The Express.
London, England, 1849-04-11 00:00:00

OUR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM

PONTEFRACT.
Should you hare any inclination to hazard three or
four thousand pounds in an election contest, write to ,
an attorney at Pcntefract. If you employ a London
agent to write for you, it may cost you some few
hundreds more. But there is no necessity for that
ad,litioral outlay. Take the Law List and write to
any attorney you may find therein connected with
the borough, selecting the first that comes or any par-
ticular rame your fancy may dictate. Yon may rest
perfectly ea'isfied that he will accommodate you if
you can only satisfy him that you can pay. Under
the system of this borough you will have no chance
whatever if you cannot do that.
For in Pontefract for years past it has been the
custom that the attorntya should manage the elec-
tions. The constituency regard these gentlemen as
the responsible parties. A candidate in this immacu-
late place need not be known by name or reputa-
tion ; what is required is that he should be introduced
by " the firm." The usual public distinctions are quite
subordinate to the local ones : the candidates are not
known as tories or as whigs, as blues or as yellows :
it is rather the custom to describe them as
" Parchment's candidate," " Gammon and Quirk's
man," "Mr. Slime's member," and an on. Each at-
torney is held responsible for the" electors' due s." It is
politically fatal to a firm to introduce a candidate who
does Snot pay. A mistake of that sort subjects the
acting agents to suspicions which are sure to extend
to erery candidate who may subsequently employ
them. "Did you ever know ouf,house introduce the
wrong sort of man to you ?" That is the best appeal
to the feelings of this pure constituency, and if the
question can be boldly put by the attorney, it is in
Pontefract an immense advantage to those he re-

presents.
Corruption at Pontefract dates from a distant
perioi. Half a century ago the representation was
chiefly exercised by some members of the Galway
family, whose estates, now possessed by Mr. R. P.
Mikes, are immediately adjacent to the town. A com-
mittee of the House of Commons having, however,
declared the right of voting to be in the resident inha-
bitant householders at large, the dominant influence
had to fight stoutly for thew seat. There are records
of severe and expensive contests here at the general
elections of 1807, 1812, 1820, and 1826 ; in fact, it
was too much the interest of the consti-
tuency that the town ehonld be contested
ever to permit of their allowing an election to take
place without a poll. On one occasion, when the
present Earl of Mexborough and Mr. Lucelles were
the candidates, it is on record that the committee act-
, ing for the former were absolutely bought over at his
own dinner table on the eve of the polling-day, and
that he bad the mortification of seeing them come to
the hustings one after another on the following morn-
ing, to record their suffrages for his opponent. The
Mezbormigh family have during the present century
spent, according to their own statements, not
less than 60,0001. in the different contests
in which they have been engaged here. To other
candidates for the representation the cost has propor-
tionately been little less. Mr. Milne', the father of
the present memter, paid very heavily for his seat.
Mr. Houldswortb, an extremely rich manufacturer at
Manchester, wbo " behaved so liberally " that he was
returned at the head of the poll at two elections,
found the place so expensive that he thought it
cheaper to buy a share of a borough outright. lie ao-
cordingly purchased, in 1830, a seat for -Newton in
the Willows, at a cost of 4,0001., and at for that
piaoe a year and three quarters, when it was wholly
disfianchised by the Reform Act. Mr. T. Duncombe,
who is not a bad authority on there matters, once con-
tested Pontefract unsuccessfully with this gentleman
and Viscount Pollington, and llas since put on record
his opinion that the town was one of the most corrupt
he ever entered. There is, in fact, no sort of expense
that a candidate for Pontefract is not obliged to incur.
All the attorneys must be employed as agents—all the
publicans must be permitted to dispense beer—all the
drapers will Vote against von if you do not. permit
them to make op favoursall the electors must be
paid bead-money at the rate of 31. for a
single vote and 6/. for a plumper—all the
non-electors must ho employed as banner bearers,
runners, or messengers, and must live at
your expellee all the time the contest lasts. The
agents each expect to make from 2001. to 3001. of you
in the legitimate shape of costs, besides their pickings
in ether ways. The hotel keeper will keep his house
open with the money be has received from the candi-
date for two years after the contest at the least, and
then the probabilities are, that if another election is
not speedily expected, he will leave. The whole
system of the town, in fact is one of the vilest de-
scription of electioneering plunder, and the only re-
markable thing is that candidates should be fauna
so easily as taey are to fell into the net which
is at this place spread for them. The cele-
brated "physician' known as Dr. Free was
the only man on record who entirely escaped
its meshes. "Pray what are you, sir ?" he inquired
done of the half dozen gentlemen who bad come to
him as " a deputation from Pontefract," and who
were quietly brangirg him down to Ferrybridge in
his carriage preps-story to a " grand entry into the
town," which they bad projected and arranged.
" Pray what are you, sir ?. " I am an attorney,"
was the reply. "And you, air ?" "lam a tavern-
keeper." " And the gentlemen in the dickey ?"
" Ons is a solicitor and one is a publican." " And
the red-faced individual on the box ?" " Oh, he keeps
the Goat and Seven Stars." " Then, sir, be kind
enough to order my coachman to turn his horsed
heads the other way, for it seems to me that this depu-
tation is comp.Ed of rathertoo prevailing. an interest
in Pontefract." So Dr. Bree escaped, leaving the men
of trap and tap to find their own way home.
The Reform Bill, though it extended the bounda-
ries of this borough, very far from improved the chit-