The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-09 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

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At a meeting of the Metropolitan Parliamentary
Reform Association, held on Friday, June 3, at the
offices of the Society, John-street, Adelphi, Mr.
Place in the chair, the Secretary drew attention to
the flattering prospects and progress of the Society.
Numerous letters had been received from various parts
of the country, explaining the views and expectations
of Reformers of all denominations. Amongst others
one had been received from a large landed proprietor
in Devon, J. D. Bassett, Esq., for the long space of
fifty years, one of the Magistrates of that county, and
a well-known Reformer—that gentleman expressing
his gratification at the establishment of the Associa-
tion, sending a donation of 201., and engaging to aid
the cause in his neighbourhood. A letter from France
was also read, it having been addressed to Mr. War-
burton, as Chairman of the Association. It referred,
in relation to the suffrage movement in England,
to the system of voting in the French Electoral Col-
leges, explaining and lauding that system as prevent-
ing bribery and intimidation. The Secretary fur-
ther reported that the number of members daily in-
creased, numerous active Reformers in various lo-
calities having joined, and also that the Liberal Pro-
vincial as well as the London Press had materially
assisted the Society, by spreading a knowledge of its
objects and proceedings to all parts of the kingdom.
The following Address to the Electors of Notting-
ham, upon the subject of the recent bribery and corn.
promise, and upon the approaching election, was
agreed to :
THE METROPOLITAN PARLIAMENTARY
REFORM ASSOCIATION.
TO THE INHABITANTS or NOTTINGHAM.

More than sixty years your town was one of the
chief places in which that good man and father of
Parliamentary Reform, Major Cartwright, numbered
many of his most zealous co-operators. In your
town the "Twenty-four Worthies" signed their cele-
brated declaration, condemning Pitt's unholy war
against human freedom. And from those periods up
to the passing of the Reform Bill, Nottingham has
stood forward the champion of Universal Suffrage,
which has served as the rallying cry for Lord Ran-
cliff in utterly routing the Tories again and again.
Since the passing of the Reform Bill there has been
no agitation for any great principle to counteract
the subtle election practices of the aristocracy, and
corruption has consequently crept on, little by little, till
Nottingham is at length on the point of being ranked
as one of the most venal boroughs.
You have now an opportunity of wiping off this
stain of corruption, of regaining your lost high cha-
racter, and at the same time of setting an example to
the rest of the kingdom.
Can you hesitate in choosing between purity of
election and degrading corruption ? Can you
go on selling yourselves to the base traffickers in
Parliamentary seats ? Will you now, when an agi •
tation for Radical principles is begun again, and the
country is everywhere rising to demand a thorough
reform of the House of Commons—will you abandon
the cause you have so long cherished, and brand your-
selves with indelible disgrace ? No. It is only a
comparatively small number of the present electors
whose criminal love of gold will induce them to turn
traitors to their town and their country. They must
be known. Can no entreaties of their townsmen and
neighbours rouse them from their hateful seduction ?
Are there no appeals to honest feelings—no repre-
sentations of the vileness of vote-selling that will in-
fluence them ? Honest inhabitants of Nottingham,
try all kindly and persuasive means to bring your
corrupted electors back to the path of honesty, and
if they fail, let them know that bribery will hence-
forth be exposed and punished, and that you will
make out a recreant list, and publish it to the scorn
of the whole kingdom.
The late Tory candidate has declared his intention
again to contest the approaching election, and af-
firms that the enormous sums of money spent by him
in his two previous contests at Nottingham, have been
most innocently devoted to legal expenses. You
know, and lie knows, that his only chance of success
is in his purse. lie is a man of business, and will
not venture his money carelessly. Depend upon it,
therefore, that his agents calculate upon purchasing
the votes of so many miserable dupes of corruption,
as they and he think will secure his return.
We need not call upon you to bestir yourselves, for
that you are doing, very many of you with a vigour
worthy of an honest cause, and the pure and elevated
character of the man who has boldly espoused that
cause. Joseph Sturge stands forth the consistent ad-
vocate of freedom, religious, social, and political.
After acting as a leader in freeing the black slaves of
the colonies, he turns now in commiseration of the
white slaves at home, and puts himself at the
head of the movement for their political emancipation,
utterly regardless of the prejudices which the bribery
classes have too successfully inculcated to deter the
peaceful and philanthropic from mixing in political
affairs.

We await the result of the contest, confident that
you will not relax in your efforts, nor leave any fair
means untried of securing a victory for purity of
election over the utterly detestable bribery system.
By order of the Business Committee,
FRANCIS PLACE, Chairman.
J. ROBERTS BLACK, Sec.
0, John-street, Adelphi, June 3, 1842.

THE CONFLAGRATION AT HAM-
BURGH AND THE JEWS.

Amid all the melancholy reflections connected with
this awful visitation, we could not help feeling an addi-
tional pang at the too ready facility with which our
Contemporaries of the English Press lent currency to
the false report that " the fire originated in the house of
a Jew," adding, that " he was in custody, with fair
reason for believing him an incendiary." We are now
told, that this was, in all its essentials, a fabrication,
arising, probably, from the illiberal prejudice entertained
towards our people in some continental cities. Not only
private correspondence, but the proclamation of the
Hamburgh Senate, gives the lie to the charge—a pro-
clamation, moreover, not necessary for the protection of
the Jews, but of Englishmen, to whom so practical an
illustration of the character of a popular prejudice might
have suggested more caution in spreading a rumour.
We do not find that the same papers have observed
upon the extraordinary exertions made by Jews in aid
of the sufferings, though their own columns record
that Saloman Heine, a Hamburgh Jew, was the first to
have his house blown up for the protection of others ;
and that, besides munificent gifts to the sufferers, he and
others are refusing first-rate paper, and negotiating
only the bills of the humbler merchants, sufferers by the
fire. These Journalists also overlook the extraordinary
proportion (considering our mumber and means) of Jew-
ish aid and contributions for the sufferers, recorded in
London,* Manchester,f Liverpool, t &c., not to speak of
foreign cities, as evidenced in the constitution of com-
mittees, in the proceedings of public meetings, and in
the subscription lists ;—and all this for general objects,
notwithstanding the heavy losses sustained by Hamburgh
Jews, and the circumstance that two synagogues and a
minor place of worship fell a prey to the flames. We
remarked, in No. X' VI., upon those who only seemed
disposed to parade " the Jew" when the object was to
pick a hole m his coat ;—it is, at least, consolatory to
know, that however they may ba inclined to overlook the
real traits of Jewish character, they cannot deprive us of
the satisfaction of exercising them.

INSTITUTION FOR THE —RELIEF OF THE INDIGENT
BLIND OF THE JEWISH PERSUASION.—Two additional
pensioners have been added to the list relieved by this
Society.—The Voice of Jacob.
The first subscribers on the list, after the Steam Naviga-
tion Company, were the Rothschilds, and there are four Jews
on the London Committee.

1- Here. nearly half the Committee are Jews.
The Warden of the synagogue seconded the first resolu-
tion, moved by the Rector of Liverpool, at the meeting to pro-
mote subscriptions.