A Hundred Years Ago
THE "SPECTATOR," NOVEMBER 27m, 1830.
VOTE BY BALLOT.
In presenting a Reform petition on Monday night from Notting. ham, Mr. Denman took occasion to express himself in very decided terms in favour of a reform of the Commons House of Parliament. The petition, which was most numerously and respectably signed, prayed for vote by ballot. Mr. Denman said he had not yet brought his mind to the approval of that form of voting, and he thought that the consideration of it would be best postponed until the reform which it was meant to work had been disposed of ; but he admitted at the same time, that it was advocated by many intelligent and respectable persons, and ho was prepared, and he hoped that others were equally so, to give it his deliberate and Impartial attention. Sir R. C. Ferguson, who supported the prayer of the petition, said, that he had at one time been hostile to the vote by ballot, but that the arguments of its advocates had completely converted him, and that he was prepared to CO along with his constituents as fully on that point as on the others that formed the subject of their prayer.
Etscrtost Pax:atom.
The petition of Mr. Capel and Mr. Gladstone, the candidates for Queenborough, alleges that Mr. Holmes, being Treasurer of the Ordnance. and Sir Phillip Durham, an Admiral. and other officers and servants of the Crown, employed the public ships and money and persons in the pay of Government, for the purpose of controlling the election in their favour, and for carrying to the poll electors and persons pretending a right to vote, many of whom were in the pay and employment of Government under the Board of Ordnance • and that Sir Phillip Durham represented himself as Port Admiral, and about to raise his flag there, which would enable him to give them employment ; that part of the band of a regiment of Royal Artillery attended Mr. Holmes and Sir P. Durham ; and flags and other ensigns bearing the Ordnanoe arms were used by their partisans, and hung out- of the windows of the house where they were staying. The petition also states, that many prize-fighters and boxers, strangers to the borough, were taken there, in order to overawe the legal voter's.
Previous page
