is exercised almost exclusively by the non-residents, by the illiterate, the destitute and profligate, whom the accident of birth, servitude or marriage, has qualified. Dispersed throughout the kingdom, the electors have often no subsisting connexion with the place in respect of which they vote, except that which enables them to take a drunken journey thither whenever they can wind up some unhappy "third man," to the perilous determination " of giving every freeman an opportunity of exercising his franchise." The working of this vile system will be best shewn by a few examples, which we shall select from the "Letter" to which we have referred. A deputation of keen electioneerers came up, on the last occasion, from Barnstaple ;-to search for two candidates who were willing to spend some money, and also for voters, either in existence, or who might be manufactured. Having found their candidates, they also met with a young man, whom, with many others, they proposed to make into a voter. He had only completed his twenty-first year three days, when he was carried down to that borough; his freedom granted to him, the cost being paid by the candidates; his whole expenses defrayed; and he was sent back to town with from £10 to £15 clear profit. He had never before seen Barnstaple, nor had he any interest in the place, or any knowledge of the candidates or their principles. What, then was his claim to become an elector of that borough? Merely this, that his father had possessed the freedom, and that his descent, therefore, entitled him to be admitted to it. And this was no solitary case. Scores of similar votes were manufactured in that very place, on that same occasion; and many thousands in the various open boroughs similarly circumstanced. The little town of Maldon in Essex, exhibits another striking example. It contains about 2000 inhabitants; but has a charter, which in due course of time may embrace the whole kingdom as electors. At the election of 1826, nearly 2000 persons were admitted burgesses, and brought from all parts of the kingdom to be made free; and as thus the demand for voters was always met by a fresh supply, the polling continued for fifteen days, and the aggregate expenses of the three candidates probably exceeded £40,000; the greater part of which was, of course, spent in brutal excess. As the daughters of all freemen have, under this beneficent charter, the right of making their husbands free, several honest couples were married to create voters on the spot; and in some instances the nuptial tie was fastened in vain, for it was too late discovered that the lady had no freedom to give! By the next dissolution, a contest for Maldon will be as costly as for Yorkshire. Nothing can be plainer than that voters thus made, will be, in a great majority of cases, venal voters,-men whose only object and purpose is to make money by their franchise. Thus, in July last, a reprobate youth assaulted his father, and was taken before a London magistrate, to whom his defence was, that his father had refused to take the necessary steps to obtain for him the freedom of Rochester, which freedom he said, "would be worth sixty pounds to him." And this youth, too, was not a Rochester man, he was a London journeyman, totally unacquainted with the wants, and unconcerned in the interests, of that town. But yet, by the law, he was entitled to be made an elector of Rochester, while scores of inhabitants of that place, supporting its trade, bearing its burdens, and interested in its welfare, had no legal claim to be admitted to that franchise. The natural consequence of the elective power being thrown into the present hands, is beginning to be clearly seen. Statutes against bribery may be multiplied ad infinitum, but so long as nine-tenths of the voters consist of those who prefer sovereigns to principle-and so long as candidates and their agents are found to slip into their hands bank-notes for £10 or £20-so long, in defiance of five hundred anti-bribery statutes, will the most extensive venality flourish. At Nottingham, one gentleman confessed to having paid away, in the election of 1826, above £3000 in bribery in a single day. At Leicester, the voters, in anticipation of a contest, expressed their hope that the price of votes might rise to £10, as they said it commonly did, if the struggle was severe. At Hull, one of the sitting members dared not appear before his constituents, -not for any defalcation of duty in Parliament, but because he had not paid "the polling money" for the last election. A similar fate awaited Mr. Baring at Canterbury. At Shrewsbury, and at Maidstone, and at Evesham, and at Bristol, the same kind of language showed clearly that the price of votes was in every case the prevailing idea in every elector's mind. At the Liverpool election £85,000 was expended, and the voters kept back with the hope of extorting higher prices, and when obtained openly gloried in their 'shame! In fact, in above one hundred boroughs, accounted more or less open, —that is, in which the right of voting is not that of burgage-tenure, or confined to a close corporation,-in the whole hundred such boroughs, it would be difficult to point out five, in which bribery is not the main spring of every election. That is, not as prevailing in a greater or lesser degree, among some of the poorer of the voters, but as pervading the whole mass, as participated in by all, except some few solitary instances, and, in nearly every case, finally deciding the fate of the election, and the individuals returned. The present system, if not interfered with, would speedily destroy itself. The multiplication of non-resident freemen, claiming the franchise by right of parentage, is so rapidly proceeding, as to render a contest for a borough as perilous to the pocket as a contest for a county. It has been ascertained that the outlay of one of the successful candidates at the late election for the city of York, amounted to nearly £20,000! If the expenditure of the other two candidates is added, the sum squandered at this one contest, must have fallen little short of £50,000. The Leicester election of 1826 cost Mr. Evans £19,000, Otway Cave £10,000, sir Charles Hastings £16,000, and the Corporation £16,000, in all £61,000; Warwick cost £27,000; Colchester cost one candidate £26,000; and Stafford cost £14,000.* It may be fairly asked, Who is benefited by this enormous waste of money y? None, surely, but the most vicious of society. No useful purpose is answered by this vast expenditure. But if no class of the community, save that which ought alone to be disregarded,—the present race of profligate voters, if no class save these feel an interest in the present system, why is it still maintained in existence? Why is not some plan matured for restoring this branch of the representation to the state originally contemplated by its founders, thereby affording a more efficient influence and expression to the probity and intelligence of the community. That some plan might be framed we will shortly explain; but first let us endeavour to draw one or two conclusions from the preceding view of the representation. First, it is clear that not one of the three descriptions of boroughs, with the existing mode of election, is compatible with any future scheme of parliamentary reform. The pocket boroughs, and the corporation boroughs, are alike objectionable, as representing only their proprietors, or the few individuals who return the members. The open boroughs are still more inadmissible, they are as corrupt and limited in the interests they really represent as either of the preceding classes, with the further disadvantage of elections in them being productive of disgusting crimes and irregularities. Secondly, it is obvious a mere extension of the franchise, unaccompanied with other modifications, would afford no additional guarantee of popular rights and interests. Omitting from the calculation the freeholders of the counties and the electors of the metropolis, it may be safely asserted that of the whole remaining body of the electors of England, three-fourths are of the labouring classes. And it may with equal truth and safety be asserted that nearly the whole of these three-fourths are in some way or other bribed. This is incontestably proved from the facts mentioned above. But Bristol and Liverpool are decisive of this point; in both these places the DEMOCRACY is omnipotent, the freemen consist almost exclusively of shipwrights, journeymen and labourers, and what description of members-what friends and advocates of popular rights have they returned to parliament? They have chosen Canning, Huskisson, and Bright, and rejected Romilly, Hunt, and Brougham! But common sense tells us without an appeal to facts that bribery The counties have exhibited similar squanderings. Yorkshire cost Mr. Marshall £30,000. The Northumberland elections cost a very large sum. Mr. Bell probably paid between 60 and £70,000 for his seat of two months from February, and his four sessions' seat from July 1826. Mr. Liddle probably £50,000. Lord Howick £12,000; and Mr. Beaumont was charged upwards of £100,000, but he contrived to pay with a much smaller sum. The candidates for Essex must be minus no trifle. Indeed it is plain the system is on its last legs, from the operation of manifold causes, and if we have no reform we shall, in future, have very few contested elections either for boroughs or counties. under the existing system, must be the predominant influence. How is it possible the present class of voters can act independently? A seat in parliament is an object so coveted, that the strongest efforts are always used to gain it. And when these efforts are brought to bear upon a person toiling fourteen hours for the present wages, how are they to be resisted? First, there is his landlord, he who can turn his family into the street: then there is his employer, he who can deprive his family of bread: and, if these cannot be efficiently used, then there is the ten-pound note, to a man, almost shoeless and shirtless, who has not five shillings in the world, and whose rent-day, perhaps, or his wife's confinement, is hard at hand. We conclude, then, that it is indispensable to introduce entirely new elements into the representation; and that rotten-boroughs, corporationboroughs, and open-boroughs are all equally inimical to the welfare of the people. What these elements are we shall next enquire; and this brings us to the consideration of the elective qualification, and the ballot, with which we shall conclude. The county representation we pass over; it is a subject, we apprehend, on which there cannot exist much difficulty, as the extension of the right of voting, to copyholders and leaseholders, and a less expensive mode of taking the poll, are such equitable and obvious improvements, that difference of opinion can hardly prevail about their immediate adoption. THE ELECTIVE QUALIFICATION. No good reason can be alleged why every one should not share in the making of laws to which he is amenable. The person is not less precious than property; and laws which affect the security of the fo mer are certainly not less important to every individual than those which affect the security of the latter. It is not, therefore, liability to the payment of taxes, but legal responsibility, which prescribes the utmost limit to the right of suffrage. But the admission of such a principle is clearly incompatible with any practicable form of government: it would entitle all, with scarcely any exception, to participate in legislation, either directly or by representation; it would embrace females, as well as males; all minors would be included, of whatever age, provided they were judicially responsible : in short, none would be disqualified, except the insane, and infants of so tender age, that they are unable to distinguish right from wrong. The introduction of such an unlimited scheme of suffrage, we apprehend, no one seriously contemplates. Still, if we are asked, why we would adopt any other principle of exclusion; why disfranchise women in preference to men, or minors to majors; why we would allow a person to vote at the precise age of twenty-one, and not at twenty or eighteen; we confess, in answer to these inquiries, we can only give one reply, namely, that EXPEDIENCY, and not strict justice, ictates their exclusion. This brings to the fundamental principle by which political ques |