The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-11 00:00:00

" Notes", on the distribution of Gold throughout
the world, * published some time back (with
maps) by Mr. WYLD, and a third edition of
which, we are gratified to see, has recently
appeared, enhanced in value by the addition of a
copious Gazeteer to upwards of five hundred of
the Gold Diggings of Australia. In those notes
it is distinctly stated (p. 19), that the description
of operations required from those who go in quest
of the precious metals "is only suited to canal-
diggers, excavators, and miners." After these
somewhat startling and authoritative declarations,
we may, without culpable timidity, afford that
warning—Look before you leap—the advantage
of an earnest repetition.

* " Gold Fields of Australia : Notes on the Distribu-
tion of Gold throughout the World, &c." By JAMES
WYLD. Third edition. To which is added, a Gazeteer
to the Gold Diggings of Australia. Bvo. Pp. 83.
WYLD. London, 1853.

We can but laugh and mourn alternately while
we read the reports of evidence taken before the
Election Committees. Like the cleverness of
some swindlers and thieves, so the schemes of
adroit old bribers, their technical slang and ma-
sonic signs, will sometimes compel more than a
smile. We cannot keep grave while we read of
the darkened room at Derby, the sentinel on the
stairs, the voter putting his right finger to his
nose, and adding, " All right----I come from RAD-
FORD," as the pass word, then turning round his
back in the room " because he feels authorised to
do so," putting his hands behind him, and " feel-
ing two sovereigns drop into them." The Cam-
bridge ladies leaving Mr. LONG'S arm to drop 51.
and 101. notes in envelopes, or sovereigns in par-
cels, into the hands of unwitting, but happy,
electors ; the injunction at the same place to the
upright voters to go and " just do the thing that's
right," i.e., poll, and that the agent " will make
all right," i.e., pay them ; the reluctance at Hull
to pay " a duberous" voter, who eventually
" doubled," that is, took in his bribers ; the
thirty voters carousing in an upper room un-
seen, but huckstering their votes by one of
their number, from 101. to 21. 10s. These
little incidents, and a hundred more, will
continually keep provoking our risibility. And
yet we feel almost as if we were laughing at some
odd occurrence in a trial for murder. The thing
is as bad and as base as it can be. We blush for
ourselves, and blush still more that foreigners
should read such accounts of the working of " our
free English institutions." _ _ .

Sometimes we have really tried to put the best
face upon it, and to see what could be said for it.
We have asked ourselves whether a man conscious
of qualifications to serve the country in Parlia-
ment—certain, moreover, that in every constitu-
ency he has access to, he must appeal to part of
the electors through the power of their landlords,
or the power of beer and sovereigns—whether he
may not regard it as a necessary though deplor-
able evil, and " knowing nothing whatever" of the
purposes to which his hundreds or thousands may
be applied, whether he may not just put his'
money in the hands of the ordinary agents and
leave it to them to use it as they think needful ?
If this be morally very bad, its bearing will be
painful upon too many cases already. Yet
that it is, on the very best estimate a
man can put on his services, " doing evil
that good may come," is but too plain.
We can only regard such " Honourable
Members" as having been guilty of the
crime universal, that of fixing their moral
standard by the habits of their time and age,
rather than by the higher dictates of their own
consciences. We must, however, think it one of
the most painful features in these inquiries, that
so many gentlemen of unimpeachable character
could declare, in one way and another, that they
knew nothing of the bribery carried on with
their money, or with their promises of situations
and places. It is time for the House of Com-
mons to deliver candidates for the honour of a
seat in it from temptation to dishonourable
evasion. We laugh at the simplicity and inno-
cence of the " Sitting Member" under cross-
examination ; but there is another and a more
serious phase of the matter.

Sometimes we have wondered how a house of
such really respectable gentlemen can be collected
by such means. No one doubts that the return
of the larger part of it is due, more or less, to
bribery or intimidation. The Members petitioned
against on the ground of bribery can be but a
small part of those who owe their seats
to something of the kind—" How, then, can
a clean thing come out of an unclean ? "
We take it be much in this way. The
respectable but rival portions of the consti-
tuency amount to pretty nearly equal num-
bers, in a great many places. Of course, any can-
didate to have a chance with them, must be a re-
spectable man also. Party zeal, indeed, is proud
of fighting under the banner of a man of both
character and ability. Hence, whichever candi-
dates win, the general result will be political
rather than moral and intellectual, since both par-
ties get the latter qualities if they can, the quarrel
being generally about their politics. The venal
electors, therefore, turn the scale politically only.
Of no politics themselves, they arbitrate for pay
between the earnest party politicians. Though
the most worthless of judges, they have to select
from a list of their betters only. Could these
venal wretches really return members could
they, we mean, return their own class—the result
must be appalling indeed, and the intelligence of
the country would rise against it as one man ; it
would even prefer a despotism. As it is, intelli-
gence and character nominate, ignorance and cor-
ruption merely cast the dice.

If these facts, however, explain a curious pro-
blem, Heaven forbid that they should be deemed
the slightest apology for so vile a system. The
briber and the bribed ought to hold in society the
place of the seducer and of the female who has
sold her virtue. No prescription, not even from
the time of HOGARTH to the election of 1852, can
whitewash so mean a thing as selling and buying
the vote with which a man is intrusted for his
country's good, especially when the price is beer
and money, or even situations and plikes. The
only case we must commiserate is that of the
afflicted man, whom a tyrant compels, at the peril
of starving himself and family, to vote against his
conscience. Such cases are so numerous that we
have never varied from our demand of the Bal-
lot for all, to protect this justly to be pitied class.
But the remedy—this is now the universal in-
quiry. Decided advocates as we are of the Ballot,
we should still wish to unite with it every possible
co-operating means. The disease, principally we
think through the pretty equal balance of parties,
not only in the House, but in constituencies also,
is arrived at such a height, that it may be fairly
supposed to have reached a crisis. Dealt with it
must be. Large constituencies and the Ballot
every honest Reformer will name as the first
things. But we need not stop there. Bribery
and personation might still exist. It is thought
by many that they could not be de-
tected under the Ballot. Why not ? A
large part of the facts now disclosed before
Election Committees could be come at quite irre-
spectively of knowing for whom the party voted.
Still, as the Member could not well be unseated
on a scrutiny, some think the Petitioners would
have no object. Their object and means would
be the same as at present. If the Members or
their agents were proved to have employed bri-
bery or intimidation, or if the bribery were ex-
tensive and systematic, we could have them un-
seated even as now ; also if their agents had
brought forward the personater of a dead or ab-
sent man. This, combined with the uncertainty
of securing the vote paid for, must almost ex-
tinguish bribery. In any ease,. Ballot or no Bal-
lot, we would visit every borough where bribery
had occurred with a Parliamentary Commission,
and inflict upon all who had given bribes, Mem-
bers and agents, as well as upon those who had
taken them, the penalty of forfeiting their vote
for life.. The whole genus of bribers, from
W. B. downwards to the FLEWILERS, FRAILS, and
MORGANS, ought unquestionably to be degraded
from the rank of voters. They are the authors
of all the wickedness. They have solicited and
Corrupted the virtue of the electors, and electoral ,