The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-27 00:00:00

PORTSOKEN WARD-(THIS DAY.)

The election of an Alderman for the Ward of Port-
soken terminated this afternoon, at four o'clock, in
the return of D. Salomons, Esq. During the whole
of the day the utmost excitement prevailed at the
polling-place, and in Hounsditch and its vicinity.
The enthusiasm of the members of the Jewish persua-
sion at their candidate being considerably at the head
of the the poll was beyond description. As the poll
drew near its close, and when the return of Mr.
Salemons was beyond doubt, the excitement may be
said to have reached its acme—cheering was heard in
all directions, and jokes based on the unsuccessful
candidate's name were bandied about among the crowd,
which consisted of Jews who locate in the courts
and alleys of this populous parish, where they traffic
in old " closh," and other articles too miscellaneous
to describe. The numbers at the close of the poll
were as follows :
Mr. Sheriff Moon
D. Salmons, Esq l6B
Majority —32

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—Mr. O'Connell dislikes our sceptical
treatment of " the fact" that " the rebellion of 1798
was fostered by Government, in order to effect the
union more easily." We are still sceptical as to this
"fact." We never knew any instance in which an
unsuccessful rebellion failed to be ascribed to the
unpopular Government that suppressed it. Let
it be admitted that the Government which pre-
ceded the union was an extremely bad one—
bad, because of its leaning on one Irish faction.
Let this be admitted ; let it be admitted that the
idea of revolution might naturally enough arise at
such a time, under such a Government. We know
from the Memoirs of Wolfe Tone, and more recent
publications, how completely revolutionary were the
views and projects of " Young Ireland" at that epoch.
We cannot, for our part, conceive how the then state
of feeling should have passed off without some
explosion. " They" (the Government), says Mr.
O'Connell, " had fanned discontent into rebellion ;
the men of Wexford nearly turned rebellion into
a revolution." Now the fact that, at that time, the
stirring part of the Irish people was ripe for revolu-
tion—and that the Government knew it was—seems
to destroy the inference that they either "planned" or
"fostered" rebellion. Insidious power may "plan"
or " foster" pocket-rebellions, when it knows it can
have a cheap bargain of them. The charge, however,
is much more easily made than proved of any adminis-
tration. Our argument was that the British Govern-
inept had far too much on its hands at that
epoch, to have desired an Irish rebellion. Mr. O'Con-
nell has unconsciously strengthened that argument
by his observation that " the men of Wexford
nearly turned rebellion into a revolution." Our
construction of the acts of the then British Go-
vernment is at least more consistent with probability
and with itself. Mr. O'Connell regards it as
proof positive of their having, if not "planned,"
"fostered" rebellion—that, for some time previous,
they had secret information of its intended chiefs.
But in a country so extensively disaffected as was
Ireland at that epoch, the plain policy of govern-
ment was to endeavour to detach and disarm the
intended forces of insurrection, before they were
ripe for outbreaking. The proclamations as bleb
they issued prove that this was the object they had
in view; and the success which attended those
proclamations was, in fact, what precipitated the re-
bellion. That it was not more general, that it was
not better timed with regard to auxiliaries—in
short, that it was not successful, was the effect of
the previous steps of Government. But we look
upon it as the wildest romance to ascribe to their
fostering the whole fact of rebellion—for the sake
of the inference that the British Government consi-
dered a rebellion a pre-requisite pretext for a union.
It seems, however, that our friends the repealers
cannot afford to lose the topic. They prize it, as the
revolutionists of 1688 did the fabulous warming-pan,
and supposititious birth of the heir they had made up
their minds not to acknowledge—or as the war party
with Spain, under sir Robert Walpole, fanaticized
themselves with what Burke has called "the fable of
Jenkins's ears." Or as the French Republican writers
have stuck to the story of the disaster of Quiberon, as
having been expressly contrived by the British Go-
vernment (at vast cost of treasure and reputation), for
the purpose of throwing all the best naval officers whom
France had to boast, in a hopeless attack—" at the
mercy of their own countrymen." Our worthy
neighbours might have recollected, while concocting
this odiously false and absurd imputation against
English honour, that it lay with themselves not to
have shot their Royalist officers, by thousands, in
cold blood. The mad violence of one nation, at some
epoch of epidemic frenzy, is not to be saddled with
this facility on another, at the will of orators or his-
torians. Let bygones be bygones—we are as far
from the Irish rebellion as from the Quiberon expe-
dition. No party—no moderate party—at present
needs identify itself with the principles or passions
which then convulsed Europe.
STANDARD.—The clamour with which Mr.
Alderman Gibbs has been assailed, and the gross and
ungenerous artifices by which it has been sustained,
would lead to the inference that there is something
more than meets the eye in the relentlessness of his
persecutors. In the resume of the features of the
dispute between the Alderman and the parishioners,
the motives of the resistance offered by
him to the demands of Messrs. Rock,
Hewett, and Co., are clearly and, we think,
satisfactorily set forth. He had been appointed to
office by a select vestry, to whom alone he was re-
sponsible, and who alone possessed the power to re-
lieve him from that responsibility. The reasons
assigned for his refusal to submit his accounts to the
inspection of Messrs. Rock and his associates are-
1. That they were demanded of him as a right, and
under the pretext that the requisitionists were the
representatives of the legal vestry. 2. That had he
admitted the assumed right, he would virtually have
repudiated an authority to which he was amenable,
in favour of one which had :no power to
release him from his official responsibility. 3. That
the demand conveyed an imputation on the se-
lect vestry, no less than on himself, and that had he
complied with it, he might have appeared to have ad-
mitted that which had, he well knew, no foundation
in fact. Indeed, after the 6th of December, the day
on which his accounts were audited, and reported to
be satisfactory by the select vestry, all imputations on
the subject were, in reality, in every respect as ap-
plicable to them as it was to himself ; and any further
concession than that of publishing his accounts
and the result of their investigation of them, could
not fairly have been expected of him. To other
and minor points alleged in his justification, it is
hardly necessary to allude. The first inquiry which
presents itself for consideration is, whether, if the foul
insinuations, of which Mr. Alderman Gibbs has been
the okect, in regard to these accounts turn out to be
wholly unfounded, there is any other charge behind
which can or ought to affect his eligibility for the
office to which he aspires ? It is, we believe, admitted
on all hands that there is none. Other imputations
did, to be sure, grow out of the principal allegation,
but they have been fully and satisfactorily disproved.
The question, therefore, whether Mr. Alderman
Gibbs has misappropriated the parish funds entrusted
to him, and whether the four gentlemen who compose
the select vestry by whom his accounts have been
audited, have or have not conspired with him in the
alleged fraud, is the only one which remains to be
disposed of. Proof or the shadow of an attempt at
proof in support of such a charge, there is none ;
and even the presumption is founded on the re-
fusal of the Alderman to submit his ac-
counts to parties who, beside demanding their in-
vestigation in a tone which implied a doubt of
his honour, had really no legal authority for
their interference. Not satisfied with the decision of
the select vestry, the matter in dispute has been re-
ferred to Chancery, and is now under investiga-
tion by one of the masters of that Court ; yet
pending the decision of this functionary—in the
absence of all proof of improper conduct, nay, in
despite of the testimony of the only parties
to whom he is really responsible, that the result
of the examination of his accounts was al-
together satisfactory—that, instead of his owing
the parish money, he is in advance to it upwards of
1,5001., it is coolly suggested that his election
to the mayoralty be postponed. " Without im-
puting dishonesty to Mr. Alderman Gibbs," says
the Globe, " in the application of the pariah
funds, we confidently submit that sound po-
licy requires that his election to the mayoralty
should be postponed for the present year ;" the
ground for this suggestion being avowedly the
possible contingency that the report of the Master
in Chancery may be unfavourable to him ! So the
Alderman is to be subjected to rejection (a rejection
which, under all the circumstances would convey
a stigma on his character, stamped with the autho-
rity of his fellow-citizens) by the livery, because
he is the defendant in a Chancery suit, which
can hardly be decided in time to afford him
the means of exculpating himself from the insinua-
tions which have been cast upon him ! This is
surely not the treatment which one Englishman
has a right to look for from another. Were the
honour of the Alderman really dependent upon the
report of the Master in Chaucery, such a sugges-
tion would be wholly unwarranted. But what is
he was personally responsible, have
the fact? Why, that the whole of the payments
for which
been declared by the Master to be correct, and
were paid by his subordinates
that the only items which remain for investiga-
tion are such as
in office and entered in their accounts. If, therefore,
we are correctly informed, the verdict of the select
vestry will be confirmed, and the Alderman relieved
from all suspicion of misconduct ; although not, it
may be, until the insinuations of the Times and Globe
shall have produced the desired effect, and the elee-