The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 10,

lit, could be held to vitiate the subsequent election.
It was at first a doubtful matter, not so far as the
justice of the case was concerned, but as to the
technicalities of the law. Happily for this once
the dream of Lord than MILEY has been
realised. Law and equity are united, and
offenders will not escape the punishment they
so richly deserve. The test Ballot, said the
Court, in delivering judgment yesterday, was a step
in the election, and so far from regarding it as an
unimportant or trivial matter, they deliberately an-
nounce that, inasmuch as the candidate heading the
list was almost certain to gain the election, the
bribery at the preliminary ballot would have a direct
effect upon the poll. It was bribery, said the Court
in plain and unmistakable terms, within the meaning
of the Act. After this nothing more can be s dd.
Mr. ROBINSON'S election is void. The Liberals of Bris
tol have another opportunity of going through the
preliminary forms, and pushing and elbowing one
another out of the vacant seat of the veteran elec-
toral Reformer. Only we should advise them, if
such enlightened and illustrious politicians will
listen to a presumptuous suggestion from the outer
world, we should venture to hint that it might be
better for the candidates in their canvass to let the
subject of the Ballot and Electoral Corruption alone,
and for the electors not to cheer too heartily any re-
ferences to Conservative intimidation and Liberal
independence.

History, it has been said, is continually repeating
itself. The remark was justified at the time of its
first enunciation by a multitude of retrospective in-
stances, readily enough aduceable by way of illustra-
tion. But, since then, it has again, and yet again,
been illustrated afresh, ev, n yet more strikingly, by
reason of these perpetually recurring repetitions of
history coming directly within the scope of our own
immediate observation. Very recently, yonder
in the etst, yonder in the wt st, here
in the old world, there in the new, we
have been startled by the aim( at simul-
taneous announcement of an appalling conflag-
ration, destructive in each instance of the chief part
of a great city, and recalling to mind in its origin, in
its magnitude, in its resistless pread in defiance of
the most desperate efforts to arrest the course of its
devastations, the event which in 1666—n0w more
than t o hundred years ago—reduced one
entire moiety of this vast metropolis to
ashes. As calamitous for the time being as
that tertibie incident in the annals of our own
capital—an incident ever since known in the history
of this country as the Great Fire of London—have
beea these lamentable events, so to speak, of yester-
day's occurrence, the Great Fire of Quebec and the
Great Fire of Constantinople. In all three cases the
cause of the conflagration was identical. In each in-
stance the city destroyed was a city,in the very materials
of it, in the highest degree combustible. A city of old
wooden ramshackle houses, closely packed and
jumbled up together, arranged in narrow scree s, the
upper stories overlapping the projecting roof beams
at the eaves and parapets, in many places nearly
ouching each other. Scarcely any provisi ei
made against the horrors of combustion.
Whatever appliance there were t.) that end, of
the most primitive character. Light a single tene-
ment thoroughly in such a metropolitan city thus
constructed, and the element that has been well de-
scribed as a gOod servant, but a bad master readily
enough obtains the mastery until the crackling
flames soon fly abroad like wildfire. Read the nar-
rative of our own calamitous conflagration, as it was
jotted down from day to day, sometimes evidently
from hour to hour, in cipher by the then Secretary
of the Admiralty, Mr. SAMUEL YEPTS. What was
then penned by the old gossiping Diarist, might
have been penned, in many of the particulars, only
the other day by a Canadian, or a Turkish Diarist
at Quebec, or at Constantinople. Out of the cata-
strophe in each of those capitals, however, there
will come, we may rest perfectly well assured, through
the mere labour of reconstruction, as there came out
of the catastrophe of the Great Fire of London,
through the labour here of a reconstruction amount-
ing, in its way, to a resplendant resurrection, good
incalculable for all after generations of the inhabi_
tants of particular cities thus visited.

The most interesting part of the proceedings in the
House of Commons last evening was the debate
arising from Mr. Crawford's amendment. The ques-
tion on which he and the Government joined issue
was as to whether sugar dealers should be entitled to
drawback, the same as manufacturers. A division
seemed inevitable, and Mr. Gladstone. had to come to
the front and exert his power of persuasion to avert so
undesirable a result. He emphatically refused to
recognise the principle that dealers should
be regarded as manufacturers, but effected a
compromise by expressing the willingness of Go-
vernment to deal with their case separately. The
amendment was ultimately withdrawn. When the
Customs and Inland Revenue Bill got into committee,
Viscount Bury strongly objected to the course pur-
sued by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in with-
drawing the clauses relating to the duty on railway
traffic receipts. Mr. Lowe had to confess that at the
time he made hip proposals in April he was ignorant
of the real position of the railway companies. From
his explanation it seemed that the companies had
obtained, shortly after Parliament had fixed a maxi-
mum fare and imposed a duty of five per cent. on
the passengers traffic, permission to charge five
par cent. over and above the maximum fixed by the
legislature. Thus it was represented to him
that that which appeared to be a boon was no benefit
whatever. The Government suffered a defeat on
Mr. G. Gregory's motion to introduce a clause
exempting owners of horses employed in agriculture
from liability to take out a license on account of the
animal being occasionally used for drawing materials
for the repair of roads and highways, and whether
for hire or otherwise. The singular spectacle was seen
of the Speaker arrayed with Mr. Disraeli and the Op-
position ranks against the Ministry and its supporters.
Mr. Gladstone but very ill concealed his annoyance
at the result of the division, and the remarks he
made after the division were very ominous.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Army
Estimates several grants of money were made.
The House adjourned at a quarter past one o'clock.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

stilt of the inquiry. it has been impartial and
complete. Mr. Butt accordingly asks the commis-
sioners for leave to attend the inquiry, as the repre-
sentative of the friends and relatives of the political
prisoners, and adds that he would be influenced
solely by a desire to aid the commissioners in elicit-
ing the whole truth and gaining public confidence in
the result of this inquiry.