The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS:

In the House of Lords lust night, the third read-
ing of the Frauds on Creditors' Bill was postponed
by its author, Lord Wynford, on the suggestion of
Lord Plunkett. Certainly, the evil sought to be re-
medied by this Bill is a very great one; but is not
so harsh a remedy as great an evil ? We think that
some plan might be devised by which fraudulent
creditors might be punished as well as fraudulent
debtors. The excessive facility of credit afforded by
many tradesmen can only arise from a design of in-
demnifying themselves for bad debts by exorbitant
prices demanded from the ignorant and thoughtless
who are able to pay. In the Commons, after some
amusing complaints from Opposition Members that
their speeches wereridiculed by some of the" adverse
faction" seated by their side, the Bill went into a
Committee, but no progress was made beyond the
defeat of a motion► of Sir Robert Peel's, intended
to modify the first clause. On the clause itself,
therefore, 110 decision, we believe, is yet come to.—
But as the amendment, if we understand it rightly,
touched upon the principle of the clause, its rejection
is so far a gain. The numbers were, 290 for leaving
the clause unaltered, and 193 for the modification. We
may here take occasion to express our regret at
seeing the majority on the Reform Bill falling off,
owing to the remissness in the attendance of the sup-
porters of the measure. The numbers on the divi-
sion of last night were 290, and 193, showing a
falling off of 77 from the majority, and only 38
from the minority on the second reading; and this
is the more remarkable, as we are assured, that not
a single Member who voted for the second reading
voted for Mr. Peel's amendment to make (according
to his own expression) "nonsense of the first clause
in the Bill." Means should be takes to publish
daily the names of Members who are absent from
their duty, that their constituents may advise with
them on the subject. The Anti-Reformers are ac-
tive and persevering, and nothing but the most zeal-
ous and punctual attendance of the supporters of
the measure can enable Ministers to conquer the vex-
atious and teasing opposition they have to contend
with, not only at every stage of the proceedings, but
to every word in every clause of the Bill. Surely
the Hon. Members who are friends of the Bill will
not, from any motives of personal convenience, give
their enemies the smallest chance of a triumph.
Neither the urgent demands of private business,
nor the intolerable fatigue of hearing the same
dull trash repeated night after night, nor even the
fetid jargon uttered by the blacking.maker, should
prevent Members from unremitting and punctilious
attendance to their Parliamentary functions on this
transcendently important occasion. We sincerely
trust and believe that this remissness has only to
be pointed out in order to its complete .correction.
Gentlemen of the House of Commons should feel
that the eyes of the country are upon them ; and
that a confident expectation is entertained through-
out the nation that every Reformer will do his duty.
—nmes.

Mr. Wynn's attempt, on Wednesday evening, to
reverse the order in which the clauses of the Reform
Bill proposed by Ministers follow each other, was so
little supported by any thing like serious argument,
that but for the known candour of that Right Hon.
Gentleman, we might suspect him of employing a
mere manoeuvre to gain time,—a manoeuvre less
palpable, undoubtedly, and less offensive, than that
of the seven memorable adjournment motions, but
still altogether unworthy of a grave and conscien-
tious Member of Parliament. Mr. Wynn set
out with a mis-statement of fact. He said that
the main objection to the Bill was not the exis-
tence of such places as Old Sarum, but the non-
representation of large and populous towns. Now
we affirm that the existence of such vile cheats as
Old Sarum, Gatton, and the rest of them, is of itself
the main and primary mischief, and that which has
produced throughout the empire one unanimous cry
of indignation at the non-enfranchisement of great
commercial and other communities. if Manchester
and Birmingham were never to send Members to
Parliament until doomsday, does Mr, «ynn imagine
that Lord John Russell and the people of England
would be satisfied to have bad laws made for them
by the nominees for rotten boroughs,—and enormous
sums extracted from the nation at- the will and plea-
urse of such gentry,—that a per centage, and no
small one, thereon, might find its way into the
pockets of their Noble or Right Hon. Patrons ?
Says Mr. Wynn, " our object ought to be to ascer-
tain what places deserve to be enfranchised,' and
afterwards what ought to be disfranchised' to
make room for the additional Members." There
are obvious reasons against this plan. The posi-
tive nuisance ought to be first abated, and
the nominee lordlings and jobbers removed
from the House, otherwise they might con-
trive to pack together, as in truth they have done,
and raise obstacles of no slight account to the exe-
cution of that which Mr. Wynn suggests as the se-
cond step in his improved Reform process,—viz.,
the disfranchisement part of it. Moreover, who can
listen with patience to men talking of the disfran-
chisement of nomination boroughs as an integral
portion of any effective Reform, when, according
to their own creed, and that of their associates, no
borough can ever be disfranchised until it shall first
have been tried and found guilty of corruption ?
How, for Heaven's sake, could Old Swum, or
Corte Castle, or any other pocket-borough, be con-
victed of any act of bribery ? The whip of the
autocrat who rules such kennels makes the proof
impossible, because it supersedes the crime. He
need not tempt, who has the power to extinguish ;
and Mr. Wynn was wise in his generation, when he
strove to make the existence of this trash of boroughs
appear a secondary grievance to the want of repre-
sentatives for the populous towns,—more especially,
seeing that he thought fit to tack, as a rider to the
whole scheme,—a " confession" that to add to the
present numbers of the House would be attended
with much inconvenience. The proposition of the
Anti-Reformers of Wednesday last, then, stands
thus :-1. " It will not do at all' to begin with a
disfranchisement of the boroughs, because you ought
to begin with an enfranchisement of the towns. 2d.
After giving Members to the towns, it will not do
at all' to disfranchise the boroughs, but in propor-
tion as you convict them of certain corrupt offences.
3d. Since the very nature of the nomination bo-
roughs makes such a conviction a thing a'most im-
possible, the said disfranchisement must be the work
of centuries. 4th. As the House is quite numerous
enough already, and as no room can be made before
the lapse of centuries, by the disfranchisement of
boroughs, for Members to represent the populous
towns, to avoid, then, making the House too nu-
merous, you must nor, for centuries, enfranchise
the aforesaid towns : therefore, in the name of
God, do nothing at all at present, but vote for our
amendment, which will in a clever and plausible,
though curve-like manner, get rid of this odious
Bill." The dogged integrity or Ministers and
their supporters was not, however, to be so en-
trapped. They outvoted Mr. Wynn, and turned a
deaf ear to his plausibilities. The Tory Papers, like
"damned" dramatists, are fond of appealing from
the numbers of their adversaries to the pro•
digious discrimination, sound sense, and saga-
city of their patrons. " The number all on one
side," they cry—" the reasoning on the other."
And what was the reasoning ? " Why, only
see," said a Right Hon. and ingenious Anti-
Reformer, the late Secretary to the Admiralty,
" what a set of dunderheads are the concoctors of
the Bill ! They have actually raised to the distinc-
tion of electors that very class of 101. householders,
whom"—(What follows ?)—" whom the Hon.
Member for Shrewsbury proposes to exempt, by
reason of their poverty, from poor rates !" For
our parts, we are not so utterly confounded by the
people of England, whether beeause an individual
Member of Parliament wishes to relieve a certain
class of householders from a particular tax, the Le-
gislature ought to be tied up from admitting that
same order of citizens to the riht of c eosing
presentatives, But Sir Edward Sugden quarrels

with the 101. qualification because the nine-pounder
will be dissatisfied. Why so he may : and, fix

. . ...... _ _
the qualification where you will, the man who
falls a step below it may ask, " Why was
it not brought down to my own level?"

This argument indeed holds good until we come to
universal suffrage, or which, if Sir Edward do not
henceforth avow himself the advocate, he is a more

inconsistent and flimsy reasoner in the House of
Commons than he has ever shown himself else-

where. It is asked by this able lawyer, but party
politician, " If you cut off 62 Members now, what
is to prevent 100 from being taken away next
year ?" We answer,—nothing—nothing but the
opinion of Parliament and of the people of England,
that there will exist no necessity for such a further
purgation of that House; and if " opinion" be in
favour of such a reduction, can Sir Edward Sugden
suppose that the refusal to cut off the rotten
boroughs this year, will make the country next year
less eager for far more extensive alterations ? When
Sir Edward Sugden states dashingly that the pre-
sent Bill was a total departure in "principle and de-
tail from the preceding Bill, we have looked for some
proof or illustration of this dogma, and we protest
that nothing can be found in the speech of the
Learned Member himself but what everybady knew

before; and what is to us a recommendation, that
the details of the measure have been revised and
carefully corrected ? If some two or three boroughs
have been expunged from schedule A, and inserted
in schedule B, or vice versa, that surely exhibits no
change in the principle of the Bill, but merely a
more complete knowledge, by his Majesty's Govern-
ment, of the facts on which the Reform is to operate.
As for the too great comprehensiveness of the 101.
qualification, from its tendency to admit the rabble
into the elective franchise, that objection has been
already and sufficiently answered, by the tables long
since published, exhibiting calculations of the num-
ber of electors" who would thus he created in seve-
ral towns; and it may be further and more em-
phatically refuted by reminding Sir Edward
Sugden, and other alarmists, that they have over-
looked the true spirit of the proposed Bill, which
provides (as Lord Althorp well stated the point)
that 101. shall not be, as it is too often conceived
to be, the ma.rimum, but the minimum of the new
qualifications, and that all Englishmen who have more
than the 10/. qualification shall exercise a concurrent
franchise with the ten-pounder; and, as has been
shown in some great towns, a sensibly preponde-
rating franchise. To the charge of inadvertence in
wording one clause of the Bill—namely, that which
relates to the periods on whose expiration the
rent shall be payable, so as to confer the franchise
—Ministers have manfully pleaded guilty ; and the
attempt to aggravate their offence, by imputing to
them a design of obliquely raising the qualification,
has altogether and signally failed. Upon the whole,'
the proceedings of Wednesday last were satisfac-
tory, as the defeat of stubborn selfishness ever must
be; and we do not anticipate so much left-handed
vigour in the subsequent stages of the borough-
mongering policy. We would recommend, however,
the friends of the Bill to be incessantly on their
guard, and to imitate the undying vigilance of the
people out of doors, if they would not be severely
rebuked by it. Poor Alderman Thompson yester-
, day, when called to account by his constituents for
the miserable vote he gave in favour of Lord Mait-
land's motion, seemed to admit that such a pros.
tration of mind and body had seized him, from the
fatigues attending the business of the House of
Commons, that, with the rest of him, his conscience
likewise fell asleep. Those who read our report of
what passed between the worthy Alderman and the
Livery, in reference to the above vote, may assure
themselves that he will hardly risk such another
piece of inadvertency. Such a spirit as has been
displayed by the Livery is highly creditable to the
people of which they form part.—Tintcs.

That Sir Charles Wetherell could alone occupy
the Pouse of Commons the whole of the interval
between this and the day of the Coronation will
hardly be doubted by any who are acquainted with
his inexhaustible supply cf animal spirits, and equally
inexhaustible supply of words. Sir Edward Sug-
den, too, wearies the House more, because he is
dull and wearisome, having the prolixity of Sir
Charles, without his low buffoonery and Merry-
Andrewism, and elaborately quaint associations of
words and phrases, as a set-off. Triumphing last
night i❑ his superiority to his auditors, he tauntingly
told Ministers, that " if Counsel would speak, they
would not. They relied on their numbers, not on
their arguments. They rested on their majority,
not on their eloquence—and they looked only to
the votes, not to the reasons for a decision." After
out-heroding Herod in his peculiar vein, for a suffi-
cient length of time, some laughed, and a smile, it
seems, overspread the countenance of Lord John
Russell. This was quite a God-send to Sir Charles,
as it enabled him to vary his rant. " The Noble
Lord smiled, but whether it was at what he said or
at his own foolish Bill be knew not ; the Noble
Lord dealt more in smilery than in argumen-
tation ; he was redundant in laughing, but
limited in speech; and he should like to know
whether the Noble Lord's smiles were ex-
cited by the absurdity of his (Sir Charles
Wetherell's) arguments, or the contradictions of
his own Bill." Speech or silence, a frown or a
laugh, became an inexhaustible source of eloquence
to Sir Charles. Lord Althorp told him, in his
plain and manly way, that he might in this way ob-
struct their proceedings, but " the people of Eng-
land would know how to estimate such arguments
and to value such opposition." Sir Robert Peel,
who looks a little beyond the present question,
threw out a suggestion, which his adherents would
do well to attend to :—" He rose," he said, "to
offer a suggestion, which, if generally adopted,
would facilitate the proceeding with the Bill. There
were nearly sixty boroughs included in the schedule
A; on every one of which it was certainly compe-
tent to any Hon. Gentleman to originate a discus-
sion involving the whole question. He must say,
however, that he thought that would be unneces-
sary. When there could be no doubt that the
particular borough under consideration fell below the
line of two thousand, on which the House had al-
ready pronounced, he could not invite Hon. Mem-
bers to repeat the discussion upon the principle of
making that the line.—(Hear, hear.) But on the
other hand, he hoped that in simple justice, when a
prima facie case could be shown that any particular
boroughs did not fall within the line of two thou-
sand, a fair opportunity would be afforded of esta-
blishing the fact."—( Hear, hear.) He reserved the
right of discussing the principle on the Report on
the third reading, and " hoping that the Committee
would enter into the discussion in good humour,
and without useless impediments. Called upon to
frame a new Constitution for the people, no time
should be wasted which might be employed in con-
sidering how to make it best." This recommenda-
tion is creditable to Sir Robert Peel, and it was but
doing justice to himself to give it ; for mixed up as
he is with associates who place Colonel Pride's
Purge in a new and more favourable light titan that
in which it has been generally viewed, the public
might one day suppose, if he had not raised himself
above them, that he was on the same low level.
This advice seemed to produce its effect, and the
House at length was suffered to go into a Commit-
tee. The progress made with the Bill, however,
was far from considerable. Sir Robert Peel moved
the omission of the word each in the first clause ;
and, after some argument, a division took place, re-
jecting the motion by 290 to 193—0 r 97. It is
to be hoped that, having now come to an under-
standing respecting the course of proceedings, there
will be no more Harlequinades to obstruct the pro-
gress of the Bill.—Morning Chronicle.
The promptitude of the city of London in the
case of Alderman Thompson, is as creditable to that
body as it will be useful by way of example to the
country. We refer our readers to our account of
the meeting yesterday at Guildhall, for the purpose
of instituting an inquiry iuto the conduct of the Al-
derman for his memorable vote in the Appleby case.
At this meeting Alderman Thompson took a dif-

ferent ground from that which he took on Wedoes•
day night, in the House of Commons. " The fact-
(he said) were these t—He had not (be said) in
consequence of great fatigue, arising from a labo-
rious attention to his duties, been able to attend tht
House of Commons on Tuesday evening until tin
House was about to divide upon the Appleby pe.
tirion. He went into the House without a know-
ledge of the fact, that the prayer of it was, that
Counsel should be heard at the bar upon the merits
He had not heard a word of the debate which had
taken place, and he had believed that the petition
merely had for its object the production of evidence
before the Committee as to the number of inhabi-
tants of Appleby. * * * He admitted that In
ought to have made himself acquainted with the na-
ture of the debate, but he trusted that credit
would be given to him when he declared that
he hal erred from inadvertence." In our re-
marks in the Chronicle of yesterday, we assumed, as
we were entitled to do, that he knew why he
voted with the Opposition; but the explanation
meets this part of the case. It is dangerous to sign
papers without knowing their contents, and dan-
gerous to vote without knowing the question. The
constituents of the worthy Alderman behaved ex-
ceedingly well on the occasion. They received the
defence as a palliative, but not as a justification of
his conduct, and unanimously adopted a motion of
Mr. Coates's, " That the Livery of London, after
a full and ample inquiry into the vote of Mr. Alder-
man Thompson, relative to the borough of Appleby,
anl his explanation of the same, are of opinion that
he acted thereon inadvertently; and Mr. Alderman
Thompson having renewed his pledge to give entire
support to the Reform Bill, this meeting feel them-
-elves called upon to continue their confidence
to
Mr. Alderman Thompson, as one of the represen-
tatives of the city of London in parliament."—
Members will see from this how narrowly their con-
duct is watched by the public on this all-engrossing
question. They may rely on it that every devia-
tion from their pledges to support the Bill ho-
nestly and freely will be keenly resented. In fact,
society is held together by the confidence which in-
dividuals repose in their pledges to each other. A
man may refuse a pledge : but, having given•one, if
he alter his mind, there is but one honourable course
open to him. This is so well understood, that the
nominee of a boroughmonger who should vote
against his patron, except on an understanding with
that patron, would be scouted as a dishonourable
man. A pledge to the public ought to be observed
as sacredly as a pledge to a robber of the public.—
Morning Chronicle.
It is understood that the Law of Debtor and
Creditor has been for some time past under the
consderation of the Common Law Commissioners,

who will report whether any, and what, alterations,
are, in their opinion, necessary. To this subject
we have occasionally endeavoured to draw the at-
tention of the Legislature, with a view to the abo-
lition of the cruel and pernicious practice of impri-
sonment for debt. Imprisonment for debt is objec-
tionable in principle, as well as mischievous to so-
ciety in its pract,cal consequences. Let us leok at
it in both points of view. In principle it confounds
misfortune with crime, for it makes no distinction
between the honest and the fraudulent debtor. It
visits adversity with the penal rigour of the law. It
gives to creditors the means of vindictive persecu-
tion, and puts the liberty of one man at the disposal
of the malice of another. If a suddem and unfore-
seen calamity reduce an individual from a state of
competency or affluence to poverty, he may be pre-
vented from ever repairing the misfortune by the re-
sources of honest industry if an unfeeling creditor
choose to exercise the power which the law gives
him, and to drag him from his home and family,
and throw him into prison. There, excluded
from the " common air and use of his own
limbs," and whatever little substance he may
have preyed upon by the harpies that infest the
prison-house, to plunder all that remains to misery,
under the sanction of the law, he languishes in idle-
ness, or becomes familiar with the habits and vices
of a gaol ; or, if he escape the moral contagion of
imprisonment, he finds, when he regains his liberty,
that his affairs have not escaped its ruinous effects,
and that he is restored from captivity only to be de-
livered up to the horrors of destitution. As to its
consequences upon society, the power of arrest for
debt upon mesne process produces great mischief,
by creating a dangerous facility of credit, and thereby
encouraging persons of moderate or humble means
to live beyond their incomes. This is the cause
of the ruin of thousands upon thousands of. indi-
viduals and families in this country—the persons
with whom they deal, relying upon the aid of a
law, in the last resort, which pledges the body of
the debtor for his debts, rather encourage than re-
press the practice of dealing upon credit ; and thus
persons who would otherwise have expended no
more than their incomes might enable them to do
are tempted into a course of extravagance, the end
of which is too often a gaol and ruin. If it were,
thetefore, only for the purpose of restraining credit
in the middle and humbler walks of life within
sound and reasonable limits, the power of arrest for
just
either ought to be abolished. Nor is it right or
either that, as far as arrest or mesne process is con-
cerned, any person, by an ex-party proceeding—an
unanswered affidavit—should have it in his power
to deprive a British subject of his liberty. This
power, as might have been anticipated, has often
been abused to purposes of malice and the gratifica-
tion of revenge. A man may he so circumstanced
that a groundless arrest may destroy his prospects
in life for ever; and what compensation is it to him
that he case prosecute the party on whose affidavit
the arrest is made on a charge of perjury ? The
guilty party under an indictment for that offence fre-
erently escapes, in consequence of the technical
difficulties which the law puts in the way of a con-
viction; or he may, indeed, resort to an action for
a malicious arrest, perhaps against one who, if cast
in damages, is as deficient in purse as in principle;
and so the injured party may have to paY his ex-
penses for his pains. This arrest for debt, like many
of the oppressive and cruel provisions of the Sta-
tute Law, was unknown to the Common Law of
England. By that law no man could be deprived
of his liberty but for crime. This principle was
violated by the feudal Lords, who obtained the
Statute 53 Henry 111., for the purpose of com-
pelling their bailiffs to render their accounts—
for by that Statute it was enacted that " If bailiffs
who ought to make accounts to their Lords, do
withdraw themselves, and have no lands or tene-
ments whereby they may be distrained, then they
shall be attached by their bodies, so that the sheriff its
whose bailiwick they may be found shall cause them
to come to render their account." This wai; ex-
tended by the Statute of Westminster the second,
by which it was provided that servants, bailiffs, and
chamberlains, in arrear in their accounts, might be
imprisoned in irons until they satisfied their masters.
At length the practice of feigniug a trespass, and de-
claring against the party when in custody for a debt,
was adopted in the Courts at Westmiuster, and ar-
rest for debt became universal, except where there is
privilege of Peerage or Parliament, or some other
special exemption. The oppression and inconveni-
ence of the arrest for debt were soon felt, and the
Courts alleviated, in some measure, the suffering of
imprisonment, by allowing the privileges of the rules
of the King's Bench and Fleet prisons to debtors;
but, us these privileges can only be obtained by
persons who can pay well for the indulgence, they
contribute to the squandering of the property which
ought to go to the satisfaction of the prisoner's cre-
ditors. Thus the very means adopted to alleviate
the consequences of a law which is unreasonable and
vicious in its principle are themselves productive of
evil. There can be no real reform of such a law but
abolition. The Lords Act, to relieve debtors taken
in execution, and the Insolvent Acts, to relieve
debtors imprisoned on [nestle process, cannot re-
medy the grievous injustice of confounding misfor-
tune with crime—for we speak only of debtors who
have not incurred their debts by fraud. Where
there is fraud proved, let it be punished—but that
will be the punishment not of poverty, but crime.

The Legislature has also, from time to time, passed
Acts to limit the operation of the law of wrest for
debt. Formerly no affidavit was required to arrest
► man and hold him to bail, or thro►v him into pri-
4on. The Statute 12 Geo. 1., cap. 29, forbade the
wrest of a defendant on mesne process in all cases
.vhere the debt did nor amount to the sum of 10/. ;

other Acts rai.ed it to 1.5/.; and by the 7th and
ith Geo. IV. it was provided that no person
should be held to bail unless the sum for which
-he affidavit was made should amount to 201

At the time this Act ryas under discussion,

Sir James Scarlett gave it as his opinion that
it ought to have been raised to 1001. In a
pamphlet published some time ago by Mr.
Cooke, the barrister, he contends with considerable
plau,ibility of argument for the preservation of the
law of arrest for debt, and proposes, with the view
of obviating the objections taken to tl'e law of arrest
as it at present stand,,, that the person making the
affidavit should be obliged to specify particularly
the nature of the claim, and also give security to
the Sheriff either by depositing in his hands a sum
of money, or by the undertaking of one or two
responsible persons, that he will prosecute his action
—and that, in case of a non-pros., a tronsuit, or a
verdict for the defendant, he will sufficiently re-
munerate, by tine or otherwise, the in•lividaal whom
he has caused to be arrested. If our objection to

the law was in degree, and not in principle, these
and some other improvements might remove it ; but
a law which confounds misfortune with crime is so

unjust as not to be susceptible of satisfactory im-
provement. It is a law from which Sheriffs' officers,
spunging•house keepers, and gaolers, derive more
advantage by their exactions than it confers upon
creditors, and ought to be abolished.—Morning
Herald.

The impatience of discussion manifested by Mini-
sters would almost suffice, in the absence of other

proofs, to shew that they have no great confidence
n the wisdom, or what to them is of infinitely

greater importance, the continued popularity of

their own measure. In all the Ministerial circles,

speaking in Parliament, inasmuch as it consumes
. . . .

time and affords opportunities for reflection, is unani-
- - - -

mously voted a bi;,e. Lord Althorp having, as he
imagines, a majority in the- House of Commons
pledged to support by their votes every word and
syllable of the Bill, excepting always such words and
syllables as Ministers think fit to say have crept in
through inadvertency, issues with military brevity a
general order :—" Votes only, if you please, Gentle-
men, and no speeches; whoever encourages dis-
cussion can be no friend to the Bill." Such at
least is the language which we understand the Mini-
sterial Leader of the House of Commons thought
it decent and proper to address to a coterie of
representatives of the people of England whom
he condescended to summon to his private resi-

dente, to hear these words of wisdom and au-
thority, on Monday last. The hearers of course
listened and applauded, for to abridge the proeess of
manufacturing a Constitution for the country must
be a prime object with men condemned by their po-
sition or their pledges to the servile drudgery of sit-
ting in the House of Commons so many weary hours
in the dog days, benumbed and oppressed by the
paralysing and humil'ating consciousness that their
votes are predetermined, that independence of action
is not in their power, whatever impression may be
made upon their understanding. To men so situ-
ated the task of listening day after day to speeches
upon the subject of the Bill is little short of mar-
tyrdom. The scene of Tuesday morning affords con-
clusive evidence that these Parliamentary automata
are not insensible to the utter misery of their situa-

tion. They adopted the hint of Lord Althorp—
perhaps they went beyond it. To refrain from speak-
ing themselves would, they naturally thought, be pro-
moting his and their object only by halves. They
determined therefore to suppress speaking altogether.
It was a fine thought 110 doubt, and entirely worthy
of the men and their cause. But unhappily the
forms of Parliament enable a minority to protect
itself against the power of a majority whenever that
power is employed to stifle discussion. It was ne-
cessary to shew these economists of time that more
time would be consumed in the attempt to put down
argument by clamour than in listening to it. The
lesson was effectually administered, and there will
probably be no necessity for its repetition. The
pledged men must listen, although they are not
in the capacity to be convinced. We have now
reverted to the scene at Lord Althorp's and its
immediate consequences, because we perceive the
advocates of the Ministry and the Bill striving
day after day to misrepresent the conduct of the
Opposition in the House of Commons, and to
impress upon the country the erroneous idea that
the reiterated motion for an adjournment was
merely a manoeuvre to obstruct and retard the pass-
ing of the Bill. There was a manoeuvre, no doubt,
and a very improper and disgraceful one. It was
intended to expedite the Bill by clamouring down
all opposition—in other words, by assailing the pri-
vileges, violating the orders, degrading the character
of the Ilouce of Commons. This was resisted in
the only mode in which a minority can resist such a
manoeuvre when the majority in Parliament so far
degrades itself as to adopt it. It was resisted by
the means which the House of Commons, careful of
its own privileges, dignity, and character, has pro-
vided expressly for the purpose. The disorder con-
sisted in the interruption offered to Captain Gordon.
It emanated from the hint of Lord Althorp, or per-
haps from the misinterpretation of that hint by his
Lordship's too zealous arid officious friends. But in
the course pursued by the Opposition there was no
disorder. They strictly adhered to the orders of the
!louse; and by merely exercising u power provided
for the purpose, they have the credit of having re-
stored to the House that deliberative character of
which their antagonists had for a moment deprived
it.—Morning Post.
n
nform
is
fellow-citizens,
gl l\olaNte, - coil tdiyz e
Guildhall,ancst, ai cewox
‘e:dteyy
petsooti enrttdhe atyl
i‘e%a'
attentionlt eres of 6t
m eeotn-f.
our readers to the report of that meeting, and ex-
press our ardent hope that its example will be fol-
lowed in any future case of failure, deception, inad-
vertency, or downright ratting. The meeting was
held for the purpose of inquiring into the conduct of
Alderman Thompson on Tuesday last, in voting
against his Majesty's Ministers, after having given a
solemn pledge to his constituents that he would sup-
port " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but
the Bill ;" arid notwithstanding the penitent expla-
nation of the city Member, well, and justly, did he
receive a severe castigation, at the hands of Dr.
Bowririg. The Alderman declared that he gave his
vote inadvertently, and that he did not know the
effect which it might have upon the fate of the
Reform Bill when he gave it; but how, let us ask
him, could he be in error on this subject when he
found himself encompassed with such a motley
group as the Wetherells, the Peels, the Sibthorpes,
and the Stormonts, of Tuesday last ? Had he no
misgivings then as to his situation, or had the " la-
bwious duties" of the day so obscured his faculties,
that he could not see the difference between them
and the Russells, Althorps, and Ilumes, of the other
side of the House ? However, the Alderman has
been trounced,—made confession of his sin,—re-
eeived absolution, and given a solemn promise to be
a good boy" in future; and we shall, therefore,
drop the subject as a matter settled and done; but
we trust that the effective example of the City
of London will not be lost upon other cities,
towns and
counties, which may find themselves simi-
larly situated. We do not greatly deceive ourselves
respecting the spirit which is abroad in the country,
if even this example was necessary to promote a due
exercise of the rights of freemen to inquire into the
conduct of their representatives; and we also think
that those Members will find themselves very egre-
giously deceived also who may flatter themselves
with impunity in betraying the wishes of their con-
stituents in this matter. The public did all that it
could, in a legal and constitutional manner, to secure
the passing of the Bill—it had begun to repose in
safety, under the certainty that nothing more was re-