Star.
London, England, 1830-11-11 00:00:00

SPIRT'!' OF THE JOUIINALS.

TrxEs.--We hope to see a reform in Parliament, and will do every
thing in our power to promote it, on sound, temperate, and rational
principles : but we will not, therefore, consent to have the absurd trash
of Carlisle, and Cobbett, and Hunt, palmed upon the country ; and the
practical reformers in this case are congenial with the theoretic ones.
Pickpockets and prostitutes, by whom the streets have been somewhat
disturbed, arc proper executors of the political systems recommended in
the speeches and writings of the persons above named ; but no indus-
trious and honest—no intelligent and virtuous—man is the associate in
practice, or the ally in principle, {of either one or the other. The mis.
creants who have been hallooing down the police lately, and hallooing
up reform here in the streets of London, are no more to be compared to
the heroes who expelled that wretched creature Charles X. and his family
from France, than darkness to light. Neither are our grievances what.
ever may be their magnitude, at all equal to that total overthrow of law
and the constitution which was attempted by the Bourbons.

HECILD.—It is evidently the object of the sycophants of govern.
meat to direct the whole force of the public indignation against the Lord
Mayor, with the view of relieving Ministers from the odious responsi-
bility of having foolishly advised the Sovereign to act in a manner that
occasioned the most grievous disappointment to the city, and spread the
alarm of apprehended insurrection throughout the whole empire. Now,
though it must be admitted, that it was an unwise and indiscreet thing
of the Lord Mayor to address the letter which be did to the Duke of
Wellington, it is not possible he could have anticipated that the letter
in question would have been made a pretext for interdicting the Royal
visit which was to have given so much lustre to the day of his own in.
auguration and to have consummated the wishes of civic ambition. It
is clear iat, instead of having any interest in preventing the pto-
cession from taking place, he had, of all the citizens of London,
the greatest interest in promoting it. To some the splendid pa-
geant would have been a source of profit—to others of pleasure—
to him of distinguished honour—an honour to be commemorat-
ed in the annals of the City, and remembered in his family.—
as combining his own exaltation to the Chief Magistracy of the me-
tropolis with the higher gratification to a loyal mind of receiving his
Sovereign and his Royal Consort, attended by all the magnificence of
their Court, as guests at the festive board over which ha presided.—
Thus, by the unexpected determination of the confidential advisers of
his Majesty, he sustained a severer loss, and a more bitter disappoint-
ment, than any other person. He most, therefore, stand acquitted of
any snakes animus, or evil intention in taking the step which he M—
in writing the unfortunate letter on which Ministers laid so much stress
In endeavouring to account for their unparalleled folly. To covet their
retreat they have thrown the onus of their misconduct on the Lord
Mayor; but, although he was betrayed into an act of indiscretion, and I
is not, therefore, blameless, yet to them—the confidential advisers of '
the King—belongs the culpability of having converted an act of ex-
treme zeal for the personal safety of the I)ukc of Wellington, into a
pretext for a measure of great and unexampled political folly and
mischief.

Timm—We would call the attention of parliament to Mr. Burrell's
Special Jury Bill fur the county of which he is member, Sussex.
The principle of the bill is to summon special juries (the two assize
towns being Lewes and Horsham) always from the vicinity of that
town where the assizes are in turn held, for their ease and convenience.
Now, in the first place, why are special juries, who are paid for
their atteadasee, to have this ease and convenience, whilst common
jnries, who are forced to attend under: a severe penalty, and have
no remuneration fur their services, are to be left subject to all their
old difficulties and inconveniencies ? A proposition more unjust we
never heard of,—a proposition more revolting to honest English feeling
was never made in the House of Commons. But it is said the
indulgence may be extended to common juries : then, we add,
farewell to an impartial trial in all cases where public feeling
or strong local interests exist 1 Why are the plaintiff and
defendant to be circumscribed in their choice of a jury, and in
their challenges, to half the county ? Why is the Court to be driven to
the necessity of trying at least one half of the causes which come before
it by a jury chosen from the vicinity of the place where the cause for
action, and the person complained of, are situated ? Why, but because
it is meant that the poorer man, the person of least influence, should not
have a fair trial. Some of the causes for action, indeed, may spring up
in the part of the country most remote from that out of which the jury
is taken at that assize ; but in half the instances, upon the average, the
cause and the jury must come from the same quarter ; and it has always
hitherto been the policy of Courts, in cases where strong personal in-
terests or passions are involved, to strike juries coming from quarters
remote from that where the subject of contest has arisen. We have only
to say, that if this bill pass, there is an end of pure justice in the county
of Sussex ; and Mr. Peel's bill is frittered away in one of its most es-
sential parts.

Cirtioxict.z.—With respect to what the Duke of Wellington has
done for the poor' we feel no disposition to undervalue it. The Beer
Bill was a great boon certainly • the most important, perhaps, in its
consequences, of any measure of Government for many years. We
give him all due praise for it. But gratitude for this measure ought
not to make men indifferent to such an insulting declaration as that of
Tuesday night. The mob who hissed him were like other mobs—they
knew not of themselves why they hissed him. But it was because they
heard those, whom they believed to be competent judges, incensed
against his Grace. that they struck in with the usual ucompani-
ment--the rabble shout and the rabble hiss, in accordance with the
lead of their superiors; they are hardly free agents in such a case. The
question is not what they did, but whether the unpopularity which led
to these demonstrations on the part of the rabble is deserved. We think
it is. We rejoice to see even the Conqueror of Waterloo humbled, when
he presumes to insult the people of this country by a declaration so re-
volting to common sense as that against Reform. It is well that he
should he taught, and that others should be taught through him, that
the people of England, though they have long suffered with patience
the evils brought on them by a Parliament between which and them-
selves there is not a community of interest' are not yet so degraded as
to hug their chains, and know how to teach illinisters who forget what
they owe to them, that they are not to be insulted with impunity.