The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-06 00:00:00

EVEIVING EDITION.

THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.

I _
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
) Sza,—l sent the following letter to the Morning
iChronicle yesterday, but not observing its insertion, may
I beg you to give it a place in your columns.
I have the honour to be, &c.
W. S. NORTHHOUSE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 1
SIR,—During the long period (upwards of twenty
years) I have been a reader of the Morning Chronicle, 1
I have had occasion to observe its marked abstinence
from personal attacks in the discussion of pub-
lic or party questions, or should an occasional
error of that sort be committed on grounds
afterwards shown to be unfounded or unfair,' I have
also remarked the readiness with which an explanation
was inserted and the evil remedied.
Confiding in your consistency and sense of justice,
allow me to assure you that you were mistaken in
charging the Lord Mayor with prostituting the civic
feast of Monday last to party purposes. Your charge
is founded upon the report in the Times. Had you in-
quired of the Man. Member for Leicester, who was
present, he might have informed you that it was the
omissions and exaggerations of that report, which chiefly
gave the proceedings a party colouring. After Sir F.
Burde4 had been stopped in his rabid attack upon
the Irik Government, the Lord Mayor distinctly and
impressively stated that he had trusted that all allusions
to politics would have been avoided, and that all his in-
vitations had been sent without reference to party
opioions or objects. Those observations were
entirely omitted from the report in the Times,
which omission, along with the colouring that was given
to certain Tory favourites, led you into the error of
imagining and ascribing party views.
It is true that the health of the Queen Dowager
was more enthusiastically drank than that of the
Queen Regnant, but smarting, as the citizens do,
under what they, perhaps erroneously, believe to have
hem " a sharp reception and a short answer," to
their recent deputation in defence of their ancient
rights and privileges, it was not in human nature to
act. otherwise. Cheering and shouting are voluntary acts,
and to expect rapturous enthusiasm while a sense of
pain and mortification prevails, is to expect more than
the infirmity of men's feelings will permit. There was
not, however, a single disrespectful sound or indication
after the toast or during the anthem.
Then as to the company and the speeches—
With the single exception of Sir Francis Burdett,

I observed nothing to give a party hue to the
proceedings. There were no " Church and State"
toasts, though three Bishops were present.
No " Immortal Memory," and " No Surrender"
sentiments. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cam-
bridge, who 4s no party man, had the chief place
in the proceed❑gs. The next was allotted to the Mar-
quis of Normanby who is a decided Reformer, while
visa vis with Sir R. Peel sat her Majesty's Attorney and
Solicitor-General. The seats arranged under the eye of
the Lord Mayor evidently indicated an intention that
the " toying cup" should be drank to each other by gen-
tlemen of the most opposite opinions.
You challenge the Lord Mayor to produce a list of the
guests. Whether his Lordship may accept the challenge
(and he has evinced no lack of courage during his
Maycralty), I do not know, but I could
from personal observation disabuse your mind
of the impression it has received. The following gen-
tlemen in the room were not likely to have been in-
vited for their Tory predilections
The Marquis of Nornaanby Ald. White
The Lord Lilford Ald. Kelly
Tke Attorney-General Ald. Magnay
The Solicitor-General Mr. Anderton (Chairman of
Sir I'. Troubridge, M.P. Mr. Hume's Committee)
Sir C. Adam, M. P. Mr. R. Taylor
Sir J. Duke, M. P. Mr. Alex. Galloway
Mr. Shaw Lefevre, M. P. Mr: Lawrence
Mr. Easthope, M.P. Dr. Birkbeck
Ald. Humphery, M.P. Mr. Jones Loyd
Colonel Maberly Mr. Edward Wilson
Sir John Cowan, Bart. Mr. Steevens
Sir John Key, Bart. Mr. Gurney
Sir John Ross &c. &c.

These names in a company consisting in a great mea-
sure of ladies, and in a still greater of gentlemen who
have no political character at all, must convince every
one that the room was not " packed with Tories."
In fact the cheering to the Marquis of Normanby was
quite as great as to any other speaker, and the hissing
to Sir F. Burdett was more marked than any cheering
at all.

The Lord Mayor, while he has preserved a cautious
neutrality on all party matters during his Mayoralty, has
shown that he belongs to the highest and most useful
class of Reformers, viz., the Reformers ripractical abuses.
The Lord Mayor has, single-handed, grappled with and
laid prostrate one of the worst monopolies that disgrace
and deeply injure our land. In this great work his Lord-
ship ought not to be obstructed upon slight grounds,
more especially by the leading advocate of Free Trade
in all its branches, and I am sure by inserting this letter
you will not allow the Morning Chronicle to prevent or
impede the public good.
I have the honour to be, &c.,
W. S. NORTHHOUSE,
4 Parliament-street, 4th April, 1889.

THE COAL TRADE.

Yesterday a deputation from the Anti-Coal Mono-
poly Association, consisting of Mr. Rennie, Mr. Ewart,
M.P. ; Mr. Howard Elphinstone, F.R.S. ; Mr. Hol-
r9al, F.L.S. ; Mr. Bird, from Wales, four of the Pro-
visional Committee of the Anti-Coal Monopoly Asso-
ciation ; Mr. Gay, surgeon to the Royal Free Hos-
pital and the Refuge for the Houseless ; and several
other gentlemen, waited upon the Lord Mayor, for the
purpose of communicating to his Lordship a vote of
thanks for his great exertions in opposition to the long-
existing coal monopoly.
Mr. RENNIE—I have the honour to in form your
. Lordship, that at a meeting held at Storey's-gate Hotel,
on the 23d ult., an unanimous vote of thanks was passed
to your Lordship for those great and patriotic exertions
which have so signalised your Mayoralty, towards ob-
taining for the inhabitants of this vast metropolis a free
and unrestricted supply of coals. In offering this tri-
bute of our gratitude to your Lordship, we only speak
the sentiments of every individual unconnected with that
odious system, by which an article of the most imperious
{ necessity to the comforts—nay, even to the existence
of all classes, has been raised to a price almost beyond
the means of the former consumers. To the amusement,
perhaps rather than to the enlightenment of the public
—a Noble and Gallant Marquis, more celebrated in the
saloons of fashion than distinguished for wisdom in the
Senate—more renowned for chivalrous indiscretion than
for diplomatic prudence—has again entered the field on
behalf of himself and his brethren in monopoly. This
aristocratic dealer in coals can imagine no reason why
Ihis coals arc dear, but on account of their superior qua-
lity. With that single sided view of every case for
which his Lordship is so remarkable, and with that sel-
fishness for which all monopolists are remarkable, the
Noble Marquis loudly asserts the innocence of the coal-
cwners, and assures your Lordship that it must be the
ship-owners who are te blame, that they must be the
delinquents. Well may they ask if this be what you
call hacking your friends. Your Lordship will, no
doubt, have from them a vindication, in strains of
equally indignant eloquence, though, perhaps, less
fluent in epithets, and less accomplished in vulgar abuse.
—(Hear.) Mr. Rennie proceeded to say that the vin-
dication of the Noble Marquis amounted to no more than
a simple denial, that he brought forward no evidence to
disprove that which was notorious to all the world, and
which had been proved over and over again, that com-
bination existed amongst the shipowners, amongst the
factors, and amongst the dealers, and that the public
had been paying, for many years, at least one-third more
kr coals than was just or reasonable. It was beneath
tee Noble Marquis to enter into particulars, otherwise
he ,might inform the public why they benefited so little
by the reduction of duty which took place under Lord
Goderich. He would refer the Noble Marquis to the
authority of the Duke of Wellington for information on
the abuses of the Coal Trade. It was in evidence, from
the monopolists themselves, that by mutual agreement
they restricted the supply of fuel from the collieries, and
if that, from other causes, was insufficient to raise
Ole price to meet their demands, the ships were de-
tained in the river and the crews kept in idleness,
with all its attendant demoralization, until their object
was accomplished. The patience with which the people
submitted to the unjust combination was construed by the
monopolists into an approval of the system, and it had
been reserved for the Lord Mayor to come forward ar-
dently in defence of the rights of the public. The spec-
tacle of thousands in the humbler classes of industry
during the long rigorous seasons through which they
were passing, with their energies paralyzed, and their
very life-blood frozen, created no remorse, awakened
no sympathy in the breasts of that unhallowed corpora-
tion, who were led only by a sense of sordid profit.
There was no exaggeration in the statement, nor were
these the only evils produced. If the motiveq of men
prompted to crime were investigated, how many would
be found who had violated the laws to procure the
means of preserving themselves and their families front
perishing by cold, a destroyer more rapid and fatal than
famine Itself.—(Hear, hear.) A permanent monument
had been raised by the Lord Mayor in the hearts of his
countrymen by the overthrow of a system which had so
long deceived and oppressed them.—(Cheers.) with
so noble an example before those who waited upon the
Lord Mayor, it became their duty to rally round his
Lordship, and to . show their appreciation of his
exertions by taking vigorous means to secure and
mairosin the advantages which had been already
obtaine.i. For that purpose an Association had
been for med, which, disclaiming every inducement
to speculation by the temptation of large profits,
sought no object but the benefit of the community, by
providing a plentiful supply of fuel at a just and reason-
able price. When the Lord Mayor retired from the
high office which he held, it must ever be a source of
inbAsitivo tq him to reflect that he had used the power
axanan4teillto his hands in promoting the comfort, the
beLiw,-,•arta the happiness of every inhabitant of the i