The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-24 00:00:00

40r)
r
, -1-4,11,,V.:`• , ' 1 * .
r...,......-- 4.
,
_____

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEAIBER 24, 1867.

Now ready, at all the Libraries, in 3 vols.,

MR. JOHN BRIGHT AT ROCHDALE.

-- a -

ROCHDALE, Monday.
A numerously attended public meeting was held
in the new theatre of this town this evening, for the

purpose of presenting an address to Mr. Jacob
Bright, congratulating him upon his election for
Manchester. The mayor (Mr. Whitaker) occupied
the chair, and among those present were—Mr.

John Bright, M.P., Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P., Mr.
E. Ashworth, Mr. J. Robinson, Mr. H. Kasai', Mr.

Alderman lieape, Mr. W. Fenton, Mr. Alderman

Tatham, &c.

The CHAIRMAN briefly opened the proceedings,
after which an address, the adoption of which was
moved at great length by Mr. E. A SHWORTII, and
seconded by Mr. ROBINSON, the ex-mayor, was
presented to Mr. Jacob Bright.
Mr. JACOB BRIGIIT, M.P., acknowledged the com-
pliment paid to him in feeling language. His

speech was almost entirely confined to a review of
the recent election in Manchester, and the victory
which he and the advanced Liberals had gained.
Mr. H. KELSALL moved, seconded by Mr. Alder-
man IIEAPE, the following resolution :—" That thfs
meeting regards the Manchester election and other
manifestations of public opinion as decisive proofs
that the peopie of this country gratefully recognised
those gentlemen to whose service a Reform Bill is
justly due, and that the attempts to delude them,

made by a Tory Government, have failed ; and,

whilst it regrets the malty, defects of the bill just
passed, anticipates 04 speedy aniendinent in a

new Parliament elected under the extended fran-

chiso which the bill provides."
Mr. JOHN BRIGHT, on rising to address the meet-
ing, was received with great cheering. lie said—

The first object of this meeting is doubtless to con-
gratulate my—shall I say fortunate or unfortunate?
—brother--(laughter)—on his initiation into the

perils and the difficulties and the disappointments of
parliamentary life ; but as I shall probably not be
considered capable of dealing with that question
impartially—(laughter)--I shall advance a little
further, and say that we are met for the purpose of
congratulating our fellow countrymen, who are
members of the constituency of the city of Man-
chester, that they have by their recent choice re-
stored that city to its rightful position as the centre
of the great Liberal party of the kingdom.
(Cheers.) Looking back but a few years to what
happened in Manchester, and remembering how far
I was connected with it, I may be forgiven
if I may take more than a common interest in what
has recently been transacted. I have always known
that popular constituencies are in some respects
very much like individuals—they are liable occa-
sionally to fickleness and to error, and to what may
be termed aberration from a straight course. But
there is a consolation in knowing that whilst in
political warfare we meet necessarily with great
changes, now with a great reverse, and now with
a great triumph, yet in that respect we of the
Liberal party differ most essentially from those
whom I would call our friends if they were not
so constantly our opponents—(laughter)—l mean
the Tory party. Our disasters, which are by
no means unfrequent, and which sometimes
give us great grief, are always followed at no
distant period by a corresponding triumph ;
whereas with our Tory friends a disaster is
generally final and irreversible. (Laughter.) Their
policy and their principles, when once overthrown
by the advancing intelligence of the people, are
buried, and they hope for no resurrection. (Laugh-
ter.) But there is one thing even iu connection
with this which we may congratulate them upon ;
for, as we know, the rain falls upon the just and upon
the unjust, so we know that our opponents of the
Tory party share fully with us- the spoils and the
advantages which the nation derives from our vic-
tories over them. A very distinguished French-
woman, Madame de Stael, left on record her defi-
nition of what she understood by the word hap-
piness. She said that happiness consisted in a
constant occupation for a desirable object, with a
sense of continual progress. Well, if that be so, I
think we may consider ourselves, politically speak-

ing at any rate, as amongst the happiest of mortals,
for we have a constant occupation. The end we

seek is not only desirable in the ordinary use of that
term, but it is good in the highest degree as we be•
lieve, and whether we look backwards or forwards

to the past or the future, I think we have attendant
upon us constantly a sense of continual progress.
(Cheers.) Our friends the Tories unhappily are in
a very different position. They have had full and
constant employment, for we for the last 25 years
have found them a great deal to do—(laughter)--
but as the result has shown, from year to year, and
even from generation to generation, they have no

desirable end in view, as they themselves find out
in time ; and, more than that, whether they look
backwards or forwards, it is utterly impossible that
any one of them, except the mere seeker for some
office, can have any feeling that there is a conti-
nual progress—except it be that sort of progress which
in this neighbourhood is called a progress back-
wards. (Laughter.) Just look back for a moment
so far as the year 1832. You will remember how
the Tories were alarmed, almost to mental distur-
bance, at the thought of the passing of the Reform
Bill of that year. Go forward 14 years, to the year
1846, and. call to mind if you can the things that
were spoken by men most eminent— that were
written by thousands of writers for the press—be-
lieved in, it may be, by thousands upon thousands
of the people—as to the tremendous and appalling
consequences which would spring from allowing
the people of this country to have free access to
unlimited supplies of food grown in other countries.
Remember the state of feeling into which those
unfortunate Tories were plunged by that pros-
pect. Now come down to the present year 1867—is
it possible that it can be all untrue, that which
was said by them as to the disasters that would
arise if ever a moderate measure for the suffrage
were forced through or granted by Parliament ?
That unfortunate party—_l am not speaking of the
leaders ; they make it profitable enough ; they
know very well what they are doing; they, many
of them, understand these questions just as well, and
as much as we understand them—but I speak of the
Tory party in the country, who are the pawns and
the chessmen with which these leaders play their
game. Only imagine, and if you can it will only
be to excite your commiseration, how these men
have been misled from time to time—how they have
been alarmed ; how they have striven, as if for life,
against the very things that were calculated to do
them good ; how they have spent time and money ;
hov they have spent millions of money and oceans
of beer—(laughter)—infighting contested elections,
to lose which would be the greatest possible advan-
tage to themselves and to the country. (Laughter.)
But all that fear, these terrors, this striving,
this political warfare, this vast expenditure,
is in vain, for one or two things always
happen. Either we entirely overthrow them
as we did by the uprising of public opinion
in 1832 in the time of the first Reform Bill,
or, as in 1848 and 1867, their own leaders came
forward and capitulated. (Cheers.) I must say—
and if there be any inembir of the Tory party here,
I hope he will convey my feelings to his friends—l
must say I feel for them a great commiseration, for
it seems to me that their political life must be one
unvarying cup of sorrow and disappointment—
(laughter)—and it seems as if the least drop of it
were never to be taken—there is always something
more left which afterwards they have to swallow.
I know Mr. Mill, the eminent member for West-
minster, says the Tory party are naturally the
stupid party. (Laughter.) Well, that, I believe,
is not denied by any intelligent man amongst
Tories, unless they are so stupid that they cannot
easily feel. The retrospect must be to them ex-
ceedingly humiliating, and the future, if they
endeavour to look into it, must be equally

gloomy ; but this last humiliation appears to mu

to be almost the deepest of all. Lord Derby
has been considered more than any other man to be

relied ou—" Among the faithless, faithless only he."
(Laughter and cheers.) Everybody has not been

of that opinion, even amongst the Tories, for I re-
collect once by an accident spending an evening at

a Welsh watering-place in company with the pro-
prietor of an out-and-out Tory journal published in
this country, and he told me that he did not think
much of Lord Derby. (Laughter.) He used a
t2rin which will be understood by a good many
here. He did not think Lord Derby was thorough-

bred as a Tory—he was only a " broken haired 'un."
(Laughter and cheers.) My friend evidently knew

rather more about Lord Derby than some of those

who followed him ; but if you look back upon Lord
Derby's career you will see some reason why his

.riends should have trusted Lim, because in 1835 he

Then wild with hope and maddening to prevail,
Points the quick ear and wags the expectant tail."

quitted the Whig party of that day because he
would not consent to inquire into or to interfere
with the revenues of the Irish Established Church ;

and then 1856 he quitted Sir Robert Peel and his
Government because he would not consent to go
with the rest of Sir Robert Peel's colleagues from

protection to free trade. Seeing that he had been

(Loud laughter.) Sir Robert Peel, when ho re-
signed office. upon one occasion, admitted candidly
that Ireland was his difficulty, not because he had
not done his best to deal with it, but because of the
party that sat behind him, and the stolid opinion
which then prevailed widelyan the country that he
dare not propose to Parliament the measures which
he knew were essential to the pacification of Ireland
(Cheers.) Ile knew that if he proposed them he
would have been driven from the leadership of his
party, therefore he carried on the Government as
long as he could, doing his best, althotigh he failed,
at the last confessing that Ireland was his great dif-
ficulty. What, then, can the Tory party do with
Ireland ? There is no part of the United King-
dom in which the principles of • the- Tory party
have had such full and perfect exhibition as they
have had in Ireland. They have had an Estab-
lished Church to their hearts' content ; they have
usurped the ecclesiastical revenues of the whole na-
tion.and given them to a small section whose whole
number does not much exceed the population of all
Manchester. and Salford—(cheers)--they have bad
nearly all the land in the hands of great proprie-
tors ; nearly all the magistrates have been chosen
from these landowners and the Protestant party ;
they have bad any amount of soldiery and police ;
there is not a single thing thrt the most obtuse and
bigoted Tory can desire which has not been had in
the most full and complete shape in Ireland—
' (cheers)—but unfortunately for the Tories their
only specific when danger arises is terror. They
have no security, and don't comprehend any, for al-
legiance but that which consists iu powerlessness to
rebel, and the consequence is now that I fear they
will do as in time past. They will adopt repressive
measures, and often of the most stringent character,
with a severe administration of the law, calling on
the people of England to support them in all that is
severe. (Cheers.) I could make some excuse for a
severe administration of the law if I saw that they
would rapidly and earnestly advance measures likely
to give satisfaction to a disloyal people. (Cheers.)
At present I see nothing of the kind. Perhaps
when Parliament opens we may see something of
it, but I venture to say that there is no man in
Ireland who is a greater traitor to the Queen
and the laws of his country than a Minister
who continues to hold office and is at the same

so faithful to all that is worst in the Tory creed--
in 1835 as to the Irish Church; and in 1846 with

regard to the corn law—l say there was very fair
reasons to believe that he was a man who might be
implicitly trusted ; that, at any rate, whatever might

come, Lord Derby would not haul down the Conser-
vative flag. Well, that might have been fairly said

up to last year; but in 1867, the year which is now

about to close, the whole scene changed. In the
coming pantomime that will probably be exhibited
here there will be nothing more wonderful,
and, if there were something in it melancholy
hardly more amusing, than the transformation
scene that has taken place. All the arguments that
were before used have been forgotten. Every fact
upon which orators and writers relied has been

kicked aside. Speeches without number, votes more
than I can tell, protestations of the most fervent
character, principles which you thought never could

be stirred from their hearts—all these have been
buried for ever, and it is considered an indiscreet

thing thing even to refer to them. Even now the
insolence of Lord Derby, which he has sometimes
manifested in his speeches, the invective of Mr.
Disraeli, the scurrilous vituperation of the Tory
press—of which we have heard and seen more, I
hope, than some of us took the trouble to read—

all this, poured upon me and others for years, has
now been proved to be entirely a mistake. In
point of fact it is discovered iu the year 1867, and
I think it ought to be chronicled with another groat
discovery of the century—certainly of the year—
that my principles all along have been entirely con-
stitutional and my course perfectly patriotic.
(Great cheering.) It has been found this year that
the man who alone was considered faithful to his

party has hauled down his flag. lie has ordered a
general retreat, and has forced through Parliament,
and permitted to be given to the country, a Reform
Bill, so far as the suffrage in the borough goes, of a

•
very extensive character. Indeed, I say it is a de-
mocratic bill, because I maintain that it is impossible
in the boroughs of England and Wales to give a
more thoroughly democratic bill as regards the

boroughs than that that which has been passed, and that
the suffrage which has been permitted to be passed
by the Government of Lord Derby is as demo-

time not enlightened enough, who has not moral
courage enough to recommend to the Crown
and to propose to Parliament measures of justice
for the pacification of Ireland. (Loud cheers.)
Do not let me be understood as saying that, if there
were a change of Government, this question would
be grappled with with the force which is necessary.
There are amongst the leading meu of the Whig
party men who have fair sentiments with regard to
Ireland, but who, whenever they treat of this ques-
tion, are afraid of dealing with it as it must be dealt
with, and therefore it might be necessary, even if
there were a change of Government, suppose that ,
change of Government were such as people generally
expect, to stimulate with strong language and by a
strong expression of public opinion the timid coun-
cils of those who might succeed the present Go-
vernment when it resigned office. But the more I
consider this question the more I am impressed
with its indescribable seriousness. I think of it
many things, and which I am sure are not without
foundation, which I cannot, and which I dare not,
publicly discuss before this audience—l think it has
within it perils such as for a long time this country
has not known, and that it requires great resolution
and wisdom such as we do not often find in our Go-
vernments to meet as it requires to be met. If Ire-
land is to be made content, if her wounds are to be
healed, if there is to be henceforth what there never
has yet been, an United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, if the sceptre of the Queen,
representing the majesty of the law, shall ever
be of equal authority cast and west of the
Channel, it must be done, and it can only be
done, by measures of great statesmanship and
of justice. (Cheers.) The morals of the turf, laid on
the floor of Parliament or in the secrecy of the
Cabißet, will fail here. The disease which we are
discussing is one of a different character ; but there
are remedies, unless it be that the remedies are too
late. Has this country fallen so low that it can
produce no statesman equal to these things ?
(Cheers.) I say the man who, leading in the coun-
cils of the Queen's Government, shall grasp this
great question and end it—who shall comprehend
the remedies, and shall administer them and make
them law—he would do that which in future the

cratic as if it had enacted that portion refer

ring to the suffrage contained in the People's
Charter--(cheers) ;—and bear in mind that, al-
though at present it is confined to the boroughs, all
the arguments on which they have supported it are
arguments which go to justify the extension of the
same suffrage to the counties. If it be better that
the institutions of the country should be established
on a wider basis in the towns, why not in the coun-
ties? If the people -feel such attachment to the
Throne and to the institutions of the country, if
they admire so much the House of Lords and the
Established Church within the limits of the
boroughs, is it not reasonable to suppose that all
these affectionate feelings exist even to a stronger
degree outside the boroughs and iu those portions
of the kingdom which we call counties ? In point
of fact, having made the concession which they have
made this year, though it may be withheld by
votes for a time, they can't in the slightest
degree account by argument for withholding the
suffrage from the great body of the people living in
the counties. There only requires two things to be
done to give us a really Democratic Parliament.
The one is that the distribution of seats should be

in some degree in proportion to the population, and
that every voter should be permitted by the shelter
and the machinery of the ballot to vote according
to his own honest intentions—(cheers)—and when
that is done, and I think the ballot is not a very
long way off, I expect another very important
thing, in the distribution of seats, may be seen
to at no great distance. When that is done,
then I say we shall have a democratic and a
popular House of Commons, and whether the
legislation and administration of the country be
wise or foolish will depend upon the :wisdom or
the folly of the great body of the people. (Cheers.)
Lord Derby has done all in a certain way ; that is,
he has held the reins of office whilst in the confu-
sion of parties the.thing has been done, and he has
done it rather than surrender office. (Cheers.) It
is not saying anything unfair to Lord Derby to say
that he does not, and did not, believe in the advan-
tages of household suffrage. It is impossible
that, between the session of 1866 and the ses-
session of 1867 he should have made this great
change in his
_opinions and convictions. He has
done it to keep his party together, as he took
office in the summer of 1866 in order that he might
not break up his party owing to the discourage-
ment which itiwould feel if he failed to do so. that
is his own admission, and it is provable beyond all
contest that he brought in a Reform Bill and per-
mitted that bill to be carried, not because he ap-
proved of that bill, but because he was determined
that on this question, at all events, his opponents
should not eject him from office. If any one of
you will call to mind what took place in the session
of 1866, you will be convinced at once that the great
object of the Tory party was to drive Mr. Glad-
stone from office and to take his place. It was not
to carry a more liberal bill than that which they
had denounced because it was so liberal, for
when they came to form a Government it is
said, and I believe truly, that they entered
into direct negotiations with a distin-
guished opponent of Reform (Mr. Lowe), and
asked him to join Lord Derby's Government. At
that time they were determined against Reform.
But what changed their opinions between then and
the session of 1867? Without doubt the great
meetings which took place in different parts of the
country, which showed them that if they met Par-
liament without the promise of a bill they would
within a single fortnight after its meeting have to
go back to that side of the house which they had sat
upon so long, and never seemed to feel the smallest
degree of comfort. (Cheers.) During the session
of 1866, it is impossible in language which would
not be Exaggerated, unfair, and even insulting, to
describe the eager and howling rage which they ex-
hibited against the unfortunate proposal of the £7
franchise. Their bitterness and malice against the
bill would have been scarcely justified if the bill
had been as bad as they said it was, and it is clear
now that it was not nearly so bad as they de-
clared it to be. Their conduct in the pursuit of
office reminds me of some lines which were pub-
lished a good many years ago, which never had a
more exact application than when they describe the
course of the Tory party last year. The poet in the
" Rejected Addresses" says :
" So when dogs meet, re-echoing through the street,
Rush sympathetic dogs from their retreat.
Beams with bright blaze their supplicating eyes,
Sink their hied legs, ascend their joyful cries :

pen of history will delight to trace. (Cheers.) He
may to the very full gratify the noblest ambition of
his mind, and he may build up for himself a lasting

memorial in the happiness and the gratitude of a
regenerated nation. (Loud cheers.) The hon.
gentleman resumed his seat at 10 o'clock, haying

spoken for rather over an hour.
The resolution was carried, and Mr. T. B.
Potter, M.P., and others subsequently addressed
the meeting.

SWIMMING.

ALLIANCE SWIMMING CLUB.

At this season of the year it is somewhat a novelty to
hear of a swimming handicap taking place, yet still the
members of the Alliance Club gave prizes to be competed
for yesterday evening, at the City of London Baths,
Golden-lane. No less than twenty entered for the race,
which was six lengths of the baths in the trial heats,
and eight in the final. We think this a slight mistake
in the arrangements of handicaps ; for why make a
difference in the distance of the preliminary and final
heats, as it only causes an additional start to be given,
tand cannot possibly be of the slightest advantage to
he swimmer. The competitors were drawn in four heats,
which were won as follows :—First Heat—H. Matthews,
43 seconds start, won by about three feet, H. F. Foale, 58,
second ; two others also started. Second Heat—J. Wood,
48, won by a yard and a half; J. Smart, 50, being second.
Third Heat...V. Grant, 30, won very easily, beating D. Bed-
ford, 56, second. Fourth Heat—J. Clare, 50, came in first
by ten yards; H. Bedford, 35, second. Final Heat—This
was won by V. Grant easily, who had nine seconds added
for the extra two lengths ; Clare, 60, being second, and
Wood, 56, third. Previous to deciding the final heat for
the handicap Messrs. H. Parker and W. Smith swam a
match of twenty lengths for a silver Leander medal. It was
a close race throughout, and Smith eventually wou by a
few inches. H. B. Kent officiated as starter and judge.

LIVERPOOL GYMNASIUM. —Upwards of 1,000
ladies, together with about 30 of the leading medical men
of Liverpool, assembled at the Gymnasium on Saturday
evening last for the purpose of witnessing a series of ,
exercises gone through by a large number of the members
of the ladies' classes, and illustrative of the class practice.
Dr. Grimsdale presided, and at the termination of the
exercises delivered an address on the importance of physi-
cal education for women. Addresses were also delivered
by Dr. Nevins, Dr. Hake; and Dr. Denton, Ste. At the
close of the proceedings a vote of thanks was proposed and
passed unanimously to Mr. Hulley, the able director of the '
institution.
LADVERTISEIIENT.]—Du Barry's Delicious Health Restoring
Revalenta Arabic°, Food, which contains three times the
nourishment of the best meat, saves fifty times its cost in other
remedies, restores perfect digestion, strong nerves, sound lungs,
healthy liver, refreshing sleep, functional regularity, and energy
to the most disordered or enfeebled, removing speedily and
effectually indigestion (dyspepsia), habitual constipation,
diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, liver complaints, flatulency, nervous,
ness, biliousness, fevers, sore throats, catarrhs, colds, influenza-
noises in the head and ears, rheumatism, gout, impurities, erup-
tions, hysteria, neuralgia, irritability, sleeplessness, acidity, pal-
pitation, heartburn, headache, debility, dropsy, cramps, spasms,
nausea, and sickness, sinking fits, coughs, asthma, bronchitis,
incipient consumption, scrofula, tightness of the chest, pains at
the pit of the stomach, between the shoulders, rest We quote a
few out of 68,000 cures :—The Pope's healthored by Du
Barry's Food.—Cure No. 68,413. "Rome, July 21, 1866.—The
health of the Holy Father is excellent, especially since, aban
doning all other remedies, he has confined himself entirely to
Du Barry's Revaleuta, Arabica Food, of which he consumes a
plateful at every meal. It has produced a surprisingly benefi
dal effect on his health, and his Holiness cannot praise this
excellent food too highly."—From the "Gazette du Midi," July
25. Cure No. 49,832.—" Of fifty years' indescribable agony from
dyspepsia, nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, flatulency,
spasms, sickness at the stomach, and vomiting." Maria Joly,
Wortham, Ling, near Din, Norfolk.—Cure No. 47,12 L—Miss
Elizabeth Jacobs, of Nazing Vicarage, Waltham Cross,, Hats,
of extreme nervousness, indigestion, gatherings, low tiphits,
and nervous fancies. Important Caution.—Beware of the many
' unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations to which, without
authority, Baron Liebig's name is most audaciously attached
In tins at ls. 10.; 1 lb., 2s 9d. 2 lbs., 4s. 6d;; b lbs., lls.;
12 lbs., 225.; 24 lbs., 40s.—BARRY Dt7 BARRY and Co., No. 77,
Regent-street, London; also Fortnam and Mason, 182 Piccadilly,
and at 61, Gracechurch-street; 4, Cheapside ; 63, 150. and as.
Oxford-street; 330 Strand; and all grocers and chemists.