The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-26 00:00:00

THE BRISTOL ELECTION PETITION.

Mrs. Pinkstone, of the Athenaeum refreshment room,
swore that only about five pounds worth of Kemp's orders
were received, and these she believed were for committee
men and clerks. An attempt was made to prove treating
at Bedminster, but the judge ruled that proof of it had
failed. Mr. O'Malley said that this finished his case.
Serjeant Ballantine asked to reserve his address till the
next morning, and the court adjourned at half-past two
o'clock.

Lord Mahon, the Conservative candidate for East Suf-
folk, addressed the electors of the district at Saxmund-
ham yesterday afternoon. His lordship confined his
remarks to the topics mentioned in his address, but stated,
in contradiction to reports, that he was neither a Roman
Catholic, Irishman, nor Fenian. Later in the afternoon

Sir Shafto Adair, the Liberal candidate, also addressed a
meeting of electors at the same place.
An extraordinary general meeting of the Lancashire
and Yorkshire Railway Company was held at Manchester
yesterday. The Directors were authorised to raise seven
hundred and eighty thousand pounds additional capital.
The new shares will be issued to existing shareholders at the
rate of six pounds five shillings a share to every holder of
the ordinary hundred pound shares, the calls to extend
over five years. Shareholders paying in advance will
receive four per cent. interest of the money paid up
untll 1875, and new shares will then be converted
into ordinary shares, so that if the company's stock
maintains its price and 130 ordinary shareholders investing
now will have obtained as the chairman explained at the
rate of ten per cent. on their money at the subsequent
meeting. Bills were approved for acquiring lands for ex
tensions in the West Riding of Yorkshire for running
steam vessels between Belfast and Fleetwood, for the ex-
tension of Preston station and other purposes. The two
last specifiedbills are promoted in conjunction with the
London and North-Western Company.

PARIS CORRESPONDENCE.

TUESDAY EVENING.

The Central Committtee of the Plebiscite of 1870 have
issued the following circular : "Yielding to numerous
and pressing solicitations, the Central Committee of the
Plebiscite of 1870 asked permission from the Government
to form itself into a permanent association, with
the object of rendering all future administra-
tive intervention in the election of Deputies use-
less, according to the views expressed in the Minis-
terial declaration of February last in the Corps Legislatif.
M. le Garde
_des Sceaux having, however, informed
them that they could not receive the necessary authorisa-
tion, the committee have no alternative but to consider
their work accomplished, and to dissolve,which they have
now done.
The debate on the new Press Law was resumed in the
Corps Legislatif on Monday, when the articles which had
been referred to the committee, were discussed. The first
article which reserves for the court of assize, political and
press offences, was the subject of an amendment by M.
Laroche Foubert, who insisted that the offences meant
should be plainly specified.
M. Genton, the reporter of the committee, having
declared that this proposition was simply impracticable,
the amendment was rejected, and Article 1 read as it
stood. Article 2, providing that offences of libel
or verbal defamation, and certain other press of-
fences, shall remain under the jurisdiction of the
correctional police, gave rise to an animated discus-
sion. M. Cremicux had an amendment on the
paper to modify the effect of the clause, but M.
Gravy adopted the shorter and more efficacious
method of suggesting its abolition altogether. The
great point at issue was whether the police should
have jurisdiction over any offences of the kind, and M.M.
Gravy and Cremieux, as you may suppose, fought vigo-
rously for the rights of the gentlemen of the tribune and
the pen. The former indignantly denounced the arbitrary
division of offences of this class into three degrees of cri-
minality, and declared that in regard to press
offences everything was conventional. There was hardly
ever any question of actual morality or public virtue, but
only a matter which was innocent or guilty accordingto the
intention of the writer. National freedom, concluded M.
Gravy, consists in making a nation and applying
its laws itself." The second condition is no less necessary
than the first. Measure the part which the jury plays in
the application of the laws, and the part which the
country 'plays in the making of the laws, and you will
know what distance separates us from liberty !" (Loud
applause from the Left.) _ _

M. Philie, State Councillor and Commissary of the
Government, followed M. Grevy in an eloquent speech,
and defended the Government measure, which he said
was introduced as a concession to the wishes
of the Opposition. He was also loudly applauded.
M. Cremieux, who accepted M. Grevy's improvement on
his amendment, reminded the Government that to give
with one hand and withdraw with the other, was held to
be no gift at all. He saw, he said, with the greatest re-
gret that at the present moment a large number of press
prosecutions were being conducted before the Correctional
Tribunal, and that they were usually followed by convic-
tions. The prisons no longer sufficed for the prisoners
(a fact confirmed by M. Pelletan, who stated
that two detenus had been put in one cell. If
these convictions, added M. Cremieux, were the work
of a jury, we should regret, but respect them. Coming
from the 'correctional tribunals, they were afflicting on
behalf of the magistrates no less than of the accused.
Let the trials be removed to the cognizance of a jury,
and then let them see how many acquittals there
would be. However, the Ministry which had distributed
four million journals throughout the country to secure
Oui need not surely fear such acquittals.
The discussion continued for some time, but I need not
tell you that little alteration was made in the form of the
bill.