The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-01 00:00:00

,
mum

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 184%

The election of a Chief Magistrate of the City of
London, at all times an object of natural curiosity and
excitement, may be easily converted into a question of
personal instead of party interest. We lament to find
that Mr. Alderman T. WOOD is destined again, for the
third or fourth time, to experience, in his own per-
son, the unscrupulous eagerness with which political
animosity will enlist into its service the most
unwarrantable assumptions of private prepossessions or
prejudice. On a former occasion we entered so largely
into the exposition of the injustice which we conceived
to have been brought into play against this gentleman's
legitimate pretensions to the highest of civic honours,
that we should feel ourselves guilty of dispa-
raging the force of those pretensions were we to
renew our exposure of the miserable objections
on which they have been hitherto challenged. But, in
the course of his very sensible address of Monday to
the Livery, Mr. Alderman T. WOOD reduced them to a
simple and forcible statement, which adequately demon-
strated all their-absurdity. After noticing the fact of
his own rejection and the election of Mr. Alderman
JOHNSON to be Lord Mayor, he apprised the Livery that
he understood there had been, in the Court of Aldermen,
two objections distinctly taken to him—the one, that he
was not sufficiently wealthy duly to discharge the
important office of Lord Mayor ; the other, that be had
some years ago embarked in a speculation that turned
out a failure. It is impossible not to feel astonishment
at the latter circumstance being relied on for a ground
of disqualification at a time like this, when the
whole City of London is steeped to the very lips
in a full tide of scrip speculation. Mr. Alderman
WOOD'S account of his unfortunate connexion with the
Talacre Company, has always appeared to us so
frank and explicit, that we could never, for our own
parts, comprehend the reasonableness of that scepticism
which made it expedient to refer his ease to the
minute inspection of third parties. But their
examination and report resulted in that which
every unprejudiced and unperverted mind must
—and we are satisfied did—believe to be a clear and
positive acquittal. The moral presumptions in this af-
fa;r corroborate this inference, ton, in a manner singu-
larly illustrated by the fact of the connexion itself. If
that connexion with an unfortunate undertaking was a
mere error in judgment, the mistake may impugn
Mr. Alderman WOOD'S astuteness as a judge
of joint-stock companies ; but the fiercest extra-
vagance of party spirit or personal enmity could
not presume to rely on such an error as a valid or moral '
ground of disqualification for high municipal office. If
the connexion be said to have originated in views of
another character—in purposes of fraud or deception, or
of realising money by dishonest and unworthy means—
the justification of such a charge should be found in
the ill-gotten gains of Mr. Alderman WOOD. But one
out of the two objections started to him as a
candidate for the Mayoralty has been, that he is
too poor. Now, the direct, natural, and reasonable