The Express.
London, England, 1856-04-14 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 14.

ANOTHER rotten borough has ban repurchased
by the Tories, and some well-messing Liberals go
about wond:ring how it hes come to pass—as if there
Won any mystery in the matter, or any new political
significance in the fact. What has happened at
Athlone is, indeed, thecounterpart of what occurred a

few weeks ago at Sligo and New Roes; but it simply
amounts to this—that the Derbyitee being pommeled
with the notion that half-a-dozen votes more or less
may be of eonnqutoce some fine erasing between
this and Midsummer, they have given orders to buy
freely whenever opportuoity serves; and as their
brokers have always been men of experience,
they have naturally fixed their unscrupulous
attention cn the cheapest article that is to
be had for tho money. Comities and large
towns are seldom worth winniog in this way in the
latter days of • Parliament; and even places in
England having the avenge number of electors can-
not be rifled without an amount of illicit expenditure
that would hardly be sanctioned by any Chancellor
of the Carlton Exch. quer. Party purses are not io
these days as big oa they once were; and with the
danger hanging over their heads of the Minister
being provoked into a dissolution, the managers of
the finances of faction do not venture to stake too
heavily on' any particular seat. Of the rotten
boroughs in England a moiety are already
held by the followers of Lord Denny, and
the remainder are not to be filched out of the
hands of their owners by any method or
vat mom. Those on the other aide of the Channel
present a more tempting aspect. There, unfor-
tunately, a state of things has been permitted
most pestilently propitious to any sudden raid of the
kind in question. 01 twenty-nine boroughs return-
ing one member each, more than twenty contain less
than four hundred electors; and the majority of
them do not pretend, even on paper, to three. In
some of these the old proprietary influence has sur-
vived the changes of 1832; but in general they have
been held, though not without difficulty, and Nes-
signally some awkward exposures, by politicians pro-
fessing, with various degrees of fervour and 0011•111. •
teney, attachment to Liberal opinions. Sines the
death of O'Corrottt, the extinction of Young
In-
Lndism, sod the gradual decadence of religious agt.
tatioo, the popular party in Ireland has been
in • state of unprecedented apathy. No
local organisation of any kind exists to keep alive
active sympathy, or to baffle the selfish end scrdid
projects continually being conceived against the
repressotation. Most of the =WI boroughs, as we
have said, have been left destitute by the Legislature
of any electoral strength adequate to resist sudden
attack from without ; and when the assault is led by
one of load knowledge and connexion it is only mat-
wallow how it should ever fail. There still exists in
every little town like New Ross, Sligo, sad Athlone,
a scapist remnant of the old Orange party, who
sestinas to preserve their habits of combination and
their means of rapid and affective esseset. At their
bead a member of one of the neighbouring
!utilise would at any time be powerful, but
it is only in periods of prevalent quiescence
that he can ordinarily hope to sussed; and eves
then the odd trick is only to be mode by resort to
lassie. In this latter accomplishment the Tories
have lately because considerable proticients. Under
the lead of that conjurer Mr. Daunt they have ac-
gybed a certain fatality in the legerdemain a:pledgee
and general principles. Ones on a times Tory
country gentleman, whatever his faults sad &het&
was above all things a man of his word; end
though you might not like his narrow or obsolete
sakes, you always felt that you knew when to
have him. But much of this frankness and =un-
til-fact disposition has been winnowed away by
the inveterate practice of persiflage and *qui.
resaties. For want of anything bitter, the
Coosarvatives, as a party, have ban hie to
try what out be made of basting doubtful edam
and playing a feeble part al the haelmga, All this,
however, would not avail if the moresollilpsals of
their *intestates to get Into Parliament Itiintleauit.
lag. With pliant opinioss and substantial *pantie
need over night, they have succeeded a neissinabs
themselves of three boroughs whose eggrople
voters taken together have not bees found to maw
slx hundred individuals. Of this dab germs asst
to be exceedingly proud, and theeghtless Liberals
look as though they were ball sassed. There is m
little ground for the one feeling as for the other. The
real marvel would be if, ender the circumstances, the
result had bees other than it has ben.

We have lened it said, with plausible Phew of
rum, that if the Opposition were se sager
just now to obtain votes in the Misuse. any
bow and say where, the Ronan, petition would
nag have been abandoned. But this like the rest
is mere semblance, not reality. At the last geoe-
rat &Woo both erste for Rochester were WOO iu the
newel way by the Tories. On the retirement of Kr.
Fenix breweries a °oldest took plus, and the Whig
proved semiarid. A petition spinet the Mani
was presented se a matter of WHIM; bat looking
to the Vetere es well u to the present the en-
dorsers of the late honourable member judged it
ivies, not to penned therewith. Every au at all
acquainted with elections keens that it is considered
bad teed.. in those who rely on corrupt Musses to
present* a petition on any plea that seems to involve
inquiry into the general method of procedure in the
borough. Mr. WIC.111•11 KAITI/I'S counsel met the
case suggested by his opponents with the fairest
(billings to persevere, and the boldest dogmas to the
proof. But the Tory managers sagaciously destined
entering into the controversy. They evidently felt
it impossible to say what might tern up in the
curs of the investigation detrimental to their
simple-hearted views in that nineties whenever
smother dissolution comes; they knew how costly an
affair is a petition, and they made up their mind'
that it would be cheaper to buy Blip sad Addeo*
than to risk exposure at Rochester. Who will say
that they made a bad bargain for their peeps's?
Let the Liberal party throughout the kngdoes,
however, look seriously at the deplorable fest that
mats in Parliament are still at the disposal of some
flia-soers householder. in obscure country *war,
end that even for them there is not any prelestioa
against udoe influence is the mode of vette& Can
anything nuke each a system work WWI* or
*ell? Barely it is time that the assetnene ansuelhe
pervading every part of our repisesetetteeiestitadens
wire calmly and effeeteally dealt with.

The Warsaw journals seasonal the death edited&
braise Polish pert, Csjetas K viaLaa, iswl 78.

liftlim■ft