The Sun.
London, England, 1826-06-16 00:00:00

[TILE MORNING HERALD.]

The tendering of the Bribery Oath to the Electors
at Cambridge seems to have raised a terrible ferment atuoug that
learned and immaculate body. if it was meant, as is said to he
the case, to meet the bringing up of constituents, and to embrace
the titmice of their carriage under the head of bribery, we have
no hesitation in considering it a mean and contemptible quibble,
utterly diegitcefttl to all or any of the pucks with whom it may
have originated ; for, as it is well 'tauten that there is nothing
unlawfulin so doing, and that the recent attempt to do away
with it in the University was not art any plea of illegality, every
effort of a defeated party to vent their resentment in this manner,
is totally unworthy of echelar, or of gentlemen, arid the matter
might wifely have been left to the judgment of the world, with-
out giting rise to quit so much ireeeibility as it is *aid to have
product 4 But it is equally lawful to require this oath to be ad-
ministered; and it might have been expected, therefore, that
thrum who have t been might, and who undertake to
teach others to te.: tee law, would Lave been the first to set an
example of nbedience to It in their nun persons. What Ws a
'man whoes "withers are %moo-tine to fear from taking en
oath *Ping htittert? But the very fit ,t perton to whom
it was tendered; is said, after liking it, to have thrown
down the book in disdain, at the indigoity thus offered to
his character. To throw down the Word et Gel with disdain,
and fiat too xvith its sacred obligation jest imprinted on the lips,
is not exactly that kind of example which that youthful spectators
in the Senate Nome were likely to profit from. Put taking the
question abstrsctedly, what is there in the COO of the University
of Cambridge which exit-opts vain from the law which attaches
to them every where else? Are they so pure, forsooth;--hai their
me of the elective franchise been at all timer so unimpeachable,
that the very mention of bribery should affright the Muses from
the ehades of .Aeltiltl3lllS ? Al&S! alas! experience too loudly tells
ea Orel the prateertioq of wisdom end philoaophy is no exemption
from the eorruptioneof nature and of society ; sod though it may
!gar wise may not he
he tree that bribery,
itilmr°ll4motrual and more ex►tensiv
much known among
(the bribery of tielpruerta-;oni tit roXists no where in a more
fense
. t more disgusting :tate. Of this we show.
rife, a Tore ,„"):,:;'s otni: A few days *ince, iu the state of, the polls
t"1 (xi' Altd therefore, before the elector, of the
forlast :i3ribery Oath with so much disdain, let
present day , t the; hate the crime as much
;them bow, by. their etineuce,
as they do the peuklty.
• the court, of t.ointnon Pleas, have,
The Ju‘-g'' 4 L. arimit qpremed their
Aehie eererete ant y
with moat commen— e-isted of l the
of the practice whieh.h tartooaru,inagetit:w„ith
it
crass
of
un.
eases which carafe before t,t; eni _
o gw,
demurrer*, rejoinders, and
meaning verbiage in the shaije
oro f
:such lilts nonsense ; grant part of it wholly foreign to the points
at issue, and only foisted upon the Court by gteedy attornies, as Mr.

Justice park says, t' to saddle costs upon the backs of their clients."
But, to continue the metaphor, we-cannot help thinking, that in
this, as well as in all matters of blame, the saddle should be put
upon the back of the right horse, and that though the Court seems
on this ossasion to have vented all its anger upon the attornier,
there are in the profession of the law some such people as special
pleaders and barristers, who, if we mistake not, have quite as much
to do with the matter as the 'atomics. Mont of these precious
jumbles of legal fiction and chicanery (for such we are entitled to
call them, now that the Judges of the land have stamped them
with so marked a reprobation) pass through the bands of, and are
actually signed by Counsel before they assume a formal and 'a tan-
gible shape. Surely, then, jt is but fair and fitting that the in-
ventors and inanutheturert of the article should share with the
venders' in any disgrace which attaches to the commodity. We
trust that the opinion thy expressed by the Judges will have its
weight with all parties, and that something like common .sense
will find its way into these matters, in lieu of a system of plead-
ing, which we are not• entitled to consider little better than a
sy stem of plunder.—/bid,