The Sun. — 1867-06-24 (London, England)

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURINALS.  " THE SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE BIRMINGIIAM RlOTS.—Since we last wrote, Birmingham has been for three days under the alternate rule of mob law and military law. Two whole streets have been sacked, a Ranan Catholic ' chapel has been attacked and seriously damaged ; it was rumoured en Thursday night that an assault was contemplated on the Catholic cathedral ; the Mayor has bad a stone thrown at his head, the Riot Act has been read in three different places, a policeman lies dangerously wounded in the hospital, above a hundred persons have been arrested, and mce isax enct nhe :eel " the greatest excitement and fear prevail" throughout the the town. And what, our readers may ask, meaning of all this ? Are the Birmingham rpceearortplailiaenmlsyeonetx:eptionally riotous, or are they comiadnvignegiaoaoßlkleetfdhofarotmrtishanagiirtmeaatoidsotynmsawankhgjeounginiaets ofw a Reformya tghirtagitators tußootyirlhsl violence during was there thtialet Nhaoathinnagmoof fotrheitkairnedv.olußtiironmairnyghvr_ last centu had a RaecfohrmurnahgiatantdioiL onfglmB3o2h, ainndthite cannot excuse the conductc ofe ry pulled down Dr. Priestley's Unitarian chapel. In the present legal, responsibilitirhoof cause thhoew people,ever, thoughw o mustwe saytorhbaths aotectuherrmedordaol,esif not entirely agree with the ham of thaat notorious is. sbeenlocnegmtoßtirhmemin.g oruionuiosnag,,en:voilflitahme simply the pret( London Protestant Electoral " wall all the tsoomhies timeo Murphy—an illiterate Irishman account w knockedhose voouotaotifohni mi t, 'h' accordingaa been fo; past to roam about the country as a hired lecturer, for the purpose of insulting in the grossest and most indecent manner the religion of about a third of her Majesty's subjects. In one respect certainly all the Popery, if we may at all credit his own description of Popery, has not been knocked out of him ; for if ever there was a person on whom a double portion of the spirit of persecution rested, that person is Mr. Murphy, who exhibits his championship of " freedom of speech andfreedom of conscience" by the fierce promulgation of sentiments whose only practical: corollary would be the execution or the murder of every Papist. On Sunday last, in the course of his " passionate pilgrimage," Mr. Murphy came to .lir-mingham to deliver a five weeks' course of lectures on the Errors of Romanism. He could hardly have. chosen a town in England where such an experiment as his would be more both of an impertinence and a blunder. There is at Birmingham a considerable Roman Catholic population, living on excellent terms with the rest of the inhabitants ; it is also, as our readers may be aware, the residence of Dr. Newman, and of a Roman Catholic bishop. The Town Hall is frequently used for Catholic meetings and bazaars, and the local charities are freely supported by Catholics and Protestants in common, and by collections made in their respective churches. It was only the other day. that Dr. Manning, not unfairly, quoted Birmingham in illustration of the " silver age of controversy," when all bitterness of feeling between rival sectaries should be laid aside. Such is the place selected for his five weeks' course of antiPopery declamation by the hired agent of a proselytizing society, himself a renegade from the religion he conies to denounce, who signalised himself the other day by the publication of a pamphlet so filthily obscene that it was ordered to be seized and destroyed by the magistrates of Wolverhampton, and who opens his Protestant propaganda by the conciliatory announcement that " every Popish priest is,a murderer, a cannibal, a liar, and a pick