The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-31 00:00:00

6.e.latlT O.& Till; kUILLIO JOURNALS.

The Times, in discussing the results or the election
petitions, observes that the only sure remedy for corrup-
tion and intimidation is to make them their own punish•
ment. Adopt the clause inserted in the first draft of
Mr. Disraeli's Bribery Bill, but which he was afterwards
winced to discard, and the vices of corruption and
violence will not be merely scotched, but killed. The
clause was simple. It proposed tliat wherever it appeared
that a candidate had, by himself or agents, been guilty

of improper practices, that candidate should be
truck out of the contest, and the seat given to the
next below him, provided the next had polled a
certain reasonable proportion of the numbers voting. No
provision could be more fitted to cleanse our representa-
tive system of its vices than this. The dread of handing
over a seat to an antagonist as the immediate consequence
of an improper act would deter candidates, their friends
and agents, from any such venture, and there would be
the best guarantee that the election would represent the
choice of the electors. The single argument against the
claim is one of no weight when compared with the
advantages on the other side. It is said that it might
operate to give the representation of a ccnstituency to the
candidate of a minority of the electors. This is true, and
the result by itself would be a misfortune; but if the ap-
prehension of such a result produced such careful atten-
tion to purity that the result itself could not happen,
except under the rarest circumstances, the misfortune
becomes of fanciful proportions, while the gain is solid and
real. If anyone having a real disgust of violence and cor-
ruption will honestly consider the suggestion, he will not
fail to approve Mr. Disraeli's proposal as the most pro-
mising method of preventing their occurrence, and to
wonder, as we do, what evil genius induced him to aban-
don the clause embodying it after ho bad introduced it
into the House of Commons.
The Standard considers that it must be very flattering
to Lord Stanley to know that his conduct at this crisis has
become an object :of extreme solicitude to the Liberal
journals. They have been good enough to select him as
the special subject of an Easter homily, the gist of which
appears to be to demonstrate how much snore advanta-
geous it is for an able man to belong to the winning than
to the losing side. That Lord Stanley should remain
faithful to his party in a minority is a phenomenon which to
the Times is inexplicable. The fact is a kind of denial
of the Liberal Providence—of that docrine which
beli6ves that all which is right is on the Liberal
side, and that what is not Liberal is by force
of position not only wrong, but " stupid." Our
contemporary is, for a reason which we can all under-
stand, impatient that a man so clever, so honest, and so
courageous as Lord Stanley, should be of the party which
is not presently in the ascendant. It cannot comprehend
a consistency which leaves its owner on the side of the
minority. These is something pathetic in its appeals to
the Conservative chief to break away from his fellows,
and to desert his standard. We are told how muchbetter
it is for a public man to belong to the cause which for the
day is espoused by the Ministerial journal itself; how
much more politic it is to be a winner than
a loser. The association with the party in which
he was reared—the party of his father, and of
all his most trusted political friends— is declared, with a
sublime impertinence, to be " altogether unworthy" of him.
For Lord Stanley's vote on Tuesday night there is no
occasion to apologise. Even if we adopt the theory that
he is inclined to go further than others of his party in the
reform of the Irish Church—that he was not entirely in
accord with the other leaders as to the course of opposi-
tion to be pursued—that is no justification for the theory
which represents Lord Stanley as only waiting for a
decent pretext to abandon his party. The Conservatives
are as free as their opponents have ever claimed to be to
permit individual differences of opinion among them-
selves ; and it in no snore imperative upon them to
think and to (peak exactly alike than it is for Mr.
Lowe to agree with Mr. Bright on household suffrage,
or Mr. Gladstone to bO as fervent for the ballot as Mr.
S tansfeld.

The Star asks what will Lord Sian'ey do? The destined
successor, accirding to outward appearances, in the cow•
mand of the Toiy party, to his father, and his father's
erratic lieutenant, he has shorn, notwithstanding, since the
commencement of his political career, an inclination more
or less marked towards Liberal opinions. It is true that
he has seldom frankly acknowledged the responsibilities of
Liberalism, and that he has too frequently given a tacit
support to reactionary measures or to a policy of blank
resistance. But he has won a reputation notwithstanding
for open sincerity of political cardour, which has scarcely
been dimmed by his ambiguous conduct in reference to
the Reform Dills of the Liberal and Conservative
Governments in 1866 and 1867. His tenure of the
Foreign Office was distinguished by a strict observance of
Mr. Cobden's principles of non-intervention in precept,
and an approximation to them .in practice ; and he has
been praised for the imperfect adoption of a policy which
had been condemned repeatedly by his own political asso-
ciates and official colleagues. There is some suspicion
that his silence and his absence mean mischief ; that they
Ara 42... In-cll.& vf ovine aurp, Irva, ...A.., ;end
objection to Mr. Gladstone's measure, wh:cli may lead
away some deserters from the Liberal ranks. The danger,
we believe, to be greatly exaggerated. In any case, little
mischief could be done, and we do not think Lord Stanley
means mischief. The greatest peril is that which threatens
Lord Stanley's own reputation ; and if he has a care for
that, he had better define his position as quickly and as
clearly as he can.

The Times, after remarking upon the extraordinary
pictures of the criminal haunts of London, given by its
correspondent "N. A. W.," says very justly that it will
some day—we trust no distant day—be thought marvel-
lous enough that a nation justly proud of its pre-eminence
in wealth and civilisation should have tolerated in the
midst of its capital even one place of habitual resort
for criminals of all classes well known to support
themselves by plundering, often with brutal vio.
lence, their peaceful and respectable neighbours.
Strange to say, society is now for the first time
resolving to protect itself by directing its efforts
against this powerful organisation. Hitherto it has
legislated on the principle of never recognising crime until
it appeared in a specific act, and treating that act as if it
were an isolated instance of wrong-doing traceable to but
one solitary member of the community. We specially
commend to public notice all that our correspondent has
written about " the low beerhouses, low pawnbrokers,
and the low leaving-shops "—that is, if the recommenda-
tion be now necessary, for since he began to write all
three points have been taken into consideration by
the House of Lords. There may be a difficulty in deal-
ing with the low pawnbrokers and even with the leaving-
shops, but the beerhouses can be reached by the very
simple expedient of placing them under the control of the
police magistrates, instead of, as now, under the Excise,
and in bad hands they present the worst features of the
low pawnbrokers and leaving-shops without their redeeming
advantages. They are not merely the favourite haunts of
thieves, but are often used for the receipt of stolen goods,
and even for a regular traffic, at recognised rates, in bad
money. All this could soon be put a stop to if their
license depended on the police magistrate of the district.
The Daily News declares that till some means are
adopted of introducing a disciplinary code into the volun-
teer service, which may render the service efficient, it is
almost useless to discuss further arrangements, since all
that concerns the ultimate organisation of the force must
depend materially on the number of volunteeers that may
be found willing to continue their service on the new con-
dition of being amenable to discipline. It is evident
that a disciplinary code to be effectual must be esta-
blished, not by the members of the volunteer corps them-
selves, but by the Legislature of the country. The
State gives aid to the volunteers in the shape of a
Capitation Grant, and it is but fair that the State should
demand proof that this aid is bestowed upon those aloes
who would be certain to be forthcoming in case of need.
If volunteer corps were allowed to make their own rules,
there would be discrepancies and differences among them
which would cause trouble, inconvenience, and perhaps
heart-burning; nor is it desirable that armed men, sup-
ported to a greater or less degree by public funds,
should be ruled by the bye-laws of their own.
clubs rather than by the ordinances of rarlia•
ment. If the volunteers submit cheerfully to be
disciplined, and if sufficient precautions are
taken that the rules of discipline shall be en-
forced,, and not shirked by either officers or
men, it will be comparatively easy to introduce
among them an effective organisation, and to place them
in that position in the general military system of the
country which they aspire to occupy. The volunteer
force must, from the nature of its constituents, be always
a defensive force. Neither by battalions nor individuals
could it be expected to recruit the line ; it must always be
an auxiliary of the regular army for home defence, and
can in no way be a reserve to the battalions of the line.
Nor could the volunteers be called out for long periods of
time, even for defensive purposes ; the occupations and
industrial pursuits of the men who fill the ranks of the
I force render this at once impracticable.
The Herald thiuks that the story of William btu-Avant,
the Norwich innkeeper, is, without exception, one of the
most remarkable to be found in the annals of crime and
eximinals. I3yron's sentiment that "truth is stranger
than fiction" has become trite and familiar by constant
quotation, as have also the somewhat similar common-
places of our nearest neighbours, that " nothing is
so certain a 3 the improbable" and " nothing is more
credible than the impossible." It may be doubted,
however, whether the life of any person in Sheward's
station has been so rich as his in incidents, not only extra-
ordinary but positively marvellous. For nearly eighteen
years he has enjoyed the reputation of a peaceable, though
by no means exemplary, citizen, in the very place where,
if Tuesday's verdict be correct, he must have committed a
murder, whose cold-bleo led atrocity puts him below the level
of Good and Greenacre, and other wretches who have
spilt human blood with the calculating sang froid of the
professional assassin, and have afterwards dismembered
the bodies of their victims with a barbarity compared
with which the scientific operations of the dissecting.
room, and even the rougher handling of the abbatoir, is
tenderness itself. The history altogether is more astound-
ing than even the most sensatioeal of novelists ever ven-
tured to weave into a plot and give the novel-reading
nnblic in three octavo volumes.