The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-25 00:00:00

Milttion

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SUN OFFICE, Seven o'Clock,

- -
TA.TTERSALL'S.-THIS EVENING

QUARTER TO SIX O'CLOCK,
10 to 1 agst Pagan CHESTER CUP.
12 to 1 agst Pharaoh
22 to 1 agst Tacita
23 to 1 agst Freedom
25 to 1 agst The Prior
25 to 1 agst Sir Robert
25 to 1 agst Alice Hawthorn
DERBY.

6,3- to 1 agst Ugly Buck
7 to 1 agst Rattan
16 to 1 agst Orlando
20 to 1 agst Cockamaroo
20 to 1 agst Running Rein
50 to 1 agst Campunero
27 to l agst Sir Gilbert Heathcote's lot

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
lIS EVENING.)

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• ,•-I'-"LBAie, ;SE OF LORDS.
„..if"U_. ANCELLOR took his seat on the Wool-
-16:3-j4O: 1 •
~ ock.
\\,... 0 .4404 ..,, ESBOROUGH presented a petition
t ars of Derby, praying that so much
-A74_ t -- at 1 oiLich authorised the payment of sa-

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SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—As Easter term approachesr the public
attention in Ireland .is almost wholly engrossed by the
discussion of the national question, " What will the Go-
vernment do with O'Connell ?" Nor is this question, in
its absorbing interest, confined to the Irish people. In
England the same inquiry is heard on every hand. The
interest excited by this strongly-debated question is
second to none of the numerous pending ques-
tion; involved in the uncertainty of
,the future.
Speculations as to the most prudent course for Go-
I eminent to adopt, under the peculiar circumstances
in which it is placed by the prosecution and conviction
of O'Connell and his co-defendants, are rife in all quar-
ters. In Ireland the question is debated by the party
organs with the fervid heat which characterizes party
discussions in that country. As a specimen of the tone
and manner in which the Irish press treats this ques-
tion, an extract or two from the. journals of the two
antagonist parties—the one braving the vengeance of
the law, and the other invoking the severest punish-
ment of the convicted parties—will afford some faint
• idea of the excitement which prevails. The Freeman's
Journal thus raves :—" The testing time is coming.
It will soon be seen whether a British Government,
boasting of its moderation, will, in the nineteenth
century, venture on an act of political vengeance
which will produce nothing but exasperation at
home and infamy abroad. They looked anx-
iously for a compromise—for any pretext of consist-
ency to set up against the vindictive clamours of
that Orange rancour which would lead the miserable
Irishmen whom it possessed to demand even the life of
the great patriot, and to exclaim, like a similar faction
of eld—' His blood be upon us and upon our children !'
But compromise there can be none. The chief traverser
has defied their worst. They admit that he has cut off all
retreat by destroying the bridge behind him.' There
can be no surrender, except on the part of the Go-
vernment. The men whom they would victimise have
no guilt to confess—no apology to make. Were they
to bind themselves nos to refiain from the deeds for
which they are prosecuted, they would be false to their
own principles and pledges, traitors to their country,
and they would lay suicidal hands on their public cha-
racter. On such terms, the pardon of the Government
would wither in a moment the laurels of half a century."
The Tory prints are not a whit less violent in their
appeals to the Government for vindictive punishment
on the convicted Repealers. They had the indecency
before trial to predict, with unwavering certainty, the
verdict which an exclusively Protestant jury would
return, and to fix the period and the place of imprison-
ment which the Court would award as punishment.
And now-the Packet (the most moderate of the Dublin
anti-O'Connell press) boasts that the " Mendicant
tyrant" must certainly "go to gaol ;" the Mail taunts
the Ministry with infirmity of purpose, and intimates
that the measure of its infidelity to the Protestant in•
stitutions of the country will, there is reason to fear,
be completed by some mean compromise with the con-
victed conspirators. That Ministers are placed in a
perplexing dilemma, there can be no question. That
*they would gladly escape from the perils which beset
them—the Scylla of compromise on the one hand, and
the Charybdis of incarcerating O'Connell on the other—
no one can doubt, who has watched the course of events.
The demonstrations of public feeling, provoked by the
opinion which pervades the public mind, in both coun-
tries, that a conviction, rather than a fair adminis-
tration of justice, was the determined purpose of the
law-officers of the Crown, have been almost unpre-
cedented. The law is supposed to have been stretched,
to comprehend those whose proceedings were not fairly
within its prohibitions. The punishment which, in the
ordinary course, follows conviction has therefore been,
by anticipation, rendered powerless. The Government
may punish O'Connell ; but they cannot degrade him.
The Court may sentence him to confinement in
Kilmainham or Carrickfergus ; but as one of the jour-
nals, writing in anticipation of such a course, remarks,
4, Whatever be the prison of the Liberator, it will be the
Thermopylse of Ireland ! It will be the holy ground of
patriotism to which many a pilgrim will resort in coming
ages." The reception which O'Connell has met with in
the English o.etropolis, and also in several of the largest
towns of England, has tended to increase the embar-
rassments of Ministers, when contemplating the course to
be pursued in following up his conviction to judgment.
The cordial cheers with which his entrance in the
Jiouse of Commons was hailed on his first appearance
after Ifs trial—the immense multitudes which assem-
bled at Covent-garden Theatre, both at the meeting
of the Anti-Corn-law League and at the dinner
which was given to him in the same immense building,
which was crowded in every part ; and especially the
enthusiasm with which the announcement of his
vole was received, and the speeches he delivered on
tt,ese occasions were applauded—the meetings at Bir-
miugharn, at Coventry, and other places, where the
same demonstrations of feeling were exhibited—the de-
bates in the House of Commons on the prosecution, and
the unequivocal declarations of some ,of the best consti-
tutional lawyers in that assembly, that the law bad been
perverted, and thus justice violated, in the State Prose-
cutions—the complaints of the Catholics that, by ex-
punging the jurymen of their creed from the panel,
insult and injury were inficted on their body—last, not
least, the petition, to which Mr. Wyse will call the at-
tention of the House of Commons this evening, signed
by nearly one million of persons in Ireland, of all
grOles, praying for inquiry into the complaints, in con-
nectio7) with these trials, with which it abounds—these
are sufficient to induce Ministers to pause in their pro-
ceedings, and to desire to prevent consequences which,
whatever course they adopt, may involve them in yet
greater dangers than any they have yet encountered.
We have heard, in generally well-informed circles.
that it is by no means improbable that something like
the following course will be adopted by the Government
vith, possibly, a tacit understanding with the defend.
antis. On calling the convicted parties up for judgment
certain objections will be taken in arrest of judg-
mettt. Instead of arguing the objections forthwith,
the Court will postpone the case, and allow the de-
fendants to stand out upon their recognisances till
the next term. Thus delay will be obtained,
_ and the evil day postponed ; trusting to the chapter of
accidents, or anticipating. a more sobered state of public
feeling when a final and conciliatory termination of the
controversy may be effected. Others assert that a writ
01' error will be consented to by the Irish Attorney-
Ge neral ; and the judgment, instead of being passed,
ad ieterim will be hung up until the House of Lords lass
pronounce:d its final decision on the points raised for
argument before it.
STANDARD.—We will not pay to our readers the
ill compliment of supposing that they can be', indifferent
to the question which at this moment engrosses the
.attention of :Parliament and of the public. We therefore
,offer no apology for returning to the factory question—
really the question of questions, for it extends generally
to the remunersition of labour in every department of in-
4ustry ; as we tratst to be able to show before we conclude
this article. The position-of the question in the House
of Commons is now singular, if not unprecedented. The
House decided on Monday last that women and children
shall not work in factories between six in the afternoon
and six in the morning, and again decided on Friday that
they shall not work twelve hours ; the inference that
they shall work ten hours, and ten hours only, would
be necessary (for all allow the necessity of two
pauses of an hour each) if the House had not, by a
small majority, negatived an express declaration to this
effect—a decision which it is impossible to explain upon
any rational grounds. The (1, cision against twelve hours
on Monday might be, and was regarded as the effect of
a surprise ; but the affirmation of that decision on
Friday cannot possibly be so considered : there
are, therefore, two decisions of the House of
Con:mons—the one of them at least solemn and deli-
Lewte, against the labour of women and children in fac-
tories fo," twelve hours. Sir James Graham has declared
his purpos.
ti of explaining to night what course he will
with these two decisions. Three courses
aruersoupeeinn dt.oeshl3alg
; he may propose some period between
ten and twelve hours ; but this period must be
nearer to ten than to twelve hours, for of the two
decisions by which Pe'rliament has bound itself, one
forbids that women an,l children shall be in the
mill for more than twelve' .hours, and a stronger law
than the law of Parliame,-/t or than any muni-
cipal law, interdicts twelve hot; "s of consecutive toil.
Ten hours and a half, or therea::•out, is as much as
can possibly be taken out of any 7elve hours ; is it
worth the while to make a stand for the half hour ?
Secondly, Sia James may abandon the b,`ll altogether ;
but this would not set the question at rest. Lord Ash-
ley would, of course, introduce a substantive measure,
with a perfect certainty of carrying the ten hours
restriction, though with the unfortunate accoopm-
ae4nient of a formidable agitation in the manutio-
turi:lls districtt, and a continued and an in-
ereas. 'l3g division in the Couservative party.
Lastly, the Home Secretary may gracefully yield to
the twine -declared will of Parliament, satisfied that no
one can ch
e him with having deserted his own con-
victions, or having violated any engagements which he
may have foi•med in conformity with these convictions.
But whatever leume may be adopted by the advocates of
long time, the e vent of the contest is certain, because the
more the questk m is discussed, the more manifently fal-
lacious are all I 'be pretexts for resisting a return to
the usual and na, tural periods of labour proved to be,

laHes to Protestant clergymen attending in union
workhouses, might be repealed.
Petitions against the unions of the sees of St.
Asaph and Bangor were presented by the Bishops of
LICHFIELD and BANGOR.
LUNATIC POOR IN IRELAND.

Lord MONTEAGLE gave notice that on Thurs-
day, he should move for certain correspondencewhich
the Irish Government had entered into on the sub-
ject of lunatic asylums in Ireland. •
LABOUR OF FEMALES:

Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition from the
men employed in Short's iron works, in the county of
Lanark, praying that females might be allowed,
under certain restrictions :and modifications, to
resume their labour in: the iron and stone
works in Scotland. The Noble Lord said these
females, owing to the intervention of the
legislature had been deprived of their only means of
subsistence. He would never look upon the inevitable
decrees of Providence as oppressions on the part of
man ; and, therefore, he would never be a party to
anything which, under the semblance of humanity, in-
flicted greater evils on thelabouring population of this
country than they were at present suffering.
Not a few of the many occupations in which opera-
tives were engaged, but were quite as deserving of
legislative interference as those in the factories.
Many years ago he applied to that eminent man,
Sir Samuel Romilly, to take charge of a Bill
on this subject in the other House, but that
great and good man refused to interfere, saying that
labour should not be subjected to such legislative
restrictions. Let those who say those restrictions
should be alone placed upon manufactures,
go into the agricultural districts, and there see
the men growing prematurely old at 40, and decrepit
at 50, and they would change their opinions. Would
any Noble Lord or Hon. Member in the other House
consent to have a law which would prohibit their
coachmen from driving them to a ball or
rout, and then waiting until five o'clock in the
morning to the certain injury of his health, or to
prevent a child from being taken at the age of seven
years, and starved and sweated in order that at the
age of twenty years he might be able to ride a race ?
The question was, whether ten hours' work was to
be paid for by twelve hours' work. Some said that
Parliament could prevent the wages from being
lowered in the same ratio as the hours of work.
"Oh lepidem caput." Those who now advocated
this measure would find out their error eventually,
and that the best friends of the -poor were those
who did not restrict their industry.—(Hear, hear.)
If Parliament legislated for one class of labourers
they must do so for another. Those men who said
that Parliament could legislate so as to give twelve
hours' wages for ten hours' work did not know what
they were talking about. Such men were more dan-
gerous than the hypocrites themselves.
After a few words from the Marquis of NOR-
MANBY, the petition was laid on the table.
The Marquis of NORMANBY presented a peti-
tion, praying that Parliament would prohibit the en-
listment of boys, under fourteen years of age, into the
army from union workhouses.