The Sun.
London, England, 1837-06-01 00:00:00

81'1121 k' OF THE PUBLIC J OURNALS.

Mr. Dennistoun has achlressed to us a letter on the
subject of a report of a speech delivered by him in pro-
posing a vote of thanks to the Sheriff, which afroided
to the S!anrlai-d a handle of which it was not slow to
avail itself. Mr. Dennistoun is reported to have
stited that the Sheriff had had it in his power to dis-
franchise one thousand of the Liberal voters, and thus
give his opponent a majority of 200. What Ito aid
say was, that the Sheriff, had he been so inclined;
might have disfranchised 1,000 .voters, and as the
tutVority of them were fliendly, to him, that ma-
jority miolit have been decreased 100 or even 200
votes. The reducing n majority of 750 to 550 is
obviously a very different affair from converting ,
that majority into a minority of one-or two bun-.
dre 1. In any case, had 1,000 totes been atruek
off the roll, a proportion of them would have
been Tories ; but it appears that Mr. Dennistoun
made the statement on wrong information, as the de-
cision of the Sheriff could not hare made a dif-
ftrence of 100 votes one way or other. The
Tories have in- the ease of the Glasgow election taken
too much pains to let the world see the manner in
which they play their game. Their great'-object is to
produce an impression of a re-action in their favour.
Lewes and Bridgewater, and even Westminster, were
so far favourable. to them that the means by which
a majority was obtained were susceptible of doubt.
We
.can understand why they wished also to have
a return from Glasgow, no matter. how obtained.
But the Reform Member having been returned
by a large majority, we do not exactly see in
what manner re-action would be procured by
showing that if the writ had been delayed, and
the Sheriff had not been an honest man, they
might have availed themselves of a defect in the Re-
form Act to strike off 1,000 good votes. The policy,
therefore, of Sir James Graham's proceedings is to us
inexplicable on any other principle than a wish on the
part of the Right Hon. Baronet to let Lhe public see
that the Tories were disposed to- practise an imposi-
tion on them, and that they were foiled in their object.
It was said that the Italians by a clever traveller that
he did not think they were really such great rogues as
they themselves thought they were ; and we think that
Sir James Graham takes too much pains to make the
world believe that his principles are somewhat preca-
rious. He was at immense pains, for instance, to re-
commend a national bankruptcy, after even Mr. Cob-
bet'. must have abandoned 'the idea as hopeless; and
now, when it is agreed on all hands that the return for
Glasgow could not have been affected by the mode in
which the writ was conveyed, he, with a clumsiness
peculiar to himself, practises all possible means and
disingenuous tricks in the House, merely to show that
the Tories were disposed to have been rogues and were
frustrated.

To the EDITOR of the MORNING CHRONICLE.
Str,-1 have just seen in this evening's Standard the re-
port of a speech said to have been delivered by me, in pro-
posing a vote of thanks to the Sheriff, by which it would
appear that Udistioctiv stated that the Sheriff had had it in
his power to disfranchise one thousand of the Liberal voters,
and thus have given my opponent a majority of 200. Now
What I did say was this, that the Sheriff, had he been so in.
clined, aught have disfranchised one thousand voters ; and
as the majority of them were friendly to me, that majority
might possibly have been decreased by 100 or even 200 votes.
I may add, however, that I said this on wrong information,
as my friends immediately informed me, that, however the
Sheriff had acted, it would not have made a difference of
one hundred votes one way or other.
I am, Sir, your very obedient servant,
JOHN DENNISTOUN.
2, Wilton-crescent, May 31. Morning Chronicle.
Of all the thrashings inflicted by one Hon. or
Noble Member of either House of Parliament upon
another, within our parliamentary recollection, that of
Mr. E. J. Stanley, the Secretary of the Treasury,
on Tuesday last, upon the renegade Cumberland Ba-
ronet, is the most merciless, the most just, and the
most effective. Never was there such a mare's nest
discovered as that which the keen eye and delicate
feelings of the Hon. Baronet hit upon, through the
medium of a good-natured friend, and of Which he
made the most in order to show his devotion on the
one hand, to the law of the country, and his reckless
adherence, on the other, to a party he had spoken,
and written, and voted against during.the last twenty
years—and never, we wilradd, was there such au ex=
posnre of the folly, and malignity, and uncourteous
conduct of " the finder " exhibited in such glaring-
colours. The Honourable Baronet did, we must al-
low, the best part of the battle—he exposed himself
to the satisfaction of all except the new adherents
with whom he has so dishonourably allied himself.
The Hon. (by courtesy) Baronet thought that by in-
terpreting the letter of the law, instead of adopting its
spirit, which simply says that there shall be no delay
in the transmission of writs, he would-be able to con-
vict the Government of having favoured a gentleman
.favourable to its general policy, of sending it by an
unusually quick conveyance--; but never was there so
signal a failure. The Act says "by post or mail ;"
but it also adds, that there shall be no delay ; and if
the matter had not been already settled, we would have
put it to the Right Hon. Baronet, whether a steam or
railway conveyance would have been out of the way or
contrary to the spirit of the Act ? At the time that
the Act was passed there were neither railroads or rail.
ways, or steam-boats in existence ; but the progress of
knowledge and the progress of national improvement
has been such, that these means of immediate dispatch
and no delay are now in the power of even the
humblest of his Majesty's subjects—and will any
reasonable person tell us, that having these means of
more immediate dispatch and conveyance at its, com-
mand, the Government might not fairly, in the full
spirit of the Act, have availed itself of either one or
the other ? The mail and the post" mentioned in
the Act were no doubt excellent things at the time the
Act was passed; but it could not by possibility have
been the intention of the framers of that Act, that
more speedy means of conveyance and transmission, if
discovered and commonly used, should not be adopted.
We should be ashamed of our ancestors if they ever
dreamed of the transmission of letters, or writs, or
parcels, or of anv other matter by post or mail, as a
final decision. We know nothing of final measures,
and we agree with the Right Honourable the
President of the Board of Trade—in the splen-
did speech he delivered at Manchester two or three
years ago—that the idea of final measures is one
whielt can only suggest itself' to a mind utterly
deprived of foresight,- and inattentive to the immense
improvements in arts, in science, in literature, and in
legislation, that have been accomplished within the last
twenty years. We would not enlarge farther on the
matter, but for the discovery of circumstances hitherto
perfectly unknown to us, and unquestionably most
startling to the public—namely, that the alleged Go- ,
verninent express did not reach Glasgow till several
hours after the mail, by which, according to Sir James
Graham, and in accordance with the letter, but not ac-
cording to the spirit of the Act, the writ ought to have
been sent ; and, secondly, that it appears from the evi-
dence delivered on the occasion, that a Post-office ex-
press only walks over the ground at the rate of seven miles
per hour ! had the Government entrusted the transmis-
sion of the writ to the Editor of this journal, or to the
editor of The Sun (who was the first to lead the way,
if we may use the expression, in annihilating time and
space), it would have been in the bawls of the Sheriff
of Lanarkshire in less than twenty-six hours ; but the
Government, we regret to say, either did not know how
to oblige its fricnd,or stuck too rigidly to the observance
of the statute, to employ any such extraordinary
means of conveyance. That which is passed, how-
ever, will, we trust, teach them the propriety of
having a thorough and radical reform of the Post-
office establishment. When there are railroads and
steam-boats, and steam-carriages, and other convey-
ances in existence, by which from fourteen to twenty-
two miles an hour are accomplished by private. esta-
blishments, the idea is ridiculous that the Post-
office—a public establishment for the accommodation
of the public—should be only able to express seven.—
Moriiing Advertiser.

The season of youth, before one's judgment has
been thoroughly matured, is generally characterized by
an utter impatience of restraint. We dislike the dis-
cipline of school. We dislike the orderly restrictions
enjoined by parental authority. We recoil from the
inhibitory provisions of the Divine canon, and in many
instances we would gladly violate with -impunity the

we desire above nil things ; and this natural impulse is
often strengthened by'that superficial acquaintance with
the plausibilities of ancient republicanism which so
readly contents tlB in the course of our educational
gallop. That this species- of early libertinism should
wholly fail to exercise an influence -OVer our political
opinions is what few persons acquainted with human na-
ture could expect : and hence, in almost all cases w here the
democratic impulses of rnth have not beenmoderated by
the judicious Instructions Weis stand Us in stead of ex-
perience, it is obserVable that the most able and esti-
mable teen are prone to begin life with the profession
of a political optimism, involving for the, tuost part a
passion for all sorts of eXpe'riments and innovations.
Nor is it twiaipthot to notice, that lit propOrtion to
the ettlotst with, which such views are aubray,ed it Ili
rertinacity wherewith they are clung id) hitd the tar-
diness wherewith they are tiltinintely relaxed or foregone.
Nevertheless, it is the order of nature that age and. ex=
perience shall cermet the extravagances of otly yeaYS.
To this general law every great and generous mind is
Amenable in maturity, as strongly as it may have been
fascinated in youth by the charms of a wild and apes
tulative freedom. Of the fact we arc itow insisting
on, the best of our public Ynen in England have
afforded the most striking illustrations. Not to
recur to earlier\ examples, it is notorious that
Burke, Pitt, (both the father and son,) Can-
ning, Huskisson, and Mackintosh commenced
their career with an ardent devotion to ultra-liberal
opinions. In the absence of a practical acquaintance
with the infirmities of man and the complicated rela-
tions of society, nothing would satisfy them brit end-*
less novelties and devices for the enlargement of indivi-
dual liberty, and the abolition of social restraints. Time,
however, powdered and philosophised their heads. With
the observation and experience of advanced years, they
saw that the natural tendency of communities, as well
as.individuals, is to asset t the right of unbridled liberty;
and, consequently, that the province of an enlightened
Government is to habituate the people to mild restraints
rather than minister to their self-will. The practical
enforcement of the lessons which they thus learned was
in some respects humiliating. It involved a renunci-
ation of early errors. It subjected them to the vulgar
charge of apostacy. It insured them the forfeiture of
applauses which
.they had previously been accustomed
to prize, and also the certainty of meledictions which
they had heretofore been fain, to deprecate. But, obey-
ing the dictates of wisdom and patriotism, these emi-
nent men had sufficient strength of principle and pur-
pose to consult the true interests of the kingdom, ir-
respective altogether, of private and personal considera-
tions. The mortification of relinquishing early opi-
nions was, in their estimation, a small matter compared
with the sacrifice of their country ; the reproach of
vacillation was preferred by them to the guilt of
treachery ; and they were willing to encounter the
transient acrimony of contemporaries rather than incur
the lasting odium of posterity. Recent instances to
the same purpose are by no means wanting ; and while
Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Carnarvon, Lord Tanker-
vile, Lord Downshire, Lord Ashburton, Lord
Abinger, Lord Stanley, and a whole multitude of
others, are alleged to have begun life with certain libe-
ral opinions, which riper years and the progress of
events have induced them more or less to modify, we
know that the tendency to revolutionary aggression and
change manifested by multitudes since the enactment
of the Reform Bill has forced immense numbers of the
British constituency into a similar exercise of sound
Conservative principle. To say that the distinguished
persons whom we have named arc chargeable with po-
litical apostacy in any discreditable sense, is a vulgar
and malignant calumny. The modifications which
their opinions may have undergone are in just accord-
ance with the natural and regular progress of the hu-
man mind, whose orderly advance is evermore from
presumptions to experience, from rashness to caution,
and from the love of untried theories to a discrimina-
ting preference for institutions which have been tho-
roughly tested and approved. To allege that such per-
sons are renegade politicians is just about as reason-
able as to say that a full grown man is an apostate
because he is no longer the riotous urchin he once was,
or that the fields have become degenerate because their
green hues are sobered and superseded by the mellow
and beneficial harvest of autumn.—Times.

Lord John Russell's motion for the appointment of
a Select Committee • on Church-rates, which was to
have been submitted to the House this evening, is
postponed to Thursday, the Bth inst. Certainly the
Noble Lord is making great progress backwards in this
matter. He lays before a Committee of the whole
House a particular proposition, and is supported by a
majority of twenty-three. He calls upon the House,
the Speaker in the Chair, to vote the same proposi-
tion, and the division gives him a majority of five.
He. announces a motion for the appointment of a
Select Committee to investigate the truth cf the
proposition thus twice affirmed by the House, and
fixes his notice for' the first of June. He is
• afflicted by some. sudden doubt, or thwarted by some
unforeseen obstacle, and defers further debate on
this important proposition till the eighth of June.
Finally, having been, as we may suppose, pre-
pared a month ago, not only with the resolutions
so triumphantly carried, but with the Bill he in-
tended to found on them, he is now so wholly bewil-
dered that he not only refuses to introduce the Bill—
not only declip-es to act upon the resolutions—but,
even with regard to the words of his motion for a
Select Committee on the twice-settled proposition, he
" must take time to reconsider them, before he puts
them on the paper." We cannot wonder that the Noble
Lord should be in no hurry to present this subject
again to the consideration of the House. An ancient
philosopher, being askcd for a solution of a question
which no philosopher ever could solve, demanded
a certain time for the preparation of his answer.
The time elapsed ; and the sage required a fur-
ther period, twice as long as that he had originally
named, " For," said he, " I gain nothing by my re-
flections on the "question but a deeper knowledge of
its difficulties." Lord John Russell is not a phi-
losopher ; but no philosopher was ever more per-
plexed that Lord John Russell. Having now post-
pored his motion for a week, he will, in all probabi-
lity, next postpone it for a fortnight. In the meantime
various excuses are assigned', for the present delay.
Some say Mr. Roebuck has frightened Ministers out
of their temerity, by his menace of a motion on the
state of the nation. Some suspect Lord John Rus-
sell of a prodigious anxiety to attend the Spitalfields
hall. Some, with better reason, believe that a few of
the more respectable Whigs have been whispering in
Downing-street, that, having twice voted, at Lord
John Russell's request, that a thing is practicable,
they are not inclined to vote, at Lord John Russell's re-
quest, that a Committee be appointed to conNer whe-
ther it be practicable or not. We shall be much aston-
ished, if, whenever Lord John Russell shall venture-to
move his Committee, there shall not be found some stub-
born gentlemen to take this course. If it was necessary to
examine; by a Committee, into tho circumstances of
Church leases, that Committee should have been ap-
pointed before the House of Commons was asked to pro-
nounce upon the very question proposed to the Commit-
tee. The Report of a Select Committee should have been
the cause, not the effect, of a vote of the House of
Commons. It is most absurd for a Legislative As-
sembly to resolve, first, without investigation, and then
to commence investigation after having resolved. Who
are to be Members of the Select Committee delegated
by Lord John Russell to consider the truth of a pro-
position affirmed by the House of Commons to be true ?
Conservative Members may, indeed, sit upon the
Committee without impeachment ; for they have uni-
formly expressed an opinion that the evidence of the
practicability of obtaining Mr. Spring Rice's "in-
creased value" is wholly defective ; but with what face
can a Ministerial Member pretend to be an impartial
judge of testimony to a fact of which fact he has al-
ready solemnly recorded his entire and unqualified con-
viction ? Suppose the Select Committee to present a
morals of human law. Unrestricted license is what
report in accordance with the resolution of the House of
Commons, what have we gained ? There has been a
delay in the appointment of the Committee, another
delay in the proceedings of the Committee, another
delay in the consideration of the report of the ,Com-
mitiee. After all the delays, the House of Commons
will be where it was last week ; except that, in ap-
proving the report of its Committee, it will have voted
a third time a proposition which' it has voted twice al-

I ready. Suppose the Select Committee to present a
rerort in contradi•Aion to the resolutions of the House
of Commons. We shall then b> in straiige
rassnient3 indeed. We shall see the deliberate judg-
nient of the House of Commons solemnly reversed
by its own Committee; the determination of the su-
perior overruled on appeal by the inferior tribunal ;
the vote of the assembled Commons itscincled by
that a dozen Members, selected from their Wily:-
We will not pretend to say What treetttlefit Lord
.John Russell twill experience on Thursday next at the
hand.: of his opponents ; but we will venture tes say,
looking at the circtratit,ances which attend the intro.,
(.11.'.'Zion of this trotinn, that. tit, Minittef eVei' aired to
ttlyt t 5 sttoitgly 611 die complaisance of hiS supporters.
L-,---illorning Post.