coach of Charles I. were like the men who changed their religion once a-year at the bidding of Henry VIII. That there is such a change, I can no more doubt than I can doubt that we have more power-looms, more steam-engines, more gas-lights than our ancestors. That there is such a change, the Minister will surely find-if ever such a Minister should arise-who shall attempt to fit the yoke of Mr. Pitt to the necks of the Englishmen of the nineteenth century.

What, then, can you do to bring back those times when the constitution of this House was an object of veneration to the people? Even as much as Strafford and Laud could do to bring back the days of the Tudors-as much as Bonner and Gardiner could do to bring back the days of Hildebrand—as much as Villele and Polignac could do to bring back the days of Louis XIV. You may make the change tedious; you may make it violent; you may-God, in his mercy, forbid !-you may make it bloody; but avert it you cannot. Agitations of the public mind, so deep and so long continued as those which we have witnessed, do not end in nothing. In peace or in convulsion, by the law or in spite of the law, through the Parliament or over the Parliament, reform must be carried. Therefore, be content to guide that movement which you cannot stop. Fling wide the gates to that force which else will enter through the breach. Then will it still be, as it has hitherto been, the peculiar glory of our Constitution that, though not exempt from the decay which is wrought by the vicissitudes of fortune and the lapse of time in all the proudest works of human power and wisdom, it yet contains within it the means of self-reparation. Then will England add to her manifold titles of glory this, the noblest and the purest of all-that every blessing which other nations have been forced to seek, and have too often sought in vain, by means of violent and bloody revolutions, she will have attained by a peaceful and a lawful reform.

THE ANATOMY BILL.

FEBRUARY 27, 1832.

On Mr. Warburton's Motion for the further Consideration of the Report of the Committee on the Anatomy Bill.

SIR, I cannot, even at this late hour of the night, refrain from saying two or three words. Most of the observations of the hon. member for Preston (Mr. H. Hunt) I pass by, as undeserving of any answer before an audience like this. But on one part of his speech I must make a few remarks. We are, says he, making a law to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. Sir, the fact is the direct reverse of this. This is a Bill which tends especially to the benefit of the poor. What are the evils against which we are attempting to make provision? Two especially; that is to say, the practice of burking and bad surgery. Now, to both those the poor alone are exposed. What man in our rank of life runs the smallest risk of being burked? That a man has property, that he has connexions, that he is likely to be missed and sought for, are circumstances which secure him against the burker. It is curious to observe the difference between murders of this kind and other murders. An ordinary murderer hides the body, and disposes of the property. Bishop and Williams dig holes and bury the property, and expose the body to sale. The more wretched, the more lonely, any human being may be, the more desirable prey is he to these wretches. It is the man, the mere naked man, that they pursue.

Again, as to bad surgery; this is, of all evils, the evil by which the rich suffer least, and the poor most. If we could do all that in the opinion of the member for Preston ought to be done-if we could prevent disinterment-if we could prevent dissection-if we could destroy the English school of anatomy-if we could force every student of the medical science to go to the expense of a foreign education, on whom would the bad consequences fall? On the rich? Not at all. As long as there is in France, in Italy, in Germany, a single surgeon of eminent skill-a single

surgeon who is, to use the phrase of the member for Preston, addicted to dissection-that surgeon will be in attendance whenever an English nobleman is about to undergo a critical operation. The higher orders in England will always be able to procure the best medical assistance. Who suffers by the bad state of the Russian school of surgery? The Emperor Nicholas? By no means. But the poor dispersed over the country. If the education of a surgeon should become very expensive, if the fees of surgeons should rise, if the supply of regular surgeons should diminish, the sufferers would be, not the rich, but the poor in our country villages, who would again be left to mountebanks, and barbers, and old women-to charms and quack medicines.

The hon. gentleman talks of sacrificing the interests of humanity to the interests of science, as if this were a question about the squaring of the circle, or the transit of Venus. This is not a mere question of science-it is not the unprofitable exercise of an ingenious mind-it is a question of care and pain. It is a question of life and death. Does the hon. gentleman know from what cruel sufferings the improvement of surgical science has rescued our species? I will tell him one story, the first that comes into my head. He may have heard of Leopold, Duke of Austria, the same who imprisoned our Richard Coeurde-Lion. Leopold's horse fell under him, and crushed his leg. The surgeons said that the limb must be amputated; but none of them knew how to amputate it. Leopold, in his agony, laid a hatchet on his thigh, and ordered his servant to strike with a mallet. The leg was cut off, and he died of the gush of blood. Such was the end of that powerful prince. Why, there is not now a bricklayer who falls from a ladder in England, who cannot obtain surgical assistance infinitely superior to that which the sovereign of Austria could command in the twelfth century. I think this a Bill which tends to the good of the people, and which tends especially to the good of the poor. Therefore I support it. If it is unpopular, I am sorry for it. But I shall cheerfully take my share of its unpopularity. For such, I am convinced, ought to be the conduct of one whose object it is, not to flatter the people, but to serve them.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

FEBRUARY 28, 1832.

The Bill for England, in Committee, 17th Day. On the question that the Tower Hamlets stand part of Schedule C.

He was unwilling to occupy the time of the House upon this subject, after the observations which he had thought it his duty to make in the course of the last session. But the extreme solicitude he felt on account of the importance of the question, and of the peculiar circumstances under which they were called on to discuss it, compelled him to make a few observations on the subject. In that, as in every other place, the first grand object in the discussion of these questions was, to clear the ground, and settle upon whom lay the burden of proof. It was his opinion that the burden of proof in this instance lay upon the Opposition. He considered that he was speaking to a House of Reformers—there might be one or two exceptions, but the great body on that and on the other side of the House had, he believed, agreed that some change in the representation must take place. He did not assert that every individual in that House entertained that opinion; but he could not avoid taking it for granted, that the great majority of the Opposition did; for he was warranted in saying, that in a great majority of the speeches they had delivered they had admitted the necessity of some change. If he did not entertain the opinion he now expressed as to their sentiments, he must put aside all the addresses sent up from the country by the noblemen and gentlemen who, in their different counties, had opposed this measure of reform, but all of whom had said that some change was necessary-that some reform must take place and that some large bodies of people must have representatives given to them.

If the fact was as he had stated, they on the side of the House

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on which he sat proposed that, as part of the large communities entitled to representation, the metropolitan districts should be represented. If enfranchisement ought to be part of the reform that the times required, and that gentlemen opposite admitted to be necessary, it was for those gentlemen to show why the places now proposed should not partake of the advantages of enfranchisement. He was aware that they had no precise standard by which to determine what were the towns that should receive representatives. He should use the word importance, to constitute that standard; for though it was possible to raise quibbles upon it, none could possibly deny that, if they were compelled to bestow representation upon one of two places, they would rather bestow it upon a town like Manchester than upon a petty village, and their choice would be guided by the greater importance of the place selected. If they took the amount of population as the standard of importance-if they adopted that of the number of £10 houses-if they took the amount of the assessed taxes-if they took the wealth-if they adopted intelligence as their criterion-indeed, estimate it as they might, let them take any combination of arithmetical figures that they pleased-let them multiply or dividelet them subtract or add-let them adopt the course pointed out by Lieutenant Drummond, or that of the hon. member who proposed to decide the question by the square root of population and taxes-in short, let them take whatever course of arithmetic they pleased, there was none from which these metropolitan districts would not come marked with the proofs of a most undoubted importance. If they took population, wealth, and intelligence, as the standard by which to measure their decision, fifty would be a more proper number of representatives than eight to give to these districts. That was a fact recognised by the hon. and learned gentleman himself.

It was admitted by all hon. members that, in all these elements of fitness for the formation of a constituency, the metropolitan districts stood higher than any other. If so, it was for those who wished to withhold the enfranchisement to give the reason why it should be withheld. The noble lord (Marquis of Chandos) had offered some reasons for refusing the members to these dis