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Source: Bell's Weekly Messenger, No.1838, Sunday, June 26, 1831

[Reform Bill, Glasgow]

The Glasgow Chronicle contains a paragraph, indicative of the intense interest taken by the people in the Reform bill. A plan has been devised for communicating rapidly the news of the success or defeat of the bill in the House of Lords, something like the fiery cross by which the Highland Clans used to be gathered. Delegates are to be chosen by the towns and villages round Glasgow, who are to receive the news from a person, who will meet the mail, on horseback at a distance, and, on receiving the news, each delegate will start off to his respective Preses (President), who is to be supplied with a black and white flag, and if the news proclaim a defeat the black flag will be hoisted on some prominent situation; "and by this system of telegraphic dispatch," says the paragraph, "the whole of the inhabitants of Glasgow, and to a distance of five or six miles in the country, will be furnished with the result in half an hour after the mail arrives in town." A Council of Emergency, in case of the failure of the bill, is to be formed, for the purpose of devising some decisive measures to prevent anarchy and confusion.