The Sun.
London, England, 1827-05-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

A meeting was to.nvelieci at
.Hereford on Fri-
day last, for the purpose of addressing (compli-
mentary of course)` Mr. Peel and his colleagues,

on their retirement from office. -We never heard
the name of any one speaker before, and there-
fore certainly give our opinion without personal
partialities of any kind. Mr. Peel would, per-
haps, have been more pleased to receive praise
from people better known. Sir Edwin Stan-
hope is Chairman, and opens the discussions.
He is very ardent, not to say furious : lie and
the next speaker are full of quotations, and
therefore We shall give them one, as applicable
to Sir Edwin—

" Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilier aces."
He strangely bangs the political adversaries of
Mr; Pecl, and as strangely pats on the back and
chucks under the Chin friends and fellow-
seceders. But. Mr.' Peel haying, as is said, no
natural connection" :With Herefordshire, we can-
not understand why they have placed him before
the Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Welling•
ton, .as the object of their homage. To Sir
Edwin Stanhope succeeds the Rev. Arthur
Mathews, Prebendary and Prselector of the Ca-
thedral. We should have suspected the Rev.
Arthur Mathews, Prebendary and PrEelector, to
be a young man, had he not told us that he
had seen Mr. Canning by the side of Mr. Pitt
two-and-twenty years ago, when himself must,
no doubt, have reached the age of observa-
tion. Mr. Mathews, praising Mr. Peel much,
praises Mr. Canning, much more. This was not
exactly the purpose of the meeting ! We believe
there was, same time ago,—and we should suspect
he is not yet dead,—a Presbyteri.tn parson in Lon-
don who engaged to supply quotations upon any
given subject whatever, at eighteen-pence an hun-
dred, Mr. Mathews must certainly have been liith
him, for a speech so crammed' with quotations and
allusions we never yet read. He assails his subject
with weapons of this kind, more numerous and va-
ried than any with which Mr. Canning ever attacked
the Whigs in days of yore. " One sinks under the
weight of a scrites ; another is cut off by an
" epigram. This man is tossed on the horns of a
" dilemma, and that is tortured by a tale. One turns
" pale at a parable; and another is jaundiced by a
" jest. Sarcasm rankles in the heart of this man ;
" and irony enters into the soul of that.
" Quotque ernitsl mane contorsit spicule. Canning,
Tot cecidere viri !--(Great applause.)'"
After Mr. Mathews, there were but three more
sneakers so that the eloquence of the city and
county, like the old golden pippin cider, is but in few
:hands.—Timer.

A numerous meeting took place yesterday, of
those individuals who are unfortunate enough to
hold the bonds of the Spanish Government, is-
sued at a period when that Government was
termed constitutioal—indeed, when King Fer-
dinand called himself constitutional King of
z--.;pain, and was recognised •as such by all the
Powers of Europe. The purpose of the meet-
mg was to devise some means of recovering the
v:alue of the property-, out of which the bond-
holders have been manifestly swindled by King
Ferdinand ; and assuredly, in the pursuit of all
rightful and proper courses for such an object,
all the honest part of mankind must wish the,
poor sufferers success. An application, it would
appear by the resolutions, is to be made to the
Spanish :Minister in this country, setting forth
the strict and binding nature of the obligations
undertaken on the part of the Spanish Govern-
ment, and the wisdom as well as of necessity of
recognising them in the face of the world. In
fact, it is clear, that without such an acknowledg-
ment, Ferdinand and all the Spanish Bourbons
may starve before they get another shilling
from any canitaliet of the next half century. In
so far, therefore, as the bondholciee s confine
themselves to direct remonstrances or repre-
sentations to the Spanish Government, no one
can disapprove the act ; mid none can fail to
sympathize with. the authors of it.
.But if an
attempt be made to involve the British Government
in any negotiation for such an object, we must tell
the bondholders, though with deep concern for their
loss, that the King of England is not bound to
quarrel with Spain for the sake oft redressing this
particular species of grievance.
I here he, as no
doubt there are, many hundreds of persons who
Dought these Spanish securities, with confidence that
they were purchasing a solid property for themselves
and fat:lilies, we can merely say that in all such cases
caveat enifiltor ought to be the rule. The regular
pursuits of mefehandise must be protected, at every
risk, by the negotiaions of regular Governments;
and if other means fail, Lejt arms. But loans are not
among the ordinary walks of trade : and with what-
ever cordiality a British Minister ght, in an extra.
judicial and informal manner, strive to recommend
the obligation of common honesty to a neighbouring
Power, on behalf of his own countrymen, officially
we do not see in what shape or mode he could
enforce them.—lbid. •
A most important judgment was yesterday de-
livered in tha Court of King's Bench. We al-
lude to the case, .Garnett, of the Maische.der
Guardian, t:erszts Ferrand, one of the Coroners
for Lanceshire. The point at issue was, whe-
ther Coroners are entitled to exclude the public
from their proceedings, and to convert their
Courts into secret Tribunals. Lord Tenterden
"laid it broadly down, that cc the Court of a
Coroner WAS a Court of Record, of which the
Coroner was al-ridge; and it was a known geoe-
ral rule of law, that no action would lie against
A Judge of Record for any matter done by him
in the exercise of his jedieial functions ; fur on
this there were several authorities ; and the
Court adverted more particularly to that of Ham-
mond v. Howell, 2 MOderel Reports. This
freedom from liability to an action w9s not so
much for the sake of the Judge himself as for the
public, in order that the Judge might not be fet-
tered by any fear of the consequences in the in-
dependent and honest dischcrge of his duty ;
,rid it was not to be supposed that a Judge
`von la snake an ill use of the power with which
he was vested. This protection was extended
even to juottees of the Peace and other inferior
officers, who were not liable to be called upon
to answer for an error in judgment, so long as
they acted within the bounds of their jurisdic-
tion ; and this in order that the course of jus-
tice might not be impeded by any restraint upon
the free discharge of the o'fficer's public duty.
Corruption was quite another thing ; so also
neglect of duty and misconduet."—This deci-
sion lets us know more than we wished to know.
We find from it, that it depends upon the
,judges of all other Courts as well as Coroners'
wheiber they shall be open to the public' or net ;
that, le:c:idyl they are not chargeable with cor-
ruption, Red do not refuse to hear suitors (which
is what is meant by neglect or misconduct),
they may do whatever they please in their re-
spective Courts. The Coroner's is put on the
footing of the supreme Courts, and they are put
on the footing of that of the Coroner.—The
Court has thus decided the case on the broad
-.principle of the protection due to all judicial
functionaries. It will probably satisfy the Lan-
cashire Coroner, because it protects him. The
public, however, have no great cause to be sa-
tisfied. In the case
e supreme C9urts,