The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-01 00:00:00

doubt wished that Sir Charles Wetherell shou Id

be a living witness of the practical refutation of
his own statement ; but farther than this, we be•

lieve, they had no intention of proceeding. Some
of the rabble, most probably set on by the etnis-

saries of the Anti-Reformers, appear to have com •
menced the work of mischief by throwing stones ;
but, if some of the accounts are to be believed,
the intemperance of the police and special con-
stables materially assisted in spreading the spirit

of disturbance, and in exasperating it into savage
fury. A troop of Dragoons, too, are stated to
have conducted themselves in a manner which
made the commotion more general and desperate
than it would otherwise have been. The first
accounts of such lamentable occurrences must

contain many distortions of the truth, and much
exaggeration. Neither excitement nor fear paint
matters truly. That much mischief has been
done—that serious acts of destruction have bee❑
committed—and that some lives have been lost—

is quite certain ; but it is just as certain that all
real Reformers lament such acts, and repudiate

the perpetrators as the worst enemies of the cause
which they pretend to support—a cause which is
one of intelligence, not barbarism—of improve-
ment, not destruction ; and which its sincere and
honest advocates could never think of degrading
by violence, or tarnishing with the stain of blood.
—Mornblg Herald.
Captain Yorke, finding the majority against
him increasing, resigned the contest for Cam-
bridge yesterday. This result will be viewed
with almost-unmitigated regret by all true and
sober-minded friends to their country. May the
freeholders of Cambridge never have cause to rue
with bitter but unavailing repentance the aid they
have thus afforded to the cause of revolution.—
Morning Post.
The friends and allies of our Revolutionist
Ministry have been rather more active than
usual within the last day or two, as our readers
will perceive by the accounts from Bristol, and
by the proceedings of yesterday in Lincoln's li-in-
fields. The Bristol ministerialists have thought

proper to manifest their zeal and devotion in
the cause of Government by attacking a Judge,
the representative of the King, in the discharge
of the most august and important of his func-
tions; by compelling him to flee for his life ; by
suspending the regular course of law and justice ;
by entering the houses and destroying the pro-
perty of the Magistrates ; by liberating their
meritorious co-Reformers who had the misfor-
tune to be in gaol for burglary, murder, or any
other of the acts hitherto, that is before we had
the happiness of living under a liberal Govern-
ment, deemed the most pernicious to society;
by setting fire (and here who does not recog-
nise instinctive prudence) to the prisons and
destroying the gallows; and, finally, by making
war upon the King's troops when the latter
preAnned to attempt to interrupt these
vigorous reforming proceedings. Since his
Majesty's Ministers, so far as we have
been able to learn, never attempted to bring to
justice the Reformers who attempted to murder
the Marquis of Londonderry and other Peers,
in the streets of the metropolis, when proceeding
to the discharge of their legislative duties, it
must appear rather hard to the surviving friends
of the Bristol Reformers, who, when seeking
the life only of a local Judge, have fallen under
the fire of the King's troops, that the same
punity .should not have been secured to them.
Might not these deluded Reformers of Bristol
naturally suppose that zeal in the cause of Mi-
nisters would justify and protect them in any
violation of the law, however atrocious ; and
may not tie mourning families left destitute by
their death justly lay their blood upon the head
of those who have so strenuously urged them
on to acts of violence ? The victims who have
fallen at Bristol are the proper objects of pity,
notwithstanding the atrocity of their offinces,
and the lamentable consequences which such
offences cannot fail to produce in a civilized
community. They have been ensnared and
beguiled into violence by the example of vio-
lence left unpunished ; by the • example of vio-
lence encouraged ; by the spectacle of an Exe-
cutive Government tolerating violence, and pre-
ferring, if any judgment may be formed from its
conduct, that the worst outrages should go un-
punished rather than adopt such measures of
just, wise, and humane severity as might have
endangered by possibility that rabble popularity
which is the pabulum of its existence. The
unfortunate men who have been slain at Bristol
are the first sacrifices to the unnatural and inaus-
picious alliance between Ministers and the mob.
We fear they will not be the last. The popular
Reforming Ministers must again be lenient to
their allies. Again must the laws be lulled to
sleep, and again and again we fear the natural
consequences will ensue—rabble violence upon
the slightest occasion, or without any, and the
dreadful necessity of military execution. Upon
the heads of Ministers and their Revolutionary
allies of the Press, who daily excite the ignorant
and thoughtless to deeds of viclence, be the
blood that has or may yet be -shed during
these days of fearful commotion. But in
London we are, it seems, in all future
times, to be exempt from such horrible scenes
as have occurred at Bristol; for here the preser-
vation of the public peace is to be taken out of
the hands of the Executive Government, and
all reliance upon the vigour and efficacy of the
law is to be superseded by means of a Political
Union, which is not only to secure the passing
of the Reform Bill, but in the meanwhile to
render all Government and all law entirely
needless ; that is, provided the chandler's-shop-
keepers of London will so far abate of their
dignity as to admit their fellow-subjects and
fellow-Reformers of the labouring classes to an
equal participation with themselves in the regal
and legislative and judicial office they are about
to undertake, or the labouring classes will sub-
mit to the superior dignity and wisdom of the
aristocracy of the counter. If these high
powers can compose their differences and mi-
tigate their mutual jealousy—which at pre-
sent seems improbable—then the Old Bailey
may, it appears, be abolished, and Lord
Melbourne indulge himself to his heart's
content by sleeping twenty-four hours in
every day. Now this speculation of putting
down or rendering useless government and law,
of superseding Ministers, and Judges, and
Courts of Justice, and gaols and tread-wills, and
soldiers and policemen, by so simple an expe-
dient as the institution of a Political Union, is
no doubt very attractive to those who, having
little or no property of their own that requires
protection, are of course quite at leisure to un-
dertake gratuitously, and very desirous no doubt
to monopolize, the duty of protecting the pro-
perty of others less favourably circumstanced in
this. respect. But those who happen to have
any thing to lose will probably begin to doubt
the sufficiency of this protection when they look
at the manner in which the Bristol Political
Union—for at Bristol they are blessed with one