The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-07 00:00:00

at Manchester, will not—however it may suit our
Contemporary's views to sneer at them—be soon for-
gotten by the admiring thousands who listened to them,
but will sink deep into their hearts, and 13...ing forth
fruit in due season. " Mr. D'IsBAELI," continues the
Herald, " enunciated some rare maxims, and one of
these was, that it is the duty of every citizen in a free
community to be acquainted with the opinions he has
formed. We hope this is a duty which Young
England has not failed to perform, for if their
opinions —as we presume their phantasies are
designated—can be reduced to a comprehensible
system, the sooner some one of the fraternity
remembering the fate of the theories of the late
Reverend and ingenious EDWARD 'lmmo, pro-
mulgates their politics in a known tongue, the more
advantageous will it be to their prosperity." So far
as we can perceive, there is nothing cloudy ror
incomprehensible in the opinions advocated by that
band of ardent, generous, and thoroughly English
spirits who call themselves—say, rather, who are
called by others--" Young England." They are not
visionaries—they are not fanatics—on the contrary,
they are to all intents and purposes men of
the world, but in whom worldly knowledge
has not yet chilled nor destroyed the better
impulses of nature. Their party is a far more
numerous one than is generally supposed, and em-
braces many individuals who—good easy souls !—have
not the remotest notion that they hold anything
in common with them. Whoever advocates the legi-
timate rights of the poor, and desires to see fair play
between them and their superiors, he is Young Eng-
land. Whoever wishes to see an end put to that de-
basing party strife which has so long warped the
minds of some of the ablest statesmen of the day, and
by preventing them from co-operating with each
other, has retarded the great cause of public improve.
ment, he is Young England. Whoever wishes to
bring the different grades of the social community
more in harmony with each other than they
have ever yet been, he is Young England.
Whoever loathes—as we do—from his inmost soul
the hollow, sickening cant of political expediency,
and prefers to hold fast by political principle, with-
out which there can be no true greatness either
among men or among nations, he is Young England.
Finally, whoever desires to see popular education
based on a tolerant and enlightened foundation, so
that the false shall never more be mistaken for

true—the shadow for the substance—the word for the
thing—he is Young England. In a word, Young
England is nothing more than an appeal to what may
be yet left of justice, honour, generosity, self-reliance
and healthy, catholic feeling in the English character.,

There are no such living impersonifications of
he Dogberries and the Vergeses, whose immortal
prototypes were designed by the hand of &lax-
SPEARE nearly two centuries ago, as the judicial func-
tionaries of our provincial jurisdictions. Among
these provincial jurisdictions, it has always been a
question with us whether any could exceed, in the
extravagance of their pretensions and the absurdity
of their deportment, the courts of our Channel
Islands ; the mighty Manx Parliament (this latter
wielding, like ST. PETER, the powers of certain obso-
lete " Keys), and our multifarious manorial and other
local courts. But the Royal Court of the little ditch-
and-orchard-divided island of Jersey has removed all
doubt and difficulty on the subject from our minds,
by clearly establishing a pre-eminent title, in a case
recently pending before it, to occupy the very first
rank on the records of this unenviable notoriety. It
has now approved its own superior ignorance o'
the local law itself administers, and of the
common-law of the mother country. It has shown
an utter want of self-respect in the petulance of its
bench and its officers; and an utter want of respect
for the undoubted rights and privileges of English.
men, throughout every portion of the widely-ex.
tended dominion of Great Britain, by the bare.
faced and tyrannical violation of these privi-
leges and rights in
_the person of an Eng-
lish gentleman, a sojourner (to his misfortune)
among the men of Jersey. Mr. CARU3 WIL-
SON, whom most men who have resided long in
London may remember as " the long gentleman ie
spectacles," has been unlucky enough, it seems, to get
involved in some squabble with the petty authorities
of this " islet." With the particulars of the squabble,
or the printed reflections that led to it, it is not
necessary for our purpose to meddle at all. Mr
IlrusoN may afford to have them all taken as against
himself, and as establishing a good and equitable
ground for the prosecution instituted against him by
LE SUEUR. We are far from intimating that the
fact is so; but were the hypothesis even admitted, it
could make no difference in the very serious delin-
quency of which Mr. WILSON has to complain.
On the former hearings, Mr. WILSON, who evi
dently has his_ professional wits about him, took
various objections to the pleadings before the court,
its competency to try them, and other matters which
he mooted with so much address and effect, as mate-
rially to disorganise the equanimity of his judges.
The overweening nationality of the islanders is not
the least remarkable feature in their moral compo.
sition. These judges were, we apprehend, Jersey-
men, and Mr. WILSON, after taking many objections,
more or less formidable to the prosecution, had
completed the measure of his offence by imputing
to them a bias or prejudice against him. They
found WILSON too strong in his constitutional
and technical objections, to settle the matter in their
off-hand Jersey fashion. The further hearing was
adjourned until two or three days since, when Mr.
WILSON took a preliminary objection to the con-
tinued proceeding, on the very substantial grounds.
founded on tke express terms of a local Act regulating
and defining the law of these matters, that himself
and co-defendant had not been legally summoned, and
that the cause itself had not been regularly entered
and brought on. This objection was sustained and illus-
tratedby the island Solicitor- General, but it was affirmed
on the plea in rejoinder on behalf of the plaintiff that
the practice of the court of late years had authorised
such deviations from the law (a law, as the Times well
observes, "as yet scarcely ten years old"). That the
objection came too late, was no answer to the original
vice of the proceeding as being contrary to law ; and
an unrepealed express law of so recent a date could
not be overruled by vicious or lax practice. But further.
more, the court itself was composed of the Bailli and
two jurats, all of whom had been previously " re-
cused," or challenged, by WILSON, on the ground of
personal animosity to him. Now, we entreat the reader
to observe-1. That the challenge was good at law ;
•l. That another jurat has formally declared, that
after it had been recorded, these parties ought not to
have assisted at all at the hearing of the cause. On
their return into court, and when they were about to
read their decision on this plea, reduced into writing,
Mr. WILSON made a protest against " that act being
read." Those terms, we affirm without hesitation

embodied as sound principles of law, expressed: in
language as concise, temperate, and proper
as it was possible for any man to em-

ploy under such circumstances. But then, it
seems, that Mr. WILSON'S manner, in uttering
them, was too energetic ! Mr. Ilraforf, who had
over and again, from time to time, sent them back to
reconsider the mistakes of practice and construction
they were committing in dealing with his case—who
had been subjected to very gross and personal re-
flections from LB SUSUR, without the Court's once

interposing to check them—whose very protest was
grounded on the plea of personal animosity to him,
in these men, his " judges"—he was too animated
and energetic for the nervous susceptibilities of these
Channel Island Rhadamanthuses. M. LE BAILLI
desired him to sit down, and the same high officer
then appealed to the Attorney-General for his opinion
of the language which WILSON had employed. The
latter again interposes to request that he will speak in
English. But what says this officer of an English
Sovereign, in an English possession, responding to an
_ _

English subject, and suitor in her MAJESTY'S courts

of law ? As if the example of Dogberry tu:nulence
were irresistible, he, too, takes a long inflation, and
with equal pomposity and forgetfulness, or ignorance
of his duty, to his fellow-subject, " declines to do
that, under the circumstances, which he might do, as
an act of courtesy, but is not bound to 'do." Of
" courtesy," truly ! We should like to know what
an insular Attorney-General's notions of courtesy
may be ; his notions a law are clearly not worth the
collecting ; but we hope some other party, if Mr.
WiLsox should omit to do so, will have the
" courtesy" to bring this strange declaration under
the notice of her MAJESTY'S Government, or of the
Imperial Parliament. Mr._ Attorney was at that