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The experiment has been made , and the Reform Bill has worked so as to fulfil the . expectations of its authors , and shame the predictions of its enemies . The ease , order , and rapidity with which the polls were taken , even where the franchise was new , and the constituencies were most numerous , must have been very
astonishing to those who , in their ignorant contempt of the people , anticipated only scenes of riot and confusion . But little disorder has occurred ; and , what there was , must obviously be attributed to the old leaven , and not to the new light , —to the evils which reform was intended to counteract , and not to the machinery which it erected in their stead . Never before in this country has
the choice of representatives been made in so peaceful and dignified a manner . We are not aware of a single instance in which the popular feeling broke out spontaneously into tumult . What scenes of violence did occur were produced by those good old relics of the wisdom of our ancestors , the outrages committed by hired ruffians or an intoxicated rabble . They were the
convulsions of Toryism in its heroic resolution to ' die game . * Peace to its shade ! and that is peace to ourselves . The brutalities of electioneering will not much longer linger in the country . That seven contested elections should take place , and 50 , 000 or 60 , 000 electors be polled , in London and its environs , with not half a dozen cases of outrage for the police to take
cognizance of , would , not long since , have been scouted as one of the wildest dreams of a visionary reformer , utterly unacquainted with human nature . And this dream has been realized . Every good man must heartily rejoice therein . The means for effecting this result were as simple as the result itself was desirable . They show how easily a judicious government may benefit the people .
The contrivance was merely to shorten the duration of elections , multiply the places for polling , and render the elections as much as possible contemporaneous . The last expedient applies chiefly to the metropolis and its new boroughs ; the others might just as well have been adopted fifty years ago . Men , whose power
enables them to prevent evil so ea&ily , ought to feel some responsibility as to analogous cases in which it is allowed to continue . The peacefulness of the elections is a strong encouragement to reformatory measures tending to improve the manners and habits of the people . It also bhows how much the people have iin-
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Mine be the power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once , and by degrees , May into uncongenial spirits flow ; Even as the great gulf-stream of Florida Floats far away into the northern seas The lavish growths of southern Mexico . '—p . I .
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Tennyson ' * Poems . 41
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THE ELECTIONS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 41, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/41/
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