The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-14 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 14, 1848.

and a band of the better eases of Madrid, ham been
foolish enough to attack the military in the streets, '
gentlemen in kid gloves taming the paving stones,
and erecting barricades, in imitation of the Parisians.
A real Spaaiah insurrection is quite a dif&rent ani a
much more formidable thing. Nor is there anything
more calculated to revoke it than the arrival and
installation of the Duke de MONTPENSIER M Madrid.

England, however, should feel no rancour or exclu-
siveness. The ORLEANS family, whatever their de-
merits, are in a position which excites far other
sentiments; and if that dynasty could save and
constitutionalise the Spanish throne, which, consider-
ing the national sentiments of Spaniards, and the
hostile vicinity of France, we deem almost impossible,
it is not for us to oppose, to intrigue, or to gainsay.
The discovered correspondence of the Tuileries
contains one of the most servile letters we ever read,
from one of his late ministers, M. SALVANDY, to
LOUIS PHILIPPE. It is written last September, for
the purpose of enclosing a copy of the Standard to
the King. The Standard had been praising and sup-
porting the Spanish policy of the French court, and
seeking to fright English ministers into acquiescence
with that French policy by menaces of war. M.
SALVANDY says, the Standard could not take its
inspiration from better sources; but adds, that the
organ of the French court, the Debate, durst not re-
produce the Standard's articles, lest such threats of
war might scatter disquietude, and disturb the
Bourse.
This precious ministerial epistle to Majesty thus
concludes :
The King bas achieved everything, impossible to the
rulers who have preceded him. Lie has done the work of
the revolution without disorder or excesses—completed the

work of Napoleon without despotism and without conquest;
and the work of the restoration without insurrection 'and
without unpopularity. He will re-commence the work 0:-
Louis XI V. without a war of suet ession !"

---- .....
Vile flattery never concentrated more egregious
falsehood. Such were the men whom Lours PHILIPPI:
trusted, such the counsels with which he enlightened
his rule, such the courtiers with whom he surrounded
his throne !

TIIERE can be no fitter preface to a debate on the
Charter, which is after all but a popular demand for
purity of election, than a consideration of the state
and nature of our elections, as recently revealed
before the committees charged with examining them.
That corruption pervades the whole electoral body,
as at present constituted and divided, there
is little doubt. The guises in which the sys-
tem covers itself are, indeed, as numerous as the places
returning representatives; the form in each is different,
but the thing itself is the same. The amount varies,
but the substance is there. In no two towns are the

modes of operating alike. Each borough has its pe-
culiar mode ; but the electors are as readily dealt with
by the quiet single-handed payment, as by the open,
undisguised, and general distribution of sovereigns, at
so much per vote.
- • -•

It is somewhat curious to see how the corruption
still works in all its varied forms—hnw well it adapts

itself to local wants and local circumstances, and how
it survives the attacks of committees, the resolutions
of the Commons, and the enactments of the
legislature. The Bribery and Intimidation Com-
mittee
of 1835, and the Compromise Com-
mittee of 1842, made us well acquainted with
the ways as they then were; exposure there was
ample, denunciation there was in the cxtreme, and in
Sudbury there was punishment that might have
frightened other, not less notorious, though more
fortunate boroughs. All warning, however, has
been thrown away ; all fear has been dispelled, and
we have in 1848 corruption as rampant as it was at
any period, either antecedent to, or following the
Reform Bill.

As to direct bribery, what do we find proved:
Great Yarmouth stands alone in its glory of payments
of 21. and 3/. each to the freemen in the mass, and the
freemen of Yarmouth are to be marked out for
punishment; but Derby escapes with a condemnatory
resolution, because the full extent of the system was
not made patent to the committee; though the
"free and independent" freemen and householders
received ss. a day for doing nothing, except recording
their votes, under the pretence of being put upon
the committee—a custom which has there prevailed for
the last 16 years, and which sprung out of a former
custom of giving a a. refreshment ticket to every
freeman. This former custom, moreover, received, in
1834, the express sanction of Sir ROBERT PEEL, who
then declared that if the refreshment of the electors
were matter of corruption, it would be necessary to
disfranchise half the boroughs in the country, and
avowed that the custom of giving refreshment tickets
for ss. each to the lower class of electors had existed
at Tamworth since the time of ELIZABETH, and had
never been thought blameable. Yet the generosity
of the banker of Carlisle to his friend and protege
failed to secure his seat from the attack: and the proof
that 1,2001. were expended in refreshment tickets,
drank at some thirty public-houses, was sufficient to
render the election void. What is so blameless in sa.
at Tamworth that no one thinks of petitioning, is fatal
in Carlisle ; as if it were the excess and not the prin-
ciple which was objectionable. At Bewdley almost
every public-house and beer-shop has been proved to
have been opened, at a cost of 709/. or 8001. to one
side alone, and what for ? To treat the elm-
tors ? Oh, no ! that was never dreamt of ;
bit for the necessary refreshment of some hun-
dreds of non-electors employed to prevent the
worthy voters from being kidnapped and taken by
force out of the town. The representation must be
in a nice condition when every voter needs a keeper,
not to take him to the poll, but to prevent his bodily
abstraction from the borough. The reverse picture
was exhibited at Kinsale, where the worthies were
" cooped" up in a yard in a glorious state of intoxica-
tion, and were shaved and made fit for the pall by the
tender services of the barber's daughter. In Bolton,
the sitting member managed to hold his seat ; for the
" shots " were put on at the public houses and beer-
shops, and though breakfasts were freely given to the
men about to vote, and though we have the distinct
report of the committee that voters were bribed, yet
the proof of the agency was not strong enough to
satisfy hon. members. In Lancaster we have suppers
and drink, and, in Lincoln, the persuasive assemblies
of the " Pig and Whistle "Club, with another case of
single-handed bribery. In Elorsbam, the treating by
legal agents is, at once, admitted by the counsel for
the sitting member, and it is in evidence that he wan
present upon one occasion, at least : and, at liarwioh,
see have once more a single-handed case of bribery,
and plenty of treating reported, though, as in the
case of Bolton, the treating was not brought home to
the agents of the sitting member.
Another mode of corruption has passed through the
committees with something like a sanction; it has
been reprobated in terms, but sanctioned iu fact, for
no committee has unseated a member on this ground
—we mean, the bribery of the out-voters, under the
pretence of paving for travelling expenses and loss of
time; in truth, paying not only the actual fare,
but giving a good bonus over. In Carlisle, the out-
voters had their whole expenses paid to the city, they
were found in bed and board in profusion till they
had polled, and then were paid a bonus of some two
pounds each over and above the whole railway fare
back to their own homes A resolution of the Rouse
of Commons declares that paying money to out-voters,
under colour of indemnifying them for loss of time, is
highly illegal, subversive of the freedom of election,
and tending to the most dangerous corruption ; and
Lord Mansfield declared that if any decision of a com-
mittee had allowed the payment for travelling expenses
and loss of time to pass uncensored it was clearly ilk-
gal ; and yet the Carlisle committee contented them-
selves
with saying, that "practices of this kind, if not
strictly illegal, must always be open to the most
serious abuses, and require regulation by some defi-
nite enactment;" and the Lincoln committee echoed
this resolution, when it was proved that the out-
voters were paid 9d. a mile if they voted a plumper,
and 40. a mile from each candidate, if they split
their votes. The Reform Act intended to cut off all
the non-residents, by making residence within seven
miles necessary. Neglect of the registry leaves some
of these out-voters ou the list, and those who pay for
their " expenses and loss of time," have their
votes; and committees do not vote these payments to
be " strictly illegal." If all the electors of Bewdley
had vanished to some distant place, and re-ap-
peared on the nomination day, by the same
rule they might have secured for themselves
" expenses and loss of time," and a bonus
over. Fertile as were the local managers in
electioneering resources, this escaped them. If the
North Staffordshire petition had been proceeded with,
we should have seen whether a committee would
bare legalised the payment of travelling expenses
and refreshments to the freeholders and tenants