HUSH FOOLERIES—O'CONNELL'S SEAT FOR CLARE.
TIMES—Mr. O'Connell pledges himself over and over to insist on taking his scat for Clare, and on the first day of the approaching session. Our wishes Icing what they are, on behalf of the eligibility of Catholics, it is needless to express ourselves must anxious for the period when Mr. O'Connell, or any other qualified person of his persuasion, may enter St. Stephen's Chapel as freely as if-it were a mass-house in the most Popish county in Ireland. But see do not much like nonsensical experiments in the prosecution, or make- believe prosecution, of serious and important objects. It is one thing to ex- pel from his seat for a county, a Minister who has been remarked for his close alliance with the most resolute enemies of emancipation; but it is a far other business to elect a man whom all the sober part of the world knows to he'incapahle of speaking, voting, or sitting among the representatives of the people. Mr: O'Connell is just in this state of irremediable incapacity under the existing law. If he be intoxicated enough with popular incense or self- lord to indulge for one moment the melancholy delusion that the Speaker and officers of the House of Commons will have the least difficulty in showing him (though With all decent courtesy) the wrong side of the door, the map of hi- brain must be a fit study for Cervantes. Yet it is under circumstances lite these that Mr. O'Connell, whose embassy of nine orators to the people ef England enjoyed such a ludicrous disappointment, now proposes with a gate hitce that 300—ay, 300 (!)—noblemen and gentlemen shall" attend in ;" and for what purpose ? To form an Association here ? or to ault.ek, in ,their character of a nest of wasps, the drones of English Catholic:, mitt "[mat; them out of their assembly-room ? No, by Jupiter; • but to play 14tileholders to the member for Clare, in his set-to with the old doorkeeper of SE Stephen's; or, armed With bludgeons, like an 0. P. mob, to burst the gate—to' trounce the members—burn the Speaker's wig—extinguish the lights, demolish the benches, and establish vi etarusis the right of admission to all parts of the House, throughout the season, and on their own terms. This once .succeeded at Covent-garden, but in Palace-yard the victory might be more deubtful,;. and what a spectacle would. these poor " gardes ?fables" of the Milesian autocrat exhibit to themselves and the John Bull gazers, while drawn up in the Toby durinnothe interval, however short, between his smuggling himself into the body of the House and his being commanded out of it, perhaps in custody of the Serjeant at Arms ! Lord Killeen playing lacquer, to Mr. Daniel O'Connell !! and why not the Duke of Norfolk and the Shrewsburys, and Petres likewise ? The .question lies in a short com- pass: either Mr. O'Connell has a right to sit,—in which case-he needs no body-guard ;, or be has no .right,—in which case the appearance of a band of strangers could only breed the suspicion that he meant to commit a burgla- rious entry into the House ; or his right is in reality doubtful,-...a case which Would justify his providing a corps of some half dozen counsellors, to plead for him at the bar of the House of Commons,—anything but a detachment of delegates or partisans from the Association ! This is an abominable taste- this-getting up of pantomimes and puppet shows—forany audience but one of babies during the Christmas holydays. It is utterly disgusting to the plain sense and business-like habits of Englishmen. Their fancies cannot be taken by such trumpery, as connected with political concerns. The crack-skull his- moms of Donnybrook-fair, or the dirty mummeries of Bartholomew, are well enough in their proper places ; but the House of Commons is not the place for them, and we verily believe that, next to carrying the host through the streets of London, there is nothing that would produce a more revolting im- pression upon the minds of the inhabitants (save those only of the district of St. Giles's) titan would the execution of this threat of :Mr. O'Connell, to sur- round himself with a troop of brawling Irish squireens ; for sure we are that no gentleman will be of the party when the single question at issue is a grave though clear one, of constitutional and parliamentary law. Let Mr. O'Con- nell come over like a man to try the point, since he cannot now recede front his pretensions; but let us have no more of such atrocious humbug.
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