The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-20 00:00:00

47114) e •

LONDON,
SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 20, 1535.

The Conservative Members of Corporations are
acting wisely in getting up as many public dinners as
they can. There is nothing like making hay
the sun shines. The time is fast approaching when
the turtle and the venison ; the rich soups and the
fragrant sauces ; the generous wines and the profuse
deserts, in which they have so long indulged at the ex-
pense of the community, shall no more load the tables
of their Town -halls ; but when if they meet to talk
over public matters at dinners (as is their wont),
the means of such enjoyment must be furnished by
themselves. Yet a few months, and Heaven help those
epicures, to whom a dainty meal, provided by Corpo-
ration funds, is, as it were, the salt of life I An
awful future awaits them. Their appetites are doomed.
They must pay as they eat, or consent, like poets and
chamelions, to live on air. What a state for an Al-
derman to be reduced to I Yet that these men antici-
pate some such disastrous i!..;sue, is certain, from !lie
amazing pains they are taking to prove that they
an injured class. They are toasting " Down with
Municipal Reform Bill" in all directions ; and if a
toast could do its business, or the Conservatives could
dine away their difficulties, the star of corruption
would still be in the ascendant. But, alas! Ministers
are not to be scared by a dinner—especially as they
are not called on to pay for it—still less are they the
linen to take fright at a toast. So our fat friends seem
to think, and therefore they are cherishing apoplexy
at Corporation dinners with more zeal than ever ;
thinking, no doubt, that of the two evils, abstinence
and repletion, the latter is by far the least.
Within the last few days two glorious festivals of
this sort have been held at Leicester and Huntingdon,
at both which, though the discretion of the company
appears to have been at discount, the dinner and wines
are declared, by our contemporary the Morning Post, to
have been " excellent." And no wonder I Things are
always " excellent," that one is not called on to pay for.
From the quality of the speeches made at these dinners,
we can plainly see that the Leicester and Huntingdon
Corporators do not take umbrage at Municipal Re-
form, from any fancied injury it may do the country,
but simply because it puts an end to their own darling
epicurean propensities. It is not the British Constitu-
tion that they think will be jeoparded by it, but their
own far dearer one. They are apprehensive of short
Commons. This is the true, the sole, secret of their
virulent opposition to Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S
,Bill ;
for " the road through the stomach's the road to the
heart," and as his Lordship refuses to travel this road,
in his haste to get to the end of his Municipal Reform
journey, what wonder he has set the Aldermen of
Leicester and Huntingdon in arms against him I
Nevertheless, despite the opposition of these, and a
thousand such, " small deer," the Bill will be carried
in triumph. Were Aldermen to spring up like mush-
rooms on every dung-hill in the country ; were it even
to rain Aldermen for a month to come—no matter, next
October would still seal the doom of the whole fungous
. _
fraternity. Feast, then, ye destined monopolists,
while ye may I Assault the calipash—batter in the
venison pasty—lay siege to the hatinch—bid the tur-
bot surrender at discretion—refuse quarter to the
Burgundy—and humble the rising spirit of Cham-
paigne—for even as the night cometh, when no man
can work, even so the hour is at hand when ye
shall eat, drink, and be merry at the public expense

no longer !
At the Leicester Corpora!ion Dinner—we say no-
of the Huntingdon one, for it was simply .4upi(i—
a GOLDSMITH, in alluding to the support which
Sir ROBERT PEEL had already given to the Munici-
pal Reform Bill, made the following strange excuse
for it :—" The course adopted by Sir R. PEEL, has
been, I know, blamed by many of his most ardent ad-
mirers and warmest supporters. The circumstances,
however, in which he is placed, must be gravely and
attentively considered. He knew well that the mea-