The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL

Proteus himself did not assume more shapes than
our Anti-Reformers. Last night they were all in-
dignation that there should be such a thing as bri-
bery at elections. The men who have been lament-
ing that the colonial and moneyed interests, and
professional men, would no longer be represented in
the House of Commons, because there would no
longer be venal boroughs for them, turned over a
new leaf last night. What is wanted now is an in-
dependent constituency, above being bribed. Sir
Charles Wetherell, in the discussion on the 10/
clause, said, " Another objection which he had to
the clause was, that it gave facility to bribery, be-
cause they might be quite sure that the poorer classes
of voters would be always in arrear as to their taxes;
and the consequence would be, that the candidate
or his agent would pretty well know on what side to
attack him." Mr. F. Lewis also observed with the gra-
vity peculiar to him, that "it was a measure in which
there was nothing to diminishond much to increase the
existing tendency tobribery and corruption." And then,
lest doubts might be entertained whether such a
thing as bribery at elections had ever been practised
to any extent in this moral arid religious country,
he proceeded to instruct the House in the manner
in which bribery was practised. " Was there not,"
he said, "to be found, in one of what might he
called open boroughs, some influential person, who
contrived to get the voters in a club, who, supplying
them with ale and smoking, would once a month or
oftener meet them, make a speech to them, tell them
they were Blues, and ack them if they had not been
Blues ever since the Reds existed—and if ever a
Yellow came into the town, would they not inflict
upon him summary justice; and having gone through
that process for some time, would not the said in-
fluential person come to a candidate, and say he had
expended 5001. in keeping the Blues together, and
clemanding .Dl. a man, and the 500/. besides, under-
take to return any Honourable Gentleman who
might offer himself ? " All this is unquestionable,
and the consequences to which it led at last drove
the people of England to Reform. Every one knows
that a part of the spoil of the whole people was
shared with the small portion of the people pos-
sessed of the power of returning the represen-
tatives. But Mr. F. Lewis asks, " what had
the Bill done to put an end to such
practices, as that bribery, corruption, and rottenness,
prevailed as indisputably where there were many
voter, as well as where there sere but few; wit-
ness Liverpool and Dublin." Ah, Mr. F. Lewis,
if the Bill were not calculated to put an end to such
practices, it would not have been so hitter a pill to
you and your fri, nds! It would be a bad specu-
letion, after the Reform Bill shall have been passed,
to attempt b iberv. There may be an individual
now and then, who, from rivalry, family feuds, or
wish not to be thought to have as heavy a purse
as his opponent, will be ready to imitate the Liver-
pool candidates ; but men in general will observe
something like proportion between the sums they
expend on an object, and the sums they expect it
will return to them. The smuggler never thinks of
giving the revenue officer more than the amount of
the die y. If the constituency of the various elec-
toral districts were so numerous that each would
require as much to be expended on bribery ne Liver-
pool, how many candidates would there be ? Allow_
big, for the sake of argument, wi,h Sir Charles
Wieherell, that every elector has his price, where
there are many electors the candidate may be
unable to pay the price, with any hope of a
profitable return. There is no mystery in bribery
—the bribe must be always something less ie
value than what it is expected to produce. If we
examine the more secrrt history of Parliament,
we shall find that bribery grew regularly with the
growth of the taxes, and the amount of money
which Members could command. Mr. F. Lewis,
perhaps, thought that the whole nation would bribe
the whole .nation. Bribery hinges on the dispro-
portion between the constituency and the nation. It
supposes that the constituency receive through
bribery a greater share of the taxes than they pay.
A matt must be an arrant fool, indeed, to receive a
sum as a bribe, in order to pay twice as much in
return. The ten-pound qualification is, of course,
a very different quahfication in difftrent places. Ie
places where there are rot more titan 300 electors,
it will in general be twice as high in reality as in
the great and populous towns. But then the
greater value it; the small towns adds to the difficulty
of bribery, while bribery in the great towns is
acticab'e from the inability of the candidate to
buy so great a number of voters. The Anti-Re-
formers will not find it an easy matter to persuade
us that we shall be worse off after Reform than we
were before. We knew that before, the meesure
of the expenditure Ives the amount of what could
be wrung from the people. Did not even Mr.
Herries tell the House of Commons a year or two
ago, that the Ministry were always more disposed
to retrench than the House ? Why have is e
been seeking out for settlements in every quarter
of the globe, but that places might be found for
those able to command Parliamentary influence. An

Louest- Minister, disposed to protect the people
from pillage, was always left without mjori•its
Hence the well-known declaration, that without a

Reformed PArliament—that is, a Raliament re•

turned by s constituency having interests identical
with the nation—no -Minister could be an honest-
man. The 101. Lent qualification having been dis-
posed of by a division of 353 to 10, difficulties were
started 'with respect to the times of payment of rent.
Mr. John Campbell objected strongly to giving the
tranchise to weekly tenants. Ile declared " that it
would give landlords—not aristocaticul landlords,
but of a touch !Oster and more objectionable, class
—an extremely improper power. They would, if
their tenants were disposed not to accede to t;leir
wishes, have the power of depriving them of the
franchise in some cases between the day of procla-
mation and the day of election. In such a place as
Southwark, a man who had 500 weekly tenants
might absolutely turn the election. The only re-
medy to his mind for this was, to present all per-
sons from voting who paid rent more frequently than
four tinveg a year. This was even allowing a lati-
tude ; for he could state upon the authority of the
most celebrated conveyancer-al that there was not a

&ma fide yearly tenant in Eflgland who paid his
rent more than four times a year." Mr. Campbell
moved an amendment in accordance with his views,
which was lost by a majority of 210 to 1-12.
Aro, ?ling Chronicle.

Along with our extracts from the Belgic Papers
we publish the letter of our private correspondent
at Bru•sela, which arrived yesterday morning too
late for publication in the s of our impression,
and consequently when we had not time for the
exercise of that judgment on its contents which their
importance deserved. Our letter mentions that
Marshal Gerard bad received orders from France to

•
evacuate the Belgian territory; and we find by the
explanations
of Earl Grey in the House of Peer,
and Lord Althorp in the "House of Commons, last
night, that our correspondent was right in thit
general statement. But we are not sorry for the
delay in announcing the fact, as it enables us to ac-
company it with a necessary explanation, which
neither their Lordships nor our corre•pondemt have
communicated. After the deci,ied manner in which
the Press of England declared itself on the strange
phraseology of Marshal Soult, in the C lumber
of DiV3Oties,—af er the strong remonstrances of
the "nglish Government, supported by the syn.-,
pithy of the English people—after the ten-
dered guarantee of the Conference of LArifor,
to the good faith of thu Dutch Court—arid after
the expression of alarm by the Belgians themselves
at the presence of a foreign fo cc, ealcullted to en-
danger that independence Which it came to pro.ect
—the French Ministry, however desirotna of acquir-'
ing popularity with the movement parry, could nor
withdraw front its engagement, or refuse
or ‘an. order
of its troops. Their con.
for the immediate recall
tinued stay, when the oh jest of the expedition w,,
accomplished, was a ques,lloll of peacer,
,
well as questiou of perfidy or good faith, The

French Cabinet has, therefore, consented to with-
draw the chief portion of its army within its own
rontier. But by the arrangement, of which this
evacuation forms the chief par►, it is stipulated that
small corps is still to remain at the request of
King Leopold till his own army is reorganized
This is the portion of the arrangement respecting
.vhich Lord Grey last night declined to give the
required information. It is likewise unhappily a
part of the arrangement which the English public
cannot approve, and with which the English Go-
vernment ought not to rest satisfied. The new
King of Belgium does not require the assistance
of French bayonets to protect him against the dis-
affection of his own subjects; and the good faith
of Holland, or the fear of a second repulse, will suf-
ficiently protect hint against a second Dutch inst.
sine. His Majesty is popular, and he is therefore
safe. He must re-organize his army, but he 'ruts'
not employ French drill serjeants or French officers
for that purpose. If he really requires an auxiliary
force, let him recruit his body guard in Switzerland,
and not accept of it from Marshal Soult. lie cast
never be free from intrigues, disturbances, perplexi-
ties,
.or dangers—he can never be really indepen-
dent—he can never call himself master at home—
his country can never enjoy that neutrality and se-
curity which the great Powers of Europe have de-
creed that it shall possess, so long as there is a
single foreign soldier on guard, or a single foreign
flag waving, iu Belgium. lit requiring the imme-
diate withdrawal of the French troops from Bel-
gium, and expressing our objection to the stay of
even of a single corporal's guard, we insinuate no
distrust of the intentions of M. Casimir Perier or of
the majority of his colleagues in the Cabinet. We
have always admitted the good faith in the French
Premier, for which Lord Grey contends, and merely
doubt the power of that able Minister to carry his
plans into effect.— Times.
There are complaints, we observe, in the French
Journals, that the views of France in respect to
Belgium are misrepresented on this side of the water,
and suspicions thrown out by us calculated to em-
broil the two nations. We are induced, by the re-
petition of these complaints in the Journal des Da-
ha/s, to say something in the most friendly spirit on
this very delicate affair. First of all, we know very
well, and so does France, that she would like to have
the Belgic provinces and that this wish is felt
equally by Royalist and Republican, by the friends
of Louis Philippe and the partisans of Charles X.
Then we know also, and so does she, that she pos-
sesses a certain herd of furious partisans in Belgium,
eh'efly in Brussels, who, though France herself
might reject the acquisition of Belgium by dishos
noureble means, would have no objection to give it
her by any means whatever, setting honour and
good faith at defiance ; and that those partisans have !I
been labouring incessantly for that purpose ever 1
since the general peace : arid, further, though the
motives of France might be proper and humane on
advancing into Belgium to repel the Dutch, yet we
could not but observe that the measure Was eagerly
adopted, and that before the- other Great Powers
could be consulted upon the precise measure, though
the principle of putting a stop to effusion ofl
blood might have been acknowledged generally.—
These, with many other minor circumstances, are
the facts from which suspicions have sprung—facts
resulting, we allow, more from the situation of
France and the general feeling of the people, than
from the conduct of her Government. It has been
her misfortune—chary, no doubt, as she is of her
honour—to be placed in a situation liable to sus-
; but we will observe, that the suspicions of
others will not justify her in the execution of those
projects which are imputed to her. She has it in
her power to wipe away the suspicions, to dispel the
cloud, wherewith she complains that malevolence
has for a wi ile shrouded her fair fame and honour-
able character for just dealing. Let her withdraw
from Belgium as promptly as she entered that
country, now that her work of humanity is finished,
and then what becomes of the insinuations of her
enemies? They fall upon the heads of their au-
thors, and she emerges with yet greater brigtensss
from the temporary obscurity under which she
laboured. Her course is clear, if honour be her aim,
and the success certain.—Tintes.
The Bill, last night, " dragged its slow length
along" at its usual rate. It has been evident for it
long time past, that the object of the Opposition is
only delay;—that by delay, they expect to weary out
the patience of the public, or to take advantage of
any intermediate occurrence which the chapter of
accidents may throw in their way to defeat the mea
Afire. Their tactics have hitherto been skilfully
directed to that end, and they have succeeded by
finding resistance only from the conceding candour,
unsuspicious; integrity, or obliging di,position, of
their antagonists. But even mildness may be roused,
if provoked too far, and a Noble Lord, who has
hitherto been over courteous to his opponents, was
last night excited to address himself to their objec-
tions in a tone of severity and rebuke. Never were
questions or arguments heard in Parliament more
" frivolous or exatious" than those to which he was
txpected to reply. He had to answer the same
question four times to one gentleman, and as if to
exhaust all ordinary patience, the same question
which had been answered to the sreisfactiun of one

opponent was ag„a;ti repeated by another. In order
to show the profundity of legislative wisdom (for
we are not allowed to call it any thing else but wis-
dom) which distinguished the Oppositiim last night,
we shall merely quote from a document which pur-
potty to be an account of the debate, the following
dialogue:—
" Sir C. WETH EUELL—Suppose an eleetiwi should

take place in the beginning of July. It was almost impus
sible, but many tenants would then be in arrear. In that
ease, every 10/. tenant would be a tool in the hands of his
landlord, who could prevent him (rein veting, or enable
him to vote, just as be pleased.
" Lord Aurnoar had stated already three times to the
lion and Learned Gentleman, that his argument was
f:unded on a part of the clause which had been altered, and
did not exis', and would not waste the time of the Com-
mittee by endeavouring to explain the same point a fourth
time to the lion. and Learned Gentleman.7--(llear.)
" Sir E. B. SUGDEN wished to know what remedy
the tenant would have in case a landlord, with a view to
disfranchise his tenant, got out of the way, and refused to
receive his rent before the day of registration ?
" Lord Ar.rnottr—The lion. and Learned Gentleman
had asked him what was to be done in case a landlord,
who was entitled to receive his rent in June, would not
receive it, in ender to disqualify his tenant from being re-
gistered in August. lie really mug say that he did not
consider himself cill,el upon to meet such i•mprobable ob,
lections, which could have no foundation except in the in-
genuity of the objector. He would only observe, that
unless a landlord had a great number of tenants, be could
produce no influence on an election by thus getting out of
the way ; and if he had a great number of tenants, the
rent which he would have to receive would be a suffi-

irnt seem i,y th.it he would nut get out of the ‘v ay to dis.
frAnehi,.e his tenants.
" Sir E. Sucmx—But a landlord can recover his rem
apt asy time, and therefore he will be no loser by allowirq
:he payment to be withheld from him for a short lime."
If it were not that the House of Commons is an
;mproper place for a farce, we might have derived
entertainment from some of the awics exhibited l e-

foie ihe Committee last night. The Hon. Alernber
for Preston, like Bottom, the weaver, in his various
transft,runitions, shows that he has pr./served hi•
original conformation of mind and manners (nide!
his Parliamentary metamorphosis. Nature %%ill as-
sert her rights, though rtsisted by the omnipotence
of Pa,lia►ne►rr. The Hon. Member, tilliugq, be
Cougbed down, and could not be heard in explain-
ing the object of his motion, found ten Members in

he Cointr.-Ittee who voted for his amendment. The

101. valdleatiori clause, [dier it bud been separate()
'um all itt, propo,e•J utrieudmt•nts, was carried by a

great unajority ; we are greatly gratifiei by tins re-

It is with equal pain and astonishment we find
that the law of forgery is, once more, about to b,
put ill sanguinary action. That law, as far as hu-
man life is collet-rued, has been in abeyance ever
-mice the memorable deei4ion of the }louse of Coin-
mons, the month of June yeas, against the

punishment of death for the offence of forgery. It
is now, however, it would seem, about to be re-
vived in practice, and its revival celebrated within
a few days, by the sacrifice of two human victims
to that paper-Moloch, whose appetite for blood
for many years past, excited so much of public dis-
gust and abhorrence. The two criminals who are
the first appointed to die under Sir Robert Peel's
" amended" law of forgery, are Calvert and Collier,
who had been convicted of forging Bank-notes, at
Lancaster, during the Spring Assizes of the present
year. They had been respited during several months,
or rather, we believe, their sentences had been de-
ferred ; but at the recent Assizes Mr. BaronV,arglian
had them placed at the bar, and gave them judg-
ment to die " according to law," entreating
them, at the same time, not to delude them-
selves by entertaining any hopes of mercy. When
we consider that the first instance of carrying
Sir It. Peel's Forgery Bill into execution occurs
under au Administration every member of which
had opposed that Bill, upon the grounds, which the
ablest among them so eloquently urged, of its being
equally cruel in principle, and pernicious to the
interests of society in its operation, we may well
say that the revival of the sanguinary practice of this
law, under such auspices, excites our astonishment.
But however politicians may alter their opinions or
conduct with their changes of position, their recorded
sentiments change not. It is instructive sometimes
to recall their past opinions when estimating the
value of the present principles of public men. Let
us do so in the present instance. In the year 1813
Earl Grey supported those Bills of Sir Samuel
Romilly which went up to the House of Lords for
the repeal of capital punishment in certain cases of
peaceable violation of the rights of property. In his
argurnews on one of those Bills—'hat in reference
to the capital crime of stealing to the value of fire
shillings in a shop—his Lordship showed that the
severity of the law was prejudicial to its efficacy;
that the taking away life for an offence which was
generally believed not to deserve death caused
fewer prosecutions to take place, and fewer con•
victiona to follow, than if there were a milder
punishment, and one- more proportionate to the
crime. Ile adduced as an example the effect
of the repeal of the punishment of death for the
'offence of privately stealing from the person. He
said, " In the year preceding the alteration in that
law the convictions, compared with the prosecutions,
were in the proportion of one to fifteen, and in the
year following the passing of that Act they were in
the proportion of two to three,—facts which, in-
stead of proving that the crime had increased, only
showed the increased efficacy of the law in bringing;
home the crime to those who are really guilty of it."
The same reasoning is applicable to the crime of
forgery. The taking away life for this offence shocks
the natural feelings, as well as the instructed reason,
of mankind. The consequence is, that because some
individuals suffer death for it, others are never pro-
secuted at all, and many of those prosecuted are, by
the humane repugnance which Juries entertain for
so sanguinely a law, acquitted. If the punishment
were milder, as in most of the States of North
America, the law, upon detection, would he uni-
formly enforced, and the sentem e invariably exe-
cuted. How different from what takes place at pre-
sent, when the law is ferocious in its spirit, but in--
becile in its operation. Mr. H. Sparkes, the banker,
in his letter to Sir R. Peel on this subject last year,
stated several instances of persons putting up with
the loss arising from forgery rather than prosecute.
Among other facts, he related that a banking firm
intimated that they might be somea that like con-
tinually prosecuting for the crime of forgery, but
that, owing to the law attaching to the uffence the
punishment of death, they never for a moment en-
tertained the idea of ie•orting to it. This capital
law, therefore, leaves the property of that firm, and
of the 1,000 bankers who expressed the same senti-
ment in their petition of last year, wholly unpro-
tected. The present Lord Chancellor, we need
scarcely remind our readers, distinguished himself
greatly last year in the debates upon the Forgery
Bill. He exposed the barbarity and the folly of the
punishment of death with indignant eloquence and
uncompromising hostility. After allowing that it is
the certainly, and not the severity, of punishment
that deters men from crime, and having stated that
of 217 persons convicted of forgery lb seven years,
only twenty-four were capitally punished, while of
ninety-nine convicted of murder in the same time
eighty-eight were executed, he went on to say—
" We are told that practical men wish the punish-
ment of death to be retained, but they have come
forward by the score—by the hundred—l may say,
by the thousand—and your table groans under their
,
petitions, denying tne imputation, riot upon their
feelings, but upon their good sense. These peti-
tions against the punishment of death for forgery
proceed from those to whom paper credit is the
breath of their nostrils—from those who ale ruined
if forgery goes unpunished, and who declare it must
generally go unpunished as long as death is inflicted
for its commission." Again, on the third Fettling
of the Bill, Mr. (now Lord) Brougham said, in re-
ference to the small majority of placemen by whom
the second reading had been curried--" Would not
the punishment, if continued, be considered to be
branded by the vo.'e of the Commons of England?
If the principle were unpopular already—if men's
feelings rebelled already against it—what would be
those feeling, that eupopularity, when the senti-
ments became settled, and fixed, and rooted in their
minds by the sentence of the unbiassed wisdom—
the C4llll deliberate decision, of that house?" Dar-
ring the same debates Sir James Mackintosh elo-

fluently and truly argued that the abolition of the ca-
pital punishment would be in truth "only a return to
the state of the law, as it existed previously to the
reign of George ll.—a period when the alteration
in the law of forgery spread over Europe an idea of
the sanguinary and inhuman spirit of our laws, and
made the inhabitants of the different S ales believe
that Englishmen valued nor life, nor the blood of
man, when they came in competition with their pelf
or selfish interests. No law of this kind existed in
he other great commercial States of Europe. It
did not exist in France, or Holland, or Prussia—it
%vas not, in fact, the law of any country from Han-
burg to Cadiz—front the Northern to the Southern
Pole of the commercial world. It is this sanguinary
and barbarous law that the petitioners now prayed
the House to repeal." Nor should on tl►is occa-
sion the able and unanswerab!e protest en:ered on
the journals of the House of Peers, against the
punishment of death for forgery, by Lord Holland,
he forgotten. It would be difficult to find a docu-

merit more to the purpose in point of argument, and
drawn up with more force arid felicity of expression.
It concludes by saying-0 -Because if justice enjoins
the necessity of proportioning the punishment to
the moral turpitude of an offence, prudence no less
requires that the compassion likely to Le produced
by such punishment should not exceed the indigna-
-11011 generally excited by the perpetration of the
crime; and that the penalty should be regulated by
the state of public opinion at the time, and in the
country where such law is enacted or allowed to
continue; but in this instance, the frequency of
pardon, the numerous petitions of the people, and
the vote of the Commons' Hiase (If Parliament, sof-
fisiently attest that the punishment of death of cri-
minals convicted of forgery is aMorrent to Me

spirit of the age, contrary to the judgment of the
public, and revolting to the feelings the com-
munity." This protest was signed not only by
Lord I folland, but by the Duke of Wchniond and
Lord Durham, members of the present Ministry.
Shall, then, the law of forgery be carried into effect,
or the prerogative of mercy, which is also part of
the law of England, be allowed to correct the san,
guinary errors of others laws.—Morning Herald.
The clamour of the pledged men in the house of
Commons against-all impediments to the completion
of the task to which they are bound, the destruc.
ton, namely, of the British Colstitution, is at once.
edifying and ridiculous. Mr. Hume, Mr. Alderman
Waithman, the other three sensible Aldermen, and
all those—not an inconsiderable number—who, like
the worthies' we have named, are debarred the pri-

vilege of thought, speech, or action, who cannot stir
indeed without letting all the world hear the clank-
ing of their fetters, are weary of their lives, from
very abhorrence of the spectack; which they are com-
pelled to witness, and will, we anticipate, be com-
pelled to witness for a great while yet to come—the
9nectacle of free men, arid honest and independent
Senators, discharging the exalted duty, which the
worthies a:oresuid feel to be none of theirs, of calm
end vautious deliberation upon a subject of
incalculable moment to the empire, and exer-
cising those rational faculties which Provi-
‘lence has bestowed upon them, for the benefit of
their country and their kind, and which they have
not had the baseness to surrender to the dictation
of an infuriated rabble. But however weari,ome
discussion in which they are not at libery to join,
and from which they are forbidden to improve, must
naturally be to the fettered slaves whose presence
in the House of Commons is the opprobrium of that
Assembly, as a deliberative body we would suggest
to diem that they had much better not become un-
ruly. Hume, whom some people think a shrewd
man, and Waithman, whom nobody thinks so, have
each, we perceive, a motion in embryo to acce-
lera►te the progress of the Bill. Slavery, they
say, makes all men equal, and so it appears in
this instance to have done; for, in point of sa-
gacity the two Members stand 'now plainly upon a
level. We are anxious that Parliament and the
country should have ample time to think, and think
again and again, upon every providon of the Bill
before it pass into a law, and therefore wish
most sincerely the, instead of one motion a-piece to
accelerate its progress, the delegate of the Livery of
London, arid the delegate of the freeholders of Mid-
dlesex, had eech twenty such motions to bring for-
ward. The Middlesex delegate intends to move to-
morrow that the House meet for the future at twelve
o'clock, in order, by working upon the Reform job
fourteen hours per diem, to make, in journeyman's
phrase, seven days a week. It is an excellent mo-
tion—excellent whether it be carried or lost, as in
'either ease the discussion it cannot fail to produce
Will afferd at least a day or two longer time to the
returning good sense of the country—excellent espe-
cially if it be carried, since then Lord Althorp, and
the other M nisters who must watch the progress of
the Bill, or try to do so, will settle the whole
business more speedily arid effectually by their
snores than they could ever hope to do by their
waking eloquence. Among the advantages which
must arise from the adoption of Mr. Hume's propo-
sal, that men shall work fourteen hours a day in the
manufacture of a new Constitution for the country,
will be the placing upon indelible record the notion
of the present House of Commons of the difficulty
and importance of the work. That the delegates of
particular bodies who have given pledges, which ex-
clude them from the privilege and exonerate them
from the duty of thinking at all upon the subject,
should not feel that any number of hours are too
many for such attention as they need give to the
subject, is very natural ; but will a majority of the
House of Commons agree with these pledged dele-
gates that the Reform Bill is one which men may
properly consider in their sleep ? This is the ques-
lion. Arid we should sincerely rejoice to see i
carried in the affirmative.---Ilforning Post.