The Ballot Bill has now passed through every stage except
the Third Reading, upon which it is said there is to be a great divi- sion, ending, if the Tories can manage it, in a majority for Government so small that the Lords may with safety throw out the Bill, or turn it into one permitting, but not enforcing, secrecy. When the report was brought up on Thursday a desperate effort to retain nomination-days was defeated, chiefly by Mr. Bernal Osborne, who, it appears, used at Nottingham to hire prize-fighters to protect himself and his friends from mob violence. A grand row about the hours of polling, as to which Government had proposed a sliding scale according to season, ended in a general expression of a wish to retain the present practice. The Government, therefore, gave way, and voted against their own amendment, and 4 o'clock is still to be the time for the closing of the poll, an arrangement hard upon working-men. Has anybody ever calculated the time it will take to receive votes under the new system, or how many voters will have to be told what to do with their papers ?
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