they remind her that her neighbours want it: a feeling laughable in a priestess, shameful in a priest; venial when it withholds the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable when it narrows the boon of religious freedom.

You spend a great deal of ink about the character of the present prime minister. Grant you all that you write I say, I fear he will ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to the true interest of his country: and then you tell me, he is faithful to Mrs. Perceval, and kind to the Master Percevals! These are, undoubtedly, the first qualifications to be looked to in a time of the most serious public danger; but somehow or another (if public and private virtues must always be incompatible), I should prefer that he destroyed the domestic happiness of Wood or Cockell, owed for the veal of the preceding year, whipped his boys, and saved his country.

They

The ministry Talents," under Grenville and Fox,

of "All the

1806-1807.

The late administration did not do right; they did not build their measures upon the solid basis of facts. should have caused several Catholics to have been dissected after death by surgeons of either religion; and the report to have been published with accompanying plates. If the viscera, and other organs of life, had been found to be the same as in Protestant bodies; if the provisions of nerves, arteries, cerebrum, and cerebellum, had been the same as we are provided with, or as the Dissenters are now known to possess; then, indeed they might have met Mr. Perceval upon a proud eminence, and convinced the country at large. of the strong probability that the Catholics are really human creatures, endowed with the feelings of men, and entitled to all their rights. But instead of this wise and prudent measure, Lord Howick, with his usual precipitation, brings Later Eari forward a bill in their favour, without offering the slightest Grey. proof to the country that they were anything more than horses and oxen. . . . I could write you twenty letters

upon this subject; but I am tired, and so I suppose are

you. Our friendship is now of forty years' standing; you know me to be a truly religious man; but I shudder to see religion treated like a cockade, or a pint of beer, and made the instrument of a party. I love the King, but I love the people as well as the King; and if I am sorry to see his old age molested, I am much more sorry to see four millions of Catholics baffled in their just expectations.

Sydney Smith, Peter Plymley's Letters, II (Works of the Rev.
Sydney Smith, London, 1859, I, 140-142).

By FRANCIS JEFFREY (1773-1850), a Scotchman, member of the group of young Whigs which included Sydney Smith and Brougham, one of the

founders and editor of the Edinburgh Review, and Lord Advocate in the

Ministry that

carried
through the
Reform Bill
of 1832.
This extract
is from a
speech made
during the
debates on
that measure.

109.

Scotland in the Unreformed Parliament (1831)

The system of Scotland is not a representation of the Crown, nor of the Peers, nor of the great landed proprietors; but, excluding all these, it is only the representation of a most insignificant oligarchy, not very high in rank or station, and of which the majority is not even connected with the great landed interests. The whole constituency of thirty counties, the whole number of the voters, according to the list of freeholders, does not exceed 3,000, from which are to be deducted between 500 and 600 who have votes and freeholds in two or three counties, making the whole number of voters not exceeding 2,400 or 2,500—a constituency for the whole of Scotland below the average of the smallest counties in England. The constituency of the boroughs is quite as bad. It consists of the majority of the Town Councils, who elect each other, and the numerical amount of the whole is only 1,440 for the sixty-six boroughs of Scotland. The whole constituency, then, of Scotland, both for the counties and boroughs, is less than 5,000, and probably does not exceed 4,500. The qualification for the right of

a

voting is derived from what are called Superiorities species of right without any real property, which are disposed of in the market, and give a man no more power over the land than that they reserve to him some nominal right, such as a pepper-corn rent. All the 2,500 freeholders, who make up the whole constituency of the counties, and are possessed of the right of voting, are not actual landed proprietors. I do not know the actual number of freeholders who are at the same time landed proprietors, but I believe that those who merely own superiorities are more than half of the whole; so that, therefore, the half of these 2,500 freeholders are not actually the possessors of property in Scotland.

In the county of Argyle, in 1821, there were 47,000 inhabitants, while the number of freeholders was 115; but eighty-four of these were not proprietors, leaving therefore, only thirty-one actual landholders to return the county Members of 97,000 inhabitants. The next place I would refer to is not of much importance - it is the county of Bute, which has a population of only 14,000, and of which the number of freeholders is twenty-one; but, according to the Return, it appears that no fewer than twenty of these retain no property whatever in Bute, and that the whole 14,000 inhabitants are represented by one single voter living in the county. My right hon. friend opposite knows something more of the county of Bute than I do, and perhaps he knows other instances similar to that which I will mention to the House. At an election at Bute, not beyond the memory of man, only one person attended the Meeting, except the Sheriff and the Returning Officer. He, of course, took the Chair, constituted the Meeting, called over the roll of freeholders, answered to his own name, took the vote as to the Preses, and elected himself. He then moved and seconded his own nomination, put the question to the vote, and was unanimously returned. Similar events, have, I believe, taken place since.

A return of the freeholders of

Scotland.

I have already stated what the proportion of the constituency in the boroughs is, and for the sixty-six boroughs, the whole number of electors is only 1,440, and they consist of the members of the Town Council, who mutually and reciprocally elect each other. They are renewed indeed every year, but they choose one another. In Glasgow, a city containing 200,000 people, distinguished for their wealth and intelligence, the whole constituency consists of only thirtythree individuals; and should a contest arise, seventeen persons would decide for the whole city. . . .

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (London, 1832), Third Series, VII, 528-530.

110. The Cloth-market at Leeds (1725) BY DANIEL

FROM

ROM Aberforth we turned West, and went to Leeds, which is a large, wealthy, and populous Town, standing on the North Side of the River Aire, with great Suburbs on the South Side, and both joined by a stately, strong, Stone Bridge, so large, and so wide, that formerly the Cloth-market was kept upon it; and therefore the Refreshment given the Clothiers by the Inn-keepers (being a Pot of Ale, a Noggin of Pottage, and a Trencher of boil'd or roast Beef, for Twopence) is called the Brigg-shot to this Day.

The Increase of the Manufactures, and of the Trade, soon made the Market too great to be confined to the Brigg; so that it is now kept in the High-street, beginning from the Bridge, and running up North almost to the Market-house, where the ordinary Market for Provisions begins; which also is the greatest of its kind in all the North of England. You may judge of the Plenty of it, when 500 Load of Apples have been numbered by the Mayor's Officers in a Day. But the Cloth-market is chiefly to be admired, as a Prodigy of its kind, and perhaps not to be equalled in the World. The Market for Serges at Exeter is indeed a wonderful Thing, and the Money returned very great; but it is there only once a Week, whereas here it is every Tuesday and Saturday.

Early in the Morning, Tressels are placed in two Rows in the Street, sometimes two Rows on a Side, cross which Boards are laid, which make a kind of temporary Counter on either Side, from one End of the Street to the other.

(1661 ?1731), journalist and

novelist.

Defoe be

longed to the period when first recogforce in politics. Through a weekly paper

nized as a

exerted much

which he established, the Review, he influence. Usually he the Whigs, himself independent. He tive part in the religious discussions

acted with

but he called

took an ac