The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-30 00:00:00

I 15,000 women and boys; and the able Editor
of that Paper gives the following as the data on
which he grounded his calculation :
" Our calculation is this—we have measured the ground
on Kirkwood's map, over which the persons present were
spread ; it amounts pretty nearly to 30,000 square yards.
Dividing this into three parts, and we reckon three per-
sons per square yard for the portion nearest the hustings,
two persons in the next portion, and one person per square
yard in the most distant portion. The number resulting
is 60,000. In a semicircle of 100 feet radius in front of
the hustings, the men were wedged together as closely as
human beings can be under any circumstances. In this
space each square yard must have held six persons."
The Caledonian Mercury, without descend-
ing to particulars, states that upwards of 40,000
persons congregated in the King's Park, and in
the heights immediately adjoining. The inha-
bitants of the villages in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh marched in procession to the spot.
The Caledonian Mercury gives the Anti-Re-
formers credit for more good sense than they
seem to possess, if we may judge from the sample
culled by us from John Burl : _ _

" After such a display," says that Journal, " of the
perfect unanimity of public sentiment on the subject of Re-
form, and of the unshaken steadfastness of the people in
the cause, the Tories, with all their talent and hardihood in
the manufacture and circulation of po!itical bouncers, will
scarcely venture, we should think, to get up the old story
of re-action. Some few grains of truth are necessary to
leaven the lump of falsehood, in order to make it go down ;
but even these are no longer attainable here: and so em-
phatic is the practical refutation which this meeting has
given to the wretched allegation in question, that we should
be very much surprised indeed were any one now to be
found who should have the courage to repeat it."
They would affirm, if other places did not also
display the same feeling, that the feeling in
favour of Reform had subsided everywhere, but
still lingered on in one or two places in Scot-
land, though it must soon die out there also.
The same Journal has the following excellent
observations on the absurd threats of the Tories
to coerce the nation :
" The Tories, at least some of them, in their insane fury
against Reform have pretty broadly threat- ned its supporters
with the army in the event (which heaven forefend !) of their
regaining their ascendancy ; and they have hinted that the
fever in the public mind' can only be cured by having re-
course to military phlebotomy. The free use of the sabre,
we know, is a favourite Tory prescription ; and in the
course of their practice, they bare proved that Sangrado
himself was not more devoutly attached to bleedit g as a
specific for all disorders. But the time is too much out of
joint to render it safe to persist in this mode of treatment;
and, unless these gentlemen are blind indeed, a single
glance at the meeting of Tuesday last must have sati-fied
them how utterly unavailing even our fine and unrivalled
army would prove, were it ever to be directed against the
strength of a united people. Men who have spent their
lives among military dandies and fine-ladies, and who are
as ignorant of the real state of the country as if they had
been born in the Georgina) Sidus, may affect to despise the
mass, and fancy that in a collision with disciplined bodies,
it would he scattered like chaff before the wind. They
forget, however, that the order which constitutes military
strength is not of difficult acquisition ; and, by their very
folly, they force men to learn it in their own defence. By
threatening an attack, they familiarize men's minds to the
idea of resistance, and thus lead them to c,lculate how it
may be rendered most effective."

The army, as is well observed, differs from
the people merely in organization, and that or-
ganization is soon acquired. If the army is fine
it is because the people are fine materials for an
army. Supposing even that the army has no
sympathy with the nation, there are materials in
a single Scotch town to keep the whole of the
small force now in this island in employment.
How absurd, then, to talk of coercing a great
nation I What a set of contemptible drivellers
these Tories are ! And how galling to think
that these creatures have the power of giving so
much trouble to this mi:lity nation ! They may,
however, push their insults too far; and find
some day, to their cost, that they have had more
than: enough or agitation.—Morning Chronicle.
The liberty of the Press is a great boast in
the mouths of Englishmen, but it must not be
supposed that the liberty which the Press enjoys
is altogether without alloy. If we have no cen-
sorship to stifle truth in its birth, we have a law
of libel to punish it afterwards, and we have a
race of lawyers who, whatever they may think of
truth itself, have no great affection for the vehicle
on which it travels into notice. The case of
Bellcambers v. Hadley, which was tried the
other day in the Court of King's Bench, may be
cited as a proof that the Press has also some
hardships of another kind to complain of. This
case was an action for libel brought against the
proprietor of a newspaper for having published
some observations made use of by Counsel in a
previous trial, which reflected on the character of
the plaintiff. The Counsel harl used the words
—at least there was no attempt inade to dispute
his having used them ; but, though the report
was correct, and there was no evidence to im-
pute bad intention to the proprietors or agents of
the paper, it was held that the newspaper which
had published, and not the Counsel who had
uttered the libel, was responsible to the indi-
vidual. Now, without entering into the
law of the case, or dwelling upon the im-
pediment which such a decision is calculated to
throw in the way of reporting, we cannot help
admiring the gravity with which both Advocate
and Judge exonerated their Learned Brother,
while they levelled their moral indignation against
those who were guilty of publishing what he
spoke. The lawyer, it seems, has the privilege
of libelling and traducing honest men, in open
Court, for the benefit of his client ; but wo to
the printer and publisher, who do not know or
suspect the lawyer to be a liar, and who do not
reject the calumny which he was paid for pro-
nouncing, and which he only pronounced because
he was paid for it. Libel is a very bad thing,
.• . .

not because truth, but because falsehood, is baci;
and we confess ourselves simple enough to doubt
the advantage of allowing to barristers such a
sweeping discretion, in the misrepresentation of
motives, conduct, and character, as they have
been hitherto in the habit of exercising. At all
events it has rather an awkward appearance to
hear the very same men, who are guilty every day
of some mercenary libel, enlarging upon the li-
centiousness of the Press, which had only echoed
their words, and, perhaps, for the moment, done
them the manifest injustice of respecting their
authority. The Jury gave but a shilling damages.
Still there appears to us to be a great hardship
in the case, as it saddles a party with costs who
never contemplated the slightest injury to the in-
dividual applying for redress.—Morn. Herald.
Though the sentiments of the inhabitants of
the metropolis are naturally entitled to great
weight, and can find their way to the Govern-
Mem with more promptitude and effect than those
of the provinces, or even other large towns, yet
we are far from wishing to see it exercising an
influence beyond what its due share in the in-
terests of the State entitle it to. It has been the
policy of the Anti-Reformers and re-actionists
to assert, however, that such is the case on the
subject of the Reform Bill, which they would
have us believe is only popular, and that to a
limited degree, among the middling and lower
orders of the metropolis. The recent meeting
at Edinburgh, where no less than 60,000 per-
sons, and those composed, among others, of the
elite of that enlightened city, added to the known
sentiments of Glasgow, Manchester, Birming-
ham, and nearly every other considerable place

lin the kingdom, are testimonies enough, %le
should think, of the utter groundlessness of this
assertion. The people, indeed, arc placed b)
► the opponents of Reform in the' same situation
as that of the old man and his ass in the fable.
Whether he carried the ass, or the ass carried
him, was alike unsatisfactory to the lookers-on.
In the other case, if the people meet, and give
any unequivocal tokens of their desire for Re-
form, they are taunted with having recourse to
clamour and commotion ; while, if they patiently
await the result of their repeated and unequi-
vocal appeals to the Legislature, they are
taunted by the same persons with re-action,
and are said to have become indifferent to the
object of their warmest wishes. One would
think that the frightful result of this taunt, in
the case of Bristol, might teach a little caution-
to those who are inclined still to harp upon the
same string. We shall be curious to see what
the enemies of Reform, especially the Anti-
Reformers of Scotland, will say to the proceed-
ings and result of the Edinburgh meeting.
Above all, we should like to hear -what those
ci-devant Whig Noblemen, the Earls of Rosslyn
and Lauderdale, will say to this unequivocal
display of the feelings of the modern Athens.
In their case, to be sure, it may appear to be
reversing the well-known adage, and appealing
from Philip sober to Philip drunk ; for no man
can, without most egregiously stultifying himself,
be allowed to set off a sudden conversion in old
age against the well-digested and steadily-pur-
sued opinions of a long previous life. But there
is one opinion, after all, which the people have
expressed on this subject, which, while it is the
most constitutional,was the most unequivocal—we
mean the reply which they made to hia Majesty,
when expressly appealed to upon the subject at
the recent general election. No one, we appre-
hend, can have the effrontery to deny that that
answer consisted but of one language, And ad-
mitted but of one interpretation, wherever it
could be given with freedom ; and had the peo-
ple at large never spoken out in any other man-
ner, nor on any subsequent occasion, what then
took place came " trumpet-tongued" in undying
accents to the Throne and to Parliament. But
to any one who has the temerity to assert that
the people have changed their minds, or are
become lukewarm or indifferent upon the vital
subject of Reform, we appeal for an answer to
the late meeting at Edinburgh, to the joy with
which the late decision in the House of Lords
was received every where, and to the breathless
suspense and expectation to which the final issue
of that decision is looked for in every part of
the United Kingdom.— likening Herald.
An Anti-Reform journal of last week's date
gravely expressed a hope that the period of the
adjournment of the two Houses of Parliament
would be wisely employed by the people of the
united kingdom, in reflecting upon the incompa-
rable beauties of our venerable Constitution--
, the folly of his Majesty's Ministers in attempt-
ing to improve it—the ruin which would inevit-
ably follow from even the slightest change in it
—and the dreadful abyss of destruction into
which the King's advisers were hurrying forward
every interest of the country—the landed, the
commercial, the agricultural, and the manufac-
turing. Well, the people have had a fortnight,
or nearly so, already of the adjournment to re-
flect upon all these matters; and what is the
result? Have they determined to abide by the
Constitution as it is, or are they still prone on
change ? Have they become alive to the
beauties of rotten boroughs, treasury repre-
sentation, and lordly nomineeship ? Have
they seen the mischief which would result
from allowing to every one who pays a
rent of ten pounds a year a vote in the
election of Members of Parliament ? Have
they changed their minds respecting the ne-
cessity of giving representatives to such impor-
tant places as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham,
Sheffield, &c. ? Have they become afraid, in
consequence of the warning voice of our cotem-
porary, that the extension of the elective franchise
to the metropolitan districts, would have the
effect of drowning the voice of the country, and
rendering its interests subservient and subordinate
to those of the metropolis ? Oh, no, the timely
repentance so forcibly and earnestly urged upon
them by our contemporary, has as yet found no
tphl ae c with h
delusione
hm they
a t;
aßeform re sitni l
the labouring
representation
is necessary ; they are still following one another
in multitudes to do the thing that is consi-
dered by our contemporary to be an evil. They
are still calling out for the Bill, the whole
Bill, •and nothing but the Bill. They are
still urging its passage as the consummation
of their best hopes, and praying, as the
only means of saving the country from all the
horrors of anarchy and revolution, that no need-
less delay may be allowed to interfere between
them and their wishes. Verily the people have
improved the interval of the adjournment of the
two Houses to some purpose—they have not
only reflected, but they have acted—they have
not only met and spoken their minds upon the
great question in the decision of which all are
interested, but they have resolved and petitioned
as men whose resolutions are not to be disre-
garded, nor their prayers slighted with impunity.
The example set by the people of Leeds has
been followed, or is about to be followed, in
almost every city and burgh of the United
Kingdom. But one mind, in fact, animates
the country—but one voice is heard from one
end of it to the other. Pass the Bill, is
the unanimous cry of England and Scot-
land—and pass it entire and unmutilated !
But it is worth while to advert somewhat more
particularly to the spirit which animates the
country, and especially to the manifestation of it
which appeared at the great Edinburgh meeting, of
which we gave an ample and most interesting re-
portcon in
sistedSoatruardtayle'sasAt dsvoertooiscler.
men,T That meeting
un
ited
to-
gether," as was justly observed by one of the
speakers, " by one common bond—the desire to
obtain their common rights"—composed of men
of all classes, " from the great landlord to the
honest and intelligent artisan, who obtains his
livelihood by his own industry"—and all, of
whatever rank or degree, not only holding out
the right hand of fellowship to one another, but
al! bent on burying in oblivion for the moment,
their differences of opinion respecting the amount
of Reform that is desirable, in order that they
might obtain that which is acceptable to the majo-
rity, and which they had a faint glimse of hope
that they would succeed in realising ! What
a glorious sight it must have been to have
witnessed one of the fi:st cities in Europe, in
point of intellectual acquirements, pouring forth
its hundreds and its thousands of all classes,
ranks, and degrees, in exultation that the new
charter of English freedom had advanced another
stage towards the goal of our hopes,--in full
confidence that the King's Ministers would do
their duty by the country,—in enthusiastic and
devoted loyalty to that Soverign to whom :we
are indebted for the glorious results which are