The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mat THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The extraordinary omission of upwards
of sixty. names from the special jury panel, after
its revision by the Recorder, is now placed beyond
controversy. The proceedings in the Court of Queen's
Bench, Dublin, on Friday, have made that matter
of record which previously rested only on public ru -
mour. The:facts, as admitted by the Attorney-General,
fully bore out the statements we had previously
given. The panel from which the jury by whom
the case, " The Queen against Daniel O'Connell
and others," will be tried, is a mutilated panel.
A blunder on the part of a deputy, to whom the
duty of preparing the lists for verification by the
Recorder of Dublin, was intrusted, is stated to have
occasioned the omission. The account of the extraor-
dinary accident is given in a letter sent by the Clerk
of the Peace to Mr. Mahony, one of the solicitors
engaged for the traversers. The omission is ad-
mitted, and an explanation offered, which exem-
plifies the grossest carelessness, if the omission
be regarded as purely accidental. We confess
to an inability to adopt this construction. Mr.
Justice Perrin, when expressing his opinion on
the application to the Court, on the part of the
traversers, to interpose to set aside the panel, under
the circumstances, stated " there was matter of grave
suspicion in the case—of gross neglect somewhere."
The Judges, it will be seen, decided unanimously
that the Court had no jurisdiction in the case. The
ground on which the Court seemed to rest its decision
was, that the Crown, in the prosecution of O'Connell,
stood in the same position as a private prosecutor; or,
indeed, any other suitor. To set aside the panel, and
to direct a new revision, would, therefore, be to post-
pone the business of the Court, to the great incon-
venience and injury of those who had causes ripe for
trial. The soundness of the reasoning employed by
the Bench will scarcely command universal con-
currence. The trials of causes between private in-
dividuals [might, we apprehend, have been had by
consent of parties. To them it might be a
matter of indifference that nearly seventy names
had been abstracted. But with respect to
this great national trial—the proceeedings on
which absorb the attention of the empire,
and the result of which is anticipated with tremulous
anxiety—it is of the highest imaginable consequence
that the country should be satisfied that justice, pure
and undefiled, is done between the Crown and the tra-
versers. If unfair advantage has been taken against
the parties accused—if the law has not been admi-
nistered with scrupulous impartiality—the Crown
may obtain a verdict ; but that verdict will be the
emanation of injustice. The majesty and autho-
rity of law, instead of being vindicated by the con-
viction of the accused parties, will be dishonoured and
weakened. The punishment of parties so convicted,
would be regarded as the infliction of vengeance by a
Ministry which has violated the obligations of justice
for the attainment of a triumph over political oppo-
nents. Thus the foundations of order would
be shaken, and the ties which bind the
governed to the government would be loosened.
We ask Sir Robert Peel, on whose decision the
question hinges, does he expect to suppress the repeal
agitation by the course he is pursuing, by the agency
of his law officers in Ireland, against the repeal
leaders—tainted as the prosecution is by the strik-
ing off from the jury list of every Roman Catholic
who was drawn to serve upon it ; and now by
the astounding discovery that upwards of sixty
names were omitted by a blunder, or ab-
stracted by a fraud, from the lists as revised by
the Recorder ? Will a prosecution thus conducted
strengthen the hands of Government ? Will the
Irish people be convinced that "justice to Ireland"
is the intention of the English Government, or the
tendency of its policy ? Will not the effect of such a
trial be the confirmation of every prejudice already
existing in Ireland against the legislative union of the
two countries ; and increase the number of Repealers,
until every Catholic—not only in Ireland, but in the
empire—is a member of the Association, or strongly
sympathises with the objects they seek to obtain ?
The aggregate meeting of Catholics in Dublin, on
Saturday, is a proof of the indignant spirit that has een
raised. The practical imputation cast by the Government
upon the Roman Catholics of Ireland, by declaring them
-disqualified, because of their creed, for being trusted,
under the solemn sanction of an oath, with the functions
of jurymen, has called forth the indignant repudiation
of the stigma thus sought to be branded upon the
religion of the great majority of the nation. This
sattempt to revive the penal disabilities, which were
:removed by the long-delayed measure of Catholic
Emancipation, will combine and array the Roman
Catholics of the United Kingdom against the
Government. In the words of the requisition
by which the meeting of Saturday was con-
vened, the proceeding of the Crown is described as—
• Both an insult and a wrong to the emancipated
Catholics of Ireland, perpetrated by a government of
-which the leading members have repeatedly expressed
'their determination to administer justice without re-
ference to religious distinction.' The aggregate meet-
.'ing was convened to petition our beloved Sovereign,
'that she may be graciously pleased to direct her at-
ttention to the conduct pursued towards her loyal and
/devoted Catholic subjects by her Majesty's Govern-
:ment.' " The Catholics are also preparing to assem-
ble in the different districts for a similar purpose.
'The Government has thus proved itself a greater
cogitator than O'Connell, at any period since the
catholic Emancipation Bill became Taw I
STANDARD.—The Irish Court of Queen's
:Bench on Saturday night disposed of the most recent
artifice of delay—it would be rash to say the last-
-for no one can guess what may be doing in Dublin
this morning. The matter set at rest on Saturday
-was the motion of the traversers to quash the jury
panel, on the ground of the omission of fourteen or
;fifteen named Roman Catholics, and of twelve
persons not named, or as it would appear
!known, but also Roman Catholic. The affair was
;argued at great length, and the motion unanimously
refused by the Court. From the proceeding we have
obtained at least an approximation to the actual state,
of the case. A paper containing sixty-three names, not
of
special jurors, but of special and common jurors, of
whom we suppose there must be five or six thousand
5n Dublin, was, in fact, mislaid in the office of Mr.
Recorder Shaw's register, before the list of special
jurors was made out. The mislaid paper presented
ai local list (from a particular parish or particular
!parishes and of course the names were given in
at promiscuously, without attention to alphabetical
arrangement, so as to render applicable the test
which we applied on Friday. Mr. Justice Perrin
intimated pretty broadly a suspicion that the paper
'was dishonestly abstracted. We are wholly at a
loss to comprehend the ground of Mr. Perrin's
suspicion, in which it is quite plain none of his
brother judges
_participated. The paper, according
to the Dublin Freeman's Journal, must have been
'mislaid so long ago as last November. It was mis-
laid by a party unconnected with the Crown, and in
place to which the officers of the Crown had no ac-
sess. And what possible effect could be anticipated
from the omission of sixty-three names (taken in
Vass from one parish), from a list, as we have said,
of five or six thousand special and common jurors ?
The proportion of special jurors to common jurors
in Dublin appears to be but one in eight ;
eight, therefore, would be the number of special
jurors excluded by the omission. But the proportion
of Protestants to Roman Catholics—special jurors—
sipon the list of all the other parishes taken together
about three-and-a-half to one—so that the
emission has merely caused the exclusion of two
Roman Catholics, and it must surely be compen-
sated by the exclusion of six Protestants. Let us,
however, indulge Mr. Justice Perrin, by supposing
that all the 63 omitted were special jurors ; we have
tilr. Pierce Mahoney's oath that 14 or 15 of them
svere Roman Catholics—somebody else, it is true,
says that there were 12 other nameless Roman Ca-
gliolics--but it is nearly certain that these 12 are 12 of
the named made to appear again as anonymous. Take,
however, the whole number of 27. Here we have 27
Roman Catholics and 36 Protestants excluded together.
Mow would the addition of these two numbers have,
in the slightest degree,
disturbed the proportions
twisting upon the list of 717 ? What motive, then,
n possibly have prompted the doing of that which
Di r. Justice Perrin insinuates ought not to have
hen done without a motive ? It would be
gr... 11 if judges would remember that their position
gives to what they say a weight which the
sayings of some of them might not otherwise
possess, and that they would, in consideration of
ibis, guard their language a little. There has
bees a blunder in Mr. Shaw's office—nobody
IS slates that—nor do we defend it, further
lh an by saying that in every office blunders
do 'w and then occur very innocently, and
Ot at this has on the face of it all the cha-
n4.lteristics of a most innocent blunder. Officials
St this side of the water may exult in their exemp-
aim from exposure like that to which the Dublin
sec order's register has been subjected, but they
boimmunity hly owe the rather to their good fokn-
e than to their extraordinary skill or vigilance
!sa-we doubt that ever a jury list has ever been made
gp for Middlesex, not subject to as many and as
Dgrave objections as have been alleged against the
üblin list; but here pettifogging objections are dis-
graceful, very few solicitors, no barristers of repute-
un, would lend themselves to such objections, least
a all would a judge condescend to help one of them
• t by an insinuation for which he could offer no
nfficient ground.
!ROM THE MORNING PAPERS 01, THIS BAT
MMES.—The repealing tactics are apparently not of
the most creditable kind to those who have to carry
Ilkom out. Bullying, obstruction, intimidation, misre-
gasentation are, of course, the recognised order of the
y. At any sacrifice of personal character, by any
means, however dangerous or ridiculous, one object is
intionsly pursued—to impede justice. The Freeman's
Journal begs for the names and addresses of all persons
Voiding near Dublin, " who attended the repeal meet-