election; the last, it is to be hoped, which
that hotbed of corruption will ever see.
Two Liberal candidates and two Conservatives
solicited the sweet voices of the
constituency. The Liberals are pronounced by
the Commissioners free from all taint of
bribery whatever. The Conservative bribery
was on the usual scale, and was done at the
election of town councillors, which took
place only a month before the parliamentary
election. Matters were this time managed
with a surprising absence of concealment.
The traffic was carried on openly in the
streets and market-place. Voters were
brought to shops, opened for the purpose,
to be paid. One agent gives evidence that
he knew at one o'clock that his party had
won, and remarked the fact to another
briber. "Pay on" was, however, the order.
It was necessary that plenty of money
should go about. Nearly one thousand
persons were bribed on this occasion. A
month after came the parliamentary
election, and both Conservative candidates were
returned by large majorities. The Commissioners
connect this result with the bribery
at the municipal election in the following
words:

"The municipal contest, in which bribery
had been so undisguisedly and extensively
practised, was treated as a prelude to the
parliamentary election, if not as a part of
it; and the bribes were given, and in many
cases received, as an earnest of what was to
come. But we experienced great difficulty
in discriminating, in individual instances,
between those who took bribes for the
municipal election only and those who, to use
a local phrase, took them for the 'double
event.' The large extension of the
franchise under 'The Representation of the
People Act, 1867,' made the municipal roll
nearly identical with the parliamentary
register, within the limits of the municipal
boundary; so that it was reduced almost to
a certainty that the man who voted under
the influence of a bribe in the council choosing,
would also have a vote in the election
of members of parliament."

Finally, the Commissioners conclude their
admirably lucid report by finding that
corrupt practices prevailed in Beverley at the
election in March, 1857, and that similar
practices extensively prevailed at the
elections of 1859, 1860, 1865, and 1868. A
list of bribers and bribees, some of whom
were implicated in more than one election,
follows the report, and this black list
contains some six hundred names.

This is the recent political history of
Beverley, as shamelessly corrupt and
disgraceful a borough as can be imagined. It
may be urged in arrest of judgment that
there are other towns almost as bad, but
which have as yet escaped detection.
Possibly. But we have got Beverley in the
toils, and it will be a national disgrace if its
inhabitants are ever again allowed to have
a voice in making the laws which they have
so long and so systematically broken.

HOPE DEFERRED AT SEA.

AT the time when this page is being put
to press (Thursday, March 24th) the
fate of a noble ship is the subject of
anxious and painful suspense on both sides
of the Atlantic. A grand ocean steamer,
well built, well engined, well equipped,
is missing; and men are speculating on
the probable causes of her non-appearance.

If we search the records of the past,
we find numerous instances of missing
ships coming to light after a more or
less lengthened delay. Omitting examples
of actual foundering and actual burning,
there are various disasters which still
leave to a vessel a chance of returning
to port. Sometimes the wind blows from
an adverse quarter during so long a period
that the ship (especially if unprovided with
steam power) has no resource but to
remain in some place of shelter until a
favourable turn takes place. A calm, on
the other hand, has been known to prevail
on the Atlantic for weeks together, bringing
whole fleets of sailing ships to a
complete standstill. A single example will
suffice to illustrate this kind of ocean
trouble. One day last autumn the
war-steamer Topaze found herself suddenly
becalmed in the Atlantic, and around her
were no less than sixty-six sailing ships
perfectly helpless. They could neither
advance nor recede. One of them, the Agra,
had been thus situated for at least a
fortnight; and if the Topaze— which, as a
steamer, could laugh at calms—had not
supplied her with provisions, the result might
have been serious to those on board.

We shall presently adduce reasons why
modern steamers are not so likely as the
sailing ships of past generations to suffer
famine through any unwonted detention at
sea; and why the route between Liverpool
and New York is much more likely to afford
succour in time of distress than almost any
other that can be named. Certainly, in
olden time, when ships were few and far
between, the narratives presented were
often very sad. In the case of the Trinity