The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-11-27 00:00:00

MORE REACTION.

From the Wolverhampton Chronicle.
Monday se'nnight being the day fixed by the charter
for choosing a new Warden of Sutton Coldtield, the cor-
poration elected W. E. Hartopp, of Doe Bank, Esq. to
that office for the ensuing year. The annual dinner on
the occasion was attended by the Earl of Aylesford (the
newly elected High Steward), Sir Eardley Wilmot,
Bart. M.P., and several gentlemen of the immediate
neighbourhood. After dinner, on the health of the,
Members for the Northern Division of the county of'
Warwick being drank, Sir Eardley addressed the meet-
ing at some length. The Hon. Baronet observed—
That as his health had been drank as one of the members of
that division of thecounty, he felt himself called upon to make a
few remarks in that capacity, especially as an almost new
question had arisen in the country, on which he had as yet had
no opportunity of expressing his opinion to any portion of his
constituents. He avowed that lie began his political life as a
reformer, and as a reformer he should continue to the end of it ;
but he never could agree to that course which, in his judgment,
was not reform but revolution. He alluded to the recent
attacks that had been made upon the House of Lords, which
all admitted to be an integral part of the British Constitution,
and which being changed to an elective senate, as was pro-
posed to be done, the government of this country would neces-
sarily be neither more nor less than a democracy. It was, in
his opinion, the very circumstance of the House of Lords being
coinposedof irresponsible legislators, which rendered the go-
vernment of this country a mixed form of government and a
limited monarchy. The King could do no wrong, and his mi-
nisters bore all the responsibility of his acts; but the ministers
must ever be dependent on the support which they had in the
House of Commons, which being returned essentially by the
people, rendered the ministers of the crown, to all intents and
purposes, dependent on the people ; for, as the people could
change their representatives as often as an election occurred, so
the Commons could, by their votes, cause the King to choose
advisers enjoying their confidence; hence the House of Lords
stood as the sole barrier between a limited monarchy and au
entire democracy. After such a change as the one proposed,
there might indeed be a King, and there might be a crown, but
the one would be a senseless log, and the other an unmeaning
bauble. This being his view of this important question, the
Hon. Baronet said he was anxious calmly and temperately to
express his opinion on the subject, and he should do so on all
proper occasions, in an open, candid, and fearless manner. He
was attached to the constitution as it existed, and could not help
considering a certain gentleman as a sort of missionary to spread
opinions with regard to one branch of the legislature, which he
(Sir Eardley) yiewed as decidedly revolutionary. By the revo-
lution of 1688 we got rid of a Roman Catholic King, bnt by
that of 1835 we should become subject to a Roman Catholic
despot. It was too much the feeling of some persons, that if an
institution were not perfect, it was therefore to be forthwith and
at once swept away, and a new principle introduced. He ad-
mitted that there were faults in the House of Lords, as there
were also is the House of Commons, but he felt assured that in
the working of the system, the faults and defects of one part of
the political machine would be corrected and neutralized by the
advantages which the other possessed ; and that even the very
faults and defects would, in the result, prove beneficial on the
whole. This being his conviction, founded on facts and princi-
ples, he could never approve of the course pursued by the gen-
tleman alluded to, nor sit upon the same t,ench with him, nor
should he ever consent to the House of Lords being made an
elective senate ; and he should, so long as he continued in par-
liament, consider it his bounden duty to vote against the intro-
duction of any question that should have for its object such au
alteration In the British constitution.

THE ETTR ICK S IiEPHER D.-With deep regret we announce
that our national hard, the Ettrick Shepheid, has for some time
been in a very delicate state.: of health. Fur the last three weeks
he has been constantly confined to bed, and at this moment
his hearth is considered to be still in a very perilous state,—
Glasgow Chronicle.

THE ?:.EW TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETY.
(From the Court Journal.)
We are a long-sighted set of people, and see nothing
that lies immediately before us. It is our pride to dis-
cern shadows afar off; and to overlook substances close to
us. We are more fond of seeing Spanish fleets that are
out of sight than of gazing upon anything visible. We
pay more homage to foreign than to native prodigies—
that is the truth. How fervently did we expatiate, only
last week, upon the genius of the philosopher Gaetano,
who has discovered humanity to be nothing more than an
incipient stone. quarry ! Admiration, however, should
begin at home. It would better become us to celebrate
the transcendant powers of some scores of our own coun-
trymen, who, in certain parts of the country, have not
only adopted a theory far more philosophical than that of
turning a multitude (like the people of the " Arabian
Nights") into stone, but have actually proceeded to carry
their marvellous design into practical effect.
We allude, of course, to the projectors of the new To-
tal Abstinence Society. Our information respecting it
we derive from the public journals:—" On Wednesday a
public meeting of persons favourable to the formation of
a Total Abstinence Society was held in Bishopswear-
mouth. The Sunderland Total Abstinence Society al-
ready numbers fifty members." At length, then, we
have got hold of the grand secret ! Thanks to native
talent, we need not go to Naples to be turned into sta-
tutes, but may travel by easy stages to Bishopswear-
mouth or Sunderland, and be converted into skeletons
upon the most scientific principles. With truly patriotic
delight do we hail the institution of the new Society for
the Diffusion of Starvation. This is the real remedy for
all our evils. Good living has been the bane of life.
There cannot surely be a question, that if a man will
only resolve to leave off eating and drinking, he will
speedily be relieved of all the cares, trials, and sorrows
of this life. We defy the College of Physicians to con-
tradict us. The philosophers of Sunderland and Bishops-
wearmouth have, most fortunately for the world, been the
first to light upon this incontrovertible truth. Common,
vulgar minds have indeed conceived an idea of a thing
called TeMperance ; buj really temperance puts one out
of ternper. Temperance would just limit the human ap-
petite, or rather the indulgence of it, to some six dishes
or so at dinner—with a three hours' desert, and a bottle
of wine per head per hour. This is doing much, we own,
towards checking the career of intoxication and apo-
plexy. A man who professes temperance, unlike the or-
dinary diner-out and drinker, will always have the de-
cency to leave off when he knows that he has had too
much. He is a moralist, and no advocate for shortening
the duration of life ; he is of the Peripatetic school, and
prefers walking home on both sides of the way to remain-
ing under the table insensible. Still his philosophy
stops short at the half-way house; his principle, like
himself, imperatively requires to be "carried out." It
is, in short, a timid and imperfect principle—a false, he-
sitating, slippery, middle doctrine.
Abstinence is the thing—or, rather, to prevent the
least possible equivocation—total abstinence ! Let a
man be ever so "expert in his drinking," let him imbibe
only the "idea of a dew-drop," and the principle is de-
stroyed. Let him indulge his immoral appetite by din-
ing only upon a moth's antennae, or partaking of a grilled
blue-bottle, and he is no longer a philosopher worthy of
residing at Sunderland or Bishopswearmouth. He
ceases to be a worshipper at the shrine of total absti-
nence. Extreme principles alone are suited to the ex-
tremities of our condition. This is not a time—as a
contemporary observed the other day when proposing
that the ninth of November should henceforward occur
in July—this is not a time when customs are to be ob-
served merely because they are old. This say we is no
age for eating and drinking. Antiquated as those vulgar
habits may be, and their antiquity we will not dispute,
why should we retain them when they can be proved to
be superfluous ? The Beaf-eaters are of ancient origin,
but is beef-eating essential to the constitution ? No, nor
is it to the constitution physical. We may yet see the
day when even an alderman may be properly addressed
as the " Worthy Anatomy." The doctrine will spread
among all classes of his Majesty's loyal skeletons. We
may live to see a bare-bones parliament yet.
But all our hopes of this consummation rest upon the
total-abstinence moralists whom we have endeavoured to
hold up to admiration. Let them resolve to live upon
nothing, and they will shortly cease to see the shocking
spectacles of intemperance that now make even the ma-
hogany tables " groan." May the society flourish, and
become attenuated! May we see, as their numbers gra-
dually increase, their ranks becoming thinner and thin-
ner ! We desire not that they should be turned into
statues, after the fashion of Gaetano's philosophy; but
their portraits, by and by, will certainly be very inte-
resting. Meantime an artist might be sent down to
draw—their teeth. As we have already remarked, this
is no age for snperfluities.