564 
perfectly erroneous ; —that the ‘plea, 
that an alleged libel “consists of nothing 
more than a true and correct report of 
proceedings which took place publicly 
before the justices at Bow-street,” &c., 
is “a bad plea;” that “it is not lawful 
for the proprietors of a public journal 
to publish an account of proceedings 
taken before a magistrate in the way of 
inquiry and investigation ;” that “the 
room in which such proceedings take 
place is either open or not open, as the 
magistrate should think fit to direet 77 * 
and that the publication of police reports 
is “to be looked upon as a violation of 
the criminal! jurisprudence of the coun- 
try.” All this, of course, must be very 
sound law, very just, and very constitu- 
tional, in spite of our old-fashioned 
notions,—for the Bench has pronounced: 
and who shall.call in question the wis- 
dom, the :constitutionality, or the up- 
right) independence of the English 
Bench? \‘The defendants, however, it 
seems, are not as satisfied as we are 
with such authority, but mean to ap- 
peal to the House of Lords. The sub- 
ject will therefore, of course, be open to 
farther discussion. 
_In the mean time, the approaching 
meeting of Parliament seems to be 
looked forward to with little apparent 
interest, though questions of the high- 
est importance must necessarily, we 
should suppose, be handled during the 
sessions: — Negro’ Slavery; the noble 
struggles of Greece, and of the South 
American Republics; the commercial 
interests, as well as the honest sympa- 
thies of the country, with respect to 
these; the ambitious and evasive policy 
of Russia; the lamentable and menacing 
state of Ireland; the new Stock Ex- 
change system, by which the capital of 
this country is becoming subservient to 
all the plans of all the governments, 
which, at no distant period, perhaps, 
may be in open hostility, and make war 
upon us with the proceeds of our own 
funds; the monopolist combinations 
or joint-stock companies, which seem 
to threaten the extinction of the 
intermediate classes, by taking all trades 
and occupations into the hands of a 
few great capitalists ; and the speculative 
bubbles, so menacing to the property of 
deluded individuals, though so profitable 
to the first projectors, &c. 
* Tt does not appear, however, that the 
magistrate, in the instance under discussion, 
had given any directions that the room in 
which the proceedings were going on should 
be considered as not open. 
Political Affairs in December. 
(Jan. 1, 
There has been some talk (though 
not distinctively) of new plans of eco- 
nomy with respect to the Funds, and a 
consequent repeal of several millions of 
taxes. Some rumours, also, of changes 
in the cabinet,—of the resignation of 
Lord Liverpool, and consequent down- 
fall-of Mr.Canning. But the latter report, 
however originated, has passed away. 
IRELAND, 
In Ireland, we have viewed with plea- 
sure some of the proceedings of the 
Catholic Association : especially a very 
sensible address to the peasantry, re- 
probating all those tumultuary combi- 
nations of Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, &c., 
by which the deluded people have so 
frequently given pretences for arbitrary 
laws and regulations; subjected them- 
selves to gibbets and transportations ; 
increased, instead of diminishing their 
own calamities ; and rendered abortive 
the attempts of their more enlightened 
friends and advocates, for the redress of 
the grievances under which their coun- 
try groans. 
Mr. O’Connell, however, on the eve- 
ning of Monday the 20th December, on 
his return from the Committee of this 
Catholic Association, was arrested on 
the charge of haying used seditious and 
inflammatory language. The charge, it 
seems, is founded on the-solitary evi- 
dence of the report in Saunders’s News 
Letter ; the accuracy of which is not 
only denied by Mr. ‘O’Connell, and 
totally unsupported by the evidence of 
any other of the reporters present; but 
for the false representations in which 
Mr. O’Connell has commenced a pro- 
secution against the Editor of that paper. 
Mr. O’C., however, is held to bail; and 
suspicions are suggested, that this is a 
mere manceuvre, to prevent him from 
coming to England, on his delegated 
mission, to advocate the claims of Ca- 
tholic emancipation. 
FRANCE. 
In France, Charles X, has met the 
assembled Chambers,’and made them a 
gracious speech ; of which the principal 
features are, indemnity to the emigrants 
(a prelude, in all probability, to the re- 
sumption of the revenues of the clergy), 
and the continuance of the major part 
of the French Army of Occupation in 
SPAIN: — 
Which, with a fanatical and besotted 
despotism, unworthy of the name of a 
government,—as merciless as it is imbe- 
cile—destitute, at once, of financial re- 
sources, of civil organization and mili- 
tary strength, continues to feel, all the 
horrors 
