The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-05 00:00:00

NORTH DERBYSHIRE.

Wednesday was the day fixed for the nomination of can-
didates to represent the northern division of the county in
Parliament. The Tories, presuming froth the known fact
of the ill-health of Mr. Gisborne, the talented Member of
the Division since the passing of the Reform Bill, that Le
would be obliged to retire, have been exerting themselves,
ever since the last election, to prepare for the present.
They presented a requisition to Robert Arkwright,
which, at first, it was understood, he accepted, but after-
wards declining to stand himself, the Tories took as substi-
tute his son, and no pains or expense have been spared by
them.

OFFLEY SHORE, Esq., proposed the Honourable George
Henry Cavendish as a fit and proper person to represent
the Division.

GEORGE ANDREWS, Esq., seconded the nomination.
THOMAS GISBOBNE, Esq., was received with enthusias-
tic cheers by the Reformers, which overwhelmed the fainter
efforts of the Tories. He began by asking who Mr. Ark-
wright the Tory candidate was, and then exposed the utter
unfitness of the Conservative& candidate. Mr. Gisborne
concluded by saying, " I tell you, with perfect confidence,
that you will carry the election of the two Liberal candi-
dates in this contest—(Loud cheers and Tory uproar)—
by a large majority.--(Renewed cheers.) lam exhausted,
and I am, therefore, unable to do more than state, that I
have sincere satisfaction in proposing Wm. Evans, Esq„ as
a fit and proper person to represent this Division in Par-
liament.—(Loud cheers.)
JOSHUA JEER, Esq., seconded the nomination.
W. J. BAGSHAWE, Esq., then proposed Mr. S. Arkwright.
M. MIDDLEToN, Esq., amid continued uproar, seconded
the nomination.
The Hon. G. H. CAVENDISH said, I have known Mr.
Arkwright long, and I dare say he believes the principles
he asserts to be the best for the country, as conscientiously
as I hold the same 'opinion of mine. But, gentlemen, al-
though I am ready to allow Mr. Arkwright has a right to
his opinions and to submit them to you, I am anxious to
have a fair stand-up fight. My opponents have laboured
to impress you with the idea that_ your independence is
threatened, that the Duke of Devonshire wants to monopo-
lise the representation of this division, and that there is a
compact between Mr. Gisborne and my family to make it a
close borough. As affects the Duke of Devonshire the
accusation is ridiculous. His whole life belies it. On what
action of his can they lay a finger that affords it the slightest
countenance? Was he not one of the foremost when the
Reform Bill was proposed to liy down any Parliamentary
power he had till then exerted ? He said, now is the time,
since we have a Reform Ministry, to show that I hold sin-
cerely the principles I have always asserted, and I will show
it by relinquishing any Parliamentary influence which I pos-
sess, and placing it in the hands of the people. And, gen-
tlemen, I have often heard the Duke say, that for what-
crer power or political influence he had lost, he was well
rewarded by the esteem and good-will of his neighbours,
which he had gained. I have been told that the Duke of
Devonshire's tenants have been required to vote contrary
to their principles for Mr. Evans. I distinctly deny this.
—(Cheers.) After some remarks ors the system of mingled
coercion, and of brutalization by beer, acted upon by the
opposite party, Mr. Cavendish said—To such expedients I
will never have recourse. I had much rather lose my eke-
tion.—(Cheers.) You have been told by our opponents
that we are O'Connellites. I have given my consent to
measures relating to Ireland, which I believe to be just and
right ; and I will not suffer myself to be turned out of my
path because lam called an O'Connellite.—(Cheers.) I
will endeavour to pursue the path of equal justice to all, to
do what is right and just, and, supported by my conscience,
I shall care very little what names may be given me. Do
not listen to them when they tell you we are Destructives,
because we wish our institutions to be strengthened, their
usefulness to be extended, and the rights of all to be
maintained ; because we desire to preserve to the rich all
their honours, rank, or privileges, as far as they are compa-
tible with the interests of their countrymen ; to give to the
middle classes every facility for commerce ; to secure to
them a proper control over their local affairs-; to give to
them a due share in the legislative councils ; and to give to
the working classes an interest in our institutions. These
are important benefits which may be cheaply obtained ; and
thus, in a time of real danger, our throne and institutions
may be preserved inviolate and safe, guarded by the hearts
of a happy, free, and undivided people.
W. Evans, Esq., was received with cheers. He said
that there was no coalition between him and Mr. Caven-
dish, and denied that lie had urged his tenants to vote
otherwise than as they wished, and proceeded to avow that
he was a Reformer. He concluded by saying—lf you re-
turn me I shall support her Alajesty's Ministers zealously
while I believe they act for the interests of the people of
this country. You have performed a distinguished part on
former occasions, and I am sure that no menaces, threats,
or compulsion will prevent you from using your right, and
no temptation of beer or ale, means which I deprecate ex-
ceedingly, and consider to be demoralizing and insulting, will
induce you to desert your old colours and your old prin-
ciples—(Cheers)—and you will distinguish yourselves as
lovers of freedom, reform, and good government, by your
acting as men, and returning two Liberal Members to serve
you in Parliament.—(Loud cheers.)
GEORGE ARKWRIGHT, Esq., then came forward amid
cheers from the Blues and considerable uproar, which con-
tinued so much that he was very imperfectly heard. He
said, it had been asked what pretensions I have to come
before you ? I come forward at the request of nearly 700
electors of this division ; as one born and bred and residing
among you, and having the interest of all classes at heart.
I have not been brought from the further end of the county,
nor because I am the cousin of the Duke of Devonshire,
nor the brother-in-law of Mr. Gisborne.—(lncreased up-
roar.) A slight attempt has been made to do away with
the impression that a coalition has been formed ; but I per-
sist firmly, notwithstanding Cie attempt to deny or apolo-
gize, that no one can disprove the coalition. Allusion has
been made to the obtaining of votes by intimidation, Some
subordinate agents of the Duke of Devonshire have been
going about with a letter of his Grace (so we understood
the speaker), using it to cause the tenants to believe they
would suffer if they did not support the coalition. In one
case a voter had promised me, but he was intimidated by
some of the subordinate agents of the Duke, and after-
wards said be dared not give me his vote, though he wished
to do it.—(Uproar.) I am an independent candidate, of
no party or faction ; I do not pledge myself to support a
Whig, nor do I pledge myself to support a Tory Govern-
ment ; my sentiments are such as attach me to the Consti-
tution and institutions of my country. lam for the Church,
against O'Connell, and the Irish agitators. I think the
Poor-law wants alteration, but ought not to be repealed.
The HIGH SHERIFF declared that the show of hands
was in favour of Mr. Cavendish and Mr. Evans.
Mr. BAGSHAWE, on behalf of Mr. Arkwright, demanded
a poll, which the High Sheriff appointed to take place on
Monday and Tuesday next.

an Act passed on the 30th June,
the disgusting spectacle of the pillory is abolished.

URIBERY AT NORWICH.
( Abridged from the Norwich Mercury.)
The sale by public auction of the votes of the Norwich
Electors, falsely called the Election, and at which certain
partizans acting in the name and on the behalf of the
Marquis of Douro and the Hon. Robert Scarlett were the
successful bidders, bas occasioned a feeling of shame, dis-
gust, and scorn, in every honest mind towards all the agents
in this nefarious traffic, which cannot be exceeded. Ills ad-
mitted that no case upon record ever. equalled the atrocity
of the bribery. It is admitted that very. nearly one-fourth
of the constituency were bribed with hard money. II is
admitted that not fewer than five hundred .
men on both sides
were cooped—that is mewed up at public and private
houses in the villages of Norfolk, where when gorged and
intoxicated, they fought, rioted, end slept themselves sober,
only to plunge afresh into renewed excesses far somo
three, four, five, or six days, as the case might be. It
is admitted that shopkeepers and householders, ap-
parently respectable in situation and manners, her-
gained away their franchise for solid sovereigns. Nay, we
could name professional men whom the world and the
world's law has left so bare of substance and of right feel-
ing, that they have sold themselves with as little reluctance
as the neediest handicraftsman out of work, whose starving
family extenuates his offence, It is admitted that the sum
laid out in the last two hours far outgoes all former in-
stances of this profligate prodigality. We have it from the
individuals themselves that they received forty and fifty
sovereigns a-piece. We know one instance of a fellow, a
housekeeper and tradesman, who took thirty from one party
and forty from the other for which he voted, and kept
loth. Another took 151. and 301. in the same manner.
We have heard that a man actually received one hundred
pounds, thought it insufficient, and as the time of closing
the poll drew nigh, and the actual superiority was not ascer-
tained, demanded and received thirty-five sovereigns
more. Another is stated to have gained 1251. in the
same way. These anecdotes are coupled with such
terrible relations of the influence, the persuasion, the•me-
nace, and actual privation of employment on the part of
men who ought to be, and in the ancient States who would
have been, ignominiously thrust forth from the city and the
society of honest men, that the mind sickens with disgust
at the passions which are thus enlisted to uphold the per-
sonal and party importance of the principal actors in this
scene of political depravity and depravation. It stands
recorded in the evidence on oath given before the Bribery
and Intimidation Committee of the House of Commons
(question 5,236), that before the election of Lord Stor-
mont and Sir James Scarlett in 1832, there never was any
direct bribery at elections for Members of Parliament in
Norwich. It sorts well with the corruption of the times
that such example should commence at the return of a
man soon after to be raised by a Tory Administration
to the office of Judge—to administer the law, so
virtuously observed in the case of his election. It
sorts well with the retribution which universally follows
eren in this world, that the Lord of Abinger and Nor-
wich, who assumed the Angels which supported the
Arms of the Norwich Corporation for the supporters of his
own shield, that on the Noble Judge's first circuit he should
be summoned as a witness in an action for bribery at his
()en election, and should know that action to be compro-
mised by the defendants at the cost of 6501., in the Criminal
Court of this city, when lie was presiding at Nisi Prins.
A sum amounting to the enormous total of from FORTY TO
FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS has been lavished in this work of
moral destruction. It is sonic relief to the mind to know,
which we learn upon sufficient testimony, that the
Marquis of Douro has expressed a strong sense of
the misrepresentations by which he was inveigled to
lend his name to such practices, and some feeling
of the disgraceful indignity thus grafted upon his
house, together with no slight apprehension of the con-
sequences upon his noble father's mind. He did indeed
express the virtuous determination neither to join in any
procession or other rejoicing, and to quit Norwich for ever;
but this just feeling was unhappily overruled. There is yet
a way open to redeem the loss of character and to prevent
its perpetuation. This way is to relinquish a seat at once
which entails upon him the everlasting infamy of becoming
" the representative of the basest constituency in the United
Kingdom by the basest instrumentality." It becomes the
upright part of the community to take some decisive steps
to bring all the circumstances---we repeat it emphatically—
all the cii cumstances under the cognizance of the Legis-
lature, who we hope will devise some means of stopping
the contagion, for contagious it is to an extraordinary ex-
tent. We have distinct dates. It has been sworn that. it
began in 1832. See to what it has grown in five little
years! And alas! what a load of guilt has it heaped
upon the consciences of those men who began and have
so rapidly completed the corruption of their fellow-citizens !
The following is the substance of the defence put forth
by the Norwich Gazette, the advocate of the party accused,
on the clearest evidence, of bribery, which, for the extent
of its atrocity, is perhaps unparalleled in the annals of
political profligacy :—" Nothing," says the Conservative's
.Counsel, " is raised so loudly by a baffled crew of vote-
poachers as the cry of Bribery, bribery, bribery ! This is
indeed the very acme of Blue and White humbug. It is
what their friend O'Connell calls beating 13annagher,' and
Bannagher, as the Irish tradition goes, beat the d—l.'
That there is a great deal of Whig zeal as well as of
Radical honesty in all this, we do not deny ; but it may
p r;:aps be worth a thought, on the part of those immacu-
late hunters for cases of electoral frailty, that zeal like theirs
runs risk of outstripping discretion ; and honesty such as

they have to brag of may chance to turn out I.mt a poor
sort of bargain, if taken at their own valuation. The game of
s'lowing up an erring neighbour's faults is one which two sides
can play at. And certainly it is a prudent caution to those
whose windows are made of glass, that they of all people
should beware of throwing stones, especially, as the Rev.
and facetious Sidney Smith says—' especially when their
own panes are so very large.' If, however, bribery and
corruption be objects of such unaffected abhorrence with
the Whigs of Norwich, let them but once begin their im-
partial and veracious labours, by the publication of names
and such like good-natured and patriotic expedients for per-
sonal exposure, and they shall not want for " justice more
perhaps than they desire." Why, it is notorious and indis-
putab!e that, at the very first hour of commencing their
canvass, they displayed the means through which they in-
tended and' hoped to win the election, by acts of ruffianly
cooping and direct bribery. As to the corrupt practices of
the party, we have heard that some of them can ha posi-
tively proved by written engagements." Is not all this far-
rago of insinuation a .d bullying confirmatory of tho briber's
crime ?