NEWS OF THE WEEK.
&snit makes the customary break in the Parliamentary Ses- sion; but by far the greater portion of Members commenced holyday-making on Saturday last, and the number of attendants in the House of Commons during the week has varied from 30 to 70. Of these most were Radicals, the sprinkling of Whigs and Tories being very thin. It is, however, to the general neglect of duty that we owe the only remarkable event of the week—the de- feat of Sir JOHN CAMPBELL on the famous clause in the Im- prisonment for Debt Bill, exempting fraudulent Members of Par- liament from arrest on the writ of a Bankruptcy Commissioner. The bill was recommitted on Tuesday; and Mr. W ASON moved the omission of the objectionable words; which were strenuously defended by Sir JOHN CAMPBELL and Sir ROBERT ROLFE. One of the arguments of the former deserves notice : it was as impu- dent an attempt to gain votes as was ever practised by an Old Bailey barrister to get a verdict. Many Members have no quali- fication : their landed property is a mere sham, and they have no legal right to seats in the Legislature: if they are summoned before a Bankruptcy Commissioner, they will be awkwardly placed; for if they omit in the schedule of their assets the pro- perty from which their pretended qualification is derived, their
fraud becomes transparent—if they include it, their creditors will make it available for the payment of debts, and then the party who granted them the qualification will be defrauded : Now,
, gentlemen, said the unblushing Attorney-General, will you subject yourselves to all these disagreeable consequences ? if not, vote with me—preserve the "dignity of vice," and let your creditors take care of themselves. Such were the arguments in effect, though not exactly in the same words, urged by Sir Jon"; CAMPBELL to nersuade the majority to support his shabby proposi- tion. But it sr, happened—from the lucky absence of Whigs and Tories—that honest men, men of substance as well as honesty, formed the majority of the House; and Mr. WASON carried his motion, by a vote of 39 to 27. Sir Joitta CAMPBELL intimates, that though his legs are cut off, he will fight upon his stumps. We hope that he will not be found more steady when curtailed, than when blessed with full proportions : the House, now, will hardly dare otherwise than affirm the Committee's decision—it will not proclaim deliberately to the world, that one object of a seat in Parliament is to cheat creditors. .Rapid was the progress of the Irish Municipal Bil on Monday night. Many scores of clauses were disposed of in the course of a Sea hours, and the bill is out of Committee. It might also love been out Of the Commons before Easter — but for reasons easily guessed at, though not avowed. Shall we not congratulate the trembling subalterns to whom salary is no joke, that another quarter day is passed ? They who look only three months a-head will enjoy their Easter holydays.
Au inimanse number of petitions for Church-rates have been fiel up by the parsons, who have practised all sorts of tricks and told all manner of lies to seduce the clodhoppers to sign them.
Just tit the same way, as WELLINGTON and PEEL BMA recollect, itas.ati apparently powerful, but essentially weak opposition, raised against Catholic Emancipation. But there is this important dif- ference betw( en Emancipation and the Abolition of Church-rates —.the former took no cash from the dissentients. The Duke kept his hand out of the breeches-pockets of Whigs, Tories, and Rarli- enfs.. The Government plan for making the Church support itself VIII inlet re materially with the plunder of the pious and the puts of the godly. Oh, the lessees! let Lord JOHN RUS4LL only couciliate the lessees—at the expense of the Church if' he hites—and his bill will be voted a very proper arrangement of a difficult question, in which party feelings have no concern. Tlme felitions for Church-rates have geiterally few signatures, wado those against are signed by thousands. But Dr. Coesms- [Lauer EDITION.] TON, Bishop of Llandaff and Dean of St. Paul's, being a man et science, has found out that the mare numerously a petition is signed, the less worthy of consideration it becomes ; for, says the Prelate, the more there are t ) bear a tax, the less burdensome is the impost to each individual contributor: forgetting altogether, as Lord BROUGHAM quietly told the Episcopal logician and poli- tician, that before drawing that inference against the importance of any one petition, lie shouitl ascertain the amount of the rate divided among the petitioners—as the individual contribution in an extensive district might turn out to be as large as in a small parish. But it is illustrative of the spirit with which the Bishops approach the discussion of this question, that Dr. COPLESTON, one of the most respectable men on the Right Reverend Bench, does not seem to have the slightest notion that principle, feeling, the sense of injustice, has any thin to do with the oppaaition to Church-rates. "How much do you pay 7" says the Bishop : "Only five shillings a year !—you cannot care about it—you are merely a factious grumbler : we want the money, and why you should not pay us such a trifle, is what I cannot comprehend: you shall pay it." Such is the POPLESTON form of reasoning. In the mean while, John Bull is drawing his purse-strings close together, and buttoning his pocket : that is a more effectual mode of arguing the question than any which Dr. Coptaistrosis inge- nuity can suggest. Even since the pother ha Parliament began, a Church-rate has been refused, and some very Radical parish pro- ceedings have taken place, in the Metropolis and elsewhere.
The Peers adjourned on Wednesday, to Thursday the 6th of April ; the Commons, on Thursday, adjourned to Monday the 3d.
