Victorian England
Information on the cost of living in England in 1888 from an article entitled “Life on a Guinea a Week” in The Nineteenth Century (1888), p. 464.
News
A Suggestion to the Attorney General
The Spectator puts forward a proposal to tackle the extreme corruption that existed in the 1880 elections by suggesting that the cost of the election, and of all future elections for the next five or ten years, be paid by the ratepayers.
The Borough of Sandwich
Spectator commentary on the publication of the Commissioners Report to Parliament in February 1881.
Deal Walmer & Sandwich Mercury
The Deal, Walmer & Sandwich Mercury reported the trial proceedings in its weekly editions listed here.
The Dover Chronicle
Text of a letter, ‘signed ” The Sandwich man,” which appeared in a London daily paper questioning why there was no examination of corruption in prior elections, or the fact that the Lliberals had bribed between elections and the Conservatives had no choice but to act in self defence.
The New York Times
The Election Commissions now sitting in England have unearthed a surprising variety of corrupt practices by which the provisions of the Ballot act were evaded or defied at the last election. Petitions for investigation have issued from a large number of boroughs. Commissions have lately been sitting in Oxford, Sandwich, Chester, Canterbury, Knaresborough, and Macclesfield.
THE EXTENT OF BRIBERY
Commentary on the ‘heroic scale’ of the bribery uncovered in the various election petitions being heard around the country. ‘It would appear that in the art of corruption, as in the art of advertising, no half-measures are of any avail, and the man who resorts to them merely throws his money away.’
NEWS OF THE WEEK: No morality among bribees
An apology about a previous article overstating the honesty of rascals as demonstrated by the behaviour of voters in the Sandwich Election’s habit of taking bribes from both sides.
THE MORALITY OF BRIBERY
Could anything be baser than to swell the votes on either side, by voting for the candidate who paid them most?
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Sir Henry James moves for Commission in to Corrupt Practices
Sir Henry James, in moving for a Commission to inquire into the Corrupt Practices at Gloucester, Macclesfield, Chester, Knaresborough, Boston, Oxford, and Sandwich, expressed a rather sanguine opinion that corrupt …
Sandwich Election Petition Report
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House, that he had received from Sir Robert Lush and Mr. Justice Manisty, two of the Judges selected, in pursuance of The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, for the Trial of Election Petitions, a Certificate and Report relating to the Election for the Borough of Sandwich.
THE SANDWICH ELECTION – CONSERVATIVE TRIUMPH
The election of a member to replace Mr. Hugessen is over, and the result is the return of Mr. Crompton Roberts by the large majority of 440 votes. The excitement which prevailed throughout the constituencyduring the polling day, was unprecedented in the electioneering annals of Deal.