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

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 1870,

Among the Government measures requiring to be
dealt with as soon as possible after the re-assembling
of Parliament at the close of the Whitsuntide holi-
days is the tentative Ballot Bill introduced by the
Marquis of HARTINGTON. The system adopted in
that draft of an enactment is the system in
vogue at our antipodes. Its one disadvantage
is, that it by no means ensures secresy of voting.
It bas worked satisfactorily hitherto at Victoria. Of
the truth of this we have long since had the assur-
ance of one of the colleagues of the Marquis of HAR-
TINGTON, meaning the right hon. gentleman the
First Lord of the Admiralty—Mr. CHILDERS'S
maiden speech, if we remember rightly, on his
first entering the House of Commons, after his re-
turn from Australia, being explanatory of the very
system of taking vote by ballot now adopted
for application to England by her MAJESTY'S
Government. Through the medium of an elabo-
rate, and rather complicated arrangement of
register books, cheque books, and counterfoils, any
elector's vote, as it appears to us, can through that
system, at pleasure, be traced out and identified.
Obviously that of itself is an enormous disadvantage.
Again, there appears now in the plan, as it is at
present before the Legislature, no adequate guard
provided against the risk of impersonation. Added
to which there is no satisfactory guarantee, not
against the hazard of bribery, not for the punish-
ment of the voters bribed, but, as we would rather
put it, for the stripping of the votes of those so
bribed from the roll of the bribing candidate. the
The deficiency of the measure in these three par-
ticulars has happily been recoguised by the member
for Taunton, who has, thereupon, given notice of
introducing, immediately the occasion arises, three
very important and certainly very pertinent amend-
ments. Firstly, " that in the event of any number
of voters being shown to have been bribed, treated, or
unduly influenced by any- candidate or his agents,
a corresponding number of votes shall be then and
there struck off the total recorded in that candidate's
That is Mr. HENRY JAMES'S amendment,
with a view to the clearing away of the still possible
evils arising from the diminished but still present
danger of bribery. Secondly, the member for Taun-

favour."

ton proposes " that the fact of an elector's appearing
on the register at all shall be conclusive legal evi-
dence for twelve manths of his right to vote, unless
during the interval, he shall become legally
disqualified from voting." Thirdly, and lastly,
he proposes " that the personation of a voter shall be
made a felony, so that any personator can be arrested
at once without a warrant, and that the offence, if
proved, may be punished by five years' penal servi-
tude." Whether these amendments will or possibly

cnn prove effectual in securing the secrecy of the
electoral ♦ote,, must still remain matter for doubt.
But, at the least, they are improvements in that
direction. Against the abuse of what secreey is left
to the parliamentary electors, they are additional
guards of great importance. What we want in
the ballot, however, is absolute secrecy, as well as
the prevention of the risk of bribery, and of the
hazard of impersonation.

THE Mordaunt case assumed a new phase on
Thursday. ' After a succession of nauseous dis-
closures, it culminated in an exceedingly interesting
question of jurisprudence—a question so difficult
that the judges have not been able to give it any
satisfactory reply. On the point whether insanity be
a bar to a divorce suit, Lard PENZANCE preserves his
former opinion that it is ; Mr. Justice KEATING
sides with him ; and the LORD CHIEF BARON takes
the opposite view. Thus of the two fresh authori-
ties there is one on each side. This diver-
gence is in no way surprising. The question
is not so much one of law as of logic. The present -
law affecting the dissolution of marriage is of no
complex character, and the date of its first operation
is so recent that comparatively little case-law has
accumulated for analysis. The judges had to decide
how this somewhat novel question could be settled
in accordance with the spirit of the legislative ordi- .
nances, and in so doing they had to rely mainly
upon their own reasoning powers, without the aid of
precedent. Mr. Justice KEATING holds that a divorce
suit against a person is absolutely stopped
whilst that person is insane. It would be dangerous,
he argues, to decide otherwise, for it is possible
that the accused person might be in possession of
facts which would counterbalance the most telling
evidence. The penalty attaching to this offence is
severe ; the social ruin is complete ; would it be fair to
decide such an issue in the absence of one of the parties
who has most at stake ? A divorce cause is nen
mere civil suit, in which the object simply is to fain
damages for an injury. It may not be a criminal
suit, but it partakes of the nature of one, and the
accused person should have every opportunity of
making her defence. And not only is it probable
that the insane respondent might, if sane, establish
her innocence ; but there are certain impediments—
such as collusion, &c.—to a dissolution of marriage,
even when the primary offence has been committed,
and it is possible that the wife, and no one else,
could prove the existence of some such impedi-
ment. The LORD CHIEF BARON holds, on the other
hand, that insanity ought not to be an impediment.
He looks at the injury which may be inflicted on a
person debarred from the benefit of the law by a
mere accident—tied to a woman who has lost her
status, simply because she happens. to be
insane. In his opinion there is no analogy
between a criminal action and a suit
for divorce. In a civil action insanity is;;
no bar to proceedings, and therefore it ought not
to be in this instance. If the court chose to dismiss