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The disease continues to make way in every part of Europe . JSy the last news we find that at Varna every day there died eighteen English soldiers ; at the French camp matters are even worse , though the regulations are rigid and excellent . A Paris letter dated Wednesday , says : — " The returns of deaths by cholera in Paris sent in to the JIairies on Friday give , I am informed , upwards of 150 for that day , an increase which is attributed to the great variation of the temperature . Of . these 150 or 155 , from 40 to 50 are set down to the hospitals , and the remainder occurred in private houses , particularly in the Baiilieue . From 50 to 60 are also the cases of persons who had been previously wasted by disease , -which rendered them susceptible of being attacked by the prevailing epidemic . The accounts from Marseilles and other places where it has raged with some inl ensitv are more favourable . It has increased , however , at Toulon . " A letter , dated Perpignan , says : —
" In the south , the epidemic now extends along the shores of the Mediterranean from Genoa to near the foot of the Pyrenees , and Marseilles and Toulon afe 9 as they always have been , the principal foci of the cholera . For many weeks past the diligences have been crowded with persons flying from the plague to places not yet infected ; the roads have been covered with vehicles of every description carrying terror-stricken fugitives as far from their homes as their means would permit them to go ; and some , fearing not to put a sufficient distance between them and the cholera , have crossed the frontier and passed into Spain . In fact , in some of the towns near the Rhone the population , it is affirmed , is diminished to one-quarter of its amount before the commencement of the epidemic . " From Marseilles , winch town has lost by deaths an incredible number of its inhabitants , the emigration still continues ; many of the fuyards going to Toulouse , where the cholera has not yet appeared , although some cases have occurred in the Lower Garonne , and at Bordeaux . " ,
A deputation from Hackney district has waited upon Lord Palmerston this week , and represented to himj upon . medical evidence , that the cholera prevalent in that neighbourhood is attributable to the "foul , obnoxious , and loathsome condition of the Hackney Brook , " His lordship answex-ed . that " in a few months" the Brook should be covered up . The deputation thanked him for his . " coxirtesyj "
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BEVERLEY ELECTION . A Letter has-been addressed . ; to the Globe , "by a Beverley " Reformer . " The information contained in the following extract , as to Mr . Gordon ' s opinions , is important as indicating something of Lord Aberdeen ' s , " From the first Mr . Gordon declared himself a progressive reformer . He was in favour of a large extension of the suffrage ( 5 / ., or under ) , vote by ballot , and perfect religious equality ( he emphatically declared that no man ought to pay for the support of the religion of another ) ; and his private and public conduct attested that he was earnest and sincere in his professions .
" The constituency numbers a little over 1 , 000 . Under the peculiar circumstances of the election , not more than about ; 80 O could have possibly voted . Without any undue influence whatever , and on the strictest principles of purity , Mr . Gordon , polled 493 . His opponent only polled 192 , all wiih a few exceptions Tories , and several of them members of a bigotted Tory Protestant association , of the Rev . Tresham Greg school . "
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THE SUSPENDED BOROUGHS . Geneiial Thompson has addressed the following letter to a contemporary . After such a letter who cun say that the General ib too old for public life ? " Eliot Valo , BlaokhBath , August 8 , 185 * . " The readiness with which your pages are opened to anything bearing on the interests of political reform , induces me to think you will see the opportunity of doing service by publishing the following remarks on the subject of the suspended boroughs . If I apply to the case with which I happen to bq best acquainted , it will not bo contrary to any rule of philosophy that I am aware of . It is for the concerned , to inquire , how far the bricjc is a specimen of the house .
" The borough with which I am acquainted , is Hull . In the evil daya of English history , it was a city set upon a hill . It afterwards lost custo , and for many years was deep in the degradation of t be times . At the Reform Bill , its character was retrieved ; iu which I was art and part to the oxtont © f boing laid down and robbed at the door of the House of Commons , to the amount of many thousand pounds . One useful result was , that the taking up of freedoms by what wore denominated the ' old freemen , ' was virtually abundonod on all sidoa , there boing no probability of profit in repayment of the coBt . Success of course had depended on the union of what for shortness Blmll bo called Whiga and Radicals . If cither of thoso terms in hereafter used in connexion with ' disgraceful acts , I bog to protest agninat intending any unjustifiable imputation ;
and the great Whig body has it always m its power to clear itself by actions of any disreputable complicity . " Success on subsequent occasions depended on the same union . A candidate appeared , who called himself a Whig . He came to me of his own accord , and invited me to enter into an engagement with him , that if any dispute arose between our respective friends or followers , the first who knew it should communicate with the other , in order that he might use his personal influence to put it down . Of course so rational a treaty was immediately ratified . The locality was Market-place East flags , two-thirds of the way from the Whig hostelry which was the Cross Keys , to mine which was the Kingston . Like justices in an affiliation case , I love to be particular .
" Some short time afterwards , a -very paltry dispute arose , which I could have settled in half an hour if the compact with me liad been kept . Some of my friends spoke perhaps boastingly of their streugth . Instead of applying to me , the Whig candidate said to them , ' What is your strength ? I hear you have a list . Show me your list . ' The Radicals answered , that if they had a list , it was only for themselves . The Whig replied , ' I know your Jist is only two hundred . Now I wilL go' and pay for two hundred new freedoms , and then I will defy your list . ' And he went or sent accordingly , vith two hundred golden sovereigns at one time and a hundred at another , and openly offered . to buy any man his freedom who would sign a . promise to yote as a named
individual should direct . And the two hundred promises were produced accordingly . He thought to steal a march on the Conservatives by going into the market on the last day appointed for taking up freedoms . Bat the Conservatives sho wed cause for demanding a week ' s extension ; and so they had time to purchase as many as they liked in turn . Conservatives must be ' sensible they were very wrong ; ' but the deed was totally of the Whig ' s inventing , originating , and setting in motion . For authentication of all these operations on the market , reference may be made to the Reports of the Commissioners , and the proceedings of . a public meeting of the constituency I called to take cognizance of the facts , and which may be found in the Hull papers of about the 31 st of August , 1839 ,
" In some very unbecoming correspondence with me which was brought before this public meeting , the Whig complained bitterly that my friends should have a list he did not see . I wonder he did not complain there was not a community of wives . And why did he do all the damage to me and to the constituency -which followed , in the teeth of his volunteered engagement to communicate with me ? I could have put it all down by return of post . To this act of his is owing all the misery and defeat which followed , and it will not fce the fault of his supporters if it does not end in tliedisfranchisement of the town . , "And this was followed up . In Commissioner Flood ' s report lately laid on the table of the House of Commons , I find the following passage :
" ' ——and it appears to me certain that it is to the uncompromising opposition of Colonel Thompson to nil improper practices , and to his own ( Mr , Clny ' s ) accjuk'sonce in them and belief that they were necessary to this success either of himself or of any other candidate professing similar political opinions , that Mr . Clay alludes when declining in January , 1847 , to come , forward as a candidate while Hull is " hampered by Colonel Thompson , wlio makes it impossible for any reformer to have a chance . " '—Commissioner Floou ' a Report . "Here then , because I refused to engage in
practices which would justly have expelled me from the society of gentlemen , and warranted the exertion of the summary power residing in the crown for the purification of the Army List , I am found hold up as the man who ' hampers Hull' and ' makes it impossible for any reformer to havo a chance . ' Those are your reformers ; I was in the way , was I , aa tlie man walking- on one side the street , is in the way of the man upon the other ? This cancels all condonations , If there is anybody in the country who honestly \ iaes the word Reform , there is matter for . him to think upon lit leisure .
' « Thus then stands the actual case . Tho author and originator of tho town ' s disgrace and all the mischief , is unseated , as ho ought to bo , by ft committeo of tho House of Commons . His friends stand by him , and one association , I am sorry to say of tho working classes , declares ho is * endeiired to them by ten thousand tics . I doubt whether it ever amounted to ton thousand . Tho Whigs ( or so they call them-Bolvca ) stick to him , and declare through their organ in tho press , that they will support nobody but his
nominee . I was asked if I would be that numiuoo , with nu understanding to make wny for tho father of bribery when ho isrc-clifjiblc . And 1 replied —( it was a rugged speech , but I hope no honest person was durruujad by it)—thut X would as soon think of selling my daughter for u concubine at Now Orleans . The recommendation to this pleasant Buecoselon coition Giidorscd ft'om tho Reform Club . It ia to help bribers out of tho voiiBoqucnocB of their ducris that this Institution rears its headlu Pull-mull , X wonder
an honourable profession , in which I have a right to take some interest , should see its member unwarned , putting himself into a bed which has been qualified in the rough terms described . " If the other boroughs were looked into , the same kind of things would be found ; and the public lessons from the whole are many and important . I call upon the unrepresented , to wake out of sleep , and ponder on the nonsense of the pretended measures
taken against parliamentary corruption , -with the real object of keeping the masses excluded from the franchise . I invite the Ballot Society to double their energies , and remember O'Connell ' s story , of the man who had tried all ways of fattening his horse , till he was asked Did you ever try corn f To the country at large , I would suggest the advantage of looking at the general case , and seeing who is who , and judging them by their performance . AH kinds of men are now upon their trial .
" Of my own course , few words will suffice . I will not he a candidate , till the bribery nominee is withdrawn . The parties which support him know very well they cannot carry two . Even if there was not written ' Decency forbids , ' they should not draw me into their ambuscade . " Yours very sincerely , "T . Persohet Thompsos . "
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ROBERT OWEN'S PETITION . The following ; is . Mjr . Robert Owen ' s recent Petition to the House of Lords presented , we believe , by Lord Brougham : — " To the Right Honourable the Lonls Spiritual andTempor . il of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled . " The Petition of Robert Owen hum"bly showeth , " That the Crystal Palace at Sydenham is not only the best day-school ever yet opened to the public in this or in any other country , but live best Sunday-school also . Your Petitioner , therefore , prays that it may be operied to all classes every day in the year , and more especially because the mass of the people in these islands are grievously in want of a sound system , of instruction in common things , in accordance with common sense . . " Arid your petitioner will for ever pray , &e . " KOBERT OvfES . "
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A TORY VIEW OF THE PERIOD . An authoritative Tory writer in the Press is thus felicitously rhetorical on the " crisis "—and the Conservative function therein : viz ., to act as a dead weight : — " None but a violent and thoughtless partisan could find subject of unmixed exultatiou in the present parliamentary condition of the Coalition Ministry . However degrading to the Government , it is still more dangerous to the State . It is impossible to shut our oyes to the conclusion , tlmr , if persisted in , tho Constitution of this country must receive a great shock , and thsit the government of public opinion , through the agency of parties , which has hitherto been our security against violent political revolution , must gradually
cease . Tiie first efttict of this change will probably be to throw the Administration of tho country into the hands of courtiers , and , with a popular or discreet Court , tho inevitable injury to public spirit and peril to public liberty of such a course may not immediately be recognised . But tho process of degradation or disorder is certain . Either u powerful centralised Government will be established , and its resources of multiplied corruption brought to bear upon members ot Parliament in detail , or tho HoUso of Commons , wrestling with the Court , and seeking refugo in an unconstitutional organisation , will resolve itself into committees , and invade the various offices of the Executive . The most corrupt form
of government in tho world is that which combines a ccntrahscd Administration with a popular Chamber , as w ; is seen recently in France ; and the moat offensive and tyrannical form M that which invests a popular assembly with executive us well as legislative duties , as was felt two centuries ago in England . Yet there me tlio possible nHern . itivt's , which may bo offered , and oven soon , to tho only country in which Parliamentary Government has succeeded , and which , only so late backus 18 tl , gave , by its agency , to Sir Robert Puel tho moat powerful Adminititration of tho century . It is clear , therefore , that it was not tho Reform Act of 1832 that destroyed , or even that impnircd , party Government iu Enghind .
" Wo arc far from supposing that the members of tho present Cabinet « ro blind to these evils , or not discouraged by them . Many of them ate men of grout stution in tho country , who lmvu jiuen to public eminence in tho « tmo-Hpiicro of tho House of Commons , and who , wo doubt not , highly appreciate our system of publio life . Although the distempered ambition of Lord Jonn Kussoll has been imiiitly instrumental in blinking about tho present huncntablo stuto of ailiiii'H , it in quite impossible thut such a man , now thut tho hunt nnti fever of upsetting tlio Ministry of Lord Derby have imbsod , ahould bo insensible to the errors which bo bus
committed , and not feel that , with n little piUicnco and con-Hiitutloiml restraint , ha might perhnpa <» t this moment have been Firbt Miuiator of the Crown , nt tho head of n hoinogonoonH party . Lord Aberdeen ininaolf ban never Bate in tlio JUouko ot ( JcmunoiM , find never taken , until Jim prcM-nt worry ditspUyH , a loading part iu tho other House . No owe ever imputed to him any fervid ndmtrution of our parliamentary flytttom . Him mind wuu Ion nod in tho AuiiUian Ohiuieury : ho haul nlwuyo been a votary of political , and not publio , hfo , of power without roaporifjibility , and thuroforu u * little u . i paiaiblo iu tho publio gaze . He ia now udvaucud in
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752 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 12, 1854, page 752, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2051/page/8/
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