The Sun.
London, England, 1829-03-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

We have to pOint out to -notice a vile trick in h
morning paper of yesterday, which must disgust,
_ .

ire shOulithink;even the staunchest enemies of the

Billanow in progress for the relief of the Catholics.
'that paper—in order, it appears, to intimidate the

West India interest—has actually invented and put
forth the monstrous falsehood, that the Duke of

Wellington, immediately after emancipating the
Catholics, means also to emancipate at once, and
without compensation, the slaves of all the British
settlements ! A happy device, by the way, for
the cause which that journal advocates, thus to
intimate that our Catholic fellow-subjects at
home are in the .same *condition as West India

negroe3 abroad, and that the emancipation of
one must be followed by that of the other !:
However, such is the vile invention to which this
mouth-piece of the anti-emancipationists has re-
course, and by which we say he disgraces even his-
friends and supporters, there is hardly one of
them that will not be ashamed of him. Proby►bly,

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even a Mr. Holcomb, who is trying to get together
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a mob in Hyde-park to ill-use the members of the
-house of Lords who vote for the Bill, would rather

-be without such a coadjutor, and blushes at the
monstrous fabrication. Nothing can equal the gra-
vity with which the base invention is put forth : it
is stated in detail, and argued upon. Government

afro have thought it worth their while to bestow

•
upon it an official contradiction. This latter step
would not have been necessary, if the contents of
newspapers had only reached the well-instructed ;
but the poor West Indians themselves may catch
the report, that they are at once to be turned adrift
from their matters, and then it is difficult to con-
ceive what mischief may follow. They might not
conceive that it was a mere party invention, or
rather the shameless invention of one man of a party.
However, the contradiction will now go forth with
the fabrication, and no evil, we should trust, need
be apprehended.—Timee.
We have spoken of a Mr. Halcomb, who is try-
ing to get together an anti-Popery mob in Hyde-
park. We shall not say on what day or hour, lest
we should seem to aid his project; for a mob may
very easily be got tog-ether for any purpose what-
ever, good. or bad. But we perceive that he is
called. the "learned gentleman." He is probably,
then, a lawyer; and, if so, had he -..0t better try to
get a brief than a mob ? We say we counsel him
well when we recommend it to him to try to get a
brief rather than a mob, and to make speeches at
the bar rather than in the Park ; or, if he has tried
to get into practice and failed, let him turn to some
bumbler and more useful employment. He will not
get his bread by haranguing mobs. Mr. Hunt and
J,tlr. Cobbett both follow mechanical trades, as well
as the trade of speechifying, and they can therefore
afford to bestow a little time and attention in en-
lightening the people of England.--Ibid.

Mr. Peel gave notice, on Wednesday last, of his
intention to introduce a Bill for the consolidation of
the-several Acts-23 in number, as it appears—re-
lative to the qualification and jurisdiction of Justices
of the Peace. It is iinpossible not to take a deep
interest in any legislative measure which affects the
constitution, powers, or obligations of the local ma-
gistracy, because it is a subject which concerns, in
an eirecial manner, the affairs and well-being of the
poor. The present Secretary for the Home De-
partment has on former occasions done service, by
arranging and simplifying certain branches of the
jurisprudence of this country, who3e chief operation
is upon the humbler classes of the people; and, on
the whole, we are inclined to anticipate some benefit
from the provisions of the measure, the outline of
which he has now developed. It does not strike
us that so long as unpaid ccur.try gentlemen con-
tinue to he intrusted with the local administration
of the laws, a safer test of fitness for the situa-
tion of country Magistrates can well be established
than that of definite property. It ought to be re-
collected that the test must be general, or that great
uncertainty, confusion, and abuse might follow.—
Property, according to English principles and usage,
is the qualification for a senator ; and although pro-
perty does not-always imply knowledge, the want of
it may be consitiored as implying, in the average of
tLases, a want of those means of liberal education
svh-ich even the advocate for some intellectual test
of competency will be ready to require as data from
which to presume that a man has been instructed.
Mr. Peel, on being blamed for instituting 3004 per
annum as the qualification of a justice of the peace,
answered fairly enough, that he ditl not make pro-
erty the qualification —that he found it so, and only
raised the standard, which had hitherto been left at
1001. per annum, and which it is notorious had
been repeatedly and loudly objected to, as not evi-
dence sufficiently conclusive of the respectability of
any person claiming to be a justice of peace. It is
true that lawyers ought to be the most capable magi-
grates, and we are not sure that the extension ofju-
dieial patronage would be a valid argument against
the appointment of one barrister in every county,
acting as assessor to the Bench of Justiaes,
who in Ireland at least have been much improved by
their association with a responsible judicial officer,
selected from amongst gentlemen of a certain stand-
ing and recognized character at the bar. But it is
possible that Mr. Peel, even approving such a
chango, may have found that it would be looked
upon by the country gentlemen as too important to
he abruptlylingrafteeren the professed objects
of which were to methediae and consolidate old
laws, not to introduce new prineVes. The other
provisions of the Bill go chiefly to aboilsh the dis-
tinction between Justices of the Peace generally and
of the quorum, to give Magistrates a power (much
wanted at present) of compelling the attendance of
niaserial witnesses in cases which it comes within
their jurisdiction to try. The Bill also obliges Ma-
gistrates who have issued a summons to hear the
complaint; it provides for th# holding of petty scs!-
sions—furnishes general forms of conviction—re.
quires Magistrates to make returns to the clerk of
the peace of all fines and penalties they may have
ioposed during a certain antecedent period,---deter-
relines the cases in which appeals shall be allowed
—and, finally, regulates the fees of clerks to the
Justices, a matter of much grievance until LOW:—
Mr. Peel is no zealous advocate, nor are we, for the
appointment of clergymen to the magistracy;
although there be districts where countrymen are
(Tame, and where, if clergymen were not to act,
there might occur a defective administration of
justice.—Aid•
The petition bj courtesy stated the petition of
lders of London and Wests
the Inhabitant IlousehC.
minster, and said to be sign by 113,000 persons,
was presented last night by the Gars of Eldon, in
the House of Lords. His Lordship ht the mris
dour to admit, that of the signatures some were
those of improper individuals, and he offered it;
compound for 100,000. Any thing for the sake of
peace and tranquillity, for his Lordship is now quite
alarmed at the great agitation which prevails. He,
good man, has done nothing to cause that agitation,
Their Lordships (he said) must admit, that at pre-
sent great agitation prevailed, which he had done no-
thing to promote. He had, indeed, expressed his
sentiments in that House, and he hoped he should
continue to state them forcibly but temperately so
as not to be liable to misrepresentation." His Lord-
ship then never sought to promote agitation—never
threw out invitations to the people to petition ! It
was a calumny, then, against this peace-loving Lord,
to report of him, that on the very first day of the
Session he declared, that " he would say in his
place in that House, and he hoped the people of the
country would by some means become acquainted
-with the declaration—if he had a voice that would
sound to the remotest corner of the Empire,
he would re-echo the principle which he most
firmly believed, that if ever a Roman Catho-
lic was suffered to form part of the Legis-
laritre of this country, or to hold any of the
great executive offices of its Government, from
that moment the sun of Britain would set for ever."
This certainly was very like the language of an agi-