The Sun.
London, England, 1858-06-16 00:00:00

BANKRUPTS.

Robert Edwards, joiner, Mold, Flintehire,'June 29 and
July 19, at twelve, at the Liverpool/ District Court.
Charles Garlick, ironmonger, Guildford, Surrey, Juno
28, at two; and Aug. 2, at twelve, at the Court of Bank-
ruptcy.
John Lockwood, cloth manufacturer, Mold Green,
Birkheaton Yorkshire, June 29, at Lalf-past eleven, and
July 26, at ewelve, at the Leeds District Court.
John Cowen, travelling draper, Newcastle-under-Lyme,
June 26 and July 15, at half-past cloven, at the Birming-
ham District Cola. _

Robert Cumberland, fancy goods manufa turer, Addle-
street4City, June 25, at eleven, and July 22, at half•past
one, et the Court of Bankruptcy.
Thomas Rolfe, pianoforte maker, Regent street, June
28 and Aug. 2, at eleven, at the Court of Bankruptcy.

TEE PROPERTY QUALIFICATION BILL.

(Front the Times )
Yesterday afternoon the House of Lords witnessed
one-of thou !Ann testimonies arid I.st stands which
are oer:elisions made in favour of our ancient institu-
tions. Lord Ravensworth delivered his soul on the sub-
ject of what was once a prime. article of the poli!ioel
creed—the property qualification ; and, bad it been
royalty itself, or the Christian religion, his lordship could
not havt;' beon more earnest, or, we dare say, more sin-
cere. The truth is, that there is a large class of pobple
—so large and so powerful that wo must accept them as
a dispensatic.n of Providence—who will bear martyrdom,
or next to it, for anything which they have once been
taught is a proper occasion for the sacrifice. The merest
counter with them is sterling coin. You have only to
catch them tolerably young, and show them an object
for the display of their zeal, as you would show a stick
to a dog, and they will fetch, earty, and fight hr it as
long as a tooth remains in their heath or .1 drop of blood
in their bodies. Reason is wholly out of the question
with these people. They answer you candidly that the
worth of the thing is not in itself, but in the principle
embodied, in the doctrine conveyed, in the moral
significance, apart from the practical validity. Thus
the property qualification signified the proper (less
for the House of Commons, and so testified
in favour of the landed gentry. It is also
quite sure that Radical Reformers will derive
a shadowy sort of satisfaction from seeing one more bul-
wark of our glorious constitution disappear. So here at
once is a thing to go to the slake for. It is true that the
House of Commons notoriously contains many men
without an acre or a shilling of rent to call their own. It
is true that none have helped so much to evade the law
as the nobility themselves. It is true that the house has
always centaitied a number of persons who, if their
affairs were placed in the bands of au ace ointant, would
be found insolvent. But from these solid and obvious
feet; we are referred to the purport of the property
qualification. It meant so and so, and the meaning is
what we are to look to. The fittest patallel for legisla-
tion of this antique and ineffective character is to be
found in the fifteen hundred miles of stone wall anti
thousand miles of palisade built by the Chinese to k. ep
out the Tartars. The enemy got over the wall or got
round it as often as they pleased. Still, it signified they
were not to come in, and, though they were in at last
for good, and got possession of all China, they st 11
kept up the fiction that the wall was to keep out the
enemy. The wall of the Property Qualification
has been surmounted, and turned, and undermined
in all sorts of ways by anybody who wished to
do so ; but as long as it reared its imposing front
against penniless Radicals or other adventurers it was
to be maintained. It might, be only a pasteboard forti•
ficstien ; it might be a wooden gun ; it might be a sham
steamer emitting straw smoke ; it might be any other
undeniable humbug ; still the pretence, the name, the
figure-bead, the device on the stern, were all wise and
good ; so it was a crime to give it up. Tbat is the pur-
port of Lord Ravens worth's speech. It is a speech we
have heard a hundred times before, and, if we live long
enough, shall hear a hundred times again.
As it happened, when this last fight was made against
one of the last bulwarks of our nob:e constitution in the
House of Lords, the other house had been addressed a
few hours before by a member whose qualification has •
recently been sifted outside the walls of Parliament, and
been found a minus quantity. At the very time Lord
Ravensworth was defending the House of Commons
against the intrusion of lackland .adventurere, Mr.
Townsend was still a member, still safe in his seat,
though proved in public court to be not only penniless,
but without the means of sati-fying his creditors. The
only result of this state of affairs i-,, that the hen. mem •
her for Greenwich suffers a brief eclipse of his splendour.
For a twelvemonth the house will Lot have the oppor-
tunity of listening to his arguments, however pro-
found, or his eloquence, however persuasive ; but
he still represents the town of Greenwich, in spite
of the bulwarks erected by the wisdom of our forefathers
against gentlemen of limited incomes. Indeed, Mr.
Townsend could n t be prevented from addressing the
house in defence of his briet Parliamentary career, his
speeches, his votes, and his consiltuente. The 30,000
free, honest, and independent men of Greenwich are
still anxious to retain his services, and will not have
him put out to make room for any money-bag candidate.
Their views on this point are diametrically opposite to
those which Lord Ravensworth shortly after delivered
in the House of Lords. They do not ease a rush whe-
ther their representative has 50,0001. a, year or only
500/ , if he is only true to his hue ings 'professions. No
doubt, this is very noble in the electors of Greenwich ;
but, with all due deference to them and the man of their
choice, this was not the question they had to consider.
The choice did not lie between two positive incomes, or
two plus quantities of any kind, but between a plus and
a negative quantity—between income and deficiency.
The case is all the more remarkable as an illustration of
the state of things defended by Lord Ravensworth.
Under it a man may continue to be a member of the
House of Commons who not only has no qualification
whatever, but is a declared bankrupt.
The two addresses—viz., Lord Ravensworth's in
favour of Property Qualification, and Mr. Townsend's
in favour of the freer principles that influence the 30,000
electors of Greenwich, are not FO dissimilar as might be
expected, Parliamentary eloquence does not divide
itself so naturally into brimstone and treacle as the
harangues of another rostrum. Both these spoke as
earnest men ; both appealed to the true Englishman ;
both were equally persuaded that they represented a
good cause, and were making a noble confession.
Nevertheless, both these patriots are under the fatal
necessity of :hutting their eyes to the real facts of the
case—Lord Ravensworth to the fact that his qualifica
tion does not keep out gentlemen like Mr. Townsend,
and Mr. Townsend himself to the fact that it was not a
question of qualification, but of mere solvency. The
testimony he delivered with so much unction, like that
in the Upper House, was beyond the facts of the case.
It would be to Lord Ravensworth's purpose if be could
have shown that the law kept out poor men, and it
would have been to Mr. Townsend's if he could have
shown that his was a case of blameless poverty, and the
electors of Greenwich simply the admirers of Parliamen-
tary Cincienatus. For our part, we beg to record a
quiet protest against illusions of all kinds, and it was an
illesion in both houses yesterday to suppose honest po-
verty really in question. We have no wish to exclude
it—indeed, it is evident we cannot ; but we do think it
much better that !a member of Parliament should be
able to pay 20s. in the pound.