten.the victory of the
latter."

LBW AND POLICE.
The Worship-street Magistrates have received dona-
tions of 51. and 11., to be applied to the relief of a poor
woman, named Holcroft, living in one of the courts in
Quaker-street, Spitalfields. Two very young boys, her
sons, had been brought before the Magistrate on Satur-
day, by a police-constable, who found them in a more
than half-starved condition, hanging about the windows
of some provisi m shops. The place where they lived
being visited by Clements, one of the summoning con-
stables attached to the Court, the mother and several
children were found in a miserable state of destitution,
the bed, sheets, and other articles having been disposed
of to procure food.
At Guildhall, James Marden, a young man employed
as a clerk by Mr. Finiger, a furrier, in Noble-street, was
charged with absconding with 30/., which his master
entrusted to him to pay into Messrs. Masterman's. The
prisoner said he was tipsy when his master gave him the
money, and being so at the time he missed a sovereign,
he spent more money in drink, and was then afraid to
return to his master.—He was committed for trial.

A labouring man applied to Mr. Broderip, at the
Thames Police Court, for advice under the following
circumstances i—He had picked up on the road a lady's
bag, and having put it into his hat, with a view to exa-
mine it at leisure, he returned to his work. The lady,
however, soon came to him, claimed it, and having exa-
mined it found that five 101. notes, which it contained,
were safe. On leaving, she gave him the sum of 2s. He
claimed salvage, which he understood was a shilling in
the pound. Mr. Broderip told him he was not entitled
to a halfpenny, and that the 2s. he had received was a
gratuity not a right.