A imiiety of smaller subjects have received some attention from
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the House of Commons this week: the right to discuss petitions on their 'presentation, unavailingly asserted by Mr. WALLACE and others ; an extension of Mr. LenpecuERE's measure for altering the Imperial duties in the North American and West Indian Colo- nies, introduced by Mr. GLADSTONE ; a contraction of Mr. LABOU.• cusses measure to regulate railways also introduced by Mr. GLAD-, STORE, In respect of piiiiiantifovelVF,Wwevcr, the most interesting has been a motion by Lord Jona RUSSELL, for the letters of resigna- tion sent in by Chief Justice BUSHE, of the Irish Queen's Bench, and Lord President HOPE, of the Scotch Court of Session. Lord Jour( RUSSELL suspects something very improper--that the two Judges stuck to the Bench with indecorous pertinacity, until the Tories came into power, in order that political friends might succeed to their seats. What Mr. WAKLEY rightly called an "edifying" ex- posure followed—a smart incrimination and recrimination : -for those two charges, the Tories retorted on the Whigs the "nego- tiations" with 'Lord PLuNitrr to make room on the Irish Chan- .=Bench for Lord CAMPBELL, and with Lord COREHOUSE to e room on the Scotch Bench for Mr. RUTHERFORD. Each party succeeded in proving the other guilty of something very un- judicial ; but the Whigs certainly made the most pitiable appear- ance. Sir Rormax PEEL vindicated himself by his appointments— that of the Whig Mr. CRANSTOUN, and of Mr. CaasswaLL—uni- versally approved ; while he had offered a Vice-Chancellorship to Lord COTTENHAM. All the talking in the world, however, will not disguise these facts—that it was notorious in Scotland that Presi- dent HOPE was only " waiting " his opportunity ; and that Chief Justice Burma had better have retired before the Tories came in, whereas he waited just till that moment : indeed, the "old Tory Judges," to be succeeded by younger lives of the same politics, had served Mr. O'CoxxxraL as a main motive for "keeping out the Tories," several years before the change of Ministry ; the rea- lized event was only a part of the avowed anticipation.
This last debate exlubited the Whigs in the newly-revived func- tion of spiers into abuses ; and so keen of scent was Lord JOHN RUSSELL, that we find him now digging up and censuring what Mr. Fox MAULE in 1839 covered up and defended.
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