The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-07 00:00:00

Stage Manager, Mr. It. Phillips.

CANTERBURY HALL, Westminster-road.—
Proprietor --C. MonTox.
The public is most respectfully informed that 'the FINE
ARTS GALLERY, in connection with the above Hall, IS NOW
OPEN DAY AND NIGHT, from 11 o'clock a.m. until 12
o'clock p.m. The New Gallery contains an extensive Collec-
tion of Pictures, by Ancient and Modern Masters and is also
devoted to Art productions generally. The Proprietor feels
he may confidently assert that, viewed altogether, the exist-
ing Music Hall, the New Fine Arts Gallery, and the recently
added Ante-Hall, will present an attraction which, whether
as regards the architectural beauty of the structures them-
selves, or the varied and hitherto unattempted combinations
within, will be found to be wholly without parallel in the
Kingdom.
The MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT commences as usual at
Seven o'clock.

In addition to the usual entertainment, the SAUVLET
FAMILY, of Amsterdam, Eight in number, whose varied
instrumental performances have created so marked a sensa-
tion in the principal cities and towns of the Continent, will
perform every Evening at Nine and Eleven o'clock.

THE WEATHER.-SUN OFFICE, DEC. 7.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.

41—highest since noon yesterday.
39—lowest this morning and during the night.
41—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.26.
WIND, Northerly; light, with dense fog.

THE SUN.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1858.

The fortunate return to port of the hired troop-
ship Bombay is certainly matter of very general
congratulation. She had been so long unheard of,
she had so many of our gallant soldiers on board,
she was so old herself, and the weather had long
been so tempestuous, that her fate had not un-
naturally come to be regarded with no• inconsider-
able degree of solicitude. The narrative of the
sufferings and anxieties endured during nearly one
entire calendar month by those on board the
Bombay, between the date of her departure from
Gravesend on the 7th of November and that of
her being towed into Plymouth harbour, a dis-
masted wreck, on the sth of December, will doubt-
less have been read with very general interest
by- our readers, as given at some length
in our impression of last evening. It is a
narrative, by the way, which it would be cer-
tainly difficult to read through without its ex-
citing certain feelings of indignation. What does
it relate ? It tells us the old story of that miser-
able penny wise and pound foolish system, which
has, from as long as any of us can well remember,
been in vogue in so many of the different depart
ments of the administration.

Here was an old vessel—an uncommonly tough
old vessel, if you like, and as the event has cer-
tainly proved, but still, with all that, an old vessel
—hired in a hurry, got ready for the voyage in a
flurry, and sent off at one of the stormiest times
of the year, with weak rigging a vessel
having on board 500 tons of railway iron
loosely packed, and 300 soldiers huddled away
between decks with the most inadequate accommo-
dation. So prepared for a long winter voyage, the
Bombay leaves Gravesend on the 7th ultimo, bent
upon going round to Cork to take on board there
100 additional soldiers. By the 10th the Channel
pilot has quitted the Bombay, and she sights the
light of Ballycotton on the coast of Ireland. Heavy
gales, however, and squally weather encounter her
on the morrow—she labours violently, and
before the 11th is over, the sails are split into
ribbons. On the 12th the gale is still blow-
ing with violence, and as evening closes in
another light on the Irish coast is made—the
Fastner. Although upon the 13th the wind ap-
pears to be decreasing, the weather still retains a
threatening appearance ; on the 14th the breeze
has deepened into heavy squalls ; on the 15th the
gale is increasing, and the sea beginning to run
high and fast ; on the 16th " comes the
tug of war," even the matter-of-fact log-
book entry in so many words being thus—
" blowing a perfect hurricane, with tremendous
sea running." Previously in the foul weather
the three topgallant masts and yards have gone
like dry twigs-`—but now both main and mizen
masts go by the board, the chief mate and 17
of the crew being at the time on the top-
sailyards. Six only out of the number are
saved—eleven being drowned, among them the
unfortunate chief officer, who had only succeeded,

at last, in daring the men to go aloft for the pur-
pose of taking in sail, by setting them the example
himself. The rigging was bad, was weak, was
wholly insufficient for the strain upon it. The men
recognised this, and refused to ge up aloft to cer-
tain destruction. The second mat Mr. PETITE-
RICK, tries to lure them into obeying the Captain's
orders, by leading the way. Vainly—the men are
too shrewd seamen. Grog is then distributed among
them, and the chief mate, Mr. PAUL, setting his
life upon the hazard of a die, goes aloft, and shames
the seventeen up after him to the perilous topsail-
yard. Scarcely are they there busy fumbling at
the tackling when a heavy sea strikes the ship,
" causing her to lurch so fearfully" that—away
goes the rigging like packthread, the mioenmast
goes by the board, three boats are smashid, and
all aloft are thrown into the surge. Imme-
diately afterwards the captain again wants
some of the men to go aloft, " a few
minutes before the foremast went overboard,
and when it was supported by only one shroud."
According to the testimony of the survivers of the
crew " they refused to go, and presently the mast
fell." On the following day, the 17th, the jibboom
and the flying jibboom are carried away, and by
the 22d the wreck is pretty nearly completed—the
last means of escape from, it, the sole remaining
boats, the spare and the long boat going adrift, and
in doing so carrying away a part of the bulwarks.
It is only, as we have seen, by the sth of Decem-
ber, after exactly four weeks of perillous voyaging
in the Channel have elapsed, that the battered, dig,
masted, boatless Bombay is towed into port at
Plymouth. How this comes to pass—when, on the
18th ult., the barque Port-Glasgow was spoken
and on the 24th ult. the American barque, Alice
Provost, and at midnight, on the 27th-28th ult., the
ship Pilgrim—is soon told. The captain of the
Bombay was above taking assistance—had implicit
confidence in his own vessel and in his own seaman-
ship. Not without reason obviously, of course, see-
ing that the old Bombay, under his command, has
clearly weathered the storm, and been brought at
last into port with all the officers and soldiers of
the different regiments entrusted to her care, in
health and safety. But with what increase
of danger and discomfort to all on board, will have
been painfully recognised by those who read the
narrative of those perils and sufferings detailed in
our impression of yesterday. Captain FLAMANK'S
undaunted courage throughout we are less disposed
to designate as gallantry than as positive foolhardi-
ness. And certainly the thrift shown by the authc-
rities in committing so many of our gallant fellows
thus rashly to an old ill-rigged vessel like the
Bombay, we are less inclined to term economy than
a most miserable combination of parsomony and ex-
travagance--to save a few paltry pounds jeopardising
the lives of 300 persons, men, women, and children.

We have been asked by a very intelligent an d
hearty Liberal what remedy we could provide,
under secret voting, against personation. He had
seen so much of it in municipal elections--and we
must add we have seen much of it ourselves in a
large municipal constituency—that he was really
embarrassed by the difficulty. He was a most sincere
advocate of any plan which would rescue the depen-
dent voter from unfair:and degrading terrorism, and
from temptations which, :if yielded to, are still
more degrading. It does, however, seem a great
evil that if you can prove the death or the alibi of
any person whose vote stands in the polling book
in favour of this or that candidate, there should
be no means of amending the return by striking
out the votes on a scrutiny. If the voting were
absolutely secret this might of course be easily
done. You could, with the Ballot, prove indeed
that the person had voted, but you could not prove
for whom he had voted. Your independent voting
might, therefore, after all, have given a false majo-
rity—a majority of the dead or the absent.
The Australians have devised a plan to meet the
difficulty, but it is one which, though very slightly,
interferes with absolute secrecy. The registrar
numbers the electors ; the returning officer, when the
elector receives the voting paper, places the elec-
tor's number on its back ; when the votes have
been counted over, the papers are deposited under
seal for a limited time, to allow of petitions against
the return, and then destroyed ; hence, should a
scrutiny be demanded,:and personations of the dead
or absent proved, the fraudulent votes can be struck
off by reference to the numbers. It is provided that
only those numbers shall be examined which are
proved to have been fraudulently used. The chance,
therefore, of any elector's vote becoming known is
small indeed. It resolves itself into the possibility
of the returning officer's first remembering the
elector's number so as to identify him, while rapidly
counting over the votes after the poll ; and
secondly, of his violating the oath which he and
all the officials are required to take, that he will
not directly or indirectly make known how any
elector has voted. We believe that, practically
this security for secrecy is perfect, while it theo
retically provides against the danger of persona

tion. We should be quite content with such a
mode of ballot here, if the slight concession would
allay the apprehensions of any timid friends of in-
dependent voting.
But it is worth while to consider whether other
arrangements might not render even the precaution
of numbering the balloting papers needless. Of
course, under any system there must be a register
of voters : and the elector, on presenting himself at
the polling booth, must prove his right to be there,
and that he has not previously voted at the elec-

tion. With the ballot, therefore, or without it
there is the record that Smith, Jones, and Robin

son have voted at the election. By secret voting, as

well as by open voting, should these gentlemen have

been on their travels, and been putting the heads

of German gens d'armes into chancery instead o:

showing themselves at the polling-booth, the detec-
tion of the fact that they did not rote is equally

easy. So in the case of a political resurrection of
the dead, though proper arrangements with the

registrar of deaths should render this nearly im.

practicable, the false vote could be promptly de-
tected. We do not see how open voting could faci-

litate the discovery of the fact that a fraudulent
vote had been given ; it could only enable us to

redress the wrong done to the candidate who had

not received it.

Now, besides the Australian plan, there is another
course open, which would issue in giving hardly

anymore trouble, and yet would redress the wrong.
Let the fact of the votes personated be ascertained;
let them be verified by affidavit, if desired, before

any non-political judge—say the judge of the

county court—and if their number would have
altered the return, let the defeated candidate, or
some reasonable number of electors, have the right
to demand a new election. This, no*, is often the

result of a successful petition, and it would rarely
exceed the cost of a House of Commons scrutiny.
It seems to us that- the knowledge that for some
time after the election a scrutiny by the opposite
party could not set it aside, if favourable to the
fraudulent, by an inexpensive process, together
with very severe penalties for all parties guilty of
personation or of aiding and abetting it, would reduce
that practice to an utterly insignificant minimum.

t is remarkable that in Australia, though the
elections by Ballot have several times been decided
by small majorities, in one case by a single vote,
yet none of the elections have been impugned, or
a scrutiny required.

We have sometimes thought that in any wide
extension of the suffrage it would be quite fair to
require the voter to sign the register opposite to
his own name. It would, at the same time, facili-
tate the proof, if wanted, that the true voter's name
had been fraudulently used, and be a stimulus, so
far as it went, to education. A voter ought now to
be able to do something better than make his mark.
In the last generation many substantial yeomen
could not write their own names. At the present
time no operative or labourer need want that qua-
lification for an elector. It might be fairly assumed
that the man who would not take the trouble to
learn to write could not care much for the privilege
of voting. Some curious scrawls we should have
at first, no doubt, almost as illegible as used to be
the frank of an M.P. on a letter. As, however, the
Post-office put a liberal construction on the writing
of Members of Parliament then, so should we be
disposed to put a very liberal one on the writing of
farm labourers and town mechanics—we should be
but too glad to encourage them to write at all.

• ' 4V.v.
t, ; •
4- A , ,„,„ ,
c,r.;,- •
- ;
"7:1•1117-•
• ,
~44440.
•