The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-27 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
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creed and his religion," and because " he despised
the Church !" It is evident that Mr. POTTER, on
the contrary, though he cannot love the Athenasian

Creed as Mr. HODGSON does, nor seo the beauties

THE WEATHER.—SUN Orricz, NOVEMBER 27, 1861.

of its damnatory clauses, still regards the Church
as a great agent for good on the whole, and, there-
fore, though not compelled to pay a rate, sponta-
neously subscribes towards its local expenses.
What would Mr. HODGSON have said could the

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case have been reversed, and could Mr. POTTER
have attacked Mr. HODGSON'S conscientious reli•

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gious opinions—if, indeed, Mr. HODGSON'S opinions

- -
are matters of conscience not of custom or inheri-

tance merely—because they were unpopular at

Carlisle. Had the electors of Carlisle been a

constituency of MILTONS or NEWTONS—the reader
must pardon the supposition—would not the ana-
thematising candidate of yesterday have been the

THE SUN.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 27, 1861.

candidate complaining of injured innocence if his

maternal creed had been worked against him ?
All the rest was, as far as we know, fair enough
at an election. Railway position, advocacy of
Church-rates, opposition to the Ballot, and so forth,
may be reasonable claims on the voters of half the
electors of Carlisle in their political temper, or stage
of political knowledge, or subjection to political
influence; and cotton might be a fair subject of
banter, when an opponent rested so much of his
ease upon it. But we shall be only too well
pleased if the Carlisle election be the last
one at which religions sentiments are hawked
about to a candidate's disadvantage. Lord PAL-
MERSTON himself, with his preference of street
cleaning to day's of humiliation, when the
cholera visits Edinburgh, and his denial of the ar-
ticle on " original sin," would stand but a poor
chance if he were pitted against orthodox theolo-
gical emadidates. Happily in most towns the man
who came forward Ni ith the avowal—" I am more
holy than thou; I hold the Athenasian and Nicene
creeds; I believe to the letter in all Thirty-nine
Article; and I assert our admirable Liturgy to be
hardly second to the Bible,"—would share the
fate, with his fellow-men, which the highest autho-
rity tells us that the Pharisee does with God.

If we are not brought into collision with the

Americans it will not be from any great delicacy on
their part in avoiding what might give rise to a
misunderstanding. The telegram just received
from Southampton will certainly, when it is first
read, excite a little surprise and, perhaps, indigna-
tion. That an American ship-of-war should place
herself alongside a British mail steamer and forcibly

take from her two of her passengers will seem a
strange and insulting proceeding. The passengers
were, it is true, " Confederate Commissioners" to

Europe, and were no doubt sent on an errand hostile
enough to the North ; they would probably have
been the purchasers of large supplies of warlike
stores for the South, and might have attempted to

influence the opinions of important persons in this

country and in France—they might, in a word, have
been the most important contra aanci of war possible,

although sailing away from the actual war. Yet
the first feeling will probably be, that they were
passengers under the British flag, and that the
respect due to it was not exactly shown by boarding
a mail steamer which it protected, and taking any
one from on board her. Of one thing we are all
sure, that, could the position of parties have been
reversed, there would have been almost such an-
other " magnificent rising of the North" as took
place when the American flag was insulted at Fort
Sumter, and the army of the Potomac would have
been mustered on the St. Lawrence.

So Mr. HODGSON must have his fling at the
Ballot—that, however, was perfectly fair. He
had the best reason not to like it ; for small indeed
would be his chance, anywhere, were it the law of
the land. He seemed to intimate as much
by his line of argument. He shows that
he might under the Ballot lose votes, which
he had duly paid for. For he says, "It
enables one man to promise a candidate his vote and
then vote for another; it enables such a scoundrel to
take money from one candidate and then vote for
another; and it enables some lower scamp still to
take a bribe from both candidates and vote for
neither." Excellent ! We agree to the letter with
Mr. HODGSON. We should. give as reasons for the
ballot these very facts. Mr. HODGSON best knows
why he thinks it a grievance that the pledged or
purchased voter should be able to deceive the man
who has brought influence or sovereigns to bear on
his vote ; or why it is so great a grievance that a
scoundrel may jilt the two scoundrels who have
both parted with their money for what they
would not dare to purchase except in the
dark, and the purchasing of which made
them criminals. Could we suspect Mr. HODG-
SON at Carlisle or elsewhere to have given a
single sovereign to secure a vote, we should be sure
he looked anxiously to the polling book for the ex-
pected name, and devoutly thanked heaven that no
ballot box permitted the rogue he bought to fail in
completing the bargain.

Of course we have yet but the barest information

So far as goads and passengers are concerned, our
mail steamers are of course but private vessels; and

the Americans will point us to our QUEEN'S procla.
mation, telling her loving subjects that all aid ren

dered to either of the belligerent parties must be at
the risk of those who render it. If the steamer

received the commissioners on board, knowing their
character, the Americans will argue that she even
rendered herself liable to seizure. But if not, and if
the captain of the Jacinto obtained trustworthy infor-
mation at Havannah that the commissioners were on
board the Trent, the delicate question will arise
whether, not being bound for any blockaded port,
nor carrying anything which has ever been defined,
that we know of, as contraband of war, the Jacinto
was justified in forcibly taking from the Trent the
two passengers. Some dispute may also
arise as to their character. They may plead
that they were simple Americans, and as
exempt from seizure by other Americans on
the deck of a British vessel, as the two crews
now at Southampton are. Refugees of course they
are not. But, as we are friendly with both North
and South, we do not allow them on our soil to do
more than exchange their angry looks. Nor is it
merely that in England our police would be strong
enough to prevent seizures by either party. Had
the Americans landed on the smallest British island
and taken the Commissioners off its soil by force, we
should have resented the violation of the soil almost
at the cost of a war. But a vessel of any country
is confessedly, in international law, but an exten-
sion of the soil of the country, and hence it will be
said that what could not be done on the island could
not be done on the ships' deck.

For ourselves we beg to thank Mr. HODeSON,
with Lis not inconsiderable experience, for the
reasons which he thus assigns for open voting—for
such they really wore. " I prefer it," he says, be-
cause if a debtor of one of my wealthier supporters
is required to give me his vote, give it he must.
Because, again, if I give a man XO", or when the
contest seems so close as a majority of one or two,—
£lOO for his vote, vote for me he must. And
again, because if I give him £lO and Mr. POTTER
follows me with £lO, the man cannot
get off by voting for neither. Such, em-
bodied in living forms must be the meaning of
Mr. HODGSON'S arguments. And they seem to us,
to be admirably telling ones for the ballot. We
have not indeed heard that a shilling was spent in
actual bribery at Carlisle, but if it has been Mr.
HODGSON proved conelnsi;mly, that had voting
been by ballot the candidates and their supporters
would have been greater fools than men usually are
on such occasions. Looking at the whole the Ballot
Society will, we trust, present a vote of thanks to
Mr. HODGSON. We have always thought the
chief efficacy of the ballot would be in preventing
intimidation, though it is also very useful against
bribery. The latter opinion is now conclusively
attested by a most excellent witness—" no purchased
man," says Mr. HODGSON, "could be trusted to vote
for his purchaser." Under which circumstances,
we submit, purchasers would be scarce.

To this the reply will be that a ship has a
double character, and is also a machine for
carrying goods and passengers, and that, in that
capacity, if employed to aid and abet the plans of
either of the belligerent parties, she must, if her
country were on terms of neutrality with both, take
the consequences of joining one of the parties to the

war.

Such are some of the considerations on both
sides. We can, of course, with so few facts
before us, and without serious consideration, pro-

nounce no opinion one way or the other.

is for the law officers of the Crown to de-
cide; but even if the Americans have interna-
tional law on their side, we must think they
have been guilty of an irritating piece of folly, and
must take the consequence in the shape of the ill-
feeling they doubtless glory in provoking. It
will be observed that the Funds have severely felt
the effect of the untoward news, and that the gene-
ral impression is that it creates a real difficulty.

We are very much afraid that the Government
have got their policy into a cleft stick upon the
subject of Reform. If they bring forward no pro-
posal whatever for the improvement of our system
of popular representation next session—why do
they occupy their present position upon the Trea
It is said that all weapons are fair at elections, sury bench? If, on the contrary, they do once
but there is one which the better feeling of the pre-
more adventure upon the introduction to Parlia-
sent day refuses to use, we refer to attacks on a
ment of a new and Revised Reform Bill—will they
candidate through his religious sentiments. It is carry it ? In either contingency of the alternative
the answer—to say the least of it—is likely to be
generally conceded now that such attacks are an
infringement of religious liberty, and injurious to sufficiently awkward !
religion itself. So much has public opinion altered How difficult, if not hopeless, is the position
on this subject since the days of Lord ELDON, that into which they, more than any one else, have
it is felt to be a hardship when a man of otherwise contrived to bring the problem of Parliamentary
good character is refused the civil right of giving Reform they have themselves plainly indicated.
his evidence in a court of justice, because he is an For example—there is the memorable fact that
Atheist. It is with deep regret, therefore, that we the arch champion of the cause of Parliamentary
have learned on the best authority, that the Reform (in:the estimation of the Whig party), that
Cathedral interest was strongly worked against Lord JOHN RUSSELL, of all men, is Lord JOHN
Mr. POTTER at Carlisle, and orthodox Dissenters RUSSELL now no longer! As if intimating quite
appealed to to withhold their votes, because on some plainly to every one whom it might possibly con-
points of theoretical theology he held the views cern within the House of Commons, or without the
of a MILTON, a NEWTON, a LARDNER, and a House of Commons, that he regards his labours in
PRIESTLY. Such tactics affix, we think, behalf of Reform to have pretty well terminated,
indelible disgrace on those who use them. The the noble lord quits his post in the popular branch
opinions which a man holds on such ecclesiastical of the Legislature, and retires to the °Num
questions as are discussed in the Legislature—on cum dignitate of the House of Peers as Earl Rua.
Church-rates, for instance—are fair weapons of SELL ! Almost in the very act of so doing, more-
influence either way ; but it is surely time that a over, the noble lord avows almost wittily, but at the
man's personal opinions on every point in theology
more so.
We are glad th
these tactics has lost it
it ; but it would have been
Carlisle if the resentmentelection,for
theydeservedto
had been s
say so because we see that in his speech, POTTER.
ported, Mr. HoDGsoN condescended to alladse
Mr. POTTER'S theological opinions, and therebysame time very disappointingly, that no satisfactory
should be as sacred from attack at elections as the measure for the improvement of the representative
manuscripts which lie in his desk, and, if possible,
system in this country can be reasonably looked for
until the cause itself shall have been lifted upon a
witaovveerofthp
eubßlaicroopfitnhioenHsonuffisceioenf sufficiently powerful erful to carry
We that height, and strength, and impetuosity—how
re- are her MAJESTY'S Ministers, the members of the
o strong as to But—to the end of rousing Public Opinion to
place Mr. HODGSON far behind Mr. POT
to present Reform Administration, acting ? Why,
with so much of apathy in regard to the interests
implicated himself openly in what we think the of Reform,
lwith such practical evidence on their
most base and ungenerous mode of attack part of af
tgliotf almost despair, certainly of utter
on an opponent. Mr. POTTER, though opposed to hopelessness, —no wonder that cry was raised
Church-rates, as they are really voluntary in Man- last week by one of the
Southwark constituency,
Chester, had given far more than could have been while Mr. LAYARD
c was in the naldst of delivering
Yet Mr. HODGSON his very able speech, to '
demanded of him by law. wit, that Lord RUSSELL,
spirited man with wishing for
_. and Mr. GIBSON, and Air. VI
charged this free sp LLIERS, while unques-
bigavrAtes—becAuse "of Ig4 tionAbly Cheat It9forniezo
I were al.
At 011ition of C —9, at the Nail