The Sun.
London, England, 1845-09-12 00:00:00

whether it has not become necessary to reconstitute tl

Poor-law Commission on principles, and with powers
more analogous to those of the Constitution and
the cominon law than those upon -which it is, at
[Tesent, organized. It seems that on the thirteenth
day of this protracted investigation the gentleman by
whom, on the part of the rate-pryer, sit had been pro.
noted, received from Mr. GEORGE COODE, the Assistant-
Secretary of the Poor- law Commissioners, a commu-
nication intimating their opinion, or their command—
it is difficult to determine which of the two it is meant
for—that the inquiry should be immediately terminated,
although, as our readers may be aware, the whole of the
charges had not yet been entered into. But we will en-
deavour to connect the consideration of the letter and a
resume of the principal features of the case in
a plain and intelligible form. In our paper of
yesterday we gave a summary of that case, from which
it will be interred that, assuming the general truth
of the charges against M'DouGAL, the master of
the union-house, which we do hypothetically, and for
the mere purpose of the argument, the man must be
unfit for the office. But this complexion of character
is so far, however, from being very uncommon, among
the class of men who solicit and voluntarily assume em-
ployments of that invidious nature which are necessarily
connected with the restraint and management of
congregated masses of paupers or of prisoners, that
better-minded and comported men, in such positions, are
the exceptions rather than the rule. We have met,
here and there, with an intelligent, humane, and well-
conducted master of an union-house. Union-house
masters, in all respects the reverse, obtrude themselves
at every tarn on the reluctant notice of the most casual
observer. They are one of the staples which supply the
large assortment of grievances, always in course of ex-
hibition at our Police-offices and Quarter-sessions in
the country. Such a man it is, if ho be unable to rebut
in a court of justice the accusations which he has been
unable to disprove before a court of inquiry, whom the
act of the Poor-law Commissioners is dragging into an
unwholesome notoriety, a sort of momentary import-
ance, which his name never would have acquired,
had tilt), not thought fit, in the first place, on his
behalf, in the course of the inquiry,- to manifest,
through their assistant PARKER, that spirit of
partizanship which is always their besetting sin ;
and subsequently to cut that inquiry short, so far
as depended upon them to do so, on the score of the in-
convenient length to which the proceedings had run.
If Mr. PARKER exhibited something like incompetency for
his position, Mr. Assistant-Secretary COODE'S epistle to
Mr. WESTLAKE is an exhibition of delinquencies in
grammatical composition, and in logic, such as
would have " broken PRISCIAN'S head," and con-
fused the analogical acumen of BUTLER himself.
The matter of the letter is of far more consequence
than the manner in which the views of the Somerset
House Commissioners are announced in it. Yet it is so
rare to find a public functionary amenable to the charge
of not being able to write an official dispatch without
committing errors that are shocking to Englishmen, who
retain the prejudices of early education in favour of the
indefeasible rights of moods and tenses, that we cannot
but express our surprise at the " style" of Mr. COODE.,
The very first sentence in this letter made us doubt
whether we were not once more engaged in the perusal
of one of those lucid reports of another Commission
(now happily defunct) which were wont to announce
the fate of Railway, No. 10, in Group X, or 110, in
Group A. It states that the Commissioners " have had
under consideration the length to which the inquiry at
Andover has already extended," and that the suspense
and outlay, to which both pa,ties interested in this in-
quiry have been exposed (as if M'DOUGAL and Mr.
WESTLAKE were equally candidates for the former's ap-
pointment) . . . " must be still further incurred, if the
inquiry is continued in the same form. Mr. COODE'S
notions of the distinction between the positive and the
conditional, the subjunctive and the indicative, are the
most vague we have yet met with : and a confusion
proper to that character of vagueness pervades
every passage in which it is necessary to employ the
" signs " of the one or the other. Thus—" It
is needless to say that if the master is convicted by
a jury . . . . the Commissioners would at once
dismiss him." "If he is convicted on the second charge,
he becomes disqualified, &c." But now to the matter of the
letter. On the night of Tuesday, the evidence to the
charges of drunkenness, preferred against M'DOUGAL,
was gone through. The nature of that evidence, it is
clear from one paragraph in this letter, had been com-
municated to the Poor-law Commissioners the same
night, or early on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday
morning, at an early hour, Mr. WESTLAKE received
their letter, submitting to the rate-payers the " option"
of prosecuting APDOUGAL. How happened they not
to offer this " option" (trumpery and evasive offer as it
is) at an earlier stage of the proceedings, the protraction
of which their assistant secretary affects so much to
regret. From the very first they had abundance of
charges of cruelty to go upon—afterwards of scandalous
liberties taken with female paupers ; the charges of
drunkenness had already spread over two or three days,
and were only concluded on Tuesday night last. Is
cruelty so much less a disqualification for the master of
a workhouse in the eyes of the Commissioners than
drunkeness ? Is libidinous solicitation of women under
the care of such a functionary an offence so absolutely
venial as to be altogether unworthy of their notice ?
What is the true secret of the tardy perceptions of the
Assistant Commissioners as to the bearing of the de-
pesitions, and of the gravity of the charges ; and of the
precipitancy with which, before the accused can be heard
on his defence, the Assistant-Commissioner and assessor of
the evidence is withdrawn from his post ? And this
brings us to our second hypothesis What if
MgDouGAL should hereafter be able to prove himself
not guilty of the offences imputed to him ? How will
the Somerset House Commissioners answer for the
moral injury they will have done to him, by deserting
him after so distinctly playing, through Mr. PARKER,
the part of his counsel ? And when we speak of
counsel and Mr. PARKER in connexion, we are curious
to learn what Mr. PARKER'S notions may be of
the respect due to members of the bar, or
how Le reconciles, with any of the usual
modes of certifying that respect, his abrupt departure
from Andover, without any previous intimation to the
counsel retained by Mr. WESTLAKE of his inability
(under orders from head-quarters) to redeem the pledge
he was under to these gentlemen of concurring in cer •
tain ulterior arrangements that had been made between
them and himself for the future conduct of the case ?
As to the letter of the Assistant-Secretary to the Com-
missioners, it is conceived in a tone of the most patro
nising superiority. Its evident intention is to throw
upon the board of guardians the onus of the
choice of legal proceedings against M'DOUGAL.

If Mr. WESTLAKE and the Board would be
guided by our advice, we should recommend them,
in the first place, to require an apology from the Com-
missioners for the discourtesy shown to themselves and
to their counsel by Mr. PARKER'S conduct, and, in the
second, DECIDEDLY TO DECLINE the option of prosecu-
tion, obligingly tendered to them by the Commissioners.
Let the guardians leave M'DoucAL's case where it is.
We undertake to predict that the Poor-law Commis-
sioners DARE NOT to do so. It is worth exactly the
tenure of their offices at Somerset House to throw out
such a challenge to public opinion, as to pause at the
point to which they have committed themselves in the
matter.

The Bishop of OSSORY, at his annual visitation, held
last week at Enniscortby, is reported to have made the
following remark :—" I should rejoice to see the Roman
Catholic clergy provided for by the State, if it could be
done without offending HIM by whom kingsl reign ;
but feeling it would be displeasing to HIM, I am bound
to give such a proposition my most energetic
opposition." The Roman Catholics hold nearly the
same opinions of the Church in which this
bishop officiates ; they call it a heretical Church,
a church without the sanction of Divine authority, and a
declared rebel agair st the faith and canons handed down
by the Apostles. The Free Church of Scotland regards
both these Episcopal churches as unsound in their doc-
trines, and even the Kirk of Scotland, so long famed for
the purity of its creed, and admired as the
brightest essence of the Reformation, it pro-
nounces Erastian and consequently little en-
titled to the support of true Christians. It is
needless to recount the religious opinions of many other
churches, or point out the endless diversity which prevails.
While men are suffered to exercise their private judgment,
and adopt principles of belief consistent in their
opinion with the Scripture, this diversity must necessa-
rily exist, and only proves the weakness of human nature.
But we must protest against such presumptuous preten-
sions as those made by the Bishop of OsSoRY. By what
authority does he know the will of " HIM by whom
kings reign ?"—the authority which is open to all—
which is consulted by Catholics and Calvinists and
Dissenters of all classes, and who are just as
competent to form a correct opinion as a man dressed in
lawn sleeves 'anti a mitre, who happened to study divinity
at Trinity College, Dublin, or one of the English uni-
v,rsit;es. It is a curious fact that no class rail more
s.2ai[La the Iton,- are s,,
guilty of this de:.dly sin. \V e-e they to attend to tin-
divine precepts which they profess to follow, and " judge
not that they be not judged"—were they to practice
that charity which is from above, and love their neigh-
bour as themselves, they would shun, as a heinouo