The Northern Daily Times. — 1853-10-31 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

SHOCKING SUICIDE OF AN OFFICER IN TIM SLR. DINIAN Graffinno Bassani, aged 37 years, formerly a lieutenant in the Sardinian service, commitl ted suicide on, Thursday, at the Bridge-house Hotel leindon, by shooting himself in the dressing-room at; tached to the bath-room. From letters found in the possession of the deceased, it would appear that private misfortunes induced him to commit the rash act.  It is evident to all those who look into these questions, that there are three classes of voters, whose motives may be styled either corrupt or unworthy. In the first may be classed :—Those who actually receive bribes in the shape of money, dinners, punch, beer, or promises of public situations for themselves or their relations. This is a class very difficult to deal with, except in their own coin. It is too ignorant to see that, even in electoral matters, " honesty is the best policy," and that candidates who " stump up " (I believe this is the correct phrase) liberally, to win the post of honour, expect, and too often succeed, in making it a post of profit. It is true, its disciples have to pay indirectly in taxation for what they receive directly in the shape of a week's jollification—but then they have this unctious, this sweet, inward source of gratification, that their more conscientious fellow-citizens are compelled to pay precisely in the same ratio for the such nobly-earned plunder. This, no doubt, is a salvo calculated to cover a multitude of sins.  To the second class belongs :—Those whose votes are influenced by menaces or intimidation— unfortunates, who mortgage their honour at the same time as their property. This is truly a class which bears " the proud man's contumely, and the  oppressor's wrong writer is, that speedily enable tempters of their  of their task-r  .e hope of the zislation may  defiance to the the foul-bidding  Finally; in the third class-may be enumerated : Those who record their votes from motives of friendship or conviviality; also, those who are influenced by prejudices, arising from faction or party-spirit; or who are moved by the flattery of their. self-esteem ; or even those who feel that most subtle poison, that very refinement of cruelty, which delights in seeing weak-minded men exalted to public positions, feeling assured that the higher stand they are enabled to attain, the more inflated and vain they become, and that the ignorance unnoticed in a private capacity, being published, makes them the laughing stock of the " world we live in." This is a fact, long since well-known to the vendors of the public prints, who find that the public relishes nothing more keenly than the ridiculous speech or exhibition,of such a public man. This is a class really the most unworthy and dangerous of the three. It is like a flunkey who invites his comrades to a supper, but not at his own cost—like a foolish citizen, who besieged in a stronghold, and listening to the entreaties of a supposed friend for admittance, delivers up the keys to a traitor; or like the crow, who wishing to show that her voice was even yet more ravishing and beautiful than her plumage, the moment she opened her mouth, let fall the lump of cheese, the coveted prize of the crafty fox. This class is used as a stalking-horse by the designing, and is looked upon with pity by the strong-minded. It would sell either its own birthright or the birthright of posierity, if the mess only was served up with the savoury essence of 'gammon.  I now conclude nail another year rolls around, and in the hope that your votes, recorded on Tuesday for a man possessed of mind, eloquence, and energy, based upon constitutional principles, will prove that you are not criminal enough to belong to the first, not miserable enough to belong to the second, and not contemptible enough to belong to the the third of these classes.  COSMOPOLITAN, BUT NOT A BURGESS OF THE PITT STREET WARD, 20th October, 1853.