The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-24 00:00:00

mentioned. Whether it will be, GArbpiA.Lpf,o:
plan to conquer by force or persuasion,
all the divisions of the Royal forcei which
he may meet on his way. to Naples, _and. .so_
keep open a land line of communications with
Sicily, or whether he will attempt any kind of
coup de main on Naples, it is impossible yet to
conjecture. His plans will be modified, doubtless,
by what he knows of the royal army—and he
alone can judge whether they will be more
loyal to the Bourbon thin to Italy. There must
be a great many men among them, who, if grati-
tude for favours received had its weight, have pro.
bably been well paid both in pillage and in hard cash,
for doing the cruel work of the monarch. There
must be a great many who know that, under an
upright Government, their occupation would be
gone, and their house made too hot for them. How
far officers and men of this class may make a stand
for their only hope, remains to be seen. There
seems, however, to be much reason to hope that the
majority, both of soldiers and sailors, will be
faithful to the Italian cause. We hope that, in
any case, the commanders of French and English
ships of war have it in charge to forbid the bom-
bardment of any part of the city of Naples from
which assailants are not actually firing on the
KING'S troops.

Mr. BRIGHT was right enough when he inquired
of what use the Election Commissions are. No
punishment follows either to individuals or to the
borough ; if, indeed, in such a case as that of
Wakefield, both parties have to submit to the pro-
secution of a few on each side, selected by the
public prosecutor " with admirable impartiality,"
the common sense, or rather the English feeling,
of the public revolts at convictions by such means.
The trial is not regarded as a fair one after the in-
dividual has been lured to confess, and he is not
lowered in public opinion by what is thcught his
" rather hard case." Indeed the general, and we
believe correct idea, is, that if Commissioners were
appointed at each general election, and were
set to cross-examine on oath every member as
to the pecuniary or other influence to which he
owed his seat, very few would be entitled to cast
a stone at their fellow-members.

There is the exposure, to be sure. There are also
the various phrases and devices by which hon.
members and candidates endeavour to avoid saying
in plain English, " I spent so many hundreds or
thousands, the larger part of which I meant to be
expended in paying those who wanted money for
their votes." Above all there are the occasional se-
crets, known only to a few before, but which be-
come public gossip for a few days, and must be
very entertaining to all the gaping Quidnunca of
1 the hour. But of what use it all is, except to demon-
strate that legislation can d• nothing effectual to
lessen all this corruption, except by making con-
stituencies large enough, and by interposing secrecy
of voting between the seducer and his too pliable
victim,—we know not. That lesson, however, all
of us have already learned ; and none know it more
perfectly, or believe it more firmly, than just our
leading Whigs and Tories. Their faith in the effi-
cacy of secret voting is the one sole reason why they
hate it. If, however, all these exposures will not
shame our hardened leaders of both parties into ac-
ceptance of the ballot, we can see no earthly use in
purchasing a few spicy revelations at the enormous
cost of these Election Commissions.
A few of these have, of course, been furnished at
Berwick. It was amusing enough to see Mr. HODG-
SON slow to come to the point, that he had drawn
i out sums much exceeding what fair expenses

would require, and then putting altogether a nove

face on getting a large quantity of sovereigns into his
hands, on the very eve of an election. They were,
it seems, for a kind of shop window bribery. He
made a display of—" tremendous sacrifices," in
order to win; but, as in most displays, no sacrifice
was to be made at all. The elector was to vote, as
if expecting he would make " wonderful bargains,"
but his only gain was to be the honour of voting
for a purity candidate like Mr. HODGSON. Yet, in
reply to a question from the Commissioner, he dis-
avowed any intention to " bilk" the expectant elec-
tor ! How he squared the two things he has not
told us. We merely know that he was conjuror
enough to make a display of sovereigns, to persuade
electors that sovereigns would follow votes, and
then not to have "bilked" them, when he had got
their votes, and kept his sovereigns !
Then of course the story of ALEXANDER
BRODIE was for a time piquant enough. Why,
really, after all, the gossips believed that they had
traced bribery and corruption to very high quarters.
The Right Hon. BENJAMIN DISRAELI giiing his
handwriting to ex• Sergeant BRODIE, who had told
him, according to his own story, that he knew the
bribable persons at Frome, and had relatives at
Berwick—surely now the election gossips had Mr.
DISRAELI on the hip ! Yet even this story could
hardly keep itself afloat as first told. It was evi-
dent that Mr. NlCHOLhimself was not tt little puz-
zled and doubtful ;
,and. when Mr. EARLE came to
be examined the whole vanished into the imaginings
of a madman. We do not wish, however,
more than Mr. EARLE, to speak:'hardly of
poor BRODIE ; unjust • treatment had evidently
unnaturally excited his mind, till -everything
took undue proportions. A kind Word from
a distinguished person was intimacy withlim, and
showing a gentleman for once into a political de-
bating room, which he felt somewhat curious to
see, via's being his cicerone for regular expeditions
of that kind. In fact it seems BRODIE is in the
habit of "addressing people," and is taken by many
for a character. Mr. DISRAELI evidently regarded

. . .
him as one, and sometime, if the 'Occupations of
'earlier days should ever again sooth or amuse the
mind of the statesman, ALEXANDER BRODIE may
furnish one ofmany minor pictures from life.
It'Nbas of course something to have a batch of
candidates and members all compelled to answer
every question about their electoral,' amours with
such a constituency as Berwick. Mr. EARLE tells
us a very natural story,. of how, he worked the
'barrack dodge, presenting the memorial, receiving
"official smiles," but saying or doing nothing to
compromise the GOvernment. Not unwilling, as
he says, that they should think he might do some-
thing with the Government, and not contradicting
stronger representations by others, than he him-
self would have dreamed of making. "Perhaps he
allowed too much to be said," Mr. EARLE frankly
observed, but certainly not more than any other
candidate would have allowed. We are none of us
so "righteous overmuch," as on such occasions to
throw cold water on the excited eloquence of
zealous partisans ; and on the whole we may cer-
tainly congratulate a private secretary of a Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer that he could present such
a fair electoral case to the CommissionerF.
Mr. GORDON and Mr. STAPLETON had also to
pass the fearful ordeal. The former received spe-
cial: commendation from the Commissioner for
straightforwardness. His story has a little of the
natural and innocent about it, certainly. Building
a church was, he thought, ope legitimate mode of
obtaining a good status in Berwick. lie did not,
at the time, know that Dissenters were so numer-'
owl that a church was not wanted; and between
th° spiritual good, and the spending of £2,115 17s.