The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-16 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENur:.

LATEST BETTING AT MANCHESTER.
THE DERBY.
10130 tot 6
to
1 a
16 to 1 agst Angelica
All this morning, when Confederate was backed at 500 to 15
twice over, and 300 to 12. Some heavy bets at 35 to 1 were
put on this horse last night.
agstgst
LTahoenocneiootffered
500 to 8 agst Assassin
1000 to 10 agst Black Bess
52050 tt o o 1
15ag asgtst GLamadbyias—offered
500 to 15 agst Fitzroy, but not a blow struck.
THE OAKS.

There were no offers but one to lay 12 to 1 on the fiel I, bar 2.

A WINTER IN ICELAND AND LAPLAND.—
The two volumes on the singularly novel and interesting
topics of Iceland and Lapland,announced as forthcoming
from the pen of the Hon. Arthur Dillon, are calculated,
in this age of common-place, to excite much attention.
'I he beaten tracks of Europe have all become so
thoroughly a dead lexel in the estimation of the travel-
reading community, that a work detailing the recent
personal observations of an Englishman of rank and
education, on the habits, manners, and social condition
of the two, perhaps, most singular and primitive coun-
tries in the world, cannot, fail to be universally read.
BRUSSELS, JAN. 12.—We are assured that the
Cout:t. de Ribeaucourt is appointed Ambassador ,Ex-
traordinary, to represent Belgium at the marriage of
Queen Victoria.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Globe.) -
Mr. Villiers predicted to the land6Wner, some years
ago, that they would East ketibritise the Corn-laws ;
and it is impossible to read the proceedings of the
great meeting which we report in another place,
without being apt to think they have gone far
alre.nly towards that consummation. We would ap-
peal to all of that body who can see farther than the
next rent day, and ask them whether they really ima-
gine demonstrations of this magnitude, becoming yearly
more and more numerous, indignant, and resolute,
are matters to pass over like a summer cloud, and
leave their interest basking in unclouded sunshine !
We will tell the landed body that no preponderance
they possess in the Legislature can, in the long run,
maintain their cause, by mere force of voting, against
a " pressure from without" backed by intelligence,
wealth, numbers, and justice. It is true that the Re-
form Act has enabled the landed interest to oppose a
more extended front, and a stiffer resistance, to a
chance in the Corn-laws than probably they could have
done before that enactment, when Monopoly more di
reedy represented its own breeches-pocket. Mr.
Cobden observed-- _ . . . .

" The Reform Bill has altered the tactics of agitation.
It Was all very well to storm the citadel of corruption,
which formerly existed by a sudden onslaught. When the
aristocracy could only rely on Gatton and Old Sarum, they
yielded to the strong demands for Catholic Eman.
eipation, for the repeal of the Test Acts, and for
tlae Reform Bill. If, however, we now rise up, and de
[nand the repeal of the Corn-laws, the aristocracy
fold their arms while we make our complaints, and
retort upon us that Winchester, Chichester, St. Albans,
and Salisbury send men pledged to vote in favour of these
laws. This is the breakwater to the current of public
opinion, and until we can convince the farmer that his in-
te•rest is identified with ours in getting released from a
wretched servility, and the peasaut that he is reduced to
want and suffering by the present system, our efforts will
be in vain."

Now we would calmly ask the landed aristocracy
whether it is wise and safe to drive sober and practical
men into these " tactics of agitation?" We ask them
to look in time whether the national interest, and
therefore the national right, is not on the side of a
change ; and to consider whether, if this be so,
they are not staking far more than the Corn-laws
on the issue of this struggle with determined and en-

lightened assailants. They are straining the landed
power of the Legislature against the leagued trade of
the empire. Victorious in such a struggle, they may,
in the end, rue the effects of victory—vanquished, the
legislative authority is dragged down in their class.-
defeat!

(From the Courier.)
In the work we recently noticed of M. Sarrans, it
will be remembered that his leading argument for the
disruption or abandonment by France of the alliance
with England, was the falling state and perilous pros-
pects of the latter, described to be in the throes of re•
volution, by which its power and resources were so
prostrated, that union and close communion with this
realm conld impart weakness only, and not strength.
He held that for her own safety and aggrandisement,

France should cease to cling to a sinking ship, lest
she too should be irresistibly drawn into the vortex of
the engulfing waters of confusion. It is not singular
that even well-informed foreigners, like that writer,
should arrive at such conclusions after no inattentive
survey of the troublous aspect of our political horizon,
for here, on the immediate scene of action, and with
meal s more assured of measuring the extent of the
crisis by contact and acquaintance with the actors and
intriguers, men not less intelligent, although more
deeply interested, have avowed the same convictions after
investigitions not less patient than painful. Although
we do not partake in a like degree the apprehensions of
the one, or concur in the highly-coloured descriptions of
the other, it is impossible to deny that signs and pre-
sages are abroad, auspicious to all appearance of any-
thing but good. Take, for example, our paper of this
day, pregnant as it is of ominous matter. Here we have
State trials recorded of men taken in the act of overt
rebellion and high treason in one part of the kingdom !
Supplementary to these, we find simultaneous risings
and premeditated treason organising in other parts,
and even in this great metropolis itself, under the very
eyes of the Government. Accessory to Chartism we
see Anti-Corn-law demonstrations elsewhere, fiercely
threatening revolution, and consigning mercilessly to
wholesale destruction the greatest of interests—the vital
interests of the masses—of this.mighty empire.
(From the Standard.)

THREATENED CHARTIST INSURRECTION.—The
country is now reaping the sad aftermath of the sede
tion by which the Whirr Radicals fixed themselves in
office. The Chartists have made some serious move-
ments in the West Riding, and if we may trust to this
preparations made by the Executive for proot,
the metropolis itself was last night threatened with
an insurrection. This is all the natural, and indee.
the necessary result of the Whig-Radical lesson o
1831. The more ignorant part of the populace have
been expressly told that they may innocently embrue
their bands in the blood of their fellow-subjects to
effect what they in their wisdom may regard as
salutary political changes. The doctrine was
preached to carry the Reform Bill, but its ready
disciples apply it to cirry the Charter, now that they
find that the Reform Bill has produced to them no bene-
fit, but rather injury. This is all in the course of na-
tur,t. At Sheffield five persons have been committed
for high treason, upon apparently strong prima
facie evidence. At that town a murderous assault
was committed on Sunday morning upon a poor man,
hastening to bring assistance to his wife in child-bed—
a sharp skirmish also occurred between the troops and
another armed body near the town much about tne
same time—Dewsbury. Heckmondwike, and other
towns, were also attacked. The apprehensions en-
tertained for the safety of London appear from
the preparations made—all the military in the
neighbourhood of London were, we are in-
formed, held under arms all night—the different
bodies of firemen received orders to be at their
several stations, and on the alert. Like instructions
were given to the police force, and the Lord Mayor
was advised to use all precautions for the safety
of the City. Nothing, however, was done by
the Chartists beyond the assembling of 700 or 800 at
the Trades-hall in Abbey-street, Bethnal Green.
We know nothing of the details of information sug-
gesting •these measures of defence ; but rumour, col-
lecting probably from the particular instructions
to the fire brigade, and from the moving up
of the floating engines on the river, as well as from
the magazines of fireballs, grenades, &c., seized in Shef-
field and elsewhere, and from the obvious policy of such
a mode of commencing a night insurrection, states that
many houses were to have been set on fire in the hope
of distracting the attention of the military and police,
dividing these forces, and throwing the city into con-
fusion.

The Hon. Geoige Cavendish, M.P., and Lady
Louisa Cavendish, arrived at Harewood House, Hanc-

ver-square, from a visit to the Earl and Countess o
Harewood, in Yorkshire.
EXHIBITION OF ARTS, SCIENCE, AND MA.
NUFACTURES, EDINBURGH.--The exhibition in th

Assembly-rooms, which was opened on Tuesday, attracts
great attention, and is crowded by all ranks 8f society ;
among whom we have noticed the Duke and Duchess
of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorn, Lord Altemont,
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Colonel Douglas, and
the officers of the 78th Highlanders, the Reverend
Mr. Bennie, President of the School of Arts. The
practical illustrations are in full operation, and include
a magnificent display of the application of science
to art on a scale such as has never been previously
witnessed in this country. The lighthouse reflectors
and lenses, including the lime ball reflector, the re-
flector with coloured light, and the revolving lenses,
occupy the east end of the large room, and shed
a flood of the most brilliant light upon the specta-
tor. The printing, copperplate, and lithographic presses
are continually in action ; and the jacquard loom, the
weaving of stockings, turbing of wood, modelling in
clay, basket-making, paper-roaking, &c., present a se,
ries of processes of extreme interest to all ; while the
magnificent illustrations of the Polariscope, on which
alone the Committee have expended upwards of fifty
pounds, present to the man of science a treat which
has not hitherto been accessible to him in this part
of the island. The experimental arrangements of tee
Polariscope arc under the superintendence of Mr. E.
M. Clarke, who has arrived from London at the inv't::-
tion of the Committee for this purpose. It will give
some idea of the magnitude of the arrangements
which have been made for this exhihition, when
we state that the value of the insurance of the various
models and specimens is between forty and fifty thousand
pounds. We have much pleasure in adding, that the pupils
of numerous schools and academies have already visited
the exhibition, and on Saturday morning we understand
that upwards of 800 boys, from different charity, schools,
are to be admitted gratuitously.—Edinburgh Evening
Courant, [We understand that this exhibition has been
achieved principally through the indefatigable activity
of Dr. Reid, whose arrangements for warming and ven-
tilating the House of Commons have given such satis-
faction.]
Female schools in England have been often
subjects of severe animadversion, and the manner in
which they are too frequently conducted would seem to
justify the charge that they impair the moral and
physical energies they profess to strengthen and im-
prove. Mrs. S. C. Hall, in hernew novel of '° Marian ;
or, a young Maid's Fortunes, has
given her heroine
her bitterest and most dangerous trials in one of them ;
' she pictures them as deteriorating in the extreme; and
conceiving, as we do, that her portraits are taken from
real life, her work must directinghave the effect of
public attention to the subject, which, beyond all ques-
tion, calls for inquiry, for it ts notorious that women who
are unfitted for any other station in society undertake
the establishment of " seminaries for young ladies," the
consequences of which can only be disease to the bady
I and the mind.

THE WESTMINSTER REFORM

SOCIETY.

On Tuesday evening the:members of the Westminster
Reform Society assembled at Stannard's Hotel, Charles-
street, Covent-garden, " for the purpose of making the
arrangements required by the rules of the Society to be
annually adopted for its government."
Mr. John Morris having been unanimously called to
the chair,
The minutes of the previous meeting being read and
confirmed, this being the first meeting of the Society
since the conclusion of the registration, for the present
electoral year,
Mr. W. WEST, Honorary Secretary, laid upon the
table a large bundle of papers relative thereto, and read
the following report
" The Committee, as heretofore, determined that no
objection should be made by them which did not carry
with it sufficient evidence to afford reasonable grounds
of success, in order that no objection made by them
should have the appearance of being of a speculative
character.—( Here a statistical statement was made by
the Secretary of the claims and objections, which
amounted to a difference in favour• of the Reformers
of 598) . .

"The Committee cannot avoid calling attention to
one or two important decisions that have taken place.
" First, upon the scot and lot ; it is now decided that
to be entitled, the occupier must be an inhabitant
householder, resident in Westminster.
" The case of Sir Wm. Heygate came before the
Court for the third time, and, notwithstanding altera-
tions had been made by Sir William which it was pre-
sumed would meet the case, he, however, failed in
bringing the office and apartments within the meaning
of. the Reform Act. In deciding upon this case the
Cuurt expressed its sincere regret that it could not
allow the vote. In conjunction with Sir Wm. Heygate
no less than 13 other Directors of the Pelican Life As-
surance Office have been prevented from being re-
gistered.

" No decision is more important, especially to the
Reform cause, than that given by the Court in the case
of Sir George Warrender, who had been objected to
upon the ground of not residing in his premises during
six months previous to the 31st July in the present year,
and not occupying for twelve months previous.
" The case submitted to the Court was that he oc-
cupied a house in Albemarle-street, and having let it
furnished during the fashionable season, he ceased to
occupy, according to the Reform Act. This was Mr.
Trott's construction of the law, and upon it an ob-
jection was served, he being fully aware of the im-
portance a decision in favour of this view of the
case would be to the Liberal interest in West-

Minster, especially in thaedivision, which at the time
of c:ectioniis designated the dead weight. The Court
also, being aware of the importance of any de-

vision upon that point, took from Friday (upon which
day the case came on for hearing, and Sir George War-
render attended to support his own case,) until the
following Monday, before judgment was given by Mr.
Craig, who, when after laying down the law, and ad-
mitting the vast importance of this decision, in which
Mr. Milne concurred, allowed the objection.
"This decision is so important to Westminster that too
much attention cannot be paid by the various members
of this Society to ascertain who dispose of their houses
in this manner every year. This, alone, will be also
sufficient to prevent the turmoil and excessive expense
of a contested election at any time in this City. The
contest will then be annually decided in the Registra-
tion Court ; which is, in fact, the arena where the battle
is now contested."

Mr. W. TROTT proposed that the report now read
be entered on the minutes.
Mr. BREMNER seconded the motion, which was
agreed to unanimously. •
The SECRETARY next reported the number of attend-
ances of the members of the Committee, when it was
re-appointed, with the exception of one or two changes.
Mr. WEST then read the following report of the
proceedings of the past year, which was presented by
the Committee :
" The Committee of the Westminster Reform So-
ciety in presenting their Report for the year 1839,
have the gratification of stating that on a review o,
the proceedings of the past year they have much
reason to repeat their former congratulations to the
members of the Society on its continued useful-
ness and improving prospects, which have steadily
increased as the objects of the Society have be-
come mare generally known, and they have been more
appreciated by those who are desirous of a steady and
progressive amelioration of the condition of the people
of this great country.
" Your Committee are happy to perceive a strength-
ened conviction in the 'public mind upon the necessity
of real reforms in the several departments of the State,
more especially in the mode of sending Representative
to the Common; House. Last year, in reference to

this subject, the Committee observed that the past mea-
sures had done nothing toward changing that factious
state of misrule in which all national improvements are
sacrificed to the domination of party. This line of

conduct will assuredly continue so long as two or three
hundred voters have the power of returning one Member,
and six or eight hundred return two Members ; the
smallness of such numbers, unprotected by the Ballot,
necessarily causes every kind of pernicious influence to
be exercised for factious purposes.
" Your Committee report, that in the course of the
past year, meetings of the Society have taken place,
upon several important questions—namely, the Repeal
of the Corn-laws ; Postage Reform ; National Educa-
tion ; and the Vote by Ballot at Parliamentary Elections.
"During the progress of these events your Committee
prepared in due time to sustain the. Reform cause in
the Registration Court, and are amply satisfied by the
result, although the funds at their disposal were
of a very limited amount. Your Committee ob-
serve that the exceeding nice distinction cre-
ated by the Reform Act renders the machinery
most inconvenient, and highly detrimental to the proper
mode of election, a great number of persons submitting to
be disfranchised rather than endure the annoyance of
attending the Barristers' Courts to insist upon a right
which they ought to have the power of exercising in a
far more simple manner than the present law authorises.
It is more clearly substantiated by being acted upon in
Westminster—that a shop, workshop, warehouse
cellar, or counting-house, if worth 4s. weekly, or 101.
per annum, confers the franchise, but until an amend-
ment of the Reform Act-takes place, there can be no
hope of an uniformity of decision in the Revising Bar-
risters' Court, or of bribery, intimidation, and obstruc-
tions to voting, in a number of ways, taking full effect, as
in the halcyon days of borough patronage.
" Your Committee are again under deep obligations
to William Trott, Esq., who has continued to give his
professional services to the Society. The Committee,
also, embrace the opportunity of acknowledging the ser-
vices rendered by several other members of the Society
" It is with some regret your Committee state they
have not yet seen a return, ordered by the House of
Commons, for the number of persons who have been
disfranchised, in consequence of the non-payment of
pcors'-rates, or window-tax. When this return is
made, it is hoped that the Members who repre-
sent popular places, will not suffer it to be made
in vain. It is not surprising that many have been
omitted from the register, but that so large a number
have been inserted ; for persons to be entitled to their
franchise, must not have only paid thee poors' rates,
but the window tax must also be paid before the 20th of
July in each year ; as the omission to pay either dis-
qualifies. Improvements in this and other respects
must shortly take place in the Reform Act.
" In taking a retrospective view of the Soci?.ty's pro-
ceedings, your Committee ere much gratified with the
result of their labours. They believe that by their
exertions at last some services have bean afforded to the
cause of the people. The Committee have the pleasure
of announcing that the Society still continus to advance
in number and importance ; and, in cotcluding the re-
port, they embrace the present opportunity of re-pub-
lishinc, the principles upon which the Society is estab-
lished, namely :
" The Vote by Ballot.
" An Extension of the Suffrage to every House-
holder in the Kingdorh, and that each Constituency,
returning two Members to Parliament, ought to con-
sist of at least 5,000 electors.
" The Repeal of that part of the 271 h clause of the
Reform Act, which makes the payment of Rates and
Taxes (before a particular day) a condition of the
Franchise.
" Triennial Parliament.
" A more. extensive Reform of the Municipal
i:lad,
eo windaunsdtryCoo.fr ntheTnaox
Cor-
porations, especially those of London and Ireland.
y e peal
pressingo f the
uponW
grielvAousßl
The abolition of all pe • country.
rs;:.
pensions not merited by known
public services.
" The removal of all taxes which • •
impede the diffu-
sion of knowledge among the es u b people, t •ally
peci the
stamp duty on newspapers.
" A. Reform of the Church Establishment.
" A proper application of the Itrids, known to exist
in the country, for the purposes of education.
" The Committee cannot close their Report without
seriously calling upon all friends of freedom to assist in
advocating
the cause of rational liberty, by supporting
the principles, upon which the Society is founded, the
delay of carrying which into effect cannot fail to be at-
tended by many most serious evils, and that neglecting
of these important rneasur-s for any considerable period
will probably prevent their being safely and peaceably
adopted at any time.
" The Committee finally call upon all persons who
have the desire to improve the condition of those who
toil and spin,' to enrol themselves among the Members
of the Society, for although numerous, yet every add -
tion is so much in aid of the Reform cause ; and when
it is further considered that the opposing party are strong
in all places, and readily obtain information upon all
matters, especially those relating to the registration, it
becomes every 11,:former the more earnestly to support
the Society by further extending the numbers, by which
the sympathies of all are brought into action, and there-