Out of doors, the recess opens with some stir. The
harvest is threatened by the damp cloudy weather, in all the Three King. doms ; the potatoes are diseased very generally ; and in Ireland blight is said to have appeared in the wheat. Still the sun strug- gles to vindicate his power, and the gloom is not yet a despair. The great meeting in Dublin has resulted in the establishment of an Irish Tenant League, to obtain fixity of tenure, and fixity of rents, on a public valuation. The meeting combined North and South, Presbyterian and Papist. It will be remembered that the Presbyterian ministers of the North have for some time taken a
violent part against the landlords' proprietary rights, and that their violence has been exasperated rather than checked by the angry reproof which it received in Parliament. The South is not a whit behind the North in its zeal : one priest, about to give the assem- blage his blessing, said—" Before I do so, I will ask, do you sub. scribe to the League ? "—so that the League is to be placed before the altar, on the old footing of the Repeal Association in Daniel O'Connell's day. It is also to raise subsidies on the basis of the poor-rate assessment. In some respects this movement is far more formidable than the Repeal project : its object is more tangible, and more gratifying to the actual desires of the people ; it com- bines all sects and parties and thus, on the side of agitation, super- sedes the dissensions of the past. If the landlords would effectu- ally confront it, they must do the like : let them give up their his- torical prejudices, their traditional "Protestant ascendancy," their "rights," and set to work at their own combination—to employ the people of Ireland.
In London, Mr. Charles Pearson has been conferring with his late constituents of Lambeth on his own merits, in not amusing his vanity as a Member by speaking on all occasions, but concentrat- ing his energies on the one subject of prison reform ; and he as- cribes very gratifying results to his exertions. Obeying his im- plied suggestion, his quondam constituents voted Confidence in his past conduct ; and he promised them that if the City would pension him off, he might some day be at their service again.
Two more Judicial deaths keep up the movement which is going on among the high dignities of the law : Sir Launcelot Shadwell has departed, and Mr. Law, the Recorder of London. The Chan- cery will never be better taught by example how kindly feeling may animate sound law • the Cursitor Baron will never again hear the City dignitaries introduced with orations so neat as those bio- graphical notices which have grown to be a model. Mr. Law was a vehement party man ; but he was a good lawyer, and he has taught the City some useful things.
The perpetual movement in the offices of the law keeps in mind the official inches in not using the passing opportunity for urgent readjustments. When is the Chancellorship to be divided? when is the Supreme Court of Appeals to be rationally constructed ? Lord Brougham offered 2,000/. to continue for another and final session the Criminal Code Commission, which Ministers have suf- fered to expire before the work is quite finished : the offered alms— which at least attested the earnestness of the veteran law-reformer —is declined, and the Treasury avers that the Commission is no longer needed. That assertion amounts to a pledge—which will be remembered—that the enactment of the digest shall be pressed forward as a Government measure next session.
The Commission of Inquiry into the Sunday suspension of the Post-office has fulfilled the expectation in which it was appointed, by reporting against the suspension : we are again to -have, in country districts, one delivery of letters and papers on the Sun- day,—a welcome stultification of the dishonest surrender to cant.
