THE NEW BRIBERY ACT AND THE YORK ELECTION

THE famous contest between ships and guns, in which the advantage inclined alternately to each side, and which still remains unsettled, has its parallel in the repeated efforts of Parliament to suppress electoral corruption. At the time of the passing of the last Act, in spite of numerous enactments and the imposition of severe penalties Parliament had failed, and bribery was triumphant. Electioneering ingenuity had baffled all the skill of statesmen, and the reformers were ignominiously worsted.