The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-18 00:00:00

are brought, may well be characterised as the most
inacesssible and the most costly in the civilized

world.

But is there no remedy ? Admitting, for a mo-
ment, for the sake of argument, that the aversion
of the Whigs and Tories to the Ballot rests on
honest grounds—have they done what they could
to make bribery infamous, and to compel its renun-
ciation by all decent men ? The fact stares us, on
the contrary, in the face, that the guiltiest of all
the parties, the middleman between the candidate
and the poor elector, gets off with impunity. Why,
as Mr. COBDEN asks, should not the man guilty of
bribery be prosecuted criminally by the Attorney-
General ? Doubtless it would do more to put down
bribery than anything else. Why, then, is it not
done ? Chiefly, perhaps, because " a lawyer's in
the case." As elections are now managed, no class
profits by them more than the legal gentlemen in
country towns. Every candidate is obliged to
resort to them; they know election law, they know
where to apply the screw, they know how to dis-
tribute money judiciously—and if the " distribution
of money" were made a penal offence, if it led to
the gaol and the treadmill, the country-town elec-
toral agent would lose half his power, and half his
electoral profits.
Mr. COBDEN does not appear quite to have made
up his mind as to the best kind of tribunal for try-
ing cases of corrupt elections ; and there are ob-
vious difficulties in every plan which has been
proposed. There is, however, we think, no diffi-
culty in pronouncing that certain proposals, if
adopted, would almost entirely put a stop to bribery.
We should commence with the members themselves,
and we would require a declaration, that to the
best of their knowledge and belief, they had not
spent, and should not be called on to spend, any
money beyond the necessary and legal expenses of
the election, a declaration to be made under the
legal penalties for perjury. Secondly, we
would make it the interest of the bribed elector to
betray the person who bribed him, by rewarding
him, as an informer, with a larger sum than
had been paid him as a bribe. The actual
bribery might then be conducted perhaps by men
of straw ; but first we could give the informer hold
upon all persons who could have a presumably guilty
knowledge, and next we would make it the interest
of the subbordinate briber to betray his more " re•
spectable "and responsible principal, by punish-
inng the subordinate with imprisonment and
hard labour if he could not pay the in-
former his reward, and by granting him im-
munity if he successfully disclosed his employer.
We would thus make it hazardous, as well as dis-
graceful in its penal results, to bribe; and we be.
lieve that what was thus solemnly declared an ig-
nominious crime would soon be rarely practised.
Make it the interest of any bribed man to turn in-
former, make the penalties of bribery those to
which other parties guilty of fraud are liable, and
place the member in danger of the penalties for
perjury, and we should hear but little more of
bribery.

But, as Mr. COBDEN observes, all the other plans
which could be adopted should be only subsidiary
to the Ballot. Mr. COBDEN lays great stress upon
this simple instrumentality, on account of the order
and quiet which it produces at elections ; he thinks
it, as a mere mode of taking the votes, the best that
can be devised. But, as he justly asks, must it not
prevent, to a certainty, all that bribery so common
at elections when the numbers are pretty equal,
which is consequent on the state of the poll as it

draws nearer and nearer to four o'clock? This
at least would no longer be practicable, when
no one knew how the votes for each
were accumulating in the box. But more than
this. Mr. COBDEN had not had time to make many
political enquiries in America, but he was told in
writing there, by one of their most influential and
respectable men, well known in this country too,
Mr. RANDALL, that having been for 50 years con-
nected with party politics in Philideiphia, a largely
manufacturing city of 600,000 inhabitants, " he
never knew a vote bought or sold" ! So much for
the difficulty interposed by the Ballot between the
briber and the bribed. Such laws as we
have adverted- to above, might still be enacted,
they would be a collateral security, but the
great security of all is that which deprives
the briber of a receipt for his money.
No man would readily part with it to those whose
vote he could do nothing to secure. We are aware
of the pretence that head-money would be still

given for a return, and after the election. The
answer is, let the law, as we said, make it the in-
terest of the receiver of head-money to betray his
seducer ; but, above all, get rid of the little
constituencies where head-money is practicable,
either by enlarging them or by abolish-
ing them. If we cannot agree with Mr.
COLDEN in his views respecting our national
defences, we believe he would prove a practical
and safe man in regard to our national representa-
tion.

The controversy still rages about that unfortu-
nate plan of Mr. THOMAS HAWKSLEY, by which
(at a cost to the State of £17,000, just by way of
of beginning) that ingenious gentleman proposes to
filter, daily, 2,000,000 gallons of dirty water
taken from the Serpentine, and (when thus cleansed)
thereupon carefully poured back again into the old
dirty bed of that same stagnant pool of abomina-
tion ! Messrs. EASTON, AMES, and SONS still write
—and what is more worthy of note, still write
directly to the point—arguing the matter not by
any means as mere theorists, but from an
abundance of stubborn facts accumulated by
them from their own past, practical, and
eminently satisfactory experience. Sir S. M. PETO
writes, too, in his turn, as we took occasion to re-
mark at some length yesterday. Mr. HAWKSLEY
still argues on obstinately to the last, in spite of
common sense, ofpublic feeling, of statistics, of the
very laws of hydraulics being dead against him.
Mr. LILWALL has his little word also to add
to the general hubbub of discussion whenever
he can find an opportunity of getting it in edge-
ways. " TYI3IJRNIAN" likewise—one of the earliest
and most logical of the disputants comes down ever
and anon pitilessly with his solid, substantial,
knuckle-duster reasons upon Mr. HAWKSLEY and
his one or two supporters—supporters we believe
up to this moment numbering no more than three
altogether, namely, the Chief Commissioner, Mr.
FITZROY, the petulant Sir S. M. PETO, and the
now absent Mr. STEPHENSON. Elsewhere
in our impression of this evening we
give the latest of these knuckle-dusters
of " Tyburnian." From this .it will be seen
how effectually he tackles the false reasoning of
the member for Finsbury. TO sum up the absurdity
of which false reasoning, in one sentence, if is only
necessary to say that—If Sir S. M. PETO i 3 to be
believed, then the well in Duck Island is proof
positive that water does not rise to its own level—
the surface of the water in that well being five
feet below the surface of the lake in St. James's-
park That ornamental sheet of water has been
supplied from the well in Duck Island—according
to the statement, according to the absolute know-
ledge of Messrs. EASTON, Amos, and SONS. That
well in Duck Island is supplied from the orna

mental sheet of water—according to the state-
ment, nay (it is intimated to us), according
to the absolute knowledge of the member
for Finsbury. We know ourselves, all London
knows for a fact that the former state-
ment is correct. Let the other statement—the
counter statement put forward by Sir S. M. PETO—
be only once made good, and we arrive at two most
remarkable results as the necessary consequence of
the demonstration ! First, as we have said, philo-
sophy will awaken at length to the suprising truth
that water does' not rise to its own level! And
secondly, we shall at length have discovered—per-
petual motion ! Results so astonishing that it will
be incumbent upon the member for Finsbury to
learn whether he has not some claim to a certain
reward of £30,000 sterling from her MAJESTY S
Exchequer. And in the next place at as early as
possible he will have to bring out an entirely new
treatise upon hydraulics. To speak seriously, how-
ever, upon this point—namely, as to the member for
Finsbury's extraordinary assertion (in spite of the
water in the well being five feet below the level of
the water in the lake), namely, that the water
from the lake percolates through the concrete into
the well, and has to be thence pumped back
again—we find that Messrs. EASTON, Amos, and
SONS replying now simply in these words—
"As he (Sir S. M. PETO) seems determined
to adhere to his opinion on this point, we
will inform him that after a fortnight's cessation
in pumping, the lake has remained full; the diffe-
rence of level between the surface of water in it and
the well being still five feet." They add—" This we
state as a fact, but if any doubt should exist, let
the pumps be stopped and watch the result."
Surely nothing can be fairer than this at a point
in the discussion which, the above firm observes most
truthful, is really "assuming this position—viz.,
that of a person endeavouring to persuade the
public that a basin with a hole in the bottom will
remain full without a further supply." It would
be advisable, in truth, that Mr. HAWKSLEY and
his friends should in this instance—" leave well
alone !" It is the merest farce to find the sticklers
for this preposterous crotchet of filtration—turning
from the attempted defence of their own pet scheme
(up to this moment a mere theoretical outline of
an exr eriment)—turning, we say, from the
attempted defence of what is in itseif indefen-
sible, to fall foul, forsooth ! of that simple, admir-
able, rational, and perfectly effectual plan carried
out in St. James's-park two or three years ago with
such eminent success by Lord LLANOVER (then Sir
BENJAMIN HALL), one of the ablest Commissioners
of Public Works England has ever had. Lord
LLANOVER viewed the matter in the light of com-
mon sense. He saw a dirty basin brimmed full of
dirty water; and instead of getting filter beds
to clear the water (and to do nothing at all to the
basin !) instead of building a lodge-like cottage,
and stowing away two or three stationary engines
in it, and planting shrubs and erecting vases, and
getting together all that kind of rubbish and
trumpery—like a rational man he emptied
the dirty water out entirely ; he then
washed and scraped the dirty basin clean,
and having lined it with a glaze of concrete
filled it up again with clean, fresh pure water, free
from all kinds of impurities. What Lord LLAN-
OVER did so admirably in the instance of the
Ornamental Water in St. James's-park, we want
to be done again by Mr. FITZROY in the in-
stance of the Serpentine.

THE FRENCH AMNE S 7 Y.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir,—ln reference to the general amnesty, announced in
the evening papers, I beg you will be kind enough to allow
space in your columns for the following remarks :
I will not stop here to inquire whether it be fit that the
offender should be the forgiver; that " crimes" should be
remittedwhich never were committed; and that those should
be pardoned who were so cruelly wronged, having been,
although guiltless, driven out of their country, torn from
their families and their friends, consigned to absolute ruin,
and, in fact, bereft of all they held dear on earth. Speak-
ing in my own name alone, and judging from a mere
practical point of view, I own candidly that, situated as
he is, Louis Bonaparte could now hardly do more for
us than he has just done. But it is not the less true
that those whose hearts have been, for years, made to
bleed from innumerable wounds have a claim to some-
thing better than a contemptuous and perhaps unsafe
favour. What was due to them in the share of justice,
cannot be paid in the shape of pardon.
But enough of this. Considerations of a higher signifi-
cance and more general import are involved in the question.
Let freedom be wholly and sincerely restored to France :
I, for one, am prepared to applaud. Our wrongs we might '
forget : may we be indifferent to the wrongs of our country ?
We are permitted to return to France. So long as she
is kept in bondage why should we go ? To complete
the victory of might over right—to render Imperial des-
potism still more absolutely unopposed—to extinguish the
few last beacons which, fed by French hands, yet loom in
the distance before the eyes of our unhappy country—in
one word, to be slaves among slaves. Better stay in the
land of unfettered thought and free speech; better live
where to be an exile is to remain a man.
It is recorded that in the Revolution of 1789, at
the first celebrated fete du Champ de Mars, some 50 Eng-
lishmen were seen wearing on their chest a medal, on
which these words were inscribed :—" Übi libertas, ibi
Patria." Without presuming to sit in judgment upon such
of my countrymen as may take a different view of the case,
I venture to say that this should be the motto of every man
feelingly alive to the dignity of his own nature.
Not that I consider my beloved country less entitled to
claim our devotion, because temporarily shackled. No
The very state of intellectual debasement and moral
agony in which France is now plunged, endears her
the more to us, as we know it originates in a fatal combi-
nation of uncontrollable circumstances, and is main-
tained by brute force alone. That France will,
sooner or later, be warmed ins life and be herself
again is a creed which I fondly cherish, and to which
cling with unshakeable conviction. But so long as she is
forced into silence and darkness, I take it to be necessary
tnat some, at least, of her most faithful sons
should, by living abroad, retain the power of represent-
ing her true genius of making known her sorrows,
denouncing her wrongs, invoking her most glorious
recollections, vindicating her stifled aspirations after free-
dom, and championing in her name the eternal principles of
justice and the rights of reason.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
LOUIS BLANC.

London, Aug. 17.

THE GREAT EASTERN:

The following relates to the offer 01 Mr. Lever to
charter the Great Eastern for £20,000 for a trip to
America and back
11, King William-street, Aug. 17.
" Sir,—Referring to tho paragraph in your city article of
Ibis date, wherein it is stated that a proposal has been made
by. Mr. Lever, M.P., to charter the Great Eastern, I am
desired to inform you that the directors havo declined the
offer.

" I am further desired to observe that the ship is not
open for charter at present, the views of the directors in
reference to her having undergone no change since she be-
came the property of this company, as will be seen from the
announcement in your advertising columns fixing destina-
tion and date of departure.—l am, sir, your obedient ser-
vant, " J. H. YEATES, Secretary.
It appears that the Great Eastern is to leave the
Thames for the Nore on the 3d of September, and
that she will proceed thence to Portland, Dorset-
shire, from which place she will make a trip on the
Bth, to a distance, probably of 500 or 600 miles.
She will then be prepared to start on the 15th on a
direct voyage to the United States, Portland, in
Maine, being the harbour to which she will pro-
ceed. On this occasion passengers will be carried
at fares ranging from £lB to £25, and many appli-
cations for berths are said already to have been
received.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DUCHESS OF KENT.—The 73d
anniversary of the birthday of the Duchess of Kent was
celebrated with various marks of rejoicing yesterday at
Windsor and the vicinity. There was a rural fete in the
grounds of Mr. C. Scholefield, M.P. At the dinner, which
took place at 1 o'clock, the chair was taken by Mr. W. Van-
sittart, M.P., with Mr. Hope, M.P., on his left, when after
the toast to the Queen and the Prince Consort, the health
of her Royal Highness was enthusiastically drunk. At.
Windsor the bells of the Chapel Royal of. St. George's and
St. John's chureh sent forth merry peals throughout tha
day. At noon a Royal salute was fired in the Long Walk.
Royal salutes were also fired at Frogmore, Fort Belvidere,
and the Adelaide frigate on Virginia Water, and in the
evening a banquet took place at the Castle Hotel.
NEW FOREIGN OFFICE.—It appears by a Parlia-
mentary return, that the cost of the designs, models, plans,
and working drawings for a new Foreign-office, by Mr.
G. G. Scott, now exhibited in the library of the house, and
of obtaining builders estimates, &c., amounts to £3,800..
This sum does not include any charge likely to be made
by the architect for the modified design prepared by him
according to the instructions of the First Commissioner of
Works and Public Buildings. If this design should be
carried out, the above sum of £3,800 (except £3OO for the
model), as well as the amount of the architect's claim for
the design itself, will merge in his commission and the
builder's tender.
ANGLING EXTRAORDINARY.—On Friday, says
the Norfolk Chronicle, three gentlemen took at Reedham no
less than 210 fish, in the whole of the enormous weight of
21 stun,