ABSTRACT
Corruption was a many-headed hydra and the forms it assumed were limited only by local custom and ingenuity. The battle against intimidation and electoral violence made even less progress during the mid-nineteenth century than the fight against electoral corruption. Although the number of petitions for corruption did fall somewhat after 1668, the period between the Second and Third Reform Acts witnessed the final attack upon corruption. Certainly this was how Joseph Chamberlain saw it in July 1885 when he proclaimed in the preface to The Radical Programme that under Gladstone's ministry, 'government of the people by the people had at last been effectively secured'. In the first category, the explicit exclusion of women from the franchise was the most important factor as it accounted for half the adult population. In 1840, Russell confessed that too many restrictions had been introduced into the registration system in 1832 from the fear that the country would be swamped with new voters.
