The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
If the Reformers do not bestir themselves without
delay ; if they do not immediately organize their forces
for the impending general election, there cannot be a
doubt of the issue. The exertions of the Tories will
be crowned with signal triumph ; and the Reformers
will have bitterly to reproach themselves for their
criminal supineness. The Liberal portion of every
constituency ought forthwith to meet together for the
purpose of fixing on suitable candidates against the
period of a general election. If they defer the choice
of a candidate untilithe time of election shall have arrived.
the result in the majority of cases wi.l either be the
defeat of the person they put forward, or the
election of a very inefficient representative. The
course which true wisdom dictates would be for
some of the leading Reformers in every constituency
to name the persons they suppose would most
honestly and effectively represent their sentiments
and interests in Parliament, and then to bring the claims
of such persons before the constituency generally, Or
if a division of opinion should chance to obtain among
the most influential Liberals, which in many instances
will doubtless be the case, as to which of two or more
gentlemen would make the fittest representative, then
the obvious course would be to decide the matter by a
vote. But before this be done, it would be desirable
that all parties should pledge thomselves to sacrifice
their individual opinions, should they happen to in a
minority, to the opinions of the majority, and afford
the fortunate candidate the same zealous support which
they would have extended to him had he been the man
of their own choice. In this way alone can the ap-
proaching contest be engaged in on the part of the Libe-
rals with any prospect of success. A division of opinion
among Reformers will prove fatal to the people's cause.
Should the extreme Radicals be foolish or unprincipled
enough to start candidates of their own ; should the
Mary lebone or Manchester game be played over again ;
should some three or four dozen Colonel Thompsons
and Feargus O'Connots he found rcady to come for-
ward at the call of the offscourings of the Radical party,
or come forward in compliance with the promptings of
their own vanity, which must be fed at any price ;—if,
we say, such shall be the case at the approaching gene-
ral election, then farewell fir a long series of years to a
Liberal Government. Give but the Tories a Parlia-
menrary majority, and there is no saying when they may
be again ejected from place. Who, at all events, shall i
venture to predict, in such a contingency, the amount
of mischief they will entail on the country before the
nation has got rid of the infliction ?
(From the AI o. ning Herald.)
The extremely " liberal" Lord Radnor, like the
whole of the class of politicians to whom lie belongs, is
a profound admirer and zealous supporter of the Whig
schemes of centralisation which threaten the subversion
of the constitutional rights and liberties of Englishmen.
He who denies to the poor the gleanings of his corn-
fields—he who has assisted the Whig Ministers to apply
the iron flail of the new Poor-law to the backs of the un-
employed labourer, the widow, and the fatherless—he
who has eulogised and defended the unchristian and un-
constitutional hastile law with an energy of Malthu-
sian devotion not surpassed by that of Lord Brougham
himself, or Lord John Russell, or Mr. Grote, or Mr.
Hawes, or any other of the utilitarian advocates of the
penal test of destitution—even he is the man who has
undertaken to work for the Government the scheme of
introducing a centralised police into Berkshire, but, as
yet, without success. As the Ultra-Liberal Sir Harry
Verney has been defeated in the attempt to fasten upon
John Hampden's own county of Buckingham a despotic
system of police, though supported by John Hampden's
biographer, Lord Nugent, so the Earl of Radnor has
had the mortification to sustain a discomfiture in fight-
ing a similar battle in the county of the Great Alfred,
the founder, or at Icest the consolidator, of those noble
Anglo-Saxon institutions which our Whigs and Libe-
rals are so anxious to subvert. Rightly did Mr. Duf-
field, who made an able and eloquent speech against
Lord Rudnor's proposition, say that " If this nwasuie
had been proposed to the Noble Lord ten years ago, lie
would have denounced it as an outrageous attack upon
the liberties of the subject !"
so he would. But
it must be recollected that the Tories were in office
ten years ago, and the Whigs were officeless patr:ots—
always declaiming upon popular rights and Magna
Charta and the Habeas corpus Act, and making
Ithe nation ring with the report of their hypocritical
zeal in favour of those ancient and free institutions
which they now strain every nerve to destroy. Lord
Radnor would not have tolerated in Tories those attacks
upon the bulwarks of public liberty which he assists his
good friends, the Whigs—formerly " the people's
friends"—to carry on in a spirit of unceasing hostility
to Constitutional Government. Ah, Mr. Macaulay !
your much-panegyrised Whig patrons are very sorry and

•
vtty.?harrretes's -",_iiii)(Attoi. Mr. Duffield felt convinced,
'fii\ieed so tiok.!s every Englishman, Who is not a Whig
or `NVliigling, that the measure proposed by Lord Ita;d's4
wits only a " step to the appoinyoeizit loti a stipendiary
Magistracy throegbronthb tdridorn." That it ec,rtainlY
amk ient,vi a huNry Whig dependent is now looking...foe-
the day when the unpaid, indOeVidat, bii,z,h-
-! minded rural Magistracy of Englaaa stz It be superseded
by Home-office vassalst, Wl4.c Will take their pay from the
country, and tfkeil• instructions from the Government.
A centhllfsed police must of necessity be followed by a
stipendiary Magistracy. This will give a large addi-
tional patronage to the "- no patrohage'' Government.
It is by rainilyina its influence through new channels of
patronage that the tottering Whig Government is now
ee.tlenrouring to strengthen itself. The Whigs lecl
that neither O'Connell's " tail," nor the ihfluence of the
ladies of the bed-chamber, can much longer keep them
in office, unless they can acquire a vast accession of
p itronage wherewith to bribe new legions of sordid
supporters.

(From the Morning Post.)
A pretty MOnarchy it would be, indeed, which de-
pended apon the existing national will T. The Chronicle
boasts that " the Monarchy never was more deeply
rooted in the public heart than at present, because he
Sovereign is not. the exclusive patron of a class or sec-
tion, but of an entire people." This, we regret to say, is
exceedingly false ; but if it were true, what then ? What,
security would the Monarch have that it would be so
two years hence ? How long is it since the Chronicle
maintained, in the name and on behalf of the nation, that
the Reform Bill was the most perfect, complete, and sa-
tisfactory of national measures ; and Ea:l Grey the
greatest, the wisest, and the best of statesmen ? And
what is now the feeling in these respects of those whom
the Chronicle still represents as the nation ? Why,
the measure which they so applauded is the object
of their vituperation, and the Minister whom they
idolised the subject of their sneers. A pretty Monarchy
it would be which should depend upon that kind of
" will" which was and is exercised concerning the Re-
form Bill and Earl Grey. As to the present Sovereign
being peculiarly the patron of the whole people, we
beg to know how that is to be reconciled with the
direct opposition of her Maj 'sty's Government, in re-
spect of public education in England, to the opinions
affirmed on that great question by a large majority of
the Representatives of the people of England in the
House of Commons? If her Majesty's Government
believe that the majority of the Representatives of the
people of England did not then, or do not now, cor-
rectly express the judgment of the people, why do they
not dissolve the Parliament ? Which ever way we turn
we find fresh evidence of the falsehood of the pretences
of the modern whiffiers, culling themselves Whigs.
(From the Times.)
The quantity of opium grown at Malwa, Benares,
Behar (Patna), and other localities, under the active
encouragement of the East India Company, is immense.
It is true that at the first of these places, whence about
one-half of the whole product of India is obtained, the
management of the soil (although the chiefs are under
British protection) is to a considerable extent beyond
the Company's control ; but as the latter body are in
the habit of taxing the Malwa opium with certain transit
duties which yield a large annual revenue, it is clear
that, but for this pecuniary temptation, which tells
strongly against the Company, they are perfectly com-
petent to increase these duties to such an extent as
would effectually put an end to the further growth of
the poison. In Benares, Behar, and indeed in all the
territories within the Company's jurisdiction, the
encouragement which they give to the manufacture
and exportation of opium is much more direct. The
ryot, or immediate cultivator of the soil, is required,
under certain penalties, to guarantee the delivery of the
produce at a fixed rate. Nay, it is even alleged by a
late writer (so says the Chinese Repository for Feb.,
1837), that the growing of opium on the part of the
ryot is, to a great degree, compulsory—so much so, that
should he refuse the pecuniary advances for that pur-
pose which are systematically paid by the local Govern-
ment through its native servants, the Peons immediately
subject him to a process of coercion from which there is
no relief except by the fulfilment of his contract.
Moreover, with the express design of prosecuting a
profitable trade in opium for the Chinese market, vast
tracts of the Company's land, not recently reclaimed
from barrenness, but formerly occupied with less lusra-
live crops, are now covered with poppies; and it ap-
pears that the cultivation of the deadly drug over a
wide extent of territory is still on the increase.

(From the Morning Chronicle.)
Our Tory Contemporaries seem to think that we have,
most unprovokedly, orginated the charge of unfixedness
of principle against their party. The allegation was only
quoted by us from the Quarterly Review. On that
authority, which they are accustomed to respect, it was
proclaimed that, unless they did, " without delay, act
upon fixed principle rather than on their late flue-
tuating policy," they would be " inevitably ruined
beyond human relief." The implication and the ac
cusation are as plain as possible. What is more,
they are true and incontrovertible. Tule or false,
it is on the Quarterly Review, as the accuser
who impeaches their faction, the witness who testi-
fies against it, the judge who condemns it, that
Times and Standard, Post and Courier, should turn
their vengeance. The Quarterly Review arraigns their
fluctuating policy. The Quarterly Review reproaches
their unfixedness of principle. The Quarterly Review
predicts their impending ruin. Can we help it if such
brethren fall out by the way, tell tales of one another,
and show the world, by quarrelling about the means for
gaining their end, that they are growing desperate as to
its attainment. It would not comport, however, with
Tory tactics to assail the Quarterly Review, for the
very assertion which, when transplanted into our co-
lumns, is represented as being so very calumnious. If
it be the lie which our Contemporaries say it is, why
have they left it untouched, so far as the Quarterly is
concerned? Just because they think there arc people
on whose minds it may answer a party purpose.

ftt;_S,UN. LONDON, WEnN FSDANT, OCTOBER 23, i 839.

LORD 13ROUGLIAM.
MORNINh 'Tilts DAY.
(Prom the Alci,liihg Chrimictc.
in a second edltiOn, yesterday morning,. ive:cOntrat7
dieted the abcOltht, hredohsly piibli4hea, in this and
other journals, of Lord Brougham's death. An acci-
dent there had been it appears ; the carriage was broken
to pieces, and the driver much injnred, but his Lord-
ship his friends happily escaped unhurt. ;It is due
to the public and to ourselves to say that the statement
we inserted was not founded on any vague and untrace-
able rumour ; nor did we omit such inquiries as would
have sufficed, under ordinary circumstances, to guard
against mistake, or even deception. It seems as
if gross falsehood or wanton forgery, or both,
must have been employed to put this strange im-
position into a distinct and credible form. As we
stated yesterday, a letter, professing to come from
Mr. Shafto, one of Lord Brougham's companions
iv. the adventure, addressed to Mr. Alfred Mont-
gomery, was read by Count D'Orsay at Crock-
ford's, describing the catastrophe, with the particular
circumstances attending it. The object of this letter
was to deceive the public, and the end was, for a time,
accomplished ; nor did the reply to our inquiries at
Lord Brougham's house tend to excite suspicion of a
fact to which there appeared to be such direct testi-
titnony. Wherever the invention originated, this was
going great lengths for a joke. As Lord Brougham is,
happily, alive and well, we are not sorry at having been
led to speak of his character and conduct as they may
appear hereafter when viewed from the distance and
through the medium by which whatever is most ho-
nourable is rendered most prominent. Of Lord
Brougham living it may be a more imperative duty,
than of Lord Brougham dead, to " mark the spots;" of
either it is a much more satisfactory task to " observe
the brightness."
_

(From the Morning Post.)
We yesterday published some remarks upon the
death of Lord Brougham, under the melancholy con-
viction that this event had taken place. The authority
on which we received the intelligence, and the circum-
stances of detail which accompanied it, left us not the
slightest room for the shadow of a doubt that the news
was as true as it was afflicting. Lord Brougham, we
have now reason to know is in perfect health. The sub-
joined communication, received at a late hour last night,
fully states the particulars, on a knowledge of which we
felt justified in believing that a fatal accident had occurred
to the Noble Lord. It will not be very easy to excuse
the criminal levity that could have devised so wanton
an outrage on the feelings of the community. In the
certainty that a few days must clear up the apparent
mystery that hangs over the whole matter, we abstain
from further observation, and merely give the following
letter

the iii' poied calamity was asserted to have been Made,
ksidsed d general belief of its truth, which, had the
intelligenn Been derived from a more ordinary source,
Would nbt hay. 6 bee'n readily and tiqtyrisively yielded.
Lord Broughaq't was; it appeal's, it' datliag6 ttith
Jleadei and Air: and Mis..'hafto; Which diet with
an accident by the axietree of pole breaking, itt cdfise-
quence of which the horses became unmanageable, add
the carriage was upset, and much damage done. Lord
Brougham and the entire party escape without any
serious injtay f the postboy alone being materially, but
not dangerously, hurt.
We have been favoured by the comtritinidatiati of a
letter written by Lord Brougham, giving an account or
the accident ; and our readers may, therefore, confi-
dently rely on the accuracy of our statement.
The report, which we have taken some trouble to
trace to its source, originated in a letter pretending to
be from Mr. Shafto to Mr. Montgomery, and giving the
account of the accident which has already appeared,
and of his own escape from the accident alleged to have
been fatal to Lord Brougham.
We must sincerely rejoice in the escape from danger,
and supposed death, of which Lord Brougham has been
the subject. While we have freely commented on ninny
points in the Noble Lord's recent course, we have still
cherished respect for his varied talents, and gratitude
for the benefits he has conferred on his country when,
freed from the trammels of faction, and emancipated
from the prejudices of personal disappointment or dis-
like, he has stood forth the eloquent advocate of free
dom, the undaunted champion of human rights, or the
promoter of and successful labourer in the advancement
of literature and science.

We sincerely hope the heartless being who by a for-
gery—to produce which required no other quality than
an active imagination uncontrolled by principle—has oc-
casioned such deep and extensive anxiety and regret,
will be traced out, and iu general exposure and unmixed
indignation meet his appropriate reward.
It is not a little curious, that in this predicament of
being reported prematurely killed, and haiing the plea-
sure of reading his own (posthumous, it might almost be
called) character, Lord Brougham is in the same position
with his old friend and circuit companion, Lord Abingcr,
at the time Mr. Scarlett.

(From the Courier.)
REPORTED DEATH OF LORD BROUGHAM—
BY THE MORNING CHRONICLE OF THIS
DAY.
" Harry, thy wish wag father to that thought."
The Morning Chronicle, at half-past six o'clock this
morning, announced, with breathless baste, the death of
Lord Brougham ; and later in the day, in a second
edition, published a contradiction of it's report. "Of
the event itself," said the Chronicle of half-past six
in the morning, " there is, we fear, no reason to
doubt." (" Harry, thy wish," 4-c.) A panegyric
on the Noble Lord then follows, which cannot but
occasion considerable surprise to the be-praised party.
Comparing this praise of Lord Brougham deceased
with the virulent vituperation of Lord Brougham liv-
ing, we cannot but be struck with the vast difference
in the party estimation of a political antagonist alive
and dead. Happily, however, we trust for his country
and for himself, the terrible antagonist of the feeble and
tottering Ministry still lives ; " whatever expectation
or apprehension " his Lordship excited in the minds of
Ministers and their adherents, is not yet " stilled
for ever." We can just imagine the possibility
that there are some in the world who would not
grieve exceedingly if it was. The spirit of party
which could rejoice in the anticipation that the
opposition to the late Government of Sir Robert
Peel " was killing him," would not be very scrupulous
in its gladness if other inconvenient personages were re-
moved from the toils and cares of this political world.
Altogether there is something instructive, and apart
from the accident itself, amusing in this affair. His Lord-
ship himself cannot but be pleased with the result of
the post mortem examination which the Chronicle has
made of the defunct Statesman. His Lordship's friends
will he pleased to find that it was unnecessary. The
public will be pleased that the great orator of modern
times still exists to justify the expression of Sir Samuel
Romilly, that " there is no fun out of opposition."
In short every body will be pleased, not excepting the
Morning Chronicle, who must be particularly pleased to
find that it has lavished all it's admirable encomiums
on an antagonist who is likely to take his place in the
House of Lords next Session, instead of being corn
fortably deposited in Westminster Abbey ; and that it
has had the opportunity of discovering in the deceased
statesman various brilliant and useful qualities which it
was unable to perceive in the living poli•ician.