The Principality

PEEL PLANS AND RUSSELL REMEDIES. (From the Standard of Freedom.) Sir Robert has executed a master-stroke. The Whigs we have always regarded as Sir Robert's warming-pans—capa- ble of just occupying his place while he rests himself, when he comes back to office, and snatches the laurel which has been hanging at their very noses, but which they had neither the wit to perceive nor the strength to gather. The Whi«*s and Sir Robert remind us of the two sons in the para- ble—one of whom said to his father, I go, sir," and went not, ai-id the other of whom said, I will not go," and yet did go. The Whigs, and Lord John especially, when out of office were fairly bursting with wonders that they were to do for Ireland. They had plans of all sizes-and some of them immense—for regeneratiug Ireland, if they could but get into office and have a chance of trying them. It was given them-and where are their plans for improvement ? They have been loudly called on for them, but have sat in impotent and pitiable silence. The proof has shown that it was only a political hoax-a mere cry for office. Here are the Whigs, whose only faculty appears that of sticking to their places as if glued to them, and comfortably eating their porridge-and what have they done for Ireland? They have sent her nearly 50,000 soldiers and police, and ten mil- lions of our good money. But that does not cure the evil; and, therefore, they send more money, and are going, they say, to sand still more. But the patience of Englishmen be- i;i,, alriiost, exhausted, they now turn the screw oil Ireland, and prepare to equalise things there by reducing the north to the poverty of the south. And if they should accomplish their only measure—their famous llate-in-Aid, which, whether W3 judge of the temper of Ulster, or the report ol the committee or the Lords, they are not likely to do—what then ? They have not in the slightest degree touched on the malady of Ireland. When they have drained both us and Ulster to the last shilling, the cause of all Ireland's needs and neediness is there still, untouched, undiminished, strong, towering, and victorious as ever. The causes of Irish pauperism, on their system, will be vigorous and unvanquished when they have spent the last farthing of both England and Ireland. These they neither cope with nor attempt to come within arm's length of. So up starts the stalwart Sir Robert, and while the°whole United Kingdom is growing desperate at the in- tellectual paralysis of these blusterers in opposition, but hopeless subjects in office, lays his finger on the grievance, and says, There it is, and here is your remedy! That it is the remedy the loud applausive echo from both England and Ireland attests. Let Sir Robert stick to his point, and the Whig m ist give place to the better man. Irish pauperism is coming to a crisis. It has cost us, in two years, £ 10,000,000. That has done something—it has kept alive some millions of Irish paupers to want £ 10,000,000 more. Besides the British Association has thrown into Ire- land X600,000, and that is all gone. The X50,000 voted the other day is gone, and Lord John talks of another sum of ;Cioo,ooo immediately. Meantime the pauperism of Ireland is pouring over like the lava of a very volcano of misery into this country. Glasgow, last year, paid upwards of X46,000 for the support of Irish paupers brought in steamers, and turned out on the Scottish strand. Manchester paid £ 23,000 for the maintenance of a similar horde of Irish pauper immigrants. But tlioq-li these are pretty good reminders that it is high time to take care of ourselves, what is this to the fury of destitution in Ireland, as laid open by Sir Robert in his speech last week? One-fourth of the whole population of Down, the best circumstanced county in this respect, living in mud cabins of one room, and in the worst districts, two- thirds of the whole. Of the estates of large proprietors, 874, with a rental of L748,000, all in the hands of the Court of Chancery, with receivers appointed to receive the proceeds, and yet the arrears of £ 380,000 are daily increasing. In twenty-one unions E468,000 spent in 1848, and an outstand- ing debt, or deficiency, of £ 590,000! In one union, of 61,000 population, 46,030 receiving relief! In Clifden union, with lands of a net annual value of X19,986, farms of the annual value off 11,121 thrown up! Now this is the state over which our miserable Ministry are sitting as moonstruck. Who is most to blame for this? The imbeciles, or the public which tolerates them in a post which demands the 'best, the wisest, the most energetic of men ? Z) There can be no longer any lingering in such extraordinary circumstances.1 Here you have their imbecility, or callous insensibility to the most unexampled misery and the most rapidly-spreading ruin in the world. There you have the and the remedy. Sir Robert proposes to deal with this property which is so encumbered that it is already gone out • of the hands of the nominal owners to sell it, and thus throw it into active, able, and improving hands. He would have an energetic body at work iu Ireland encouraging- the fish- eries, drainage, local improvements, opening new roads, building new piers, and at .the "same time promoting emi- gration judiciously, and with proper regard to the health and! comfort of the emigrants; the horrors which now ac- company Irish emigration being fitly described by him as worse than any negro middle passage ones on record. This speech and proposition of Sir Robert's are and will remain ainong-st the most striking events of the session. If they are not seconded by the public, and acted upon, it will -reflect disgrace on the country and the age.

(From Jerrold's Weekly News) Sir Robert Peel is in earnest. It is evident that he has .profoundly reflected on his plan, and, as it appears to he warmly supported in Ireland, we may presume that it will be pressed on the consideration of Parliament. Let our readers not forget that the Irish unions already owe the Imperial treasury f,1,700,000 for the construction of work- houses alone, and that our advances and grants to Ireland, since November, 1845, amount to the enormous sum of £ 12,000,000; and they must feel that, if this system con- tinues, the wealth of Great Britain must be gradually ab- sorbed in the deep abyss of Irish destitution. Let it also be remembered that the enormous sums already expended have produced no sensible relief. Lord John Russell asks for a further sum of;CIO-),ODO, to be secured, as he stupidly or jocularly says, on the poor-rates of. Ireland. The truth is, that repayment is out of the question—not a farthing in the pound will ever be realised. PrQprietors, tenants, cot- tiers—all are bankrupt. There are no funds to employ labour; far from there being reproduction, production itself is arrested; willing industry is driven into compulsory idle- ness, and that idleness necessarily manifests itself in the form of pauperism. To persist in a course of legislation or government that has produced such results, is downright fatuity. There is no statesmanship in clinging obstinately to ruinous precedents; and if Ministers have not the saga- city to discover the true path, nor the moral courage to pursue it when pointed out, they should resign a position to which they are incompetent. Lord John Russell is scared by any interference with the rights of property; but is it not an interference with the rights of property when the indus- trious classes of Great Britain are heavily mulcted that Irish landowners may receive rents, and insurance offices be secured in the interest of their mortgages ? With little more than a solitary exception, the whole press of Ireland bus pronounced" in favour of the compre- hensive project broached by the ex-Prernier, for the regene- ration of Ireland. Whig, Tory, and Repealer are, for once, agreed, at least as to the principle of the measure. It is," says a. journal, the organ of the northern Presbyterians, 0 y nothing less than a revolution on a small scale—the aboli- tion.of feudalism and serfdom—to make way for the health- ful action of intelligence, industry, and capital." The Re- peal papers arc still more enthusiastic in their encomiums.

A YOUSG WOXAV, daughter of a gardener, in Bolierbuoy, Ireland, died, apparently of cholera, on. Thursday week at three o'clock in the morning. Her family went to provide a cofiin for the burial, as the r,?gul--itidii is to inter such cases before treaty- four hours At six o'clock the poor girl was.■ ob- served to breathe, and move, and at nine she was able to take nourishment, and is this day out of bed THE POLLS.Tlie Palermitan troops are commanded by Mieroslavvski; the Sardinians by Chzarnowsky the Hunga- rians by Bern, Dembinsky, and half a score more; and, if re- port be true, a Polish legion, amounting to 2,000 men, has been raised ill Tuscany.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. A recent execution at Worcester has directed the attention of the good people of that city to this question. A clergy- man, the Rev. Mr. Havergal, has preached a sermon, justi- fying the present state of the law. The Rev. Dr. Redford has delivered an ably argumentative sermon on the general question, earnestly contending for a mitigation of the laws in this respect. A public meeting was held at the Guildhall, and was very numerously and respectably attended. As we wish to interest our readers in this question, we give Mr. Gilpin's speech entire from the Worcester Ilerald Charles Gilpin, Esq., said, he hoped he should not trench on the caution which had been given by the gentleman behind him, but if he spoke he must speak from the heart. To him it was not an unimportant thing whether the gibbet was abo- lished to-day or fifty years hence, and he thought the question was settled with the people of England while certain parties were discussing abstruse questions and disputed texts of Scrip- ture, public opinion had already doomed the gibbet to destruc- tion. He had to ask for the indulgence of the meeting, seeing that he had two speeches to make, one for himself and another for an absent friend, the Rev. H. Christmas, whose pamphlet had been attacked in the pulpit by the Rev. Mr. Havergal, the rector of St. Nicholas, in this city. He had been requested by Mr. Christmas to read a letter from him in reply. The speaker accordingly read a long but somewhat telling letter from Mr. Christinas in support of his pamphlet, and in opposition to Mr. Havergal's strictures upon it.. Mr. Gilpin then said that he could very well afford to leave the matters in dispute between Mr. Havergal and Mr. Christmas to be settled by them. He would not ground his arguments upon doubtful texts of Scrip- ture, but upon the general scope and tenor of the Bible. He appealed from Ararat to Calvary, from Moses to Jesus, from Sinai to the Mount of Olives, and he defied his opponents to adduce anything said or done by Jesus Christ that would justify capital punishments. One statement, however, of Mr. Haver- gal's he must allude to. He had said that the clergy of the Church of England and eminent men generally were almost unanimous in favour of capital punishments. Now, Mr. Christ- mas had lent him a bundle of 200 letters from clergymen of the Church of England (Mr. Gilpin read extracts from one or two) all approving of the sentiments contained in his pamphlet. What became then of the unanimity amongst the clergymen of the Church of England upon this subject ? And he would give them other authorities on this subject. He did not generally do so—he did not wish men to pin their faith upon authorities —he thought that the humble honest-hearted seeker after truth was as likely to get at the true meaning of his Bible as any cloaked or cassocked minister. But as Mr. Havergal had talked about the unanimity among eminent men upon this subject, he would give their authorities. Sir Thomas More, Sir William Jones, Dr. Johnson, Blackstone, Itomilly, Dr. Chellingworth (the brightest ornament of England's Church), Bishop Hall (another Church of England bishop), Dr. Ford, for 40 years chaplain of Newgate, Archbishop Whateley (whom he cited on the information of his friend Mr. Christmas), the Bishop of Norwich, and the Bishop of St. David's, were all opposed to capital punishments. There was not even unanimity amongst the bishops. But not to confine themselves wholly to the Church, the martyr, John Bradford the Rev. James Sherman, minister of the largest congregation in London; the Rev. John Burnet, of Camberwell, a man probably known to many of them, together with a great majority of Dissenting ministers generally, the philanthropists H.oWai'd, Clarkson, and Fry, were all opposed to capital punishments. And amongst poli- tical men, all the leading men of the movement party, Cobden z, and Bright, Sergeant Talfourd, Mr. Thompson, Lord Nugent, and Sir Fitzroy Kelly, with 100 other members of the House of Commons, were in favour of the abolition of capital punish- ments. What had become of Mr. Havergal's boasted unani- mity ? Mr. Gilpin then remarked upon the text in Genesis, of which so much had been made, Whoso sheddeth man's blood," &c. Able interpreters had differed as to its meaning —he thought it was a prophecy-but take it literally and as it stood. Were those who grounded their arguments upon it pre- pared to carry it out ? Then whoever drew blood was to be put to death, and what became of the hired battalions trained for slaughter ? What became of the manslayer and the accidental homicide ? What became of the hangman ? .\Yhat right had the Queen to reprieve any criminal to whom the judge said, Die," if there was an imperative command from the King of Kings to put every murderer to death ? The people of Eng- land were far before their rulers in this matter. He had gone with thousands of petitions on the subject to the House of Commons till he was. sick in spirit, and now he-turned from the representatives to the people, and he everywhere met with a (-, w 11 hearty response from them. The age was fast advancing in the spirit of humanity and mercy. Lord Eldon had said, on a dis- cussion on the question of whether they should abolish death for forgery, that this morbid humanity, if not checked, would undermine the very foundations of society; and another noble lord said that if they abolished death for burglary, they should all be murdered in their beds but capital punishment for these things had been abolished, and yet the consequences foretold had not resulted. The influence of public executions on the mind must be most evil. If lie wished to impress a reverence of human life on a poor boy in one of the Ragged Schools, the last place he would take him to was the scaffold, but he would take him there if he wished to stimulate every evil passion which existed in the human heart. The man who died penitent on the scaffold was hissed and hooted as a coward, while he who died defying all the terrors of this world and the next, died amidst the cheers of his companions. A Dissenting minister, the Rev. W. Roberts, of Bristol, who had visited 167 criminals under sentence of death, found that 161 out of them had witnessed previous executions. Mr. Gilpin proceeded, here to give a graphic description of the scene before Newgate on a hanging Monday; pictured a boy as mixing in it and gloating over the spectacle of the execution, and asked whether it could be matter of astonishment that the pickpocket of to-day became, under the influence of such a scene, the har- dened ruffian of to-morrow. He next objected to capital punishments because they were irremissible and human judg- ment was so fallible. He recited two or three affecting cases in which parties who had been executed had been proved sub- sequently to be innocent. Men should not assume the attributes of Omnipotence till they were partakers of His omniscience also. The feeling of the people of England towards the gibbet might be fairly judged of by the feeling towards the executioner; and Mr. G. related an amusing scene which had taken place not long ago between Calcraft and oneof the sheriffs, when the former brought the latter the rope, and said he must hang the next culprit himself, because he (Calcraft) had been deprived of some of his usual fees. If the law was a righteous one, the ex- ecutioner of it ought to be respected. A petition was lately sent from Rochdale, numerously signed, to this effect—" Whereas, clergymen have been found in this; iieighbourliood the warmest advocates of capital punishments, your petitioners pray that your hon. House would pass a law compelling clergymen to be the executioners" (great cheering); and certainly, if capital punishments were a religious duty, who more proper to execute them than th3 ministers of religion ? Mr. Gilpin then made a di- gression to defend his friend, ElihuBurritt, against the strictures and remarks of Mr. Havergal, and then concluded as follows :— I demand the abolition of capital punishments in the sacred name of justice as well as mercy. I demand it in the name of our common Christianity, disgraced and degraded as it is by the crimes committed in its name. I demand it for the security of society, endangered by the frequent verdicts of acquittal in cases of unquestionable murder, given by juries who have per- jured themselves rather than be the means of inflicting the ex- treme sentence of the law. I demand it for the sake of the poor criminals themselves, who, however degraded, are our brothers and our sisters still, and respecting whom it is our duty as well as our privilege toredaim them rdtherthandestroy them. I demand it in the name and for the honour of that God, who proclaims himself as the God of love, and whose first attribute is mercy. The days of the gibbet are iiurnbered it is already tottering to its fall. I am here to-night to say that I have great hopes in the spirit of progress. It appears to me that that spirit has .drunk deep, of late years, of the streams of civilisation, huma- nity, and Christianity. I regret, as much as one can possibly do, some of the manifestations of that spirit which we have seen; but when I beheld, at a time when the whole French kingdom was convulsed, Lmbrtine and his colleagues uttering such a glorious truth as this—4 Whereas the life of man IS a sacred thins, henceforth the punishment of death shall not be inflicted for any political offences'—when I see the first act of the people of Rome, after they have rolled the Pope's tiara from the eternal city to little Gaeta, is to throw open the dungeons of the Inquisition and abolish that sacred office for ever —when I see these things I think I have reason to rejoipe that the spirit of this age is deeply imbued with the spirit of mercy and Christianity.. It 'will not be long before this spirit demands that the gibbet shall be swept away as a cursed and abhorred thing, and though at its fall some solitary voice (Heaven grant it may not be from the pulpit !) may mourn its overthrow, I am sure it will be welcomed by the rejoicing shouts of thousands upon earth, and these will be joined by the harpings of angel choirs -the burden of their mutual song being that ancient, yet ever new and glorious announcement—' Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth' (continued cheering). i

THE amount of window duty assesse 1 during the year 1817 --is was £1,880,;325; the amount received, £ 1,811,742 ;"the number of houses charged to 485,143, and the number of sureharcus made to 2,166. & NORTH HANTS ELECTION.—The following is the final do,t;e of the poll, on Wednesday, at the North Hants Election • Portal ] 190 Shaw S6S — 331 CHURCH-HATE SEIZURES.—Distress warrants have been issued by the Southampton magistrates, against a great number of persons in the Earl of Guildford's parish, for church-rates The churchwarden has applied to the earl to repair the church him self, and render the enforcement of the distress warrants un- necessary; but the rev. earl is inexorable, and has ordered the churchwarden to enforce the law. He declares that, if the latter falters in the least, he will call on the archdeacon to mo- secute him. [The apostolic peer receives only £ 2 300 cv £2,400 a-year from the parish for doing nothing !] CrLUWE oi' IELONY AGAINST A CLERGYMAN.—The Rev J G. Ilouasiield has been apprehended in London on a charge of having stolen some silver spoons and other property from the furnished lodgings wheie he resided. The only evident against him was the absence of the property from 'the house A second charge was then hrought against him of obtaining C210 upon the mortgage deeds of £ 300 money atlvancedc some property near Wirewood-common, Yorkshire veil knowing that his interest in them had long been disposed of'fot the benefit of his ci editors, during his incarceration in Yo-k Castle. He was in prison for eight years, rather than pay the sums claimed by his creditors. The prisoner, who exhibited < his appointment as chaplain to the Ead of Airlie, and said hit had an advowson to alivmg worth C500 per annum, indignantly denied the charges.—Remanded. ° IGNORANCE AT ROME.—The correspondent of the Daily Keu* says of Rome: By the wise management of the old re-rime there is here « ff'-oatof vi_. alphabet than in any given country of Europe (Naples excepted)." THE CHURCH IN WALES.—A correspondent in the Guardian of last week says of our beautiful establishment, out of four bishops, four deans, nine archdeacons, a vast hierarchy," cue dean and three archdeacons only are capable of making them- selves understood! Then, as for incumbents, rectors, and pre- centors who are either absentees or not capable of making them- selves understood, they are without number, and as Macaulay says—eating up the spoils of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the people." THE 1 RIAL OF RUSH.—From the importance attached to t1l. evidence of William Frederick Howe, a witness on the part of the prosecution on Rush's trial, a great n-ia iy inquiries were made yesterday and to-day respecting that pe.son, in the neigh- bourhood of Marlborough-street, Greenwich. In that street there are six or seven number ones, and three persons of the name of Howe, and great confusion and trouble have arisen in consequence. One of the Mr. Howes, a baker, inhabitingon of the number ones, knows nothing of William Frederick Howe and does not believe that any such person resided during the last ten years in the street; and then Mr. Howe, a shoemaker, the occupier of another No. 1, is equally ignorant of the exist- ence and the residence of William Frederick Howe; and a third Mr, Howe, a person who has retired from business, bus never seen nor heard of the Mr. Howe inquired after. In one of the number ones, however, a Miss Smith resides, who keens lodgers, who knows Mr. Ilowe, and sayi that he is in the country on business; that hehas gone down to Norwich to attcnl to some private affairs, and that he will not be at home for some time. Miss Smith is an elderly woman, and evinces consider- able anxiety when inquiries are made after Mr. Howe. The neighbours, one and all, say that she only takes in female lodgeis, and that she never has a male lo Iger, and all of them acknowledge their ignorance of Mr. William Frederick Howe and pretty freely express their scepticism as to the existence of such an individual as an inhabitant of any of the number ones of Marlborough-street, Green wich.Globe. THE Standard of Freedom in an article on the past pnrlia- mentaiy session saN-- The grand moral of the session, there- fure-that which stands out prominently above all its business: and its pretensions is tliis-tlizit the pojmlar pressure h:'s effected a check to the progress oj taxation, and nothing more THE LAND SCHEME.—The Worcester ITeraldgives a lamentable account of the condition of Feargus O'Connor's allottees on the Lowband's Estate, in Redmarley, Worcestershire. Six families have left, and the rest are in a state approaching to destitution. The settlement" was made in August, 1848 LOOK UNDER THE BED BEFORE YOU GET IN.—On Sunday evening last, soon after eleven o'clock, the inhabitants of Lower Knowle and Totterdown were much alarmed at the cry of murder and the springing of a ratt'e. It appeared that as the servant of Captain Strange way, who resides near the turnpike, was going to rest, on looking under the bed she saw a man lying on his side close up against the wall, and being much alarmed she screamed out, but before she could leave the room the villain strueit her a violent blow in the side and knocked the candlestick out other hand, then made for the window and got out on 1 ile-hili. What his intentions were, whether rob- bery or murder, can only be imagined. The servant describes him as a short thick-set man, dressed in a fustian coat, and with bushy whiskers. Mt A SCOUNDREL. In London, a sturdy Irishman named Under- wood, who has just been commi. ted to prison for three months was usually to be seen at the west-end of the town with one of his legs banuaged up, and -working his way about on two crutches, apparently with much difficulty, and as if in acute pain. Colley, one of the Mendicity So-ieLy's officers, recoguisod this lame, afliicted, and poverty-stricken individual a few Sundays back, in an excellent suit of black, with a fine satia stock, smoking a cigar, and taking a comfortable glass of brandv and water in a public-house. On Thursday, the officer met him again, acting the part of a destitute cripple, and tooic him inta custody He threw down one crutch, broke the constable's head with another, and kicked with his lame leg another con- stable to the round before he could be secured. BRIERLY HILL—DISGRACEFUL SCENE.—A few days ago a fellow led his wife and infant child, the former with a hal e,* round her neck, through the Merryhill turnpike, and dis of them to tne woman s uncle for sixpence, a nidst t ;» cheers and ribald jests of a crowd of idlers. The woman ye it off with her new husband with much complace .cv —Wor tsf r Jemnuzl.