The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-19 00:00:00

ELECTION PRACTICES.
On the system adopted by the Lower House during
the present session with regard to void elections, there
is not a borough or county in the United Kingdom which
might not be left unrepresented for an indefinite time.
That system just amounts to this:—Let A and .B offer
themselves as candidates for a particular borough on
opposite interests. Towards the close of the poll, B finds
his rival has a clear majority in his favour. To fetch up
the difference is beyond hope, it is impossible B should
become the sitting member. He is not quite
beaten for all that. Ile cannot get in himself,
but he can turn his rival out before he is well
warm in his seat. He can do more than this. B,
the candidate of the 50 votes, can not only unseat A,
the candidate of the .500 votes, but ho can mulct
the 500 constituents who have been unable to dis-
cern his Parliamentary capacity to the full extent of
their suffrages. It is not even necessary that B should
take any step himself. He may be a man of spotless
honour and integrity, such en one as would shrink from
the dirty act of dragging down a rival by unfair means.
But amongst his electioneering agents may be found a
person not quite so scrupulous. There would appear,
unhappily, to be a kind of conventional immorality in
election matters, which does not, as it should of right,
stamp the parties concerned with infamy. All that B's
agents then have to do is by the hands of their sub-
agents—there is always a lower depth—to administer a
bribe to each of half-a-dozen electors professedly in A's
name, and to dispatch them to the poll to register their
votes in his favour. If adequate care be taken that the
proofs are sufficiently stringent, B in due course of time
presents his petition before a Parliamentary Committee;
and A, the sitting Member, is unseated. The indigna-
tion of the Parliamentary Purists does not stop here.
They not only exile from their untainted fellowship the
Member who has been found guilty upon such evidence,
but declare, as a cumulative penalty, that the borough
where such proceedings are practised or countenanced is
unfit to return Members to Parliament. For the sake
of the ten unjust men the city is condemned. And what
does the public all the while? Pretty much what the
public generally does when it takes no particular trouble to
sift a question to the bottom—Odit damnatos. The words
" venality," "iniquity," and " rascality" fiy freely
from mouth to mouth, and the United Kingdom runs
a very good chance of being disfranchised in detail.
What between the adoption of this practice of the
Committees, the officiousness of private Members, and
the inexplicable delays of Government in forward-
ing their own Bills, we have arrived at this prac-
tical result—that some of the most opulent and impor-
tant towns in the kingdom are actually unrepresented
in Parliament. We have no desire to press the point to
its consequence; but is it not a remarkable fact that the
tyhertetehberLanocwheers of the
beyonitsatiatuintgioine
concurrence of Queen, Lords, and Commons, of the
dock
to
aa dn dd
one single Member to the Lower House, or to bestow
the franchise on a hitherto unrepresented borough, and
clip the constituency of the kingdom of its
right propor-
tions,
and, by its simple set or its mere acquiescence,
deprive Englishmen of privileges won afteru eight cen-
turies of struggle? It may be said the H
proceed to actual disfranchisement by waye butosfeßelnl-enly
as far as practical exercise of the franchise is
concerned,
in what respect do such important towns as Derby or
L • wester at this present momentstand •
in a better
position than though the sentence of erpetual exclusion
had been actually pronounced againstp them? The tri-
bunal is not ready before which they are to
be arraigned.
We can only say that in spirit and in practice,if this be
accepted as a good answer, Parliamentary
law must be
very different from any other law. If apoor wretch but
filch a pocket-handkerchief, he is not committed to gaol
while a statute is framed which shall apply, and a tri-
bunal is constructed which shall adjudicate
in the com-
pletest manner possible upon the exact nature of his
crime. You take the offence
as you find it, and dispose
of it by the existing law and before existing courts. If
the law be not sufficiently valid, constitution,
requisitec
n
or the court be judged
defective in its administration, these
to, and offences subsequent to the uew matters
la law are looked
are
tried
under its provisions. Felons are entitled to an early
gaol delivery, but there is no delivery, it would seem.
for thousands of upright and intelligent freemen, if a few
voters of scabby morality have crept unawares into their
ranks.— Times.

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LIE REGISTRATION.--IMPORTANT TO BOROUGIt
AND COUNTY VOTERs.—Yesterday notices were issued 1
within the city of London and county of Middlesex,
that no person would be entitled to have his name in-
serted in the list of voters now about to be made out in
respect of premises of the yearly value of ten pounds,
unless he shall pay on or before too 20th of July, all the
poor rates and assessed taxes which have become due
from him in respect of such premises during the twelve
calendar months next before the 12th of April last past,
and all persons who omit to make such payment will be
incapable of being upon the next register of ♦oters.
County Voters.—All persons entitled to vote in the
election of a knight of the shire who are not upon the
register of voters now in force, or who being upon the
register shall not retain the same qualification, or con-
tinue in the same place of abode, and who are desirous to
have their names inserted in the register of voters about
to be made, must send in on or before the 20th of July
notice in writing to that efi,et to the overseers of the
parishes in which their qualification is situate; giving
their name and surname in full length, their place of
abode, and the particulars of their qualification. Per-
sons already on the register not having changed their
qualification or place of abode, are not compelled to
make a claim unless they think fit.
Gator, DIET. —On Saturday a woman named
Louisa Davis was indicted at the Central Criminal
Court for stealing a watch from the person of William
Deverill. So great was the alteration for the better in
her appearance that the prosecutor had some difficulty in
identifying her.
EARLY CLOSING MOVEMENT. We understand
that a course of lectures to promote the general adoption
of this system is about to be delivered at Exeter 101 l
by Ralph Waldo Emerson.