The Sun.
London, England, 1832-05-01 00:00:00

REFORM.

Exiract of a letter from a gentleman in the
country, to a Member of Parliament, dated April 27 :
"I am afraid you have still nothing very satisfactory
to report about the grand affair. I have been glancing
over a series (sent me by a friend at Clifton) of The
Sun newspaper, which gives the leading articles of a
number of other clever journals ; and I find a perva-
ding tone of discontent and apprehension. But little of any
thing like exultation has been caused among us here, by
what has hardly deserved the name of a victory in the
Upper House. What is the worth, we are saying, un-
less we could he better assured that Lord Grey, having
got the cause fairly into the field of battle, will there
bring a force to carry it victoriously out ? With the
House as it is he will be defeated at the very com-
mencement—schedule A—and there goes off the head
of the Bill at a blow. What, will it be enough for
him to talk, to make palaver merely, against
that execution ? In his concluding speech there
were some sadly ill-omened expressions. The sche-
dules, he said, might be altered, and yet the
principle be safe. The principle safe ! What is the
principle worth but in the amount of its practical appli-
cation ? He said, too, that the form the Bill should ulti-
mately take did not depend on him, but on their Lord-
ships. Indeed ! It is to be abandoned, then, to the de-
cision of the very set of men whose unrighteous power
and usurpation it is professedly designed to abolish. It
will be seen in due time what is really the sort of obliga-
tion which he deems himself to have contracted to the
nation ; but he had need come out soon with a masculine
and decisive policy to recover what he has latterly been
losing in, I believe, the general feeling of the country. If
it be found that he cm sacrifice to that paltry scruple—l
do not say the Bill, hut—any material part of it, he will
be branded with such opprobrium as no English statesman
has suffered for nearly two centuries past. Why have we not
a man of Pitt's, or even Castlereagh's, mettle at the head of
the concern ? Not affront the Noble House—not touch
the dignity of the Peerage, by an addition decisive of the
measure ! ! Why, who but the aristocracy itself cares
two-pence how many more of them there may be on the
benches of that House ? And can Lord Grey dream that
the people will have any sympathy with his delicacy about
such a matter? But perhaps he is determined to adopt,
at the critical moment, the efficacious expedient. If so,
one wonders what is the policy of so long letting the ene-
mies of Reform assume so confidently that he will not,
and its friends doubt, almost to despondency, whether he
will ; and thus leaving the nation, month after month,
ouch!. di,Fouraesnent and alarm, and through that un-
certainty inflicting a mischievous uncertainty on all man-
ner of national interests. For this he will never be for-
given, unless he do soon come omit in splendid demonstra-
tion. We must wait with as much patience as we can ;
but we shall wait charged to the muzzle, with the bit-
terest execrations ready to be exploded at him if lie
should fail.

" If this Premier, after having been idolized by a cre-
dulous people, shall prove slinkard, and let the Bill be re-
turned to your House docked, mangled, and mutilated,
how will your reformers receive it? One wishes one
could be sure that in that case they would, in an undimi-
nished battalion bear them manfully, promptly and indig-
nantly scout ►he worthless thing, and pledge themselves to
the nation, in the strongest form of an uncompromising
resolution to insist on the Bill, or a still stronger measure
of Reform. Is their spirit up to that mark? I have
half wished that the second reading had been lost, pro-
vided there were truth in the confident assertion in several
of the papers, that there would in that case have instantly
been a prorogation, and a good stout quantity of new
peerage. F.— Times.

IRISH PEERS.—A Member of Parliament of
considerable influence once applied to Mr. PITT for per-
mission to enter ene of the royal parks through a parti-
cular gate, and was told it was impossible. As a substi-
tute, however, the Minister offered to make him an Irish
Peer.

TRIAL OF THE CORPORATION.—The
report which prevailed of the abandonment of this trial
originated in a hoax, played off on an individual in this
city, who, being thrown into the company of a gentleman
who rejoices in the name of MALLE, and practises as a
solicitor in an adjoining county, and not supposing for a
moment that there could, by any possibility, be two soli-
citors of that name, blessed his stars for the opportunity
which an introduction gave him of obtaining a little official
intelligence. Being rather interested in the matter, he
took the liberty of popping the question, and was answered
that it was probable the trial would be abandoned. The
" chiel " did not " prent it," albeit he took " notes" of it,
and made it as public, by dint of confidential cornumnica:
tion, as if he had put it in the Gazette. Among many
others, the Corporation so far credited the hoax as to make
inquiries, through their agent in London, at the Crown.
office. The reply was, that the indictments were filed,
and that copies were making out, which might be expected
in Bristol daily. We understand that
watthevehaetylr they,nClude all
the magistrates, corporation, justices, or
in
their wisdom, way call themselves, except the Recorder,
and Aldermen Fowt.En., TlAvritoaNE, and B. ARROW.—
We have hei.rd also that further particulars, if not copie,
of the indictments, were sent down by yesterday's post. It
is expected that the place and time of their trial will be made
public by Monday. The probability is that it will take
place at Bath, In August, before a jury taken from the
county of Nomerset.....Brista 3tereury.