The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times is frightened, not out of its consistency, for
it never had any, but out of its wits, of which, till lately,
it possessed a considerable share, lest the people should
now begin to act on the hints so repeatedly but guardedly
given by that conscientious journal, and commence a sys-
tem not exactly in accordance with the opinion of those
who think that the rights of persons should be respected.
and that property should be held sacred, whatever the
change or form of. Government. Though somewhat tamed
within the last three or four days, by the unpromising in-
telligence which it cannot have failed to receive from all
quarters—even from head-quarters, if its newly-patronized
statesmen are sincere—yet that paper, which has always
been distinguished for the politeness of its epithets, still
continues to pour forth, though not in so copious a
stream, its abuse on those who are so unreasonable, so
daring, so wicked, as to oppose a Tory Administra-
tion, strengthened in its vices, and encouraged in its vio-
lences, as it infallibly will be, by the addition of the bigotry,
arrogance, and stupidity recently made to the old stock,
What effect may be wrought on our contemporary on Mon-
day next, when the City Candidates are put in nomination,
we cannot pretend accurately to state ; but one of two
things must happen—either it will become incurably rabid
or hopelessly melancholy. The Times, after its tirade
about the wealth and, consequently, according to its own
showing, the respectability of the a or 6,000 who signed the
City Address, will be compelled to admit that property
ought to inspire confidence, and is entitled to support. It
must also be obliged to grant, that no individual of the
City of London is so perfect a representative of its wealth
as the Governor of the Bank :—that after the Governor of the
'Bank, the next fittest representative is he, being a citizen
and a trader, who is possessed of and can command
most wealth ; it being understood that the moral
ind commercial characters of both are without stain
or reproach. Now, after Mr. Pattison, the Governor of
the Bank, a man who stands in every respect so high, is
nominated by Mr. Lloyd, the richest banker in London,
upon whom calumny herself has never breathed a suspicion,
—Mr. Grote, a first-rate banker, and Mr. Crawford, a lead-
ing merchant, will, no doubt, be proposed by gentlemen of
well-known property and respectability. Mr. Alderman
Wood will, we understand, be proposed by Mr. Denison,
the Member for Surrey, a man of high character and im-
mense wealth. After such a manifestation, will the Tinws
hs;,e the effrontery to say that the Liberal Candidates for
the representation of the City of London are the nominees
of " Jacobins," of " Destructives,', and of the " scum of the
City Radicals," to use its ownscharacteristic language ? \\'(.
%hall all soon see how our miscalculating, crest-fallen coo-
temporai y, will act on so trying an occasion. We predict
that it will struggle and flounder, and that its efforts, like
those of a drowning man, will only sink it the lower, and
hasten that destruction which, during the last few weeks, it
has so industriously prepared for itself, and for those whose
cause it has been making such violent but ineffectual efforts
to uphold.—Morning Chronicle.
The practice of "blowing hot and cold" has seldom beer,
more strongly illustrated than in the language of the Whig
press relative to the approaching election ; for, while they
boast of nearly every one of their candidates as " quite se-
cure," and that the result must be to bring their patrons to
office before a week of the new Parliament shall have
elapsed, they, in the very same breath, deprecate the disso-
lution as an undeniable test of the new Ministers' hostility,
to all reform. Nor is this inconsistency a little aggravated
by the fact that their opposition to a new election comes
from the strenuous advocates of triennial, if not of still
snore frequent Parliaments. Disguise it how they will
however, it is impossible not to see the cloven foot in all
this. The cunningest people not unfrequently betray them
selves by an unguarded reliance on their own skill. Somehow
or ether it rarely happens that people deprecate that which
they believe will benefit themselves. So on this occasion it
-requires no great shrewdness to lead one to suspect that, not-
withstanding all these boastings of anticipated success, the
bitter censure with which the dissolution is received by the
organs of the party in question arises from a thorough
'consciousness that their strength in the new House of
Commons will be greatly damaged by the result. Without
assuming to ourselves any great portion of this foreknow-
ledge, one thing seems pretty apparent, that the new elec-
tions will have the effect, in some instances, at least, of
weeding the House of Commons of some persons who ought
never to have been there—persons, whose conduct and
habits alone, while engaged in their duty as Members of
that House, was such as to evince an utter unfitness for
ordinary society, to say nothing of the gravity and decorum
which is necessary to inspire confidence in Legislative wis-
dom. Though we are not sanguine enough to anticipate
that all this will disappear, there are already evident
proofs that a great deal of it will, and this alone will be a
great point gained towards rescuing the Reform Act from
the main odium it has laboured under. For our own part,
and in the estimation, we are persuaded, of all moderate
men, a candidate's fitness to perform the duties he aspires
to is of infinitely more importance than any particular party
predilections or attachments which he may entertain.
That constituents should understand the general prin-
ciples of those who present themselves to their
choice is necessary, and, indeed, indispensable ;
and it would be well if this test were more rigidly adhered
to than it is. - But that done, and his general competency
ascertained (not by a too ready adoption of mere profes-
sions, but by a searching reference to his past life), the
Member of Parliament should be sent into the Senate free
and uncontrolled. The very idea of pledges bespeaks un-
fitness, and augurs suspicion and want of confidence. It
was the readiness to give these pledges—in short, to get
into Parliament upon any terms, no matter how degrading
—which gave to the first Reformed House of Commons so
many members of which the constituencies who sent them
are, we trust, by this time heartily ashamed. They have
now an opportunity of rescuing themselves and the commu-
nity from the fruits of this mistake--an opportunity which
we may hope they will not fail to avail themselves of. The
next fortnight or three weeks will be a period of infinite im•
portance to the country—the most important, perhaps, that
may ever have occurred in its annals ; but if, avoiding cla-
mour and deception, the electors throughout the kingdom
proceed to the performance of their duties with cool heads
and honest hearts, we have no fear but such a House of
Commons will be returned as will be found at once to com-
bine the true spirit of reform, with a determination to up-
hold those valuable institutions which have hitherto main-
tained Great Britain at the head of civilized States, both
ancient and modern.—Morning Herald.

We cannot contemplate but with feelings of lively grati-
tude and admiration the manly conduct of Sir Robert Peel,
mho, each succeeding day, exhibits some fresh, and, if pos-
sible, more striking, example of the wisdom, firmness, and
judgment which characterise a great statesman. Indeed,
whether we consider the tone assumed and the line adopted
by the Right Hon. Baronet with reference to his addresses
to the wise and good who tender him their support, or his
answers to the peevish and factious few who are anxious to
condemn him unheard, the master-mind displays itself with
a force and splendour which none but the wilfully blind
.can refuse to see, none but the perversely stupid fail
to understand. These reflections have been forced
upon us at this moment by the violent, intemperate,
and injudicious manifesto put forth by a Mr. East,
of Birmingham, on behalf of certain foolish people
'who, imagining that wisdom always comes from the " East,"
have submitted themselves to his guidance. " Save me
from my friends" is an excellent maxim. Had Mr. Ti-
mothy East's followers pondered rather more carefully on
its truth, reason, common sense, and decency had escaped
the outrage they had perpetrated. And what do our
readers imagine was the cause of this frantic ebullition ?
-A determination on the part of these people who call
themselves Dissenters "not to accept from the new Admi-
nistration any measure of relief, however extensive or in
Ilse l satisfactory." Was there ever folly so egregious as
this retail imitation of the O'Connell denunciations—con-
temptible in the eyes of all reasonable beings, injurious
only to those who have thus exposed themselves to well-
merited ridicule. A copy of this precious production was
forwarded to Sir Robert Peel, and the Premier's answer,
to which we refer, is a master-piece of correct feeling and
exquisite taste. He is not to be " frightened from his
?propriety" by the denunciations of these poor creatures, nor
does their vindictive abuse provoke one syllable of angry or
undignified retort. He does not even brush away the
flies which vainly endeavour to annoy him. Even to these
scurrilous persons his reply is courteous in the extreme. If
indeed they are not incapable of shame, how thoroughly
they must feel ashamed of their own senseless violence and
absurdity. We learn from the reply of the Right Hon.
Baronet that his Majesty's Ministers are determined to re-
move every, reasonable ground of complaint on the part of
those who dissent from the doctrine or discipline of the Es-
tablished Church. At the hands of Sir R. Peel and his
colleagues religious liberty has never yet suffered wrong or
diminution. This Mr. Timothy East and his tail know as
well as ourselves. What, then, is the object of their
furious and malevolent attack ? Not, it is plain, spiritual
freedom, but temporal supremacy,—not the removal of any
disabilities under which they suffer, but the overthrow of
the Church and, although they will not or cannot perceive
it, the decay of all religion as the unavoidable consequence
of such subversion. e call, then, upon all religious and
sincere Dissenters to make a stand against the abominable,
the worse than papal, tyranny of the self-chosen few who
misrepresent their objects and defame their character. Let
them watch carefully and anxiously ; let them ever regard
with a jealous eye the measures to be proposed for their
relief; but let them not with an arrogance and want of
charity utterly at variance with the tenets they profess, and
with the mild spirit of that religion on which our hopes as
well as their's are founded, assume an infallibility which
can never be their's, neglecting and despising that forbear-