Pym, Hampden and Fairsax, Newton and Locke, and all our radiant firmament of great souls and great names have lived and acted for us. They would have become solitary stars in other hemispheres, lighting up other nations when that for which they fought and toiled was wrapped in actual darkness; and the Stuarts and Straffords, Lauds and the like, would have done their work, and would have plunged us down into the herd of myriad slaves that vegetate on the face of the violated earth-not men, but the weeds which the armed heel of tyranny stamps into basest mire.

C-, S-, and L-, did their worst. The Government was become thoroughly odious by its restrictions on the press, and on all constitutional freedom. By its employment of Oliver and other spies to excite the sufferers to riot, so that they might be cut down by the soldiery, and furnish plausible reasons for fresh enactments of a tyrannous nature; by the Manchester massacre, and the prosecution of the Radicals all over the kingdom, amongst whom were Hone, Hunt, Cobbet, Sir Charles Woolsey, and many others, most of whom were immured in different prisons, they brought the popular indignation to a crisis; the popular wrath arose, the aristocratic despotism affrighted shrank back, and under the guidance of the Whigs came forth the Reform Bill.

CHAPTER VIII.

STATE OF THE FRANCHISE FROM THE REFORM BILL TO THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1852.

THE Reform Bill amended the defects incident to the former State, with the exception of Intimidation and Bribery. These have increased in virulence since the Reform Bill.

The Reform Bill cut off the rotten boroughs-it enlarged the franchise also, the number of representatives, but intimidation and bribery remain with all their sore evils.

EXCERPTS FROM AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE EVIDENCE GIVEN BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE APPOINTED IN 1835, TO CONSIDER THE MOST EFFECTUAL MEANS OF PREVENTING BRIBERY, CORRUPTION, AND INTIMIDATION, IN THE ELECTION OF MEMBERS TO SERVE IN PARLIAMENT.

Mr. James Terrel.

2694. You reside in Exeter? I do.

2695. Have you been conversant with the Devonshire and Exeter elections? I have been engaged in the whole of the elections for the county of Devon since 1816, and in 1830, and since have had the principal management.

2696. Have you, since the last election, compiled any papers illustrative of the course which the votes took under the different influences? I have prepared an analysis of them; there are seven districts in the south of Devon; I have extracted the votes from the poll-books and the check-books, and compared them with the registry, and have divided them into freeholders and leaseholders, and have then divided them as to those who voted for Lord John Russell and those who voted for Mr. Parker :

606

Mr. Parker's majority of Leaseholders,

2698. What do you mean by the word "Leaseholders?" I mean those who hold leases for ninetynine years, or £50 renters. In Devonshire, it is the case with a great many of the landlords, that their tenancies go on without any fresh lease being given— there is a perfect understanding on which they proceed.

2699. Have you, in preparing this, made any note of the different properties? I have, in pencil.

2700. Have you the means of showing, from your

knowledge of the county, any of those districts in which a considerable number of persons voted on rights other than freehold, in whose hands the freehold is? I can do it in almost every case.

2701. Can you specify any particular parishes or divisions in the last election, where the vote of the tenant following that of the landlord was particularly remarkable? Yes, in a great number of cases.

One

2702. Have the goodness to point them out? case I would more particularly call the attention of the Committee to, arises in the Newton district; here are three parishes immediately adjoining each other, the parishes of Rattery, Staverton, and Broadhempstone. In the parish of Rattery, there were twenty-one votes polled at this election; only one was a freeholder, the other twenty were leaseholders, or £50 renters.

2703. Do you mean tenants-at-will?

from year to year.

It is a tenancy

2704. The men may be put out at the mercy of their landlords? Yes, or they may have leases for seven years; I cannot say how that is.

2705. Are any of the persons those who hold leases for lives? I believe not in Rattery; they are ordinary renting tenants, I conceive.

2706. Voting under the £50 clause? I apprehend so; in the election of 1832 those voters all voted for Mr. Bulteel, the reform candidate.

2707. Are they all under the same landlord? Yes, the whole.

2708. How did the landlord vote at that election? He voted with Mr. Bulteel. In the last election, they

all, with the exception of one, voted for Mr. Parker, the conservative candidate.

2709. How did the landlord vote? The landlord voted for Mr. Parker.

2710. Was there any peculiarity about the exception of one? No, I am not aware of any peculiarity.

2711. To whom does that parish belong? To Sir Walter Carew. The next parish to which I would call the attention of the Committee is the parish of Staverton, which is adjoining the parish of Rattery; forty-one votes were polled-three freeholders and twenty-four leaseholders for Lord John Russell, and five freeholders and nine leaseholders for Mr. Parker. The land in that parish belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, who have the great tithes; their leases are granted for twenty-one years, which leases are renewed every seven years; persons holding such leases consider their tenure very good, because Deans and Chapters never refuse to renew at the end of seven years, then they grant a fresh lease for twenty

one.

2712. Do they consider themselves dependent upon the Dean and Chapter? Very little, with the exception of the influence which the tithes would have upon the parish, for they always find the Dean and Chapters very ready to renew.

2713. Are those tenants the same class of persons as the tenants in the other parish? I would observe that in the three parishes I have adverted to, they are the same class of yeomen. In Staverton, the number that voted for Mr. Parker were, five freeholders and