204 Notes of the Month on [FEB. 



pelling all decisions to be made on the merits only- 6th. The abolition 

 of all technical rules for the exclusion of evidence, and the compelling 

 judges to receive evidence from every quarter capable of giving it 6th. 

 The prevention of any suits being instituted until both parties appear 

 in proper person before the Judge, whenever such attendance be had. 

 15. To obtain a radical reform of the House of Commons. 



Now of all those brilliant conceptions, the great agitator will not 

 realize one, nor attempt to realize one. But there are men of a different 

 stamp upon earth ; and to some of those, the list of this copious promiser 

 may be of importance. We hate the watchword, Reform, while it re- 

 mains the pretext of the basest trickeries of the basest faction : but we 

 fully join with those who say, that there is " something rotten in the 

 state of Denmark." The country has a right to call for reform : for a 

 close inquiry into the whole machine of its government : for a keen and 

 sifting examination into the nature and proceedings of its representatives. 

 The crisis is at hand ; and those who wish to see England escape a trial 

 q misery and blood, will resolutely wish, and openly demand, to see a 

 change of the system, under which corruption has thickened round the 

 high, and poverty smitten the low. The enormity of sinecures, the 

 great reversions, the overgrown salaries of public men, all are exciting 

 a spirit of scorn among the nation, which delay may unhappily irritate 

 into a spirit of vengeance. Mr. Peel's salary is 6,000 a year, besides 

 a whole crowd of minor emoluments. Mr. Herries' salary, as master of 

 the mint, an employment of which Mr. Herries of course practically 

 knows nothing ; and which is, in fact, nothing more than a cover for 

 paying a Cabinet Minister an inordinate salary, is no less than 5,000 

 a year. Does any man living venture to say, with the hope of ever 

 being believed again, that Lord Ellenborough's services to the country, 

 as President of the Board of Controul, are worth 5,000 a year, besides 

 the abundant possession of that mysterious thing called patronage ? 

 What is the office of Post Master General, but a huge sinecure ; the 

 secretary to the post-office doing all the duty, and the noble person at 

 its head not burthening himself with much severer labour, than that 

 of signing his quarterly receipt for his monstrous salary ? Does Lord 

 Rosslyn, the Privy Seal, render services to the amount of his 3,000 a 

 year ? The whole system is nonsense. England contains hundreds of 

 men, fully as competent to every office under the roof of Downing-street, 

 who would do the work, and more than the work, for the tenth part of 

 the salary. Look to America. She does not pay her great officers a 

 tenth of the sum. Is she worse served? Is she not better served ? The 

 salary of her President is not equal to the salary of that man, of the 

 turned coat, Mr. George Dawson, of despicable fame. The salaries of 

 her two Secretaries of State are not equal to the Treasurership of the 

 Ordnance, conferred on Billy Holmes., for whipping in the Commons, 

 the only service of which such a person is capable, hceccine Jleri Jlagitia. 



There must be an end to these things ; aye, and a speedy one. With 

 every man's income drained to let persons of this class roll in their car- 

 riages ; for whom no man on earth feels the most trivial consideration, 

 the Daw sons, the Bankes, the Plantas, the Goulburnes, &c. c., names 

 the very antipodes of public ability, manly accomplishment, or national 

 confidence; with a general breaking down of the public prosperity, 

 which every man attributes to ministerial blundering; and the still 

 deeper evil of an universal scorn of the professions of public men ; who 



