The Statesman.
London, England, 1818-04-08 00:00:00

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• [FR" Till .44,4111WC*10 •
While the century wpodpoihista jttplC "Pk Abe
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iitnpe that the ce"spireciee essittettbe Stets/4 :
41iit had beard se math, tseti fee, Peerf,6
- et evioriti.;., sod while over Ihrgus'ley 'frigthnite
of his iriejsistea Minieteru. ti•pt ; a Paaia.wW.lhat,
con sty ori plot, is which two. 'Missend compliment,
are engaged, has irk made in Leeds 1 It stage,'
sc that use hundred Petitions, signed by twenty pee-,
wins eiteb, praying for Balflov,„ilswrip presented to the
„Amps" of Commons, tit din t glowing of thisnuantig#
from the town of Leeds entleir,payfonnd was tip,
:„ ureentoy with which them Petitions were got up, *thati
the Printer of the Leeds logelligencer, whose mil*
.. city is almost eqesl to his Moderation, " has no•
t
.lees able to leirn that aey one person, except t
alleged Petitioners themselves, knew them Petition"
.pare in progresi in the time, or he'd 'baud o( them;
until they were preseeted to the Home." The e
spirit% mind Implied in the obtelein, of diem tee
..tboesand signatures, withootthe knessiittlse of tadt4
~)bet the alleged Petitioners, is nenopocod es .00e
, .
the most alarming faets that bas occurred la the Whobi
progress of the existing disillectioo—wad the per-
sons engaged in the plot, are deoospeed as " a band
of cleseconspiriog villain:." To add to the horrors of
ibis discovery, the Printer of the lntelligencer has
heard, but be does not know how truly, that dele-
gates have lately been sent from. Huddersfield to
London, for
‘the peeps* of reeewing the machine.
tioni of last year ; and, in conclusion, it is iodinated,
that it is necessary again to suspend the. Habeas Cor-
ps, Act, to present the congregating of ;neither
" concourse of these ecouxdrelt in the Metropolis."
The Courier, .who is a fellow-labosrer its the soca-
"ion of alarm-creating, has copied part of the Intel-
ligence's news; bet the terms villeins end ocean,
drels were too gross even for , the columns of that
• jPeper, and the Editor has very properly omitted
.i. suchoutrageous epithets.
We believe that .there are very few persons epon
tr :whom this political ions is calculateskt? im.pose Wit
lt may, notwithstanding, be necessary, in or4er to
oioyin the tremulous nerves of tbOse who are prime to
be slopkwid by
.pkiatems, to Say, that so far front
soy secrecy printejling ou the subject of the Petitionev
a letter trout Major Cartwright, redommending peel.'
totting by twenties, was inserted in thisiPepeithefere'
the Petitions were-set on foot—that many of the dims-
_ twee were obtained upon a table, placed-for eaccesp,
11114 market.dayi near the Market Cross OW4I
about two hundred yardi of the Leeds IntelligenarA
fl, fice)--and that, ad far frees kttowledge of tip
Petitions being confined to two thousand persons
tglihoogh that is a pretty round number, ten thcinsand
iffinfinhabitstrli, at lilt, were in the secret. The
M hey of the transaction we find, on enquiry, to be
'saber of men, principally, if not alto.
t etliitiglolholabouring classes, thinking it proper to
'Petitions for Annual 'Parliaments and.
Universal Whose, banded about each a sheet of pa.
• yer, With a short form of Petition inscribed upon the
bead of it ; and we believe there ate very few work-
....
shops or manufactories in the town, in which the Pe-
titions were not as openly displwd as they were
epon the tables in the public Market.
We are free to admit that there is something in '
this mode of originating Petitions to which we object,
- end at which the spirit of our high.minded ancestors
, have revolted ; but the fault is not in the Pe-
-. 'Wooers, be in 'hoe& who "have thrown such Impe.
• diments In the way of Public Meetings es to amount
almost to a prohibition. Ministers have gagged the.
People, and their creatures censure them for not
speaking out. We have often repeated, that in the
unit proportion as 'you throw impediments in the
way of Publit Meetings, yos increase in 'sooty the
same proportion the danger of secret conspiracies ;
. and we may nob add, in confirmation of this doe-
trioe, that if there be in these twenty-named Petitions
any thing that has a tendency towards conspiracy,
. 'the blame entirely attaches to the authors of the
ad Gagging Bills.
• 'As to the Delegates'istely seat front Huddersfield
to saved a Meeting in London, we never heard of
- fleet till Ire saw the paragraph in the fotelligenco" r
ref Monday last, and. without pretending to know
any thing upon the subject, are have no he‘itatiou in
I laying, 'that pur belief is,. that this story is a sheer
• fabrication, invented to alarm the weak, and impose
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lotion the credulous.
The system of adulieretion, of which so much has
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been said is the Metropolis, is, it seems, not confined
to Landon, bet has been improved upon and esmended
in the country. Ise the Metropolis, tea is the only
article mentioned as having undergone this debasing
•Agocess ; bat we have now before as samples not only
of spurious tea, but also if tobacco and collee.• For
. some time past suspicions hate been entertained at
the Excise• Office in this place, that tilt practice of
,adulteration has prevailed extensively in Leeds; and,
last Tuesday, two hogsheads were seized on board a
• the river, and several smaller packages in
~ the possession of dealers, which, on esamination,
• proved to be base imitations of tee-, coffee, and to-
,. bacco, of no intrinsic value, but which, when ;oiled
:. In certain proportions with the articles they are
meant to resemble, coeld not be easily detected.—A
number of grocers and tea-dealers are mentioned as
. implicated in this nefarious traffic, but ; in the pre-
, sent bulge of the business, we forbear from mention.
big the names, either of the parties who have itiendat-
. ed the country with these fraudulent ingredients, or
, of those who have so far abased the confidence of
their flieuds as to pass them off as genuine. Mach
~,praise isdss
,tothe Olbcers of Excise in-this place for
their vigilance in detecting apd bringing to light a
.practice insohlug at ome a fraud upon the Revenue,
au injury to the fair.trader, and au imposition upon
• the Public. Therwholesele dealers in these contra-
bi• nd eatoessiditier have, we find, been travelling
round the cantry, 'soliciting the grocer, and tea-
-4 -dealers .for Oars, at the moderate price of Od. a
a pound for coffee, so called, end Is. 9d. a pound each,
for tea and tobacco. The spurious tobacco, which
• appears to be firmed of some vegetable substance—•
heath, perhaps—closely resembles the geneitie short-
, cot ; the lea,ashich appears to cols•ist of dried leaves
• broken into small parts, gives out a scent, when hot
. water is poured upon it, resembling seam; and this
:e1,41,.. which consists of roasted wheat or beans in al
ground state, tastes not very unlike the aifiele.it is
/11.3.1 t to resemble.— ( torda Mereury)

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