The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-06-21 00:00:00

INSPECTION OF NUNNERIES

THE Bill which has been introduced into the
House of Commons for effecting a legal inspection
of Conventual Establishments has created quite a
furor of excitement among the priests of Rome,
and no means are left unspared to provoke their
dupes into an agitation against it. In this they
are by no means careful as to the truth of their
assertions, for the wildest falsehoods are invented
in order to stimulate an opposition to the Bill,
which, without such aid, might be too lukewarm
to be worthy of attention. The people are told
-that the measure before the House authorises the
most outrageous intrusions upon the privacy of
females in private houses, and they are advised to
resist the law by throwing such intruders out of
window; and all this is uttered with such a
semblance of honest indignation, that it is difficult
for the poor deluded creatures, who constitute the
flocks of Romish priests, to believe that the whole
is an ingenious draught upon their credulity. We
can hardly, therefore, be surprised at the number
of petitions from Ireland against the Bill, although
we feel convinced that the greater portion of those
who have signed them would willingly concur in
the chief object endeavoured to be effected. The
existence of Nunneries under Romanist influence
in this country is a disgrace to the age, and
practically gives the lie to our boast of personal
liberty. If any Minister were seriously to propose
a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he would
be met by a demand for his impeachment; and
should the vilest wretch that ever crawled the earth
be restrained from his vicious courses without due
form of law, we should hear many an indignant
remonstrance and enthusiastic rhapsody about
British freedom. But in the face of all this jealous
regard for personal liberty, young and inexperienced
females, whose highly wrought imaginations have
rendered them easy victims of designing priests,
are immured in prison-houses under the name of
Nunneries, debarred from all resort or appeal to
relatives or friends, under the absurd plea of their
having voluntarily devoted themselves to Heaven ;
and yet we are told that the law is powerless to
rescue them from these charnel-houses of the living,
because it tamely succumbs to a pretended authority
for which there is no warrant, either human or
Divine. It is an axiom of English law, that for every
wrong there is a remedy, but those of Nuns were
beyond redress, and all that is proposed by the
present Bill is to appoint Inspectors under the
authority of the LORD CHANCELLOR, who, in
cases where reasonable suspicion may exist of
improper detention, may make an investigation
into the circumstances, and put the law in force in
order to obtain redress. A milder course, to be in
any way effectual, could hardly be devised ; and
yet, because it promises to expose some of those
proceedings which Romish priests are so anxious
to keep from the public eye, from a conscious-
ness of their enormity, this hubbub is raised, the
grossest misrepresentations of the measure are
circulated, and a furious outcry made about this
alleged outrage upon religious liberty. The very
falsehood of the charge is the clearest proof of its
utter want of foundation, and the only real fault to
be found with the Bill is that it does not go far
enough. It should have at once declared all such
places illegal; but in its mildness we look
for its success; and as the first reading was
carried in the House of Commons by a majority

against the votes and influence of the Ministers, we
trust that the latter %sill see the folly of standing
out further against public opinion, and allow the

many years—if popular infatuation allow them to Bill to pass through its-remaining stages.
retain their places so long—with a favourable second reading is fixed for to-morrow (Wednesday.,
House of Commons. It is a mere delusion to and the members who voted in its favour on the
anticipate any advantage from a Whig-Radical first division will not be doing their duty unless
Ministry, even with all the aid of the red-tape they attend in their places and secure its progress.
experience of their PEELITE allies. Their policy is Their opponents have not the idle plea of its being
directly opposed to the spirit and genius of the any infringement of the principle of toleration, which
English mind, which was never more forcibly some of them are so anxious to maintain, for all
reference to religious teaching
demonstrated than at the last Liverpool election, purposely omitted