The Reform Bill, which lies been the subject of as
many miscal- culations with the Newspapers, as if Mr. CROKER had been arith- metician-general to the whole of them, will bid good-bye to the Committee to-day—we hope for ever. The report will occupy a day or two; and from what was stated by Lord ALTHORP last night, it would appear that the third reading will not take place until Monday sennight. Into the causes of this additional delay, in a case where there have been so many, we are not curious to inquire.
The attention of the two Houses has been directed during the Aveek to a subject second only to Reform—that of Irish Tithes. Government have submitted two plans to the Lords, and obtained their contingent assent : they wished to do the same to the Com- 3nons, but the Irish gentlemen interposed to prevent them from doing so in Committee, and it appears that it was impossible to do so out of Committee. By what process an explanation which is impracticable so long as the Speaker, in his three-tailed wig, sits in the great chair, becomes practicable the moment that Mr. BERNAL, in his own natural crop, takes his place at the table in the small chair, is one of the mysteries of Parliament into which it does not become the profane vulgar to pry.
The PLUNKETT family has been figuring in the Lower House this week. Mr. DAWSON, whose zeal the engrossing spirit of the Irish Chancellor has, very naturally, provoked beyond measure, made a severe attack on him and his son on Monday. Mr. SPRING RICE endeavoured to defend Lord PLUNKETT, by opposing Lord ELDON to the enemy's attack; and Lord ELDON means on Monday to show up Mr. RICE. Will this edifying quarrel between the !" honest men" bring any of the lost property back ?
The other debates of the week have been more varied than in- _ teresting : Ancona and the Pope, Irish Education and the Pro- testants, the West Indies and the Glove Trade, Colonel SIBTHORP and the Lincoln Militia, have each had their turn of discussion. Sir WILLIAM INGILBY compares Colonel SIBTHORP'S oratory to Etna Sir WILLIAM falls short of the Colonel's merits,—the mountain only reaches the sublime; the Colonel generally con- trives to get a step higher.
The Scotch Cholera Act is again before the House,-requiring a new act to amend it ! Providence has not smiled on the Lord Ad- vocate's legislative attempt, notwithstanding his Lordship's deter- mination to make Providence a party to it. He is not the first man that has fallen into a ditch while gaping towards the sky. In future, he will do well to abandontheology and look to his brief. The expedition to Ancona' . which has been the subject of so' much speculation—which has been commanded and counter- manded, sailed and returned, according to the Paris papers, half- a-dozen times—and of whose object and destiny we have been so long kept in suspense—has at length reached the haven whither it was bound. On the 21st of February, a line-of-battle ship and two frigates, which formed the first division of the fleet, arrived before the port of Ancona; on the night of the 22nd, 1,000 men were landed ; and at three o'clock next morning, they proceeded to take possession of the fortress, to which they procured access by breaking down the gates, which the Papal troops, it appears, would neither defend nor open. This gentle violence excepted, the troops of the two powers seem to have displayed a reasonably accommodating spirit' for the fort was subsequently agreed to be kept possession of by guards equally selected from each. The entire of the French force amounts to but 1,500 men, while that of the Austrians amounts to 20,000; but the former can easily communicate with their countrymen in Greece. It does not, how- ever, appear that there is any disposition on the part of the Aus- trians or French to molest each other; and the poor Pope is quite unequal to cope with either. He is said to have been in a very tower- ing passion when the arrival of the French was announced. When the French Ambassador demanded an audience for M. C Inn ERE s, the commander of the expedition, the Holy Father gave him a flat re- fusal, and Cardinal BERNETTI exclaimed, that since the times of the Saracens, nothing like the French invasion had been attemptei against the Sovereign Pontiff. A formal protest against the landing of the French forces was issued by the Pope on the 25th; and a for- mal demand of their instant departure, and also of compensation for the damage they had occasioned. Our intelligence comes .no far- ther down than the publication of this document. The Pope has generally carried on his wars with paper pellets; but the day is, we rather think, gone by for such weapons. The French will act, and he may protest as he pleases. The day previous to the arrival of the French at Ancona, Car- dinal ALBANI issued a decree, which would have done credit to MIGUEL himself. It establishes at Bologna a temporary tribunal for the trial of offences against the state. The tribunal is to be composed
"of a president and two judges, chosen by the judiciary power, and
of three other military judges (captains or lieutenants), a fiscal attorney, an advocate, a chancellor, and a convenient number of judges, in structeurs, solici- tor-generals, and substitutes, every one of them named by us."
The following is a specimen of the articles— "A conspiracy begun or only manifest, a project with or without an oath, between two or a greater number of persons, to rebel against the Sovereign or the state' or to oblige either to concession, or to suspend or disarm the public force, shall be punished by death.
"The authors and printers of writings exciting to rebellion shall be punished by the gallies for life. "Any person or persons who shall suffer themselves to be seduced or enticed into a conspiracy or rebellion, or who shall distribute seditious writings, shall be punished by the ;allies from ten to fifteen years, or from fifteen to twenty years, according to the importance of the case and the concourse of circum- stances.
"Any person who shall devote himself to the distribution of a single print, paper, or writing, which, though it was in fact directed towards the said end of sedition or conspiracy, had produced no effect, to be punished by five to ten years' gallies, and a fine of from 100 to 500 Roman crowns. "Any one who shall possess any writing or printed paper, capable of pro- - coking sedition or other attempt against the Sovereign or the Government, to be punished by from one to five years' imprisonment, and a fine of from 50 to 100 crowns.
" All secret societies, whatever may be their denomination, are proclaimed as- sociations in a state of rebellion permanent against the Sovereign and the State, even if their name is not determined ; consequently, any person belonging to the aforesaid societies shall be punished according to the preceding articles for all the doings and acts stipulated in the laws. " Any person or persons who, willing to favour a secret society, shall bide or receive an associate who is not a member of his family, or shall favour his escape, shall incur the penalty of gallies for life. "Any person who, by any means, shall be aware of a reunion or other opera- tions of a secret society, and shall not declare it to the authority, shall be punished by from five to ten years' gallies."
Such is the edict of that saintly personage in whose behalf the Tories are anxious to awaken the sympathies of England, by tirades against the Government of Louis PHILIP, and old women's tales of the atrocities of the tricolor.
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