The Express.
London, England, 1853-02-23 00:00:00

,ONDO.V, WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 23.

"fns elicicace already taken before the Commit-
tccs me* panelled to inquire into returns obtained
by bribery and treating at the last general elec.
tI
ue sufficiently acCuuuts for the anxiety evinced
tolettie th at maturity of cases by way of com-
mie. fibree privileged classes who have success-
Cy contrived to baffle the intention of the Reform
Bill and to recover their ascendancy ia the existing
np Tauten are naturally alarmed at the idea of
full and complete expa-ure ; and the professional
!etches who live and time° by the system participate
in the apprehen.ions of those who employ them, be-
ing that if the truth or anything approaching to it
litre fully made known, the sense of public shame and
indignation would speedily become irresistible ; and
suvheflicientchanges would be wrung from &reluctant
Legislature as would put an end to the profits of
their unclean calling. Five cases only have as yet
cusped from the smothering process of clandesUns
compromise.
ise Those who have opportunities of ob-
Krving closely what is going on find little difficulty
in assigning peculiar and specific reasons why, each
of these cases should have been brought to light ;
very different in their nature from any considerations
of s public or general kind, and referable chiefly to
local or personal squabbles and interests which are
hardly worth examination or remembrance. But it
is an ominous fact, that in every instance that hes
yet been subjected to public scrutiny a few hours in-
quiry have sufficed to render the defence of the IMMO
impugned confessedly hopeless, and in two UM
where the committees have terminated their inquirAse
not only have the sitting members been declared
guilty of bribery by their agents, but a state of thinp
Lw been disclosed implying such wide-spread de-
moralisation and prevalent illegality as to call for
formal recommendations to the House in the report
of the committees that Commissions should issue, in
order that the writs should be stayed. This has
been done in the case of Lancaster and in that of
Canterbury, neither of them small or indigent con-
stituencies, but both sufficiently notorious for old
habits of corruption. In the former it was proved
that while some voters were bribed with five pounds.
others sold their suffiegmeeo low as one pound
a head. Yet, notwithstanding the wretched
cheapness of the raw material of corruption, it is ge-
nerally understood that the completion of the precese
involved a very considerable outlay of capital. There
appears to have bees little excitement and no enthu-
siasm on either aide. It is said to have been a mere
Mal of strength between rival purses, as the results
of the Communion which is called for will
probably show. How, then, was the money
spent in hundreds and in thousands P A gra
duated system of agency has long subsisted at Lan-
cuter, and in the working of this costly machinery
of canvassing, crimping, and coercion, the greater
portion of the candidate's money has usually gone.
What now will happen ? By the suspension of the
writ the town will be virtually disfranchised for
the remainder of the present session, that
is to soy, three-fourths of the constituency, who
bare done no wrong will be denuded of their consti-
tutional rights, while legal investigation takes place
into the misdeeds of the remainder. Yet such is
the wretched and ridiculous condition of the law,
that nobody can point out what better at the present
moment can be done. Never was anything so tho-
roughly preposterous. The great majority of the
constituency who were not to be bought because they
valued aright their
_ political franchises, are to be
stripped of these franchises for months in order that
inqiusition may be made into all the details of
corruption in which some eespie of hundred
of their townsmen have bins engaged. To
talk of punishing these latter by suspending
their representative privileges wail be something
like drivelling. 11*ff lave gives eallisient proof of
their worm than isiesse ea the abject. Detected
sad Elstanehised, ate a minority ought assuredly
to he. Bet a more slurry or bungling contrivance
it is impesible to sosceive, than that which Weeds
atenthe only chance of either detection or
The acme, as we have already ob-
arid. et as ailed= titles being
_ever brought to
a hirft h mesa sit the issue et
that ins be, .m a esabination of
medusa and trial, whisk it would take
a alma of ear spas, to esesserits Then come
the sutra
_gesies amnesia& with the adoptions by
the two Home of Podiums* of an address to
the Crown, peva_ that a comminics of Inquiry
=as fallow the delays asemearily
math as hsty, ad that which mast
sews iher the report of the Cesusheica is made,
idle as Act of Disfranchisement I. peeing
hillthee* lea Homes Is it act plain that a very
spades of remedkbeccose needful P One
taehem the obvious of punishing the
lama he the few, and exempt from
the and of private caprice to
ell
shish the passed system is =posed to. Above
illeselit dmirable that the offence itself should
Ulan at of dm dieritios and control of condi-
dim er this eget*, ass limed in the category of
Zahaishmeasse and made indictable -aad
ia a aimilar manna. The present law
cl what ere called qui ism motions for penal-
ties is utterly
.inoguritive sad oboists, and
Fatally speaking neither the gtvmg nor the
==mi is as asses le by law.
once ia seven unished by a
thealthe el the Hones Canneyears p
ons—it nominally
is list the mode of remedy is a burlesque, and its
=a a means of &grim' others from the per
the crime it positively a hie.
elm At Coartary the expeallitnre resorted to am
mom kola sad indartiminate than at Linem-
an. • A math Wier modes at the electoral body
LiPtitie have been inhaled with the taint that
ll
opeineg over all car large towns. It will
ad de le wq tint the male emission of the trieshiss
WI sass to estigetithe evil. At Cantettesq.
Mee the Bohm 1114 the Wein= pries of a veto
siikdheenty was thenchnlied,
lei minhnsapies sassiones to as wad.
We are he hea wing seals that es me await
eying the entaniss of the franchise. it as a
we do urge it for the
reseliallesspiss=layti sae atesion with the
ml with lose -Mistral sal ammairy siethed of
ILe We =schill be m well es its
mask dia-
lled is a bras lie of 6tbatloa between
veses de .the and them who assept hike, In
Gold every ether sines known to the law, the
Abilities is ashaessiudged between indium! to
wise end ampiemesse in it. And the penalties 'A-
IWA and wisely adapted to the dithrent
GPM d In oar present &pastel sole as
1110112,_ saltiect, then is all the easel= genii-
ler
dirtala of culpability and dimities of assai-
markein= never intruded to be
into According to the bitter
of the , a silt manias may be keel* is
as d the soparbe ands at Weetadastee
iley sae who hes beszusTed in corrupt at
°WWI& Agsint as ant and cautious eindi-
fete, this is too vs and hazardous an under-
bids,/ for any respedmide private cation; and, if
alhapted by a common blamer, it is dill hoe likely
h sesseeL But the besomen Wore ass.
if/Gliss, whale so pea= szponsive a weapon
G,_
_shied against some &waken freeman or
!solvent shopkeeper in a country town. How
the plaintiff to find his account in
permeation of such a snit against such defendants,
ally nothing of the penalties which the law hypo-
._ .44414 suggests as a motive, and which in the
swam we have named he an never hope to Te-
ener! The costs which he must necessarily. incur
fan in themselves an insuperable barrier in the
Gff. Hence the absolute futility of the law as it
stands, and hence, as it seems to us, the demon-
strable and demonstrative necessity for placing it
on a wholly different footing. Reduce bribery to
the disgraceful level of larceny, and punish it
accordingly by whomsoever committed, and there
*ill then be tome hope of putting a check upon the
'Nem