The Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, Sir Alexander Cock-
burn, in ordering on Thursday the rule to be made absolute for a mandamus to the Election Commissioners at Bridgewater to grant Mr. Lovibond his certificate of indemnity, passed the most singularly bitter censure on the conduct of the Commissioners,— chiefly singling out Mr. Chisholm Austoy,—for their browbeating of the witnesses. Mr. Anstey had said that Mr. Lovibond had given his evidence " in a most disgraceful manner," whereupon the Lord Chief Justice remarked emphatically that " though he would not say the term 'disgraceful' was altogether inopportune, he did not think it was to the witness that the remark ought to be applied." Mr. Justice Blackburn, Mr. Justice Mellor, and Mr. Justice Lush all concurred in the judgment, and none of them said anything to modify the severity of the Chief Justice's cen- sure on the Commissioners. The undignified and somewhat ferocious character of the Commissioners' cross-examinations at Bridgewater was commented on by ourselves and many of our con- temporaries at the time, but we were hardly prepared for so very severe an official condemnation. May it not have the effect of deterring Bribery Commissioners in future from the always pain- ful and difficult process of worming out a reluctant witness's evidence?
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