The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC. JOURNALS.

_-.••...L

Having already expressed our high satisfac-
tion at the result of the elections in the metropo-

]is and in the metropolitan boroughs, and having
congratulated the authorities and the electors on
the admirable organization of the Reform Bill,
by which confusion at polling-booths has been
prevented,—by which leisurely and orderly voting
has been secured,—by which the time of the
voter and the purse of the candidate have been
saved,—and by which all occasions of riot and
tumult have been avoided, it is now our pleasing
duty to express a similar feeling with respect to
most of the other elections of whose progress or
whose termination we have yet received intelli-
gence. The great body of electors over
the kingdom seem even perversely and mali-
ciously resolved to falsify all the predictions of
the Conservatives, and to disappoint all the an-
ticipations of the Radicals, however well
intended, or however fondly cherished. If
the anarchists and their Tory allies, who post-
poned their hopes of a riot in the metropolis
from the nomination day to the days of polling,
and from the poll to the final declaration of the
returns, are not now convinced of the chimerical
grounds on which their miscalculations were
founded, they are scarcely persons with whom it
would be safe or of any use to reason. The
decent epilogue of thanksgiving on the part of
the successful actors, and of apologizing for past
errors, or soliciting future favours, on the part of
their less fortunate rivals, went off yesterday as
quietly as the other portions of the electoral
drama. The audience, who had exercised their
undoubted privilege of approbation or of disap-
probation, seemed in excellent good humour at the
conclusion of the piece,—the stage was cleared
without disturbance as soon as the legal per-
formance was concluded, and the curtain dropped
amid general applause. If one or two volunteer
orators at Covent-garden Market chose to main
tain their position on the boards till they had
explained why their grand favourite had failed
in attracting popular favour, or insisted on apo-
logizing for his having started for another stage
before he had taken his leave of his friends in
" the Garden," their proceedings attracted little
attention, as the stage-manager and the other
chief actors had gone. In the intelligence which
we present of electoral proceedings and returns
beyond the circuit of the metropolis will be
found equal cause for confidence and satisfaction.
Referring to the accounts themselves, without
any extended comments, we may, however, call the
special attention of our readers to the contests of
Cambridge, of Oxford, of Ipswich, of Lincoln, of
Winchester, of Exeter, of Gloucester, of Derby,
of Wycomb, of Nottingham, and of Dudley.
In all these cases the Tories anticipated success
for their party candidates, and have seen them,
or are likely to see them, signally defeated.
At Cambridge, Mr. Spring Rice, the Secre-
ary to the Treasury, was on the first day's
polling placed at a great height above his anta-
gonist, Sir E. Sugden, the late Solicitor-General,
and the recent opponent of Reform, the former
having obtained 643, and the latter only 456.
In the city of Oxford, Sir C. 'Wetherell, the
great champion of rotten boroughs and corporate
usurpations, was in a position as " unsatisfac-
tory" as his brother Conservative in Cambridge.
Poor Sir Charles we almost regret to see hies
excluded from the House of Commons, where,
if he was not always instructive, he was always
ingenious, and where at least, it was always
amusing to listen to his grotesque good-
humoured vehemence, and to catch a portion
of that odd phraseology which Hudibras
has properly described as " a leash of lan-
guages." Had it been possible to preserve
a borough in schedule A for the natural
life of any Conservative, we should willing!}
have made the temporary reserve in favour of the
Learned Knight. Colonel Sibthorpe is rewarded
for his absurd opposition to the Reform Bill, b)
being the lowest on the Lincoln poll. At Ips-
wich the most popular Tory does not reach the
half of the suffrages of his Reform antagonists.
At Gloucester the Melville candidate has only
547 votes, while his opponent has 685 ; and fin
Nottingham, the return of two Ministerial can-
didates, General Fergusson and Lord Duncan-
non, is secured by an overwhelming majority.
Even the confident prediction of Tory success at
Dudley has been falsified by 89 on the poll in
favour of the Solicitor-General. Never having
apprehended any social revolution in the state of
England from the enactment of the Reform
Bill,—never having supposed it possible that the
nature of Englishmen would be changed to the
worse by the restoration or establishment of their
political rights,—and having always contended
that the alarms of the Anti-Reformers on this
subject were either hypocritical or chimerical, it
is with infinite satisfaction that we record these
facts in the working of the measure, which prove
the correctness of our opinions and anticipations.
We contemplated afreer expression of popular sen-
timent on the affairs of Government from Re-
form—and we have found our expectation veri-
fied, The voice of the people, overpowered by
corruption and aristocratic despotism, had ceased
to control the assembly which disposed of their
pu;se, anal by which they ought to be :ere-
sented.—that control is now established or about
to be established. But the electors of the king-
dom to whom the new franchise has been ex-
tended did not desire mob government,—they
did not desire to forward the selfish objects
of demagogues or Jacobins, any more than to
promote those of Conservatives or enemies of
improvement,—they did not wish to send men
to Parliament to overthrow our institutions, but
to free them from defects which obstruct their
beneficial operation. Hence, they have gene-
rally adhered to their old-tried friends, or have
selected new ones from among men of good
character and solid pretensions, instead oi
choosing persons who professed to act as the
puppets of their caprice. The sober and
orderly manner in which the electors were
prepared to execute their electoral trust
has corresponded w the general wisdom of
their choice. We regret to add that in some
1-,stances there have been exhibitions of that ti-
t'
pleeree and tumult which were the usual accom-
paniments of the old elections, but in all cases
these riots have resulted from the manoeuvres of
the Conservative faction, whom the Bill has
defeated. Resolved to die hard rather than be
Iv anguished, they have at Hull, Hert.
Is, and. some other places, excited
which, in the long run, can onl)
their more signal and complete clis-
What shall be thought, for instance,
ay candidate for the representation of
who has sent up to town to engage
'fighters to stand by him on the
a to intimidate the voters of his Whig
from coming to the polling-booth ?
acts likely to obstruct the progress of
Reform? or are they not more likely to overwhelm

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