The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-19 00:00:00

under peculiar circumstances, and not to drive
things to desperation, test him with the Permissive

Ballot. It was at one time said, we believe not
without some foundation of truth, that a permissive
ballot was contemplated in the Government Bill,
but it may be worth a moment's thought whether
it shall not be made the testing point with candi-
dates, in certain cases.

But let good care be taken that the word be not
abused, A ballot permissive to individuals is as
bad as no ballot at all. It needs but a moment's
thought to understand that if a person has only the
option of voting by ballot, and if he be dependent
on any landlord, employer, mortgagee, lawyer, or
banker,—he will receive a pretty definite hint,
that for him to vote secretly will be as dangerous
to his pecuniary interests as for him to vote the
wrong way. Indeed, neither friends nor enemies
of independent voting have ever seriously proposed
a ballot permissive to individuals only.
But a ballot permissive to entire constituencies
is a very different thing. So far as that consti-
tuency is concerned, if it be of any reasonable size,
it will be protected. There, at least, justice will be
done to the mode of voting, which we insist on as
essential, in the actual state of human nature, to

thorough electoral independence. We should not
be unwilling to vote, in certain cases, for a candi
date who would sincerely endeavour to secure, in
some places, a fair trial for the Ballot.
But the fair trial itself must be made fairly
obtainable. It has been proposed that three-fourths
of the registered electors should have power to
demand the Ballot. This is simply absurd. Three-
fourths of the electors is frequently the most which
can be brought to the poll. How could they be
expected to sign a memorial ? Moreover a large
proportion, a majority of the electors, in boroughs
which most need the Ballot, would for that
very reason be afraid to append their names
to a memorial or a petition. It is just
where intimidation and corruption most prevail
that only a small number of really independent
electors dare petition for the application of the
Ballot to their constituency. This points to giving
to one-fourth, or at most to one third, of the
average number of electors who have voted at con-
tested elections, the right to demand that the votes
in that place shall be taken by Ballot.
But the fairest plan of all is—and the one which
we should insist on—that it should be competent
to a very small number of electors to require of
the returning officer that he should take by
ballot the opinion of the whole constituency
on the question whether they wished to adopt
the practice at all future elections. If the majority
of the electors really do wish it, then on what pre-
text can the most hardened old Whig persist in
refusing it to that constituency ? They must obvi-
ously best know the difficulties under which they
vote, and ought to decide on the best mode of
exercising their suffrage. We should think any
professedly Liberal candidate who refused to allow
a constituency to decide by the Ballot whether it
would have the Ballot or not, a political hypocrite.
We would not have him at any price. Ho must
be as averse to electoral independence as the most
avowed old Tory, and we would rather have the
latter than a man who professed liberalism, but
who only wanted to keep us under his thumb.

There has recently sprung into existence a very
humane project of the simplest kind well im-
aginable, and yet at the same time one of the most
practically and directly benevolent. It is sub-
sidiary to the temperance movement ; and so
directly subsidiary to that movement that the
Reverend Father TIIEOBALD MATHEWhiMSeIf need
not have disdained the glory of suggesting the
generous enterprise. The originator of this scheme,
so far as we can learn, was Mr. CHARLES MELLEY,
a young merchant of Liverpool. That benevolent
young merchant at his own expense raised a public
drinking fountain in Liverpool —a drinking
fountain which he has since then (also entirely at
his own cost) multiplied in that town to the num-
ber of thirty-five. Besides these thirty-five foun-
tains erected solely by the public spirit and private
munificence of Mr. MELLEY, there are a few more
erected by other means in Liverpool—increasing the
aggregate of fountains in that town and its vicinity
to somewhere about forty-five altogether. Else-
where the movement has already advanced, and is
still steadily, in some places, rapidly advancing.
There are twelve of these drinking fountains
erected in Aberdeen ; there are two in Bolton ;
there is one in Bradford ; there is one in Rochdale ;
there is one in Edinburgh ; there are three in
Burnley ; there are four in Birkenhead; there are
thirty-two in Glasgow ; there are seven in Sunder-
land. Already, indeed, it is known that, in the
aggregate, there are as many as 250 of these public
drinking fountains erected, and henceforth perpetu-
ally flowing in various parts of the United King-
dom. No wonder that the movement should have at
at length found its way to the -Metropolis. The
marvel is rather that it should not have extended
sooner as far as London and Westminster. As yet,
in all this wide, wide world of London there is only
one of these public drinking fountains in actual
course of erection at the present moment. Glasgow,
as we have seen, has already thirty-two fountains—
Liverpool, as we know, has some forty-five in all—
London has yet got—not quite one ! And that
solitary fountain the capital owes, in a great mea-
sure, to the public spirit of Mr. GURNEY—the
MELLEY of the Metropolis. Competent authorities
estimate the expense of raising these fountains
differently— the simplest not exceeding in cost
£lO, the more ornately decorated requiring no more
than £3O, at the most liberal calculation. As to the
benefits likely to accrue from the more general
adoption of the project, these have been admirably
sketched out recently by the rector of St. Giles'-in-
the-Fields. "It is impossible," says that rev. gen-
tleman (Mr. TIIOROLD), "to over-estimate the
benefits which will arise from the establishment of
drinking fountains in various parts of the metro-
polis, more especially in localities where the poor
are thickly planted and are constantly moving
about to or from their work. When a man actually-
earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, he finds
out what thirst means. It is no inconsiderable
kindness to enable him to quench that thirst with-
out risk to himself or to his family. And, indeed,
the mischief which these drinking fountains will
obviate preponderates, in my own view of the case,
very considerably over the positive advantages
which they will confer. Drinking,' like many
other bad habits, does not always spring from a
love of vice for its own sake. No man is very bad
all at once,' and no man is a drunkard all at once.
It is the habit of drinking intoxicating liquors un-
der the pressure of thirst, in default of any better
substitute, that has gradually turned a sober
fellow into a drunkard almost without his know-
ing it; and I am convinced that hundreds of
working men will only be too glad to avoid
temptation and keep their money in their pockets,
if they can quench their thirst with a dranght of cool
pure water close by. Drinking fountains will pre-
vent drinking, and all who subscribe to them may
have the satisfaction of knowing that by means en-
tirely unobjectionable they are lending a most real
aid to the diminution of intemperance among workin g
men." In testimony that these great advantages