The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-09 00:00:00

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TO OiftERPONDINTB.
lolvielimnenta intended tor The Uprose Landes by
=lslut be at the Ofliou 10, lisysefecticeet. Two
I en the day of publication.

DEY.LATTE.
TAN EvENTAG, XING JOKY. Marrs. Phelps, B. Sullivan,
Ryder. E Phelps. M•letyre. Barrett. J Johnstone. At Master P
Ito•elle . fleßdlarnes (tern= Veal. sad Vanden:due—And THE
MILLEIt AND jib MEN. Mos Edith fitaart.

fIAYMAIK.
THIS L'enNind, ROHM) AND JULIET. Newt Chippendale.
Hone, Rogers. Kendal, Clark. Compton. Ac.; Hee Lunen
Scott Siddone, hippende/e. &e.—TO PARIS AND BACK
/OR 45. liz. Buchanan —And 111 HUSBAND'S GHOST.

PRINCENIPIL
This Krum, POOR PILLICODDY.—After which ARRAN
NA POGUE. Moira Bone!caulk Vining, D. Murray, J. O. Shore,
G. F. NerlDs, Re.; 1111asMs and Mrs. Boucirault.—And NO.
ONE, ROUND TRI 00i

LYC EU If.
TFIN ETILIMM, TUE MISTRESS OF THE MILL —IIFIE
TA DT OF LYONS. Mr. Fecbtar, Messrs. Jordan, Eatery.
Cant/tent. Mellon. Dalton, Stuart, and Frencos ; Mina' EIS' worthy sad Carlotta Leclercq, Mrs, Marston.

- -
ITILARD.
TIM IRMO, Otri DOMESTIC& Mama Parasite, Thorne
smd ; kii.daMellJohostone and Weatemby.—Afte whkh
WILLIAM TELL WITR A TENOCARLE. Messrs James and
Thome ; Mks Ada Swaaborough, &e,—And DEAN AS A POST.

HLBRN.
Tim rrintrud. DANDELIO ONSO DODO —And FOR MFR.
Meseta U. J. Montague, Moe. Garden, Westland, awl H. WM-
dlcomb: Mesdames Stephens, Hound*, Jenny %Fillmore, and C.
Bowden—To conclude with AILS. Mr. J. W. Bay.

BRITA ?MIA.
THM Byron% BREAK BUT NOT BIND. Kra N. Lane.—
The American Iffnatreta and .YllllllOOllll NMECIY : LM. Conte!.
Iler and mike. ast.mnding liyumaal&—WlSlt TRI ROAD TO
TRANSPORTA TIDY.

MGR KATIE AT LONDON BRIDGE.
ran DAT —limning. lob. boat— --Aftentoon.llb. Ma.
TO-Itoltentr—lfornia, Ob. Ont....—Afternoon, noon.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9.

IN t'ie unusual vigour of a gradual and long-
protracted decline of life, Lord BaoronAm has
kept up a wonderfully fresh and vivid interest
in the questions of the day. Retiring from public
life in his ninetieth year, not because tho spirit
is unwilling but because the flesh is weak, he does
so with one further warning of an evil which
threatens the health and stability of our political
system. His last public declaration, as becomes
the ripe experience of one of the elders of the
people, is a protest against the laxity of Parlia-
ment and tho lukewarmness of the public in the
enforcement of the laws against Electoral Corrup-
tion.

Lord BeoronAm believes that the law as it now
stands is sufficient for the suppression of bribery.
This is, of course, a question on which he may be
thought to speak with considerable authority,
though it is certain that the most sincere desire
on the part of individuals to set the law in motion
has generally resulted in nothing. But even Lord
BROUGHAM'S view of the sufficiency of the law
rests on the ex-official power of the Government ;
that is, as we understand it, the power to issue
Commissions to inquire into and expose cases of
notorious corruption, or to prosecute the offenders
when such cases are exposed. But this power is
sure to be one that is behind public sentiment,
not in advance of it as a law against corruption
should be. It is effectual against very bad cases,
but it can do nothing to destroy the evil in its in-
cipient stages. The national conscience would
approve a stringent law giving the ordinary courts
power to deal with individual cases of corruption ;
but it is not sufficiently aroused, unless the scandal
is very notorious, to demand an extraordinary
effort to meet it. But this deficiency of public
sentiment is exactly a case for the educative in-
fluence of law. Lord BROUGHAM has himself said
that by making the slave trade felony he made
it odious, although till that time Society
had winked at it. Society winks at bribery, and
will continue to do so until the law puts it in the
category of other crimes, but when it does this,
even though only political penalties are attached
to it, Society will open its eyes to the disreputable
character of the transaction, and will visit it with
the social penalties it so well knows how to inflict.
It is indeed not the popular sentiment which is to
blame—that sentiment would cordially welcome an
borest attempt to suppress bribery. The demo-
ralisation of opinion among the higher classes as
to the giving of bribes is far greater than that
among the lower and lower middle classes as to
the taking of them, and so long as those who make
laws are not ashamed to corrupt others, they will
always find those who are only half ashamed to be
corrupted. A law which made it more penal to
give than to receive a bribe might stimulate the
sluggish conscience of Society, and by cutting off
the supply eventually stop the demand. Nothing
less than such a law will effectually deal with the
evil.

There are, however, one or two things in our
system of elections which account, perhaps,
for some of the tolerance Society and
Parliament, se reflecting the moral tone
of Society, exhibit towards this great national
evil. None but those who have had to do with
a contested election can understand the temptation
which a hard run in the closing hours of the poll
presents to the ambition of candidates and the
enthusiasm of their supporters. With only a few
votes needed to turn the scale, with men waiting
to give those votes for a consideration easily sup-
plied, with reminders from enthusiastic committee-
men that to refuse these men is to throw them.
and with them the election, into the hands of
their opponents, the temptation is such as even
heroic virtue can scarcely resist. But Govern-
ments have no right to expect heroic virtue from
ordinary men. All institutions which pro-
ceed on such an expectation necessarily,
aid perhaps deservedly, fail. The estimate which
Society will form of any vice or crime is decided
far more by the power of ordinary men to resist
it, than by any abstract considerations of its
hurtfulness. If men know that in like circum-
stances they should fall, they will look very
leniently on the fall of others. To diminish the
tenii tatiou to bribery is therefore almost a