The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-25 00:00:00

ettitilillj

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1844.

The approaching election of an Alderman of the
Corporation of London to the distinguished and respon-
sible post of Lord Mayor of this great city, appears
to demand from us a few words of incidental commen-
tary. The importance of the position—the moral
influence which the annual contest for its occupation
may be considered to exercise on the character and
conduct of those who are already, or may, in after life,
become eligible for it ;—the distinction which its te-
nure, short-lived though it be, must be considered as
conferring on the private demeanour and public in-
tegrity of its holder,;—these are trite topics that
readily suggest themselves to every mind, and re-
quire no sort of elaboration at our hands. But in
proportion as they are trite, and thus readily sug-
gested, it is expedient that their application should not
be perverted by prejudice, or passion, or secret
ill-will, or avowed hostility, to the wrong
of any individual presenting himself to the
notice of his fellow-citizens as a candidate
for the office. There is no circumstance more
remarkable about the pending canvass, if we
may venture thus to designate it, for the Mayoralty,
than the feeling of distrust, or the presumption of
disqualification, which it is actively attempted to ex-
cite against Mr. Alderman THOMAS WOOD—the
senior Alderman—and therefore entitled, by the cus-
tom, at least, of the Corporation, to be elected into the
civic chair. We crave the reader's attention
to a report which we have given in another
column, of certain proceedings at a recent meeting,
held at the Swan with Two Necks, of the friends of
Mr. Alderman WOOD, assembled for the purpose of
supporting his appeal on the present occasion. They
seem very satisfactory.
It will be remembered that, some years ago, the
connexion which Mr. Alderman T. WOOD had had the
misfortune to form with a certain Joint-Stock
Company, became a subject not only of legal pro-
ceedings in the Law Courts, but of angry and con-
flicting comment in the columns of some of our
Contemporaries. It really appears to us that the
animadversions which have, in this way, been heaped
upon the Alderman's head are absolutely undeserved,
judging of their amount and extent from the state..
ments put forward by those who oppose his election
and impeach his eligibility. If we are right in this
impression, it is our duty to endeavour to instil it into
the minds of others : for, so long as the perversion of
facts, and the prejudice thereby generated, which we
have spoken of, are permitted to prevail—unrefuted
because unexamined—so long is an individual of some
mark and considerable ability ousted of the legi-
timate aim of an honourable ambition ; so long,
indeed, are his character, his prospects, and his sta-
tion in society seriously compromised. Let us see
what the sum of
.the charges against Mr. Aldermrai
THOMAS WOOD really is.
It is imputed to him, first, that he and the other
Directors of the Talacre Iron Company appropriated
to their own use a large number of shares, as fully
paid up, without advancing the money for the calls
thereon :—Mr Alderman WOOD'S answer is both
emphatic and circumstantial, and confirmed by the
report of those whom the General Meeting of Share-
holders had delegated to inquire into the whole
affairs of the Company. He denies that he ever
sanctioned —he proves that he expressly op-
posed—such appropriation, on the ground of its in-
justice to the General Proprietory ; that although the
other Directors accepted such shares, he refused to
take them, even after they had been by those Directors
expressly received for him in his absence from town ;
(facts that appear on their "Minutes.") He shows that
he afterwards persuaded several of those Dire(:toxs to
relinquish their thus appropriated shares, and that
he himself held but twenty shares, on which he duly
paid all the calls. Secondly, It is urged that he held
various offices in this Company, such as director
trustee, and chairman. He replies, that he was
not the originator of the Company; such appointments
as he held were pressed on him by the Prop'tietors ;
and such duties as he discharged were performed by
him without fee or reward ; that, far from 'caking or
making anything, from or by, the Company, he is a
loser of several thousands of pounds by the specula-
tion ; that these offices, so held by him, were not in-
consistent the one with the other, and are commonly
held by one and the same person in a Company of this
nature. Thirdly, In the next place, he has been ac-
cused of deceiving the public by sending coals to Dublin,
represented as of very superior quality, and the produce
of the Talacre mine, but really obtained from
some other pit. His answer is, that the Company
took its name of " Talacre" from the appellation of
Sir EDWARD MOSTYN'S seat, Sir EDWARD being
the party from whom they rented their coal-fields ;
that they had three coal-pits, respectively known
the " Picton," the "Bryn," and the " Marsn." 'te
coals sent to Dublin were produced in, and xaised
from the "Bryn," where they are of very superior
quality, and such coals, therefore, we, in act and
truth, as represented—" Coals from the Talacre
Works," &c. The last of these principal charges
is—that on the purchase-money having to
be paid to the lessors :of the mines, Mr.
Alderman WOOD refused to join with his co-
Directors in signing bills of exchange, with the view
of thus evading personal liability, and of transferring
such liability on the shoulders of his colleagues. But
he shows that he had already assumed the like
liability, by the execution of a deed of covenant for
payment of this very debt ;—that "artich.ls" into
which he had entered with his partner precluded him,
(under a condition very common in partnership
deeds), from signing bills of exchange; but that his
not concurring in such a step with the other Direc-
tors was so far from working to him any such ex-
emption from the same liability, that he has actually
been sued in the matter.

Again we say, to us this seems a most reasonable
and s4tisfactory defence to the charges. That the

Alderman should have been mixed up with any
Joint-Stock Company is to be regretted ; but the fact
infers an error of judgment, only, common (as was
observed at the meeting of his friends) to some three-
fourths of his Alderrnanic brethren. That he should
have been a severe sufferer by his connexion with a
bad Company is an argument to show that he acted
with no kind of fraudulent intentions as to others.
His private and his professional character
are allowed by his opponents, as well as his friends,
to be unimpeachable. Then, on what grounds should
he be deprived of the benefit of a precedent which ,
would make his seniority on the list of Aldern.:ien
eligible to be elected to the Mayoralty, a guarantee
for his election on this occasion? If there be, thus, no
ground of objection to him on the score of professional
conduct or private character, is there any on the
score of unfitness or incompetency for the office he
seeks ? So far from it, he has already filled the office
of chairman of many important committees in
the Corporation, and is most eminent in his
own immediate vocation. Are we to suppose that
he has compromised his conventional title to be
elected, by not having come forward at an earlier
period of these charges to give the same satisfactory
answers to them which he has now brought under the
public eye, or to make still more ample disclosures of
all facts involved in the history of his connexion
with the Talacre Company ? Why, it is notorious
that any man, who might volunteer a detailed state-
ment of all the circumstances attending a transaction
of this kind, might thereby—however blameless or
_ _ _ _

even commendable, they should establish his con-
duct to have been, to ruin, by thus exposing himself
to an endless succession of legal, though most
unfair liabilities, which legal subtlety and
the constructions of technical ingenuity would