The Sun.
London, England, 1833-03-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

A-. action bas been brought by a worthy York-
lb re attorney against Mr. Martin Stapylton, a eau.
di late for the North Riding at the last election, to
recover compensation for services performed in the
plaintiff's canacity of election azent to that gentle.
man. It being proved, however, that Mr. Stapyl.
ton% agents all acted gratuitously, and that no at-
torney whatever had received one farthing for his
aid on the occasion, a verd,ct was given for the de-
fendant. It is extremdy creditable to Mr. Stapyl-
ton that he should have pursued a mode of canvas

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ani of election which tended ,o directly to remove
the of corrupt practice, by diminishing
to a mere no hing the sum total of those election
charges which, when carried to the ordinary amount,
have be,n made a cloak for so much unlawful and

shameful hrilfrry. The purify of election never
can be c,implete and unequivocal until all costs of
every deectiption, save those of officers em-
ployed in the public service, for securing the
legal correctness of the proceedings, shall he made
to invalidate the return. We are, indeed, doubt-
ful whether the onus of showing good cause for
ahsenre from the poll, and for the non-delivery of
his stiff age,ought not lobe thrown upon each elector,
under a certain penalty—a provision which would
stamp the exercise of the franchise as an important
duty to the state. It is lati*lttable, and seems nearly
unaccountable, that no clause was contained in the
Reform Bill frn. the supp ession of bribery, or the
P""ishrner.t tither of electors or of candidates who
Thigh' be guilty of it; the question is closely incor-
'porated with that of reform, and ought to have been
settled with it. Here, for instance, is S afford, we
may add Oxford, besides other places to which we
may not yet legally allude, in all of %%hich noto.
rious and recorded bribery has taken place;
yet we have not heard a syllable about inflicting
chastisement upon any of the criminal parries,
whether individually or in mass. Onyht not

such a place as Stafford, where .594 out of .59(3 vo-
ters were, without exception, bribed—ought not
such a place, we repeat, to be utterly disfranchised
and deprived of a privilege which it has abused so
abominably ? Ought not some loss, besides that of
his election, to be fastened by Act of Parliament
upon any Member who is expelled for bribery from
his ill-gotten seat ; and, in every case, ought not
the candidate next on the poll to him convicted of
bribery to be declared the sitting Member ? Much
expense and delay at least would be saved by such
an enactment, and the justice of it could hardly, we
think, be impugned. The House of Commons has
always lost character with the country for its coy-
ness and apparent repugnance to take strong mea-
sures upon this subject of election bribery. We
must warn Hon. Gentlemen that it will not do much
longer.— Times.
Notwithstanding the declarations of Mr. Stanley
and Lord Althorp, that Ministers had no intention of
proposing this year a poor law for Ireland, we learn,
from good authority, that there is every probability
of such a measure being proposed ere long. We
can easily understand why Ministers should have
been unwilling to precipitate a measure of this kind;
but, after the decided opinion expre:sed by all im-
partial persons acquainted with the state of Ireland,
rind the manifestation of feeling in England, any
inaer delay would be unpardonable. Mr. O'Con-
nell himself, who has twice already advocated poor
laws, and twice opposed them, sees that the measure
can no longer be delayed. There are people in
this country, who, in spite of appearances, will
maintain that England is utterly ruined. Mr. Att-
wood will have it that the labourers are all starved,
and their masters all insolvent. The Commissioners,
as to the administration and operation of the poor
laws, on the other hand, will have it, that though
we are not ruined by a change of currency, we are
in a fair way of being ruined by our poor. We are
spate alive to the evils resulting from the viciots
admini-tration of our poor laws, and foresee tha•
there will he some difficulty in curing these evils;
but if Mr. Attwood has exaggerated the evils pro-
duced by a change of currency, these commissioners,
on the other hand, have exaggerated the evils re-
sulting
from the administration of the poor laws. We
certainly see little evidence "that the evil, though
checked in some places by extraordinary energy anti
talents, is, on the whole, steadily and rapidly pro-
gressive." Compare the sums expended on the
poor with the population, and it will appear that
this rapid progress is visionary.—Morning Chronicle.
We have on very many occasions lately convinced
our readers that we are enabled to an icipate all our
contemporaries in priority of both foreign and do-
mestic information ; but in no ins,ance have we
been more singularly fortunate than in our last num-
ber, where the news of that extraordinary event,
the arrival of the Russian fleet in the Bosphorus,
appeared exclusively in the Age, some hours before
this Government received the official intelligence.
Th.- Cabinets of St. James's and the Tuileries are
cittviticed of this fact, that we have a ready and
sure source of coming at their most secret move-
ments. In proof whereof, we last week alluded to
Palmerston's private letter to the King of Holland,
arid the Sardinian loan, matters wholly unknown ro
any other journal ; arid we are now able exclu-
sively to announce the fact of a new French loan
being at this moment opened, and privately nego-
tiating in England by English bankers, through the
agency of Messrs. t ainhert, D'Haussez, and the
Count Dumesney. Louis Philip is about to raise
in this country 600,0001., secured upon that portion
of the estates of the murdered Prince of Conde,
which descended to his infant son, the Duke of Au-
merle The price agreed upon by the contractors is
9.5, .5 per cent. consols, and 5 per cent, bonus.; the
re inn for this stock to be made at par, and the first
payment to commence eight years hence, and be
continued every succeeding year, until the whole
is paid off; that is, we presume, if the family of the
usurping Duke of Orleans continue to rule in
France ; but of that probability the very fact of the
loan itself is an answer. If Louis Philip did nor
feel the instability of his mock greatness becoming
every day more insecure, would he borrow money
for the purposes of investment in the English and
American funds, at such a rate of interest, upon
landed property?—or otherwise it is clear, that the
necessities of the infant Duke of Aumerle, a boy,
about ten years old, we believe, cannot require this
sacrifice ; and therefore it must be r. ceived as a pre-
cautionary investment of the wily Caizen King, to
provide securely for himself and offspring, whenever
his capricious subjects may choose to depose him.
We do not expect to hear of much gratitude exist-
ing in the bosom of hankers and loan-jobbers, but
we ask the respectable house who have taken this
loan, after it was declined by Messrs. Ricardo, if
they think it quite right, being the accredited agents
of Charles X., and almost all the French Royarisis
(having, as we know, received in one sum 180,0001.
from Spain within the last year, on account of the
Royal Exiles), ro rush greedily into the market, and
incur the suspicion of employing Royal deposits and
profits on Royalist agencies, in the cause of a traitor
to his own family, and a usurping Citizen-King ?
Has the head of the house we allude to, forgotten
the splendid China vases sent him as a present by
the Ductless d'Angouleme from Prague ? There is
not a step. taken by Louis Philip that we cannot
easily detect and expose.—Age. •
Among the petitions presented to the House on
Friday for the better observance of the Sabbath,
was one from St. Helen's, in Lancashire, which
prayed that all Saturday* and Monday markets
should be done away, and that all travelling of every
kind on the Sunday, even that of the Royal family,
should be prohibited. However we may regret the
fanaticism which has produced such a petition, we
must admit that it is more consistent than those
petitions which merely play LI the cessation of
labour on the Sunday—for that cessation if partied
must in a great degree put an end to business on • he
Saturday and Monday. If travelling is prohibited
on the Sunday, no letters can be delatched from

• 'l' ,ere are wore market, days held on the Saturday in
the provin,:•l townm, than on any odor day of the week,
and the re on is obvious. Indeed the Saturday ii a
trket.do) 411 over the kiopiera.