Abundant proof has been given that the Ministers force this Bill through the legislature to gratify the Malthusian oppressors of the poor, and extend their own patronage in despite of the feelings of the people. The sentiments of honest indignation, as well as the reasoning remonstances which have been uttered at numerous parochial and other meetings, and embodied in various petitions against the unconstitutional character and tyrannical principle of the Bill-more especially against its "unmanly clauses," supported as those clauses are, by foul calumnies upon the character of the females of England--have been treated with disregard and contempt. But, though the Lords are independent of public opinion in a great degree, the representatives of the people, who have not signalized themselves by supporting a measure which would have disgraced the reign of the STUARTS for its tyranny, and which dishonours a Christian people by its monstrous innovation upon the morality of Christians, will hear of it again.

When the reformed House of Commons, in its servile obsequiousness to the Ministers of the Crown, set itself against public opinion on this Bill, we thought the House of Lords had the finest opportunity that could be created for it of proving its usefulness to the British public as an institution, able and willing to counteract the servility of the people's representatives, when they forgot their duty to their constituents and their country; but the Lords threw away that opportunity, the like of which will never be afforded them again. As to the tory party, in allowing themselves to be made the infatuated instruments to extend the dominion of Malthusian principles and the sphere of whig patronage, they have acted like men doomed to political destruction, whom no earthly power can save. * They have shown that both parties differ only as the upper and the nether millstone, between which the principles of a free Constitution-the claims of the poor-the protection of female helplessness, and the charities that are the greatest grace and ornament of a civilized country, are to be ground to dust. * * Yes, the whigs have framed, and their political opponents have supported, that Bill which the Bishop of EXETER justly describes when he says,

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"The tendency of the Bill, in this part of its enactments, is to harden the heart of man-to increase his selfishness to an intensity of which he was never yet believed capable-to confound practically his sense of right and wrong to completely deaden his moral feeling; and it told him, in effect, that, by an Act of Parliament, he was released from the duty which he owed to God as his Creator, and to man as his fellow-creature. Such was the tendency, the 'moral' tendency of the Bill; and he would ask their Lordships if they were prepared-for such a measure-to make a sacrifice of every principle of justice and humanity, and to play the tyrant over that fair and helpless portion of the creation which, as men, it was their first duty to protect!"

Again said the eloquent Prelate—and we repeat those sentiments, because we think they ought to be engraven on the hearts of the men of England

"If their Lordships were to pass the Bill, they would, 'for the sake of morality,' have reduced a fellow-creature-aye, he should emphatically repeat-they would have reduced a fellow-creature, one who was the equal of the highest among them in the eyes of the FATHER OF ALL, to the condition of being without either hope or fear in this world for her misconduct. Was that a desirable state of things to produce? He feared that the great majority of women who were reduced to that state, who were the mothers of illegitimate children, merged into those depraved classes, who would continue, under any circumstances, to run their course of crime. But, amongst those who did suffer themselves to be led astray from the path of virtue, it was only natural to suppose that there would be some who, in spite of their error, would not have lost every feeling of honour; who would still have about them some lingering regard for the charm of self-respect— some hope of that, without which life is odious and burdensome-the respect and esteem of others. With such women, the latent but unextinguished feelings of implanted honour would be perverted into guilty conflict with the best instincts of her nature; and their Lordships should be prepared to hear of the mother's hand being raised against herself or against her babe, rather than that she must endure the inevitable and lengthened shame and privation, that must be consequent upon her crime. When there was a probability of this occurring but in one case (and he solemnly declared that the foreknowledge of even one such case would induce him to give this law of injustice every opposition in his power), when even one solitary result might flow from a law founded upon that monstrous principle of doing evil that good might come of it, he confessed he shuddered at the idea of being a participator in its enactment."

But another of the Prelates of our Church-the Bishop of LONDON-did not shudder at the consequences of reducing the Malthusian doctrine into practice: be that his fame as a "Minister of the Gospel of Mercy!"

This Learned Prelate, who was only supporting the system to

which [as one of the Poor-Law Commission] he had already set his signature, would have the bastardy laws abolished, because perjury is sometimes committed under them. Why, so it is under all our laws, civil and criminal. Men are sometimes hanged upon perjured evidence; sometimes acquitted. If the Bishop of LONDON's argument be worth any thing, it should go to the extent of justifying the abolition of all our laws, civil and criminal; for, as the proceedings of Courts of Justice daily show, perjury-to the detriment of the property, the liberty, and even the lives of men-is very often committed in their administration. But, unfortunately for his argument, the logical Bishop adduced instances under the bastardy laws, in which the perjury was not successful; showing that injustice is not always done, even in those instances in which injustice is intended.

As to the Lord CHANCELLOR, one of whose former speeches seemed to strike at the root of the whole of that beautiful system of social charity which used to be admired as the peculiar ornament and pride of this country, he did not attempt to grapple with the speech of the Bishop of EXETER, or with the powerful arguments of Lord WYNFORD. He appealed, indeed, to France, and Belgium, and Ireland, against the poor lawsFrance, that swarms with vagrants, and in the capital of which, in Paris, "the most polished city of the world," it has been shown that one-third of the whole number of yearly births is illegitimate! Now it cannot be the poor laws that make the females so unchaste in France, for they have none. And this practical example shows, as well as that of Belgium, where also the proportion of illegitimate births is exceedingly great, that the repeal of the laws of bastardy will not preserve the chastity of females, while it will afford a boundless license of vicious indulgence to those sordid profligates, who care not what extent of female misery they create, provided they are not obliged to pay for it.

But, why appeal to France, or Belgium, or still more wretched Ireland, for the advantages of living in a state of nature, as far as the poor, and illegitimate children are concerned? Why not direct our attention to New Zealand, or Otaheite, or Owyhee,

where man exists in still more of the perfection of a state of nature? What a gross mistake was that of our forefathers, when they took the poor out of a state of nature-when they declared that guilty men should maintain their innocent offspring—when they decreed that a single error of a confiding and betrayed woman, should not drive her to the agony and crimes of irremediable despair--when, in fact, they planted the tree of Christian charity in our isle, and fenced it within the pale of British law, throwing its branches far and wide over all the children of calamity!

Whatever becomes of this odious and un-English Poor-Law Bill, we have done our duty-liberavimus animam-on the heads of its authors be the consequences which humanity will have to deplore. They have their triumph, and must gather its fatal fruits.

Attempt, in the Reformed House of Commons, to intimidate the Public Press.― June 30, 1834.

* ** * We observe that among the obsequious majority of Lord ALTHORP in the House of Commons, there has been found one zealous supporter of his Poor-Law Bill, who has ventured to try the experiment of intimidating the Press for describing this Bill as it ought to be described, in a country where moral principle, humanity, and Christian feeling are not altogether extinct. This Hon. person declared the other night, that if he were not a young member of the House, he would have moved that the printer and publisher of a Morning Paper should be called to the bar of the House, to answer for an article which had appeared in that day's paper, relative to this Bill-this arbitrary-this unconstitutional Bill-this precious specimen of heartless and immoral legislation—relieving profligate men from the consequences, in person and purse, of their licentious practices against female chastity-throwing on the female victims of perjured vows and violated promises, all the penalties of the crime of the sordid seducer-and investing an irresponsible Divan of Central Bashaws with the power of lawmakers for all the parishes of England, and administrators of

their own laws-giving those Bashaws also a vast control over the application of the money of the rate-payers: and thus uniting legislative, executive, and fiscal powers in the same hands, in a way never heard of before in a country understanding anything of constitutional liberty, and the principles which constitute its strength and protection.

We can tell the Honourable Member, that his threat shall not have the effect of intimidating ourselves from discharging our duty to the public in this matter. We have exposed the vicious character of this Bill, and predicted its evil consequences as strongly as any of our Contemporaries. If we have applied to it strong epithets, we have also given our reasons. If our arguments can be answered-well: if not, threats. against the Press, thrown out in the reformed House of Commons, will not answer them. We shall still, in spite of all such"hostile demonstrations," whether from young or old Members, call "a spade, a spade." We care not who it is that desires to throw around unconstitutional, immoral, and unchristian doctrines the fence of Parliamentary privilege.

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To all who wish to see the leading provisions of Lord ALTHORP'S POor-Law Bill ably handled, and its vicious principles and practical consequences clearly and forcibly exposed, we recommend the perusal of the speech delivered by Mr. WALTER, the Member for Berkshire, on Friday night [27th]. If this be what Mr. RICHARDS calls "declamation," we should like to see more of it in the House of Commons, and then the interests of the unrepresented classes-the labouring poor of this country-would not be so neglected as they are; nor would they be delivered up to the tender mercies of Malthusian Bashaws and the philosophers, male and female, of the "preventive-check" school. Nor can we conclude these remarks, without bearing testimony to the judicious and unanswered, though unavailing arguments, used the same evening by Messrs. ROBINSON, BENNETT, T. ATTWOOD, JERVIS, and G. YOUNG, in behalf of humanity, Christian morals, and the Constitution.