The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-16 00:00:00

THE PHARISEE'S ADDRESS.

(From the Examiner.)
By an extremely curious manifesto before us, it ap-
pears that Mr. William Tooke has been moved to be-
come candidate for the representation of Finsbury by
a comparison between his deserts and those of the sit-
ting Members. After an impartial estimate of his own
worth, and a glance at the utter unworthiness of Messrs.
Duncombe and Wakley, Mr. Tooke comes to the con-
clusion, both on spiritual and temporal grounds, that
it is absolutely essential to the best interests of society
that he should be elected Member for Finsbury. His
presenting himself is purely a matter of conscience. He
finds in himself the righteousness exceeding much,
without which no legislative or other labours can bear
good fruit, and, discerning large beams in the eyes of the
sitting Members, while he perceives his own to be with-
out mote, he offers himself purely and solely on the
ground of his superior holiness.
His logic is shortly this :—Finsbury wants a pious
man ; I am an exceedingly pious man ; therefore I am
what Finsbury wants.
As for the deserts of the sitting Members, be glances
at them as " unworthy agents," " men of immoral and
irreligious life and conversation," and " latitudinarians
in politics and religion ;" and he disposes of them finally
in a brace of Watts's verses, one verse for each Member.
Mr. Tooke observes that persons of the latitudina-
rian section, in which he classes Messrs. Dunconibe and
Wakley, haver never originated any great " measures
of mercy," such as Negro Emancipation, the Factory
Bill, and the Chimney Climbing Boy Act, for which
last Act Mr. Tooke claims the glory.
We confess that this seems to us rather a hard test,
inasmuch as the " measures of mercy" are happily as
exhaustible as the practices of cruelty and oppression.
Mr. Tooke had the luck to a obtain a position on
the back of the climbing boy, and he has risen in the
public view by narrow, crooked, and sooty ways, and
culminated at the chimney top ; but what are legislators
and aspirants for public favour to do, who find slavery
abolished, factory labour regulated, and climbing
boys protected by Mr. Tooke ? Standing on the pedes•
tal of the soot-bag, Mr. Tooke deals rather too hardly
with men who have not had the fortune to discover a
grievance. Let hint ask himself where would have been
his claims if another Tooke had anticipated his great
chimney-sweeping agitation ? What would he have been
without climbing boys, and the narrow, dirty way
through which he has ascended to the very chimney-
pots of the Temple of Fame ? But for climbing boys
he would have been even as the unrighteous, and no
better than Mr. Duncombe or Mr. Wakley.
How are those gentlemen to provide themselves with
the great " measures of mercy" which may free them
from Mr. Tooke's reproach ? Why, even the " direful
dog-cart nuisance" has been abated. Flea emancipa-
tion—the emancipation of the industrious fleas, s o
cruelly tormented in chains in the Regent-street exhi-
bition—remains certainly to be taken up ; but what is
one question, and that a flea question, between two
Members? Had Mr. Tooke entered public life a little
later, he himself might have been glad to show his zeal
for humanity in a measure for flea emancipation. It
was his good fortune to begin his career when grievances
were rife, and when a man might pick and choose be-
tween blacks and chimney-sweepers, and a dozen other
prime oppressions.