THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| Vol. 17. No. 492. | SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1831. | [PRICE 2d. |
THREE BOROUGHS
Proposed to be wholly disfranchised by the REFORM BILL.
1. DUNWICH. 2. OLD SARUM. 3. BRAMBER.
THREE BOROUGHS:
1. DUNWICH, SUFFOLK.
2. OLD SARUM, WILTS.
3. BRAMBER, SUSSEX.
Proposed to be wholly disfranchised by "the Reform Bill."
We feel ourselves on ticklish—debateable ground; yet we only wish toillustrate the topographical history of the above places; theirparliamentary history must, however be alluded to; but their future fatewe leave to the 658 prime movers of government mechanics. Mr. Oldfield'sHistory of the Boroughs, the best companion of the member ofparliament, shall aid us: instead of companion we might, however, callthis work his family, for there are six full-grown octavo volumes,which would occupy a respectable portion of any library table.
Dunwich is a market town in the hundred of Blything, Suffolk, three anda half miles from Southwold, and one hundred from London. It was once animportant, opulent, and commercial city, but is now a mean village. Itwas also an episcopal see, but William I. transferred the see toThetford, and thence to Norwich. Dunwich stands on a cliff ofconsiderable height commanding an extensive view of the German Ocean,and we learn that its ruin is owing chiefly to the encroachments of thesea. It is a poor, desolate place, as the cut implies. Mr. Shoberl, inthe Beauties of England and Wales, tells us "seated upon a hillcomposed of loam and sand of a loose texture, on a coast destitute ofrocks, it is not surprising that its building shall have successivelyyielded to the impetuosity of the billows, breaking against, and easilyundermining the foot of the precipice." Certainly not, say we; and it isequally un-surprising that seven out of its eight parishes having beenlong ago destroyed, their political consequence should not exist beyondtheir extermination. Mr. Oldfield, whom we remember to have often met,was a man of jocose turn, and he has not spared Dunwich his whip ofhumour, for, speaking of its gradual decay by the sea, he says—"theencroachment that is still making, (1816) will probably, in a few years,oblige the constituent body to betake themselves to a boat, whenever theking's writ shall summon them to the exercise of their electivefunctions; as the necessity of adhering to forms, in the farcicalsolemnity of borough elections, is not to be dispensed with."
We must be brief with its representative and political history. "Outbrief candle!" It has sent members since the 23rd Edward I. Bribery andother irregularities against the sitting members in procuring votes wereproved in 1696: in 1708, Sir Charles Bloyce, one of the bailiffs wasreturned, but upon a petition proving bri