The character of Baron Bramwells remarks--the impediments he must well know he was putting in the way of any prosecution for bribery in Berwick; the words by which he sought to intimidate the prosecutors by holding them up to public ridicule--the language of the petition appropriately characterised. Baron Bramwell could not be ignorant of the great expense which had been incurred in taking legal proceedings against the persons accused of bribery and in collecting evidence long after the time when the acts of bribery occurred. Such evidence is expensive to collect at the time, and much costlier at a later stage. After obtaining witnesses it was necessary to protect them from being spirited away at the time of the trial--no uncommon occurrence in these cases. Many hundreds of pounds must have been spent before the case reached the stage when Baron Bramwell was appealed to by the accused to put obstacles in the way of the charges against them being tried. The penalties recoverable under the Act would not have covered a tenth part of these costs. Those who appealed to Baron Bramwell for protection knew perfectly well, as all Durham and Northumberland knew, that any costs they might be able to claim against Mr. Reed would be met. Baron Bramwell, by the remarks he uttered and the order he made, aided and abetted the bribery, and protected those who committed it. The Baron's observation that "men of property would not be likely to trouble themselves" to put the Act in force against electoral corruption, was true and significant. The "men of property" were they who profited by it; and if any man of property had justice and patriotic spirit sufficient to prosecute bribers, he was certain to incur annoyance and loss, and subject himself to offensive comments such as Baron Bramwell made. It was the duty of a judge, to whom the Act gave discretion, to use it in favour of public purity, and not to favour public corruption. Though no other judge behaved so flagrantly ill as Baron Bramwell, there were few who could be trusted to render justice to Reformers. The Tory judge, Baron Bramwell, sneered away all chance of a just verdict, and Mr. Joseph Cowens noble effort to vindicate electoral purity cost him £2,000 and whatever obloquy and derision the venomous tongue of the judge could heap upon him. Let men beware of principles which render corruption congenial--and let them honour the memory of those who made heroic sacrifices for electoral integrity. ***** It is happily exceptional when political partisanship perverts the sense of justice in a judge. Sometimes the sense of truth, characteristic of Liberalism (for it is not worth while being a Liberal unless it implies the ascendency of truth) is perverted by political exigency or obscured by excitement. An instance of this occurred where it was little expected. II.