MR. HUME.
AGAIN have the Tories been beaten out of the Metropolitan County, by their most sincere, active, and untiring foe, JOSEPH HUME. In no part of the country, perhaps, have the Horse Guards Cabinet, and their subalterns and allies, made such ef- forts to secure victory, as in Middlesex. The Whigs, as Mr. HUME truly observed, may be jealous of him, but the Tories cordially hate him. The Courier—without reflection, we are bound to believe—supposes that the virulence of the opposition to HUME is owing to his " violence," and talks of the salu- tary lesson read to him by the state of the poll. This can scarcely be the deliberate opinion of the Courier, or of any one arrived at years of discretion. It is not because HUME is " violent," but because he is formidable, that the Tories hate him so mor- tally. Were Mr. HUME content to let the abuses of the Church, the enormities of the Pension-list and the Estimates pe ennoticed, he might write six letters a week to the Canadians, as "violent" or as indiscreet as any that ever appeared with his signature, with- out exciting that fierce hostility which the Tories, from the highest to the lowest, assail him with, by a common instinct. As to the "lesson," the effects of which the Courier expects to find so salu- tary, it seems only to have provoked the Member for Middlesex to the full extent of bitter hostility to the Tories of which his placable temperament is capable.
But the reason why Mr. HUME is now about 100 votes lower on the poll than in 1832, and the cause of his being in the minority on Thursday night, is to be found, we believe, in the want of proper arrangements for bringing voters to the poll, and other necessary matters. The fact is, that Mr. Hums, with all his good qualities, is a leetle too close-fisted for a man in his station. He thinks he gives enough when he gives his personal services; he grudges the outlay of money. He has made his fortune by industry and fru- gality, and he knows how to value his independence: shall he not "do what he will with his own ?" There is truth in this view of Mr. HUME'S position, but not the whole truth. It is not mere generosity on his part to devote his time and ener- gies to the popular service; he is repaid for his exertions in a manner that is most pleasing to him. He is Member for the Metropolitan County, and fills a large space in the public eye; which is, and must be, very gratifying to Mr. HUME. The account between him and the Country is balanced in this way- the Ccuntry has the benefit of Mr. Humes services in Parlia- ment, aild Mr. HUME gets fame and importance in return. In strictness, people have no right to turn round, and, in addition to his labour, call for draughts *pan his ample, but, we under- stand, not excessive fortune. Mr. HOME probably merits in some degave the imputation of "stinginess," that attaches to his name. This, in itself, is a blemish, (ByttoN ealls it an "old-gentlemanly vice;') but not an unalloyed one: for it is perhaps the very habit of being careful in money matters and loth to spend profusely, that has rendered him the most useful Member in the House of Commons. Were Mr. HUME as liberal as Mr. THOMAS DUN- COWIE, he never could have been the terror of profligate War Secretaries and Treasury underlings. In another division of these pages, the reader will see a very just. and well-timed article from the Morninu. Chronicle on the subject of Mr. HUME'S former services; which services too many of us Reformers are apt to forget, though the Tories hold them in fast and bitter remembrance. Let us be just: Mr. Hume has done what no other man in the House of Commons ever at- tempted, far less achieved: The sum-total of the savings he has effected is great. But it is not merely as an economist that he is disliked. He attacks abuses wherever he finds them, be they large or small, civil or ecclesiastical, abroad or at home. It is to this persevering enmity to Toryism that Mr. HUME owes the exertions of the Government, the Magistracy, and the Clergy, during the contest which is just over, to turn him out. As be told his Committee on Thursday night- " There had been a system of intimidation adopted in the neighbourhood of Hampstead by the Magistrates and Clergy dining that day's proceedings. . . . The efforts that had been made in every parish in the county by the Clergy were simultaneous; and he found them in every district eager and ready to carry for- ward the views and interests of the Tory candidate. That was the great, and indeed only reason, why the result of the day's poll appeared in any degree flattering to the foes of the People. The same individuals hail interfered in the administration of the oaths to the voters; for after they had polled their own friends, they insisted that every other person should be sworn.'
Is it not clearly the duty of the Reformers to uphold a man persecuted as Mr. Hume is by the whole embattled legions of Cor- ruption? It is pitiful to throw any trifling failings in his teeth at such a time as this.
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