The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-03 00:00:00

MR. BRIGBT.

The tone and spirit of Mr. Bright's recent
speeches have been condemned, not only by the
press, but by persons of his own rank in life,
owing, like himself, their position and influence
to success in commercial pursuits. At a recent
meeting at Barnsley, the Mayor ofL eels, Sir Peter
Fairbairn, delivered an address, in which he
alluded to the member for Birmingham in terms
which ought to challenge that gentleman's most
serious attention. Leeds is not a very unimportant
part of the great manufacturing community of
England, and the sentiments of one who is held in
such high honour in that town cannot but com-
mand influence on their own account, even were
not the speaker free from the slightest imputation
of political bias.

It is the deliberate opinion of Sir Peter Fair-
bairn, that " a more dangerous speech than that
of Mr. Bright, on Wednesday last, at Birming-
ham, was never made before a community."
The worthy knight has instinctively seized upon
the signal error of the speech, and of the views of
public policy in which it originated. He says—and
such a man, living in such a place, and with such
opportunities of judging, ought to be regarded
as an authority—that " the object of Mr Bright
seemed to be to set class against class, the
worst course that any politician could possibly
adopt." Moreover, Sir Peter Fairbairn has " seen
this in every speech which Mr. Bright has made
during the last few years." Mr. Bright, accord-
Ing to the view of the impartial observer, has
" directed his eloquence into a wrong channel.
He has wished to set the working classes against
the middle classes, and the middle classes against
the aristocracy. That is one of the worst things
to do in a community of Englishmen, who wish to
be one family, and live together in brotherly love.
Sir Peter seems further to think that Mr. Bright
deserves great praise for his exertions towards
repeal of the corn laws, but that, his object once
accomplished, his occupation thenceforth was gone.
—Morning Chronicle.

THE POISONINGS AT BRADFORD.

As may be supposed, the dreadful occurrence re-
corded in our columns yesterday, has thrown a.
gloom over the whole town of radford and its
neigbourhood. It is the whole engrossing topic of
diaennrse, and the most anxious inquiries are 'ad-
dressed from one person to the ether in all direc-
tions. Unfortunately,• the facts we have already
given are not exaggerated. Indeed we have to
record the death of two more persons who have
been the victims of this melancholy accident, there
being in some cases three or four persons lying
dead in one house Hardaker, the vendor of the
'
fatal lozenges, is himself so ill, that his life is
despaired of, he having partaken of them. It io
stated that Neale, the confectioner, and Hodgson,
the druggist, are particular friends, and that God-
dard, the young man who has been the cause of
the calamity, has only been in the employ of the
latter a few weeks, having recently left school. On
information being conveyed to the police station on
Sunday morning of the sudden and unaccountable
deaths of two children, the chief constable, Mr.
Leveratt, caused the inquiries to be made which
led to the discovery of poison being contained in
the lozenges, as already detailed. In the mean-
time report upon report of other deaths and increas-
ing sickness was given at the police-office, and
surgeons were everywhere in request, some of whom
at first felt inclined to think that the illness was
cholera, but soon it was ascertained, especially by Mr.
J. N. Terry, surgeon, who partook of a lozenge,
that it was full of arsenic, and that loz. of themwas
sufficient to cause the death of 12 persons. What
antidotes could then be applied were in all such
cases, where known in time, administered, and the
deaths of many persons averted. At the same
time, Mr. Leveratt ordered the night police, who
were going on duty at nine o'clock, to give warning
to all persons, in every street in their various beats,
who might have purchased any of the poisonous
sweets, to give them to the police, or deliver them
up at the police station. Thirty-six pounds of them
were also found on the premises of the retail dealer,
Hardaker. Mr. Leveratt also took the judicious
precaution of sending two bellmen through all the
streets .f the town from eleven till five o'clock,
warning the inhabitants. A printer was also
aroused at midnight, in order to print a placard
cautioning the public, who might still possess such
lozenges, against using them, and pointing out
their already fatal effects. Thus every possible
precaution to check the progress of the poison-
plague was put in operation. Among those already
dead are two children of Mark Burrans, Jowett-
street, Buck•lane, aged two and six years ' • Joseph
Scott, Railway-street, aged 14 ; Elizabeth Wright,
Queen-street, aged 93 ; Joseph Crabtree, Jacob-
street, Manchester-road ; three children, not named, -
at Heaton Syke ; Mark Green, Low Mark, aged
18 ; Isaac Shackleton, East Ardsley ; Jonathan
Lupton Constantine, Tyersall, aged 69 ; Ann
Schutt, Leeds-road, &c.
Later accounts state that two persons have died
at Cleckheaton, and that some from Halifax, who
purchased the poisoned materials, are also ill ; and
further accounts affirm that Mr. Henry Clarke,
of Bradford, when going to Queenhow, near
Thirsk, to see his parents, purchased a small
quantity which he gave to them, and, after his
return, he was immediately informed that they had
been taken dangerously ill. Besides the number
now announced as dead, there are about eighty laid
up ill, many of them dangerously, so, but the names
of whom we find it at present impossible to give
with accuracy, scattered as they are through the
borough and the surrounding district, as well as at
a greater distance.