490 NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A SUB-EDITOR. 



troops. (Captain Blackiston may go tell this " delicious Tory tale" to 

 the marines the sailors won't believe it. " My Lord Duke" may 

 swallow, and " my Lord" at the Horse Guards digest it but sensible 

 persons know how to receive such fustian.) 



POLITICS IN THE " SERVICE." The public cannot have forgotten, 

 that some time since a private of dragoons, named Somerville, received a 

 hundred lashes for interfering in politics. Comparing his offence with 

 the infinitely greater one we are about to detail, it would be a curious 

 calculation for a board of boatswain's mates and drummers, to find out 

 how many hundred lashes each of the members of the " Plymouth Royal 

 Naval Club" deserved, for their breach of dicipline and brutality of con- 

 duct to their superior officer, Lord Minto, on Saturday, October 3rd. 

 The " Plymouth Journal" states, that 



" At the dinner given by the Plymouth Royal Naval Club to the Earl of Minto 

 and the Board of Admiralty, the toast of * His Majesty's Ministers/ was drunk in 

 solemn silence, whilst the toasts of ' Lord Hill and the Army/ and the ' Duke of 

 Wellington and the Heroes of the Peninsula/ were received with tne most en- 

 thusiastic cheering." , 



As we have not heard that any public body of Plymothians have met 

 to show their regret that such a disgraceful circumstance should have 

 occurred in their town, we conceive the borough has received a blot on 

 its escutcheon, its worthy and liberal members of parliament will not 

 easily remove. 



POLITICS IN THE CHURCH ! " Addicted to pelf," says the Examiner 

 of Sunday, October llth, "as the priesthood is, beyond any exam- 

 ple in the history of Churches, it would appear that they like violence 

 still better." True to this text, the extremely reverend Dr. Chalmers 

 hath, it appears, thought fit to fulminate an anathema against the pre- 

 sent Ministry in language so coarse, that, had he made it in any decent 

 tap-room on this side the Tweed, it would have infallibly gained him 

 expulsion. Whatever contempt we may feel for such impertinent 

 balderdash, we cannot help, for the sake of the rest of " the cloth," 

 joining in the " regrets" of the Aberdeen Advertiser, from which the 

 following paragraph is quoted : 



"We unfeignedly regret that Dr. Chalmers was so far led away by his bias 

 against the Government, as to indulge in some vituperative epithets which were 

 unworthy both of his profession and character. " Lurking, low-minded underlings 

 of office/' "hacknied practitioners in politics, unincumbered by delicacy, truth, or 

 honour," and similar hard and hostile" phrases, do not suit the dignity of his 

 sacred calling, his standing in the Church, or his reputation in the world; far less 

 does the insinuation become him, that " Government would cast the interests of 

 the Church to the winds if they could make a single ten-pounder by it!" 



Even the chaplain of the " great unwashed " Dr. Wade, would, 

 doubtlessly, take time to consider, before he let off such a park of " low- 

 minded" verbal artillery. It really is too bad, that these people whether 

 presbyterian or protestant who impose themselves upon us as ministers 

 of the gospel, and whose business it is to preach " peace on earth and 

 good -will towards men," are not content with receiving enormous in- 



