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Leader (1850-1860), 18th December 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19, No. 456, December 18, 1858.1 T H E L E A...

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      Thotohts, Tacts, And Suggestions On P Ae...

      not in reality le ssen their power of controlling the votes of the poor and dependent . Pressure on the elector is of two kinds—that of the many , around liiin when they get angry or excited , and that-of the few who , as landlords , creditors , customers , or lawyers , in cold blood put on the " screw / ' The two kinds of intimidation not only are different , but have a direct tendency to counteract each other . Whatever the faults of the ballot maybe it goes directly against both , and in so far has the merit of fair play . But the system of

      votingpapers does not , and is not intended to , do anything of the kind . Its avowed object is to put an end to the means and opportunities of influence on the part of the many , while' it leaves unchecked and untouched the various modes of quiet and silent pressure on the part of the few . That this is the view of its operation and tendency entertained by the class that desires to retain its unconstitutional power over votes at elections , will be made very plain by a brief ' reference . to the history of the question .

      The first occasion on which the voting-paper system was proposed in Parliament was the 8 th of July , 1853 , when IiOrd Shaftesbury , in the "Upper House , introduced a bill for that purpose . He explained its provisions thus : —in every city and borough papers containing the names of Parliamentary candidates should so many days before the election be left at the dwelling of each voter , and should on the following day be called for aud taken by the collector to the returning officer ; the voter should mark with his initials the name or names of the candidates whom he desired to vote for , and if

      so minded he might refuse to return the paper at all ; his signature was to authenticate his vote , and once returned to the collector he was not to be suffered to change or recal it . Lord Shaftesbury , who had voted against all reform in 1 S 32 , and who had invariably voted against every subsequent effort-to extend the franchise or to protect the voter in the twenty years that followed , did not hesitate to commend this notable scheme to the adoption of the Peers . Lord Aberdeen was then Premier ; he made no objection to the introduction of the measure , and when it came on for second reading said , that though he hoped it would not be pressed pending a promised Reform Bill , it possessed , he thought , great merit , and would in the have the

      preparation of the Government measure most favourable consideration of Ministers . Lord Hardwicke was sure that many persons of station would vote in the way proposed , who are now deterred by the turmoil of elections . Lord Whamcliffe praised the plan as the very best that was possible . The Marquis of Lansdowne and Earl Fortescue signified their approval , and Lord Grey would like to see the system extended to counties as well as towns , though he admitted the drawbacks and dangers involved in it . Content with the general approval of the Peers and the promise of Lord Aberdeen , Lord Shaftesbury agreed uot to press tho bill any further that session . The Russian war broko out the following year , and the excuse was availed of to put aside all schemes of

      domestic amelioration . Soon after the new Parliament assembled m 1 S 57 , the voting-paper scheme was revived ; Lord Robert Cecil giving notice in , the Commons of his intention to move for a Committee to inquire into the best mode of carrying it into operation in county elections . This motion wns opposed on the 4 th of Juno by Mr . Torrens M'Cullngh , who went at great length jnto an examination of the practical working of the system , under tho Poor-law , and showed that even where political passions and temptations could not be supposed to prevail , it was nccompaniod by cvory species of corruption , forgery , and fraud . He cited various instances which had come before the public tribunals , in different places and at different times , in illustration of the general fact . At Swansea complaints woro made in 1 S 55 of gross

      irregularities hi tho election of guardians ; an inspeotor went clown from tho Control Board , and after much inquiry reported that gross improprieties had been , committed , no fower than seventy-three persons having novcr had any yoting-papora served upon them at all , and the motive assigned for sucli partisanship being that tholooality in question was inhabited for the most part by the " enemy , " Tho oleotion was thereupon sot aside . Like complaints were next year made at Bunbury , and for similar reasons there also tho election was declared void . But oven if all tho voting-papers were duly delivercd to the cleotors , who could prevent their being tamporod with whilo they remained in tho

      voters' dwellings ? In Lambeth two tradesmen , who Were themselves candidates for the office of Guardians , were brought before the magistrates on a charge of having gone to a voter ' s house , and , on his wife ' s authority , changing the voting ^ paper he had left signed . The charge was proved , . and they were sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment . In the Union of West Bromwich , in 1854 , five agents were indicted for tampering with the votingpapers in no less than 342 cases ; they wrere found guilty , and sentenced to three months' imprisonment . At Bridport , in the same year , 49 cases were established in which the collector had either failed to collect the papers or to preserve them , and the commissioners declared the election void .

      At Bridgend , in Glamorganshire , candidates themselves were found to liave obtained the votingpapers and kept them back , and the election was consequently set aside . In a single ward at Leeds , in 1852 , it -was found upon inquiry that 111 cases were tainted with forgery , as proved by affidavits .. Again , in 1857 , similar frauds had been discovered in sixty instances , and many more were suspected . It was no answer to say that detection and punishment followed upon complaint being made . Many complaints of grievous abuse were preferred , which failed of being legally substantiated ; the proof was necessarily difficult , took

      and the prosecution of such an inquiry time and money . Six , nine , and even twelve months sometimes elapsed between the fraudulent return and its being finally declared void . In uncontested places the system of course ' worked-without scandal or harm , but wherever it was exposed to the strain and tug of conflict it had proved wholly worthless and unreliable . Sir Eitzroy Kelly , Lord Ebrington , and others , endeavoured to weaken the effect produced by the facts above quoted , and the arguments by which they were enforced . But Lord Stanley and Sir George Grey having spoken in support of Mr . M'Cullagh ' s amendment , Lord R . Cecil deemed

      it imprudent to go to a division . The evil was thus , for the time , averted , but it were rash to infer that it has therefore been finally got rid of . The scheme is too plausible in theory , and practically too apt for its purpose , to be readily abandoned . It recommends itself to all the kid-gloved class of politicians as an effectual way of putting down the vulgar din and dust of popular elections . It would enable them to record their perfumed votes through the intervention of their footmen , instead of being obliged to take the trouble of sauntering down three streets and a half to a polling-booth , or riding three miles and a half to a neighbouring market-town , in order to tender their suffrage . For the rest of the community it would be the prolific parent of

      incurable distrust , intolerable espionage , infinite fraud , and irremediable oppression . The countervailing influence of popular feeling being absolutely withdrawn , the timid and the venal would yield without a struggle to the seductions of the tempter and the threats of the intimidator . The arts of corruption and menace would be plied unchecked and unobserved by the humble man ' s fireside ; and when , he had pxit his name to a political lie , he need not even fear the reproachful look of a neighbour , for his vote would be only known to the bailiff , or the briber , who had stood at las elbow , and the collector who received it at his hand . A more dctestablo or demoralising system never was invented by tho selfish perversity of man .

      No. 456, December 18, 1858.1 T H E L E A...

      No . 456 , December 18 , 1858 . 1 T H E L E AD E B . 1387

      Biographies Of German Pbxnces. ;No. Vr. ...

      BIOGRAPHIES OF GERMAN PBXnCES . ; no . vr . FREDERICK WILLIAM I ., ELECTOR OF HESSECASSEL . The reigning family in Ilcsse-Oassc ] are distinguished , even in Germany , by their self-willed and Fibidinous character , as well ns by tho grasping propensities which have for centuries urged them on to the committal of tho most intolerable exactions , and to tho practising * of downright frauds on the public exchequer . Hcssc-Casscl is tlio classic soil of petty princely despots of tho fine old type . Its history has furnished the millennia for that terrible tragedy of Schiller which is known in . this country na Louisa Miller , and in Gci'many , siuce Ifllaud's day , under tho tif . lo of Cabctk i < nd Liebq . Not only has tho groat poet laid tho scene of his exoiting drama at tho court of tho Elector , but the most stirring episodes , the most appalling situations he has there introduood , are but a faithful reflex of ovonts na they passed in tho unhallowed circle of that profligate dynasty . Tho lives of the

      Princo-Eleetors have been , for along succession of years but one uninterrupted career of crime , tyranny , ant unbounded licentiousness . They have freely ^ be spattered themselves with every description of immoral filth . They have made their names famous as the torturers of their people , as traders in the blood of their subjects , as vampires preying on the national life of Germany . Who is there that is ignorant of the sale of Hessian troops to the Tory Government of this country at the time when the rising republican freedom in America had to be bludgeoned to please our

      oligarchs at home ? The Elector sold these men to garchs at home ? The Elector sold these men to England with as little compunction as if they had been so many heads of cattle , and coolly pocketed by the transaction upwards of 21 , 000 , 000 of thalers . This peculiar trading was - conducted after a curious fashion : it being stipulated that the Hessian Prince was to be indemnified by a regular graduated scale for the casualties that might happen among the men he farmed out to > fight other people ' s battles . Thus he received for a wounded subject so many thalers , whilst one downright killed , and done for , brought more still into the bereaved hands of this paternal

      prince-This clause in the dignified convention made it , oi course , the interest of the Elector to let as many as possible of his dearly-loved subjects get knocked on the head by the American republicans . There is a hand-billet , or autograph letter , of the Elector Frederick H . still in existence , in which he expresses the charitable hope that " these d—d fellows , " his own troops , " will get themselves shot in sufficient numbers not to rob their own sovereign of his due profit from the treaty . " The system of thus selling the lives and services of their troops has been a recognised system at the court of Hesse-Cassel since the Thirty Years' War . Not a campaign was undertaken on the continent of Europe :

      but the Elector there found a good opportunity for stepping in and doing a little bit of business in the man-selling line , haggling for the price of his subj ects' blood , and finally handing over his eligible lot of Hessian combatants to Tbidders on either side . This was no unprofitable game in those daysof dynastic contentions ; and considerable , indeed ,, were the revenues brought in by these very legitimate mercantile transactions . The millions tlmsacquired were , appropriately enough , expended inv maintaining' troops of harlots , and in providing for the multitudinous offspring of the many Morinorfc

      unions of the reigning house . The people , as may be well supposed , rebelled frequently against thistyranny . Several mutinies broke out in the ranks of those who were thus unceremoniously sold asfighting machines to any customer willing to buy them . The Court , however , had a means as simple as efficacious of dealing with any exhibition of dissatisfaction . The approved custom on such occasions was to instantly shoot down those wha made manifest their objections to the commercial arrangements of their Prince . There is one horrible passage in Schiller ' s play referring to these ? doings , ft is that in which Lady Milford , the the si of the

      Elector ' s mistress , shudders at ght diamonds presented , her when she is told that they arc the produce of the sale of thousands of citizens ,, some of whom had their brains htlown out for refusing to be trafficked away into foreign service . The lato Elector , as well as tho present one , are after the approved pattern of their race . They have both been famous for the free-and-easy life they have led ; for the nonchalance with which they have ridden down the people ; for the many political victims they have imprisoned or driven into exile ; and for the amount o £ execration in which they are hold by the whole country . We will not pollute our pen with a recital of the mode of life indulged in by the old profligate Elector , The worst days of the Regency in France , during

      the minority of Louis XV ., were equalled , if not surpassed , m their enormity , at tho Court of that petty fifth-rate prince . His liaison with tho " Countess Reichenbach , " tho details of which would not afford very edifying matter for perusal , has furnished tho burden of many a seditious song in his principality . It is not our intention , for indeed tho task would bo an interminable one , ta give any chronicle of the many ' / morganatic and " left-hand" unions , and other varieties of polygamy , in which tho old Eleotor whipped Bngham Young or any other dignitary of tho Mormon creation . To such an oxtont , indeed , had his excesses arrived , that tho lady who was unfortunate enough to bo hia lciritimato wife flod the country . Tho various incidents of tho " union" of the present rulcir wita

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 18, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18121858/page/19/