NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Peers have done their worst on the Municipal Bill. All that ingenuity and spite could suggest in the way of mutilation has been accomplished. Certain Lords boasted that they would mangle the bill so effectually that the Commons should not be able to recog- nize it ; and they have fulfilled the threat. There is not a clause of any importance which has not been struck out, or so altered as to bear little resemblance to its original form. There seems to have been an insolent wantonness in the absurd chopping and changing about of clauses, as if a perfect metamorphosis of the measure was aimed at.

Lord LYNDH URST resumed operations on Monday, by making Al- dermen of existing corporations life members of the new Councils: this was carried by 126 to 39. The next day, clauses were passed to continue the existing Justices of the Peace in office during their lives ; for empowering the Magistrates to divide the new boroughs into wards, instead of the Commissioners appointed by the King ; for apportioning the number of Councillors to each ward in such a way that Lord WINCHILSEA. said it would "coun- teract the party views" with which the bill was proposed,—in other words, convert it into a Tory measure; and lastly, for con- tinuing the power of licensing alehouses in the hands of the Magistrates. Such is an outline of the chief performances of the Peers this week. The report of the Committee will be brought up on Tuesday ; when any unfinished work of the same description will probably be completed. In the mean while, it would not perhaps be unacceptable to our readers to see a state- ment of all the material changes effected by the Peers : we have, therefore, compared the bill as sent up from the Commons, with the Lords' bill as it now stands " amended ;" and the result of several hours' close reading is the subjoined catalogue of changes. The numbers of the clauses refer to the Lords' version of the bill.

1. The Preamble. The Peers have substituted a' simple declara- tion of the expediency of altering Corporation charters, for the alle- gation of "neglect, and abuse of privileges," and of the inutility and inefficiency of the corporations as instruments of local government, on which the Commons grounded the whole measure.

Clause 2. Reserves to the freemen, their wives, children, and ap- prentices, for evermore, all their exclusive rights of every description, —exemption from tolls, dues, and all the other privileges they now possess. By the 8th clause in the Commons' bill, the descendants of freemen were deprived of these privileges ; and by the 9th clause of the same bill, power was given to the Town-Councils to purchase the rights of the existing freemen : both these clauses were struck out by the Lords.

Clause 4. Reserves the Parliamentary franchise to the descend- ants of freemen ; which the bill of the Commons abolished. Clause .5. By this clause the Town-Clerk in each borough is to make out a list of the freemen, to be called " the Freemen's Roll ;" and to place upon the roll the names of such freemen as shall be from time to time admitted. This is a new clause, rendered necessary by the reservation of freemen's rights in perpetuity. Clause 7. Provides that the boundaries of boroughs, not Parlia- mentary, shall remain as they now are, until altered by Parliament. By the bill of the Commons, the King in Council was to fix the limits af these boroughs. Clause 9. Makes the payment of all borough-rates, as well as poor- rates, necessary to enable a burgess to vote. This is intended to lessen the number of burgesses. Clause 11. The Commons' bill (clause 8th) empowered occupiers, whose landlords had been rated, to claim to be rated themselves, and have the benefit of their landlord's previous payment of rates : but the Lords have struck out this from their clause 11th, which in other re- spects is the same as the 8th clause in the Commons' bill; and the

Peers have also expunged the 10th clause of the Commons' bill, which allowed burgesses who had been enrolled, but who were afterwards omitted from the register, to be restored within two years, if then in- habitant householders.

Clause 15. In this clause, which in other respects corresponds with

the 15th clause in tin Commoba' ill inserted the provision that the

Overseers shall make out a list to be called " the Councillors' List ;"

801 which list is to contain tI e names of such burgesses, being one-sixth of the whole number, as shall be rated to the largest amount for the relief of the poor in the last assessment ; but all persons who are rated to an amount which would entitle any one person to be placed on the list, shall be placed there, notwithstanding the proportion of one-sixth of the whole maybe thereby exceeded. By this alteration, it is intended to shut out five-sixths of the community from the Council.

Clause 19. The barristers appointed by the Judges to revise the burgess list for the first year, are by this clause also directed to revise the Councillors' list ; an addition rendered necessary by the establish- ment of the privileged class by the 15th clause.

Clause 24. By this clause the burgesses are empbwered to elect a Mayor, and a certain number of persons to be called " Aldermen," who are to hold their offices for life, and a certain number of Councillors ; and the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors, are to be called "the Council ;" but ;he Aldermen must be one. third in number of the whole Council. This is one of the most odious alterations in the whole bill. Clause 25. The Mayor and Aldermen are not to go out of office at the end of three years. From this it would seem as if the Mayor was to hold office for life; but there is a subsequent provision on this point.

Clause 26. This clause provides that where the Aldermen of the Corporation in any borough shall exceed the number of one-third of the Council, the governing body of the Corporation are to meet and elect the requisite number out of their own body to be members of the Council; and the names of the persons so elected are to be placed on a list, to be called the " Aldermen's Roll :" they are to be the first Aldermen of the bovugh. When the number of Aldermen is less than the number required to make up one-third of the Council, then the Councillors are to elect out of their own body a sufficient number to make up the deficiency. Clause 27. When a vacancy occurs in the Aldermen's roll, the Council of the borough are to elect a person from the Councillors for the time being, or from those on the Councillors' roll, to fill it up. All this machinery is required for the purpose of foisting the Alder- men into the Council.

Clause 28. No clergyman, or Dissenting preacher or teacher, is qualified to be elected a Councillor. This excludes the whole body of Methodist lay preachers : the Commons' bill contained no such invi- dious provision. Clause 36. In case of the Mayor's death, absence, or incapacity, the Aldermen alone, not the Council, are to elect a person to act in his stead, out of their own body. This is only one of many at- tempts to keep up the authority of the corrupt old Corporation people. Clause 37. Auditors and Assessors are to be chosen, not from among the burgesses, according to the Commons' bill, but from the persons on the Councillors' lists. Clause :38. This clause continues Justices of the Peace for life, instead of to the 1st of May 1836. Clause 39. Where boroughs are to be divided into wards, the Ma- gistrates are to make the division,—instead of Commissioners au- thorized by the King, as decreed by the House of Commons; and they are to divide them into wards, containing only 3000 inhabitants each.

Clause 40. The rules by which the Magistrates are to proceed in apportioning the number of Councillors to each ward are here laid down. After the number and limits of the wards in any borough are fixed, the Magistrates are to divide equally the number of Councillors assigned to the borough by the bill, and to apportion one half of them among the different wards, in such a way as that the number of Councillors assigned to each ward may bear the same proportion to the half of the whole number of Councillors as the amount of poor-rates paid by the ward bears to the whole amount paid by the borough : in this manner, each ward will get half its number of Councillors—the richest wards, of course, the greater number. The other half of the whole number of Councillors is to be apportioned among the wards on the same prin- ciple with respect to population as the first half was apportioned with respect to property. The aim of this is transparent : it is a STURGES BOURNE'S Act on a large scale.

Clause 41. The Magistrates arc empowered, for the sake of enabling them more conveniently to apportion the number of Councillors in those towns where the ancient divisions are retained, to add to or subtract from the number of wards of such towns as are to be divided accord- ing to the Act into more than two wards ; provided that such addition or subtraction does not exceed one ward. This is an entirely new pro- vision, unlike any thing in the bill; and gives extensive and irre- sponsible power to the Tory Magistracy.

Clause 44. By this clause, elections are to be carried on separately in wards ; the burgesses having a right to elect Councillors for their own ward only. Clause 48. Occasional vacancies in the offices of Councillor, Au.. ditor, and Assessor, are to be filled by the election of a person on the Councillors' roll ; not, as in the Commons' bill, from among the bur- gesses at large. Clause 70. When 'a question must be decided in the Council by a casting-vote, and the Mayor is absent, one of the Aldermen is to be elected Chairman, in preference to a Councillor, as was provided by the bill of the Commons. Every thing is d e with a view to bolster

up the Aldermen. Clause 72. This clause continues the tru in the present trustees to the 1st of August them of it on the 1st of January 1836. teesliip?of charitable funds 686; instead of depriving Clause 99. The King is empowered to appoint Justices of the Peace; and the clause in the Commons' bill, which authoused the Town- Council to nominate.parsons foe the magisterial office, who were afterwards to receive their commission from the King, is struck out.

Clause 104. Recorders, who are barriaters of, five year.' standing, are to be continued in their offices, whether the Council approve or disapprove of their conduct ; instead of their continuance being the result of an application to the Crown by the Council. Clauses 45 and 46 of the Commons' bill, which provided for the transfer of the power of granting alehouse-licences from the Magis- trates to the Town-Council, were struck out of the bill by the Peers.

The towns of Alnwick, ;Henley-upon- Thames, Llanelly, Mchyn- Beth, Romford, Sutton Coldfield, and Yeovil, arc struck out of the bill.

With these alterations, the bill is essentially a Tory measure— well calculated to perpetuate the abuses which the Commons in- tended to extirpate. As such, our Representatives will spurn it with indignation. It may become Lord MELBOURNE'S duty, as a matter of form, to move that the bill "do pass," in order to give the Commons an opportunity of rejecting every alteration in the main clauses, which the Lords have so insultingly made ; but we have no doubt that the Premier will take care to purge himself from the slightest participation in the proceedings of the majority, and to continue the management of the bill under protest. The Commons, we repeat, can only take one course : the Country calls upon them to stand by their own Bill and the Ministry. They must negative the alterations, by courtesy called amendments ; and if the Peers choose to be sulky and adhere to them, the loss of the bill must be added to the overflowing measure of the Peers' account. The People are alive, in all parts of the Three Kingdoms, to the real state of the question ; and all the craft and impudence of the new Tory Leader will not enable him to mystify or muzzle them.

The Irish Church Bill was read a second time by the Peers on Thursday ; but with the avowed intention of expunging from it all that in the eyes of the Reformers gives it value. Sinecure benefices are to be retained; the readjustment of the tithe compo- sition is to be refused ; and the right of Parliament to treat ec- clesiastical as national property, and to apply the surplus of Irish Church revenues for the purposes of education, is to be formally denied : such is the will of the Lords, our would-be masters. It is they, not the merciful and considerate Government, that doom the Established Clergy to starvation, and the Church to extinction.

The Irish Corporation Bill passed the House of Commons on Monday, and was read a first time in the Lords on Tuesday. Of course the Peers will massacre this bill also.

The Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Bill has met with a quietus in the Lords; who are indignant at the idea that their property should be made liable for their debts. It was read a first time on Tuesday, but there is not the smallest prospect of its passing another stage. Thus we see, that the House of Peers is the grave of all mea- sures of legislative improvement. The mischief that it perpe- tuates is enormous and continual; and the People are everywhere asking, " Of what use is the House of Lords? " A satisfactory answer to that question is still a desideratum.

The House of Commons this week has had too much of its time taken up in dealing with a person calling himself Colonel FAIRM AN—though the Colonel's regiment may in vain be looked for in the Army-list. This man is "Deputy Grand Secretary to the Grand Orange Lodge of Great Britain; " and refused to deliver up to the House of Commons Committee a book containing certain f.lorrespondence in the affairs of Orangeism, which the Committee wished to examine. After a good deal of talk and palaver, the man— who behaved with much grotesque impudence—was ad- monished by the Speaker, that he must give up the book. This was on Wednesday : on Thursday, however, he still pretended to the Committee that " his honour " would not allow him to sur- render the document under the appearance of compulsion ; and on the motion of Mr. HUME, the House ordered him to be sent to Newgate,—no great punishment, it is supposed, to Colonel FAIR- ILAN ; who has seen much of the world, and had opportunities of studying character in all sorts of places. It appeared, however, that " the Colonel " thought there was no particular reason why be should stay in the way to be committed to gaol, and he accord- ingly fled from the Speaker's warrant; and is now perhaps eying himself snugly not far from Kew. Out of this affair another question arose: it was a matter of dis- cussion whether the Colonel's residence should not be searched for the book he refused to give up. The right of the House to issue search-warrants is asserted; but is, we suspect, rather dubious : its power to see to their execution is still more uncertain—we question whether resistance to them would not be maintainable in a court of law. If ever there was a case, however, in which the House would be justified in stretching. its authority, it is such a one as that under discussion; where the end in view is the exposure and punishment of the agents in a. formidable, conspiracy; inter alia to seduce the Army from its rightful allegiance. The existence of this conspiracy has been proved, in spite of all obstacles: it has not yet been fully proved, but it is on strong grounds suspected, Opi a chief aim of the conspirators is to change the succession to the Throne. Extraordinary measures, we repeat, may become ne- oessaet Ita probe this plot, and discover all its ramifications. It is absurd to treat this as alight affair; and Lord JOHN RUsseta. will not succeed in givingg it that turn. At the same time, we doubt iltether there is sebuch use in searching FAIRMAN'S hotise for the ohicosied documents: if they should be round? and it,should tura out that they are of little can: rep enc., the whole affair would become ridiculous : if they are really' ant, they must have been secured upon the first alarms Vithefore think that Mr. H unss acted wisely in withdrawing a matt* of which he had given "notice, for the seizure of'the book.