The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS-

We continue the interesting and valuable se-
ries of letters from our Lisbon correspondent.—
In speculating on the political results of the re-
cent popular demonstrations produced by the
dismissal of Saldanha, the writer suppoees that
the Apostolic party will make a handle of the
honest and harmless zeal of the Portugue., peo-
ple, to represent it as one of the forms in Which
Jacobinism and anarchy are used to exhibit
themselves; and, therefore, as affording a suffi-
cient argument for interfering by force to change
the Government which has a tendency to encou-
rage such abominations, or which is of itself un-
able to prevent them. From the spirit which is
manifested by certain foreign journals, we have
little doubt that such a course of proceeding has
already been discussed as expedient, if it has not
been actually decided on, by those wh wield the
Apostolical energies and resources, as necessary
to the cause of despotic power. The articles of
the Times on the subject of Spain and Porti.'„gal
arc now incessantly alluded to by the Paris jour-
nals acting under the eye of the Censorship, and
therefore with the full sanction of the Govern-
ment of France. And this diligent notice
of the opinions promulgated by the Times
appears to have a double object in view,—
first, to fasten our opinions and principles on
the present Ministry of Great Britain ; and
secondly, under cover of a controversy with us, to
feel the pulse of both nations, or, more properly,
of the whole of Europe, with respect to the mea-
sures now in progress on the part of Ferdinand
and of his trans-Pyrennean relatives, against the
independence of Portugal, and the Crown of
Pedro. In reference to the first point—namely,
the identification of The Times with the exist-
ing Ministry of England, in so far as that Mi-
nistry may be considered a fair representative of
the feelings and foreign policy of Mr. Canning—
we are not disposed to concede that it would he
a reproach to either the Ministers or The Times,
if the Paris journalists were able, which certainly
they are not, to substantiate what they assert of
a partnership between us, to the extent of com-
mon principles. It is, however, our duty to the
Kings Ministers to declare, that they are in no-
wise responsible, directly or indirectly, as indi-
viduals or as Ministers, for any of the doctrines
or suggestions which they hays been chirged
with authorizing in the columns of this paper.
It is equally our duty to ourselves, as to the
King's servants, to assure the French insinuators
on this subject, that, for our views of the policy
which now becomes Great Britain, our own
judgment alone is responsible. Ws support
the Ministry because we hope that it agrees with
us in sentiment but no further will any man
be justified in imputing u designs of the Go-
vernment, those plans which ere join large num-
bers of oar countrymen in urging it to follow.
When we anticipated Mr. Canning by forty-
eight hours in his resolution to maintain the in-
dependence of Portugal by a military expeditioft
to Lisbon, did that able Minister enjoin us
what to say ?—or was it privatel,, that we coun-
selled Mr. Canning what to do ?—or would he
have broken any contract with this paper in re-
jecting our published importunities ? No, ti
it was the crisis itself which dictated to the late

Foreign Secretary, to us, and to every man seiio
felt for the rights of the oppressed, and for the
honour of the powerful, whet course it befitted
this great country to undertake and persevere in.
Neither Mr. Canning nor his successors have
had any controul over us, which should fiz tl:em
with the responsibility of our writings. They
are not censors : we are not automata, or muzzled
slaves. On the second division of our subject,
we have to observe, that if the French Journa-
lists do not condescend to state conscientiously
the opinions for which they pretend to blame us,
they will not long maintain an influence worth
preserving, even among those classes of their
countrymen who are satisfied—if each there be—
to read papers which must speak whet is set
down for them ; and further, that if they misre-
present our doctrines, they discolour equally the
relation which subsists between the policy of
their employers, and that of the British
sters. It is not true that we ever placed .;seeF
ligation of defending the liberty of e ,
on the tendency of freedom there to cles;l;fi;.
the Spanish Government. Our argumentid
this :—The people of Portugal, besides thein
herent right of all men in society to a G.
vernnsent of law and justice, have the convc
tional and specific right to a just and free G.-
vernment, derived to them from the solemno
of a legitimate authority, which hag formaY
bestowed it upon them. It is the right to fri:
dom in Portugal, conferred by the Prince, e
enjoyed by the people, which Englandclaimew
defend against a foreign Power. This isir,e
first and simple proposition ; but there is a st
cond not less indisputable—that no foreignee
has a right to take away from Portugal her late
ful possession of a Constitutional Governmal
on pretence, or by virtue of the fear, that thesu'i
jects of that foreign Power will desire to
equally free with the Portuguese nation. A anf'
B are two parties, who have, in the gentle phrase
of the Scotch lawyers, abstracted other peoplei
goods. A repents of his injustice, andt ellsl
whose clothes he had for some years been.isiai
" Take back your breeches—rather the worse, pet
o," ciiefse, Bs, " a pretty e*
petticoat
baps, for the wear; or, if you like it better, hen
is a new pair for you, and I wish you long te
awmeaprle thisthem "
for Oh,D,
whoseri wife's
Iri
away with, just four winters ago. What sorts''
a life shall 1 and my family
have of it, if:his 7 ! 5
tittitioll of stolen
property goes on in our neigh
bourhood ? Here, you C, deliver up ;hi
breeches, or I'll break your head ; not from any
spite at you, however, but only that if A given
back his plunder by fair means, by fair means
or foul I may be forced to give up my phindel
also." Now this, though a homely, is an accu,
rate illustration of the language avowed inch
French newspapers. We support the independ'
ence and freedom of Portugal, because theytre
the rightful possessions of our ally. The Bour-
bon journalist attacks these rights, beeause,
through sympathy, it is presumed, the Spanish
people may wish to recover their freedom from
the Government which enslaves them, and the
may Spanish Government thence be compelled
by its subjects to throw off the bondage of that
to which it is a vassal in its turn.
foreign Court
This baneful project of smothering liberty in Por_d
independence in the Crown of
and Spain,
• which, thank God, cannot
13 011 C he charged,
upon the French nation. The French 1
peop e
have no share in it ; the project
smells of the
Court alone : it is a kingly and
Priestly scheme
a Bourbon plot, for Bourbon interests,—which
must not be suffered t ) create ill blood between
the French and British n •
ations, and of which
it ought to be the endeavour of all honest men
to confine the evil consequences to its aisthers.—..
Times-

In consequoncs of the mistake of one of our
contemporaries, all Gnome idea has prev.iled

that the Court of King's tench has decided that
grouse are not game. This is n so—the de-
cision was this—in a case in which the Duke of
Devonshire was a party, it was held that grouse
.are not " birds of warren," within the meaning
of a Royal grant of free warren-1m this does
not make them less game than they were before.
By the ancient forest laws, our Kings had a
power (now happily no longer exercised) of
granting to any of their subjects, usually sonic
great Nobleman, a right of free chase, or
free warren, over a certain large tract of cOanis
try—anti where this has been granted, no
other person has the right of either hunting, or
of killing " birds or beasts of warren," in any
place over which this feudal right extends with-
out the leave of the king's grantee—and as the
King's grantee may have right of free warren
over lands of which lie is not the owner, it may
happen that a gentleman may have an estate of
ten thousand a-year, earn yet not have the right
of coursing a hare or shooting a partridge on his
own estate, without being liable to acttons for
damages, at the suit of some. grantee of the
Crows, whose right of fret warren may extend
over every acre of his neighbour's large estate.—
His Grace of Devonshire had a right of this sort,
and it becoming a question whether a person
had infringed upon it by shooting grouse, it was
held in the Court of King's Bench that he had
not, because grouse did not come within the de-
scription of birds of warren. However, persons
who kill grouse without being duly qualified in
respect of estate, &c., or without having paid the
game certificate duty, are liable to penalties pre-
cisely as they were before this decision.—Morn-
ing Herald.
The object of the journey of Count Capo
d'lstria to this country cannot be mistaken ; and
it will, therefore, we trust, be treated with all the
delicacy and caution which its nature requires.
The British Government will never permit a
Russian, in feelings and habits, and bound to
that Empire by the strongest ties of gratitude, for
past obligations conferred upon him—the British
Government we fearlessly assert, will not allow
any such man to wield, at his mere pleasure, the
destinies of Greece. If our interference were
justified--were necessary in regard to the Porte,
it is for other and for stronger reasons applicable
to Russia, who must not get an additional foot-
ing in the Archipelago. We fear little from any
efforts which she could make against our interest
in that quarter ; nor, in truth, is there any good
reason for believing that her ambition is at pre-
sent so ill-directed ; but as in most cases pre-
vention is safer than the chance of cure, our
policy must be prompt, bold, and decisive. No
half measures will answer—no wavering—no
equivocation--4o subterfuge ; and if the
Count make that appeal to the British Go-
vernment which it is but reasonable to believe
he will—the more laconic and prompt our
denial, the better. We impute not to the
Count any wild or extravagant projects of ambi-
tion ; we have attributed none to the Court from
whence he has been released in such flattering
terms ; but we doubt as to the construction
which should be put on his letter of introduc-
tion ; and that doubt must be explained away,
before we advance a portion of our honour and
our dignity on such a suspicious document. We
do not live in times when compromise seems
very efficacious ; and though often desirable,
and in fact the only means of settling conflicting
interests and opinions, this is not a case in which
it can be practised with utility. Humanity and
religion-have long pleaded- for the deliverance of
Greece, and we were atnonkst the first to urge ,
for the protection of A laud endeared to us by
the early. recollections of her fadeless glory. We
objected upon principle to the mastery of the
Turkish scimetar, and we implored that
the best blood of Greece should not be
savagely spilled by the ferocious Ottoman.
But Turkey—and it is lamentable that the
state of Europe should require it—Turkey
must not be crippled, much less destroyed.
Though the independence of Greece, if practi-
cable, would on the one hand be an event which
we should hail with delight, yet on the other,
common policy claims the admission that the
existence of Turkey is necessary to the due pre-
servation of the balance of power in Europe.
We believe the Count Capo d'lstria to be a very
clever man—his character for diplomatic intrigue
was not very long since the subject of great
praise in Paris ; and that he should quit a post
of honour and emolument, for a doubtful eleva-
tion, is not one of the strongest inducements
with us for favourably listening to his proposals.
They may be liberal, generous, and just; he
may offer guarantees that he will not abuse the
power which is likely to be vested in him ; but
we cannot disguise from ourselves, that we
should still fear the existence of a snake being
somewhere in the grass. At all events, common
prudence and common sense alike teach us the
utility of caution.—Morning- Post.

Chief Justice Best has followed up his address
to the Wiltshire Grand Jury, by a still more ela-
borate address to the Grand Jury of Somerset-
shire, his native county. In this last discourse
he has adverted to a multitude of topics, as con-
nected directly or indirectly with the alarming
increase of crime in this country. Sir William
Best is unquestionably possessed of good natural
faculties ; and' as his schooling has been rather
in the world, than in those black-letter shops in
which the developement of the mental powers
would seem to be improved by a process of which
the Chinese mode of improving female feet may
be said to be typical, he speaks with more effect
on general subjects than lawyers usually do.—
He is shrewd and plausible, and the effect of
what he says is heightened by an earnestness
which seems constitutional with him, and which
is exceedingly rare with Englishmen, whose
mode of speaking is in general indicative of the
cool indifference which belongs to their charac-
ter. We can easily, therefore, understand how
his Address to the Wiltshire Grand Jury should
have operated like enchantment on that body of
Squires, and led them to express, by acclamation
as it were, an approbation of some positions, at
which, in their sober moments, they would have
been startled. The Somersetshire Grand Jury
were, it appears, more on their guard ; and
though Sir William laboured much harder for
their approbation than he did for that of their
brethren of Wiltshire, they cautiously abstained
from following the precedent set by the latter.—
Sir William reverts to the subject of boxing, one
f the cases to be tried being manslaughter, aris-
ing Out of a fight. " I have before," he says <, had
occa.sionto make some observations upon the prac-
tice of fighting ; and I have seen, without pain,
the remark, on what was supposed to have fallen
from me onthat subject. God forbid, Gentle-
men, that T
shouldpractice be considered to have encou-
raged the horrid of prize-fighting ; but
although I consider boxing to be an evil, I look
upon it as a smaller evil, and as a less degrading
practice than
it that which prevails in those coun-
tries where is not to be found . We have

the choice of two evils ; and I now repeat it,
that the practice of boxing is a law of peace. It
encourages habit that prevent the gratification
of a Malignant spirit by the use of knives, or
other deadly instruments, which are employed
by one man to obtain an unfair advantage over
another. Instead, therefore, of tending to de-
stroy, I thinks it tends to the preserVatitVn cf
human life," There is, `l.lpeii the whole, sound
sense in this A's then will quarrel and fight, it
it befter perhaps that they should fight with
their hands, than with weapons of any kind. It
is on this ground that boxing chiefly is defen-
sible. But not content with thk negative
praise, Sir William Best rtiiiS out into 41 eulo-
gium of the practice as tending to keep alive
that truly British spirit which had enabled us
to gain so many brilliant victories, and con-
tracted it with the brutal mode c'fflgliting north of
the Trent, called tp-and-down fighting. What-
ever sttligthens the body, tends of course to
produce mental intrepidity, and therefore all
Gymnastic exercises—boxing among the rest—
may be said to promote bravery,, Bitt via siis-
pect too much importance is attributed to this
particular mode of exercising the body, as a cause
of bravery ; and any experienced officer will tell
Sir William Best, that it is not the soldiers
raised in the boxing counties, but those raised
in the t, up-and-down" counties, who constitute
the flower of the British army, both for appearance
and energy. But if boxing be so instrumental
in keeping alive the truly British spirit, which is
the cause of the victories achieved by British
armies, Sir William, in consistency, ought to
have not merely apologized for it, but recom-
mended attention to the means best calculated to
keep the practice alive. Here, however, he is
not overand above consistent. " Though far from
wishing to put down the practice, I am yet most de-
sirous to prevent the abuse of that practise. I can-
not bear the idea of an Englishman standing by
to enjoy a danger he does not endure, and set-
ting men to fight for the vilest of all purposes—
for that of gambling, in order that bets may be
made upon the result of that contest that may
terminate fatally for one of the parties engaged in
it." And lie threatens those who stand by, en-
couraging such fights, with the vengeance of the
law. But, in order that boxing may have those
rules which arc so much admired by his Lord-
ship, and in order that those rules may be im-
pressed on the public generally, it is necessary
that the fights should be numerously attended.
If boxing were to be confined to accidental
scuffles which take place between individuals who
fall out, it is morally impossible that it should
have its laws, or that they should be engravers on
the minds of the people. The notice of a fight
draws an assemblage, and prizes and bets lead
to the establishment of rules, according to
which the contest shall be conducted. There
would be no public fights but for the prizes and
the bettings, for it is impossible to suppose
that the low people, who alone box in public,
could be induced to cultivate the science, and
prepare themselves, without any indemnification
for their blows and their loss of time ; and it is
equally impossible to suppose that there should
not be the same betting on the results in the
case of boxing, which there is in every other case
where a number of men are observing any event,
the result of which is involved in uncertainty. It
is puerile, therefore, to say that he admires box-
ing, while he shrinks from the inevitable conse-
quence of its cultivation. He might as well ad-
mire the art of jockeyship, and yet condemn the
running of races for prizes, and the betting
money on a contest for speed,, which ,sometimes
terminates fatally to the poor steeds. So much
for boxing. But this is only one of many sub-
jects which Sir William discusses. He reverts
to the important subject of the increase of crime,
which he very properly ascribes chiefly to the po-
verty of the people. " Experience justifies me
(he says) in asserting that wages are the baro-
meter by which we may ascertain with consider-
able accuracy the state of crime in a county.—
Wherever wages have been high, I have found
the amount of crime comparatively small--
wherever they have been low, I have observed
with pain that the labourer has resorted to the
law of nature, and supported himself by plunder."
We noticed the other day the case ofCumberland,
where crime has been positively decreasing during
the last ten years. But Sir Wm. Best is like the
Indian Divines, who make the world rsst on an
elephant, but forget to make the elephant rest
on any thing. Wages are the barometer for
ascertaining crime, but what is the barometer for
wages ? He has, in the interval between his
address in 'Wiltshire and the present, been taught
that wages cannot be arbitrarily raised or lowered,
and he therefore expresses himself more warily
now. Low wages are the consequence of the
disproportion between the supply of labour and
the demand for it, and to talk of raising wages
by any other means than reducing the su-
perabundance of labourers, or increasing the
quantity of work, is sheer twaddle. The Gen-
try of England, by their officious intermeddling
with labour, destroyed the connection between
it and the reward which led to a redundant
population. Without the presence of that Magi-
stracy, in which Chief Justice Best sees so many
virtues, this curse could never have befallen
England ; but though a parcel of Booby 'Squires
could produce the evil, the cure is beyond their
power. Any idiot may cut through the bank
which preserves a whole country from inunda-
tion ; but to repair the evil requires the com-
bined effort of numbers and skill. They who
think that it is a light matter to stem the torrent
which is now hurrying the population of Eng-
land to destruction, are very weak indeed. But
where are the men possessed of that moral
courage which the exigency demands ? There
are men who will declaim like Sir William Best,
or who will cant in that sickening style, which is
characteristic of us as a nation, but who is there
to encounter the odium of proposing, or sup.
porting the severe measures which can alone save
the country ? We have not left ourselves space
for adverting to the other topics of the charge.
Morning Chronicle.
Among our Reports of Assize proceedings
will be found a Trial, at the County of Down
Assizes, for perjury. The proceedings are of
importance, as serving to show the impossibility
of obtaining a pure administration of justice in
Ireland, under the existing justiciary system.—
" This cause," says The Belfast Northern
Whig, « has arisen out of the fatal occurrence
which took place at Hilltown, on the sth of
November last. A number of Orangemen pa-
raded, with their usual insignia, before the Ro-
where the people of that
man Catholic Chapel,
persuasion were at worship : a quarrel ensued,
and two Roman Catholics lost their lives. . •
One man was prosecuted for the murder, Ile
was acquitted. One of the evidence against him
has been tried for perjury, and found guilty.
'We have no. doubt of Mr. Lindsay's inno-
cence ; and, though we think the unfortunate
:boy who gave testimony against him might have ,
ibeen led, in the hurry and confusion consequent

upon the affray, into an illusion, which it would
be harsh to construe into wilful perjury, yet we
are satisfied that the Jury returned a conscien-
tious verdict. It is, however, a most extraordi-
nary circumstance, that a most respectable Mer-
chant, of Newry, who ix the leading Catholic r f
that ion., and who had been Foreman of a Jury
previously impanelled, was peremptorily chal-
lenged by the Crown, and, with four or five
other Roman Catholics, obliged to retire from
the jury box. It is also a singular circumstance,
that all the witnesses for the prosecution deposed
that all the stiiiieS were thrown, and all the shots
were fired, by the Roman Catholic party. Sir
Jonah Barrington relates a story of an Irish
peasant, who cut off his own hand, while striking
at a salmoh with the end of his scythe ; but these
unfortunate Roman Catholics must have been
still more unlucky marksmen Against
the justice of the verdict returned we throw out
no insinuation. But it is remarkable, and, we
regret to say, fax from a solitary fact, that
two Roman Catholics have been murdered,
and yet no one has been brought to justice ;
while another Roman Catholic has become
liable to transportation, from a circumstance aris-
ing out of the same fatal event. We have no hesi-
tation in saying, that had the same strenuous
exertions been made to bring the murderers to
justice that have been resorted to in order to
convict this unfortunate boy, the perpetrators of
tha foul deed would not have escaped. We
have no hesitation in saying, that in Ireland
there is one law for the Protestant, and another
for the Catholic. We may be stigmatized as
being the organ of a party ; but conscious of
the purity of our motives, we shall fearlessly
speak our sentiments, and take part with the
wronged and oppressed, whatever may be their
creed." The circumstances stated by the Bel-
fitst Northern Whig speak volumes. It would
appear, that in those Counties of the North of
Ireland where the Protestants are the most nu-
merous, the Catholics are placed altogether out
of the pale of the law. We should express
ourselves more concisely, were we to say that the
law is one of the means by which the Protestants
inflict wrongs on the Catholics. The law not
only gives impunity to the Protestants—but
when the poor Catholics, goaded by their wrongs, :,
fly to the Courts for redress, their oppressors
laugh them to scorn, and coolly scan the pro-
ceedings, to strike, through some vulnerable point
in them, their hapless victims. The Catholics were
shot ; but all the shots were fired by Catholics, all
the stones were thrown by Catholics, all the blows
were struck by Catholics. So say the Protestant
witnesses, secure of the protection of Protestant
Jurors ; and this mockery of justice is suffered
month after month, and year after year. It is
truly the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb—
whatever the poor Catholic does, he is sure to be
in the wrong. The more we see of the proceed-
ings in Ireland, the more we are satisfied that
Lord Liverpool was in the right, when he at-
tributed no small share of the evils of that
country to the English law. The institutions
of the English cannot be transferred in the lump
to a country placed in different circumstances.
The institution of Juries is unsuitable in all
countries in which the population is divided into
castes, whether political or civil. It would be a
mockery of justice, for instance, to try a negro by
a Jury of white planters. Planters may sit in
judgment on planters, and negroes may sit in
judgment on negroes, but when a negro injures a
planter, or a planter a negro, the judge of the
wrong should belong to neither body. In
former times the population--of this • oouritryl
was composed of freemen and bondsmen. The
freemen were all equal in the eye of the law, and
all capable of sitting in judgment on each other
in the capacity of Jurors. The Jurors sat in
judgment only on their equals, for bondsmen were
subject to their Lords. In Ireland, in the present
day, certain privileges, attached to the profession of
the Protestant religion, seem to have the effect of
inflaming Protestants and Catholics with ani-
mosity towards each other, and literally divides
the population into two distinct castes. Every
cause of dispute between a Protestant and a
Catholic becomes a trial of strength between the
two castes ; and as the Protestants have the law
in their hands, they naturally exclude the Catho-
lics from Juries in party causes, and use the law
merely as an engine for upholding their influence
and punishing their opponents. So long as Ca-
tholics and Protestants shall be separated by laws
of exclusion and ascendancy, it is vain to hope
for any other result from appeals to Juries in the
North of Ireland, than the adding fresh insult to
former wrong. The institutions of England only
enable the ascendancy party to fill the measure
of oppression of the Catholics to the brim.
Should the two sects be made equal in the eye
of the law, the animosity could not be expected
to cease immediately with the cause of it ; but
every rear it would become more and more weak,
and many years would not elapse before it would
live only in history. The animosities between
the Catholics and Protestants of Silesia have now
become fairly extinct ; but when the present
President of the United States, Mr. Quincy
Adams, visited that country in 1800, they were
still keen.—" Silesia (he says) was originally,
under the Austrian Government, a Catholic
province ; at this time about one half of its in-
habitants still adhere to that religion ; and al-
though the steady maxims of the Prussian Govern-
ment, and still more, the revolutions of time and
opinions, have powerfully operated to introduce
a spirit of mutual forbearance, if not harmony,
there is, perhaps, no part of Europe where the
root of bitterness between the two parties is yet
so deep, and cleaves with such stubbornness to
e cand
the ground, as here. The Catholics
s
hatere n
uPnrloimtesitteadntlsibtehretyminortehfeoirr
worshiphying now u
;
and the
Pro-
testantsstillreti
ane,nvsyndt,hvehli;Chattillolipcsrustshiean Governmentpsivilege they
hes bound itself to preserve. M. Zolluer, who
published a Tour through Silesia, made in the
year 1771, and from whom I draw much of the
information I give you, says that it is commonhere for a Catholic to exhibit before a Lutheran
Judge a complaint against another Catholic for
calling him a Lutheran, and requiring satis-
faction for what he considers as the blackest
slander that could be cast upon him." As human .
nature is the same in Ireland that it is in Silesia,
it is probable that the Irish Protestants would, for
a time, be as much exasperated against the Ca-
tholics, on account of the loss of their ascend-
ancy, as the Silesian Catholics were on account
of the loss of theirs. But distinctions not sup-
ported ..
by something more solid than feelings of
this sort, soon become obliterated. In the mean-
time, while the law is the root of the division of
.tite population into two classes, an approxima-
tion
to justice can only he looked for in the ap-
pointment of Judges removed as far as possible
from sympathy with either. The benefit of some-
thing like this has already been experienced in
the Police system, to which we find great virtues
are attributed by all the Judges on the Circuits.
'The Police Magistrates were a more indifferent

and impartial description of Magistrates than
any the Irish had been accustomed to, and hence
the people have always given them the prefe-
rence. Despotic power is not the enemy that
Ireland has to dread, for it can only hope for
petzc And tranquillity thrciugh the power of the
Government coercing parties.—lbid.

In another part of our Paper will be found
the charge addressed by Chief Justice Best to
the Grand Jury, at Bridgewater, on Monday
last, when opening the Assizes at that place. It
iffers a fdvt, 'Ants to which it is not uninterest-
ing, or even uninstructive, to direct attention,
It first informs us of the unpleasing fact, that in
that part of the country, es in almost every other
district, the increase of crime has been rapid and
uninterrupted. The appronh, or rather, we be-
lieve we may venture to say, the arrival, of better
times yin, however, soon put a stop to the
growth of the evil, which once arrested in its
course, will P t length take a retrograde direction;
for public morals, to a greater degree thal: it is
' generally imagined, depend upon public pro-
sperity. The next. point which the Learned
Judge illustrated is one of less general im-
portance, but yet, in his estimation, evi-
dently one of considerable interest—it is the
ancient British practice of fighting, or, in
less elevated language, the once popular, and
now half abandoned, exercise of boxing. We
have seldom met with a more eloquent vindica-
tion of that practice, except from the Learned
Judge himself, by whom its superiority over the
continental modes of compassing revenge with a
knife or the dagger; has more than once been de-
monstrated. In this instance, however, he soared
beyond his former panegyric, and not satisfied
with showing, (whilst directing the attention of
the Grand Jury, to a case of manslaughter occa-
sioned by its indulgence) that boxing " instead
of causing the sacrifice of life, in fact, preserved
life," he undertook to prove that it was at the
bottom of all our victories, and had in some
measure affected the destinies of the world.—
For what other interpretation can be affixed
to the following passage :—" It supports and
encourages that British spirit, which has
raised 'our country so high, by a continuance
of victories, and has not only insured our
success, but the success of civilized order
throughout the world ?" lie had known, it was
true, of many indictments being preferred in the
North, where the practice of fighting prevailed,
" all of which approximated to something very
like murder ;" but yet he recommended the
Grand Jury, and, perhaps, justly too, in the
examination of the case of manslaughter which
would be laid before them, to think less of the
criminality of the individual by whom death had
been inflicted, than of those who had turned the
battle into an exhibition for amusement, or an
opportunity for making profitable bets. " If,
therefore," said the Learned Judge, " you find
that any one stood by, or betted on the occasion,
present an indictment against him as a partici-
pator and abettor of the unfortunate man, and he
shall find, that instead of encouraging such a
transaction, I shall take the most effectual means
in my power to put a stop to it." This is cer-
tainly an important direction, though a little at
variance with the possibility of maintaining the
practice itself; for, from the moment that it loses
its character as an exhibition, it must cease.—
Nero Times.