The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-30 00:00:00

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through him, should be illegal, and to affix dis-
graceful penalties. The grand point is to legislate
straightforwardly and efficiently against the crime
of bribery. No one doubts that the House of Com-
mons can do this. Sir FITZROY KELLY has the
merit of proposing a bill fairly aiming at this ob-
ject. Previous bills hare been but hypocritical im-
postures. Tho intention of them has always been
to leave a loophole for any wealthy lord or eont-
moner who might wick to buy a seat in Parlia-
ment.

If the bill be pressed we strongly, however, re-
commend an additional clause—one which should
abolish all penalties for receiving a bribe, or which
should at least grant immunity from penal con-
sequences to the man who confessed to having re-
ceived
one. The business to be done is to make
convicton of the briber: easy, and their punishment
disgraceful. The venal elector is a comparatively
innocent man. The wealthier man who tempts
him is, by •very rule of morality and common sense,
the worse man. Indeed his class are the fountain
of all the bribery in the kingdom. His class
knows the infamy, too, of the whole thing. No
punishment is too severe for educated and wealthy
men who employ their money in depraving the
political and the social morals, too, of their fellow-
countrymen. They deserve penal servitude, and
equally deserve to be at the mercy of those whom
they have corrupted with their money.
We would ask Sir FITZROY, however, why, if as
sincere as we take him to be, he does not demand
the Ballot as well as his own plan ? We do not
scout legislation against bribery in addition to the
only means known which renders the thing diffi-
cult in itself; why should our anti-bribery re-
former overlook the device which, without
penalties, would puzzle his guilty candidates and
agents more, we believe, than all his penalties
would terrify them ? When his friend of the bar,
then Sir FREDERICK THEsiciER, had his cele-
brated" field-day" at St. Alban's, with the celebrated
COPPOCK, the latter told the commissioners that
nothing would put down bribery but the Ballot.
Sir FITZROY well knows that a more competent
witness cound not be found all the kingdom over.
He did not care a straw for acts against corruption
—he could very likely, if living, easily have shown
many ways of evading Sir FITZROY KELLY'S plan
—but he aknowledged the Ballot would beat him.
Worst of all, Sir FITZROY KELLY'S bill does not
deal with the worst corruption. There is a more
cruel, a baser, a shabbier because cheaper, corrup-
tion, than that of Gloucester, of Wakefield, and
Norwich—the corruption which of course the hon.
member for East Suffolk deplores more than any
other. He is glad, doubtless, to be in the House of
Commons, but we are sure his heart often aches to
think of the numberless Liberal tenants who had to
give him Conservative votes because they dreaded
the steward and the landlord. He well knows that
this bribery debases all the yeomanry of Eng-
land to political serfdom—he cannot, as a county
member, care so much about borough corruption
by money, as about the pocket-saving corruption
of the landlords, why have sent him to Parliament.
We believe him to be sincere in this cruise against
borough corruption, but we shall be quite sure of
it, if he demand the Ballot to put down that infi-
nitely worse bribery to which nearly every county
member owes his seat.

THE NEWSPAPER PRESS DIRECTORY

FOR 1860.

True to his vocation, Mr. Mitchell hats issued his
revised Newspaper Directory, corrected and en-
larged for the year ending 1859. We have had, on
many occasions, opportuuities of doing ample justice
to the merits of this work for its strict impartia-
lity, and, on the whole, for a very fair appreciation of
the distinctive character of the various journals
throughout the United Kingdom. The present edi-
tion is accompanied by an excellent Map, on which
is explained in various signs the towns with one
or more papers, and the towns with daily and
weekly papers. Also the several districts through-
out England—in coloured divisions, indicating
Manufacturing•, Mining, Agricultural, Manufac-
turing and Agricultural as well as Mining com-
bined. Metropolitan districts, with London in-
tersected by its various railways, with the ter-
mini of the great railways in London. The
railway lines throughout the Empire are also
clearly defined. In short, the Map is a skeleton
illustration of the Empire, and, as a novel idea;
well deserving all success.