The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-10 00:00:00

(t_'. timing

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1844.

In the House of Lords a brief discussion took
place on the motion that the Dissenters' Chapels Bills
be rod a third time. It was moved by Lord
WHARNCLIFFE and opposed by the Bishop of EXETER.
The'Earl of WlNcitiLsEA, Lord KENYON, and Lord
MouNicAsnEL, also opposed the Bill ; one on the
ground that he was a Christian, and another that it
was an act of spoliation. Their Lordships, however,
did not pay much respect to these pleas, for only nine
voted against it. The numbers were for the third
reading 44, against, it 9.
The Duke of RICHMOND postponed his motion re-
lative to the duty on wool till► this day ; and the
noOse adjourned at Half-past Seven.
In the Commons, the Leeds and Bradford Railway-
Bill was read a third time and
Lord -41)11N . RUSSELL, gave notice that, on the
House going into Comkhitte+,! on the Sugar Duties
he would move that the duty of 345. per cwt. be
levied on all foreign sugars.
•Mr. HUME moved all address to her MAJESTY for
abolishing the effice of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
He was always opposed to a repeal of the union,
and he made the motion with a view to produce a
change Which
.would render repeal unnecessary.
Under the present system, Ireland and Gre3;t.
Britain were treated as distinct kingdoms.
Remove 'this anomaly—place the three coun-
tries on the same footing, and the cry for repeal
would soon cease. Ireland was treated a.s a colony,
and until she was treated as an integral portion of
the empire, cntitled to the same privileges, and go.
verned by the, same laws, she would hale a right to

complain. •
Captain BERNAL seconded the motion.
Lord ELIoT opposed it. The system, he said, had
been in existence for 400 or 500 plop, and those who
proposed a change should show some good reason for
it, and offer some better substitute. The abolition of
the office of Lord-Lieutenant, he believed, would
cause great dissatis'action in Ireland, and that, inde-
pendent of other circumstances, would make him op-
pose the scheme.

Lord jour; RUSSELL also opposed the motion,
while at the same time he believed the abolition of
the office would- be productive of much good; he
wished, however; -to leave the affair to the Executive
Government.

AfteF:l?rief speeches from. Mr. SUA.W, Sir ROBERT
FEE 4 and others, Mr. Hume withdrew the motion.
Mr. Bum & moved fur a copy of an opinion given

by Mr. PENNEFATHER, the present Chief Justice ofthe
Queen's Bench in Ireland, on the 28th of February,
1820, in the case of PEMBROKE V. KINOSMILL, in
which Mr. PENNEFATHER advised his client to avoid
finding a certain charter of JAMES 1., with reference
to the corporation of Kilkenny, and thereby to defeat
the ends of justice.

Lord ELIOT understood that the circumstances
were these :—The corporation of Kilkenny claimed
certain tolls in right of a charter granted by
JAMES I. Subsequently JAMES 11. granted a second
charter, which the corporation rejected, and Mr•
PENNEFATIIER merely advised his clients not to pro-
duce this rejected charter, as it would only throw
doubt on the question. He saw nothing in this to
impugn the integrity of this upright Judge, and re-
gretted that the motion had been brought forward.
Mr. SHAW, Dr. BOWRING, Mr. DARBY, and other
Memlwrs, made some brief remarks, when the
motion was negatived without a division.
The House adjourned at Half-pa.tt Nine.

The proceedings at the Old Bailey yesterday fur-
nish a remarkable instance of the blessings con-
ferred on the country by the " wisdom of our
ancestors." By these wise men it was decreed that
juries must agree to an unanimous verdict, or be
starved to death. In the case of CROUCH, who mur-
dured his wife, the fact was proved by incontestible
evidence, but surgeons or mad doctors were called on
the other"'side, who proved that he had, at a certain
time, received a concussion of the brain, and that a
man who had sustained such an injury, on taking
ardent spirits " would run amuck." This statement
puzzled some of the jury. They believed
he had taken ardent spirits, and was not
capable of distinguishing right from wrong,
and they therefore resolved to acquit him, on the
ground of insanity. Some of them, however, took
a more sane view of the question, and would not
admit the plea, that a man who had committed such a
deliberate murder under the influence of liquor,
should be acquitted. The parties joined issue ;
neither would yield. They were locked up for the
night. They were debarred from wine, and ale, and
bread—all refreshment, in fact, was forbidden—and
were placed in durance more vile than the prisoner
himself, with the exception that they were allowed
pen,' paper, ink, and candles. We presume, after
trying to agree, they fell asleep on the question,
and ' next morning they all awoke of the same
opinion, and at half-past eleven o'clock they
respectfully sent a message to the Bench,
soliciting a glass of water, as some of them
had not tasted food, or taken refreshment of
any; kind for thirty hours, and they were all nearly
exhausted. The Court was inexorable—they must
agree in their verdict, or starve. They returned to
their cell, and, after mature deliberation, we presume,
the thought it was better that one man should die
than twelve, and they unanimously returned a verdict
of guilty. No instance could exhibit the folly and
immorality of the present system in a stronger light.
These jurors were all sworn to deliver a true verdict,
according to the evidence and their conscience, and
from mere inability to sustain sthe struggle longer,
the veaker party was compelled to give way, and de-
liver a verdict, on their solemn oath, contrary to
their conviction. These men are perjured to all in-
tents and purposes, and they are perjured,
not from any fault of their own, but from
the, defect of the criminal law. This is not
thel only evil, however, springing out of
the " wisdom of our ancestors." Had the struggle
been carried on for a few hours longer, a doctor
would have been called in, and on his oath he would
haxie assured the. Judge that the lives of the least
robust were placed in the greatest danger, and that
they could not survive another night. The Judge of
course would have discharged them, and Caoucu at
the same time, so that a man who the doctors swore
"would run amuck" when he tasted liquor, must
have been let loose on society to commit some fresh
murder. It is needless to make any additional coin-
merits on such grave facts, further than to say that
immediate steps are imperatively required both for
the ends of justice and making oaths sacred. No other
country exhibits such an absurd anomaly in its
criminal code.

At the last Borough Sessions at Carmarthen, a
man named JOHN CHARLES was indicted for unlaw-
fully obstructing the path leading through certain
meadows called the Royal Oak fields. It appeared in
evidence that the defendant, being in possession of a
field in which there was an old stile leading to a path
that had been a public one for sixty years and up •
wards, had caused the stile to be removed, and an
iron gate placed there instead, which was always
kept locked. At the close of the trial, the jury
found CHARLES guilty; but as the prosecutor did not
press for punishment, be was liberated, on entering
into his recognisances to appear, when called on,
for judgment, and on the understanding, also,
that he should erect, within a week, a proper
and convenient stile in the place where the
old one formerly stood, and give the neigh-

bourhood the same right of way through the
field which they had always had. At the recent

Hertford assizes a somewhat similar case was heard
before Lord Chief Justice DENMAN. The plaintiff
was the owner and occupier of Rickmansworth Park,
and had taken it upon himself to close a path which
runs near his house, and which had been used for se-
veral years 'by his neighbours as a short cut to some
mills in- the vicinity. He contended that there was
no public footpath, strictly speaking, for though people
had long been in the habit of making use'bf it, yet it
was only upon sufferance, the legal right being
against them. On the part of the defendant it
was urged, that by the usage of many years
the path in question had become a public one,
and the right of people to pass through it could not
now be disputed. The result of the trial was that a
verdict was returned for the defendant, thereby esta-
blishing the right of the public to the disputed path.
We trust that these two important verdicts, which do
infinite credit to the jury who delivered them, will
have th^ effect in some degree, of putting a stop to
that jealous, selfish spirit of isolation and exclusive-
ness which for some years past has been creeping in
among our provincial gentry. Whoever is ac-

quainted with our rural districts, especially with
those in the • neighbourhood of cities and towns,
cannot fail to have remarked with disgust
and vexation the gradual disappearanCe of those
delightful field paths which, for many years,
were the sources of such convenience and
enjoyment to the inhabitants of the vicinity. How
many a narrow, winding path leading away from
the dusty high-road, through meadows carpeted with
the freshest turf, and enamelled with all sorts of
fragrant wild flowers, have been recently stopped up,
merely to gratify the absurd pride and paltry selfish-
ness and jealousy of some " respectable" country
gentleman, who had purchased a " respectable" estate
in the neighbourhood, and thought it necessary to his
" resFectability" that his neighbours should be shut
out from the " old familiar" meadows which formed
a portion of his newly acquired domains ! How many
a poor man's quiet, healthy, evening stroll with his
family, after the day's labours are at an end, has
been rudely put a stop . to, in order that
the rich man of the parish—frequently some retired
merchant or thriving attorney—may have the oppor-
tunity of exhibiting that love of exclusiveness and
tyranny, which are the unerring characteristics of
a petty, vulgar, upstart nature ! It may seem
to many people a matter of little or no public moment
whether field-paths are stopped up by the score or not;
but in reality it is not so; it is a question of grave
importance, involving far more than merely ephemeral
considerations—a question whether the humbler classes
of the provincial community shall be still further
alienated from those above 'them by a continued
manifestation, on the part of the latter, of a spirit of
jealous exclusiveness and arbitrary power, a.; ungene-
rous as it is impolitic; or whether by a mutual dis-
play of good-will and forbearance towards each other,
a kindlier feeling shall be generate, we repeat,
rtzeeent,theentt,.weof
classes. A question of this sort is
no trifling moment; and it is for the higher orders to
take the initiative in the matter, and make the first
advances towards the poor, for they have been h
great" aggressors.

No subject of more grave or extensive importance can
address itself, at any time, to the profound attention of
the Legislature, in a' country circumstanced as Great
Britain is with regard to colonial connexions, than
Emigration. But there are certain anomalies in the.,
present condition of this country, and in her political