1831.] Af airs in General. 325 



to the amount of 50,000, and probably of a great deal more : yet here 

 we have a heavy annuity to pay him still. The system must be extin- 

 guished, whoever may be minister. 



We are glad to hear a contradiction of the reports that the Pimlico 

 palace was to be sold to a subject. The Dukes of Northumberland and 

 Devonshire, are said equally to disclaim the intention, and we can 

 scarcely conceive that the idea could have been palatable to the king : it 

 would certainly have been most offensive to the community. We have 

 too much of foolish pride to contend with, to suffer it to be further swelled, 

 by the possession of palaces built by the public money for the monarch. 

 Besides, however unsightly the Pimlico palace may be, it is better than 

 none ; and the first change in the royal or ministerial tastes might saddle 

 us with the building of another palace, the present one being disposed 

 of to some noble duke. The sale of the York palace was a national dis- 

 grace ; and we have no doubt that its neighbourhood to St. James's is 

 by no means considered among the sources of royal comfort in that 

 edifice. But the same blunder must not be committed again. 



There are some tardy improvements in the park. A new road has 

 been made in a direct line from Storey's-gate, to James-street, Pimlico, 

 which will be opened to carriages in a few days ; the other road will be 

 filled up, as it is in contemplation of the Commissioners of Woods and 

 Forests to let the ground on building leases. But we must ask what has 

 become of the public passage which was to have been opened from the end 

 of Regent-street, into St. James's park ? There stops the excavation. But 

 whose is the master hand that checks the royal will ? all is ready but the 

 permission of this secret authority ; and there stands the work, to the 

 exclusion of the public, and we presume to the great self-congratulation 

 of the noble householders of Carlton Gardens. 



As his Grace of Wellington is said to be again on terms of inter- 

 course at the Pavilion, and to be listened to, we beg to remind the noble 

 duke of his pledge given to the House of Lords, on the third reading of 

 his famous Bill of Emancipation, which, if our memory does not fail, 

 was in the following, words : " If this healing measure should not 

 pacify the Catholics of Ireland, as I have reason to believe it will, I 

 pledge myself to be the^r,^ person to come down to this house to call 

 for other and more effectual laws !" No doubt his Grace, if he reflects 

 one moment upon his healing measure, and compares Ireland as it now 

 is, with what it was before he made the Protestant Church swallow that 

 great healing pill, will keep his word. 



It has become almost a truism that lawyers are the worst legislators ; 

 and we are reminded of George Selwyn's question on a similar remark, 

 " When do you mean to put Jack Ketch on the committee for reforming 

 the Criminal Law ?" Yet, without altogether believing that a lawyer 

 feels an instinct in puzzling the course of justice, nothing can be more 

 certain than that lawyers' systems of law-reform are always confusion 

 worse confounded. It is but a few years since we had a new Code of 

 Insolvency, which was declared to put an end to legislation on that 

 head ; and now we have declarations on all sides that the system has 

 produced nothing but abuses. It appears from the official returns, last 

 made up, that the number of insolvent debtors discharged under the 



