CHANGED TIMES.
TN the palmy days of Toryism, it was the invariable practice of the Ministerial organs—the organs of CASTLEREAGH and Sin- MOUTH—to decry the importance of popular meetings, and to sneer at what they chose to term the degraded condition of those who attended them. This practice has recently been adopted by the Ministerial press of the present day—by the Globe and the Times—the same journals which a twelvemonth ago could hardly find terms sufficiently strong to express their admiration of the -courage and patriotism of the very same men whom they now ri- dicule and would fain run down. Thus we find, that the "trusty leaders" of the Birmingham Union in May 1832, are "trumpery agitators" in May 1833; Mr. Arrwoon is now "the Brummagem 'Hampden ;" and the "countless masses" which were so formid- able a twelvemonth ago, from their "union and enthusiasm," so "impressive from their order, discipline, and resolution," are now represented as nothing more than a good-humoured crowd, princi- pally composed of women and children, full of fun and jollity, and desirous of making the meeting an excuse for a holyday. And yet the men who led this last meeting were the same as those -who presided in 1832; there is good reason to believe that the as- sembly was quite as numerous ; and order and discipline were equally well preserved ; no sane person will believe that those who -assembled were less in earnest. But then, the meeting of Mon- day last assembled to turn out the Ministers, whom last year 'they so strenuously supported—to express their disappointment and disgust at the broken promises of the Whigs, and to petition the King to select fitter men to guide his councils. The whole country sees clearly enough why the Times and the Globe now labour to depreciate public meetings. Public meetings are 'not much better—certainly they are not worse—than before.
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