NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE accounts of the Municipal elections continue favourable to the Liberals; who retain, or have acquired, superiority over the Tories in every large town in the kingdom. A reference to the lists we published last week, and to the additional returns now given, will prove the correctness of this statement.
The Tories have succeeded in electing a majority of their friends in the following places. Beverley, Basingstoke, Maidstone, Monmouth, Sudbury, Andover, Reading, Maidenhead, Windsor, Salisbury, Ripon, Eye.
'Winchester, The Reformers have beaten the Tories in Lancaster, Chester, Nottingham, Yarmouth, Newcastle, Ilastings, Hull, Macclesfield, High Wycombe, Stratford-on-Avon, Canterbury, Derby, Hereford, Chesterfield, Southampton, Bedford, Tamworth, Hertford, Richmond, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Hythe, Gloucester, Portsmouth, Tiverton. Grimsby, In the following towns equal numbers of both parties were chosen.
Berwick, Durham, Norwich, Lynn, Poole, Brecon.
It must be remembered, that in several of the places where the Tories have gained an advantage this year, or where they have chosen an equal number of Councillors with the Liberals, the ma- jority in the Council has not been cut down, but still remains with the Liberals. The remark applies to York, Norwich, Ipswich, Durham, Reading, Lynn, and other towns. Another pleasing re- flection is, that the Municipal constituencies consist exclusively of permanent, tax-paying householders. They are not swamped by the freemen. Let the Tories, who are continually boasting of the wealth of their party, and sneering at the poverty of the Liberals, digest this fact as best they may. Let them explain how it happens, if indeed they have so vast a proportion of the wealth of the country, that in elections where only tax-paying householders are permitted to vote, they are so completely put down; while in towns where venal paupers abound, and possess the Parliamentary franchise, their candidates carry the day. At thefirst Municipal elections, no doubt, the Reformers owed much of their success to the excitement of a great change. The mo- tives for exertion were then very strong. At the elections just over, they were, necessarily, much less potent, especially in those places where the result of the election could neither give nor take away a majority in the Council. The success of the Liberals, therefore, this year, in all the principal towns, seems to settle the point as to a reaction among the middle classes. The heart of the country is sound—and Anti-Tory. If the Tories can derive small comfort from the results of the Municipal elections, they have no cause for exultation in the Par- liamentary Registration as far as it has proceeded. Our accounts are still partial and imperfect; but there is no cheering in the Tory camp, no defiance to the conflict, which a few weeks ago they were sager to provoke. The Revising Barristers have cooled the courage of these braggarts. We challenge them to name .a single town or county, now represented by Liberal Mem- bers, in which they have made an impression sufficient to justify the expectation of electing a Tory next spring. Dare they pre- tend that a majority of the 12,662 electors of Middlesex are Tory ?
Their more experienced friends will tell them—and this is the ut- most extent of their heartening— that to predict the result of an
election by so numerous a constituency, with any degree of cer- tainty, is impossible. Have they gained in Yorkshire? or in Lancashire? Where is the evidence of the "glorious reaction" which is to swamp Reform in Toryism next spring ? The Liberals could afford to lose votes in England, (though they will not,) and yet "bell the cat" with Tories in a new Par- liament. For what is the news from Ireland? There, a fate ap- proaching to political extermination awaits LYNDHURST'S employ- ers. The Orangemen are dispirited, and in Dublin are quarrel- ling and disclosing their party secrets. The redoubtable JOHNNY M'CREA. lets himself loose on Mr. WEST, and Mr. WEST charges M'CREA with something very like swindling. That M'Cags. was bribed to withdraw his pretensions to represent the Dublin Orangemen, (and nobody can deny that IirCREA would make a fitting representative for that worshipful body,) is avowed by WEST himself. Bribery, therefore, was not confined to the voters at the last Dublin election ; candidates also were bought and sold.
In the provinces, the Irish Liberals have been indefatigable in preparing for the next struggle. The hatred of tithes, which appears to have reached a degree of intensity hitherto unparal- leled, prompts men of all ranks to the greatest exertions. The Orange papers confess that they shall not maintain their ground at the next election, and complain of Protestant apathy. The Times, following this lead, lectures the Irish Protestants, and en- deavours to impress them with a proper notion of their own danger. But it is probable that the Protestants in Ireland discern more risk in exasperating seven millions of Catholics, than in living amongst them upon terms of good fellowship. Besides, are the Protestant laity in love with tithes ? Let the numerous Ex- chequer processes against Protestant recusants answer that question. The hostility to tithes will be kept up in full force during the winter. The Dublin Court of Exchequer is constantly employed in sending " rebels " to gaol, and issuing new writs for the reco- very of tithes. Measures are in progress for fighting the clergy with their own weapons. It is in default of answering the bills filed in the Exchequer Court by the parsons, and thereby com- mitting a contempt of court, that the tithe-recusants become liable
to arrest on writs of rebellion : by putting in answers to those bills, the evil day of payment would be postponed, and the rebel- lion writs avoided : so the plan now is, to put in very long an- swers,—the legal practitioners of the Catholic communion giving their services cheaply or gratuitously ; while to these answers re- joinders must be made by the clergy,—who will be liable for the whole heavy costs, in case, as will generally happen, nothing can be got from the defendant. Should this mode of proceeding be extensively adopted, the clergy will be foiled, and stripped of the last shilling, by their own law. They must rue the day when they refused eighty per cent. of their demand, in regular payments, at the Bank of Ireland.
