The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-02 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir,—The statement made as regards the sealed
envelope. being used as a corrective of those evils
which ha& crept into the American'electoral system,
by the open mode) of voting, appeared in letters ad-
dressed to the Ballot Society by the Hon. A.Walker,
wko had been Sebretary of State for MassachuSetts,
and who stated that the " sealed ballot" was veheL
mently opposed )by a party who found it effective,
and had been reversed by a majority of a few votes.
The letter of Mi.' Walker was published as a tract
by the Ballot Society, and appeared very generally
in the papers. /

As ieg-ards:the state of Virginia, which has open
voting, and is one of the, two slave states which
have not rekcted that mode of election, the Ameri-
can papers,' recently published an account of the
election p?oceedings in that state, which the person
writing'under the signature of a" New Yorker" so
much ,'admires, that according to that statement,
under open voting bribery is rampant, and freedom
of choice a mere farce. Men's lives were openly
threatened, Lynch-law promised, and the account
of the hunting of an obnoxious individual by
armed men watching his hotel, formed part of as
frightful a tale of the pleasures and advantages of
Open Voting in a slave state as any gentleman can
possibly desire to read for his instruction. I make
a present to the editor of the Times of the " old
open straightforward utterance of each mat's choice
by his own lips," but advise him that if he attempt
to utter his choice in a slave state at the hustings,
or venture to hint at the reasons why Americans
refuse the right of search, as he sometimes does
from the regions of Printing-house-square, no
unhappy dog with a tin kettle attached to his tail
Would be in a much worse pickle than the editor of
the Times. As for the letter signed " A New
Yorker," I believe it to be a perfect case of Mrs.
Harris, an emanation from tho brain of a Mrs.
Gamp. If lam incorrect, I challenge this New
York admirer of the institutions of a slave state to
place his name side by side with the names '
of those gentlemen, high in honour and in
station, who are the avowed correspondents of
the Ballot Society. The last paragraph. of the
letter of "A New Yorker" demands a passing
notice, and renders it very suspicious that the New
York Mrs. Harris hails from the Times office.
When did Mr. Bright ever paint America as an
electoral elysium—when did Mr. Grote, or any
opponent of Open Voting, do so ? Most clearly in
eleven speeches which I have made in the House
of Commons on the subject, and in many more
which I have made out of the House of Commons,
nothing of the sort is to be found. The Times and
those whose defence of Open Voting rests on the
clever use of words, and on no better foundation
attack America, because under a system of open
voting the ballot-box does not maintain secrecy.
Our reply is—most of the American states have
not the ballot in its integrity, but wherever they
have provided secrecy the ballot-box does all that
is necessary. For the perfect success of Secret
Voting, we need seek no example beyond England
and her colonies ; and at the same time we have
asserted, and our conviction is in no way lessened,
that no country can be produced and quoted as an
example of the failure of secret voting.—l am, &c* ,
F. HENRY F. BERKELEY.
Victoria-square, Feb. 1.

A VERY SLOW POISON INDEED.--A lady (resi-
dent of Lindfield) having lately placed herself under
homocepathic treatment, was, of course, supplied with a
bottle of the well-known globules, about 200, with directions
to take " two" for a dose. One of her children obtained
possession of the bottle last week, and swallowed the whole
of the contents, which, of course, created alarm in the
family ; but; up to the present time, the globules have taken
no effect—Brighton Examiner.