The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-13 00:00:00

THE WEST-RIDING DEFEAT.

The defeat of the Whigs in the West-Riding Of York-
shire, is the severest blow that they have yet received.
For the first time since the passing of the Reform Bill,
the great manufacturing district of . Yorkshire, with the
largest constituency in Britain, has returned two Tories
to Parliament. This, too, at a time when the Whig
Ministers have " thrown themselves upon the country,"
holding forth triasures of relief for trade and Wm-
ineree, yyould. be utterly unaccountable but for the fact
that those Ministers have long since ceased to pOssess
the confidence of either the Reform Bill constituency or
the people at large. The Whigs have let down public
opinion ; they have distrusted the people, and refused
them help at the time they had it.in their power to give
it ; and now the people distrust them, and refuse them
help in their time of need. It is now too late to cry
Pcectivi! their lamentations call forth no pity from dm
bp-stand: is ; like old sinners, their professions of
a nendment and reformation are, treated with a, listless
indifference approaching to contempt.
At no election which has taken place in Yorkshire for
very many years, has the enthusiasm in favour of Liberal
.candidates been less than, during the last election. The
electors havefelt,it to be up-hill work with them, while
the Tories have had all the stimulus of success on their
side. The county has not keen halfcanvaised by the Li-
beral Committees; the Tories haVe never been idle du-
ring the last
_four years. The Whigs have been losing on
the registration, owing,to the general indifference of the
people to mere Whig and Tory political contests; .the
tortes have been creating fictitious votes by the hundred,
till they have obtained an immense preponderance on the
roll of electors. Hence the Tories have triumphed, and
the Whigs been beaten as they never were before.
All this will do.good. It will teach the Whigs several
useful and important lessons, which they have been far
too slow to learn. It will lead to a powerful reaction at
all early period, and most probably give a steady impulse
to sound Radical principles. When the next election
comes round, and public opinion has ripened on the sub-
ject of free trade, we predict that the result will be very
different —Leeds Times.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE ELECTION.
(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

The contest in this " pattern" county has ended, as
was expected, in the triumph of the Conservatives. Buck-
inghamshire has always been a pet of the Tories. It is
a county in which Tory domination has arrived at its
highest point of perfection ; it is a county in which the
constituency have been so drilled into subserviency to the
squirearchy and the clergy, and have become so accus-
tomed to do just as they are bid, that they would no
more think of exercising their suffrage; according to
their unbiassed opinion than they would think of sub-
scribing a sum of money to establish a railroad to the
moon. Talk of the serfdom of Russia, indeed ; it is
nothing compared to the domination which the landlords
of Bucks exercise over the not over-enlightened te-
nantry. The farmers on the estates of the Duke of
Buckingham would not, dare not, vote for any can-
didate of whom his Grace does not approve. 'They, poor
slaves are under the control of his Grace's steward, and
are driven to the poll to record their votes for the candi-
date who basks in the sunshine of the smiles of the head
of the house of Stowe. Let one of them dare to vote for
a " Liberal" candidate, and ejection from his farm and
utter ruin is the least that he can expect. Happy, in-
deed, he may think himself; in living; in a country in
which even such a man as the Duke of Buckingham is
not allowed to bowstring a refractory tenant ; or he may
be assured that if he ventured to vote for a liberal candi-
date after the decree was issued, that his life. would pay
the penalty of the transgression. Nor, to do
.the Duke of
Buckingham justice, does he stand alone in his manner of
treating his tenantry. Every small squire, and every petty
parson, f6114.)W5; to the best of his little utmost, the exam-
ple of the great man. The larger landowners do so like-
wise. The Countsss of Bridgewater, for instance, has her
tenants in stricter Control, if stricter control be possible,
than the great himself. That very respectable,
but very twaddling.old lady, is an inveterate Tory, and,
of course,: as a Tory, she takeS very good care to do
" What she likes with her, own." Under the immediate
superintendence of the steward, or bailiff, on the
Countess's estates, her tenants are made to vote white
to be black, or black to be white, just as her Ladyship
may be pleased to take into her sapient head to direct.
This steward has rendered himself peculiarly ob •
noxious to every one in his immediate neighbourhood,
on account of the sway that his well-meaning, but weak-
thinded.mistress, alloe-s bins to exercise over her tenantry.
At the last election he rode at the head of the Countess's
tenants into Aylesbury, and stood by whilst he saw every
one of them record his vote for the three Tory candidates.
Had one ef these tenants voted differently he would,
probably, at the earliest opportunity have been deprived
of his farm. " What could I do, Sir ?" said one poor
fellow to the writer of this article ; " I should have
I liked to have voted for Dr. Lee, to whom I owe a
deep debt of gratitude for many services he has ren-
dered: me ; but if I had, they would have turned me,
I my wift!, and little ones, from the farm we occupy,
and
from which alone we gain oar (hill bread." And then
With a curse " nut loud, but deep," the poor fellow re-
corded his vote for the three Tory candidates. This cir-
cumstance will show how Buckinghamshire always con-
trives to return Tories to Parliament. It will, at the sametime, exhibit the true character of Toryism ; and unless
we are much mistaken it will excite disgust in every
rightly constituted mind. To victories gained by such
agency and such means as the victory in Buckinghamshire,
are heartily welcome. The Whigs, we hope,
the uries
.1611 T
have none of them.

EXTRAORDINARY INCREASE.--0.1 Friday,
-the ult., .Mr. H. tiniaridge, jun., in the parish of
Halwell, had a swarm of bees,at seven A.m., about three
jot. he had another from the same hive, and three daysafter be had another, making three stocks from one in
the small space of four, days—an incident never before
known to have happened in that neighbourhood.— Wes-
tern
Tunes.