The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-28 00:00:00

PARLICADIENTARY.

The Public Houses' Bill was read a third time, in the House
of Lord: last night, and passed.
Lord Denman moved the second reading of the General
Affirmations 8.11, and explained that the object of the Bill was
to enable persons who, like the Quakers, conscientiously de-
cline to take an oath, to give testimony on affirmation. The
Noble and Learned Lord gave a succinct history of the triumph
of the persevering Quakers over the persecution they had
been exposed to on account of refusing to take oaths, and de-
ser,bed the temporal consequences of false swearing as the true
source of the responsibility which a man, in a witness-box, felt
to tell the truth. _ _

Lords Wicklow, Galloway, and Abinger opposed the Bill.
Lords Campbell and Brougham supported it ; but the latter
suggested it should be referred to a Committee, to investigate
it. On that the Bishop of London proposed that the whole
subject should be referred to a Committee, which was acceded
to, and the Bill withdrawn. The Rev. Prelate is to make a
motion on the subject this day. Their Lordships adjourned at
Half-past Seven.
In the Commons the first business of any interest was a re-
port made by Mr. Roebuck, from the Compromise Committee
that, Mr. Walter had declined to attend it on summons, and an
order made by the House, on Mr. Roebuck's motion, that Mr.
Walter attend at the bar of the House this day. From the con-
versation which ensued it appears that this Committee carries
on its inquiries with closed doors, having only the
witnesses under examination present, and merely giving in-
formation to any party against whom anything was deposed in
the Committee. Mr. Bailie Cochrane and Major Beresford
both stated that they had wished to be present in the Com-
mit tee, but had not been permitted.
Mr. Roebuck laid down the principle that as the House
had entrusted the Committee with power, it should rely also
on its discretion in condncting the inquiries.
In reply to Mr. Hawes, Lord Stanley explained that there
existed in Canada an Act of Assembly, authorising the Go-
vernor to give up to the United States authorities all fugitives
from justice charged with specified crimes, and that under the
authority of this Act a man of colour named Nel,on Haggett,
charged with robbery, had been so given up. The papers in
the case are to be laid before the House.

In answer to questions, Sir James Graham stated that he
had declined to receive a deputation on the subject of the Poor-
laws from Plymouth, and he would state to-day whether or not
he had declined to receive a deputation from Brighton.
111 r. Milner Gibson was anxious to have the tariff proceeded'
with before the Poor-law, as the latter subject could not be fairly
discussed under the charge that by discussing it Members were
delaying the tariff. It was settled on this account that the
tariff should be proceeded with the first thing this day.
The debate on the Poor-law Bill was resumed by Mr. Fiel-
den, and after he and Mr. Lawson had spoken, the House di-
vided, and agreed to resolve itself into a Committee by 156 to
37. In the Committee Mr. Wakley objected to the first clause,
and moved that it be postponed. This motion was opposed
by Sir J. Graham, and lost by 206 to 74. There were two
or three other divisions in the course of the evening, though,
in the end, the Committee got through the first clause. The
debate was like the other debates on the Poor-law, distin-
guished for some personalities, and we recommend to the readers
the accusing exposure of Sir E. Knatchbnll by Mr. T.'llun-
combe, and of Mr. }errand by Sir James Graham.
Shortly after twelve o'clock the House resumed, and at a
Quarter past One o'Clock adjourned.
PUBIAC OPINXON. _

We take the following from the Chronicle:—" Scarcely a
debate passes in -which Sir Robert Peel does not receive some
castigation or reproach from his friends, for having betrayed
or deceived their expectations. Sir Richard Vyvian has just
denounced him to the whole Tory party for having deceived
them upon all points; and on Friday night, during the debate
on the Poor-laws, the lash was laid on him by the dirty but
sturdy hands of Mr. Ferrand, who accused him point blank of
having made use of the Anti-Poor-law cry to come into power,
and then of throwing it aside, with his other declarations, when
it had served his purpose. Sir Robert winced, and then
retaliated, by throwing back in Mr. Ferrand's face
the filth of his misconduct in the Keightley Union,
where this noisy friend of the poor has, under
his own eye, and in his office as Chairman of the
Board of Guardians, allowed the poor to be treated as no gentle-
man would suffer his bailiff to treat his pigs. Sir Robert Peel
not only accused him, but proved by the Report of Sir John
Walsham, that he had suffered the poor in this Union to be
crammed into holes, rather than rooms, so thickly, that they
were barely a foot asunder; that they were huddled indiscri-
minately together—men, women, and children, married and un-
married, two and three in a bed, the sick, the healthy, the just
delivered women, the dying and the dead ; and that for their
education there was provided the establishment of an old
woman on a dung-hill in the yard. But these are the philan-
thropies of Mr. Ferrand, whom the Tories began their Ses-
sion by crying up, but whom Sir Robert Peel now bluntly tells
he would do better by performing his duty as a Poor-law
Guardian, in protecting the miserably oppressed poor of
his own particular union, than by making declamations (which
Judas of old did) in favour of the poor in general."
The Herald says, speaking of the traitor Francis, now lying
under sentence of death—" Each succeeding post delivery
brings us a pile of letters on the subject of the execution of
the traitor Francis, now under sentence of death ; in none is
the extreme penalty of the law advocated. There seems, in-
deed, to he an almost universal expectation entertained that the
life"of the treasonable ruffian will be spared; and that for the
remainder of his days he will be subject to some such exem-
plary punishment as will effectually deter others from the com-
mittal of the brutal offence of which he has been convicted. It

is because we fully participate in this anticipation that we have
hitherto preserved silence on the subject; and in perfect con-
fidence that no legal strangling of the convict will take place
to demoralise the public mind, we refrain from reiterating
those general arguments against the punishment of death, the
soundness of which we have still no reason to doubt, however
disinclined the Legislature may be to adopt them as the basis
of the entire abolition of hanging."
The Times has the following remarks on the foreign policy
of Lord Palmerston :—" We have learned from the sluggish
character of the war in China; that the operations in which
we are there, engaged are no curious or easy exploit of arms,
but a struggle of extraordinary difficulty, from the total dis-
similarity of the combatants, and the distance which divides
them from each other. The horrible catastrophe cf the -.am '
in Affghanistan has given the stamp of reality to ':ne feree
Y
bodings of those who were best fitted to judge of the
probable
issue of that campaign. The course of ev,
eats in the Levant
and in Europe is gradually corrobo-.sting the opinions we
have frequently expressed as to th^.,policy and effects of the
treaty of July, 1840. But '.:fle question we would ask is,
whether it is necessary to wait for a wholesale massacre or
a general war to cable the Parliament of this country to
call the authors of these events to an account? The present
Government, are indeed compelled, from a proper regard to the
public to throw a veil over the errors which it is their
art.!,uo steal,ust
task to correct ; but we trust they will not allow
themselves, from a mistaken tenderness to their political anta-
gonists, to withhold those investigations into the policy of their
predecessors which the character of the public service peremp-
torily requires. It may be asserted, without the slightest
exaggeration, that the policy of Lord Palmerston, espe-
cially during the last three years, at a period which he and his
colleagues still designate as a time of peace, has cost the coun-
try twenty millions of money, and caused the destruction of at
least 50,000 human beings. The finances of India reduced to
great extremity, the finances of England encumbered, a vast
r
tvornerfeaatlrhi
,niiisisteraenicdnoi maintained tlnntitiAnr,
eys tichahoa,euvsrhsoebweoe fnatt
hinwei Mediterranean,
shseaaptxel
eioerasdatn.tditoha.
ie,3ss
utpaitlorltewlg,eirenreceaaavtrens
resourcesarmament
fulfilment.side r able aYheFnocr otmhepagraekdewith
thtch et
rfpuattn.r e eP"
of v.is attending their
plosion.. ttaving't-h' combined
of July, 1840, we Iraat all,:wed a state of bad teethes to s--i;
try and France, which must, t:nererilsngt.ormbeu,,Zew..e'l,eli'i'' tn."-
lead in the end to a frisnlful ex On to fear,
sion of Mehemet Ali, we have, tact, been acce,ssoweiPtoP
with the three other l'owers to relies*lSyria from rhtehasde-
removal of the Christian l'!Arices of Lebanon
hitherto governed the Tteektntain, and we have virtually eon.
signed the Christian subjects of the Porte in Syria to a
state of anarchy tehich can only be terminated by the triumph
of the most nterciless Mussulman despotism. It is clear
that no European Power will assist the Divan in maintaining
by force the odious system and the obnoxious Ministers who
have been re-instated in Syria. Turkey herself, even with
the help of Albanian soldiers, is too weak to resist the trklsse.
whom we so lately armed. Mehemet Ali can alone furbish the
Sl'...tan with the necessary force ; but he refuses to re-enter
'die field, unless he be paid for restoring that state of things to
which the Treaty of 1840 was intended to put an end. It
may, therefore, be anticipated that before many months have
elapsed the Egyptian forces will be brought back to the posi-
tions from which they were driven in 1640. The status quo
may be restored in Syria, though not without fresh horrors and
a fresh conquest of those unhappy provinces; but who will
restore the state of things in Europe? Who will lay the bad
spirit and the bloody passions which were raised by that treaty
of July ? Who will make compensation to the world—we
spe.ik not of wasted treasure and wasted lives, but for the re-
appearance of such dissensions, for the interruption of hopeful
relations of amity, for the indefinite but gloomy aspect of the
future ?

ECCLESIASTICAL
On Saturday a meeting of noblemen and gentlemen con-
nected with the Principality, was held at the Thatched House
Tavern, for the purpose of considering how an Episcopal
Welsh Church might be best established in the English metro-
polis. ..::ascriptions to the amount of nearly `2,2M)/. have
been accul.!.dated, and it has been proposed to take a temporary-
buildmg for present purposes.
The Bishops of Edinburgh and Glasgow, more particularly
the latter, aro now encouraging their clergy, in the came man-
ner as that adopted by the Bishop of Oxford, to strive for the
restorative of the purity of the primitive church time; fer

some time there has been a disposition on the part of the Scot-
tish Episcopalians to conform rigidly to the rubrical directions
of the Book of Common Prayer, and the strict canons of the
Church.