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sity "will oiot be diminished ,, but enhanced , by any extension of the franchise . We must have seoret voting for the sake of purity , of independence , of conservatism . Hearly all the old objections have been exploded—the un-J 3 nglish character , the * impracticability , the imperfection of the Ballot-box . It is now admitted that voting by Ballot is decidedly an English fashion— -the practice pf our corporations , clubs , vestries , and parochial constituencies ; the imputation of impracticability has "been set aside by sheer force of concurrent observation and
testimony ; as to the imperfection of the contrivance for ensuring secrecy , the argument is now reversed . Xord John Rttsseli * declares that it is only too perfect ; it arms the elector with an irresponsible power , unjust in its operation to the nonelector . It seems a truism to say that if the non-elector be qualified to superintend the vote of the elector , he is qualified to vote himself ; but the debate has been reduced to truisms . The Ballot is . an article in the
faith of all real ^ Reformers . a very small theory of a very small section indeed that represents it as having obtained neither a wider nor a more energetic support than formerly . On the contrary , it has struct many new roots among the constituencies , and we anticipate a renewal of thoae debates which , when Mr . Q-botb was a politician , intimidated the elder brethren of both Houses . Lord Axthoep , in 1832 , declared that the Chandos Clause would operate as a powerful argument in favour of the
Reform Bill ; his descendant marks as a fact that which , twenty-five years ago , was a prediction , ILord GtRey joined in the prophecy ; but we have no Lord Gbett now—only a sour calumny on the name . "Well , were it possible so to analyse the late elections as to distinguish the votes of tenants-at-will from those of freeholders and leaseholders , what would be the deduction ? That the electors exercised their franchise in harmony with the spirit of the non-electors , or that they smiled sorrowfully at the non-electors , and regretted their incapacity to help them ? The Ballot would enable the enfranchised
and the unenfranchised classes to work together ; open voting divides them ; the voter is responsible , not to the non-voter , but to the landlord . Thia is the distemper , the defect , the disgrace of our representative system . But the Ballot will not mend it , do they say ? It is complete as an instrument of fraud , incomplete as a guarantee of honourable ; secrecy . Diverging lines never meet , so that there is no danger of a coalition between these ingenious reasonings . Under Hobhottse ' s Act the Ballot is allowed in
parochial elections . "What took place in 1843 , in . the parish of Sb . James ? The electors gave their open , Parliamentary , purchased , or intimidated votes to the Tory candidates ; their secret parochial votes to the IAberala ; and immediately petitioned for the protection of the Ballot in all elections "whatever . The nomination system is increasing ; the petty boroughs are falling into the hands of great proprietors ; the counties are governed y the Obaudos Clause ; the large boroughs are axot more free from questionable iixflLuencea than the small ; strong personal desires supersede important public interests ; and what . is the remedy ? Among the opponents of the Ballot has any one ever suggested an alternative ?
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OUR P 1 UNCESSES . "W : e have never shared in the popular antipathy to the marriage of our Puinoess Koyai * with the young Prince of Phussijl . The law compels her , under existing circumstances , to accept a foreign husband ; and it is far better that she should become tho wife of a Prince destined probably to ascend a first-class Protestant throne , than that she should wear the tinsel coronet of Schwerin ,
Hechlinright in treating the 70 , 000 * . scheme as " table ; it might occur , even to Very Bms 31 economists , that , whereas the QxteeA b JZ purse is only 60 , 0002 . a year , it would be a monstrous anomaly to bestow a more eiganfc ^ grant of pin-nicmey upon the Princes ? JUS Indeed , at will become a very serious question how far ihe nation is to be applied to for pensions for the younger branches of ifce Eoyal Family . We must hear not a word about economy , however , from those who persist m upholding the principles of the Boyal Marriage Act . That is the law which converts our princesses into our dependents
gen , or Nassau . Half tho petty courts of Germany aro tattered and miscrablo burlesques of sovereign grandeur . But if tho Princess Hoyal ia married to a Prussian Princo , with magnificent e-xpecLa-- tiona , is that a reason why tho House of Commons should vote her a Btupondous dowry , in the shape of a . pcrraauonfc charge upon tho public revenue ? "Wo hopo wo aro
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HISTORY IN 1887 . * Some New Zealander has invented a chronicle of thirty years unacted history in England . "We always cast an eye of suspicion upon statesmen in corners who build up ideal systems ; they usually exhaust themselves in ideals of parallelogramic communities ; but here is a practical man , with thirty years to do his work in , andEngland , the Colonies , France , Russia , and . China , to dispose of as he pleases
Ai the end of that time , in 1887 , where are we ? "We are so far improved in humanity , that , upon another PALMER disgracing another B . ugeley , we put him to bed , and administer small doses of strychnine until he dies in epileptic convulsions with tetanic complications . They who kill with antimony , with antimony are killed . "We keep at the Home Office a complete apparatus of murderous retaliation—especially in the poisoning department . O ur lesser criminals we herd in desolate
islets , or work m chains ; some / we condemn to deseend into a coal-pit , never again to emerge . We next—somewhere about the year 1870—touched up our representative system , and then asked , what is to be done with , our Princes ? One we made King of Australia , another King of Canada , deporting two batches of our aristocracy to enrich the blood of our dependencies . Large portions of the ZSTorth American Republic thereupon attached themselves to Canada ; the Blacks rose and slaughtered the slave-holders . The Chinese knocked their dynasty on the head , fclie British annihilated the Russians in the
Baltic , the Hungarians welcomed back Kossum , and expelled the Austrians ; but , mo 3 t wonderful of all , Louis Napoleon died , the Empress became regent , and tie " child of Prance" was taught to anticipate a matrimonial alliance with one of Queen Victoria . ' & daughters . And this is all thab a prophet can prophesy to happen within thirty years t
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the Emperor ' s administration ; not that we particularly care for Post-office seizuresillustrations of the order that reigns in Prance- —but that it does not seem our duty to he incessantly reminding our Prench friends of their political degradation . " When France is satisfied , lEurope is content . "
Within a few days , however , certain transactions have taken place which it is essential to colour feithfully as a study of the magnificent system of the Empire . Every one has heard of a great conspiracy against the Emperor's life , of arrests in Paris , of an attempt to procure the extradition of certain refugees domiciled in Great Britain .
The conspirator is Louis IfAPOLiiON himself . His police have seduced an adroit and eloquent Republican artisan , well known in the faubourgs of Paris , and have suborned him as a decoy to tempt tlie refugees in London into a plot against the Emperor ' s person . "We know this man , and if challenged , we will publish his naiue . He came to London a short time ago , and called upon some of the principal exiles . At first he pretended ; to deplore the apathy of France . *
and affected moderation , in order to elicit some avowal thai might compromise his former Chiefs . This strategy failing , he declared that Pianoki ' s was the only practicable method , that the deed must be despatched quickly , that an organisation must be established to render success certain . All his efforts failed . His pistol , dagger , and poison proposals were distinctly and peremptorily rejected . The exiles have
learned caution , at least . The envoy of the Rue de Jerusalem , therefore , returned to Paris , where his defeat procured him a cool reception . He made a second attempt ; but , upon renewing his visits to the refugees in London , was unniasked in the presence of several , stigmatized as a spy , and sent to report a still more ignominious discomfiture to the agents of his magnanimous master , the Emperor Napoleon the Third .
In Paris , however , this , "wretch was more successful than in London . Tradiug upon the confidence of his former associates , he ensnared a number of them into a conspiracy , possessed himself of the necessary evidence , and enabled the police to justify , in the sight of the law , a swoop of preventive arrests . We are correct , we believe , in stating the whole number ab not less than four hundred . JSTow , these seizures are not made among incendiaries ; the Imperial Government has little to fear from revolutionary mountebanks ; it leaves them to discredit the Liberal cause
CONSPIRACY AGAINST CONSPIRATORS . It is the French Government that provokes criticism on this side , of tho Channel . Por our own part , we havo been anxious , of late , to refrain , from unpleasant comments on
by folly aud extravagance . The plan of the French police is , to arrest every man who may be expected to exert a moral influence at the approaching elections —and , in Paris as everywhere else , it is moderation that is feared by authority .
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«** THE LEADED rN 0 , 369 . BarimW
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* Probable Hiatory of lie Next Thirty Years . Low & Co .
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This Home-im-tiik-Ea . st Rifokmaiort . —The annual meeting of the friends of this institution was held on Tuesday at tho Home , Old Ford , Bow , when , in tha absence of tho President ( the Earl of Shaftesbury , who forwarde 101 . towards the emigration of tho moat deserving inmates ) , tho Rev . G . T . Driflield , the Hector of Bow , piesided . Previous to the meeting , a numerous party of ladies and gentlemen , including a large number of the clergy , assembled at the Home , and wont through tho different departments , expressing their approval of tho entire arrangements , and their admiration of the cleanliness and orderly behaviour of tho boys . Tho report stated that during tho fifteen months sixty-five boys had left tho Home , of whom ten had absconded before the probation and nine after , twelvo had left voluntarilthree been dismissedone -put in prison , and
y , , two in tho worlthouso . Thirty-seven boys had thus left tho Homo under circumstances which were not encouraging , but over which tho committee had no control . Besides that number , eight had been taken liomo and provided for by their frionda ; seventeen had left for situations , and seven had behaved so -well that they hnd been sent out to Canada a few days since at the expense of tho institution . Tho report gave several cases of boys having met with great aucocss after lcaviug , and concludud with an earnest appeal to tho charitable Cor an increased amount of support , tho institution being in debt to tho extent of a few hundred pounds , and tho expenditure exceeding the receipts .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 374, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2189/page/14/
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