The petition from Liberal clergymen which we mentioned a fortnight
ago, which characterizes the present Established Church in Ireland as "an injustice which legitimately offends the majority of the Irish people," was presented to the House of Lords, by Lord Lyttelton, on Tuesday, and stirred up quite a tumultuary expression of opinion in that noble assembly. The Bishop of
Oxford, with his usual petty tactics, tried to throw discredit on the petition, by remarking that of the 261 names signed to the petition he had gone through 111, and of these 87 were not in- cumbents at all, but " clergymen unattached," As a matter of fact, very nearly half the signatures are those of incumbents, while the remaining half consist chiefly of masters of schools, fellows and tutors of colleges, and curates, whose intellectual and moral weight must be at least as great as that of incumbents. Clergymen " unattached " are properly clergymen without any regular work, and of these there are exceedingly few. The head master of Rugby, for instance, has certainly more weight in the country than almost any bishop, by virtue merely of his office.
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