The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-29 00:00:00

ORM CLUB

(From the Cork Southern Reporter.)
There is a considerable stir among such of the
Reformers as are in town, consequent on the dissolu-
tion of the Free Trade Club, in St. James's-square,
and respecting which you will have seen several pa-
ragraphs in the :papers, many altogether erroneous,
especially in the Tory journals. The versions from
the letter ;sources would lead you to infer that the
dissolution waa effected amidst a storm of recriinina-
tory vindictiveness; insolvency, sand disaster of all
sorts. That such was not the case, and that the cause
of reform is not likely to suffer by -the -future. move-
merits of those who have just brought about the '
break up of the late establishment, you wil see from
the following circular issued by the president of the
Progressive Association to whose proceedings at their
central office in the Poultry, City, your attention has
been several times drawn of late, viz :--
"ProvisionaliCounnittee of the National Reform
Club, 14, St. James's Square, Sept. 22,1349.
Sir,—The Free Trade Club having been dieselved
by the unanimous decision of a general meeting, held
fur that purpose on the 20th inst., and-it being con-
sidered desirable by many members oft he National Per-
na men Lary and Financial Reform Association, that a
new dab, based upon their principles, and, assisting
that great movement, should be established in the
use of the late club, I have to request you will be
so good as to intimate whether, in the event of a suf-
ficient number of gentlemen agreeing to constitute
such a club, the provisional committee may have the
honour of your support and membership.
" I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
" JOSHUA IVALMESLEY."
There is no doubt that this is a wise and judicious
proceeding on the part of those who have the wel-
fare of the popular cause at heart, which many of the
so called free traders had and have not, merely using
the now comparatively antiquated cloak of com-
mercial liberality as a blind to this retrogression
front their early professions of anxiety for political
justice, properly so called. Free trade is now as
much part and parcel of the :constitution as the lion
and unicorn; and it would be just as reasonable for
people to associate for the conservation_ of the domes-
tic comfort of these respectable meminamlia as to
unite against the re-imposition of the sliding scale,
navigation laws, differential duties, and so on. The
full completion of the measure of free-trade is in the
natural course of fulfilment. Not so the Reform
Bill. Progression there is essentially crab-like. The
tendency of our rulers and of the dominant classes is
notoriously anti-popular, in the widest sense of the
term; anti we are at this moment further from the
realization of the governmental ameliorations contem-
plated by Lord John Russell, and proposed by Lord
Durham in the first draft of the Act of 1832, than
during any period that has elapsed from that hour to
this, even when the Court, the Cabinet, the United
Services, the Church, a large majority of both houses
and the principal organs of the press were
ostentatiously Tory. Hence the necessity of
stripping quasi reformers of the guise in
which this Free-Trade Club permitted, them
to envelope themselves. It was exceedingly con-
venient to a thorough ministerial back or expectant,
to point to his enrolment with Cobden, Bright, and
the rest of the free-traders as a proof that he kept
pace with the spirit of the times, as if the veriest
Peelite were not equally entitled to claim the same
merit. That juggle is now no longer possible. A
secession from the free-trade club, under its new or-
ganisation means a secession from the cause of further
reform, and will be taken by the public as a recogni•
tion of the seisdom 'of the wholesome old motto,
" these that are not with us are against us."
The new agitation is being commenced with the
younger blOod of the late club,:--Mr. Tindal Atkinson,
the barrister, whose conduct in respect to the unfor-
tunate Chartist prisoners swept cff by cholera brought
on by the barbarous regimen of the gaol, is as rare as
it is noble ; Mr. Charles Wordsworth, the eminent
writer on election law and joint-stock companies;
Mr. M'Enteer, one of your countrymen whose
practical efficiency is commensurate with his
zeal ; George Thompson, the Member for
the Tower Hamlets; and numerous others
—all under the wary and vigilant guardianship of
Sir Joshua Walmesley, who aspires much more to
be a guide than a leader, being well content that
others should openly " share the triumph and par-
take the gale" if he can be useful, (and no man is
more so), in maturing that consumption. A club,
of whom these gentlemen are the working committee,
is indeed calculated to accomplish the uses for which
the Reform Club was originally instituted, the ad-
vancement of the reform cause. But those uses are
now burlesqued by that association. The working
committee of the Reform Club are as conservative as
the working committee of the Carlton. Whig offi-
cials, their relations, parasites, and jackals control
the whole affair to their own ends, and make it a sort
of inner Clerk's Office to Downing-street, and with
the usual financial embarrasment—debt—vi hose mag-
nitude is disguised by the same species of legerdemain
that characterised Sir Charles Wood's five budgets
the first year he was Chancellor, and _characterised
Teeeseleaa's squandering of millions of Irish works,
that only deepened the poverty and augmented the
idleness of the people mocked with the phantasm o
relief,"

The National Reform Club expects to open next
month with fully five hundred tnemb,rs, and it is
more than probable that a considerable number of
these will be Irishmen, of whom neither their coun-
try nor this need be ashamed. It is understood that
several Irish M.P.'s will join forthwith, and among
them, it is to be presumed, will be your excellent re-
presentative, Mr. Fagan, who was one of the most
energetic, consistent, and constant of all the Liberal
opposition throughout last session, being scarcely
ever absent from a division wherein Ifs vote could
mark his approbation of sound principle in theory, or
honest conduct in practice. The provisional com-
mittee are most anxious to avail themselves of all
Irishmen of character, conduct; and discernment; and
the occasion does indeed seem most auspicious for a
junction of the working intellect of the two countries
for the mutual acquirement of reforms of which each
stands respectively so much m need. It is obvious
enough that there is a most serious apprehension in
interested quarters here lost any such fusion should be
brought about.

TlTe prospects of the National Reform Club, dis-
encumbered of the heterogeneous elements that have
neutralized the Reform body of late years, are far,
more encouraging than could have been loOked for
even three months ago ; and lend to the contempla-
tion of the coming session an aspect whose hopeful-
ness is calculated to inspire with energetic zeal those
who had begun to despair of progress. The stake
that Ireland has in the new movement is immense,
and there is, reason to believe that she will not forfeit
it through a criminal apathy, to the advice of her best
adviser to join her friends here.

SUNDAY DUTIF:S AT THE POST OFFICE.

General Post-office, September, 1849.
I. With a view to affording postmasters.-and their
assistants proper rest on the Sunday, the Postmaster-
General has been pleased to direct-
1. That on and after the 14th of Octobeinext, all
provincial offices in England and Wales shall be closed
on the Sunday from 10 A as. to 5 P.M., except for the
necessary receipt and dispatch of mails; the box
merely being left open for the receipt of stamped and
unpaid letters.

_ 2. That the deliveries at such places on the Sunday
shall be restricted in all cases to one.

11. Further, that to facilitate the above arrange-
ments, and at the same time to promote the public
convenience, letters posted at provincial offices on the
blank pout day for towns beyond London, shall, if
stamped and paying full letter rates, be formirded, as
on other days, so as to be delivered, except in remote
places, on the Monday morning. No change, how-
ever, will be made as regards letters addressed to or
posted in London.

HERRITCOS.—Herrings have again appeared on this
side of the Solway, and considerable quantities have
been caught on the Caerlaverock banks. On Wednes-
day the fish market was well supplied, but on Saturday
only to a limited degree. There has be en a brisk in-
quiry for herring nets; and the children at the Ragged
School have not only got their stock on hand disposed
of, but have been busily engaged in netting for some
days to meet the demands which have poured in. While
we notice the re-appearance of the herrings with plea-
sure, we trust that more caution will be used this season
in their consumption, the excess of which last year ope•
rated, we believe, injuriously on the health of the in-
habitants.—Dumfries Courier.
IMPORTANT CASE UNDER TOR COUNTY- COURTS
ACT.—re,turday, in acase " Shirley v. King," tried in the
City Sheriff's (Small Dr bts) Court, a question was raised
as to the right of the plaintiff to split a debt. The action
was brought on a promissory note for 3/. The original
debt was 91, for which defendant had given three pro-
missory notes of 31. each. His Honour, Mr. Commis-
sioner Lluileck, held that the giving different notes did
not take the case out of the rule as to splitting the debt,
and the plaintiff must either give up the 61. or be non-
suited, and wait till all the notes became due, and sue for
the full amount. 'f he.plaititiff elected to be nonsuited.
THE lIINCRFORD AGRICULTURAL AND CONSERVA•
TIVE CLUB.—Mr. Disraeli, we find, intends to be present
at the meeting of this club on Friday next. The great
Parliamentary leader of the Country party will ba on a
vi,it to Sir John Tyreli's, at Boreham-house, in the
course) of next week, and has premised to accompany
the Hon. Baronet to the festival, in consequence of which
the arrangements for the banquet have been made on an
extended scale. The old baronial hall of Hedinghaw
Castle. which still remains in as substantial a state as
v. hen It echoed with the fi-stivity of its lords of old, is
to be fitted up for the occasion, being capable of dining
some hundreds; and there can be no doubt, looking to the
oratorical fame and the political standing of the cele-
braced visitor, that it will be filled to overflowing by the
gentry and agriculturists of this and the Adjacent country.
--Chelmsford Chronicle.