Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Cambrian and Caledonian Quarterly Magazine and Celtic Repertory, 1833, Vol. 5 Yet it is horrid to think, in connexion with dishonest in statesmen, that, because popular imagination has been fed by a venal press, Great Britain, if she be influenced by this upas of literature, stands a good chance of bein hurried on to an universal immaddened state of anarchy, w ile every possible amelioration that can, may be gained without it, b a careful selection of members of parliament according to t e simple precedent we have recorded; and here we may be allowed to remark, how shamelessly has one portion of the press vilified the Tories, and another portion the Whigs, while there have been great and good, many great and good, men and how insidiously is it now labouring to Let the dis assionate, the philanthropic low neighbour oods of the metropolis during of dissipation which are there nightly going ou, - let him do this, and he will, as we have done, soon discover what sort of reaction is now afloat. The miserable attacks, formerly made, are now at an end. We hear no thing of N oscy' or Old Bags, but, camelion-like, they have chan to true blue, and Grey and Brougham are vilified ali e, in terms stupidly Opprobrious and wicked. Here is reaction based upon the vilest ebullition of demo cratic wildness. The chief reason of it is, that some of our daily, weekly, and monthly contemporaries look not to reli gion or moral feeling as their guide, - out upon it. We want an increased crculation, let our country fall; and still are a portion of the world mad enough to be influenced by these self-interested vehicles of demoralization. We now wish to offer our Opinion u n the system of pledging; we think that to extort one 111 a man, as to his future conduct in legislation, before he has seen or can judge of the premises on which his pledges are given, is, in plain terms, to pronounce the electors and the elected knaves and idiots. Su pose the administrators to the laws, instead of the makers O them, were to pledge themselves in decision previously to hearing the bearings of a civil or criminal case - what would be said of them? Then, indeed, would the names of Scrogg's and J eff'ray's not stand alone, and in such cases, infamy must necessarily stain the other wise exalted reputation of the British Judge; and yet such conduct is not uncommonly required at the hands of parliamentary representatives. The cause of this may appear to many of our readers inexplicable - to us it seems to be founded on improper interference; on direct innova tion of the election law. A constituency requirin pledges, be they who they may, exhibit in their demands a most dangerous leaning to misgovemment, in its very worst form - absolute rule, devoid of reasoning power. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.