21 MAY 1842, Page 3

firobinces. , Mr. Stnrge visited Nottingham on Wednesday, and addressed the

electors. A Chartist presented to him a paper setting forth the " Sit points " ; to which Mr. Stnrge signified his adhesion. Mr. Vincent was among the speakers in support of the new candidate ; who repudiates every sort of corrupt influence. He appears to have been well re- ceived.

The Tories of Newcastle are preparing to fill up the void which the Election Committee have made by ousting Mr. John Quincey Harris : Mr. Miller, formerly an unsuccessful candidate, is spoken of; and should he be unwilling to stand, it is said that Mr. John N. Gladstone, the brother of Mr. William Ewart Gladstone of the Board of Trade, will be invited.

The Conservatives talk of putting up Mr. J. C. Herries and Mr. Fitzroy Kelly for Ipswich. The Times says that the Whigs were anxious at the last election to admit Mr. Herries without opposition, by a compromise to secure the return of Mr. Wason, Mr. Rennie, or some other " Whig-Radical " as his colleague ; but that the Tories would not agree to the compromise.

Mr. George Rennie has published a statement in the Ipswich Express, explaining his own conduct in respect to the late election and its re- sults. The main allegations are, that at first the sitting Members hoped, from the rotation of Chairmen, that a Liberal would preside over the Election Committee; but when the actual constitution of the Com- mittee was known, their case was considered hopeless. The object of the petitioners was especially to unseat Mr. Rigby Wason ; and Mr. Rennie finding that his seat would not be accepted as a sacrifice, urged his colleague to surrender in order that both seats might not be lost : but he would not ; and Mr. Rennie gave notice to him that he retired from the struggle, and would not be held responsible any further for the consequences. The stipulation which was suggested was that lane of them should accept the Chiltern Hundreds at a specified time.

A petition has been sent up from Brighton against the return of Lord Alfred Hervey, on the score of bribery and treating.

The Town-Council of Sudbury have drawn up a petition to Parlia- ment, praying that the borough may not be disfranchised, and pleading that it ought not to be made the scapegoat for other constituencies as bad as itself

A grand entertainment was given to the Duke of Buckingham, at Aylesbury, on Wednesday. When he succeeded to the Peerage, in 1838, after having represented the county for upwards of twenty years, it was resolved to present him with a testimonial. Subscriptions were collected from all classes in the county : Mr. Edgar Papworth was em- ployed to make a design for the testimonial, and Messrs. Green and Ward to execute it ; and now it was presented. The splendid present is thus described by the Times- " The Chandos testimonial is a noble column or pillar of silver gilt, standing four feet six inches high ; its weight is 1,800 ounces, and its coat has been upwards of 2,0001. The base is composed of a richly-fluted ground, which is divided into six circular pedestals, supported on lions couchant, mo- delled after the celebrated lions at Stowe, his Grace's seat in this county. On each pedestal stands a most beautifully designed figure of an agricultural la- bourer, whose particular occupation is pointed out by the various implements of industry with which the figure is surrounded. The first is a ploughman, the second a shepherd, the third a sower, the fourth a reaper, the fifth a mower, and the sixth a dairy-maid. Each figure stands prominently forward, in front of a richly-ornamented stand, on one side of which the armorial bearings of the Duke are accurately set forth, and on the other is the scroll, bearing anula in- scription, [which is given, but it is in no way remarkable.] This circular

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stand supports severer splendidly-executed groups of cattle, horses, s d sheep, and its cornice bears a highly-wrought bas-relief, representing the different

stages of husbandry ; and from a rustic ground above springs a richly-fluted column, around which stand three figures of English farmers, each bearing a scroll; on the first of which is inscribed, Chandos, Church, and State '; on the next, Chandos and the Corn-laws '; and on the third and last, Chandos and the fifty-pound clause.' The column is surmounted by a wheat-sheaf, the Duke's family crest, which forms a graceful and appropriate termination of the design."

The festival was held in a temporary pavilion at the back of the George Ion, made of party-coloured calico, and adorned with laurel and other evergreens. The Earl of Orkney took the head of the table : on his right sat the Duke of Buckingham, Colonel H. Vyse, Mr. R. Clayton, M.P., Mr. J. H. Williams, M.P., Mr. Scott Murray, M.P., and Captain Boldero, M.P.; and on his left, Lord De Lisle, Sir Thomas Fremantle, M.P., Mr. Busfeild Ferrand, M.P., Mr. Renn Hampden, M.P., and Mr. J. Neeld, M.P. The Vice Presidents' chairs were filled by Sir John Chetwode and Mr. William Christopher, and a great num- ber of Members of Parliament sat at the tables. After several routine toasts, an address was read to the Duke. It went back to the time of the French Revolution to account for the "portentous activity " which speculation had assumed, and which had given opportunity for display- ing his Grace's firmness of "determination not to risk the whole of the social fabric for the sake of slight and visionary amendments." Amid warm eulogy, it reconferred the Duke's distinguishing title-

" Yon have not disdained, and we are proud to confer on you, the title of 4 The Farmer's Friend.' Your kind attentions, the unaffected and unvarying courtesy of your demeanour, your dignified condescension, and above all your desire of associating with your neighbours on a friendly footing at social meetings, of listening to the plain but honest expression of their wants, of receiving the results of their experience, and of frankly communicating your sentiments in return—this is the conduct which has heightened our attach- ment to your Grace, and without impairing our respect to exalted rank, equalized us in the only sense which the lot of humanity will permit."

The Duke's health was drunk with renewed plaudits. He read a -written reply to the address ; saying to Lord Orkney, " I will place, my Lord, in your hands, a reply I have written in answer to the address, so that when I am gone those sentiments may live in your Lordship's re- collection and in the remembrance of the county at large." This answer was a sort of echo to the address, conceived in a fluent style and generalizing on the Duke's course of public life: for instance, he told them that at the commencement of his Parliamentary life he had laid down for himself " a course based on conscientious principles," which he had sought to pursue without deviation ; that viewing the struggle " to obtain extensive changes solely because changes they were, he could not consent to forego the rights and customs which the wisdom of our ancestors had established "; that he believed " the strength of the nation to be based upon the soil, from which, like its favourite emblem the British oak, its energy and duration are equally derived "; and so forth. The applause which greeted the close of the address having subsided, the Dake said, " My Lord, let me take this oppor- tunity, at the close of my public life in the service of this great country, to drink a bumper-toast to all your healths, and may God Almighty bless you." He afterwards gave the toast of " The British Farmer "; but the speaking generally was of little interest.

A special general meeting of the Anti-Corn-law League was held at Manchester on the 11th, to receive the report of the Council on a new plan of action. The Council no longer countenance petitions to Par- liament— " Your Council believe that to hold out further encouragement of popular hope from petitioning the monopolists, who, in the arbitrament of their own cause, have scorned the oft-preferred prayers of famishing millions, were cruelly to trifle with the outraged feelings of the people, by fostering a miserable delusion, and sanctioning the performance of a legislative farce pending the enactment of a national tragedy. " With what reluctance your Executive have arrived at this conclusion may be deduced from their unremitting exertions, for nearly four years, to direct the just discontent of the starving masses into the constitutional channel of Parliamentary appeal."

The succedaneum-

" Happily there is other outlet to national complaint, and other and better hope of national redress. The prayers of the oppressed and despised millions should now be addressed to the Sovereign on the throne, as the last pivot for the leverage of hope to a much-plundered, greatly-suffering, and long-enduring community."

An auxiliary measure will be to extend the efforts to enlighten all classes- " The voice of truth must be made to penetrate the darkest recesses of error and ignorance; the demand for justice must be shown to be reasonable through- out the thousand serfdoms of the monopolist oppressor; the requirements of religion must be proclaimed among the huts and hovels of the miserable pea- santry, and the stately domes of collegiate and episcopal bread-taxers ; in short, the empire must be traversed by your agents, through all its sinuosities and to All its extremities, that the public mind may be excited to a full comprehension of this all-important question, and led to a due appreciation of that free trade in food, and fair play for industry, by which alone the lives of perishing mil- lions may be preserved, and national insolvency, beggary, and anarchy, be Averted."

In order to this traversing of sinnosities and extremities, " the Exe- cutive [not the Crown or her Majesty's Ministers] have caused that portion of the United Kingdom comprising England and Wales to be mapped into twelve districts, (and they are extending such plan to Scotland and Ireland,) that the accredited lecturers of the League may be located in these several divisions of the empire," to instruct and or- ganize the people. The League knows it will be expensive ; but, "thanks to the Christian zeal of its best allies, the fair philanthropists of the 'empire, it has thousands at its command for the vindication of the honour of God by the furtherance of the happiness of man."

Fifty-eight operatives of Worcester have addressed Sir Robert Peel, to express their thankfulness to him " for proposing a direct tax on -property ; a tax that shall affect the rich; a tax that will compel ab- sentees to contribute their quota to the exigencies of the country ; a -tax that will affect the fandholder, and throw the burdens of the state on those who are well able to bear them." They recognize in him " the poor man's friend." In a brief but courteous reply, the Minister .says, " It is my earnest wish to propose, and to pass into law, such mea- sures as may tend in their result to promote the demand for labour, and to increase the comforts and welfare of the communlly."

Dudley is tranquillized, many of the nailers having submitted to re- duced rates of wages. Others bold out ; but most of the troops have been withdrawn, and it is expected that the last will retire today.