The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-04 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

" Musicus." We believe Miss Weller was taught entirely
by her mother. That lady received instruction from
Chianchettini.

NEWSPAPER RETURNS.

Extract from a parliamentary paper, showing the number
of stamps used by each Liverpool paper during the six months
ending December 31st, 1842, and the advertisement duty paid
by each :

No. of Pub. No. of Stamps.. Av. Cir. My. Duty.
Mercury .... 27
Albion 2G
Courier ....26 56,000 2 153 207 8 6
Chronicle ..26
Advertiser .. 26
Journal ... .26 ...... 36,000 1,384 .... 114 19 6
STANDARD* 53
Myers 26 ...... 28,000...... 1,076 .... 448 16 0
Mail 69
Times ...... 26 ...... 18,000 692f.... 155 12 6
* The only paper published twice a.wcek in Liverpool.
f The Albion of yesterday says that they have authority
for stating that 36,000 stamps were taken out for the use of
the Times, though they have credit for only half the number.

tbt Ulm:pool gptanilarti.

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 4, .184.

The successful result of the petition against the
return of Mr. "Walter for Nottingham is calculated to
excite some misgivings, as to the soundness of the
present law and practice in cases of contested elec-
tions. It was proved before the committee that, in
the case of some fifteen or twenty voters, of the lowest
class, bribery—admitting that the payments made
might be called such, which is more perhaps than is
warrantable—had been practised to an extent the
most insignificant. Compared with previous elections
in the borough, venality might almost be said to have
ceased altogether. It was distinctly admitted by the
committee that the sitting member himself was pot
cognisant of the slightest malpractice. No proof of
agency, sufficient to connect Mr. Walter with the pro-
ceedings of the half-dozen individuals, who had made
the disbursements which have invalidated his election,
was established ; and yet the committee, blowing hot
and cold in a breath, having already stated not only
that Mr. Walter had not authorised such acts of any
body—not only that he had no agents for such illegal
purposes but that he was :absolutely ignorant of
any illegal practices, proceeds to declare that he had
been, " by his agents, guilty of bribery," and, as the
result, he is incapacitated from sitting again the
present parliament 1
Now here, we submit, is an anomaly, or rather a se-
ries of anomalies, which are rather startling. A gen-
tleman of high consideration, and known ability and
integrity, who has sought the representation of a bo-
rough, is, by the friends and agents of his defeated
opponent put upon his trial; and, after a lengthened
and expensive enquiry, pronounced not guilty of the
charges alleged against him—for that is virtually the ver-
dict of the committee. And yet the accused and morally
acquitted party, is to be visited, for acts over which he
had no control, with the temporary forfeiture of the
highest privilege of a subject ! For a few trivial cases
of malpractice in others, an innocent man is disfran-
chised ; whilst the admitted delinquents—the heralds
of their own shame—who had given evidence against
him, and probably embraced or sought corruption that
they might so give evidence, are left in the undisturbed
enjoyment of their immunity of self-prostitution!
Here then is anomaly the first.
But, if Mr. Walter was not duly elected, the de-
claration of the committee might have been expected
to be that Mr. Sturge, his opponent, was so elected.
We do not find, however, that such was the case. The
pure and patriotic friends of this gentlemen, after they
had unseated his opponent, do not turn round to the
committee and say, " we have proved corruption
against the sitting member, and we now propose to
shew that our own acts are stainless." No;—for what
reason we need scarcely say, for it will be readily
guessed at—Mr. Sturge at once withdraws from before
the committee, thus refusing to submit his own purity
to its scrutiny; and, as the result, whilst his late oppo-
nent is declared unworthy of a seat in Parliament, he
himself, unpurged from the taint which his refusal to
submit to enquiry is calculated to fix upon him—mo-
rally innocent, no doubt, but perhaps legally as guilty
as Mr. Walter—becomes a candidate to represent
the borough of Nottingham. Here, then, is anomaly
the second.
•
Now, we ask, if such is the state of the law, or such
its interpretation by committees—if the unauthorised
acts of a few individuals, (whose utmost connection
with the candidate is the privilege of entering his com-
mittee-room, or acting as a canvasser upon some sub-
committee), are to be visited upon him, with so heavy
a doom as incapacity to sit in the Parliament existing—
what security can any gentleman have, however care-
ful and however determined not to offend, in the issue
of a contested election ? What need prAvant any party
—csuch a body, for instance, as the Anti-Corn-law
League —by a judicious employment of agents in
divided constituencies, with the means to bribe some
half-score of voters—disabling, at any future general
election, every eminent member of the House of Com-
mons? Surely half-a-dozen Tamworth electors, for
instance, might be got into a dark room, and have a
sovereign each put into their hands ; and if the briber
only made himself busy enough, could run in and out
of a committee-room, could foist his' person into a
prominent position upon the hustings, and be seen
shaking hands with the candidate, and we might have
Sir Robert Peel himself declared by a committee perfectly
innocent of any knowledge of the acts of the party in
question, yet " guilty of bribery by his agents," and
incapacitated to sit in Parliament for a period possibly
of seven years!

In justification of such strange law and practice,
Lord John Russell maintains that a few examples of
its working will put down the practice of bribery, and
other irregularities, even by: authorised agents; that
indiscreet parties will cease to act illegally when they
see their acts so prejudicial to the object of their choice.
Why, what strange logic is this ! We must punish
the innocent, that the guilty, whom we allow to go
scot free, may be convinced that their crime has been
ineffectual to produce its object ! Really, my lord, if
the object is only to deter unauthorised parties from
practices fatal to the seat of a candidate, it would be
rather the more sensible plan to punish those parties
themselves, and not their victim. Let bribers and re-
cipients of bribes, where cognisance cannot be proved
against the candidate, be punished with disfranchise-
ment, either on proof before a committee, or any legal ,
tribunal ; and then, we conceive, we may get rid of the
practice, without the commission of such palpable in-
justice as has been committed in the case of Mr.
Walter.