JB_128_361.xml

Title: [1818 Dec r. 30 Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1818 Dec r. 30

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

Remedies

Election

Miselection

Election

Females

1

Anti-Reformist. Well now, why to you exclude females? That I exclude /should be for excluding/ them you need scarcely be told. But what the present occasion requires is that you should say why you exclude them.

Reformist. I will give you the best reasons I can find.

1. In the first place, so inseparably are the interests /such is the community of interest/ of the weaker sex interwoven with those of the stronger, that in the breasts of the male half self-regarding affection suffices to /for/ securing /secure/ them against all injury: unless it were clear that by the accession of the less informed sex more appropriate aptitude would be imported into the Election Office, than would have place there otherwise. Such at least is the presumption: for if any one were to stand up and shew that under the existing things the interest of the weaker sex is sacrificed to that of the stronger, and under the proposed scheme of reform would continue to be do to be, let one that can /that know how/ justify the exclusion. I am sure it is more than I am /should be/ able to do.

2. In the next place, I know not at present of any dissatisfaction which at present to any considerable extent, if any, has place on this account in those tender breasts. For supposing any such dissatisfaction to have place, let the compleat identity of interests be ever so uncontrovertibly established, here again no fish[?] would be more perfectly mute[?] than I should find myself obliged to be.

3. In the third place, in my own instance there is the personal satisfaction I feel in humouring, if I may be allowed so free a word, yourself and so many other of my friends: and in particular my honourable and learned friend M r Brougham, who by the single power of the word females pronounced in connection with my name and the word consistency raised /produced/ on the part of his honourable colleagues a laugh, in which there was just as much sense, as in any laugh which any one of them when in leading strings ever exhibited upon being tickled by his nurse.

JB_128_387.xml

Title: [1818 Dec. 22 Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1818 Dec. 22

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue II

Election Evils

25

6

Anti-Reformist. Come then, set to work your exhaustion-pump: give us /produce/ your

divisions: if they suit my taste /I like them/ they please me/ I will call them

logical ones: if they do not suit my taste /I dont like them/ /they displease me/ I

will call them metaphysical. Let us both be at liberty you produce what you please: I

give what name to it I please.

Reformist. Agreed: First then, these Election evils I divide them into

characteristic and uncharacteristic or not characteristic.

Anti-Reformist. What do you here mean by characteristic?

Reformist. I mean such evils as have are not only liable to have place on the

occasion of the sort /mode/ of Election in question, but could not have place without

it.

Anti-Reformist. Then by your uncharacteristic evils you mean such evils as are

liable to have place on the occasion in question, but are moreover liable to have

place on other occasions. {Well, your characteristic Election evils what are they.}

{Reformist. Before I tell you what they are I must divide them in the first place

into hurtful | | the mischief of which falls upon men in their public capacity alone,

such the /injurious to the public alone, evils hurtful to individuals only and evils

hurtful to the public and to individuals, both at the same time/. }

Reformist. Exactly so. It is a real satisfaction /comfort/ to me, to see you thus

beforehand /going before/ with me.

JB_128_393.xml

Title: [1818 Dec. 24 Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1818 Dec. 24

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue II

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

I Evils

31

12

Anti-Reformist: Act[?] Office-bearers[?]? Custom House officers, Excise men?

Corruptionists, as you call them, - the whole lists of them?

Reformist. O yes; even were they more than they are The case is – facts not words

are what I look to: realities not professions and make-believes: substance, not made

show. For all practical purposes, so long as they can not be so in reality, evils

which are so but in tendency, are no evils are thrown /I throw/ out of the account:

just as you would fractions of a farthing in a pecuniary account. Appeals to the

public at large out of the question even in the House itself, a minority, supposing

it to remain always a minority – a minority though it wanted but two to be a

majority, would produce no effect at all consequently no evil effect: it would be but

a fraction and that an inoperative one. In the case of the aggregate number of voters

in an Election District, a minority be it ever so large an one, is still more

palpably ineffective: it is but a minute fraction of that same inoperative fraction.

The whole tribe /list/ of these seemingly objectionable persons suppose them to

combine and a together and to be disposed to vote on the same side – not that this

could ever happen: how many seats would they be able to fill? Disposed as they would

be, probably not one. But suppose them to fill a dozen: what would that signify? Just

nothing. But they would not do any such thing. First, because they would not all

agree. Secondly because being so dispersed /dispersed as they/, they would produce no

considerable effect upon the poll any where. 3. Because it being made impossible for

any man to know which way they gave their votes, they would be altogether exempt from

the only sinister influence by which voters can be acted upon in the considerable

numbers in numbers capable of giving an effectual support to a general system of

misrule.