The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-22 00:00:00

rbirbf Nbition

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'Clock.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

• STANDARD.—Inthe debate upon the Maynooth
grant either of 1840 or 1841, we do not remember pre-
cisely which, Sir Robert Peel, while declining to refuse
the grant, freely declared his conviction that a thorough
inquiry into the system generally pursued at the
Romanist College was called for, adding that
the proposition for this inquiry would most
becomingly proceed from the parties more directly
interested. Three years, at least, have passed since
this intimation was given, yet we do not find that
the parties directly interested in Maynooth have mani-
fested the least disposition to act upon it. Maynooth
remains, as Sir Robert Peel said on Friday, still in a
most "unsatisfactory position," and it is now full time
for 'the Government to take up the consideration of the
subject. This consideration, to be effectual for good,
must, however, go a great way beyond the constitution
and conduct of this particular college. Narrowing the in-
vestigation within these limits, almost the only alterna-
tive at which the Government could arrive would be
either to enlarge the grant, which upon the hypothesis
would be to augment enormously an enormous evil, or
to discontinue it altogether, which, if not a violation
of one of the subsidiary engagements of the act of
union, would be easily employed as a pretext
for charging such a violation. The investi-
gation to be opened by the Government must take a
much wider range ; it must embrace the considera-
tion generally of the means of education of the middle- '
class Roman Catholics of Ireland, with a view to reform
the clergy of the Church of Rome through the laity of
the Church of Rome—the only way in which the Ro-
manist clergy, or the peasantry now enslaved to them,
can ever be effectually reformed, or the latter can be

emancipated. Were the middle-class Roman Catholics in
Ireland as well educated as the corresponding class of Pro-
testants, the power of the priests over the peasantry would
be rapidly extinguished ; and whether we are right or
wrong in our conviction that a prodigious step would
be made towards the religious reformation of the whole
people—it is certain that all, if not made Protestants,
would be made incomparably better Roman Catholics,
better neighbours, better subjects, and better men. The
means of effecting this all-important object may
not be ersily discoverable, hut we believe that
they are not hopeless, and it is quite appa-
rent that if employed they will be, in the great
majority of cases, of certain operation. There is in Ire-
land already a numerous body of educated Roman Catho-
lics, and these are universally, except the very few for
whom the tempting prizes held out by faction have
proved too strong, peaceable and loyal citizens ; their
number is increasing, and, with improved facilities
and motives for education, will increase until
they become co-extensive with the whole of the
middle-class Roman Catholics in the island. These men
hold an opinion of the present order of Roman Catholic
priests very lit'le different from that held by Irish Pro-
teAants, and are at least as anxious as we can be to see
that order both improved and humbled. In the in-
wrcourse of life they mingle freely and cordially
With Protestants of their own rank, and are as
fteely and as cordially accepted in Protestant so-
ciety. A great deal of this 'sappy commuuion is due to
Trinity College, Dublin, as Mr. Wyse almost acknow-
led•4ed while paying a just tribute to the high and honour-
able spirit of this Irish University, but the debt is due to
Trinity College as it is—not to Trinity College as it
would be it Mr. Wyse's proposition of introducing
Roman Catholic fellowships and scholarships were
adopted. It is because the corporation of the
College is and must remain exclusively Protestant, that
it is able to deal without partiality or suspicion of par-
tiality, which suspicion would be just as destructive of
peace as the thing suspected. The notions of the
power of rude fusion in conciliating, the disposi-
tions of men, long prevalent in Ireland, are strangely
contradictory of what experience teaches every-
where else. If you would have men to unite
cordially in friendship or in any common feeling,
you must trust to their voluntary approximation ; and
where you interfere at all, interfere only to keep them as
much as possible apart upon those subjects upon which
you know that they cannot agree. The means of
conciliation hitherto employed in Ireland have
been very much like the device of cruel boys, who
tie the tails of cats together and throw them across

a cord that they may lovingly embrace, or
who fling a bone to two dogs at play,
to promote their affectionate dalliance. It is not, there-
fore, surprising that in Ireland "conciliation" always
means a challenge to reciprocal hatred. Quite sure we

are, that the less any Government attempts to force the
Irish Protestants and Roman Catholics into union, the
more rapidly they will join in friendship; like all the rest
of the world they chc o3e to have their affections at their own
disposal. To come back, however, to our immediate subject.
IV bat the Government contemplates we do not pretend
to know, nor are we certain that they have as yet any
digested plan ; and, indeed, we almost hope that they
have not, because we think that in preparing prelimina-
ries for their reform, an amount of good may be of-
fQcted, inferior only to the adoption of an effectual reform
itself. Before, in fact, any further step should
be resorted to, we would wish to see a. report
of the constitution, state, conduct, and prospects
of a.l the principal universities on the continent of
Europe in which Roman Catholics are educated,
whether in Roman Catholic or in Protestant countries.
Such a report would be best compiled from the re-
ports of Consuls, for the reports of Commissioners
are . always suspected, and the value of this re-
port would be the weight with which it must operate upon
the minds of the middle class. The report of which we

4)iiik would, if we mistake not, show that in every
country of Europe, Ireland only excepted, the Roman
(!diholic clergy and laity are educated in common,
sing' Ole Irish Roman
_Catholics would thus see the
fraud, which many of them already suspect, practised iii
reservi
Maynooth for an exclusively ecclesiastical esta
blishment. : Let us only reflect for a moment what would
be the effect, if the middle-class Roman Chatholics of
Ireland should insist upon a community of education as be-
tween laymen ,and clergymen. The laity would, of course
—honourably
awbitious not to come behind their Pro-
testant fellow-citizens—demand the same liberal and
comprehensive . education, which so many of them
now seek - and receive at Trinity College,
and the priests must submit to the
sump course of reading. Nor is this all. The
priests could not dare to follow, in the presence of
laymen, that abominable line of study which occu-
pies neerly all their attention in the sty at May-
nooth. Their fellow-students of the laity would
not endure the abominations of Dens and Liguori, or the
atrocities of Devoti—at all events if such vile books
ehould still constitute the foundation of sacerdotal eau-
cation, the Roman Catholic laity would know it, and
'would not be shocked and insulted by first hearing the
tr, -tiling of their wives and daughters confessors from
the kips of Protestants; and in the presence of Exeter
Hall.

TATI7ERSALL'S.--THIS EVENING.
QUARTER TO Six O'CLOCK.
GOODWOOD STAKES.

5 to 1 FronchiSe
8 to 1 agst dErn
9 to 1 agst Croton Oil
9 'to 1 ag,st Best-of-Three
10 to I agst Parthian
10 to 1 agst Canton
12 to 1 agst The Pride of Kildare
tO to 1 agst Elegance filly
tr.:(l to 1 agst Lucy Banks
GOODWOOD CUP.
6 to' 4 agst Alice Hawthorn
ST. LEGER.

4 to 1 opt Ithuriel
4to 1 st The Cure
8 to 1 assC Bay Mourns
8 to 1 agst .Princess
10 to 1 agst L;gly Buck

IMPERTAL PARLIAMENT.

(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Tice LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the Wool-
sack a, f; half-past Four o'clock.
su `USURY DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
courts, -I were immediately called in to be heard against
the' Bill. '
The LOILV CHANCELLOR said that he saw two
Counsel at the bar, but it was the rule of the House that
airily one Cot,•tiset should be heard in a case of this kind.
The learned gottlenien might draw lots for the pleasure
of addressing th,-. HoL.se as Counsel.
Mr. Sergeant Wrang.ham was heard in support of
the petition against the pill. He said that the notice
given to the petitioneYs, the.`- they should be heard this
day, had been so short, that
,+, would be impossible for
,their counsel to go now into a detailed analysis of
the evidence taken before the Coomittee of the House
of Commons, upon which the Bill vas founded. It had
been laid down in that House on a former occasion that
their Lord:thips would not agree to the second reading
• of a Bill of disfranchisement, except upon evi- '
deuce heard at the bar upon oath. It did not
supersede that law- of their Lordships' House (which
ihad been acted upon in the case of the disfran-
efiLsement of Stafford in 1836), to say that evidence had
been, heard upon oath before the Commissioners sent
down to take the evidence. Their Lordships would '
not ag.'ee to a BUJ of Pains' And Penalties, without
hearing for themselves, at their own bar, evidence
on oath, in corrobation of the allegations in the preamble.
He therefot e humbly submitted to their' Lordships that
they were mot in a condition, accordiug to ti:e established
r 'Ales of their Lordships to pass this Ea until they had
so beard evidence in support of the allegations. In the
evio'ence taken before the Commissioners sent do wl.l their
Lordships h ad no proof of the extent to which corrup-
tion pr evailed, of the classes amongst which it
number of was pra-
used, whether there were any, and
persons, i`o whom the corruption had not extended. In ,
t w en ty- se , 'en ,boroughs of small constituencies corruption
equal to th at proved against Sudbury had been proved
to exist, but ii,ese boroughs were exempt from disfran-
chisement, because it was found that there was a suffi-
cient coast ituene,v free from corruption and entitled to
the franehis le. Tho present was the third Bill which the
House of C ommons, in its zeal to maintain the purity of
elections, ,had seat up to that House. That
which was sent up last year broke down at
their Lordships' bar. Therefore, in order to
End out sm ne thing to make out a case for warranting
the, House oe Commons in passing a third Bill of this
kind, and to induce their Lordships to agree to it, a
Commission; was sent down. If their Lordships would
look at the report of that Commission they would see
that nothin g _could be more ambiguous than it was.
Lord BR OITGIIikiNI asked was the Learned Counsel
atb:e to stateg from his instructions what number of voters

the bribery had been brought home ti , and of what
classes.

Mr. Sergeant Wrangham said chiefly to the freemen.
The LORD CHANCELLOR observed that a great
number of the freemen were also 10/. householders.

Mr. Sergeant Wrangham said that there was a body
of 310 ten pound householders qualified to be registered.
of whom only two were accused of corruption in the
report.
The LORD CHANCELLOR—OnIy two by name.
Mr. Sergeant Wrangham said that the evidence, both
before the Committee of the House of Commons and
the Commission sent down, had proved that the corrup-
tion prevailed amongst the lower class of freemen, and
that the ten-pound householders were, with an exceed-
ingly small exception, untainted. But the report did
not make any distinction upon this important circum-
stance. The Learned Sergeant then proceeded to state
points of the evidence, which he contended were in fa-
vour of his allegation. The Learned Counsel concluded
at half-past five o'clock.
ACTIONS FOR GAMING AT RACES SUSPEN-