The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-12 00:00:00

of the poll, as exhibited last night at the committee-
room of Sir Francis, were—for

Burdett
Lcadcr
Majority fur Sir Francis

3,460
2,874
--586

It, appears from these numbers that scarcely one-
half of the constituency voted—a fact that it is difficult
to reconcile with the extraordinary degree of excite-
ment which this election produced. Among those
w.ho did not exercise their elective franchise on this
• occasion, it is net to be believed there wei.e any supe
porters of the Whig-Radical Government or friends of
revolutionary doctrMes. The habitual activity of that
party, stimulated, moreover, as it was on the present
occasion by more than ordinary efforts of Government
influence, forbids the supposition than any Westminster
Destructives were missing at the poll, unless such as
from illness, or some other cause, were physically un-
able to attend the election. Besides, the " rump "
had every tiling at stake—the very existence of that
vile political monstrosity depended upon the issue of
this contest. Its struggles were great ; they were the
struggles of its dying agonies. Sir Francis Burdett
had spurned and kicked it with a degree of constitu-
tional vigour that would have done credit to his earlier
years. He has now crushed the thing for ever. Un-
der all these circumstances, it seems pretty certain
that the great mass of the electors who did not
vote are Conservatives—at least, are nominally so ; as
e can hardly conceive that men who have the true
spirit of Conservative patriotism in them would have
le.en only distinguished by their apathy and inaction
on such an occasion. An Evening Tory print has
been making excuses for them—they arc worse than
none. If there arc a great number of Tories, as we
are led to believe, and as the print in question has in-
formed us, who have declined supporting Burdett be-
cause he is not a Tory, such Tories must be of most
decrepid intellect, and must, in their silliness, regard a
party nickname of far more importance than the dis-
comfiture of revolutionary designs, and the preserva-
tion of our Institutions in Church and State. Per-
sonally the representation of Westminster can be of no
earthly importance to Sir Francis Burdett. His years,
his health, and his tastes, have latterly indisposed him
to the bustle of public life ; and for him the State
has no object of ambition, and the House of
Commons no attraction. He could have no party
motive in becoming once more a candidate for West-
minster ; for among what party can he be.enrolled ? He
opposes the Whigs now as strenuously as he did in
the prime of life. He denounces the revolutionary doc-
trines of the Whig-Radicals ;, and the Tories
_not only
deny that he is one of their number, but the majority
of them refuse to assist him, although fighting the
battle of the monarchy in the place in which he had so
long struggled for the freedom of the people. What
then induced Burdett to appear once more an the hus-
tings to confront a Covent-garden mob, and solicit the
suffrages of the electors, at the peril of his life I—for
the task which he undertook might well have daunted
men of earlier years and more vigorous. He came for-
ward to contend for great principles—principles which,
to their shame be it spoken, many timid and temporis-
ing politicians, calling themselves Conservatives, have
been disposed to surrender to intimidation, or sacrifice
on the altar of political expediency for private ends.
Burdett, strong in the inspiration of a great cause,
flung all minor considerations to the winds, and by
the manly and generous disinterestedness of his con-
duct, has given a great example to the political world.
If the representation of Westminster was any object
of personal pride or political ambition to Burdett, he
had it safe enough already, if he only chose to act ac-
cording to the dictation of the rumpites, and assist in
overthrowing our institutions in Church and State.
But when called upon to do so, or vacate his seat, did
he palter with his principles ? Did he hesitate to—ac-
cept the challenge and try his claim to a seat for West-
minster upon principle alone ? No. He disdained to
place his neck beneath the yoke, and appear as the
Representative of Westminster in the livery of the
" rum;'," and the badge of the bondsman. He applied
for the Chiltern Hundreds, and entered the lists to
fight not merely the battle of Westminster's indepen-
dence, but that of the British monarchy and the Bri-
tish Constitution. Against him were the Ministers—
against him the Whig-Radical Members of Parliament
—against him the admirers of union bastiles and
starve-pauper despotism. How did he meet that array ?
He relied net upon management and manoeuvre—he
trusted to influence of character and principle alone.
He boldly declared that his cause was the cause
of old English principles of government. He placed
the Church, against which the motley army of Ro-
manists, radiearDissenters, and infidels, had arrayed
themselves in the front of the battle—he passed upon
it one of the most beautiful and eloquent panegyrics that
was ever pronounced by a politician on our mild and
tolerant National Establishment. With his success
then, the cause of the Church—the cause of the peer
and the peasant—the cause of Constitutional Liberty
is identified. Show us the Tory that in modern times
has done so much for our ancient institutions—for our
Anglo-Saxon liberties, against democrats, levellers,
and propounders of new-Tangled theories of Govern-
ment, as Burdett has done, and we may be dis-
posed to set less value upon the example which
his conduct has afforded to the political world
than we at present do. When a Tory Journal tells
" we saw a canvassing book yesterday, in which
in three hours' walk merely, as many as a dozen
individuals replied that they certainly preferred Sir
Francis to Mr. Leader, but that they would not vote
at all," we are strongly inclined to suspect there was
more than one Judas to Conservative principles among
that twelve, for such conduct can only be the result of
treachery or infatuation. In emancipating Westmin-
ster from the " rump," Burdett has no doubt led the
way to the deliverance of the metropolitan boroughs
from Whig-Radical dictation. The monopoly of those
boroughs which the Whig-Radicals have obtained,
they were at first enabled to secure, and since to pre-
serve, more by the timidity, or, to speak in plain terms,
the moral cowardice and temporising policy of persons
calling themselves Tories and Conservatives, than by
their own talents or numerical superiority. The
example which Burdett has given, the triumph which
he has achieved, will, as we stated yesterday, be felt
in every county and borough in Great Britain. He
has struck a blow that will resound through the empire,
and give a new impulse to the great cause of constitu-
tional re-action.—Morning Herald.

PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 10.—Although the cots-
mercial embarrassment just now is great, yet there is no abate-
ment in the mania fur canal and railroad undertakings. In
every city, state, and county—nay, in even every village of this
republic—the general talk is a new railroad or canal. After
cutting the country up in every direction with canals and rail-
roads, the unsatisticd enterprise of the people is now busy at
work, projecting herculean schemes of ship canals, to unite
the great lakes with one another, and with the Atlantic.
That of the Welland, in Canada, around Niaeara Falls is made ;
another corresponding is to be constructed on this side ; and
the iMichiga❑ Legislature are debating one around the falls of
St. Mary's, whereby the Americans open to the chain of
Lower Lakes the immense inland sea of Lake Superior by
a canal only half a mile long, and a lockage of twenty-three
feet. There will also be one day a ship canal directly across
the Michigan peninsula, and one also from those lakes by a
common trunk to connect with the Ohio River, to say nothing
of Lake Superior and the upper Mississipi. Go ahead I
THE LATE MR. ROTHSCHILD.—It was *one
feature in Rothschild's conduct when on 'Change, which I
have never seen noticed, that he never, except when engaged
in business, entered into conversation with any of the thousands
it: the same place. There he stood, in the midst of the bustle
on 'Change, apparently as deeply lost in thought, and with as
melancholy a countenance, as if he had been alone in the vast
wilderness of shade referred to by Cowper, or been the "Last
Man" described by Campbell. I never knew a more striking
illustration than he presented, of the po..sibility of one being
in the depths of solitude while in the midst of the busiest
and most bustling scenes which this busy and bustling metro-
polis I resents. Whether his reserve was constitutional, or
whether it arose from the pride of purse, or whether from the
magnitude of the matters which must have been ever occupying
his mind, or whether from the conjoint operations of the three
causes, I cannot positively say ; but the fact of his reserve was
as I have stated.— The Great Metropolis—Second Series.
The natural curiosity known by the name of the
" king of the rats" (Rattenhonig), has been declared by many
naturalists to be a mere fable. On the 21st March there was
found in the wall of a stable at Zaisenhausen, in the grand
duchy of Baden, a king of the rats, which coexisted of twelve
full-grown► rats, which were all alive when found—whose tails
arc so entangled together that they cannot be unloosened,
Four other live rats were found with them, by which the twelve
so joined together were provided with food. The twelve rats
are all nearly of equal size, and seem to be well fed. It
seems evident that they must have got so entangled imme-
diately after their birth, because the tails, when an attempt
was made to disengage them, are bent quite conformably to
the knot.--German Journal,