The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 0, 1.68.

conclusion, to the evident amusement awakened
by his previous reference to the chance
or prospect even of what might happen there in the
Guildhall a twelvemonth afterwards. "I observed,"
he said, " a laugh, when I alluded to the possibility—
and I will treat it as a probability—of my return-
ing thanks for this toast this time next year"
Laughter, again, and—cheering ! " I may have taken,"
he added, " Although a fair view of the state of
the country, perhaps a sanguine one of the state of
the Ministry ; but 1 must say that I have confidence
that the people, in the exercise of their franchise,
will arrive at a just and fair conclusion ; and, under
these circumstances, I hope, whatever may be my
conviction, that no one will question my right to en-
tertain it." He immediately afterwards went on to
remark upon the " rampant prophecies" with which,
he said, during these last six months we have been
favoured. Under all these adverse prophecies—ram-
pant prophecies, as he has just called them—it is
thus that he consoles himself. "I have never," he says,
myself been of opinion, and certainly neither myself
nor my colleagues have thought we could at all have
arrived at a solution of this great problem by an-
nouncing beforehand our opinion of what would
occur. I have never found," he even goes on to say,
" boastfulness and bragadoccio to avail under these
circumstances. Our opponents, indeed, have settled
everything. They have exhausted all the arts of
unanimous audacity ; but, my Lord Mayor, I
I think I have read somewhere that it is
the custom of undisAplined hosts, on the
eve of
_battle, to anticipate and celebrate their
triumph by horrid sounds and hideous yells—by the
noise of cymbals, the beating of terrible drums, and
the shrieks and screams of barbaric horns. But
when the struggle comes, and the fight takes place, it
is sometimes found that the victory is not to them,
but to those who are calm and collected—the victory
is to those who have arms of precision—to the breech-
loader, the rocket brigade, and the Armstrong Artil-
lery." Taunted with having no policy, he declared, for
himself and his colleagues, that "their policy is to
maintain the Constitution of their country." As a
crowning touch of good humour upoa the very eve
of the whole country being given up to the turmoil
of the General Election immediately afterwards, the
First Lord of the Treasury, when closing his remarks
by proposing the Lord Mayor's health, addressed him-
self thus to that functionary with inimitable gravity,
in droll allusion to his Liberal candidature for the me-
tropolitan borough of Lambeth—" You have shown,"
he said, " my Lord Mayor, in your conduct of the
business of the evening, how competent you are for
the great office which you fill; and I am sure you
will give me creditfor heartfelt sincerity, when I assure
you that it is my earnest wish that :;during the next
year you will be able to devote to the great Corpora-
tion of which you are the head your undivided
attention." No wonder those words —gravely, almost
feelingly delivered—were greeted at their close with a
roar of laughter. Certainly Mr. DISRAELI puts the
gayest face upon it, and with do affectation what-
ever of good temper—a good temper, so perfect of its
kind, that even from his foes, at the very moment,
tco, when he is about to close with them in deadly
conflict, he wins evidences of admiration !

By this day week the elections in most of
the English boroughs will have been decided. As
the great day draws near the struggle becomes more
exciting, the interesting incidents more numerous.
Constituencies which have long been uncontested are
undergoing the ordeal of a conflict. Constitu-
encies in which the representation has been for
many years in the hands of one party, or
divided equally between two parties, are
rebelling against time-honoured arrangements, and
the new electors are asserting their claim to choose
whom they will. There is East Cornwall, for
instance, which for sixteen years has returned a
Liberal and a Conservative. Here the leaders of
parties, influenced by family reasons, had de-
termined to continue the truce, but have
found the people too strong for them. The
Liberal chiefs have been compelled to bring out
a second man, and he has met with such support that
the Conservative M.P. has been compelled to retire,
and the county will now be cast entirely for the
Liberal party. There is Brighton, where Professor
FAWCETT is fighting against a host of candidates, and
still more against the shopkeepers, who are up in
arms against the advocate of co-operation. There is
the City of London, where enlightened Conservatism
of the first constituency in the kingdom condescends
to complain of the German-sounding names of two
of the Liberal candidates—a GOSCHEN and a
RoTHSCHILD. There is Athlone, where six
candidates, all calling themselves Liberals, are
contesting for the honour of representing the consti-
tuency which Mr. REARDEN, the Piccadilly auc-
tioneer, has rendered famous. There is Blackburn,
where intimidation and violence have attained
to a pitch that is truly Irish, although the
philosophers of the Fortnightly Review have taken
especial pains to instruct the electors in their duties.
There is Woodstock, where Mr. Bnounic K, the Liberal
son of a Conservative peer, is doing battle with the
Blenheim interest, while all Oxford looks on. There
is Oxford itself, where there is a battle less upon
political than personal issues, and where the chair-
man of the Liberal candidate is a High Tory
marquis, who believes that Sir ROUNDELL PALMER,
in having at an immense sacrifice voted against
his party, is more likely to prove true to the
Church than the party which shouts for Church and
Queen, as it once shouted against the " degradation "
of the franchise. There is North Devon, where Sir
STAFFORD NORTHCOTE finds himself in an unplea-
sant predicament because he will not repeat with
regard to the Irish Church the blunder which he
made respecting household suffrage—the blunder of
pledging himself that under no circumstances will
he consent to a measure which he may
hereafter have to support. There is \viscount
AMDERLEY, the heir of the statesmen RUSSELLS, who
is fighting against Toryism in a constituency which
has returned no Liberal since the first Reform Bill, and
that man his father, and he rejected on seeking re-elec-
tion. There is Northampton, where Mr. BRADLAUGH,
the infidel, thinks that he is doing the Liberal
party good service by coming forward as a Liberal to
oppose the Liberal interest. There is Plymouth,
where the founder of the Merchant Company is
trying to pass upon the constituencies addition sums
that will not " prove." There is South-west Lan-
cashire, where the Liberal leader is fighting a gallant
and uncertain fight against the combined influences
of immense territorial possessions and a purse of
unlimited length. There are all the three-cornered
constituencies about to undergo an experiment that
Mr. BRIGHT declares is obnoxious to them.

But, after all, these contests will not compare for
eccentricity with one now going on in the extreme
North of England. In the northernmost of all the
towns, one that always has a special reference to
itself in all proclamations—Berwick-on-Tweed to wit
—there are at the present time four candidates.
Three of them have been candidates before, and
all three have been unseated for bribery.
The fourth has not yet undergone the process,
because he has not previously been engaged in this
kind of business. The three bribers are Viscount
Beni, who has been unseated for Norwich, and Mr.
STAPLETON and Mr. IloDGsoN, who have both been
unseated for the constituency which theyseek to repre-
sent. It must be confessed that these gentlemen have
plenty of assurance—a plain-spoken person would
call it impudence. But to Mr. lloDosoN must
be assigned the palm in this respect. True,
Mr. STAPLETON has been put upon his trial
as a director of the Royal British Bank, and
has been convicted; but the judge so clearly intimated
that the conviction was unjustifiable, that we have
nothing more to say to Mr. STAPLETON on that

account. He is no worse than the other bribers.
But Mr. HODGSON is the chairman of the North
British Railway Company, the company whose affairs
were a few months ago the scandal of the day. Mr
HODGSON " cooked " the accounts, and j ustified the cook-
ing,but was not the less compelled by the shareholders
to resign. Yet he has the amazing brazen-facedness
to offer himself to a constituency, many of whose
members must be now suffering from his misdoings.
Berwick has long had an evil reputation ; it has long
been notorious as one of the most corrupt boroughs,
which has escaped disfranchisement only on the same
prineiple that some bad men are allowed to live till
fourscore, and to die in their beds, while others
are cut off suddenly in the midst of their sins. We
do not know if the two Liberal members, Viscount
BunY and Mr. STAPLETON, are prepared to renew
the practices which have been proved against them
before; if they do, it may be well for them to remember
that the penalty under the new Act is severe, and it
may be as well for the borough to remember that an
election inquiry will be held on the spot by a judge,
and that proved bribery is certain to be followed by
disfranchisement. But we could hardly imagine
that even Berwick would re-elect Mr. HODGSON, were
it not that Sunderland several times re-elected Mr.
GEORGE HUDSON.

LATEST INTELL MENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, Nov. 10.

An Imperial decree has been issued adjourning
the assembling of the delegations until the 16th
instant.

SERVIA.

BELGRADE, Nov. 9 (Evening.)

Sentence was passed to-day on the rest of the
prisoners accused of complicity in the murder of
Prince Michael. Maistrovich, in accordance with
the demand of the public prosecutor, was con-
demned to death ; three others to five years' impri-
sonment and three were acquitted.

ROUMANIA.

BUCHAREST, Nov. 8.

It is stated that the Government intends enter-
ing into negotiations with foreign Powers in re-
ference to a proposed increase of certain of the
import duties :
The Perseveranza proves the necessity of in-
creased armaments on account of the present un-
satisfaAory relations existing between Roumania
and Hungary, and publishes an appeal sum-
moning the nation to arms. The frequently re-
peated rumours about Russian influences pre-
dominating in Roumania are declared to be
derived entirely from Russian sources. It
has, however, been state) that French emissaries
are expected in the Danubian districts of Turkey
as well as here.

The Perseveranza refutes and denounces as ut-
terly untrue the assertion of some of the opposition
journals, charging the Government with having
illegally disposed of several millions of mortgage
bonds.

THE MURDER OF THE REV. MR. BAKER.

The schooner Gem, which arrived at Sydney on
the 2nd of September, conveyed the intelligence that
H.M.S. Challenger had proceeded to the island of Rewa
(Fijian group), and armed boats were despatched up the
river for the purpose of punishing the hostile tribes that
had been implicated in the murder of the Rev. Mr. Baker
and others connected with the mission. The launch and first
and second cutters were armed, and placed under the com-
mand of Captain Browning, with orders from Commodore
Lambert to shell the villages. This was done, and it
is supposed that several of the natives were killed, the
casualties on the side of the British being one marine
wounded, and also Mr. Creelman, a settler. The Challenger
left Rewa for the New Hebrides, orders being given by
the commodore that her Majesty's ship Charybdis, on
arrival from Sydney, should cruise about the group. It is
presumed the resident British Consul will direct her move-
ments;