The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-02 00:00:00

ELECTORAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

nun • LSlllvymnsua........
It has been the fate of thus small county to be very
often the 'object of severe parliamentary contests. Whether
we look at its geographical dimensions, its product., its
manufactures, its trade, its contributions to the taxation of
the empire, or the numerical extent of its population, we
shall find no properties attaching to it that can sufficiently
account for its being so favourite a representation, as to have
thus frequently arrayed determined candidates the one
against the other, in vehement struggles for the distinc-
tion of giving utterance is its collective voice in the
imperial legislators. Its disunion sorted those of Rutland
and Middlesex of all *a Eaillr counties. With the
three ezespeong of Nisffiemd. Illeamistaddre, and West-
moreland, it is ilse least amilmablia meaty in point of
actual population; and Is the relative amount of that
population it moles bat at the lowest. Wool stapling andnd
yant spinning, mad Mass estdueted only by women a
children, are the chief pretenstots it can advance to anything
in the shape of manufactures. It has but two rivers of any
consequence in the operations of trade, the Ouse and the
Nees; and though by the latter it communicates with the
beet port on the meat of Not folk, it has no very tableor
cargoes of corn to you into the market of Lynn, or to no
f-
ward by the high roads and railways which traverse it to the
metropolis. Its grain and its cattle, however, are of excel-
lent quality; and one staple of its local tzsde,—the cheese of
Stilton, has been considerably extending itself for some
emirs ast. Its pastures are of admitted excellesce, but
p
Iba y do not constitute the greater proportion
of a superficial, one-fifth of which is occupied by
fens, some of them, indeed, excellently drained,
but others forming not the most fertile portion of the clayey
soils included within the Great Bedford Level. Throughout
the 478 parishes into which the county is divided, the whole
produce raised—although the husbandry is said to be gene-
rally good, end the most improved processes of agriculture to
be largely adopted—is but inconsiderable, when looked at in
relation to the territorial dimensions even of the
county. For the area it occupies is 372 square miles. or
241,000 acres. Prom the Nene, at Peterborough, to Tet-
worth, is the longer of the two diagonal lines that ran be
traced through the shire ; namely, 29 miles from N. to S. ;
and from Erith on the west to Royston, a shorter diagonal
measures 23 miles. There are two outlying portions of this
aunty; one of them, the parish of Swineahead, in Bedford-
shire; the other the Forest of Erosion, extending between

Bedfordshire and Osmighigahirs Is 1803, the total
of the poor-rate lahei Iluntingdesebire amounted to
30,9521., and was at the heavy narrated of 4s. in the prond,
• very heavy chargeon the inhabitantsefacounty whose whole
annual income, as assessed to the propeny-tax, three years
afteeemrda, was but 396,0191. The relative proportions of
'aviation sad poor rate in each of the following decennial
sea, respectively, these: Ix 1801, pepulation,
daw•rate, 23,8471. In 1511, cordate's. 42,206,,
c0N95,4121. Ia 1821, papishstion, 43,371; Poortsbos
n 1831, population. 13,162; pear-rate, 40.6741.
In 1841... populates., 53,172; poor-rate (levied), 33,0361.
Thus the memos ofiropulatioalsetween the extreme Unseat
1801 and 1841, had 41 per cent.; bat we know dm°
other insfance is which the revelation of as Eaglish county
leas snood se anew, stationary for ten yeas as it had steed
in BOlMlffigisesbire the year 1841 &owl* an increase
=9 ems 1831. Going hack to the lassamed year, we
re seer of inhabited houses was 11,278, having
1,019 insdlies; and this, it es remarhable esough, was ea
lasses edema 40 to 41 per omit on the warn for 1101,1
when** seemlier of :babied houses waslB4l. The tos-
pool ills be... duty fee sad after the year 1834, prompts
as truth siesthinine, withrresision, east wee the number of
bailee* Mom in Haallerderhithin the lot yes: idiom
=l4=ilon. threntasabovernatites ithsesliethat
las therfalassenthis. sa the esowsnosol
smownswilliw• or of iowirgo saillweilitaw• to
owessat Ow IN *moor abide& Ima W trflb a tondo ow •
Lion of the sriatoethey, as its threat terserntatisa opoo
which dory bore *And is war goellowoot. Rot
eocutty is the oiriodiftwolowito siowtij sapricelteridis.
tact. Isessamini Noidowt.
CalebrideileS thsrakftis ea des sentailemb;
aim bit the bolsi gostor in that alai are always
to GIL loth of twos nob of wittiodtoxs. and
sectionsrem te be issardisially ire
en dui
proccedi of Raatiaellowilok d lb. latter as
este this is 6 t bye gods, of slethithseerier
with thob thaellthaveisd Aerie sowpoot wo mei
• wig Awl amiallillw of post
bees ced rival tor
bet UN 'woo, continue at the sail of that_rsriod to bin-
=imilieessd to control, the eensty &dont Ties Xasehseters,
, Aboynes, Caralbetis litat
Leeds Fellows.' Thornhill', des., altrlay7.B'aiortri.' wa.the
seasadent." In short, so unbrokae MOM to be the tenacity
of the hold which particular families have upon the elective
"choice" (?) of Huntingtonahin, that it recalls the memory
of those times when the whole aunty was in • sedition el
forest, such as its western end other woodland districts still
are, and when its feudal masters gloried in the unrcolainied
character of a wilderness, whose very designation attested its
peculiar facilities for the noblest pastime of their own leisure.
How little affected, towards the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, had been the serf-like devotion of the people of Hunts
to the old families settled among them, by the political con-
vulsions which had passed over them, more especially since
they had roared and bred that marvellous and gifted man,
who had shaken to their centre the institutions of the coun-
try, and, as it were with his own hand, subverted one of the
most ancient monarchies of Europe—we may collect from
many curious passages in the invaluable " Diary" of Pepys.
The glimpses be affords us show the almost patriarchal conai-
deration in whieb the lords of Hinchinbto ke were regarded by
the country people sirrounding the old domains of the Mon-
tague'. Those glimpses are very instructive as well as
curious. In 1817 we are not very sanguine a, to the possi-
bility of over-riding, by the forte of even the soundest and
most constitutional principles, the compact alliance of coo-
perative family interests, which is paramount in this
county, and has been since 1660, at the latest.
Mr. 'Hooper, a Whig, who was thrown out by Lord
Strathaven in a mutest for this county in 1831, succeeded,
indeed, in getting returned in 1831. In 1833, and again in
1835, he made good this return : but, in the election of 1837,
Mr. Fellowes and Mr. Thornhill, two Conservatives, were
elected—the one by 1,392, and the other by 1,344 votes ;
whilst Mr. Hooper was reject d with a poll of only 900. Sines
then the shire appears to ha', virtually become the borough
of Mr. Thornhill and Mr. Fellowes. What hope can be
held out for the emancipation of this county when we find
that, throughout its breadth and length, the number of
" houses building" at the two last reported decennial periods
was 20 and 18 ? In 1811 there was no contest for
Huntingdonshir' e. We see just one redeeming hope
for the cause of free election in the fart that, whereas
the number of registered electors for the county
in 1840 was but 2,824, in 1846 it was returned at
3,047. Vet even this is the smallest number registered
for any other English county, with the single exception of
Rutlandshire. Eight of our large landed proprietors in say
of the neighbouring districts could, with the utmos.
facility, directly interest, and lead, an equal number of
freeholders—having also any holdings by themselves or their
connexions, under lease from them. Surely Weis no healthy
condition in which to leave the elective franchise of a
county constituency who, because of their paucity, are so
much the rare easy to be addressed and worked upon by
some of those means which are sure to achieve the objects
of the parties who set them in motion when they are worked
in the least obtrusive and, therefore, the most dangerous sad
the most efficient manner.
Is may be remarked, in enmeshes, that altlhoogb AM
deA.o has rotorowl two lowollowe tits
eau to dio int moms= arta
*BM entry in connexioa with its scours the
=t at is worthy of being tansheral to this place.
that
of those elections, indeed, from the period ef the
union with Scotland until the pawing elate Reform Bill, is
on. of the most remarkable series to be found on the records
of parliamentary electoral history. We can give here
but a summary of it. From 1715 to 1739 every election
was a contest that terminated in the return of a Lord
Hinehinbroke and a Mr. Bigg, or displacing Mr. Bigg
one or other among the candidates supplied by other
great county families, or a iced Montagu, or • Lori
Hartingtoo, or a Mr. Proby, or a Mr. Montagu, or a Lord
Mandeville. On Lord Mandeville's becoming Duke of
Manchester, • Fellow's, or a Lad Carysfort, or an Bad of
Ludlow, came in pretty regularly with a Lord Hischlahotha
against all competitors. But, on Lord Hinchinbrokeletil
to the upper house, in 1792, as Earl of Sandwich, the
Ludlow was elected. From 1792 to 1818, • Hinchinbroke,vrith
a Proby, or another Montagu, teem to have defeated almost
all antagonists. In 1820, Huntinstdoneltire returned Lord
John Russell; but, in 1826, Lord Viscount Mandeville came
in in the noble lord's room, and again in 1830. Mr. Rooper's
return to the first reformed parliament, and his subsequent
defeat in 1837, and the occupation of both seats for the
county, ever since, by Mr. !Wolves and Mr. Thornhill, two
consuatives, we have already recorded. Z.

POOR-LAW LETTERS.—No. 7. POPULATION.

am unwilling to leave our theory of a poor-
law to its fate, without reverting more expressly to the great
Malthusian dilemma—the more food the more mouths. It
is true we hays been careful not to put forward a poor-law
as a means of supply, but have claimed for it only a plop*
among the means of dietributing supplies—of promoting
employment, and of enforcing upon property the care and
protection of the labourer. Still, if that surplus of unfilled
mouths is to be always in front of us, it must be
confessed that very hole good, alter all, will be
accomplished. As the ease stands in Malthus, it seems
purely hopeless, for no remedies are there suggested but
moral prudence on the part of the poor, and diecouragement
on the part of the rich. Now, where poverty pinches most,
there is already discouragement enough ; and for prudence,
seeing it must act first upon those at the bottom of the lad-
der, it is like preaching up a general system of pauper I
chattily. And this, we my, is not only out of prospect, but
if it could be accomplished, might be very fatal. The repro-
ductive energy of nature is the mainspring of the world,
and human science knows no more when there are too many
men than when there are too many locusts for the genera
ends of Providence. Nevertheless, the pressure of
population is, most undoubtedly, the natural ewe of
poverty ; and nature keeps it down, not by relaxing the
spring, but by cutting off the superfluities of life. Nature
is careful of her elements, but lavish of all her maniere*.
The old doctrine that population is the measure of national
prosperity is, probably, as true as it wee before Malthus ;
for numbers are the cause of wealth, and must ever attend
upon it. But the difference ie great between well-fed and
ill-fed numbers. The proportion of food to mouth. is the
gauge of poverty ; and that proportion may be lower la the
wilderness than in the city._ We know bow nature trims
the balance when it Is left to her ; but the question is,
whether true civilisation, with the aids of commerce and
the whole world before it, may not anticipate the ruder re-
medies of nature, and provide for itself a limit or an escape
somewhere short of vice and misery ?
Divines tell us we may infer from the constitution of the
world, that man is in a state of probation. I think we
may infer still more clearly from it, that society is in a
state of progression. Consider the steps end stogie in ens
land—from Romulus to Clear ! Consider the expansion,
and developments between Boadicea and Victoria! Trace
the material or the moral course of things—from Tubal Cain
to James Watt; or from Dram's Code to Martin's Aet !
Whatever the vicissitudes, whatever the relapses, there ie
progress, on the whole, and a pre=within living
observation how ootudderable, within h how
vast, within unknown futurity how immeasurablemerwriat by
what impulse does society move ? " By supply and de-
mand," says Political Economy; " and government can do
nothing for it, but to keep the course clear and pass police
acts." Curious, if true !
Society, on its journey through the wilderness, is en-
tangled in morasses. The giant, by flu es Wriggles, gets
free from the waist upwards. Tbe head, not without
anxiety for the state of things below, bat filled with a
scientific conviction that all nature goes by selfendeavour,
calla oat to the hindmost to " hike cars et itself." I mean
this for a sober similitude, for though society is note unit,
it has a life and personality of its own—a collective unity
head, belly, and members indissolubly joined together in
one interest. And it is nothing lees then the head tolling
the members to take oars of themselves, when political
science tells the " ragged school " &Um of Loudon, the
" trailing girls " in the coal-pins, the Irish squatters, the
iothyophagi of the Seoteh islands, that they must initiate
their own improvement and work oat their own terrestrial
salvation. The hungry serf of civilized landsis in more help-
less plight than the savage in the desert, for the field of ;
nature which is open to the wild man is fenced
.iinst the
tame and if the field of labour and the hand of charity are
shut against him too, shall we may that ha died
by the " Visitation of God ? " If numbers increase

beyond the power of civil ovganimation to femi there, society
may mower, yee,• but not till then. In se rage lift: it is not
inhumanity tied lame the WON* to ti' eir fide but civili-
sation mot metrodthe itowildea barbetism. Nature
arrests! modem balm mai psitilr.nce, let suggests also
certain milder s which it is the busieem of polity to
studrisa:pda These are ol.fwaved he operate only in
the mid =4,the easier daises of
society. They on moral and decorous
babies, been of omatt, sittropest, sod respect for others ;
well-inet‘etsel maim eoiliolos, sad sem* knowledge of the
principles an sell& the "Me sod private welfare of men
Tom are the farms in winch ethism
and telt net epee the meld mate of man. They
aotosizi: with teed is separate end independent hes"
but with tie business and motives of life after seem
Pitostrieilissibien has been laid.
po=delTre !moist says, Teo mu newer improve
the condition of the poor till you have staid this plague et
matabere ;" but entree seems to say, " You eau never day
this *arm of smarms except by improving the eonditien el
the pours' It is as., that WI depends nom the issue of
oath a eentroveter.
Is it set true *ratite most abject classes of every people
brood the fastest sled die the fastest? The deeperate man
hie no ferosight Ile who Is sunk is ignorance, filth, and
rim, has no theory of society save osly that the worldi is sot
his Mesa. nor the world's law. Upon him eakseidemeiluars
meet hetures, aid tracts are showered in vain.
hunger and disease no cultivation ef the higher nature is
pomildo; no man fa that condition is a moral being.
Feed and shelter mart come before doctrine, before "
bermes, temperance, and chastity ;" before Christianity it-
edf. • therefore. a poor-law, by distribution, or by stuns-
prepszty to its deities, con mitigate the hyd evils
.•poor.laer may yet rise to scientific honours, and
aartegeser atom the moral checks to population.
111iis lemleape gram& attained, how moth would follow
1, ii dm she sad ptoi bare ewer Is view ! The peer are
vast sallihohda io to may they helm% to that taste
olatzt s h abot Which the
gilded heat en ' the whole I structure rests. The
&Deem of the pew spool upward.: their riots taint the
spring, of natitreel fivlng4ar. In studying their welter*, we
are studying our elm sire children's, and our children's
children's in the most aomposhensire and effectual sense.
To raise human society also 7e labour, and are, and sorrow,
were to reverse the whole order of nature, which is no
enterprise of ours. Dist to rei‘se the animal condition of
civilised men permanently above the brute, is founding upon
the order of eatery, and advancing the rate of Adam towards
its earthly consummation.
Great and masifold we know are the difficulties, the
Ons ructio, the contradictions. Lions in the path !
however, the problem which Engla.nd, first amoing the
nations, seems commissioned to solve :
"Given, the natural law of population, to feed, clothe,
lodge, and cultivate the people up to th,:t point where, by
another law of nature, moral checks to res'illen breeding
come into spontaneous operation."
When England shall have written her Q.E.D. a her that,
she will bare renewed her youth, and only began her emu
of true and original glory.

PORT OP NEWCASTLE.—h consequence of appli-
cations having been made to the Board of Customs by the
inhabitants of North and South Shields for increased
Custom house feeilities, the lion. G. R. Dawson has visited
the locality, and had interviews with the merchants and
members of the corporation at Newcastle, with the view of
obtaining information on the sub)ect for the guidance of
the board. After several interviews and dMeussions, the
parties intagested met and agreed upon the following
arrangement, which the 7 unanimously agreed to recommend
to the board as the basis of future regulations, which it is
probable the board will sanction : —I. Th►t there shall be
no subdivision of the port, which shall preserve its in-
tegrity; and the general registry of the shipping of the
port shall be at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 11. That such
auxiliary establishments as the Board of Customs shall
se, fit shall be formed at North or South Shields, or at
both of those towns, which shall afford the following
facilitics, viz.-1. Entering and clearing ships coastwise.
2. Reporting ships inwards by consignees or their agents,
and amending reports from foreign. 3. Clearing ships
foreign, by exporters or their agents, laden or in ballast.
4. Enrolling, amending, cancelling, and transferring inden-
tures of apprenticeship. 6. Entering and obtaining banded
stores for ships. B. Entering goods inwards by consignees
or their agents, and paying duties. 7. Clearing goods out-
wards by exporters or their agents, duty paid and otherwise.
8. Taking goods out of bond, and paying duties thereon.
9. Giving bonds for removal of goods on which the duties
have not been paid coastwise, and ever, other devription of
bond required by the customs. 10. Receiving drawbacks
on goods exported. 11. Shipowners to be allowed to per-
form the acts necessary for registration and for transfer at
the auxiliary establishments. 12. Endorsing on registers
changes of masters. 13. Granting and renewing seamen's
register-tickess.
Titz WEATnra

lest wee

very cold, and early on Monday morning theie was Goole
utwbengite
aementry,
the forenoon's
howegre, ves
inf tin"
e-
are vies on with great alacrity. and antrythiag
looks favourable. The young trees and gooseberry bushes
are in full bud in the Vale of Clyde, and people am looking
forward with hopeful and grateful hearts to abundant crops
and better times in due lemon. No one is forgetting to
plant a portion of potatoes, to see if, peradventure, that de-
lightful rant may not have recovered its former healthy
state, and most sincerely do we hope that they may not be
disappointed.—Glasgow Coitstittitionnel.