The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-03 00:00:00

SLAUGHTERING OF HORSES BILL.

Lord BEAUMONT moved the second reading of the
Slaughtering of Horses Bill, which he said was an
amendment of the 16th George, IH., commonly called
the " Knackers' Act."
The Bill was read a second time, and ordered to be
committed on Monday.
The Bishop of LONDON presented petitions from
Sir Harcourt Lees and others against the repeal of the
penal laws affecting Roman Catholics.
Lord BROUGHAM presented a great number of
petitions from individuals upon various subjects, the
purport of the majority of which were not distinctly
caught in the gallery. One was a petition from Thomas
Easthope, Esq., of Lancaster, praying the House to
pass a law for the purpose of preventing Roman
Catholic priests from abusing the confidence
of dying persons, by extorting legacies for their Church.
The Noble and Learned Lord presented also a petition
from Lord Dundonald, stating that he possessed a secret
of a destructive power, surpassing any of the imple.
ments of war at present known, and requesting to be ad-
mitted to competition with other inventors. He (Lord
Brougham) had been for many years his legal adviser in
all matters relating to his patents, and he (Lord Brougham)
would say that Lord Dundonald was the only projector he
had ever known who did not exaggerate the powers of
his oFn constructions.
The Metropolis Buildings Big was read a third time
and passed.
BARBARY STATES—TUNIS.

Lord BEAUMONT put a question to the Noble Lord
the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, respecting the execu-
tion of a British subject at Tunis by the Moslem autho-
rities.
_ _

Lord ABERDEEN said that in the case referred to
by the Noble Lord, the Maltese had committed a
double murder. lie had murdered a Tunisian and a
Maltese. For the murder of the Maltese the crimi-
nal was tried by the tribunals instituted according
to agreement with the Turkish States ; but fot the
other murder he was tried by the Tunisian tribunals.
The Consuls applied to the Dey to delay execution until
the opinion of the English Government could be obtained.
When the matter was laid before him (Lord Aberdeen),
he did not see any reason for interfering. He was con-
vinced that the execution ought to take place.' If it had
been left to him to say whether the criminal
should be capitally punished or not, it would
have been his painful duty to say that he should be
punished. This view of the case was not taken by the
other Powers of Europe. The Swedish and Sardinian Con-
suls had been withdrawn. But it appeared to him that this
only showed that the English Consul had more influence
and more prudence than all the other Consuls of Christian►
Europe put together.
CONFERENCE WITH THE COMMONS.

The business of the House was for some time inter-
rupted by thedeparture of the Earl of Glengall, Lord
Duncannon, and other Peers, to a conference with the
House of Commons on the subject of the Common Law
Process (Ireland) BilL
TUNIS.

Lord BEAUMONT resumed the discussion. He said
that he could not give any credit to the Noble Earl
opposite for hanging the Maltese.—(A laugh.) If any
credit were due to any one, it was to the Bey.—(Hear
and laughter.) It might be laughing matter to their
Lordships, but it was no joke to those Christians whose
lives were in jeopardy in the Turkish States.
The Earl of ABERDEEN could not guess what the
Noble Lord wanted. Her Majesty's Government had
taken care that justice should be done in the case of this
Maltese. The Bey delayed execution until he consulted
the British Government, and the criminal was pro-
perly put to death.—(Cries of " llear, hear.")
If the man had murdered only a Maltese he would have
been tried by the Christian tribunal ; but he murdered
also a Tunisian, and that crime brought him under the
jurisdiction of the Turkish tribunals. The Bey, how-
ever, showed so much deference to the English Govern-
ment as to suspend the execution of the sentence until
he had communicated with her Majesty's Government.
The Earl of MINTO said he was sorry that the
Noble Earl saw nothing to complain of in the interference
of other Consuls in a matter which concerned England
only.
The Earl of ABERDEEN said that he had nothing
to ask for in the way of reparation, for the man was
strangled before the resolutions of the Consuls wero
known in England.—(Hear, and a laugh.)
RAILWAY TRAVELLING ON SUNDAYS.

On the order of the day for the -third reading of the
Railways Bill,
The Bishop of LONDON moved an amendment on
the 6th clause, for the purpose of relieving railway
companies from the obligation of dispatching third-
class carriages on Sundays, Good Fridays, and Christ-
mas-days. He begged their Lordships to understand
that ho did not wish to prevent the railway companies
from carrying this class of passengers on the Sabbath.
His only object was to release the Government of this
Christian country from the necessity of enforcing tra-
velling on the Lord's-day.
Lord BROUGHAM said he was one of those who
looked upon every thing which tended to the desecra-
tion of the Sabbath day and the interruption of Sabbath
rest as a great evil, and as a breach of duty—and not
only as not conducive, but as prejudicial to the interests
of the poorer classes, and by that he meant, above all,
the working classes—(Hear, hear)—but on the other
hand, they °tight to take into account one circumstance,
which was a fact of undeniable truth, that so far from
the Sabbath being less well kept in this country now
than in former times, it was in every 'way so much better
kept, that there was no foundation whatever for the ex-
travagant and exaggerated zeal that many persons dis.
played who viewed as the great and crying evil of the
present age the desecration of the Sabbath day—(Hear,
...at any, that with the exception of that
country which had given him birth, there was not a
country in Europe in which the Sabbath was better kept
than in England.—(Hear, hear.) And if he were called
upon to point out that one place in England where the
greatest improvement in this important particular had
taken place, he should point to that great metropolis in
which they then were.—(Hear, hear.) When he remem-
bered, some fifteen or twenty years ago, the way in
which it was not kept, land saw the great change
which had now taken place, he confessed that to him
the improvement appeared almost marvellous. For
the purpose of having the Sabbath well kept, they must
make the day a favourite with the people—they could
not by legislation go further—for they would always
find in the end that the keeping of the Sabbath must be
regarded as a matter of morals and feeling, and not a
thing they could enforce by making the desecration a
punishable offence. That being the nature and condition
of the question, the Parliament ought to take especial care
in all they did, and in all they omitted doing in the
matter, to carry public opinion with their legislation—
(Hear, hear)—and, above all things, they should avoid
anything that might have a tendency to make Sabbath
keeping unpopular.—(Hear, hear.) Extreme puritanical
rigour, and enforcing the keeping of the Sabbath, was
not only bad in principle, and most pernicious in its con-
sequences, but more than anything else tended to frus-
trate the object they had in view, and by making the
people hate the Sabbath, conduced manifestly and
directly to Sabbath desecration.—(Hear, hear.) What
ho was anxious for was a just medium between the
ascetic observance of Scotland and the laxity of
Catholic countries in this respect ; and that was
the medium which he thought this country was at.
tanning. He wished to see the people attending
their religious duties in the morning, and devoting
the evening to healthful recreation and amusement.
In some respects this was the case in other coun-
tries ; but still, as in Paris for instance, though there
was a marked improvement upon the habitual and sys-
tematic desecration of the Sabbath, which had been in-
troduced at the Revolution, there was yet a disregard
for that day exhibited in the carriage of timber and the
empleyment of persons in their every-day occupations,
which he should be sorry to see introduced here. If the
people went to church in the morning of the Sunday,
what harm could there be in their enjoying themselves
in the evening of that'day ? He was a friend to the
maintenance of the sanctity of the Sabbath, and a
beat advocate for its reasonable observance. )3ut