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

'IR/T of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

PROS THE EVENING PAPERS Or YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The Herald has opened its columns to
am apology for Alderman Gibbs. If we do not griev-
enrsly mistake, the statement, which is headed
s' from a Correspondent," is from the pen of the
worthy functionary himself. The circumstance
of the Alderman being likely to have his suc-
cession to the Mayoralty postponed, un-
til the prejudices, which his conduct as
Mtfecltiwarden of St. Stephen's, Walbrook has accu-
mulated around him are removed, has called forth this
wordy and involved composition. In a recent ar-
Celia in our columns on the anomalous position in
.which Mr. Alderman Churchwarden Gibbs has
placed himself (and to which the statement in the
Herald professes to reply), we suggested the neces-
sity which circumstances seems to impose both on
the Livery and the Court of Aldermen, to hesitate
ere they take a step by which the dignity of the
office of Chief Magistrate may be compromised, or
its efficiency impaired. Without imputing dis-
honesty to Mr. Alderman Churchwarden Gibbs in
the application of the parish funds, we confidently
submitted that sound policy requires that his election
to the Mayoralty be postponed for the present year.
While the proceedings to which the parish has been
driven to obtain from him a verified account are pen-
dente lite, it would be premature and censurable to anti-
cipate the result. But we adhere to the position
which in our former article we assumed—it remains
unshaken by anything adduced by the Herald's
" Correspondent," or in the Herald's remarks upon
the case. Where a public officer, being in the
receipt and having the control and application
of public funds, allows his accounts to remain
unsalted for a period of nearly twenty years, and,
whoa required to produce his accounts by the pa-
rish whose trustee he is, with the vouchers by which
their integrity may be ascertained, refuses to do so—
meets reiterated applications with quibblings—im-
pugna the legal competency of the parishioners to ask
for such accounts—and interposes every obstacle in his
power to prevent them from obtaining such satisfac-
tion—we say, such a man makes out a prima fade
case
.against himself. He has himself to blame for
any inconvenience he sustains—for any injury to fame
or feeling which be incurs. We do, therefore, in
sober earnestness, ask whether such a functionary,
having placed himself in such a position, can, with
any reasonable hope of having his claim allowed, look
t o his fellow-citizens to place him in the highest
pc* of the Corporation; and confer upon him the
inours, and invest him with the functions of Chief
Migisarate of their city ? To comply with his request
would be to adopt the responsibility of a possible
result to the investigation by the Court of Chancery
of his suspiciously-withheld accounts. If the award
be against their validity, his administration of the
• !nest he held would be impugned, and his integrity
seriously damaged, if not irretrievably ruined. Nor
oald this be the extent of the evil. The high
office Of Mayor of the Metropolitan City would
lilt. exposed to no small portion of the odium and
disgraee, Can the postponement for one year of
Mr. Alderman Gibbs' election to the office to
which, it seems, he still aspires, in the influences
such a postponement would exercise upon his
p *Won, be comparable to the mischiefs which
wea' inevitably be inflicted on the Corporation, should
the chair of its Chief Magistrate be filled by an indi-
vidual whose claims to public respect and confidence
are of a doubtful kind ? The reputation and influence
of the Corporation would be lowered in the estimation
of the city and the nation ; the administration of j us-
wee would be deprived of respect ; and the office be
&ridded of efficiency. After the controversy that has
been raised—after the painful interest that has been
excited by the extraordinary conduct of the Lord
Mayor expectant, and the appeals which have been
made to the Livery and Court of Aldermen to
piss Mr. Alderman Gibbs by for the present
year, and choose the Alderman next in succession—
they raise him to the Mayoralty ; and the result of
the suit in Chancery, to which the parishioners have
been driven by his inveterately obstinate and indefen-
sible conduct, unhappily terminate in an adverse
decision against that officer—on those who have re-
fused to listen to the suggestions of what is due to
the office and to the public, for whose interests it
exists, will the odium rest. If Mr. Alderman Gibbs
can induce the Livery to return, and the Court of
Aldermen to select, him for the Mayoralty on Sa-
turday next, he cannot be blamed. The blame will
rest on those who have so low an opinion of what
are essential requisites in the Chief Magistrate
of London, as to place in that office an individual who
his managed to render himself conspicuous by conduct
that has gratuitously involved his administration of a
pehlic trust in suspicion, and subjected him to general
reproach. Are really wonder that some shrewd fellow,
charged before Mr. Alderman Gibbs with embezzling
moneys belonging to his employers, has not set up a
hod of argumentum ad hominem defence. He might,
with at least some show of propriety, question the
right of his prosecutors to claim an investigation of
his accounts, or to demand the books and vouchers by
which they might be elucidated. The legality of their
partnership might be questioned—the form of the
deed, if any were in existence, might be impugned; or
tire absence of a deed might be adduced, to show that
ne partnership existed ; and that the parties claiming
the moneys the prisoner WAS charged with illegally
d• taining, had really no claim to either the right of the
accounts, or the moneys. We do not say that the case
we have imagined is, pari passu, that of Mr. Alderman
Gibbs. But should such a defence be set up in a case
of disputed accounts in which malversation was charged
against a party on the ground that no proper account-
current
had bees rendered, it is likely that the persons
in court would be remindeed of Alderman Gibbs, and
some of his reasons for refusing to produce and verify
his accounts, when called upon to do so by the pa-
rishioners of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. The Times
of this morning, in an article on the subject which
,is worthy of the serious consideration of the Li-
very and Aldermen, remarks—" The characters of
the chief men of a city, such as London, ought to be
Whrtily of the high reputation of the body over whom
they preside. The character of men in office is
the test of the soundness of the system which puts
them there." There is much which requires reform
in the existing constitution of the Corporation of
Landon. Recent circumstances have not tended to
enhance its claim to respect or confidence. We
should be glad to see a determined effort made to
rei-e ' its character, and retrieve its reputation.
The proceedings of Saturday next will have a
beneficied or injurious tendency. The effect of the
choice that will be then made—or should there be a
contest, which we do not anticipate, the result of the
poll, and the selection by the Aldermen—will either
evince a criminal indifference to the qualities which
are requisite to render the Mayoralty really respect-
able and efficient ; or it will be seen that those who
aspire to that office must not only be men of in-
tegrity and worth, but men who are held to be such
by the universal consent of all who have had dealings
with them.
TANDARD.—The occasion for reviving the
profitless discussion of whether or not we have ob-
tained the degree of reparation from the French
for the unauthorised conduct of a subordinate officer at
Otaheite--conduct which was reproved and punished
long before the Governments of either country
could have had an opportunity of expressing any
opinion on the subject—is one which ought to have
produced a very different result. We allude to the
Jubilee," as it is called, of the London Missionary
Society, celebrated yesterday (its 50th anniversary,)
at Exeter Hall. We are far from insensible to the
praiseworthy efforts which have been made
by this Institution during its long and useful
career; but over-much zeal is often as prejudicial to
A good cause as its very reverse ; and some of the
speeches at a resent meeting of this society were of
a character but little reconcileable with the pre-
samil sentiments of a body whose professed object
is to preach " peace and good will," and not to
minister to the evil passions of those who
till within its influence. Meetings destined
to afford an excuse for mere manifestos of
oehaion, can be productive of no possible ad-
"ntsge, and when such expositions of sentiment
have reference, as is often the case, to secular, and
more !specially political topics, they are likely to be
mischievous to an extent which' can hardly have been
contemplated by their authors. The speeches deli-
vered at a late meeting of the London Missionary
Society on the subject of Mr. Pritchard's treatment
by the French authorities at Otaheite (whilst his
government was earnestly occupied in securing for
-him whatever reparation was his due), for example,
was calculated to increase embarrassment without the
slightest chance of benefit to the object of its sym-
pathy—not to mention a violence of manner as well
as of language, on the part of one or two of the
makers, which was clearly inconsistent with the
principles for which their authors claim credit, and on
the faith of which the society to which they belong
has hitherto been so warmly supported. The senti-
ments evolved at yesterday's meeting were more
moderate ; but why convert an occasion destined to
celebrate the, good service which the society has
rendered, during a period of half a century, to Chris-
Sanity, into an excuse for a political manifestation
cc a sabject which has already given occasion
for the greatest irritation ; and which, but for the
rnoeleratien and good sense of the respective Go-
vernments of England and France, might have even-
tuated in a war which would effectually have arrested
the eff4is of the society in many of the most promis-
ing arias of their labours ? We have already seen
that a fair and reasonable reparation has been exacted
for the treatment of Mr. Pritchard—a reparation which,
whilst it cannot fail of having proved satisfactory
to his feelings, repays him for any pecuniary
injury he may have sustained. What need was
there, " we' ask, after such an arrangement for a
long resolution expressive of the " fixed determina-
tion of the society that Otaheite shall be free."
the London Missionary Society propose to