11.—An election petition, presented by Mr. T. O. Springfield and others, against the return of Mr. Edmond Wodehouse and Mr. H. N. Burroughes for East Norfolk, was withdrawn.
16.—The popular burletta, “Jim Crow, or the Flight to America,” was produced at Norwich Theatre. Mr. Dunn appeared as Jim Crow, and “gave the celebrated song as sung by him upwards of 3,000 times.” “We dare scarcely give our opinion of this composition, finding ourselves, as we do, at such complete variance with the taste of the great Metropolis, which has run wild in ecstatic enthusiasm over this precious piece of jingling nonsense.”
18.—Died at Binham, aged 89, Thomas Row, “the last of a body of woolcombers who had been employed there from time immemorial.”
23.—The cuckoo was not heard until this date, “being the latest indication of the vernal season since 1767, in which year it did not sing till May 7th, and the latest ever known in 51 years, according to the late Mr. Marsham’s observations at Stratton Strawless.”
28.—The hearing of the petition against the return of Mr. C. E. Rumbold and Mr. William Wilshere, as members for Yarmouth, commenced before a Committee of the House of Commons. “A compromise was effected, by which one of the members vacates, and Mr. Baring is to succeed. Counsel for the petitioners unfolded a scene of profligate corruption to an unparalleled extent. If the petition had been prosecuted with the vindictive feeling and party spirit exhibited on a former occasion, the committals to Newgate would have been so numerous and
the prosecutions so sweeping as to have carried ruin into many of the principal families.” At the election, which took place on August 23rd, Mr. Baring was opposed by Mr. Wilshere, and the poll was declared as follows:—Wilshere, 735; Baring, 702. “A poor man who felt much interest in the result of the election declared that if Mr. Baring lost he would hang himself in less than an hour after the poll closed, and he actually did it.”
MAY.
7.—Mr. Sinclair, of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, appeared for a short season, commencing on this date, in a round of operatic parts at Norwich Theatre, after an absence of seventeen years.
9.—The Norwich Town Council adopted, on the motion of Mr. Barwell, a memorial to the Board of Trade in favour of the establishment of a school of design.
11.—A Committee of the House of Commons commenced the hearing of the petition of Isaac Wiseman and others against the return of the Hon. Robert Campbell Scarlett and the Marquis of Douro, as members for the city of Norwich. The principal allegations were bribery and corruption and the improper keeping of the poll. On May 12th, after an examination of the poll-books, the Committee passed the following resolution:—“That Arthur Wellesley, commonly called the Marquis of Douro, is duly elected; that Robert Campbell Scarlett is not duly elected; and that Benjamin Smith is duly elected, and ought to have been returned.” The Orange and Purple Club, at a meeting held at the Norfolk Hotel, on May 30th, under the presidency of Mr. W. J. Utten Browne, voted an address to Mr. Scarlett, acknowledging the services he had rendered to the Conservative cause.