Mr. Spring Rice And Mr. W...
The Times, 1824-02-17T00:00:00

(Fronm a Correspondent.) 'tlle attention ot tne higtler class of societv in London, and of every ch;ss in Dublin, has been for some days powerfully excited by theprweediigs between these two gentlemen. The interest display- td on this occasion is an honourable return for MIr. Rice's public servicts; fgr otberwise, in itself, such a violation ofthelaw is unfor- ttuately mo eu.traordinary spectacle, on the part even of its makers or praceisers,'the members of Parliament or the lawyer. WVhat a bit of poaclhing sometimes seems to be lowerdown,it is the except- ed case. It is a sort of privilege, however, which one should think the humblest radical would not be disposed to envy them, although it has now and then been very imnertinentlv encroached upon, and contraQted almost a soil in vulgar hands. A few apprentices could not, perhaps, better employ their leisure heurs than in thus assisting to render ndiculous a practice upon which the strength of lawv and reason %ppears to have been exercised in vain. But m.anlkind wou'Al do stila better, if thev would take the tiouble seriously to inquire whether law and reason have directed their efrtbrts to the proper place. WVe think that they have not only tried too niusci, but thev have done what they have done wrong. The law of the land shbakes its " red right arm" aeaiest its more powerful rival, the lawv of opinion, and accordingly is foiled. Reason, or rather reasoning, undertakes the hopeful tas'k oflpersuading a human being, with the passions of a man and the feelings of a gentleman, to sit down tranquilly in dust and ashes with insult and contempt poured upon him and his, and all the means of future usefulness, which areinseparable froml the respect of others, utterly destroyed, because. fbrsooth, the only course which society chalks out for his escaue is unehilosophical and absurd. It can hardly be flattering to the law to tind itself a dead letter, or to argument to flow forth in mere waste of words. If they would but condescend to work with, rather than acainst, the feeings of mankind, thev might bring tfleir labours to a better mar- keL The law, for inttance, professes to exist only for the purpose of producing happiness; with that riew it creates rights, and pro- tects them from injury, providing relress as satisfaction for the party wronged, and preventie punishments for the security of society. Notwithstanding the temptations to personal revenge, and its keen pleasures, the law, as far as it has chosen to follow up its provisions, has been gradually and conclusively successful. This is the progress of civilization, and the very history of criminal law. No one can say the experiment has not had ample trial on tie very noint in question. tVhere the laws stops, nature comes forward. The dear. est rights of relationship, and of character, receive either no protec- tion. or one so inadequate to their value, and so imperfect as a pre- vention, that a man feels remitted to his natural rights-he takes the l:w into his owtr hands, or rather becomes a law unto himself, and renounces his allegiance to society ijust to the extent in which societv falls short of the perfornance of its part of the ecneral conditions on which alone he sub- msitted to its control. There is no right without a remedY: and in the case wshere the law avowedly w;l not find one, he m,ust make one for himself. t1 ow far society eaters into this neces- Sity. and goes along with the feeling of the individual, or indeed leads it, is but too wel'l known in the brand -which it burns into the forebead and the reputation of a man wlho, in these excepted cases, will not prcare for himself that redress which the law, as at present constituted, withholds. This sympathy in the world with what it considers the natural resentment for this class of outrages, is car- ried undoubtedly too far, and trespasses upon some istances to which the principle does not fully apply but as the public legal in- terference acquired unifornmity and strength, these sentiments would be in time adjusteel. Meantime, w bat are the consequences of the present system ? Besides al its inconsistencies so rug,elcried. th&t a man ofhonouris left to the mercy of any ruffian whose coat comes from Bond-street, though his character from St. Giles's-that if a maan will but insult me to-day, he thereby acquiresm right over me for a chaance of assassinating me to-morrow-that a-Christian is to brave his Mlaker, a dinzen to sanctify a breach of the law by. his ex- a.mple, a husband and a father to makelhis house a desolation, and a patriot to forego his just hopes of raising up his country by his labours, and of leaving a name endeared to her as the noblsst inbe_ ritance for his children. Besides the wickedness of abandoning the virtuous and high-mioded part of the community under this alterna- tive, or else throwing them out aprey to indignities which a Quaker's blood would stir at, agentleman celled upon to oflrer himself a sacri- fice on these occasions, has the misery of feelin-, that on the most prosperous issue, he s onlv doing very imaperfectl v and indiscreetly for society wbat it oxzlit to 4, and could do, by the law, at once and fully for all its meibers; whilst, on the other hand, an unfortunate catastrophe may furnishl a most dlangerous chapter; oif encouragemnent in a bully'5 triumph. Public opinion, in th9e present instance, em-. phatically pronounced at Dublin, has s,t least done something towards lubt ideas on these questions. It extorted the retnietation, and put down what would have been a fatal cxample of the hard conditions without the doors of Pariamlent, as well as wtithin, on which a pri-. vate Irish gentleman is to venture On the pablic servace.. Swift has been called Irelaud's fitst patriot; in such an event, 2Mr. Rice might have beea her last. ___ MR. SPI'INrG RICE AND MR. WFALLEIR O'GRADY.