The Sun.
London, England, 1849-07-02 00:00:00

CITY OF LONDON ELECTION.

(THIS I)AY.)
The ancient and loyal eitiz -ns of London began to
assemble in:and about the Guildhall this morning by n,
in order to elect a representative in the room of Baron
Lionel de Rothchild, who, on account cf the Parliarnen
Lary Oaths Bill being thrown out by the Peers, has
accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and again appeals to
the citizens to re-elect him on the high grounds of civil
and religious liberty, which, it is conceded, have to be
v indicated by the citizt ns in his person.
By eleven ()Meek King-street, which leads up to the
Guildhall, was almost impassable. At the confluence of
Gresham with King-street a number of fl..igs emerg( din the
refreshing bre( on which were embazoned two gigantic
hands clasped in each other, in which were worked the
following words—" Free Trade" (with a ship in full
sail) ; " Equal Electoral Rights i" " Civil and Religious
Liberty ;" " Rothschild for London." Every now end
then strains of music fell upon the ear as the different
companies wound their way up the street to discharge
their ancient duties in the hall.
The interior of the hall presented an animated ap-
pearance, such, indeed, as we never saw it present
upon the many occasiot s in which we have been
within its walls. The hall was filled with
human beings, who, in the early portion of the
(-lay conducted themselves in a very proper and tempe-
rate manner. In the galleries, which were also filled,
there ware several ladies.
Lord JOIE,/ MANNERS arrived at the ball in a car-
riage about half-pest eleven, and immediately was sworn
in as a freeman, before Mr. Brown, the Chamberlain.
Baron Rothschild and his friends arrived about the same
period, and was loudly cheered. Lord John Manners
did not appear known to the citizens.
At twelve o'clock the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and
other officers of the Corporation, entered the hall and
took their position on the platform.
Baron Rothschild and his friends were much cheered.
Lord John Manners' entrance was not marked by any
expression of opinion worth mentioning.
Among those present we noticed Baron Rothschild,
Lord John Manners, Mr. Thomas Baring, Lord Dudley
Stuart, M.P., Mr. Alderman Salomons, Lord Mayor,
M.P., Mr. Christopher, M.P., Mr. Osborne, M.P., Mr. J.
Abel Smith, M.P., Alderman Sidney, M.P., Mr. Bouvcrie,
M.P., Mr. John Williams, M.P., Mr. Edward Ellice, M.P.,
the Marquis of Granby, Mr. Forbes Mckenzie, M.P., Mr.
J. B. Hope, IV.P,, The .().7iorman.'Mahon, M.P., Mr.
%V. Milnes, M.P., Captain Balfour, R.N., Mr. Forster,
Mr. Moffatt, M.P., Mr. Christopher, Mr. Alderman
Thompson, M.l'., Mr. Wilbam Carpenter, Mr. Bennoek,
Sic De Lacy Evans, M.P., Mr. William Hawes, Mr. Wil-
liam Williams, late M.P., Sir Peter Laurie, Mr. Currie,
Mr. Adam Smith, Mr. Bernal Osborne, M.P., &c.
The reporters are much indebted to Mr. secondary
Potter, for his courtesy in presenting them with pars
tickets to the seats, and for enabling them to reach
them without inconvenience. _ _ .

Mr. HARKER then came forward and read the precept
and the writ.

Mr. Sheriff FINNIS having asked a fair and impartial
hearing for every individual who chose to address them,
and reminded the electors that they were called on to
exercise an important privilege in the election of a
citizen of London to rppresint them in Parliament.
Mr. RAIKEs CUR RIE, M.P., stood forward to address
the assembly. He said—Citizens of London and brother
electors, I propose to you Lionel Rothschild—(Loud
cheers, and waving of hats)—as a fitting and proper
man to represent you in the Commons House of Parlia-
ment.—(Cheers.) In uttring these sentences, I do not
merely propose as a candidate to the greatest city in

the world one of its most distinguished and its most in-
fluential citizens and its most esteemed merchants. No

gentlemen, my words, feeble though they be, have a far
wider and a far different import. This is no contest of
personal ambition.—(Cheers.) This is no et:mica of
political parties; it was something more than this. It
befits us well to consider what we are called on to do to-
day, and rightly to understand it. We, as the peace-
alie, industrious, and matter-of-fact citizens of London,
meet within our ancient hall, which has witnessed so
many triumphs of civil and religious liberty.—(Loud
cheers.) We, met together as we are on this occasion,
here throw down the gauntlet—(Loud cheers)—and we
pledge ourselves all to all, and each to one another, to
contest, by every constitutional means, the great and
sacred principle of religious liberty—(Li ud cheers)—
and never to abandon that contest till we have
achieved a victory.—(ftenewf d cheers.) Who dares to
to doubt it?—(4, No one.") On this very spot, or near
it, men have been tormented and burnt by those
who thought they did God service, because they differed
in their modes of worshipping our common Father.—
(Hear, bear.) Those dark times rolled on, and at length
a voice was heard which said that conscience should be
Free.—(Loud cheers.) Those men who burnt and per-
secuted each other were riot doing, as they thought,
God's work, but Ihe devil's work.—(Cheers.) From
that very moment when thst voice went forth among the
nations, the cause of bigotry was silenctd. It is most
true, it is most painfully true, that she has fought her
ground inch by inch for centuries; but the light is
nearly nut of her. We are called together by her
last expiring kick.—(Laughter) She was -doomed

when once that great truth, aiaerting; the treed( m of
every man to worship God according to the dictates of

his conscience. without the let or hindrance or the in-
terference of any human being—(hear, hear)—had been

pronounced in the world. lind why is this? Because,
thank God, when any great truth is once launched into
rho world it can never die.—(Cheers ) It is inex:in-
guishable and irrepressible. It has immortal life within it;
it is truth conquering and to conquer. You may aid it,
but it aids you more. It is growing while you are
sleeping. It shall encompass and subdue tlio world—
(Cheers)—and therefore I see that victory will be ours in
what we are about to do, when we are simply asserting this
great principle, that man shall never be persecuted fur his
religious creed.—(Cheers.) And does some shallow
sophist, some miserable bigot ask me—" Oh where is
your persecution? We have not tortured Baron Botchs-
child ; we have not fined him; we have not shut up
Baron's Rothschild's synagogue." No, you have not—
(Laughter)—but you, by your votes, my Lords—you
have shut up that honourable ambition which by the
esteem and confidence, and the universal respect of his
fellow-citizens, was open to Baron Rothschild.—
(Cheers.) And is this no persecution? Take an illus-
tration from facts in the material world. What are

chemists and astronomers doing who are bent on studies
the wisest and the best ? They seek in the
varied phenomena around them which they investigate
some one law which they may develops. So
do the men ,oho look at politics and at society ;
they look on legislation fur the development of some one
principle. I ask the common sense of all mankind—
(Question, question)—if on this occasion it is not the
ckaatrt
ropyr
di
tneheviiespi le
ope f
question?o t ifla g
Some I
onercealing
mayioo unsl y
ap it on
ssekarys chetouhvrtiis tsyhma
pt we
eoaini..,
sgttioerc al life Las not been a very shorte xwiisitieonnbce,
and I am willing to stake
on the fact that if you
return-
ing Baron Rothschild this great go on
carried.—(Cheers.) I abstain from any disparaging
reflection on any branch of the Legislature. I have not
one word to say against the House of Lords; they have
exercised an undoubted constitutional right; and I fur
one do not desire to displace one feather of that
splendid plumage which waves above them ; but
this I do say, that they are thinking and reasoning
men, and that the majority will reflect that the
pleasures, great as they are, may be purchased at too
dear a price.—(Hear, hear.) Depend upon it no great
deliberative assembly ever long persisted in a course
against which a verdict was given by the common sense
of mankind.—(Loud and:prolonged cheering.) More-
over, I have been long enough in Parliament to have
known minorities of 20 and 30 for all those great
measures which have eventually been carried, and who
have made the fame of statesmen who founded their
former fame on opposing them; therefore I despair of
nothing when truth is on our side.—(Cheers) Now, one
word on our noale opponent—(Cheers and hissing)—
I think we are deeply indebted to that accomplished no-
oa.man who comes forward to-day.—(Cheers and hisses.)
fhe Noble Lord is an ace mplished member of the
Young Eriglend party, or, as it is sometimes called, the
white waistcoat party—(Loud laughter, and cries of
Oh! oh I)—a party consisting of some eight or ten
benevolent individuals, who piously wish in the nine
ceenth century to bring back to England its primeval in-
:aitutiona—(Continued laughter.) It was the custom of
the sages of antiquity to embody in some one pithy or
apposite sentence the wisdom of a whole lifetime—a
.ort of concentrated essence of sagacity to b> carried in
he waistcoat pocket.—(Great laughter.) Fortunately
-or us—the electors of the city of London—the Noble
Lord, in imitation of those wise men, has adopted this ex-
ceedingly excellent course,land I find his political opinions
embodied in a memorable and ever to be remembered
couplet, which I ern sure must commend your sympathy
and approbation.—(Great uproar.) Listen, I beseech
you, listen. The following is the couplet:—
" Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But save us still our old nobility."
(Great laughter and uproar.) I am not generally an
advocate for an electioneering device, but I do think
that sentiment deserves a banner, which might be hung
over the door of the Noble Lord's committee-room.--
(Loud laughter.) It will do a great deal for him, if it
will not do for him altogether.—(Laughter and cheers.)
Mr. Dinnoer then presented himself in front of the
platform, and was received with loud cheering. He
said—Brother electors, I present myself before you to
second the nomination of Mr. Baron Lionel Botha-
child—(Vociferous cheering) —but in doing so allow me
to remiad you that I speak in favour of a principle,
and not in favour of a man—(Loud cheers)—that
this is not a contest on behalf of an individual;
that this is not a contest as to the religious opinion of
an individual, but that this is a contest upon a large and
broad principle—viz., whether the time has not come
when we can no longer have religious tests made
the means of determining a man's political posi-
tion.—(Loud cheers.) That is the question, and that is
the only question.—(Cheers.) Catholics, gentlemen,
have been admitted into Parliament; Dissenters have
been admitted into civil and municipal offices ; and so
have also Jews ; and they claim—l beg your pardon—
no, it is we that claim that they shall be admitted into
Parliament.—(Prolonged cheering.) The principle
you must bear constantly in mind in this contest
has no reference to the merits of the individual
or to his religion, but is based upon a much
broader question—the rights of the citizens of
London, and the rights of the people of Eng-
land, to elect whom they please, and to send them to
Parliament irrespective of their religious opinions.—
(Cheers.) Now you must bear in mind that this is the
question at issue between these candidates before you
and no other. The Bishopof Oxford—(Groans)—alleged
that Lord J. Russell had entered into a compromise and
sold himself to Baron Rothschild in order to gain the
election.—(Cries of " Shame.") I believe he apologised
for that slander, but he afterwards repeated it upon a
much larger scale, and said that the constituencies of