Every house, it is said, has its skeleton : the
House of Com- mons possesses several of those deadly memoranda; but there is one which it annually exposes—the scandal that attends the elec- tion of its own Members ; and this year we have the usual dis- play. There is no trait of novelty ; though to the humourist there is the desirable variety in the dramatic incidents. Vulgar persons in vulgar language narrate the collusions between them- selves and the Members of Parliament to get the latter into the House of Commons by illicit means. With some variety in the persons, the witnesses mostly belong to the one low comedy class, the Adelphi of the political world. The particular methods of corruption which they disclose are usually the same—bribery under various forms ; treating under various forms ; evasive me- thods of paying money ; gift of Government appointments in Dock- yard or Post-office ; use of influence as a landlord ; employment of bludgeon-men to beat others in public with great sticks ; in short, any of the ordinary modes to which vulgar minds resort for the coercion of vulgar bodies. After the social experiences of the last general election, these old tales come with a freshened interest; and the Association which is just established in the City to pro- mote the Ballot will derive some of its moral strength from the impression which the Election Committees now revive and deepen. But it is probable that political ideas will go beyond even the Bal- lot, " advanced " as some politicians consider that measure to be. Much of the evil arises from the necessity of collecting all the voters at polling-places, where they may be identified by the. briber or beaten by the bludgeon-man ; and the evil thus created would be swept away by the very simple improvement of taking the votes to elect a Member of Parliament in the same way that the votes to elect a member of the Board of Guardians are taken,— namely, in a voting-paper conveyed by the poll-clerk from house to house. Thus, instead of setting hundreds or thousands trotting about the streets, with bands to cajole or frighten them, the peri- patetic duty would be done by duly-appointed persons under the returning-officer, and every man's house would become his own polling-booth. Jut whatever be the means adopted, no new Re- form Bill will be worth debating which does not strike at the root of all these disgusting nuisances.
