The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-05 00:00:00

Voting is also " facilitated," in one sense. It is
made easier for the voter to give a vote under the
cognisance of those whom he most fears. The
polling places are to be brought to the voters, to
every two hundred of them at least ; it is also
provided that by voting papers, transmitted both
ways in registered envelopes, distant, or invalid,
or indolent voters may do their work without
stirring from home. We shall not stay to show
how utterly impossible it would be, with all Mr.
DISRAELI'S safeguards, to prevent personation by
voting papers. One thing is apparent on the face
of these facilitating arrangements, that they facili-
tate the operations of the briber and the coercer
quite as much as the voting of the elector. Each
tenant-at-will having to vote in the very lo-
cality where the lord of his vote, as well
as of his land, dwells, will be immediately under
his eye, and, if he elects to send a voting paper,
can have his landlord's agent as one of his wit-
nesses. Mr. DISRAELI is quite wrong, we believe,
in attributing the falling off of county compared
with borough voters to want of facility for registra-
tion and voting. The cause has been the too great
facility with which political oppressors can super-
vise the voting.
We believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer well
knows what would most of all swell the registers,
and increase the number of votes in proportion
to registered electors. His silence on last
Monday on the Ballot struck us quite as much
as any remarks he could have made about it. He
well enough remembered his own earnest declara-
tion in its favour to the electors of Marylebone,
and we much question whether he has altered his
own views on the subject, although associated with
a Cabinet which is, of course, hostile to it. Till
we have evidence to the contrary, we shall take
leave to think that though Mr. DISRAELI couldnot
introduce or defend what his colleagues refused,
he would not, on the other hand, attack what he
had once strenuously defended. He would serve
his party, but not eat dirt for any of them, or all
of them together.
It is rather singular that the " gentleman who
writes from the ballot-box of the Times" on the
warning lessons furnished by America to England,
more than once asserted that the ballot-box was
used in the States solely to " facilitate" voting, not
to keep it secret, or to remove the facilities fur-
nished by open voting for intimidation and bribery.
This shows at least that voting by Ballot does so
expedite the work that a special pleader could
plausibly represent that as its sole design and merit.
Indeed the testimony from Australia and America,
from elkrywhere indeed, is the same, in regard
to the rapidity and quickness with which
votes can be taken by Ballot. We hesitate
not to affirm that had Mr. DISRAELI pro-
posed vote by Ballot, he would, with the present
qualification, have added more to the register than
he will gain by all his franchises ; that he would
have brought immensely large numbers to the poll,
and that they would rather have travelled a
dozen miles to vote by Ballot than one to vote under
the eye which deprives voting of all its truthfulness
and pleasure. The schemes proposed by the
bill in regard to voting and registration are
ingenious, we may say plausible ; but the
abolition of the rate-paying clauses and the in-
troduction of the Ballot would have been worth far
more than all of them put together. They would
have increased the electors two ways—they would
have induced greater numbers to register, and they
would have converted into electors thousands who
are now but the tools of political masters.

Whatever the fate attendant upon the Parliamen-
tary Reform Bill, it is earnestly to be hoped that
every success will carry through its different stages
intact the beneficent Measure for the prevention, or
at any rate for the punishment, of Adulteration.
It appears to have been revived in all its integrity
by Mr. SCHOLEFIELD. It relates to articles of food
or drink—imposing penalties upon a scale gra-
duated with repetition. Fines will follow each
offence—the amount of those fines remaining yet to
be determined. But, far beyond the mulcting of so
many pounds sterling, there will be the pillory of
detailed and specific publication—the publication
in the newspapers or otherwise, according to the
discretion of the magistrates, not only of the
offender's criminality, but together with that
" damning fact "—of his name residence and
occupation. The mere terror of this pillory
of publication will do more than all the
fines that could be inflicted towards the
rapid and certain diminution of the crime
of adulteration. A publication like this will
be as fatal as a gazette of bankruptcy. In a
commercial point of view it will be far more
damaging. An insolvent may be—very frequently
is—the victim merely of misfortune. An adultera-
tor is the wilful and despicable destroyer of his
own reputation. Any one branded thus as an
adulterator will be a sort of mercantile pariah—as
one stricken with the plague-spot—to be shunned
and avoided with abhorrence.

To facilitate the operation of the bill—or in
other words to facilitate the detection of adultera-
tion—Vestries, and District Boards, and Town
Councils are authorised by the enactment to ap-
point analysts, men like Dr. HASSALL, possessing
adequate knowledge—knowledge at once medical,
chemical, and microscopical. By these officials
any individuals may have their purchases analysed
upon payment of a fee, varying from half-a-crown
to half-a-guinea. Thereupon, and on the test of
that magical fee will be dragged to view—the log-
wood latent in your fine old crusted port—the
itriol lurking in vinegar—the red lead in red pepper
and other deleterious ingredients! Drugging the
cup, infusing death into the pot, and rendering so
many of our traders literally systematic wholesale
and retail poisoners.

THE MAILS, B:nHAMPTON, March 4.
--. QOUT.---.
The Peninsular and Oriental Company'sateea steamship Ripon,
wasAlexandria,despatched
with the heavy portion
,ersmodf 24 second-
classCaptain E. Christian,
Gibraltar, Malta, and hence to-day for
wisnpecie and
of the East India and China mails, 82 fibrosxt
places
passengers ; a full cargo, and 479
Calcutta,Bilv
jewellery, value £143,120 16s. 2d. for the following
via.:—Madras, gold, £10,173, jewellery, £1,729 ; '.4.
Singapore,
silver, £85,670, jewellery, £163 15s ;
1375; Hong Kong, silver, £18,059 17s. 4d., gold, -05 Z,
jewellery,. £392; Shanghai, silver, £21,850, jewellery,
~e2.A
3s. 103. Total silver, :8 l 28,054 17s. 4d. ; total gold,
110,678 ; and total jewellery, £3,437 188. 10d. Among the
passengers are Capt. Walker, Lieut. Foster, for Gibraltar;
Major Balfour, Capt. Drummond, for Malta ; Commander
Gibson, Lieut. Gash, for Ceylon ; Dr. Anastasio de Holfo,
for 'Manilla ; Col. Prattle, for Madras ; Lieut. C. E. Bates,
Capt. G. 0. Willis, Ensign Kenny, for Calcutta; the Hon.
F. Bruce, for Singapore ; Sir Lac de Figeiredo, for Hong
Kong; Bear-Admiral Hope, Lieut. G. A. Douglas, &c.
The screw steamer Borussia, Captain Trautmann, en route
from Hamburg, leaves for New York this evening, with a
large number of passengers and full of cargo.
THE IRISH LANDED ESTATES COURT.—Since All
Saints' Day (Ist of November) last, 59 petitions for sale of
land have been presented to this Court, 2 for partition of
land, and 2 for declaration of an indefeasible title. No
petitions have been presented for investigation of title and
none for sale of settled estates. . .