The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-29 00:00:00

lities of every description were excluded ; but hear it, ye
Liberals !—when a motion was made for conferring the free-

dom of the town upon our two countrymen—men whose
names arc justly lwld in admiration all over the world-4
received a NroArrivr, FROM A or ifIE TOWN-

Cotiscm! Alas? *ht ha've Reformers been struggling
for) when such a rancorous spirit of exclusion con-
tinues. to predominate in their Councils? Arc the owls
and the hats (fit emblems of ignorance and political
bigotry) for ever to nestle in our sacred places, and
the loathsome spirit of party, under the specious mask
of liberality, still, toad-like, to spit its venom from the
scat of authority ?" The writer adds, "We have been
told, by way of extenuation, that the learned professor has
for some time been a freeman of his native town, and that
it was the author of the Pleasures qf Hope alone who in-
curred the chilling frown of our aristocratic Liberals ; the
reasons assigned for this marked instance of displeasure
being, in the first place, the contamination his principles are
supposed to have suffered by keeping company with the
editor of Blackwood; and, next, that it was intimated to
the Council by the treasurer, that the expense of the requi-
site stamp would amount to the enormous
,sum of THREE
POUNDS !—a burden which
.was deemed too serious to be
I inflicted on a town which wily :ranks as second in c9llllllCf-
cial importance in Scotland."
Such is the stuff of which I:, n 17,•ui '
- Radical Liberalism
is made : and if 'Lly one: desire farther proof thatl it is
w!stittl'..ng and selfish as it is shoi;t!.?inl%';'.q. ''..l, stu-
pid, let him hear what l4aiiia 14kier, of •Glasgow,
said, in opposio6 lin ';notion for conferring the freedom
of the titV 'On Sir It. Peel :-..L-" if there was any public
art which Sir R. Peel had done for which he could
Izive_him credit, he would do so. Needed he to say,
that there was only one act which he did approve—
namely, his granting Catholic emancipation ? He did
give him credit for that; but he did not feel warranted
in giving hint a vote of thanks, bottlin, as they all
knew, that Glasgow WaS riot a Catholic city." So,
because GlasgoW i not a Catholic city, Bailie Ban-
kier wilt giver no thanks for Catholic ernan'6oiitiv.i.n. !
Of course he will give none for 00 al%lition of negro
slavery, as there are tVd Y,\Aves in Glasgow. Joe Miller
has a storr ~.q a matt who, remaining unmoved during
f.%. ::•arnon that drew. tears from the eyes of the rest of
' the congregation, excused his indifference on the
ground " that he did not belong to the parish." The
man must have been a near relation of Bailie Bankier.
—Times.

The budding premise from which the Tories anti-
cipated such fruitful results in Glasgow has been
prematurely blighted, and nothing feinains of their
splendid expectations but bitterness and .disappoint-
ment. The hope Which so cheeringly blossomed in
the hothouse of the University, has bdai Withered
by tetposure to the natural end bracing atmosphere of
the Common Countii. had Sir Robert Peel been
left in the .g*Yeenhouse conservatorg, he might, no
doubt, have flourished the pride " o' them a' ;" but his
friends, in their injudicious zeal to exhibit him, and
increase his blushing honours, have ruined all in the
attempt to transplant him into an uncongenial soil.
The glories which he was about to put forth in such
luxuriance have all sickened and died, and the Lord
Rector of the University has been declared unworthy
to associate with the freemen of the City of Glasgow !
Adieu, a long adieu to all his greatness I The mode
in which the attempt was made to foist Sir Robert
Peel into the freedom of the City of Glasgow is as
amusing in itself as it is instruetiVe of the tactics of the
Tories. The supporters of the Hon. Baronet urged
that his admission to the freedom of the city was
net a political question, and had nothing whatever
to do with his political principles—and that he
was a man of great classical attainments. At the
very moment when the Tories are boasting of Sir
Robert's election to the Lord-Rectorship—an office
which, at least, should be unconnected with politics,
however faction may endeavour to prostitute it to its
selfish purposes—as a political triumph, they have the
shameless effrontery to assert that the question of
conferring upon him the freedom of the city of Glas-
gow ie not a political question ! The intention of this
fraud was evidently to lull the honest burgesses into in-
differenoe—" to steal a march upon them"—but had
the stratagem succeeded we should immediately hear
the welkin ring with the triumphant war song of the
enemy. The ground taken by Mr. Douglas, who led
the opposition to this attempted outrage on the free-
dom of the City of Glasgow, by the introduction of
the very man who most strenuously opposed the free-
dom of that city, was impregnable. He moved as
an an amendment—
" That this Reformed Council, who owe their seats to
that Reform which was opposed by the party of which
Sir Robert Peel was the leader, cannot, without stultifying
themselves, offer him a vote of approbation."
What makes the rejection of Sir Robert the more
mortifying to his party, is the recollection that in 1830,
when Lord 'Lansdowne was elected Rector of the same
University, the freedom of the city was bestowed upon
his Lordship without a dissentient voice. How very
like a re-action this looks! A leading member of the
present Government was unanimously admitted to the
freedom of the second city of Scotland in 1830, and
in 1836, when a leading member of the Opposition
becomes a claimant for admission under similar cir-
cumstances, he is rejected by a majority of nearly two
to one. The mere freedom'of the City is in itself of little
or no consequence ; to Sir Robert Peel it would be in-
trinsically valueless—as was observed, " the value of
the thing did not exceed 2s. 6d., but as a mark of ap-
proval of the character to which it was presented."
It is as a testimony of the individual enjoying the con-
fidence and esteem of his fellow citizens, that the
admission to the freedom becomes stamped with a value
and importance, that renders it not only acceptable,
but a gift of inestimable price to the highest and
noblest members of the community. Verily, the honest
burgesses of Glasgow have formed a correct estimate of
Sir Robert Peel's political worth when they refused to
give him half-a-crown upon its credit. It will require
an extraordinary effort on the part of the greenhouse
scions to compensate for the falling off that's here.—
Morning Advertiser.
When men report concerning the success of their
own labours, or undertake to describe the working of a
new system in the success of which they have a strong
personal interest, a little bias may naturally be ex-
pected. If it should happen that the system has not
produced uniform results—that they have been in
sonic cases favourable, but in others very much the
reverse—it is scarcely to be expected from human
virtue, especially Commissioners' virtue, that there
should not be much more said about the former re-
sults than the latter. We suspect that the flattering
account which the Poor Law Commissioners are (no
doubt very conscientiously) enabled to give of, the
working of their new plans, is owing, at least in
some degree, to the power of selection, of which
they are too " liberal" not to avail themselves. It
would then be, perhaps, no more than a salutary
caution if the public were to look to the reports of
such persons as can have no interest in selecting the
exclusively favourable results of the new system. The
Chairman of the union of 37 parishes at Basingstoke
gives us a view of the good, but also of the evil which
has grown out of the new system. We think he may
be listened to with at least as much confidence in his
impartiality as that which is due to the Poor Law Com-
missioners. Well, then, the Chairman of the union
of the 37 Hampshire parishes tells us that, with re-
gerd to the agency of " relieving officers" in the dis-
tribution of relief, the system works sometimes ad-
mirably well, and sometimes excessively ill, accord-
ing to circumstances. Now let us see what these
circumstances are, and from thence we may form a
judgment of what will be likely to happen the "general
run" of cases. " This part of the machinery' he
says, " works admirably well when the officer happens
to be intelligent, active, mild, and patient in temper,
yet, at the same time, firm and undaunted, generally
acquainted with the previous habits, characters, dis-
positions, and capabilities of the poor within his dis-
trict ; unembarrassed in his own private circum-
stances, a good accountant, and an honest man !"
We need hardly thank any system for working well
in the hands of such an admirable creature as this.
But is it probable that many such singularly gifted
beings will be found to offer their services to the
guardians of parish unions ? Our worthy Chairman
adds to his charming description, this somewhat damp-
in, observation :—" We expect all these qualifications
out of a class of candidates who had no previous occu-
pation, or none worth retaining, and for a salary of
about 801. per annum." A reasonable expectation
truly ! Is it probable that such phoenixes are to be
caught with a bait of 80/. a year ? We leave those