The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-11-09 00:00:00

Angel Inn conclave ? Our conservative friends must
be on the alert. Several fresh elections may take
place in the course of a few days. The radicals must
not be allowed to walk over the course. We hope
the base trickery of the party will be exposed in the
council in the course of this day.

VOTE BY BALLOT.—The United States have gener-
ally been held up by the radicals as an example of the
purity of election, under the lauded system of vote by
ballot. As an illustration of the beautiful working of
this system we introduce an extract from the corre-
spondence of the Morning herald; and, in doing so,
we would venture to ask our radical contemporaries
how such tricks as are detailed in the subjoined state
ment are to be avoided in England. Are public offi-
cers less liable to corruption in this country than they
are in America—the very land of " purity and inde-
pendence ?" What guarantee can be offered against
the perpetration of similar frauds on the part of the
" liberals" in this country ? The paragraph is ex-
tremely instructive, and must convince every honest
mind of the absurdity as well as dishonest), of the bal-
lot nostrum.
New YORK, OCT. 20.—VOTE BY BALLOT.—No one un-
acquainted with the details can appreciate the extent of
bribery and profligacy that mark our elections. I will de-
scribe the late Pennsylvania election as a fair specimen of
many of the states. P. state legislature and governor were to
be chosen, with members of Congress. Governor linnet., the
present whig incumbent, was a candidate for re-election. His
friends had thoroughly canvassed the state, and, by their ex-
tremely accurate registration of his votes, counted confidently
on his re-election by 10,000 majority. He received, there is
no question, a majority of the legal votes of the state at
large, as was anticipated. But there were two classes of
individuals interested in defeating Ritner—the black-legs,
who had bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on the result,
and the federal administration, which saw in Ititner's
election its own overthrow. And how could these men de-
feat Mr. Ritner? By bribing the election officers, and by
buying false returns enough to elect his opponent. This
they were enabled to do by the magic of the close box—
the secret suffrage—the ballot, for which some of you radical
patriots are so clamorous. So well ascertained is this fact
and so universally is it conceded that the defeat of Mr.
Ritner is a fraud on the ballot box, that no bets are paid by
the losers. That you may understand this statement to be
predicted on sufficient premises, and not on mere party ru-
mour, it is only necessary to add that it is made on the au-
thority of a circular addressed to the friends of Mr. Ritner,
by a gentleman who holds the responsible office of Secretary,
of State of Pennsylvania. "It is known," says this gentle-
man, " that in several counties in which our opponents bad
control, the votes of whole districts favourable to our can-
didate were, without shadow of law or justice, wholly re-
jected, and false and partial returns made. The opponent
of our candidate for the office of governor appears to be
elected by a majority of at least 5000. This is an event to
which, if it had been fairly produced, we, as good citizens,
would quietly if not peaceably submit. But there is such
a strong probability of mal-practice and fraud in the whole
transaction, that it is our duty peacefully to resist it, and
fully to expose it."—Private Correspondence of the Morning
Herald.

WILLIAM RATHBONE. ESQ.—This day the • mayor-
alty of William Rathbone, Esq., terminates. We can-
not allow the occasion to pass without adding our tes
timony to the zeal and fidelity, the dignity and ur-
banity, the strict independence and the scrupulous im-
partiality, with which he has discharged the important
duties which have devolved upon him luting the past
year. Widely differing as we do from Mr Rathbone
on questions of a political and religious nature, we
still feel that we should not be discharging our duty if
we abstained from offering our tribute of admiration,
when we reflect upon the manner in which he has re-
deemed the pledges which he volunteered when he was
elected. However much we may be called upon to
impugn his principles as a councillor, we are sure that
every conservative will join us in expressing our ap-
probation of his conduct as mayor of Liverpool. We
cordially trust that nothing in his future career may
occur to diminish the respect which is now so univer-
sally paid to his character; and whoever may be ap-
pointed as his successor, we hope that he will make it
his ambition to emulate the example of Mr. Rathbone.