The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-09 00:00:00

NEWCASTLE-UNDER:LYNE.

.•
The Committee met this morning, Sir J. Y Buller in the
Chair. Three witnesses were examined in support of the alle-
gations of bribery and treating. One of the three witnesses
was Mrs. Benison, who kept the Roebuok Inn at Newcastle
during the election, but had since removed. Her evidence
went to show that liquor was supplied to voters in her
house during the election. The last witness called
was an old man named Samuel Hedge, who stated that
on the day of the polling he was forced into the Roe-
buck by a party of persons, and kept there, in a first
floor room, till seven o clock in the morning. He was kept
there against his will. Some brandy and water was ordered
for him while there, but he was very cautious as to what he
drank. He at last got away, when they did not see him.
Witness was a burgess of the borough.
The Committee adjourned at Four o'Clock.

QUEEN'S BENCH.-(THIS DAY.)
CRIMINAL INFORMATIOM.-THE QUEIEN V. A. A. WATTS.

In this case a rule nisi had been obtained by the Attorney-
General, calling upon defendant, the proprietor of the United
Service Gazette, to show cause why a criminal information
should not be filed against him for the publication, in his jour-
nal, of a scandalous libel, reflecting in a most disgtsting man-
ner on the character of Captain Morris, of Ddvonport. The
rule came on for argument this day, and
Mr. THESIGYA, on the part of the defendant, retracted all
the imputations made on plaintiff's character, expressed de-
fendant's sorrow for having made them, tendered the amplest
apology, and consented to pay all the costs, if plaintiff v. ould
consent to the rule being discharged.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL, on the part of the plaintiff, said
his only object had been to vindicate his character from the
slanderous imputations attempted to be cast on it, and that
having been accomplished, he would consent to the course sug-
gested by his Learned Friend.

TAXATION OF COSTS.
Lord DENMAN, in the course of the morning, stated that it
was the opinion of the Court that, in the taxation of costs, the
Master ought to have more power; that the Master should
consider what was reasonable, and not confine himself to al-
lowing one consultation, if he should be of opinion that more
were necessary ; that with regard to models, the greatest
vigilance and care should be exercised in the allowance for
them, but still that the discretion of the Master ought not be
limited.
A NORFOLK CONSTA BLE.—THE QUEEN V UTTING.
The defendant in this case, JohnUtting, who it appeared
was Overseer, Surveyor of the Highways, and Constable of the
village of Acle, in Norfolk, had been convicted, at the last No-
rwich Assizes, of having conspired with one Anna Bunn, to
falsely accuse one Daniel Durrant of rape, of which crime the said
Daniel Durrant had, in consequence of such conspiracy, been
convicted at the previous Assizes. Utting was this day brought
up to receive the judgment of the Court.
From Lord Chief Justice Tindal's notes of the evidence
taken at the trial, it appeared clearly, that Durrant was inno-
cent of the crime laid to his charge, and that he had been con-
victed in consequence of the conspiracy between the defendant
and Anna Bonn. The only motive for defendant's conduct
seemed to be the desire to extort money from Durrant.
The defendant addressed the Court in mitigation of punish-
ment, and stated that he was innocent of the crime of conspi-
racy, and that throughout hehad acted solely under the direc-
tion of the committing Magistrates.
Mr. B. ANuxEws and Mr. Br LEO having addressed the
Court in aggravation, •
Mr. Justice PATTEXON proceeded to pass the judgment on the
defendant. The Court was entirely satisfied with the verdict of
the Jury. It was impossible to come to any other conclusion than
that the defendant was guilty. The offence was one of a most
serious description. The defendint had conspired to chrage a
'man with an offence for which death might have been the punish-
ment, at the time the charge was made, and, as it was, the man
had suffered most severely, having been only recently released
from the hulks, having been pardoned by her Majesty. The
defendant's conviction—and the only motive on defendant's
part seemed to be, a determination to get some small sum of
money from the man Durrant. The sentence of the Court
was, that the defendant, John Utting, be imprisoned in her
Majesty's gaol of Norwich for twelve calendar months.
The defendant was then removed in custody.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—When Pitt, in 1783, submitted his
scheme of Parliamentary Reform to the country, he
suggested a mode of dealing with delinquent bo-
roughs which seems to merit the consideration of
Parliament and the public under present circum-
stances. We have nothing to do with the sincerity,
or insincerity of Pitt. When he made his
proposal he might, or he might not, have
been desirous of amending the deformities which
had grown to an unsightly bulk on the re-
presentive body. But we have to do with the
evil which deforms our present electoral system ; and
which, if not arrested in its course, will assuredly eat
into the very vitals of the electoral body, and make it
one unmitigated mass of loathsome rottenness. It
requires a firm nerve to operate upon an excrescence
so gigantic—to employ the necessary process for ex-
tirpating so virulent a disease. No tampering, no
patching-up kind of treatment, will do in an emer-
gency so imminent. The mere skinning-over sort
of policy—timidly plastering over the peccant parts,
to hide the frightful ravages of the moral and political
leprosy from the public gaze, and thus endeavour to
conceal the spreading of the malady which threatens
to vitiate and corrupt the entire mass will not do in
the present case. The probe must be applied with a
determination to reach the root of the disease. The
public eye will be fixed with an intensity of gaze
upon the process, which will evince the deep
interest that is felt in the result of the operation.
Will the House of Commons agree to Mr. Roebuck's
motion for a Committee to inquire into the "compro-
mises," which have prevented a disclosure before
Committees of the wholesale bribery alleged in the
numerous petitions against returns of Members to that
House ? We think it will. Will that Committee de-
termine to bring to light the hidden works of darkness
—will it compel a disclosure of the agencies by which
the compromise was brought about—the inducements
to the " arrangements "—the terms—the securities for
the due fulfilment of the treaty in each of the cases? If it
do so, it will deserve well of the country; for Parliament
cannot delay the remedy, when the disease is shown
to be so virulent in its nature, and so extensive in its
range. If the Committee hesitate—if it shrink from
pursuing the inquiry, and shelter itself behind forms,
and entrench itself within precedents, in order to
avoid responsibility—then will the consequences of so
deep a disappointment to the public hopes rest upon
its head. Each member of such Committee, who con-
sents to cover the delinquency of candidate, agent, or
constituency, will be justly regarded by his country
as an approver of the system he endeavours to perpe-
tuate, by concealing its operations.
STANDARD.—We do not remember many poli-
tical incidentsthat have excited the same degree of in-
terest created by Mr. Roebuck's motion. They who
are sincerely desirous of the stability of all estab-
lished institutions regard the event as one which, if
properly employed, may go far in securing the present
constitution of the country ; while the enemies of
order trust to the unwillingness of Parliament to let
in light upon its own construction as supplying
pretext and a means for further innovation. They
are fond of recollecting that the attempt to
save East Retford cost, as they think, sche-
dule A and schedule B, and they hope for the Bal-
lot and Universal Suffrage as the result of a refusal
of inquiry upon the present occasion. For our own
part, we will not disguise our wish that Mr. Roe-
buck's motion for inquiry may be successful, and
that inquiry may be prosecutad to the fullest extent.
There are difficulties, no doubt, in the way, but, hap-
pily, these are difficulties which may be overcome
without the slightest sacrifice of any principle deserving
of the least respect. The proposal deals with nothing
but those arrangements of convenience, which, for
want of a better name, we commonly call " conven-
tionalities." Now, conventionalities are very well
when they do not obstruct the path of justice, or
fence immoralities ; but when they do, " conventionali-
ties" ought to give way. It is a monstrous thing,
say some, that a Member of Parliament should be
questioned as to his mode of getting into the House
of Commons, or as to his motives for retir-
ing in favour of another gentleman. Question-
less, such interrogatories place some gentlemen in a
very awkward position, as Sir John Cam Hobhouse
can tell ; and if the House of Commons were merely
a club, possessing no influence upon any beyond the
persons composing it, there might be something in
the objection to this disagreeable inquiry, though even
in that case, if any means injurious to public morals
were resorted to in order to obtain admission, an
upright and resolute Magistrate would make it
the subject of investigation, despite the wounds
that he must necessarily inflict upon the rules of
courtesy. But the House of Commons is intended
to be something more than an agreeable club : it
is intended to influence the destiny of millions of
human beings, and of a mighty empire ; and
other considerations, auxiliary to the care for public
morals, require that its constituent members be
elected by fair and incorrupt means. That the
great majority of the House are gentlemen re-
turned without a shade of bribery, every candid
man will admit. The county Members, without
exception, are so returned ; and-we may say the same
pretty generally of the rural boroughs, some of which
we could instance that have returned gentlemen against
the will of the elected ; but these almost involun-
tary legislators are generally
.ultra-Tories, though
it has happened at the late election that some of them
have, with a full knowledge of their character, been
returned by constituencies of what are called Liberal
principles—a tribute to private worthof
honourable
which itis
hard to say whether the tribute is most
to the giver or to the receiver. One has a pleasure
in contemplating such noble proofs of the natural dis-
postion of Englishmen, and it is not foreign to the
matter in hand ; for we may be well assured that if
bribery could be effectually got rid of, cases like these
would be much more common, if not universal.
COURlER.—Although deprecating the bitter and
virulent tone of Mr. Roebuck's interrogatories, and
the necessarily partial character of the proceed-
ings he instituted on Friday night for the pur-
pose of inquiring into and dragging to light the
debasing and corrupt processes whereby various Hon.

Members have obtained the privilege of sitting
and voting In the House a Commons, we cannot re-
fuse to the Member for Bath the paced of our appro-
bation on the grounds of stern impartiality, and good
intentions. That the "political Napoleon' who took
Nottingham by storm at the last general election, the
purity-lovingex-Presiden of the Board of Control, Sir
John Cam Hobhouse, owes •no deep obligations of gra-
titude to Mr. Roebuck, and will offer up no very fervent
aspirations for the success of his motion this evening
we can well imagine ; nay, that very sagacious and con-
sistent specimen of Whig-Radicalism will exert all his
little power to defeat the motion and baffle the proposed
inquiry we can easily believe, deeply impressed as we
are with the conviction that the agencies by which
the election (election, indeed !) of himself and his
convenient umbra was carried, exceeded in glaring
and unblushing profligacy those brought into play in
any other city or borough in the United Kingdom.
Sudbury, he well knows, was bad enough ; Ipswich
was tolerably deep in the mire of corruption ;
neither Southampton nor Lewes had much reason
to boast of the purity and independence of their
respective constituencies ; but Nottingham far
transcended them all in the infamy and shame-
lessness of its election proceedings. In most of
the other places, the successful candidates contented
themselves with one species of foul agency ; bribery-,
quiet, silent, business-like bribery alone, obtained in
other towns ; but in Nottingham, bribery the most
gross—drunkenness the most disgusting—were aided,
supported, and accompanied by the most ferocious
demonstrations of violence, intimidation, and club-
law. And hence it is that we have our misgivings as
to the cordiality of the reception Sir John Cam Hob-
house will give to Mr. Roebuck's motion for a Com-
mittee of inquiry

TATTERSALL'S.-THIS EVENING.
Six O'CLOCK.

7 to 2 agst Attila
3 to 1 agst Frederica
9 to 1 agst Canadian
13 to 1 agst Auckland
15 to 1 agst Lord of Holderness
20 to 1 agst Jack—taken
27 to 1 agst Balllnkeele
27 to 1 agst Chatham
33 to 1 agst Meteor—taken

1.
-(THIS D AY.)

last market .day. 32.
g. d.
Walls End Hetton 20 9
Walls End Lambton
Walls End Morrison IS 11
Walls End Pemberton l4 6
Walls End Russell's Hetton 20 6
Walls End Stcwart's
Walls End Hartlepool
Walls End Heugh Hall 29 6
Tennant's Hartlepool l9
Walls Ei.d Bowburn
Walls Endßrown's Deanery 19 0
Walls End Coundon lB 3
Walls En 1 Clarence Hetton 16 9
Walls End Richardson'sToeslB 0
Wal s Et. d Tees
Blythe l4 3
Cowpen
Hartley lB 6
Llangennech Coal! 23 0