The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-15 00:00:00

THE PENINSULAR MAILS.

SOUTHAMPTON, SUNDAY.—The Peninsular and
Oriental Steam Navigation Company's ship Iberia,
C. F. Burney, R.N., Commander, arrived here this
morning with the usual Spanish and Portuguese
mails, in charge of Lieutenant Fuge, R.N., Admiralty
agent.
The Iberia brings 20 passengers, and on freight 10
packages of specie, 578 boxes of oranges, 204 boxes
of eggs, 8 cases of wine, 14 barrels of dates, and 31
packages of general merchandise.
Her Majesty's ship La Hogue, Captain M'Dougall,
four days from Lisbon, and ten hours from Tangier,
arrived at Gibraltar on the 3d inst. The screw steam-
ship Nile, six days and a half from Liverpool, arrived
on the 3d inst., and cleared for Palermo, Alexandria,
and Beyrout. Her Majesty's steam-frigate Dragon,
four days and a half from Malts, arrived at Gibraltar
on the 4th. The troop-ship Resistance, eighteen
days from Malta and ten from Tunis, with invalids
for Gibraltar and England, arrived on the sth. Her
Majesty's steam-sloop Janus arrived from Tunis on
the sth. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer
Euxine, Captain R. W. Evans, from Southampton,
bound to Constantinople, arrived at Gibraltar on the
sth, at 5 P.M.
The Iberia left the following British vessels of war
in the Tagus on the 9th :—the Prince Regent, 90 ;
the Leander, 50 ; the Arethusa, 50 ; the Dauntless,
33. The Rosamond steamer had coaled at the
Tagus, and proceeded to Madeira, en route for the
West Indies. Le Newton, French steamer, was the
only other foreign vessel of war left at Lisbon by the
Iberia.
The Lisbon exchanges for bills at three months are
quoted by this mail at 53i for London; Paris, 532;
Amsterdam, 42i ; Hamburgh, 481; Genoa, 531.
Bills on London had continued scarce, and money re-
mained over at the above quotation, something having
been done even at 53g.
Nothing had been done in stocks after the ap-
pearance of the capitalization decree on the 4:14
when the quotations were—Five per Cents., 47 to
471; Four per Cents., 371 to 381 ; Bank of Portu-
gal Shares, 88 to 86 milreis discount per share in
Lisbon Bank notes, which had risen from a discount
of to 31 per cent. Oporto Bank Shares were still
at 16 to 18 milreis premium in metal.
The Iberia brings letters from Lisbon of the 9th
instant, when the public panic respecting the capitali-
zation of dividends, &c., had in a great measure sub-
sided. The Cortes were to meet on the 15:h, when
that and other decrees, with a Ministerial project of
law for the reform of certain articles of the Charter,
would be submitted for the approval of the House of
Deputies.
An Oporto letter states that transactions to the fix.
tent of from 6,0001. to 8,0001. were done in exchange
on London at from 531 to 54 for ordinary paper,
and at 53f for first-rate bills at 90 days' date, little
onr revenue
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the Cortes.

TELE LATE AMBASSADOR AT FLORENCE.—IIer
Majesty's ship Ganges, 84, now en route to England from
the Mediterranean, has on board the remains of the late
Sir R. L. Sheil, who died as our ambassador at Florence.
Orders have been issued by the Admiralty that on the
Ganges arriving at Devonport a steamer is to convey his
body to Dublin.—United Service Gazette.
FIRE AT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC FREE RAGGED
ScnooLs.—Yesterday evening, about a quarter to five
o'clock, the Ragged School, situate No. 1, Rose-street,
Coveut-garden, in connexion with the " Oratory" in King
William-street, was discovered by Mrs. King, a woman living
next door, to be on tire. The damage is comparatively
trifling, the flooring and tome of the school fittings only
being destroyed.

THE LITTLE BOROUGHS, AND
WHO SIT FOIL THEM.
(From the Weekly Dispatch.)
Mr. Eclaur,—ln a very convenient return, obtained
by Sir B. Hall, to which I have before had occasion
to refer, the cues and boroughs of England and
Wales are classed according to the size of their con-
stitnencies. The number of electors is taken from the
registration of the year (1847), of the last general
election. Availing ourselves of this help, I invite
your readers to inquire who they are that sit for that
minutest class of boroughs. The pretext is not yet
quite worn out of regarding these places as affording
opportunity for men of great ability and small means
to get into Parliament. The sophism is not yet quite
exploded of representing these boroughs as strengthen-
ing the industrial and commercial interests of the
country in their conflict with the landed proprietors
and their pseudo-feudalism. Nor is the public mind
sufficiently impressed with, though increasingly alive
to, the fact that all Reform is a sham, even though
it should give Universal Suffrage and the Ballot,
which does not include a thorough revision and re-
distribution of the Rspresentation, which, to be per-
manent, must include some self-adjusting principle,
so that the transfer of the people and their property
from one locality to another will, of itself transfer
also the representation, and make the ratio of num-
bers, or of numbers and wealth conjointly, the index
to the number of representatives. On all these points
the return I have named, coajoined with other infor-
mation, affords useful guidance. We will now take a
glance at t wo or three of the smallest classes.
The first consists of boroughs with the ridiculous
minimum of less than 200 electors. The places in
this predicament are Colne and Reigate ; one under
the influence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the
other of Lord Somers. The sitting Members are
Lord Shelburne and a Mr. Cocks. The first is the
son of his father. That is all the world knows of
him. I suppose the same may be said of :the other.
The Lord is a Lord of the Treasury. Perhaps the
other may be also, when his party comes into power.
Where is the evidence of legislative or any other talent
in either ? 'We may tell the old story, and say,
" Echo answers, where ?" It is the only thing that
echo, or any ,one else, can have to say upon the
subject.
In the next class of constituencies, not exceeding
200 electors, there are five boroughs. The Members
they return are the following :—F. Baring, Coles,
Collins, Cubitt, Earl of Euston, Viscount Somerton,
Strutt, Westhead. Out of these eight Legislators
we have two Lords, and the son and brother of a
Lord. Thus far, then, the microscopic boroughs give
us three lordlings out of ten Members. There would
have been four but for Lord Arundel's honesty and
zeal having displea'ed his recusant father, and turned
himself out of Arundel, thus making room for the one
of the two only decently clever men of the lot, Mr.
Strutt, and he is put in by the converted Duke to
please the Whigs. Mr. Cubitt, the other clever man
to whom I alluded is a good builder of houses. It is
a catch, in our present search, to find a man that can
do any thing. As to making laws, we have not come
to a single accredited workman in that department.
Not a symptom occurs of the value of little constitu-
encies for choosing great statesmen. Not a glimpse
yet of a debater. We are amongst the mutes. Read
the records of the session, and you find nobody in the
list whose existence is there apparent, except in the
division lists.
Under 300 electors is the qualification of a borough
for a place in the third class. The representatives of
this group are Lord Ernest Bruce, Mr. Bagshaw,
Major B. Baring, Colonel Matheson, Mr. Rich, and
Messrs. Walpole, Wrightson, and Wyvill, jun.
Again, a lord, and the son and grandson of a lord.
The army, too, opens upon us with a colonel and a
major. We have also one present and one ex-lord of
the Treasury. One man of some mark presents
himself: Mr. 'Walpole is an able lawyer and a fluent
speaker ; he botched the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill,
which was quite enough of a botch before. Yet even
this man does not owe his position to his ability.
The House of Commons is a regular speculation for
lawyers. A seat is a ticket, which may draw the
woolsack for a prize. The purchase-money is well
laid out, as is shown by numerous instances in the
legal profession. Moreover, Mr. Walpole's talent is a
lucky accident. He might have sat for Midhurst
had he been the greatest fool in Sussex, or else-
where. His father-in-law, the Earl of Egmont, is the
patron of the borough. For the rest of the batch, with
the exception of Bingham Baring, when the suppres-
sion of Sunday trading is in question, we are still
amongst the dumbics. We have only a set of lay
figures—puppets that do not even squeak. One law-
yer is the sum:and substance of our catch. Thirteen
boroughs with 19 Members, all " small by degrees,
and beautifully less," to the very verge of actual nihi-
lity, and one lawyer the sole product. Let this be
remembered when little boroughs are again bepraised.
Were the boroughs themselves annihilated, they would
not be missed in the country ; and the same may be
said of their Members in the representation.
Proceed we to the next. Class 4, constituencies
not exceeding 350 electors. Of these there are 15,
returning 20 Members. These are Sir F. Thesiger,
Sir J. S. Trelawny, Sir W. P. Gallwey, Sir G.
Dashwood, Hon. J. Howard, Hon. E. S. Russell,
Captain Boldero, Captain llarris, Colonel Watkiu,
General Kerrison, and Messrs. Aglionby,
Horsman, G. Moffatt, Crowder, Abdy, Mackinnon,
Hutchins, T. Smith, J. Wilson. The aristocracy,
the law, the army and navy, are again conspicuous.
These are, in fact, only the different branches of a
great trading company that farms the representation.
Cockermouth is probably au honest little place. There
are said to be a good many Chartists in it. Aglionby
and
ire II
oforsinthane
Bsitisfhop
for it, the latter greatly to the grief
and
who id
be
very ready to vote him a warmer seat elsewhere.
With the exception of Mr. Mackinnon for his smoke,
Mr. Wilson for his everlasting
Boldero for his stupidity, and Captain Harris for his
ill temper, there is nothing remarkable about any of
the rest, when we have named the political economy
of Trelawny, and the special pleading and brazen
tones and face of Sir P. Thesiger. One barren waste
succeeds to another. flow these nonentities got into
m o
unt question
of
the mooted on
e theah
lity present
put occasion
into
s the
amount
the House, Ido not now inquire. I ask not whether
the constituencies are corrupted or commanded. The
single
a
the small borough. Is it such as to warrant the con-
tinuance of these eyesores ? Do they add to the
House anything which it could not very well do
without ? From the 39 lawgivers thus created, we
actiont b by
may pick out two or three, and no more, who con-
tribute something to the deliberation and decision of
the Legisture, and that something not of first-rate
importance.
Let us try once more, and look at class 5, boroughs
wou,
figures, muroes:
Captain
with constituencies of not exceeding 400 electors.
There are '2O of them, and they return 31 Members,
viz., Viscount Mandeville, Marquis Chandos, Lord
M. Hill, Lord E. Howard, Hon. E. Lascelles, Lord
Seymour, Marquis Blandford, Lord G. Paget ; Sir J.
Pakington, Sir H. Willoughby, Sir R. Vyvyan, Sir
J. Hogg, Sir W. Jolliffe, Sir James Graham; Colonel
Hall, Colonel Estcourt, Colonel Peel, Admiral Bowles,
Colonel Knox; and Messrs. Heneage, Locke, T.
Baring, T. P. Williams, Blewitt, C. Martin, Plowden,
Baldwin, Blackstone, Ilayter, and Blakemore. Here
is a manifest improvement. But we must not make
too much of it, nor be in too great a hurry. A states-
man appears at last. One stateman out of 70 Mem-
bers. One statesman in nearly a fourth of the entire
city and borough representation of England and
Wales. And that one statesman sure to be unseated
h of Ripon means
rey will not, it is
Eatartlhedne exGtreelye.ction.
And TEhaerlbodreouGg
understood, again return Sir James Graham, and the
Free Trade Baronet " knows the reason why." It is
not to his constituents that Sir James Graham is re-
sponsible. Of them he is perfectly independent. He
may defy their opinions. He may betray their inte-
rests. But he may not offend Earl de Grey—neither he
nor any other Member for Ripon. So, then, our one
stateman, when we have caught him, is in a position
in which no Member of the House of Commons ought
to be placed. It is degrading to the public, and in-
sulting to himself. Small thanks to the class of
boroughs which only presents an able man to dis-
honour his ability and his honesty by so base a tenure
as that attached to the representation of Ripon.
For the rest,!who and what are they ? The Whigs
make much of LordlSeymour, and his mediocre talent
is conspicuous amid the Lords and Colonels who sur-
round him. Mediocrity is not to be despised in such
a search as this. But bow much has it offered to our
view of the real working ability, or even of the talking
ability of the House ? How many names have we
found of those who bear the brunt of discussions,
night after night ? How many of those who labori-
ously do the business of the House, while the majority
are lounging in the smoking-room, or over their wine,
or are far away (but just within reach of the whip-
pers-in for a division) at balls, or the Clubs? How
many of those by whom measures are prepared, and
conducted through the House ? How many leaders of
parties, or how many effective partizans even ? Not:all
the fingers of a single band are required for the
counting. Small as, compared with the whole mob
of Members, is the number of efficient ones, it is not
in the little borough returns that we must look for
them. We find instead a whole brood of lordlings,
batches of baronets, scores of colonels, and lots of law-

yers. Of the infamous arts and infamous corruptions
practised in these boroughs, I say nothing. Let them
be as independent as they are known to be en.
slaved, and as pure as they are known to be corrupt,
it signifies not to Iv present argument. Taut is quite
a separate branch of the great Reform question. I
throw all such considerations overboard. The bo-
roughs have been tried by their fruits. They are
bitter and rotten. No justification or palliation
is presented of the 'gross anomaly of their limited
numbers, their lack of TA ealth and importance,
their servility or their purchaseability. There h
nothing redeeming i❑ the result. Of two or three
names, brightening in the darkness of the catalogue,
we may safely say that they would be welcome to
many a large constituency, and would be more in-
fluential in the House for the exchange. For the
rest, they only serve to make glaring the fact that the
House is not a representation, but a misrepresenta-
tion. They shew how Lords and Colonels and place-
men, and legal adventurers, find their way there.
Whatever adorns the House, or promotes its utility,
or sustains for it anything like character in the coun-
try, must be sought for in the returns of the larger
constituencies. There are the men of business, there
the men of popular power or public confidence, there
the orators, the tacticians, and the statesmen. No
rag of an argument remains for these infinitesimals.
By all theories of representation they are ,inevitably
condemned. Utility is their plea, or they ha'te no de-
fence. " They work well, they send able men ;" that is
what the apologists must say, or they have nothing to
say. How far there is any truth in such an allegation
the reader is now enabled to judge for himself. Take out
Sir James Graham, as very few others, and the
70 are not worth a basket of rotten figs. They have
noses, that is the great merit of most of them, so long
as those noses can be counted. Hobnails would serve
as well. This nuisance must be cleared away utterly.
Anything short of that will deserve to be treated as a
mock Reform. Not one of the constituencies which
have been enumerated must be left, except as part and
parcel, a small fraction, of a larger constituency. A
very different class of representatives will then make
their appearance. The large constituencies are
sometimes jeered at for the Members they return.
Some of them, doubtless, have blundered occasionally.
But, after all, such constituencies bestow on the
House its dignity and utility. They furnish its best
means for wholesome legislation. They provide its
working men; and, unhappily, till a reform be
effected, provide them only to be swamped with the
gay but workless classes whom the select few send to
outnumber them, and to bafTh all their efforts. There
is not a roan in the House who ought to be there, but
will be thankful from his heart for deliverance from
this nuisance. PUBLICOLA.