The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-13 00:00:00

NEWS pm) h
11-7
gallant sergeant by his co
• -.4
they felt that he was 'caviller'
Sergeant 317Ciiriah-er has be s
vice, and: has always borne ain4 el,
ratter. He is decorated with tifeTunlili
A detachment of gunners and, Ilrivft of ghi3
Royal Artillery, in charge of Lieut. Strange,Teft
Woolwich for Bombay on Friday, and on Saturday
a second detachment left for Bengal. The vacancies
created by the departure of the numerous draughts
constantly despatched for servicein India are readily
supplied by recruits who have for some months past
joined in large numbers, a great majority of whom
are found to be of a class of men superior to the or-
dinary grade formerly existed, the ages ranging
from 17 to 30 years. The good conduct of some of
these men having been brought under notice of their
commanding officers, -notwithstanding Mei. short
term of service, only five or six weeks, they werea,
few days ago rewarded with the first step in pro-
motion—namely, a good service stripe.
Private George Drower, 81st Regiment, who a
short time since deliberately shot off his right leg
at St. Mary's Barracks, Chatham, in order.to obtain
his discharge from the service, has since died at
the garrison hospital from the effects of the injuries
he inflicted on himself.

MR. BRIGHT ON TIIE NEW 12,EFORM

BILL.

Mr. Bright's speech at Manchester may be
,aken as a sufficient answer on the part of the manu-
facturing -middle class to the anti-Reform declara-
tion at Kidderminster of Mr. Lowe. If Chartism had
an orator, the appropriate reply would come of
cmirse t•om him: The. blind and reckless spirit of
oligarchical -resistance tends inevitably- to provoke
an equally reckless and- blind spirit of exaction.
Insult is oftener the parent of violence thaii injus-
tice, and many a noble-hearted but busy and good-
natured artisan, who has hitherto given himself
little trouble about the wrongful exclusion of his
class from a fair share in the privileges of citizen-
ship, will be moved by the arrogance and folly of
language like that of Mr. Lowe to ask how much
longer -the present system of exclusion ought to be
quietly endured. It behoves the head of the Party
of Resistance to consider well before they again
_put forward So indiscreet an emissary. When in
office this same right honourable gentlemiiii,—bra
-similar display of his entire want of judgment, tact,
and candour, plunged his friends into one of the
deepest sloughs, from which only Lord Palmerston's
great dexterity could extricate them. In his ruth-
less zeal to carry the only bill of any consequence
he was ever entrusted with, he undertook to brow-
beat and bully a Conservative House of Commons
into admitting certain raw and random notions about
corporate property, and succeded merely in leaguing
against himself and his colleagues an overwhelming
maiority, consisting of men of all parties. His latest
exploit would probably be attended with no less
striking results if it were not duly followed up in
the same temper and tone, and if the inorganic
mass of popular discontent were as easily acted on
as various sections of the Legislature. Were we the
advocates of subversive change, and the enemies of
safe and temperate progress, we might hail with
pleasure the undiscerning violence which confounds
municipal with manhood suffrage, and argues that
if the sober, loyal, and educated householders of the
kingdom were enfranchised, we should thereby
"break with the past," and enter on a course which
all the " bright intellects of history" would have
disapproved. The names of Mr. Fox and Earl
Grey are, with matchless temerity, especially relied
on by the future ex-member for Kidderminster.
Without deigning to notice directly the misrepre-
sentation, Mr. Bright quotes, with accuracy, the
recorded opinion of both illustrious statesmen in
favour of household suffrage. It so happens, more-
over, that embalmed in the eloquence of Mr. Fox is
a passage from Glanville, one of the oldest and
most learned of the constitutional authorities we
are abjured not to discard. " I think," said Mr.
Fox, "that to extend the representation to house-
keepers is the best and most justifiable plan of re-
form. I think also that this is a perfect recurrence
to first principles. It is the opinion of the cele-
brated Glanville that in all cases where no par-
ticular right intervenes the common-law right of
paying scot and lot has the right of election in the
land. This was the opinion of Glanville, and of
one of the most celebrated committees of which our
Parliamentary history has to boast, and this, in my
opinion, is the safest line of conduct you can adopt."
Such are the memorable words of Charles James
Fox—the leader of all who did not turn renegades
and courtiers among the Whigs of other days ; and
this was said in Parliament upon a motion made
by Mr., afterwards Earl Grey, to give the fran-
chise to all registered householders.
Far from laying himself open, however, to the
imputation of his anti-reform critics that he dreams
of electoral levelling, Mr. Bright hints very plainly
that as far as he is concerned he would not refuse
to take a .£5 rating franchise. He says with truth
that this would admit a very considerable propor-
tion of the class which is now excluded; and it
must be assumed that the portion so admitttd
would be in general found to be the best educated
and most thrifty and frugal it contains. 'What the
numerical difference would precisely be between
the aggregate constituency such a concession would
give, and that which the heads of families through-
out the kingdom, dwelling in separate houses or
distinct portions of houses, would supply, we have
no sufficient data for determining. We see no
ground to modify the opinion we have so
often expressed, and which is sanctioned by
numerous authorities beside those already cited,
that every householding and ratepaying citizen
should have a voice in the election of members to
serve in Parliament. The ignorance or intolerance
of faction may, in its ravings mistake or misname
this for Americanism ; but history—that history
with which we are pompously told not to break"
—declares that while America was yet the Red
Man's hunting-ground, and Lang before the Conser-
vatives and courtiers of the seventeenth century
had driven men of English birth to seek therein
" a refuge for soul liberty," this righteous law for
which we plead was the recognised usage and cus-
tom of England. In seeking its revival and re-
enactment, therefore, we are but taking our stand
upon the ancient ways of the constitution, and no
amount of hardy misrepresentation or affected fear
of reverting to the popular wisdom of our ancestors
will be able to abate the calm but steadfast zeal
with which the demand will be made until it is
granted.
We own we have less faith in the inductions of
mere arithmetic than the eloquent member for Bir-
mingham appears to have. We thoroughly agree
with him that the Lower House of Parliament as
now constituted is more a house of Lords than a
House of Commons, and that it does not, in point of
fact or in the opinion of the country, adequately or
fairly represent the people. But in our judgment
this does not arise from the absence of equal electoral
districts, nor would it be cured by any rigid fol-
lowing out of the statistics of population. We have
no desire to see agricultural industry stripped of
its ancient privileges for the sake of heaping super-
fluous representation upon the great towns ; nor
would we denude the southern portions of the
kingdom of Parliamentary rights to aggrandise the
Prrliamentary power of the north. A moderate
and reasonable re-arrangement of seats i
as any bill can possibly effect, and to . insist tasonmaunci;
wide or general redistribution as a sine qua non
would be merely to play the game of Marplot.
Whatever may be our desire for a complete and
perfect measure, we shall feel it our duty strenu-
ously to resist everything of the kind that tends to
prevent
the passing of a good franchise bill next
session. No man shall persuade us that half a
political loaf is not a deal better than no political
bread. Nobody can persuade us, in the face of all
observation and experience, that by taking a large
concession of one sort when it is offered, we are
disabling ourselves from obtaining another large
concession which may be for the time withheld.
Mr. Bright talks of electoral.re-distribution as in-
dispensable, and Mr. Milner Gibson would make
the ballot a sine qua non. Both gentlemen ought
to recollect how Free Trade was carried. In 1842
one half the articles "enumerated in the tariff were
set free. Were they discouraged thereby, or did
they relax their efforts to emancipate the rest ?
On the contrary, they persevered, and in [845 the
principle of Protection, having been once weakened,
gave way again, and another vast schedule was
torn from the volume. Did this extinguish the cry
for complete Free-trade ? Far from it. The very
next year the greatest of all the monopolies was
vanquished and taken. And so it may be in the
legislative progress of reform, Whatever is in itself
• sound and right is worth taking whenever and
whencesoever we can get it—first for its own sake,
and next for the enhanced power it confers of get-
ting other things that are sound and good.—Daily
News.

,1 A

[cnvEnTisEmENT.]]—Rarey's Horse and Cattle Improv-
ing Food is equallnadapted to improve the stamina of ill-
conditioned Horses, Cows, Bullocks, Calves, Sheep, and
Pigs. It causes no extra expense, as it contains.far more
and better nourishment than its cost of I,ld. per feed-sup-
plies in corn and hay; hence ensures an actual saving in
the keep. But its principal advantages are a great im-
provement in the digestive functions, the stamina and
general condition of horses enabling them to perform far
more labour without getting distressed. It imparts new
vigour to sick, debilitated, or old apparently worn-out
horses, and it puts rapidly the finest flesh on cattle gene-
rally, and improves the milk in cows, as it enables them to
extract the entire nourishment out of everything they feed
on. Rarey and Co., 77, Regent's Quadrant, Piccadilly,
London. Packed in tins of ',about 99 feeds, lls. ' • in cask
of about 450 feeds, 50s. ; of about 1,600 feeds, £5, being
lid, per feed•