The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-28 00:00:00

IMPROPER PRACTICES AT ELECTIONS.

An interesting and important discussion took
place in the Norwich town council, on Monday,
with reference to improper practices at municipal
and Parliamentary elections. At a meeting held a
few days since the council resolved to print and
circulate a "declaration," pledging candidates to
abstain from organised and systematic personal
canvassing, and Every form of corrupt and illegal
expenditure or practices ; the mayor and sheriff,
with an umpire, to determine whether the agree-
ment was carried out honourably, and an infraction
of the pledge to vitiate the election impugned. A
copy of the declaration was forwarded to every mem-
ber of the council, with an inquiry from the town
clerk whether the gentleman. addressed was pre-
pared to carry out the proposed plan. On Mon-
day the town •clerk reported that of the 64 members
of the council to whom the declaration had been
sent, 16 had given it their unqualified approval ;
'four had returned a qualified assent; seven objected
to the plan ; and 37 had taken no notice whatever
of the matter. Mr. Skipper, on the part of the
committee who had prepared the declaration,
said it would be clearly of no avail, under the cir-
cumstances, to proceed further in the matter. With
respect, however, to the second subject to which
the committee had directed their attention,
viz., the suppression as far as possible of improper
proceedings at Parliamentary elections, he would
move that certain suggestions prepared with this
object should be printed. Mr. skipper expressed
his opinion that the present system of carrying on
elections could not go on. Some light had recently
been thrown upon that subject by the inquiries
now pending at Gloucester and Wakefield, where
the law had been set at defiance, and where the s
gentlemen who had been examined as witnesses
exhibited such equivocation, and such shuffling
from the truth, that it was lamentable to think that
such a class of persons should ever be placed in the
position to exhibit themselves as they had done.
The instructions prepared by the committee recom-
mended the abolition of canvassing--a point which
Sir It. Carden had pressed upon the attention of
the Gloucester commissioners. Canvassing and
bribery were synonymous. Elections should be
made freely and independently ; but so far from
this being the case in practice, electors were fol-
lowed into their houses, solicited and entreated
for their votes, and cajoled in such a way that
many of them never voted without a consideration.
Again, with respect to polling, the present mode
was to buy votes early, and gain if possible such a
majority by nine o'clock that the second candidate
had no chance of recovering himself. Tho com-
mittee proposed that the progress of the polling
should be secret, and that no check clerks should be
permitted on either side. The revult of the election
would thus not be known till the official declara-
tion of the numbers. It was also proposed that it
_ .

should be made the regular business Of the return"
ing officer to ascertain whether the election over
which he presided had been properly conducted.
After some discussion, in the course of which the
proceedings at Gloucester and. Wakefield were fur-
ther referred to in severe terms, and in the course
of which some incredulity was also expressed as to
the possibility of preventing canvassing, the mo-
tion for printing the suggestions of which Mr.
Skipper had given a summary, was agreed to. It
will not, of course, be forgotten that although the
council assume such a high and virtuous tone, Nor-
wick is itself without members at present, the late
representatives of the constituency having been ue"
seated for bribery.