A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectwor'. 27 Jour 1868—It will be remembered that at the last election for Bristol, for the scat vacated by Sir Morton Poo, Mr. J. W. Miles, a Conservative, was returned, a fact quoted as proof of the approaching reaction. On Thurs- day, however, the Election Committee unseated Mr. Miles for bribery through his agents. It was shown in evidence that personation had been freely employed, that men had been bought in scores for small sums, that beer had flowed like water, that. in short, the Tories had done everything they could do to corrupt Bristol. The Liberals are not a bit better,—plenty of their candidates having been con- victed of bribery.—and the House of Commons laughs jollity when asked to prosecute. One sen- tence of penal servitude on a millionaire who bribed would do more to improve political morals than all the sermons of either journalists or, we were going to write, clergy, but the purchase of perjury is one of the crimes which the old pulpit leaves the new one to deal with.
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