28 NOVEMBER 1868, Page 2

The Election has been disgraced by some severe riots in

Cork, Newport, Bristol, Staffordshire, Leicester, and other places, and a cry has been raised that nominations ought to be abolished as use- less. They aro becoming mere pretexts for the employment of roughs to insult the different candidates, and seldom express any popular sentiment which could not be better expressed without them. Some new precaution, it is evident, will soon be needed to keep order during election-time, and the abolition of nominations followed by the multiplication of polling-places is perhaps the easiest. A few soldiers in each place where a mob was expected would be a more efficient one, but Englishmen hate soldiers till blood begins to flow. Then they expect them, at five minutes' notice, to come out of the clouds.