The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-13 00:00:00

PRICE 4D• STAMPED, SD•

the sagacity of Lord John Russell, and possessing,
if you compare him with others of his order, consi-
derable sympathy with the rights of the people—
(hear, hear)—l say I cannot but believe that he
would at least stand out of the way, and be no
obstacle to the adoption of the ballot in any
bill which may receive the sanction of Parlia-
ment. (Cheers.) Then there io another section
of the house, of which I may, perhaps,
be accepted in some degree as the repre-
sentative on this occasion—(cheers)—men who are
not tied uP by aristocratic associations,or aristocratic
predjudices, or aristocratic honest fears—are there
many such—(laughter) ?—men who, having lived
all their lives among the people, find out that they
are not nearlysuch horrible creatures as those persons
suppose who live in an atmosphere so elevated that
they seldom see and never touch the people. (Cheers.)
There is such a section as that, and I have a con-
fident belief that one of the results of a general
election will be to render that section more nume-
rous in the 'coming Parliament, more united, and
more earnest. (Cheers.) The election which is
coming is one of vast importance. The constituencies
are the court of appeal,—a court, I may say, not
very fairly selected for us, but such a court as we
have for the adjudication of this great question.
What the constituencies should endeavour to do is
to return real men—(hear, hear)—not men who
know so little of these questions that they dare say
nothing, and that if they get into the House of
Commons they will be content with doing nothing
—(laughter)—but men who have decided opinions.
Let us have, wherever you can, real contests in all
the constituencies where there is doubt. (Cheers.)
" Contests and not compromises" should be the
order of the day. (Cheers.) Wh4t. you really
want is, that the House of Commons should be a
more distinct house, and if you had it so you would
find your leading statesmen in the house would be
more " pronounced." They would find their opi-
nions somewhere. They would say something for
the question against it. The two parties would be
in array against each other, and that to which the
country gave its confidence and its voice would in
the end carry the day in Parliament. (Cheers.)
We hear on all sides that Parliament is a chaos ;
that parties are broken up ; that leaders are not
leaders, and that followers won't follow ; that for
many years past we have had no Government
whatever ; that you have had parties of place-
holders and Cabinet Ministers, but no real Govern-
ment. Since the Government of Sir R. Peel all
have been feeble Governments, as everybody knows.
They have carried on a precarious and tottering
existence, and after a duration of one, two, or
three years, they have come to an unpitied
and some of them to an ignominious ter-
mination. (Cheers.) Now, how happens this ?
During the whole of this time opinion in this coun-
try has been advancing, growing, gathering
strength. manifesting itself in a thousand directions,
but you have seen very little of this in the House of
Commons. The House of Commons is no fair mani
festation or representation of the great Liberal
opinion that has grown up within the last few
years in every portion of the United Kingdom.
There is little more power in Parliament than there
was many years ago. The parties were just as
evenly balanced. A Tory Government at this
moment is defeated by a majority under 40 ; a few
years ago, I think it was at the end of 1852, it was
defeated by a majority under 20. Does any man
in his senses believe for a moment that this is a fair
representation of the difference which exists be-
tween the Tory and the Liberal party throughout
the United Kingdom ? We all know perfectly well
that the Liberals count at least four to one of the
population of the United Kingdom, and excluding
as many as you like on the ground of ignorance or
intemperance, or as knowing nothing of politics, or
on any other ground, still I say the House of Com-
mons as it now divides is no fair or adequate repre-
sentation of the division which exists in the coun-
try between the minority of the Tories and the vast
majority of the Liberals. (Loud cheers.) This is
the reason that you have no steady, stable, execu-
tive Government. Parties in the house are so
balanced that any little accident throws a majority
from one side to the other ; any little mistake that
a Government makes jeopardises it. Then you
have a resignation, a dissolution, a new Parliament,
a new Government, and precisely the same state of
things a's near as possible ; and then people tell us
that our Parliamentary system, after all, is not so
good as we thought it was—that it is "on its
trial," and that it looks very much like coming to
a failure. (Hear, hear.) But give us a really fair
representation—(loud cheers)—put the House of
Commons in accord with the country ; give to all
your populations, your vast wealth, your vast in-
dustry,
.your growing intelligence, your gathering
power, in all your great seats of industry—give
these the power in the House of Commons that
fairly belongs to them, and then I will engage that
you will have a Government that can keep its
place, and that can do some good things for the
country (Cheers.) Mr. Bright proceeded to say
that the coistituencies of the kingdom ought now
so far as they were free, intelligent, and virtuous, to
speak out their opinions in language which could
not be mistaken on this great and vital question.
Especially he urged on the constituency of South
Lancashire, in view of the approaching contest for
that division, not to reverse the verdict they had
given over and over again. (Cheers.) Mr. Bright
continued : We have no proposal from Mr. Egerton
or his friends, or from Lord Derby's Government,
to increase the power in the House of Commons of
this county (Lancashire) in any degree in propor-
tion to the vast increaseof population and of taxable
property which we have amongst us. We are
everything in the country—people to work, people
to pay, to provide exports, to pay for imports, and
to contribute to the £70,000,000 of our taxes—all
this is boasted of continually ; but we are always
told something or other, which is unexplained or
unexplainable, requires us to be content with half
our representation, and that the members for the
boroughs and nomination counties should
have the imposition of taxes upon us and the ex-
penditure of the revenue. (Cheers.) I do not believe
that the small boroughs are half so anxious to pre-
vent their disfranchisement as it is pretended.
(Hear, hear.) I have the best reason to believe
that, in a great number of them, the Liberal party
is quite willing that the small boroughs should be
disfranchised. An election with 200 or 300 electors
is a scene of oppression, bullying, cajolery, corrup-
tion, buying and selling, of a manful struggle for
freedom, often unsuccessful, and followed by partial
or general degradation. (Cheers.) The question
now is, have the constituencies sufficient self-re-
spect, sufficient belief in their own intelligence,
virtue, and power, and can they trust their coun-
trymen sufficiently to elect a government which
shall wisely govern this nation, or will they be
contented for ever that their government shall be
in the hands of a class who have profited for gene-
rations past by the constant increase of taxes and
revenue, enue, and whose family interests, as I solemnly
believe, are in many cases opposed to the true in-
terests of the nation ? After some concluding
observations Mr. Bright resumed his scat amid
great cheering.
The meeting shortly afterwards terminated.

MELANCHOLY SUICIDE OF DR. R. M.
&LOVER WITH CHLOROFORM.

Much painful sensation has been created in
medical circles during the past few days, owing to
its becoming known that Dr. Robert Mortimer
Glover, late Physician to the Royal Free Hos-
pital, and a talented member of the profession, in
which he was highly respected and esteemed, had
committed self-destruction under very peculiar and
determined circumstances. It appears that the
deceased gentleman, who resided a short distance
out of town, had for some time past, and since his
retirement from the Royal Free Hospital, betrayed
marked symptoms of mental derangement, both by
his habits and his peculiarity of manner. On the
day of his melancholy end a professional acquaint-
ance was paying him a visit, when as they sat con-
versing, the friend observed the unfortunate doctor
getting gradually into a semi-excited and half.stupid
state, which, as he kept leaving the room for. a few
minutes at a time during the course of their con-
versation, he took to be the result of drink,
i but at
length the hapless gentleman, upon returnng to
the apartment for the last time, sat down on the sofa,
and immediately became insensible. His friend at
once gave the alarm, andrendered what professional
aid he could, but the doctor ceased to breathe in the
course of a few minutes. From a suosequent
examination it turned out that the deceased had
destroyed his life by
gradually drinking a large
quantity of chloroform, which he kept in the house
for experimental purposes. The deceased had
made chloroform a particular study, and besides
being a skilful physician, he wrote several able
medical and scientific treatises. He became a
Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of
.
Edinburgh andtook his degree as Physician
in the same city in 1840. Re was also a Fellow of
the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, and other learned
societies. An inquest is to be held on the unfortu-
' nate gentleman.