The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-30 00:00:00

lyot

LONIVN,
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 30, 1836.

A most animated and not a little personal, debate
took place last night in the House of Commons, on
the subject of some late municipal appointments in
Bristol, Wigan, Rochester, Leicester, and elsewhere.
Sir R. PEEL brought on the discussion by insinuating
—with that inimitable affectation of candour peculiar
to him—that Ministers had appointed magistrates in
various places, with an eye rather to their political
predilections than to their fitness for office. In an-
swer to this grave charge Lord J. RUSSELL denied
that there ever had existed, on the part of the advisers
of the Crown, the least disposition to show any such
partialities; observing that " the view he had taken
generally was, that he ought to attend to the recom-
mendations of the Town Councils ; but that there were
several places in which he had recommended persons
who did not entertain the same liberal opinions in poli-
tics with the Town Councils generally. He might have
excluded them, but he did nut do so, because he did not
wish that the magistracy should be composed of one po-
litical party. This, one would have supposed, would
have been considered a satisfactory reply; but not so did
the Tories consider it. Having preferred their Bill of
indictment, they were resolved to stick to every item
it contained; and accordingly Sir R. VYVYAN rose,
and not only repeated, one by one, the charges of Sir
R. PEEL, but added further, that as respected Bristol,
Ministers had been influenced in their municipal ap-
pointments by corrupt motives. From this moment
the debate became one purely personal. Hard words
were bandied about in the most approved bear-garden
fashion possible, in which wordy warfare Mr. RICH-
ARDS particularly distinguished himself, accusing Mi-
nisters of being revolutionists and conspirators ; and
packing up as much twaddle, bombast, and sheer
doting imbecility, in the smallest possible compass, as
we ever remember to have met with, even in the
speeches of Mr. WYNN. And who is Mr. RICH-
ARDS, the majority of our readers will, no doubt,
ask ? We will tell them. He is a politician of the
PHILLPOTTS' school ; that is to say, a person re-
markable for nothing but his inability to know his
own mind for two years together. He was once
a' Radical ; he is now a Conservative ; but
whether Radical or Conservative, a Bore of such
flagrant enormity as might put even the Thames
Tunnel to the blush. And yet this is the man,who
presumes to call Ministers to account for their incon-
sistencies ! Truly he is a precious type of his party—
of that party which, after having—for GOD knows how
many years—appointed Tories, and Tories only, to
offices of trust and power, now profess. to bb struck
with shame and astonishment at the bare idea (for it
is nothing more) of Ministers presuming to take a
leaf out of their own book ! Was ever impudence
equal to this ? Is it possible that cod assurance can
go further ? The Tories are clearly mad. Rage and
disappointment have deprived them of what few wits
they had left ; one by one they have stripped off all
their tinsel pretensions ; and are now exhibiting them-
selves in all the beauty of unsophisticated nature, to
the gaze of an astounded public. Think of the men
who for fifty years and upwards, have crammed the
Ireland
magisterial bench with Tories ; and kept up in