The Sun. — 1840-03-06 (London, England)

POLITICAL SUMMARY OP TMII  MORNING JOURNALS.  The Morning Advertiser of this day, commenting on Mr. Ewart's speech last night in the Commons, on the subject of capital punishment, remarks as follows :—" No human being has a right to take the life which God gave, and which man cannot restore. With the argument founded upon the Jewish law of eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,' we (being under a Christian dispensation) have nothing to do. Again, the first recorded crime of murder is followed by a Divine prohibition to take the life of the murderer. With regard to the prac• tical consideration of the question, viz., the expediency of capital punishments as deterring by example, the practice has been found, as Mr. Ewart ably and fully showed, by all the latest official returns, to have defeated its object, and to have totally failed."—The Morning Chronicle, speaking on the Privilege question, says:—" We deplore the blindness of the leaders on both sides of the House of Commons. They had only to continue in their firm course, and they would have silenced their enemies and called forth their friends. But when men once begin to forsake themselves, they are forsaken by all the world besides. The contempt into which the House of Commons has been brought by the pusillanimity of the leaders on both sides will eventually lead to the most frightful consequences. The men who are looking on with idiotic stare at the proceedings in the House, will soon be among the loudest to execrate the authors of the destruction of the English Constitution. All this for the want of a little firmness."—The Morning Herald thus expresses itself on the subject of Mr. Ewart's motion last night, for the Abolition of Capital Punishments :—" The discussion, and the result of the division of last night on this important question, affords the grounds of a most encouraging hope that, before any long period of time elapses, the Statute Book of England—the first country in Christian civilization of the world—will he thoroughly purified from the laws of blood."—'l he Times, in its summary of last night's Parliamentary proceedings, takes an opportunity of attacking Sir Robert Peel in the following terms :—" We almost pity the poor Privilege-mongers for the embarrassments in which their want of foresight—not to use a less Parliamentary term-has involved them. The names of Lord J. Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Howick, and Sir J. Graham, will become synonymous for that distinguished class who cannot see an inch before their noses." In another column, our Contemporary renews his attack on Sir Robert Peel as follows :—" We fear he has not the moral courage to retrace the s'ep he has taken, though few, if any, feel more strongly than he himself feels, how false that step on the privilege question was—how fatal it may be. Is a man so morally weak fit to be a leader of a great party ?" Sir Robert must feel deeply the indirect compliment paid to his sagacity and his sense of justice by this attack. Had he shown a defic envy of either in his conduct on the Privilege question, assuredly the Times would have been the first to trumpet forth his praises with all the energy and heartiness of a congenial spirit.—The Morning Post contains no leading article of any public interest.