Soczal Science Congress. iy 7 
diction of these courts has long been admitted. The 
number of suits they determine is prodigious. The optional 
clause requires the previous consent of both parties, and, 
as the one would refuse what the other proposed, merely 
because he proposed it, the clause has had very little effect, 
if any,in extending the jurisdiction toothercases inkind and 
in amount; whereas, if the suitor could begin for'a larger 
amount, and for other objects, it is certain, that the great 
facilities afforded by the local courts would induce the 
defendant to acquiesce, and a very material increase is 
thus withheld from that most valuable jurisdiction by the 
delay to make this obvious improvement. But, though 
the last session has been lamentably unfruitful of measures, 
he observed, the Commons have issued important com- 
missions for inquiry into the scandalous scenes of corrup- 
tion which too many of the late elections have displayed. 
He said that no question could be raised, although we see 
it attempted, as to the gross criminality of the parties, both 
the candidates and their agents, and the voters; nor is 
there the least common sense in the allegation, that the 
voters cannot be made to regard selling a trust, which a 
vote is, for many, as criminal. They must be made to. 
regard it as such by the infliction of severe punishment ;. 
the candidates and their agents must also be punished. It. 
is certain that bribery can only be stopped by sending — 
those who give and those who receive bribes to the tread- 
mill like other offenders. He then referred to the late im- 
provement in our county and borough gaols, and attributed 
the greater part, if not the whole, of the diminution of 
crime during the last half-year. He thought the result of 
this act should encourage the Legislature to pass other 
useful laws; and spoke of a plan suggested by the great 
Duke and himself for facilitating the private bill business 
in Parliament, which, in its exhausting and harrassing effect 
upon the members, now interferes so much with public 
measures. His Lordship proceeded to remark that the 
friends of social science have reason to congratulate the 
public on the great achievement of the conductors of the 
Atlantic cable. They have finally succeeded, after the 
failure of last year, in this extraordinary and most import- 
ant undertaking, and the Atlantic no longer offers an 
obstacle to direct and instantaneous: communication with 
the Western world, and in a few hours accounts can come 
from New York to London and Paris. Then he spoke of 
the evils of intemperance, and remarked that one sees with 
