The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-10 00:00:00

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kindness—" Sir," said she "I cannot think of tweets -
ing it, as there arc so many who have famitiesto
pert,
rt and who arc as poor as I am, let it beitie-11.toz • N 514 As
one of them ; I have is, (;d. a- week to subsist-di);
the promise of a f.iitliful God to trust to—(Loud
cheers)—[ have always been able to earn my daily
bread, and while I can do that my conscience will not
allow
o t ot take
Noblewchraeta
creature
l many
w need."—(Continued
seicid
as they are called, by a stretch of courtesy, would
imitate her magnaniiiiity.—(Clieers.) Nay, with all
noblemen,
d
tilue
cheering.)
their broad lands and their well-filled coffers—they,
with their hundreds per week, aN e, per day—they,
with all their sources of wealth and emolument, ever
flowing over them in a golden stream, do not disdain
to take the very shilling that she refused. While
there are such things as that in the country, it is for
the League to be up and doing, to keep ever before
the public mind the principle alive, by which
such a plague can be stayed—it is for them
also to teach the unscrupulous class their duties.
I said that they do not disdain to take
the shilling ; so they have no sympathy
with that poor, but noble-minded woman,
and certainly they have no sympathy with her, when
she said that she would try to earn her own living,
and tt ttst in Providence. That is net the course that
their confidence takes. They are like the old Scotch
woman who, when the water at the Quee..'s
Ferry was somewhat rough, was told by the
boatman to trust in Providence, said " Nae I will
not trust in Providence sae lang as there is *hi ig at
Stirling."—(Laughter.) They will not trust Provi-
dence so long as an Act of Parliament can be had.
That is their bridge at Stirling, hut I think it will
go very hard but Peel's Corn Bill will he little
better than a bridge to carry them over to the shores
of free-trade.—(Cheers.) Sach cases as these
show the propriety of the appeals made by
the League to the women of Great Britain.
We have been told that the League ought not to
drag their countrywomen through the dirty ways of
party politics. I should like to know who made the
ways of politics dirty ?—(Laughter and cheers.) The
League never did that—they never perverted legisla-
tive power to sordid purposes—they need not be afraid
or ashamed to call for woman's sympathy and woman's
help, assured that she will honour herself much more
by contributing towards the destruction of the causes
of misery than by merely adding a little to charities
here and there, which pull a leaf or a twig
of the poisoned tree, but leave it still to stand
amidst its baneful influence, spreading desola-
tion around the soil in which it is placed.
The spirit of the League has been found fault with,
but it is difficult to please those people. I have some-
times had the honour of a personal notice—in fact,
there is one journal that has stereotyped the report
of what I say here, for is it always the same one
sentence, namely, that I entered into my usual
tirade against the aristocracy of the country. Now,
I wish just to say a word upon this subject. I do
not profess to be a very enthusiastic admirer of the
aristocracy.—(Laughter and cheers.) For the
legally constituted aristocracy of my country I have
all that love, and all that reverence, which the laws
of my country require ; and is it my duty to have
more ? But I have never come here to express my
opinion on the aristocracy or Suffrage question, or
other great questions which are put into temporary
abeyance by the Anti-Corn-law agitation—but an
abeyance from which I trust they will:some day arise.
For we are looking with expectation that is not the
less valuable to us, as we see clearly that this question
must be disposed of first, and the sooner it is dis-
posed of the better.—(Hear, hear.) But all that I
have ever said here about the aristocracy, has been
said of certain members of the aristocracy, not in
their capacity of aristocrats, but in their capacity of
tradesmen.—(Hear, hear.) In that character they
Lre, I apprehend, most legitimate subjects of ani-
madversion here.—(Hear.) A man is not to have
any special exemption because he keeps a chandler's
shop and cheats his customers, though he should be
a member of the aristocracy. This is what I com-
plain of. They keep a great chandlers'-shop; store
everything most needful to the people in it, and
then pervert their powers of legislation to make
the community pay the more.—(Hear.) There was a
time when trading was thought inconsistent with the
position such men occupied. The feudal barons did
not mind robbing with a strong hand, but would turn
away contemptuously from tricking with short
weights and protecting duties. So far back as the
days of Elizabeth, the intellect of the country had
marked out for derision the trading propensity of the
feudal aristocracy, and in Beaumont and Fletcher's
play of the Beggar's Bush, a' dispute between a cer-
tain military gentleman, proud of his aristocratic posi-
tion, and a couple of merchants is portrayed. The
aristocrat tells them that of this he is certain, that
" once you buy and sell your gentility is gone ;" and
upon which the merchant retorts—" no, no, 'tis but a
poor argument—don't you, the lord of the soil, buy
and sell the grass, the corn, the straw, the milk,
the cheese ;" and then the other merchant exclaims
" and the butter—remember the butter—don't leave
out the butter "—(Long continued cheering)
and from that day to this it has been borne in mind
that the butter should not be left out.—(Cheers.)
The only itnprovement on the practice of those days
is smearing all butter with the filthiness of tar, which
is not of our own production.—(Hear, hear.) Now,
when the Nobles became tradesmen—when Dukes
became dealers in various commodities—when the
tit betterll
nea eitttoehrrbeyap of
peoplectet
picture
hr
ae et
oiNtfoPl t
tahra
ikns
:t a
countryl
myselfagn
lane—it
e—ae siE t
are siuselirhevuiegonsfiflaoßitnri
Richmond,
cyyhe
dint o
teooatnlentdraym,k,
but
with with his coronet on his head, and a corn sample in his
pocket—with a salmon in his right hand and a whisky
bottle in his left, and enthroned upon a firkin
of butter—(Loud laughter and cheers)—and then I
study his figure as I would Quarle's Emblems, for his
coronet is ornamented by legislative powers, and these
are used to enact protective duties. 'the coronet is the
symbol of high rents and high prices for grain. The
coronet, thrown into the scale with salmon, makes
the fish-eater pay more. The coronet fills the bot-
tom of the whisky-bottle ; and, last of all, the coronet
pokes a hole into the firkin of butter, in order to pour
in the pitch and tar.—(Laughter and great cheering.)
Why is this abasement of all dignity of station, and
of all majesty of legislative power? We cannot over
look the character of the tradesman—we cannot for-
get one character in the other. 'We must consider
the whole, and not isolated parts, and behold the
peers of Parliament the compeers of pedlars—the con-
servatives of the Constitution the conservatives of
canary seed—the lords of the land and the lords
of the lard—the Knights of the Garter and the
knights of the grease-pot.—(lmmense laughter.)
It is well that there are men of different sorts of
temperament in that body—that there are those who
(slightly altering the burden of Robert Burns's fine
song) can say to themselves, and a few noble cony.
panionions—

itnr alleu 1
tl
ht
a,O f
" A Lord's a man for a' that."
Those are the men who, conscious that society has
done much for them, are desirous in their turn of
doing something for society—who have a sense of
the responsibility of their station, combined with a
sense of the responsibility of legislators—who are not
ennobled by their title, but who ennoble their title—
who redeem the name of the class with which they
are associated, and to whom the rest must be indebted
that the name of " hereditary nobility" does not be-
come a foul stench in the nostrils of humanity.—
(Loud and continued cheering.) But I must re-
turn to the point whence I started. There will
he a cessation for a time of these meetings-
-they will be suspended, but the exertions of some
whom you have so often heard here will be con-
tinued—these exertions will not be suspended, but
from night to night, as the opportunity will arrve
they will endeavour to impress on the Members of
the Legislature the principles which they declare in
this meeting; their words will go forth by means of
the press throughout the whole length and breadth
of the land, teaching millions of the people of this
last, struck by its reellad.
country, and millions of the people oafnodthee:roesesuthe
tries, their rights. These lessons will be
tofand information, Will be
that great object, shame
determinedpthroughoutiiwideeityA,t la n
ittni
earnestness,he
and,ethec on
pursuitt
sim-
plicity,
the spirit of party, and
of all its grace and ornament,deprive monopoly
until at last,
in deference to public Opinion, they must give
up those odious and ill-gotten, gains, and abandon
this ill- advised measure.—
meetingswill be suspended, b( ut the exertions of some
individuals, and of
others in co-operation with them,
will not be sus d d
pen e ,—as the season advances they
will toil at the good
work, passing with the rapidity
of steam from one part of the country to another—
taking
advantae of that 1•
g oomy spirit of dissatisfac-
tion—that 4,
restlessness of inquiry, and that openness to
conviction which is becoming more and more preva-
lent among the body of the tenant-farmers ; they will
argue with those who will hear reason ; they will
warn those who appear infatuated ; they will show
that they have only the good of all classes at heart,
and they will continue their labours untiringly, and
may success attend them.—(Loud cheers.) These
meetings will be suspended, but its prominent
Members will not abandon the rights which Brig
industry has a right to claim. Specimens of British
industry, British skill, and enterprise and genius wig
be presented here for contemplation as specimens of
what our people can do ; demanding attention from
those who can admire art and ingenuity, and pletsd-
ing with mute but eloquent arguments for the resto-
ration of industry to its rights, that those who are
capable of so much skill and exertion may not pus
without recompense, and that they may be let atone
and suffered to compete with freedom with
the inhabitants of other nations. These meet-
ings will be suspended, but the course
of events will still proceed, , the alternatives
of cheapness and dearness—of prosperity and ca-
lamity—the course of events which has already placed

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