BRIBERY.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—May I venture through you to suggest to those clergymen who believe Bribery to be a sin to speak out boldly their con- victions on this matter from the pulpits, between now and the ensuing elections. I fear, nay, I am sure, that very many of our people, in other respects good and honourable men, so far from regarding bribery as wrong, look on it as a capital joke, and are scarcely in the least degree ashamed of their participation in giving or receiving bribes. In Lancaster it was a common subject of conversation in the coffee-rooms of the inns (not low public-houses) how much each man had got for his vote. I have no remedy to offer, but are there not thousands upon thousands in our land who could truthfully say, "Well, our parson has talked to us often enough about our sins, but he never told us that bribery was one. If it be a sin, we thought it was one at all events that he cared nothing about, and that it had nothing to do with getting to heaven "? If we believe it to be a sin, let us at least tell so and straightforwardly to our people.— I am,
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