in their rage of liberality, forgotten the claims of justice-they have separated the tares from the wheat, in the Bill of municipal reform-they have distinguished between spoliation and improvement. Acting upon the maxim, "be just and fear not," they have not to dread that consequence which is most to be feared, the sting of self-reproach. They have not given that example to the nation which is most pernicious-the example of the robbery of private rights for purposes of party malevolence, or political expediency. *

* *

If the House of Lords existed merely to register the decrees of the Commons, there would be no necessity for their existence at all: the House of Commons could register their own decrees without their assistance. But if the House of Lords have to fulfil a constitutional duty in checking the velocity of democratic movement, and in correcting the errors of democratic intemperance and injustice, they have important functions to discharge. When reform runs wildly along the career of popular impulse, it becomes destruction-as it did in the Long Parliament after the abolition of the House of Lords, and as it did in the National Convention of France after the extinction of the estate of the Nobles. It is by being guided and regulated by a power not servilely dependent upon the popular will, and yet not above the influence of enlightened public opinion, that reform is rendered most effective-because restrained within the limits of sober reason, and rendered conformable with the dictates of justice. Let the popular part of the Legislature be once freed from such a check as a House of Peers imposes upon it, and, instead of a system of regulated liberty, we shall soon see but the vicissitudes of democratic tyranny and popular licentiousness-ending, at length, in the stern constraint of a military despotism, only to be overthrown by a new revolution. The House of Lords, by preserving the rights of property to the freemen of England, and also those political rights that were guaranteed to them by the Reform Bill, have prevented the first great stride, under the name of reform, towards a democratic tyranny and its revolutionary excesses.

Municipal-Reform Bill-continued.—Sept. 2, 1835.

Ir is with no small degree of satisfaction that we anticipate the passing of the Municipal-Reform Bill, divested of those most objectionable clauses to which we took exception in the beginning, and which we have all along uncompromisingly resisted. The Bill, whenever it passes, will not be a Bill working spoliation, under the name of reform. It will not be a Bill of confiscation and forfeitures-a Bill mixing up, with some valuable improvements in local government, principles of the grossest injustice.

On monday morning, in adverting to the menaces of an approaching crisis, we thus expressed our own opinion of what portion of the amendments, introduced in the Upper House, it would be the indispensable duty of their Lordships, under all circumstances, to insist upon retaining:"Whatever may become of the Municipal Reform Bill, we hope and trust the Lords will never stultify their own decision as to the preservation of the vested and inchoate rights and political franchises, of their humbler fellow-countrymen. Whatever compromises, if any, may be made with regard to some portions of the Bill, we feel a strong assurance that the important amendments, which are intended to prevent spoliation of property and forfeiture of established rights, will not be abandoned :-nor, what is next in importance, the necessity of a property qualification for members of the Town Council, and others to whom the important duties of borough-government are to be entrusted." The Lords will not be called upon, it now appears, to defend those provisions, for Ministers have conceded them. They propose, indeed, a different mode of ascertaining the amount of property-qualification than that which the Lords had adopted; but we care not what the mode is, provided it is efficient for carrying the principle into effect. *

March towards Despotism in France.-Aug. 18, 1835. THE march towards despotism in France goes on rapidly. The avowed hostility of Charles X. to free institutions, was

less fatal to Constitutional liberty, than the pretended liberalism of LOUIS PHILIP. The former made an open assault upon the public freedom, and in the attempt lost his Crown; the latter has adopted the more cautious and successful mode of making use of the forms of popular government, to subvert the liberties of the nation. The work of establishing an absolute throne upon the barricades of July, has gone on progressively from the moment that the "Citizen-KING" found himself tolerably firm in the seat of power. Latterly the speed of the despotic movement has been accelerated. Let him take only a few more strides in the same direction, and even the AUTOCRAT of Russia will acknowledge, that there is much more for the rulers of slaves to admire than to dread, in poor old LAFAYETTE's "best of all possible republics."

The persecution of the Press, almost ever since LOUIS PHILIP became King of the French, has been bitter and implacable-as if he could never forgive it for being instrumental in raising him to the throne. The 500 or 600 prosecutions, which he has instituted against the great organ of public opinion, were all, of course, according to law; but Juries did not always make their verdicts conform to the wishes of the Sovereign and the demands of his minions. Too often have honesty and independence in the Jury-box stood between power and its victim —too often has the vindictive persecutor been disappointed of his prey. What is the remedy? LOUIS PHILIP does not say, "Let there be no more trial by Jury-let the Jury-trial be abolished, and let my dependent Judges, or my still more servile Court of Peers, pronounce the doom of the accused!" He does not say that, because he knows, that low as France has sunk in political degradation, the experiment might be dangerous. He says, or rather his obsequious Ministers, following out his will, say," Let there be the form of trial by Jury without the substance thereof-let a law pass to make a simple majority sufficient for conviction. Political trials will then be more easily managed by the agents of Government, and the liberty of the Press will be more readily struck down." "The Representatives" of the people accept this detestable law from the Minister with apparent gratitude, and will eventually pass it, almost with acclamation! Thus France retrogrades

in its civil institutions under the dynasty of July, and thus, all the blood that was shed for the Charter, has been shed to cement the throne of a despotism, that tramples the principles of the Charter in the dust.

It was in vain that M. HENNEQUIN, in his unanswerable speech, reminded the Chamber, that "in England and America unanimity in the votes of the Jury was required;" and that "never since the first institution of the Jury in France, either under the Republic, or under the Empire, or under the Restoration, had a simple majority of votes been thought sufficient to enable a Jury to find a verdict of guilty." In vain did he remind the Chamber, that "the Constituent Assembly pronounced the acquittal of an accused party, if he had merely three votes out of twelve in his favour; or, in other words, unless there was a majority of ten to two against him." In vain did he recall to their recollection the fact, that according to the Constitution of October 1791,

four-fifths of the

votes, or 12 out of 15, were required to find a verdict of guilty. In vain did he argue, that although laws were decided by a simple majority, yet the progress of reason, or even the errors of the passing hour, sufficed to change laws;-but criminal judgments had a fatal character of stability: mischievous laws might be annulled-but the errors of Courts of Justice which led to the shedding of innocent blood, could never be annulled. In vain did he implore his colleagues not to take upon themselves the responsibility of a law, that must widen the road to the scaffold. In vain did he entreat them to beware of innovations made under intemperate feeling, suddenly and without reflec tion, which deprived society, as well as the accused individuals, of every guarantee that the interests of justice demanded. The great majority of the Chamber-most of them reformersmany of them revolutionists under CHARLES X., have become such ready tools of tyranny under the sway of the “CitizenKING," that, without shame or compunction, they take away, at the bidding of a Court-minion, the protection which the people enjoyed in Courts of Justice under the Republic-under the Consulate-under the imperial sway of NAPOLEON—and under the sceptre of the elder branch of Bourbon !

If LOUIS PHILIP be not one of the wisest of sovereigns, he

has certainly been, hitherto, one of the most fortunate. He has never yet brought himself into public odium and political difficulties, by his attacks upon the rights of the people or the principles of the Charter, that a seasonable emeute, or a plot against his life, has not "happened" to save him, by changing the growing feelings of public jealousy and indignation-into those of sympathy and renewed attachment. A civil commotion in Paris has more than once restored strength to his tottering Ministry-a pistol-shot once re-established his favourite Doctrinaires, when their fall seemed inevitable; and now, the whole of the unpopularity attendant upon the disgusting exhibitions of the procés-monstre, has been converted into extravagantly loyal admiration, by means of the "infernal machine."

As we predicted some time ago, the Court and the Ministers take advantage of the madness or the crime of Fieschi, to strike deadly blows at that public liberty, which had as little connection with such madness or crime, as the procés-monstre had with the principles of justice. The Representatives of the people join, for the greater part, in those liberticide attempts; and, to their lasting disgrace, sacrifice Trial by Jury itself upon the grave of Fieschi's victims.

Abolition of Hereditary Peerage.—Sept. 1, 1835.

THE people of England are told by some of our democratic theorists that a hereditary peerage is a grievance; and, that in order to reform the House of Lords, the Peerage ought to cease to be hereditary. The French have tried the experiment-they have a non-hereditary Peerage. What is the consequence? The Chamber of Peers in France is the ready instrument of the tyranny of the Court. Each Peer created for life, hopes, that by a base compliance with the commands of the Crown, and by lending a hand to every dirty job which the Ministers impose upon the Chamber, he adopts the best means of ensuring the transmission of his title and honours in his family. He degrades himself that his children may be elevated; he abases himself that his posterity may be exalted. Whenever the Peerage in this country ceases to be