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

_ .
it PERIAL PARLIAMENT.
no USE OF COIII.IIONS, June 8.
The SPEAKER took the chair at the usual hour.
Sir R. INGLIS presented a petition from certain
electors of the borough of Nottingham, stating that if
any bribery or corrupt practices had taken place, they
were not parties to it, and submitting that, according to
the law of the hind, a new writ ought to be issued.
The Hon. Baronet also inuvol that, the petition
printed with the Votes, and gave notice that he should
to-morrow call the attention of the House to its prayer.
The following is a copy of the petition :
" TO THE II0I^;. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN !PARLIAMENT
ASSEMBLED.
"The Petition of the undersigned Electors of the Town and
Borough of Nottingham.
" Humbly showeth,--That your retitioners have learned
from the printed votes of your Hon. House that, on the sth
day of the month of May, in the present year, a vacancy was
occasioned in the representation of their town and borough, di
consequerce ot Sir George Gerard de Hochepied Larpent, one
of the burgesses elected to represent it in this present Parlia-
ment, has ing accepted the office of one of her Majesty's
stewards ot the Chiltern Hundreds.
" That in consequence of the vacancy thus occasioned, your
petitioners expected that your Hon. house would have forth-
ith directed the Clerk of the Crown to issite a new writ, to
the sheriff of the town and county of the town of Notting-
ham, ordering him to take the usual legal measures for the
election of a burgess to serve in the present Parliament
fir the said borough ; but that up to the present moment,
your Hon. House has abstained from giving any such direc-
tions, to the great disappointment and manifest grievance of
your petitioners.
" hst your yetitionets have been informed, and verily
believe, that the writ for a new election fur the town and
borough of Nottingham—which they claim as a right and
privilege belonging to the said borough, of which they ought
not, and cannot, be legally divested, at the arbitrary wi.l aid
pleasure of any single branch of the Legislature—has been
withheld from them on the mere surmise and allegation of
an individual Member of your Hon. House, thus stated in
your prints d votes That a corrupt compromise has been
entered into in the case of the election petition from Notting-
ham, fur the pu-pose of avoiding investigation into the gross
bribery abetted to have been practised at the election for the
afiresaid town.'
" That, if any such corrupt compromise has been entered
into, your petitioners are ignorant of its nature, and are in no
respect parties to its stipulations ; and they, therefore,
_submit
to your Hon. House, that they ought not to be punished, even
by the temporary suspension of their franchises, for an offence
of which they are not gu by, and in which they disclaim all
participation.
" That, although grievous allegations have been made
against your petitioners sn the score of gross bribery practised
at the last general election, no proof has yet been adduced in
support of such allegations; but that, nevertheless, your peti-
tioners have been c ndemned to the deprivation of the ser•
vices of one of their representatives in Parliament without hav-
ing had an opportunity afforded them to make any defence
against such charges—a course of proceeding which they firmly
but respectfully maintain to be unknown in the history of Par-
liament and in the practice of the Courts of Law, and to be
contrary to the immutable laws of substantial justice.
" That the law of the land regulates the issue of all writs
on vacancies occasioned in your Hon. House by deaths, by un-
just returns, by the acceptance of office, and by other causes
which it is unnecessary to enumerate, and that any new re-
straint upon the issue of such writs cannot be legally imposed
without the assent of all the three branches of the Legislature.
" That, in all the oth r cases in which your Hon. House
has proceeded against boroughs for gross and extensive bribery,
it has never suspended the writ until it has received a report
from one of its own Select Committees, declaring that the
sitting Members had been guilty by themselves or agents of
such bribery, and no Committee has ever yet come to such a
report without hearing counsel and examining witnesses on
both sides in confirmation and refutation of such charges.
" That, in the instence of sour petitioners, all these safe-
guards of justice have been disregarded and set aside, and
your petitioners feeling how deeply they' have been aggrieved
in being eondemned without proof, and in being punished
without conviction, implore your Hon. House to re-consider
the propriety of directing a new writ to issue for the borough of
Nottingham.
" That there are now pending before your Honourable House
several public Bills of the highest interest and importance to
all the subjects of this realm ; and that your petitioners feel it
to be a great grievance that upon all such Bills—to wit, the
Bill imposing the Property-tax, the Bill incorporating the new
Tariff with the Customs Acts, and the Bill fur amending the
Poor-law—they are to be excluded from the right, which they
have hitherto possessed, of declaring their opinions and wishes
through the agency and service of two representatives.
"'That your petitioners humbly submit, that the question
about issuing a new writ for their borough is not so much a
question between your Honourable House and the borough of
Nottingham as between your Honourable House and every
other borough in the United Kingdom, of which the franchise
may be all equally violated, without means of resistance and
defence, if it shall now be adopted as a maxim of law, that in-
quiry is not to precede conviction, and that proof of guilt is
not to precede the infliction of punishment.
"That, your potitioners likewise submit, with all deference and
respect to your Hon. House, that the right of the electors of
Nottingham to their writ is a right which has belonged to them
for some centuries, not derived from the House of Commons,
and therefore not to be taken away by the House of Commons,
except upon proof satisfactory to both Houses of Parliament,
that the electors have offended grievously against the law, and
have, therefore, individually and collectively, forfeited their
title to this privilege, which is and must be exercised under the
law.
" That your petitioners further submit, that the issue of a
new writ to their borough will not interfere at all with the in-
quiry which your Honourable House has ordered to be made
into ' the corrupt compromise alleged to have been entered
ignrtoos,s
btoribertryhe purpose of avoiding investigation into the
alleged to have been practised at the last
election for Nottingham;' and they beg leave further to
remind your Honourable House, that in case that inquiry is
proceeded with, and it should be deemed necessary to et,act
any new ,egislative measures,_ in consequence of any report
from the Committee app inted to conduct such inquiry, it is
only matter of simple justice that those parties who may be
more particularly implicated by such measures should be
present by their two representatives, to protect the rights and
privileges which may be menaced with destruction.
" That your petitioners, for all these reasons, considering
the present suspension of their writ to be a measure, in law
unconstitutional, in precedent unwarranted, and to tendency
subversive of all electoral rights, humbly pray your Honour-
able House to discontinue that suspension, and to facilitate to
your petitioners the means of exercising the right to which
they are by law entitled—the right of returning to your
Honourable House another burgess to serve them in the pre-
sent Parliament.
" And your petitioners, as in duty bound,ahall ever pray, Ste.
"June Ist, 1842,"
Mr. GRIMSDITCH presented a petition from Mac-
clesfield in favour of the Ten Hours' Factory Bill.
Mr. BROTHERTON presented a petition from the
borough of Salford, praying for a restriction of the hours
of labour in factories.

POOR-LAWS.
Sir T. D. ACLANI) presented a petition (we did
not hear from what place) against the Bastardy Clause
in the Poor-law Act ; and praying that the age to which
the putative father is bound to maintain the child may
be extended to nine years.
MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.
Mr. HUME presented a petition from the members of
the London Mechanics' Institution, numerously signed,
praying that all public institutions may be relieved from
the payment of assessed taxes. Also a petition, praying
that the tolls might be taken off the metropolitan bridges.
Also a petition against prosecutions for blasphemy.
Mr. WYNNE ELLIS presented a petition from the
Leicester Mechanics' Institution, praying that it, and
similar institutions might be exempted from the payment
of assessed taxes.--'
Mr. SIiIEL presented petitions from Ashton-under-
Lyne and Clitheroe, complaining of Roman Catholic
grievances.