The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-16 00:00:00

b'Jeldng 5111 t

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1845.

The House of Commons met at Four o'clock.

Mr. SPOONER moved the second reading of the
Birmingham, Gloucester, and Wolverhampton
Rail-
way Bill.
Mr. PAKINGTON opposed the motion, which, how-
ever, was carried by a majority of 19—the numbers
being, for the motion, 41; against it, 22.
Mr. WAKLEY then moved that a Select Committee
be appointed to inquire into the management of the
Royal College of Surgeons in England. The Hon.
Member, at great length, detailed the grievances of
which the members of the College had to complain—
grievances which were entirely owing to the mis-
conduct of the Council, the self-elected governing
Vody of the College.
On the Speaker being about to put the question,
the House was counted out, there not being forty
Members present.

Ireland has been so little accustomed to acts of kind-
ness on the part of the English Government, that every
favour now proffered is received with suspicion and dis-
trust, or with fear that a scheme is in progress for de-
stroying national liberty and undermining the founda-
tions of the Catholic faith. This is no new symptom in
human nature, it is as ancient as the siege of Troy, and
when statesmen—long hostile either from necessity or in-

clination to the Catholic pepu'ation, suddenly change
their policy, and in place of Coercion Bills, Registration
Bills, Arms Bills, and fifty others of the same stamp—
bring forward measures of conciliation, and profess to
regard a proscribed race as friends and fellow-subjects,
we cannot be surprised that the Irish look well at the
presents and the givers before they accept them with
gratitude. This may, therefore, be admitted as a pallia-
tion for the bitter hostility displayed by some of the
Irish journals to the Academies Bill, but by no means
as a justification for unjust imputations and wicked
charges against the long-tried friends of Ireland as well
as the repentant Tory Administration. No men ever
made greater sacrifices for the sake of peace than the
Whigs and Liberal Members of the House of Commons.
They have displayed a moral courage above all
praise, and notwithstanding threats aed promises, and
every possible means resorted to for the purpose of
conversion, these honourable representatives, with some
contenoptible exceptions, have adhered to their convic-
tions. Are noble minded men like these to be in-
cluded in the same category with Lord STANLEY and Mr.
GOULBURN, and accused of concurring in a plot for
demolishing public spirit in Ireland ? One of the Irish
provincial journals thus comments on the Education Bill
which received such general support from all parties in
the House :—" It is not a generous concession to Irish
wants, but a treacherous scheme to corrupt
the young mind and taint the young heart
of our country through Government patronage
and influence. Away with it ! It is directed chiefly
against repeal. No scholar will obtain a professorship
in any of the proposed collegiate institutions who be-
lieves that domestic legislation would be a blessing to
his c untry. He may be first of a hundred candidates,
but if he be a repealer, he will be requested to retire.
The Irish youth must not dare to tl.ink on Irish ques-
tions otherwise than as the English Government ap-
proves, or they will be excluded from the benefits of
academical education in their own country ! Away with
it again, it is an abomination ! We spurn with scorn
such a gift. We will do still more. If they dare to in-
sult our eyes with any of these stews of Government cor-
ruption, under the name of colleges, we will level them
with the ground." The same paper adds :—" It is not
learning we want at all. It is food and raiment. We
ask for bread, and you give us a book." Such wild de-
clamation would require little notice were not the same
view taken by many Englishmen. They also say, give
the Irish bread—give them employment—but they never
tell us how it is to be done ; and Englishmen who have
made the experiment, know, to their cost, the ruin
which has befallen many speculations well calculated to
give bread to thousands. And what put an end to these
beneficent schemes ? Irish jealousy of England. The
ignorant multitude were excited by lying journals. They
rose against their best friends, literally carried into
effect the rabid injunction of the Kilkenny editor, and
levelled the English factories with the ground. We
have always said that bush misrule has lasted so long
that an age will be required to redress grievances, and
place the population in a sound and civilised condition.
The work cannot be accomplished at once. Time, and
judicious treatment, are absolutely necessary, and a
wise Government will, therefore, turn a deaf ear to
such absurdities, propose measures which they believe
practicable, and persevere in them to the last, regard-
less alike of political bigotry and popular ignorance.
We have been looking with much anxiety to the view
which the Irish Catholic bishops and clergy take of this
Academies Bill, because, on their decision, will its
fate rest. Should they oppose it, the prospects
of that country will be gloomy indeed. The
Government cannot, if they would, allow them the
superintendence of any of the colleges. Sir James
Grtanam, in vain, attempted to carry his Factories
Education Bill for England, and if the interference of
Protestant bishops is regarded with such horror, would
that of Catholic prelates be viewed in a less favour-
able light ?

In a case which came before the sitting Magis-
trate at the Thames Police-office, a day or two ago,
some observations fell from that functionary, which
were distinguished by so much right feeling and good
sense, that we conceive them entitled to special at-
tention. A woman had been compelled to bring a
charge of a most brutal assault against her husband—
an engineer, in full employment with highly respect-
able employers—and, so far as the character or capa-
city of an individual can be judged of, when at-
tempting, under vehement excitement, to defend
himself before a Magistrate, a man rot wanting in
intelligence. With the points of the case, as deposed
to in the evidence adduced in support of the charge, '
we are not called upon at present to deal, except to
observe that they went to establish the commission, by
the husband, of a most aggravated and unmanly outrage
against his wife. After the hearing, Mr. BROW:RIP
proceeded to state the reasons which induced him not
to dispose, summarily, of the case, by imposing, as
the Act of Parliament authorised him to do, a pecu-
niary fine on the accused—but to send the case for
trial before another tribunal—the Criminal Court. Of
these two alternatives, which the Act of Parliament
left in matters of the present nature, when proved to
the satisfaction of the magistrate, he, for one, greatly
lamented the alternative of imposing a pecuniary fine had
been given to them at all The obvious evil attaching
to the exercise of this summary jurisdiction was, that
the discretion it left to the delinquent of paying a
pecuniary fine, or submitting to an equivalent term
of imprisonment, dismissed the wealthy offender with-
out any particle of punishment, which for the same
offence it visited on the poorer culprit. In the case be-
fore him, any fine which he would be empowered to lay
upon the prisoner would be little felt by a man in his
condition, earning competent wages, and would, there-
fore, he very little proportioned to the extremely set i-
ous character of the offence which had, in Mr. BRO-
DERIP'S opinion, been proved against him. So the
worthy magistrate bound the witnesses over in the
usual manner to appear against the prisoner at the
Central Criminal Court ; at the same time accepting
rtreinasloonnabtlielebianidliefotmr tehe nt a
which N\p,opueladrabnecperetpoartaekdefrohs
from
their depositions.

Now, if there be one feature in the proceedings of
our police judicature more offensive than another, it
certainly is that vicious inequality between the penal-
ties inflicted for offences of the same class and degree
on the offender with money in his pocket and the
offender without it. It has been often boasted
that England is that country in which
the rights of property are always best respect-
ed. In God's name, where they exist, let then be
religiously respected; but, there are ways of exer-
cising them, which so completely remove them out o
the pale of all "respect," that in the eye of munici-