Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-23 00:00:00

when compared and contrasted with the studied,
transparent sophistry of such decisions as those
alluded to.

As long as candidates can be found who will
open their purse-strings and deliver cash ad
libitum, and are no more ashamed or afraid to
tell that they did so, than was Mr. OLIVEIRA to
disclose his dealings with the snug little borough
of Pontefract, so long will there be corrupt
electors to accept the bribe, and vote for the
candidate who pays the highest price. This is
an evil which should be got rid of as speedily as
possible ; and hence the inquiry, what means
are most likely to put
.a complete extinguisher
on bribery and corruption at elections—Parlia-
mentary and municipal ? The latter is more
general, and, in its local effect, more injurious
than the former.

We have repeatedly urged the ballot as a
grand panacea for the evils complained of ; but,
seeing that that measure of Parliamentary Reform
is still resisted on the ground of its being un-
English, and not wanted by the people,
there is another way of mitigating the offences.
The whole tribe of venal voters would soon
become extinct if they who go about as agents
for Parliamentary candidates, and, serpent-like,
corrupt and seduce the voters, were made
amenable to the penalties with which they are
threatened in the recent statutes against cor-
ruption at Parliamentary elections. These
statutes, if really intended to suppress electoral
corruption, it is at the real criminal the blow
should be aimed. Besides, the penalty should
be such a would deter the culprits from the
perpetration of electoral crime. The punish-
ment now awarded is not sufficient to meet the
ends in view. Let such persons as we have
alluded to be subjected to one year's penal
servitude—give them a twelve month's practice
on the tread-mill—apprentice them for that
period at picking oakum in a model prison,
where the systems of "silence' and occasional
" solitude" are part of the prison discipline, and
we have no doubt one or two examples would be
quite sufficient to effect a radical, permanent,
and effective cure. Nor is such punishment too
heavy. The crimes are, corruption and a suborn-
ing of-perjury. Although not as great an
offender as the briber, the bribed, too, should
taste a little of the terrors, but, at the same
time, wholesome influence, of prison discipline,
combined with hard labour. Until this is done,
and the ballot adopted, it is vain to expect any
amelioration of the eleetoral evils complained of,
for as long as the agent and the briber can enter
his club, fresh from the commitee-room where

his delinquencies have been demonstrated beyond
a doubt—and as long as society does not regard
these delinquencies with aversion—so long will
bribery, corruption, and intimidation prevail.
We regard the late decisions of the Election
Committees, as aiding and abetting the nefarious
and corrupt practices at elections, for in all the
cases alluded to, the very parties who have been
the main cause of bribery, corruption, and inti-
midation, have been screened in the committee's
report to the House. Surely such judgments

condemn those who deliver them.
damnatur cum nocens absolvitur. Lord PALMER
STON promises us a new Reform Bill. Let us
hope he will, in settling its details, take the
question of bribery, corruption, and intimida-
tion into his consideration, and engraft upon
his measure such provisions as will remedy all
the evils of cur present electoral system.

Juclex