The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-06-27 00:00:00

ROMAN CATHOLIC RESTRICTIONS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SIR,—I would submit through your paper to the public,
in justification of those who advocated the retention of
what are called the penal statutes against the Roman
Catholics, that their advocacy of those wise enactments
provided by our forefathers, has been amply justified
during the past week, in which Las been exhibited the
total disregard that a papist has for an oath, upon the
sanctity and-observance of which the administration of all
justice depends in this country.
In the recent state trials in Ireland the papist jurymen
would not consent to be bound by the oath they had
taken, to find a verdict according to the evidence.
The only remedy is to prevent papists sitting on a jury,
as they cannot be trusted ; but to do this is to re-enact the
penal codes as they are called. Our reply is, stern neces-
sity demands it, and that crime produces penalties and
restrictions, and hence, originally, the Roman Catholics
brought the prohibition on themselves (repealed only a
few years since by Parliament) by their own wanton mis-
demeanours. .

Our forefathers could not govern the country without
excluding the papists from political power, nor can we.
By admitting them we break up our political system, it
will not work when in their hands.—Yours, obediently,
May 24. JUSTITIA.

SUBLIME SENTIMENTS" AND DULL FACTS.

"Let them give to Ireland her own parliament—not the par-
liament of 1782—that was a meteor light which flashed across
the land—it was a deceptive vapour which quickly vanished.
Ireland wanted a fixed star, bright and resplendent—the cor-
dial influence and reflecting radiance of which might be seen
and felt in the glorious union of happiness, liberty and peace !"
" A strong man, because he is a strong man, insults his
brother man because his brother man is weak. The slave
struggles to be free, and the enslaver kills him because he
struggles. That was British legislation in Ireland."
" I call upon the jury in conclusion, as they value their oaths,
and as they value justice and public good, manly bearing and
personal honour, and as they love the country of their brethren,
to find a verdict of acquittal."
We have culled (says the Guardian) the above choice
sublimities from the neroration of Mr. Holme's recent
speech in defence of Mitchell.
Mr. Justice Moore, immediately after this delivery,
summed up as follows :
" What the jury had to do was to consider two questions.
Firstly, did the prisoners realty publish the documents referred
to? Secondly, what did those documents mean ?"
Cruel Judge Moore ! or rather, cruel effect of reason
and common sense ! Mr. Holmes was among the fixed
stars. " Pray, gentlemen," the Judge quietly observes,
" can you satisfy yourselves and me about these two poor
facts, publication and construction ?" Wonderfully prosy
indeed ! Yet, somehow, most astonishingly effective. It
reminds us of the collapse of a balloon, on an unfortunate
contact with something hard and solid.

It is not perhaps stprising same phenomenon
should be found to p vade all modern revolutionary prac-
tice. _

When the American Embassy at Paris had the first in-
terview with the Provisional Government, it did not at
first transpire what had passed ; but it was only given out
in general " that sublime sentiments had been inter-
changed." There was no further inquiry. The people of
Paris lived on this for a week.
Again—When the colonel of the 59th regiment of the
line was waited upon by the mob (a day or two after the
for
rgltohreioaurs "
msdoafyhsiosfrelagsit February,
ment,hesa)idvnati a
ti
once
edtehst requestttehset
59th was no more; he commanded now the Ist regiment
of the Republic." This sentiment was of course magnifi-
cently sublime ; and it was accepted at once by the mob
in the stead of the muskets and bayonets.
We al 1 remember the sublime sentiments by which La-
martine saved the tricolour and the Gallic cock ; not very
much more than sentiments themselves. The " senti-
ment " that saved them was, " that the tricolour had
been round the world, and the red flag only round the
mud of the Champ de Mars."
Again—When General Courtais walked into the Na-
tional Assembly on its first sitting, and " in the name of
the people " demanded the proclamation of the Republic,
the agitation produced by so sublime a sentiment was so
intense that nobody in the hall could tell whether he stood
on his head or his feet.

But we should never end if we went on to quote all the
sublimities of the present row in France. The whole af-
fair is one vast sublimity,—a series of exciting and agitat-
ing sentiments, from first to last.
But the alembic is coming : perhaps come. Sentiment,
however sublime, cannot serve for bread and cheese, even
for a Frenchman ; and when pay-day comes in earnest,
and come it shortly must, we shall then see these sublime
sentiments also put, in their turn, upon their trial, by
most prosy and inexorable facts, even as Mr. Holme's
sublimities were by Judge Moore's dull questions.
" Fine words," it is said, " butter no parsnips." We
should be glad to see produced in the bottom of a tum-
bler or on the point of a needle the real tangible entity,
the THING, which might be scraped, or squeezed, or
pulled together (for example) out of all the sentimental
glories which France has enjoyed for the last three months ;
or which, to take another instance, might be derived from
the famous and transcendent fact that Ireland is " the first
flower of the earth, the first gem of the sea." Yet this
sentiment and that glory will set a whole city raving at
three minutes' notice, or without. If it should be found
impossible to satisfy our curiosity on this point, we should
be glad to be favoured with a good definition of the word
HUMBUG.

BOROUGHS.—To entitle a person to become a borough
elector, on or before the 20th of next month (July), he
must pay all the poor-rates and assessed taxes due from him
during the twelve calendar months next, before the 6th of
April last. Should the collector NOT have called for
these taxes, they must be paid, or you will be DISFRAN-
CHISED. Those electors who have changed their pre-
mises since the 31st of July, 1847, must furnish the over-
seers with thelparticulars of the premises occupied between
the 31st of July, 1847, and 31st of July, 1848. This infor-
mation is necessary to enable the overseers to make the
lists correct, and prevent objections, if taken, being Rib!
stantiated.