The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-07 00:00:00

LONDWV, THURSDAY, GCT. 7, 1869.

The personalities indulged in yesterday upon the
Market-place in Macclesfield afford a new argument
in favour of the abolition of the present system of
returning representatives to Parliament. The gather-
ing of electors which took place, there, is described by
the reporter as a tolerably orderly crowd, but it is
rather unluckily added, one would think in covert
irony, in parenthesis " (there being only two or three
fights)" during the course of the proceedings. The
occasion arose out of the death of Mr. ED-
WARD EGERTON, the late member for the eastern

division of the County of Cheshire. Hitherto that
County has been represented, for a long while, ex-
clusively by Cobserptives. The Liberal party being
now notoriously in the ascendant throughout the
United Kingdom, among the great mass of the con•
stituencies, it very naturally and very reasonably
occurs to the Liberal electors of Cheshire that they
will at length make a strenuous effort to secure to
themselves, if possible, some share at least of the
representation. To this end they put forward, with
the intention of bringing him in, if they can in any
way manage it, a candidate of their own— ono ad-
vocating their own principles, and one prepared to do
battle on their behalf against all corners. The Con-
servative candidate is there as a matter of course.
But, side by side with the Conservative candidate,
there is a Liberal candidate as well. Sir EDWARD
\VA-rKIN is the champion of the Liberals. Mr.
WILLIAM BROOK is the champion of the Conserva-
fives. Each candidate is duly proposed and seconded.
Mr. AsHTON and Mr. BROCKLEHURST respectively pro-
pose and second Sir EDWARD WATKIN as a fit and
proper person to represent the Electors of East Che-
shire in the Commons House of Parliament. Major
EGERTON LEIGH and Mr. SIDEBOTHAM do the like by
the opposing candidate. In doing so the last men-
tioned speaker but one indulged in a variety of fleer-
ing allusions to Sir EDWARD WATKIN—OIIt of this
aggression springing some as charming retalia-
tory electioneering amenities that we can
recall to our remembrance. Sir EDWARD WATKIN,
it must be allowed, certainly repaid Major EGERTON
LEIGH in kind. Reproaching his assailant with hav-
ing indulged in personalities—he himself indulged in
personalities, if possible, still more highly flavoured.
Irony was met by derision. Sarcasm by disdain.
Scorn by denunciation. Reading of it all the day
afterwards, one may say with Sir Lucius O'TRIGGER,
" 'Tis a very pretty quarrel as it stands." By
way of a preliminary pleasantry, Sir EDWARD
WATKIN compared his actual opponent, Mr.
BROOK, to a calf, and his would-be-if -he-
could opponent—meaning Mr. BROOK'S proposer, the
obnoxious Major EGERTON LEIGH—to a cow. For,
with having vainly striven to come forward himself
as the Conservative candidate, Sir EDWARD WATKIN
distinctly charged Major EGERTON LEIGH, when he
said, "If report speaks true, he had the ambition to
represent the county if somebody else would sub-
scribe the necessary cost." Adding, "It is another
case of want of honour to a prophet in h's own coun-
try, for, strange enough, nobody would subscribe."
Not contenting himself with this imputation and with
the charming references, already mentioned, to the
cow and the calf, the Liberal candidate hesitated
not to bring his Conservative opponent's proposer
there upon the hustings, in the market-place at Mac-
clesfield, and himself thus invidiously into direct com-
parison. "Major EGERTON LEIGH," exclaimed Sir E.
" says that the more you hear of Sir
EDWARD WATKIN the less you like him. I have
no doubt that the more he hears of me the less
he does like me ; and I tell him that be will bear
of me again. .1 tell him further that, although
people do sometimes hear of Sir EDWARD WATKIN
when some public good is to be done, or some
great public work executed, we very seldom hear
of Mr. EGERTON LEIGH ; and that is the difference
between us." Now, really, than this, we can imagine
nothing more gross or more fatuous in its way as a
piece of dull self-sufficiency, or as the specimen of
an utterly pointless and meaningless rejoinder. It is
worse than the old dunderheaded tit pope. It is like
a bout with single sticks. It is like an endea-
vour to demonstrate, by the mere give and take
of so many sounding thwacks on the skull, which
of the two assailants' heads is the hollower.
It is precisely this kind of thing that we would see
abolished. We would have an end put to the solemn.
tions. They breed ill blood. They are simply
occasions for vapid tall-talking, for turmoil on the
hustings, and for free fights every now and then
among the intelligent electors assembled together in
front of it ! The whole system of returning mem-
bers to Parliament wants transformation. And all
the good we are thus iu search of, we believe, in our
conscience, might very readily be secured, we are
sanguine, will very speedily be secured by the simple
means of—the Ballot.

LORD STANLEY'S Visit to the working men of
Liverpool is one of the pleasantest events of the year.
The artisans of the great seaport have deserved well
of their class, and the Conservative peer has given
their efforts a most liberal and encouraging recogni-
tion. Whilst others were talking, the men of Liver-
pool were up and doing, and they have accordingly
been able to greet Lord STANLEY, not only with
words, but with two hard and significant facts. In
the first place, they have established a Trades' Hall.
This establishment is to a certain extent a club—a
place where recreation and instruction may be
obtained, and where working men may get refresh-
ment which is neither dear nor poisonous. These
are good objects, which might advantageously be
carried out in places where the working man's club
is not yet known. But the Trades' Hall is designed
to effect something more than this. The artisans of
Liverpool have long felt the baneful effects of holding
their trades' union meetings in places where drink is
sold. The removal of this evil was the primary object
which the Liverpool trades had in view in combining
to establish the new hall. They have done wisely. The
fact that "beer and business do not go well together"
has long been appreciated, not only by trades unions,
but by working-class societies of every description. A
very large proportion of the misdoings at election
times may be traced to the practice of holding
committees and the like in places where
the barrel can be made freely available.
The baneful effects of transacting the busi-
ness of friendly societies in public-houses
forms a standing topic in the yearly report of Mr.
Tmn PRATT. In these, and in other cases, the
general result is that the " good of the house " claims
precedence of the good of those who meet in it. Socie-
ties which are established, as many are, for the benefit
of a landlord, cannot greatly profit the remaining per-
sons concerned in them. And even where a public-
house is chosen simply as a meeting place it is
palpable that the advantages to be reaped from the
society in question must be more or less
balanced by the additional temptation to drink.
It is good to induce men to save money by means of
well-managed benefit societies ; but what can this
economy profit if the working man, whilst he is
invited to save, is practically invited also to waste ?
Nothing, for instance, can be more praiseworthy than
the principle of the building society; but in
many places, and especially in the North, the
working man loses a large proportion of his profit
through the absurd system of management. It is
common for a building society to meet in a drink-
shop, the landlord being recompensed by the payment
of 61 from each member, the sum to be "taken out"
in drink. The plan is inequitable since the
member who holds but one share pays as much
as he who has ten. It is injurious, because
the sum falls heavily upon a working man who
pays, say, five shillings monthly on one share. The
total of such payments, added to the extra consump-
tion of drink which often follows the sixpennyworth,
must go far to nullify the advantage of these
associations. The example of the Liverpool
working men in this respect is thoroughly
worthy of imitation. There is no reason why
a trades' hall should not be found in every town,
nor why such a building should not be made avail-
able for all working class purposes—whether trades
union, benefit club, or building society.
The men of Liverpool furnished Lord STANLEY with

another text, upon which the late Foreign Secretary
founded a very excellent portion of his address. The
building trades of the town have successfully
applied the only 'remedy that has yet been dev-Thed
for reconciling the interests of capital and labour. For
a long time past the Liverpool artisans have bees]
sorely vexed by wages and time disputes. Strike has
followed strike, until at last some sensible bricklayers
grew tired of sacrificing all their wages in the attempt
to make them a little higher. They were unionists,
and, like all British workmen, did not wish to desert
their fellows ; but they reasonably questioned
whether the endless war with employers could
possibly avail anything. If the bricklayers could
not agree with their masters, possibly they could
agree with themselves. On this principle they suggested
that the Liverpool builders should start business
on their own account. Eighty from the different
building trades agreed. A co-operative company
was formed, and a working man's directory has
profitably managed the concern for several months.
The project has stood the test of experience, and one
more instance of the successful application of the
co-operative principle has been definitely established.
Lord STANLEY has great faith in this remedy for the
evils which result from the conflicts of employer and
servant. He wholly repudiates the old Conservative
notion that mechanics have not the same power as
doctors and lawyers to combine for their own pro-
tection and interest. The trades union is not only.
an established fact, but it is the exercise of a
just right. Working men have full power to
make rules to bind themselves, provided they
do not endeavour to force those rules upon the
unwilling. But though the trades union is
undoubtedly a legal and fair mode of combination,
Lord STANLEY justly doubts whether it is likely to
serve the artisan's purpose so well as co-operation.
The latter system is founded on an alliance with
capital ; the union is professedly established to carry
on a destructive war. It by no means follows that
co-operation will render capital needless. On the
contrary, various instances might be quoted of
attempts by working men to go into busi-
ness for their own benefit being crippled
through the want of funds. It is clear
that preliminary outlay will always be required,
no matter what kind of business be selected. Hence
a union between a capitalist and hand-workers is
a more promising form of co-operation than a society
formed solely of working men. This plan has been
tried with marked success in several instances. Most
prosperous of all would be that form of co-operation
in which the workmen were themselves capita-
lists ; but this cannot be looked for to any
great extent at present. The industrial partnership
principle supplies all that could be required, and must
ultimately make way, though, like all new ideas, it is
but slow at first.

REBELLION AMONGST THE MORMONS.

According to a recent communication from the Salt
Lake City, the rebellion of the Mormon girls against poly-
gamy is progressing very rapidly ;—" It seems that the
Mormon girls who have not yet got religion' are very
much opposed to polygamy. They had rather spend an
hour in the company of a congenial sinner than a year in
that of a saint, especially if the former is young, holds his
head high, and is withal good-looking. There are occasionally
such among the Gentiles, never among the Mormons. The
girls call the young haints `cayuses;' the Gentilecall them
yahoos? The poor dear things are very artless, and un-
less you have so delicate a respect for their helplessness
as to withdraw your eyes, you cannot help seeing through
and through them the same as you do through a window
Well, they manage to inveigle the Gentiles into ai..;
acquaintance through their brother's, through' mutual
friends, who are about 'alf-and-'alf, by telegraphing on the
street, flirting at the tabernacle' or the theatre—with the
eyes only, mind you, and that very slyly. Brigham once
spoke to one in such a tong as to make her faint
away, for looking from the Mormon pit of the theatre up
to the Gentile dress-circle, whre I suppose her lover sat.
Suffice it that a likely young fellow, whom for variety I
will call John Smith, became thus acquainted with Nabby,
one of Brigham's daughter's, and, in course of time, their
intercourse ripened into true love. An elopement was
planned, relays of horses stationed along the road hence
to Umtah, and about two weeks ago, in the latter hours
of night, the streets rather deserted, and dark-
ness largely prevailing, the adventurous swain
drove slowly west with his buggy along South Temple-
-- --
leit'ar some reason, past Temple Block, and still further
westward. Four ur five police-filen issued from the vicinity
of the Tithing Office and followed the buggy. Ancn a
slight scuffle and a smothered scream were heard,
and' a moment er two after the royal carriage, with
blinds drawn, dashed by on the gallop and whirled
through the Eagle Gate. John Smith drove
his buggy back to the stable, hung round the
town for a day or two, and then went to San Francisco. A
policeman with "a head on him," was seen occasionally,
Nabby was locked up in the king's castle, and.•that is all.
It appears that Nabby was to meet John Smith three
squares west of her father's corral, and, getting into the
buggy, they were to fly on the wings of love to a land of
liberty. Both had evidently been watched, and just as the
girl was entering the buggy the police appeared,
chucked her into Brigham's carriage, which
was_ unaccountably on hand, and having thus
effectually clipped the aforesaid wings, either from policy
or fear, allowed Smith to go about his business. In former
times he would undoubtedly have been killed without
ceremony ; but it would hardly do now, and, besides, John
Smith happened to be connected with people who could
have made some trouble had he been assassinated. The
girls have a secret society for helping each other away,
saving up their money, &c."-