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Almost the only amendment to this Bill the loss of

which we regret was one of Mr. Mill's to Clause 43. The Member for West- minster wanted to throw the costs of the inquiry on the borough or county found guilty of corruption. This was resisted on the ground, pleaded by Mr. Lowe, who seems to have acted in this debate as counsel for the defence of bribery, that the clause punished the innocent without allowing them to be heard. Quito so, and so does one of the oldest laws in England, that which makes the innocent people of a county pay the expenses of a riot they may have helped to repress. The only real objection to the clause is that it might make ratepayers as angry with the prosecutors as with the defendants, and that is not likely.

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