should be first produced to establish the agency, before the bribery by such persons should be gone into. In the sequel it was determined that the two sitting members were not duly elected, and that the petitioner should be returned. “Punch,” his exertions, and his profuse distribution of bribes proved a grievous failure. Not only was bribery freely practised under one or another disguise, but even the result of the petitions and scrutinies were made the subject of corruption. In a controverted election for Sudbury, in 1780, for instance, the question was put to the committee, “Whether a person who had laid a wager of about £40 on the event of the petition was competent to give evidence in the cause?” the decision being in the affirmative. This Sudbury election was altogether an odd affair. “The mayor was the returning officer, and the petitioner alleged that at the close of the poll it was declared in his favour, but that afterwards a scrutiny was illegally demanded, when the other candidates were pronounced duly elected.” It was given in the evidence “that the election began Sep. 8, 1780, about ten o’clock in the morning, and continued until it was dark: that the petitioner and his friends then desired the mayor to adjourn the poll to the following day; but that he refused, and proceeded all night by candlelight”-- the election ending between six and seven o’clock the following morning: “There was some tumult during a part of the poll, but that it was upon the whole a very peaceable election.” This goes far to prove that an election must have been an extraordinarily turbulent business a century back, when proceedings varied by “a tumult during part of the poll” was admitted to be peaceful in an unusual degree.