On the 30th September, the members of the Birmingham Loyal
and Constitutional Society held a meeting at Dee's Royal Hotel, in Birmingham, to consult upon the measures necessary to counteract the efforts of the Reformers in North Warwickshire. There was a good deal of Tory spouting from the Earls of Dartmouth and Bradford, Mr. G. Whateley, Mr. Richard Spooner, and Mr. Gutteridge ; but nothing interesting or instructive. Their abuse of Ministers, Radicals, and O'Connell, was as old and as dull as usual. A resolution to raise a subscription to fight the Liberals in the Registration Courts was agreed to ; but no money seems to have been put down.
At Framlingham, in East Suffolk, on the same day, there was also a Tory meeting and dinner. Sir C. B. Vere and Lord Henniker were the chief orators ; but a Reverend Dr. Etough seems to have been the heartiest Tory in the party. This worthy disciple of Phil'. pot ts said— The voice of clamour might assail him, and conduct and motives might be ascribed to him which were foreign to his nature; but he would pledge himself to attend the Conservative meetings on all occasions. He would maintain his position as the friend of the Conservative yeomanry, and labour with them in their noble and legal efforts to maintain the throne and the altar. In these times, his Conservative principles were his religion ; his first precept in youth was to love his Church and God, and in that spirit his King. So long as there was any endeavour to remove them, he should exert every effort in his power for the destruction of the Philistines.
A fitting person this Dr. Etough to preach the gospel of peace to men of all parties !
Wednesday was "a proud day for Herefordshire," according to the Tory journals ; for on that day Earl Somers, Viscount Hereford, Sir John Cotterill, Sir Edwyn Stanhope, Mr. Leclimere Charlton, and the Reverend Arthur Matthews, met a party of Conservatives in the Town-hall of Liverpool ; and after dinner, spouted vituperation of O'Connell and the Ministry" until a very late hour." The company was extremely noisy, and interrupted Parson Matthews in a long quotation from the Witches' Song in Macbeth. The divine told the company that O'Connell was composed of the various ingredients thrown into the cauldron.
The Northamptonshire Tories had their "feed" at Northampton on Thursday. Mr. Maunsell, Mr. Cartwright, Sir Charles Knightley, Mr. Charles Ross, and Sir Thomas Fremantle, each delivered long speeches on the usual Tory topics. Mr. Ross and Sir Thomas Fremantle quoted Mr. Buckingham as an authority for the honesty of the Tories and the duplicity of the Whigs !
Several Tory festivals will be held in the course of the next fortnight,—at Chester, Leeds,. Preston, Liverpool, Halifax, and in East Kent.
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