There was a Reform dinner at Abingdon on Tuesday. The
com- pany consisted of one hundred and thirty. Dr. Tomkins filled the chair,—which was supported by Mr. Throckmorton, the member for the county, Mr. N. Throckmorton' Dr. Mitford, Mr. Monck, Mr. Bowles, and Mr. H. Marsh. After the usual toasts, the Chairman ,save the health of Mr. Maberley, the member for the borough; to whose talents and integrity he paid a high compliment. The health of Mr. Bowles, the Liberal candidate, followed. Mr. Bowles made a discrimi- nating and eloquent reply. "I trust," he said, " that as this great measure will assimilate, so also it will consoli- date the three grand divisions of the empire ; and that it will bind together with a stronger tie the rose, the thistle, and the shamrock. Let me congratulate you,—and I can assure you that I do it sincerely,—that the altars of intolerance are overthrown, that the exclusively Protestant system is destroyed, and that Vitra Toryism is com- pletely humiliated. Let me congratulate you also I list our native laud is emancipated from the fetters which a despotic faction wished to throw around it. In the days of our forefathers, when the Barons of Englaud wrung from the hands of an unwilling Monarch the Great Charter of our liberties, they and their followers made the plains of Runnymede ring with their joyous acclamations—acelamations which in those days of comparative barbarism were responded to by every free-born bosom within the lima ; and shall not we in this our day exert ourselves as gloriously, impressed as we are with similar feelings of exultation at the achievement of our own Magna Charts ? But let us bear in mind the distinctive circumstances of each of those two great measures. Let Us recollect, that in our days the house of Commons placed itself in the front of the battle, and, cheered on by the almost unanimous approbation of the people, wrung the present measure, not from the unwilling hands of a despotic King, but from the reluc- tant grasp of a boroughmongering oligarchy."
Mr. Thr4kkmorton, on his health being drunk, spoke in the same 'sound and rational strain— The People of England had now gained those materials for further improvement, which the spirit of the age demanded that they should be placed in possession of. At the next general election, it would be seen what use they would make of them. Know- ing the use which they had made of the scanty portion of them with which they had been formerly intrusted, he had no fear about the result. He was sure that they would come forward in the same undaunted spirit of temperate and sound reform which ani- mated them at the last election.
Dr. Tomkins then proposed the health of Mr. Walter; which was drunk with great and marked applause. A letter was subsequently read from Mr. Walter, expressing extreme regret, that, in conse- quence of an accumulation of business, on his recovery from a recent illness, he was deprived of the pleasure of meeting his friends in Abingdon.. There were a great many more toasts, and many excellent speeches from Mr. Monck, Mr. H. Marsh, Mr. N. Throckmorton, and other gentlemen present. The meeting, which was a most harmonious one, broke up soonafter ten o'clock.
On Tuesday also, .a Reform dinner took place at Uxbridge, which was attended by fifty honest and zealous friends of the cause. The opinion of the Uxbridge patriots differs somewhat from that of the gentlemen who dined at the Eyre Arms on Monday. The Chairman of the former, on announcing the King's health, expressed his confidence that there was not one of his auditors who was not ready to confess that his Majesty was the first grand cause of the success of the measure they had met to celebrate ; and the sentiment was heartily and unanimously responded to.
The " People" followed the " King;" which is the ordinary method," and quite as much to the purpose as its eons-ere; and " Reform" and the " Press" came after the people. We are gratified to find our otvrt humble journal joined by the President with the Times and the Herald as having, by honest advocacy of Reform, sent more members to the late Parliament than all the rotten boroughs put together.
At two o'clock on Tuesday, the Political Union of Bristol were to . hold their Reforin dinner on Brandon Hill. Tables were covered foe about 3,000; and all was likely to proceed peaceably and comfortably, when, just as the company were about to take their seats, an immense gang of party-ruffians commenced an indiscriminate attack not only oil the Unionists present, but destroyed every thing that came in their way.. The mob carried off food, knives and forks' and every thing that was portable. Mr. Profiler° was present at the dinner; Mr. Baillie sent an apology. Among the private bills of the past session, we perceive a Bristol .Police Bill lost, and a Bristol Blind Asylum Bill carried. From the power and sagacity of its Magistrates, such an issue might have been easily foreseen.
There was a pleasant and peaceful celebration of the triumph or Reform at Seven Oaks on Monday. The aristocracy did not interfere, and there was in consequence no riot or confusion.
The Attorney-General seems to be in maucaise odeur among some of his constituents at Nottingham. He was received on Monday, on occasion of the Reform festival there, by hootings and cries of "Bristol him !" It required all the zeal of his friends to protect him from actual violence.
A farewell dinner is to be given by the inhabitants of Aylesbury tes Lord Nugent next week.
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