"I have read your references to the _Times_ on 'Bribery.' Well, that has long been my own opinion; they simply have a vote to sell, and sell it the same way as they sell potatoes, or a coat, or any other salable article. Voters generally say, 'What does this gentleman want in Parliament? Why, to help himself and his family or friends; he does not spend all the money he spends over his election for pure good of his country! No: it's to benefit his pocket, to be sure. Why should I not make a penny with my vote, as well as he does with his in Parliament?' I think that if the system of canvassing or election agents were done away with, and all personal canvassing for votes entirely abolished, it would help to put down bribery. Let each gentleman send to the electors his political opinions in a circular, and then let papers be sent, or cards, to each elector, and then let them go and record their votes in the same way they do for a councillor in the Corporation. It would save a great deal of expense, and prevent those scenes of drunkenness so common in our towns during elections. _Bewick's opinions_ of these matters are quite to the purpose, I think (_see page 201 of Memoir_). Again, respecting the Paris matter referred to in your last letter, I have read it. Does it not manifest plainly enough that Europeans are also in a measure possessed with that same _demoniacal spirit like the Japanese_?" APPENDIX VII. The following letter did not form part of the series written to Mr. Dixon; but is perhaps worth reprinting. I have not the date of the number of the _Gazette_ in which it appeared, but it was during the tailors' strike in London. "TO THE EDITOR OF THE _Pall Mall Gazette_. "Sir,-- "In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy--to wit, that 'the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined'--and that 'all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of labor, that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform it without losing actually any of his flesh or his nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years ago--and under pardon of your politico-economical contributors--it is not a 'sentimental,' but a chemical fact. "Let any half-dozen of recognized London physicians state in precise terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a laborer in any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without shortening his life, work at such business daily, if so sustained.