Page:Ballot (Smith).djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
BALLOT.
21

scheme of registration to which these objections will not apply." There is really no answering this Paulo post legislation. I reason now upon registration and reform which are in existence, which I have seen at work for several years. What new improvements are in the womb of time, or (if time has no womb) in the more capacious pockets of the followers of Bentham I know not: when I see them tried I will reason upon them. There is no end to these eternal changes; we have made an enormous revolution within the last ten years,—let us stop a little and secure it, and prevent it from being turned into ruin; I do not say the reform bill is final, but I want a little time for breathing; and if there are to be any more changes, let them be carried into execution hereafter by those little legislators who are now receiving every day after dinner a cake or a plum, in happy ignorance of Mr. Grote and his ballot. I long for the quiet times of Log, when all the English common people are making calico, and all the English gentlemen are making long and short verses, with no other interruption of their happiness than when false quantities are discovered in one or the other.

B 3