The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, ,SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1845.

The Lords met at Five o'clock.
The Irish Banking Bill was read a third time and
passed.

The Earl of EESBOROUGH stated, on the part of Lord
DACRE, that it was not his intention to proceed further
with the Game-laws Amendment Bill this session.

The LORD CHANCELLOR moved the second reading
of the Irish Jurors Acts Amendment Bill, and entered
into a lengthened explanation of the nature and objects
of the measure.

The Bill was then read a second time.
The Irish Bishops' Patronage Bill was read a third
time and passed.

A long conversation ensued respecting the coasting
trade of Great Britain ; after which, the Bills on their
Lordships' table were forwarded a stage, and the House
adjourned.
The Commons met at Four o'clock.

A petition was presented from Messrs. SCOTT, ship-
builders, praying that the officers of the House might be
permitted to attend the Court of Common Pleas, on the
trial of an action, brought by the petitioners against Mr.
CRAVEN BERKELEY, the Member for Cheltenham, for
the purpose of identifying the Hon. Member.

After a short discussion the petition was rejected.
In reference to the recent conflict between the police
and the people in the south of Ireland, Sir T. FRE..
MANTLE stated that if the investigation befere the Coro-
ner should not be satisfactory, the Government would
institute an inquiry into the circumstances attending
that unfortunate affair.

On the order of the day being read for the House
going into Committee on the Commons Inclosure Bill,
_ _

Mr. S. CRAWFORD moved as an amendment, that the
House should resolve itself into Committee on that mea-
sure that day three months.

Lord WORSLEY defended the principles of the Bill,
and a discussion ensued, during which the House was
addressed by Mr. HUME, Lord PALMERSTON, and the
Earl of LINCOLN. Upon a division, however, the motion
of Mr. CRAWFORD was negatived by a majority of 110 ;
the numbers being—for the amendment, 11 ; against
it, 121.

The House then went into Committee, and various
amendments were proposed on the various clauses, but
ultimately clauses 1 to 32 were agreed to, when the
Chairman reported progress, and obtained leave to sit
again on Monday.

The other orders of the day were then disposed of, and
he Heuse adjourned at Two o'clock.

The QUEEN and Prince ALBERT honoured the Belgian
company last evening, for the first time, with their presence
at the performances in Drury-lane Theatre. It has been
a matter of surprise among persons who attend to the
movements of the Court, that her MAJESTY and her
illustrious relatives now in this country, had so long
delayed the visit ; but, if we are to credit public report,
the mystery is now explained. At an interview which
the treasurer of Covent.garden Theatre had with the
sitting Magistrate at Bow-street, yesterday, it would
appear, from the conversation which took place, that
in consequence of the Anti-Corn-law League meet-
ings being held in the theatre, the Court had
resolved not to countenance by their attendance any
performances at that house. We cannot place any con-
fidence in this story. The League is a perfectly legal
association ; its objects are of the very first importance
to the community at large, and more especially to the
poorer classes of her MAJESTY'S subjects ; it is sup-
ported by greater numbers, talent, political influence,
wealth, and, we may add, Christian charity, than any
association that has sprung up in England for half a
century ; and so numerous are the contribut9rs to
its funds, so large the sums collected, and so
strong are the feelings of the great mass of the
community in its favour, that all well-informed persons
are now fully convinced that its object must in a very
short period be accomplished, and one of the most ob-
noxious laws of the land be speedily modified, or alto-
gether abrogated. We cannot, therefore, help regarding
the report alluded to as a calumny on her MAJESTY,
and an unjust imputation on the SOVEREIGN for mix-
ing up Court influence with a question that ought
to be decided impartially by the Legislature.
The very coincidence of the royal visit, too,
bears us out in this opinion. Will her MAJESTY favour
the importation of foreign performers to injure English-
men and Englishwomen, and at the same time object to
the importation of foreign grain, so necessary fur the
prosperity of our manufactures, and so indispensable to
the well-being of her peaceable, intelligent, industrious,
And loyal subjects?

No person who has instituted any careful inquiry
into the subject of confinement for lunacy, or the con-
dition and management of private lunatic asylums, can
doubt, that together they involve the most sacred rights
of personal freedom, and even freedom of opinion. It
is notoriously so difficnit to define the line of demarka-

tion which separates insanity from eccentricity, that
there are many still at large whose exces-
sive eccentricity far surpasses, in its mischiev-
ous character, the worst extravagance that others
who have been confined for years as confirmed madmen
over committed. Mere oddity of notions on certain
given subjects has subjected many a man of original
genius and cultivated intellect, to the intrusive visitation
of a commission de lunatico, and the transfer of his estate
and its management consequent thereon. In the same
way the indulgence in some momentary caprice, shown by
an overt act of whimsicality, has been held of force
enough to subject the unfortunate party to personal re-
straint in one of those compulsory retirements which are
sarcastically called " asylums." That is to say, asylums
which no man seeks, but all are driven into; a protec-
tion which its recipients shun and seek to flee from, as
if it were th 3 persecution of a pestilence. We have be-
fore remarked, that individuals in all the relations of
s,,cial life, especially in the higher classes, have largely
and most iniquitously availed themselves of these
private asylums, and the facilities and laxity
of the law which has hitherto regulated them,
to divest themselves of those social relations with
all the duties attaching to them ; or rather to per-
vert them to purposes of the most sordid avarice and the
most guilty purposes. Now, of all the kinds of human
sacrifices that the wickedness of man has ever devised,
there is none so terrible as that of handing over a
fellow-being, conscious of his own endowments and the
fact of his own sanity, to the degrading confinement,
the segregation, an 1 the coercion allotted by the
severe fiat of the law to hopeless fatuity. Within
these two weeks we have ourselves conversed
with two intelligent gentlemen who have undergone
this most cruel of inflictions, being at the time in the
full possession of all their mental faculties. That these
must have been strong, even in an unusual degree, may
be inferred from the fact, that their elasticity survived
so terrible an experiment upon them. But if we con-
sider how many wives have been confined in like man.
ner on the application of designing husbands, how many
husbands at the instigatio❑ of their wives, how
many rightful heirs have been handed over in
these legalised domiciles of broken hearts to hopeless
captivity and to death, by those who have yearned for
the possession of their estates and property : how
many wards have in these receptacles expiated the
trouble and solicitude they have occasioned to treacherous
guardians ; our only wonder must be, that any in-
dividuals who have once been inmates of these dreary
tenements should ever have left them, under any cir-
cumstances, with minds not absolutely ruined and ex
tine

Under impressions of this kind we have been led more
carefully to consider, than upon its first publication we
were enabled to do, the several enactments of Lord
AsnLilt's Bill for the regulation of the care and treat-
ment of lunatics in England. And we are bound to
state that, in reference to some of its particular clauses,
especially clause 44, it does not appear to us to provide
any adequate securities against the recurrence of those
scandalous outrages on the personal liberties of indi-
viduals, of which we have spoken as being too fre-
quently set in motion for the most base and perfidious
of purposes. We shall endeavour, however, more par-
ticularly to illustrate these objections at an early oppor-
tunity, when we propose to examine in detail the pro-
visions and enactments we allude to. It is impossible to
devote too much attention to a Bill that is to recognise
and consolidate, in very many instances, powers that ,