The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-28 00:00:00

THE BALLOT IN F8,12!-CE.

In reference to a recent letter of the Vice Chair-
man of the Ballot Society on the subject of the
ballot in France, the following letter has been re-
ceived from a member of the English bar, officially
connected with the city of York, and now resident
in the south of France:—

I observed in the York Herald of the 12th inst.,
a letter from you relating to a letter from the Hon.
S. E. Dundas, in which he says that " in France the
existence of the ballet is merely nominal." You then
observe, "if the ballot he (as I concur with Mr.
Dundas in thinking) in France merely a name &c."
This statement was so extraordinary and startling,
that I made inquiries of French gentlemen of this
place (Montpellier), and amongst others of an ancient
Prefet of aDepartment, how elections were conducted
in Francs. They take place in every Commune before
the Maire of the Commune, for each Commune has its
Moire. On the day appointed the electors repair to
the Maire's house or office, each elector writes upon
a small piece of paper the name of the candidate he
wishes to vote for, folds it up, that is, doubles it
up so that no one can see the name thereon written,
and presents it to the Maire, who in the presence of
the elector drops it into a box like a letter box.
The elector may write this piece of paper at his own
house, or where he likes, and puts it in his pocket
and keeps it there till he arrives before the Maire.
Very often a candidate has his name printed on a
slip of paper, and distributes them to those he be-
lieves will support him, and there is often a tumult
at the door, the friends or agents of each candidate
persuading the electors to accept voting papers of
to escape importunity,
snioieth,
beuatndifidaantey.
eleTchey may succeed or they may
tors,
ac-
cepts a paper with the name of Mr. A. upon it,
that is no reason why he should not have
another in his pocket, with the name of
Mr. B. upon it, which latter he presents
to the Maire. Nobody can know what he has
done, unless he is so unwise as to tell of himself.
This state of things has only existed since the in-
troduction of the universal suffrage. Great abuses
existed before, when electors were obliged to have
a qualification. At present there are some eight
million electors in France, and in each a conscrip-
tion (or district),there may be some 30,000 or 40,000
voters. It is not to be expected that they all vote,
but perhaps some 25,000 or 30,000 may vote, and it
is absurd to suppose that such a body of men could
be bought or intimidated either by the Government
or any other men or body of men. It is generally
in small constituencies such as Wakefield, Gloster
or Preston, that men are bought, intimidated, or
cajoled as slaves. Ballot is a hopeless case inEng,--
land, unless the people rise en masse and desire it,
because as it is, any man who has from £5,000 to
£lO,OOO to spare, may think it mighty genteel to
buy into Parliament, and any Peer or great man
having a stupid son or nephew may think it mighty
aristocratic to have a scion of his noble and ancient
family in Parliament.

A PROSPEROUS COLONY.

(From the Melbourne Herald.)

Not only were there in times past, but there are even
now, as fine opportunities in this colony for a man bettering
his condition in any walk of life, as were ever before pre-
sented in a colony not numbering more than five or six
hundred thousand souls, We shall not be guilty of the
folly of comparing Melbourne with London, which now
possesses a population in excess of that of the ancient king-
dom of Scotland. And for the same reason we abstain from
any comparison between the merchants, the shopkeepers,
or the tradesmen of the two cities. If persons of this, or
of any other class, had been doing all they wished or ex-
pected in London, they would not, we presume, have had
themselves transferred hither. Or if, during their absence,
they have acquired so much more capital or skill as to justify
their removal to the world's great mart of enterprise and
industry, we have no right to suppose that they will long
continue to favour us with the sunshine of their presence.
There are exceptions of course. But we are now speaking
of these classes as a whole. And we have no hesitation in
again saying—a little more definitely now perhaps—that
there is• no other place in the world, with a population
of little more than half a million of souls, in which
there is a fairer field for the investment of capital at
remunerative rates, than Victoria, or in which there
is a wider scope for labour, whether educated and pro-
fessional, or mechanical and artistic, or unskilled only.
That is our posi(ion in reference to Victoria. To that ex-
tent we are justified in ent.ertaining hopes of success, which
should cheer and not depress, in the midst of our struggles.
And it would be an agreeable, if it were not a forbidden,
task, to produce in tke history of some of our more wealthy
Victorians life-like pictures of what we have now been
labouring to enforce.

We need not go into any particular class for instances of
success. The whole colony is a success. And every class
in it furnishes instances of almost unexampled success.
We are not so squeamish as to think of excepting any,
from the fact of their having been proscribed by envy or
the want of better information. Who has placed the
millions cf sheep and hundreds of thousands of cattle and
horses on our runs and stations? By whose hands have
millions of acres of land been fenced in, and hundreds of
thousands of acres been cultivated ? Whose are the houses,
the stores, the shops, the warehouses, and other buildings,
in Melbourne and its suburbs ? To whom do the gold fields,
towns, and the property on the mines belong, with the vil-
lages, the homesteads, and the vineyards, scattered over
the whole face of the country P Are these no proofs of the
prospects the colony holds out for success ? Where are the
owners of these millions upon millions' worth of property ?
Remember, we are little more than half a million ourselves
in the gross, and this is a great deal of property to be di-rided
among so few. But where are its principal possessors ?
Some of them treading our halls of legislature, some occu-
pying seats in our courts of justice, some plodding in the
counting-house, at their respective professions and trades,
or in the workshop, and some still labouring on their runs,
in the vineyard, or the field, under the hope of making
much more. And is there no hope for us in this? As the
owners of these vast accumulations were only a few years
ago what many who boast no share in it are now, what is
there to hinder the latter from aspiring to the like position
a few years hence ? What is to stand in the way of their
becoming capitalists, as others have before them ?

FOREIGN MAIL PACKET LIST.

MAILS DUE.

Aus*.ralia and Mauritius, via Southampton. May 19.
via Marseilles
r3razil and Cape Verds, by British packet. May 4.
Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and St. Helena.. May 3.
China, Penang, and Singapore, via Southampton. May 2.
via Marseilles ...April 27.
Falkland Islands ... May 4.
Gibraltar, via Southampton
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton May 2."
via Marseilles April 27.
India (Bombay), via Southampton May 11.
via Marseilles May 5. :
Lisbon
Malta, Egypt, and Aden, via Southampton
May 2.
via Marseilles April 27.
Newfoundland .. April 30.
Oporto and Vigo • May 1.
U. S. and British N. America, Ly Brit. packet April 30.
by U.S. packet
by Canadian packet. April 30.
W.C. of Africa, Madeira, and Teneriffe May 10.
Bahamas, via New York' • May 8.
Mexico .. .. April 28.
All parts of West Indies, including Chili, Peru, April 28
California, and British Columbia. }

THE S➢iETHURST CASE.—THE VERDICT.-011
Saturday afternoon, the jury, after an hour's deliberation,
returned a verdict for the plaintiff on all the issues :—That
the will was duly executed ; that at the time it was made
Isabella Bankes was a person of sound mind; and that it
was not obtained by fraud. The verdict created the utmost
surprise to every person in court.

A LADY IN DIFFICULTIES.--While a lady
"fat, fair, and forty," was rolling down the Morse-market,
a few days ago, with an air majesty peculiar to herself, she
suddenly felt as if becoming
"Small by degrees, and beautifully less;"

and on casting an eye downwards, what was her conster-
nation on beholding that she had dropped—not anything
very remarkable, gentle reader, but something which has
been a standing joke for years, viz., a full-rigged crinoline,
fully fifteen feet in circumference. A friendly door stood
open, and the lady darted in—not to order a new dress, nor
even to take a peep at the latest Parisian fashions—but
simply to adjust the immense balloon which had fallen to
the earth much sooner than the lady had anticipated. The
little boys, however, did not witness the catastrophe, and
no annoyance was experienced.—Kelso Chronicle.
EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT TO A CHILD WITH-
OUT ILL EFFECTS.—M. Josat gives an account of the
miraculous escape of a child from the consequences of a
frightful accident. This infant, aged 29 months, playing
at a window of a house, No. 30, Rue de la Paix, Paris, lost
' its balance and fell out from a height of five stories, striking
a hat from the hand of a hatter, who was carrying it home.
He lifted the child gently from the pavement and carried it
into the house, when after a few minutes the infant heaved
a sigh, and then uttered a small doleful cry. All the func-
tions were gradually re-established, and it was found that
there was neither fracture or dislocation, A week after,
the child was found playing and merry, as well as ever ;
the only traces of any accident being three broken incisors
of the upper jaw, and much ecchymosis of the eyelideo--.
Afedicai 21i1148 and Gazette,