The Express.
London, England, 1857-10-20 00:00:00

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LONDON. ruzsaAr. ocrozzA 20.

Anoct.ier many curio", revelations regarding the
odmini,tratice mechanism of the possent Govern-
ment of France which hero been oillardni ia the'
comes of the trial of M. Moisom, jut breeght to
en trod mane Si. more interesting owl instructive
thee throe that relate to the working of the Ballot
under the Imperial rifyiee. Ever since the events
of I teeembor. which inaugurated the reality:of
absolutism, under the specious thew of a widely
extended suffrage, the opponents of the Ballot base
iseemantly taunted its friends with the Whim of
the system to secure indepeodmt voting or
popular returns. Here, it wee mid, we bane
the experiment fatly and fairly tried se-
toriessly • large peopoctien of the mileenses
of France profess legitimist or repoillmm
'vision', yet the result of the elections is SAMOA
everywhere overwhelmingly Beaspartist. Eldwar,
then, the parfiruns of opposition do sot void, or
they vote in a seam contrary to their pridlimmil
opinions. In the one case, public spirit is paralysed
by the benumbing influence of the ballot-box; in the
ether, mendacity and hypocrisy are pea/Maid by
wholesale, and practised w ith impunity. In vain it
woe eouteeded that no fair inference could be drawn
from the ostensible results under a system where
the right ofqmstion as to 'malpractice' was denied,
whore popular sompiaiat was sure to be punished es
audition, and whets Parliamentary inquiry was a
Wog unknown. Imperial huictionaryiem stared
superoUieusly at any who ventured to express a
doubt of its ineffable and impeccable impartiality in
the conduct of elections, and Imperial journalism
treated with virtuous scorn the occasional insinua-
tion@ mode in the English and Belgian press
that, under the name of Ballot, voting in
France was not free, and that votes when
given were not secret. The recent defeats of Govern-
meat in three or four arroodiesements of Paris was
treated as the crowning proof of police purity and
official morals and those who felt the deepest con-
victim of the insincerity and hollowness of the
whole affair despaired of being able to put their
finger on evidence in detail of what they suspected.
Who should divulge the secret when all the re-
wards were for reticence and not speech ? Who
was to gain anything in Imperial France by con-
toeing that he had himself been • tool mode me of
in political forgery? Who would acknowledge or
adopt the approver, even if he were allowed publicly
to recount hie tale'
M. le Comte de Mtoeuv, soi daunt member of the
Legion of Honour and candidate for the common.
of Laririire, in the department of Haut Rhin, hoe
involuntarily become the means of rendering
the inestimable service to political history of
making manifest to all the world the actual
working of the Napoleonic mode of voting.
At tint an adherent, or, as he world call himself, an
ally, of NAPOLEON 111., he appear, to have been
permitted to till one or two subordinate positions.
But his ambition outrunning the tardy pm* eat
regular promotion, he conceived, as is alleged, the
strange and perilous idea that by affecting to stand
as the Government candidate at • particular actin,
and using freely the credentials his past services
furnished him with, he might be able to bribe, bully,
and bamboo:lc a majority of the electors into giving
him their suffrages. How he was to make his mom
with authority in case of success does not very dis-
tinctly appear ; but the fear of public impsonna
naturally enough never occurred to him. It will,
indeed, a contingency highly improbable: never-
theless, it has occurred. An indictment under
carious heads, but which in the main amounts to a
charge of political imposture, has been preferred by
the Procureur-Innkriale against M. MIGEON,
who has been defended by the best ability
of the French bar. In the course of the pro-
ceedings. two witnesses, apparently respectable,
were, somewhat indiscreetly as it would seem,
called in support of the prosecution to prove the
artifices misted to by the accused to obtain a majo-
rity of votes at Larivihe. They stated positively
that twenty suffrages at least had been recorded for
M. NIEOLLE, whereas upon the declaration of the
numbers but three were found to have supported
him, in one commune. The explanation given was
that the thing yclept ballot-box was so con-
stricted that it was possible fur one of the persons
having acmes to it to thrust in has hand and with-
draw any number of bulletins; and the witnesses
intimated their conviction that in this ee in some
other manner they had been tampered with. No
surprise or incredulity appears to have boss mani-
fested at the rireemstantial statement of this slew
toeal summit!: and not • few references ere observ-
able as incidentally made to the facility of seek
abesev, if not to their frequent occurrence.
As matter of theory, it is broadly laid down that
the legal receptacle for the voting papers not only
inviolate during the progress oldie election, whether
it last me day or two, but that its inviolability is
palpably secured to the public who look on. A
more preposterous delesion cannot be conceived. In
the ease before aa, M. Hetatrrr, the returning Alm
of
the commune—another witness for the prosecu-
Boa—swore that when the poll had eland he woe
waking off with the ballot-box maw his arm,
when a young man, no doubt • blend of M.
MIGEON'A, celled upon him tosay where it was to
be deposited during the night, that the candidates
might know it was not tampered with ; the
Mayor replied that his interrogator presurel toe
lir In adding such squealer ; and ors farther notice
was taken.

The evidence fee the defames went still further