The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-16 00:00:00

of the chapter of accidents, a charity dinner or an
electioneering banquet, a marriage feast or a laico-
clerical lunch at a bishop's visitation.. He showed
this facility of his once more to perfection on Mon-
day at Bristol. And all through his speech he was
particularly hard upon the Tories ! In fami-
liar parlance, he was down upon them
over and over again. They were his
chief butt. And as some people have only to wink
to provoke a shout of laughter, Mr. BERKELEY
had only to sound this butt of his, as it were, no
matter how lightly, with his knuckles, to elicit
fresh explosions of merriment. He had a congenial
audience, and this audience ho certainly on Monday
fooled to the top of its bent. Sometimes his jokes
had so peculiarly a local application that the richness
of them is rather lost upon any other pallate but
that of a Bristolian. Now, for instance, in one part,
he unbends a good deal, he takes his audience fami-
larly by the button hole with ono hand, and with
the other, digs it playfully in the region of the
small ribs, cracking his jocular bit of fun the
while thus colloquially and comfortably : " I
will ask you," he says to his brother
Bristolians, "to walk with me to the Dolphin
dinner. (Laughter.) There is no doubt a splen-
did and goodly company. There are assembled
the beautifnl ladies of the city, who have been
desired to attend in full dress—(laughter)--at
least, so we are informed by a supplementary ad-
vertisement from Mr. AIKEN, by which both the
gentlemen and ladies are desired more especially to
attend because Mr. Aiken has got a duke. (Loud
laughter.) Yes, according to this advertisement
there is the promise that his grace the Duke
of BEAUFORT—a most excellent gentleman, I
wish he was here—(hear, hear)—is to attend at the
Dolphin dinner; and, moreover, it says not only
have they a live duke with a coronet on his head,
but there is to be also Sir Frederick Wm. Slade
(Laughter). " Walk up, ladies and gentlemen ;
walk in"—(renewed laughter)—says Mr. Aiken,
"here, gentlemen you shall see what you shall see
—(loud laughter)—a real duke with a coronet on
his brow, and a live lawyer stuffed with straw."
(Roars of laughter.) And so they have gone to the
Dolphin to see it. I hope sincerely they will pass a
pleasant evening. I hope that their funds will be
increased from what they were last year. I hope—
no, I will not hope that Mr. Phippin has sent his
old port there, because that is said to be very
powerful port. (Laughter.) But Ido hope that they
may have excellent wines, excellent viands and a
most pleasant evening." The particular richness
of this evidently high-seasoned joke is rather lost,
somehow, we say, outside the limits of the city and
county of Bristol. As again that smaller joke, that yet
sounds, even to Londoners, in some mysterious way,
very comical nevertheless, when Mr. BERKELEY
still ringing the changes with his sly knuckles upon
his big butt of Toryism, says of the Tories a little
later on—" They have cut everything, I say. Why,
they have even cut old NIBLETT and the White Lion.
(Cheers and laughter.)" Poor old NIBLETT, whoever
he is, and his queer heraldic companion, the white
lion aforesaid ! We can only wonder who they may
both be, with a sympathetic smile upon our fea-
tures, while the Bristolians are recovering their
breath and wiping their eyes to listen to the next
waggery from their senior member. It is rather
an old joke, by the way, talking of the loaves and
fishes, and of wild beasts tasting blood, merely
so as to whet their appetite ; but these exceedingly
stale little chips of fun are swallowed with a relish
by the Bristolians when applied by their senior
Member to their old foes the Tories: We cannot
help wondering, however, even as Liberals, when
Mr. BERKELEY says of the Tories—" They have
tasted the sweets of office lately. It is dangerous
to let wild beasts taste blood—(laughter)—they
always become mischievous, and I have always
observed that Tories get vicious when they have
once had a taste of the Government loaves and
fishes. (Laughter.)"—We can't help wondering,
we say even as Liberals, whether the same
maxim precisely might not, just within limits
of possibility be applicable to our dear old friends

the Whigs ? That is a capital j )ke, however, and
one, by the way, rather wide in its applicability,
that Mr. BERKELEY makes a few minutes after-
wards, in allusion to the invariable and absolute
repudiation of anything like bribery and corrup-
tion by any one accused of either within the walls
of the Imperial Legislature. We must give
it again here in its entirety. It is well
worth repetition. And it is this—" There is a
farce," he says, " I have seen for twenty years in
the House of Commons exceeding all belief. Such
a horrid state of corruption is proved in some borough
—men have been bought wholesale. Mr. So-and-So
is supposed to know something about it. He comes

into the House in a grave and florid manner, he
Looks around him, and he says—that is, he makes a

declaration by which be states that we are mistaken,

What is it, after all ? If any gentlemen are

iere who frequent the theatre they must have seen
>he farce of 'High Life below Stairs,' in whica
here are a couple of rascally servingmen, who as-

sume the titles of their masters, the one being my
Lord Duke,' and the other ' Sir HARRY.' (Laugh-
ter.) My Lord Duke is given to telling lies, or,

speaking more politely, to romancing a good deal.
Sir HARRY each time contradicts him flatly. When-

ever he does so, my Lord Duke draws himself up,
lays his hand on his heart, and says, Upon my
honour;' on which Sir HARRY raises his hand to
his hat, takes it off his head, and says, ' Oh-h-h.'
(Laughter.) Now this is what 1 have seen acted in
the House of Commons over and over again. The
candidate says, ' I come to declare that I have not

-
been guilty; I know nothing of this corruption,
upon my honour.' (Laughter.) Oh-h-h! (Laugh-
ter.) And there the farce ends, and we all know

it to be a farce, because we cannot fancy it to our-
selves that any third person would go and pay
money to elect a man to Parliament for his own

pleasure." Now all this really is admirable fun—

and it is so funny because it is so true ! Yet, beyond
either the fun or the truth of it, is is unquestionably
we must every one of us admit this when the

[angbing is all over and we are beginning to lock

grave again—it is unquestionably also very dread-
ful. It is an evil that imperatively demands
eradication. Here in truth is "something rotten
in the state of Denmark." It demands the surgical
scalpel for its excision. There is but one remedy
we do honestly believe—but one effectual remedy
And that remedy—we might almost call it
an Irish echo of Mr. BERKELEY'S own name—
The Ballot !

or it.

Our advices from Gibraltar, up to the 9th inst.
inclusively, seem to throw a little light at last upon
the firing so often heard there from the Signal
Point in the direction of Tangier. " The Moors,"
we read in the Gibraltar Chronicle of the sth,
" continued to practice by firing from the guns of
the forts at a target, which fully accounts for the
heavy firing heard in that direction for the last two
or three days." It is only, therefore, like
Admiral NAPIER's signal to the Baltic
fleet—" Sharpen your cutlasses!" It, sounds
very warlike—but is not war. It. may end, after
all this firing at the targets, merely in smoke—
with the smoke of the explosions.

Otherwise, however, there come to us from that