The Sun.
London, England, 1833-08-07 00:00:00

we would advise the Stafford voters to do—we
mean that portion of them who have reprobated
the past conduct of the borough—is, during the
vacation, to get up a strong petition to the
House of Commons in favour of making trial of
the vote by ballot. This would be the means of
drawing over to their side all sincere Reformers,
who, as the matter stands, feel reluctantly com-
pelled to involve them in the punishment of the
guilty.

There appears to be a complete misunderstand
ing on the part of most of our Contemporaries
relative to the late disgraceful job in the Sta-
tionary-office. Two or three Members of Par-
liament (and they have been backed up by some
of the Morning Journals) imputed the whole
blame to the Comptroller, and asked why he did
not object to the appointment of a person under
age to the office of store-keeper. One of
the Journals even goes so far as to insinuate a
collusion between him and Sir JOHN KEY for
mercenary purposes. Both the imputation and
insinuation are equally groundless. The report
of the Committee will soon clear up the mys-
tery, and place the blame on the right shoulders.
The Comptroller was appointed by a Tory Go-
vernment, and is said to be a racy Tory himself,
though we have no knowledge of the fact ;
but these, surely, are no reasons why liberal
journals should not only deny him justice, but
charge him with guilty connivance at fraud and
delusion. So far from conniving at the ap-
pointment of Mr. KEY, we believe he protested
against it from the beginning, partly on account
of inexperience, and partly because a person
under age could not enter into the bond re-
quired by the Treasury regulations; and during
the two or three weeks that the young man
was at the office, he was not allowed to inter-
fere in any way, or even give his opinion on the
quantity or quality of the paper furnished by
the contractors.

The Marquis of WESTMINSTER gave notice
last night in the House of Lords, that early in
the next session he should trove for the
abolition of the privilege of voting by proxy.
This privilege is one of the many blessings
that we owe to the " wisdom of our an-
cestors." It is a fine sample of the legislative
sagacity of the "good old times," when the
many, like the beasts of the field, were reared
only to contribute to the advantage of the few.
It assumes the startling fact, that our hereditary
legislators are, of necessity, so omniscient, so
prone to suck in wisdom with their mo-
ther's milk, that there is not the slightest
occasion for them to hear and deliberate before
they decide upon a question—even though that
question may be a matter of life or death to the
national interests! Your vulgar plebeian, whose
mind is as narrow as the neck of a claret bottle,
must pause, meditate, weigh motives, examine
arguments, and sift conflicting evidence, before
he ventures to make up his mind on any public
question ; but your lofty, intellectual patrician,
who is wise by right of rank, and patriotic
by virtue of his pedigree, need impose on him-
self no such painful restraints. He cannot
possibly come to a wrong conclusion, or give a
vote against the interests of common sense and
the country. He is well born, therefore he
must be well informed. He is a Peer, therefore
he must be a patriot. Never was there a more
logical sequitur. Oh, the advantages of a
title ! It can work more magic changes than
even the wand of harlequin. It can convert
brass into gold—folly into wisdom—selfishness
into patriotism. Who would not be a Peer,
when together with his coronet he assumed also
the attributes of omniscience ?

But, alas, the dazzling halo which once sur-
rounded rank, is fast fading " into the light of
common day." The Peerage has fallen on evil
times. The scales have dropped from people's
eyes, and they can now see matters clearly. They
have come to the conviction that hereditary rank
has no connection with hereditary wisdom ; that
the aristocrat of a hundred sires may very easily
be a sample of supreme stolidity, and the
plebeian of yesterday a model of sterling sagacity.
When such opinions are generally prevalent,
it is fair to conclude that such an aristocratic
privilege as vote by proxy must be in the agonies
of dissolution. As nothing can justify this
absurd privilege, so nothing that we know of,
can prevent its abolition. What can be more
monstrous—what more irreconcileable with that
common sense on which Englishmen pride them-
selves, than that a thick-sculled lordling just es-
clped the birch of Eton, should be entitled to
record his solemn vote on a great public
question, of the merits and demerits of which he
has not heard one single syllable, being at the
time hundreds of miles away from the theatre of
discussion ? Conceive the Most Noble the Mar-
quis of Mountebank, sending over his decision
in favour of St. Andrew's Sunday Starvation
Bid, from Paris, Vienna, or Constantinople !
How, you will ask, under such circumstances,
could he come to a correct vote on the subject ?
Why, by virtue of his being a Peer, which at
once endowed him with omniscience ! Plrbeians
may err ; patricians cannot. Folly's cap and
bells fit only uncoronetted foreheads.
If the vote by proxy be justifiable in the
House of Lords, it is equally justifiable in the
law courts. If Peers may decide upon a poli-
tical question without hearing a syllable of the
matter, jurors may reasonably claim the same
privilege in a legal question . The absurdity in
the one instance is not a whit behind the absur-
dity in the other. A juror in a trim. con. may
date his verdict from Vienna, with quite as
much propriety as a Peer may send his vote
against a Reform Bill from Paris. Indeed,
the juror has the stronger claim on the pri-
vilege (supposing it right and fitting that it
should exist at all) for he may allege that his
decision, when detective, can injure only the
parties concerned ; while none can deny that the
Peer's blunder may be the means of inflicting a
mortal wound on the interests of a kingdom.
The one commits a public, the other, only a
private wrong.

The vote by proxy will not, we suspect, out-
live next session. It will die by the visits ion of
common sense somewhere about the middle of
the spring, and though all the Tory Peerage will
go into deep mourning on the occasion—though
E 1.,D0N will shed tears of anguish—NEW-
CASTLE stre ,v sackcloth and ashes on his head—
and the pensive genius of ELLENBOROUGH give
vent to its tribulation in the Morning Post—
yet the country, like Irishmen at a wake, will eat,
drink, and make merry at the funeral.

- -
A gentleman who married a lackadaisical
young lady, was visited by an old friend. The lady, after
enlarging in an animated strain upon the pleasures of
London, 13 id retired for the night, and the friend ex-
claimk Why, Jacx, your wife is not so pensive as she
used to be"—to which the other replied with a shrug,
" No, she has left that off; shell, now ex-pensive.—Hants
Chronicle.