BURDETT'S LAST TREASON.
Iss a brief Postscript paragraph la-t week, we asked, "What should the public (whom Sir FRANCIS BURDETT addresses by sending his letter to the newspapers) care about BROOKES'S Club —who its members are, or whether their manners are refined or rude? Cannot the select fraternity settle these matters within their closed apartments?" The conduct of Sir FRANCIS has been the theme of general conversation, and daily discussion in the journals ; and though the Tories feel bound to defend and glorify him, there seems to be but one ;opinion among upright men respecting it,—which is, that the Baronet was not actuated, as he hypocritically pretends, by any desire to preserve Brookes's Club from pollution, but by personal envy and malice, coupled with political apostasy; and that it was with a view to the gratification of his bad feelings that he endeavoured to make the public a party in an affair which he himself states as concerning only an exclusive coterie.
The members of Brookes's Club have formed themselves into a society from which the public is shut out. They elect certain per- sons from among their own body, who manage their concerns. They agree to abide by certain rules; and the enforcement of those rules is the duty of the Managers. The public do not interfere with them. No individual or body of men can three them to admit any one into their Club, neither can they order the expul- sion of a member. It is therefore sheer impertinence to appeal to the public, or to any persons not members of the Club, to meddle or make with their concerns. The Managers are the parties to whom complaints are to be addressed. No one knows this better than Sir FRANCIS BURDETT; but he is aware that, o.%iug to his own shuffling courses, he has no influence at Brookes's—that he has there, as elsewhere, sunk into pitiable insignificance. His purpose being to help the Tories, and gratify his jealous spite against O'CONNELL, he sends a letter, not to the Managers at. Brookes's, but to the Times, which had been calling for such a proceeding for weeks past. The Tory journals, to whom even RAPHAEL'S farrago of lies was a godsend, eagerly took up the Baronet, when obliged to drop the Ex-Sheriff. His letter served as a new peg whereon to hang abuse of O'CONNELL. It answered their purpose and that of Sir FRANCIS BURDETT so far; but the result is, that O'CONNELL is not in the slightest degree damaged by the at- tack, while Buanerr is found to have violated the common rules of society, and been guilty of conduct manifestly absurd, from motives the malice of whii,h is as transparent as the meanness of his pretences. Perhaps there is scarcely a member of Brookes's who ought to be more shy of charging others with the use of coarse language as an offence to society, than Sir FRANCIS BURDETT. The Chronicle has contributed some well-timed reminiscences to this effect. Above all, it seems, he ought to be silent on the subject of abuse of the Duke of CUMBERLAND; there are those who re- member expressions publicly applied by Sir FRANCIS to the Duke which no person with a regard to decency can publicly repeat. We observe that some of the electors of Westminster are alive to the disgrace of having again returned BURDETT to Parliament. Indeed they ought be ashamed of such a Member. They owe an atonement to the Reformers of England for having suffered him again to misrepresent them. They are without excuse. At the last election they knew the man they had to deal with. They knew him to be slothful, shallow, insolent to his constituents, and Inattentive to their interests ; they were aware of his trimming, and his subserviency to Tory influence. Still they chose him, at a very critical period, to be their Representative. Well—they have their reward. They have the satisfaction of seeing Sir FRANCIS BURDETT occasionally still a man of mark ! At one time he canvasses for the Tory MANNERS SUTTON, to please the Court or the ladies; at another time he tries to throw a slur on the Reform Association ; then lie makes it an especial favour to his constituents not to support the Tory Minister on the Address; and nos behold him the abject tool of the Orange-Tory faction, eager to throw dirt on O'CONNELL—on the man whom no small portion of his constituents would gladly see Member for West- minster in his stead 1 It is high time that the Westminster Reformers should be rid of this dotard. Let them summon courage to turn off Sir FRANCIS. O'CONNELL is in his proper place, as Member for the Metropolis of his own country; but there are other Reformers fit to represent Westminster. The necessary steps should be taken without delay to secure the return of an honest Reformer.
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