![Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 2 [of 3] cover](/books/content/36809/OEBPS/8580363734491500494_36809-cover.png)
‘Gad! I know that voice,’ said a gentleman in the crowd. ‘It is that girl Rose; good heavens! where’s her home? Oh, there you are, Harry,’ said he, speaking to the manager as he stood at the door watching the brougham as it drove away. ‘You’ve done it to-night, you have! Where on earth does that woman live?’
‘Well, Sir Watkin, I can tell you, but it is no good. She lives with her mother.’
‘And is married?’ he eagerly exclaimed.
‘Yes, to be sure. No, not married, but just about to be so.’
‘Then, I am after her!’ he exclaimed. ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’
‘It is a wild goose-chase, Sir Watkin;’ but Sir Watkin was off in a hansom, nevertheless, not before, however, our Sal had made an effort to secure him, which effort he impatiently evaded, bidding her ‘go to the d----’ and not bother him.
‘You nearly had him then, old girl,’ said a ragged bystander, in a voice perfectly familiar to her ear. It was the tramp’s chum from Mint Street.
‘You here?’ said she, in a tone which did not express delight. ‘I thought yer was as tight as my old man.’
‘Not exactly; as soon as I missed you I thought I’d see that you did not come to harm.’
‘Thank you for nothin’,’ said the woman angrily.
‘Now, don’t be angry,’ he said, with a good-natured smile, ‘now I’ve come. I wants to do yer a good turn. That old tramp will be cotched to-morrow as sure as eggs is eggs, and I thought I’d better tell ye to keep out of the way.’
‘Out of the way; wot do you mean? Do you think I’ve been up to anything?’
‘No, of course not,’ said the chum in a mocking tone; ‘but appearances ain’t promising, and that is all I’ve got to say. You’d better work yer way along with me to-night.’
‘Where to?’
‘Down Drury Lane way; it ain’t safe to be in the Boro’.’
‘But lor, bless me, how you’ve altered!’ said Sal. ‘You had a couple of arms; wot have you done with one?’
‘Oh, it is buttoned down by my side.’
‘And your boots, where are they?’
‘Hid away in my clothes. Ain’t it a capital dodge? I gets lots of coppers when I thus go out cadging. I was goin’ to perform on the bridge, when I saw you walk past, and then I followed. I ain’t made much money to-night. Perhaps we’d better go home.’
‘You’re very kind, but I think I shall stop here.’
‘No you won’t,’ said the man.
He had watched the woman, and he had come to the conclusion that something was up. He had seen how she gazed at the lad on the box; how her face betrayed emotion at the sight of the actress; how she had endeavoured to speak to a swell as he was talking to the manager at the stage-door, and he had rapidly formed a conclusion in his own mind that Sal somehow or other had connections which might, in due time, be made subservient to his own interest. He was a sneak and a cur, but he had a plausible way of talking and a certain amount of cunning which he had always turned to excellent account. It was with gratification, then, that he found the woman was half persuaded to listen to his proposals. Alas! there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. As they stood arguing the matter, a cab dashed up against them, and when he came to his senses he found his Sal, as he called her, had been taken to the accident ward of the nearest hospital.
‘That’s just like my ill-luck,’ said he, with an angry oath, as he turned away in search of cheap lodgings for what was left of the night.
Happily it did not much matter to him if he went to bed late. He was under no necessity to rise early the next morning. The tramp in old times led a merry life. In London, at the present time, he certainly leads an idle one.
Let us follow our Sal to the hospital, one of those noble institutions which are the glory and pride of London, the money to support which had been left long ago by pious founders, and which have been the means of saving many a life, of setting many a broken limb, and of curing many a foul disease. Under its august wall and in its studious cloisters many generations of medical students had been trained up for a profession which has done much to make life worth living, to stay the advance of disease, to battle with grim death. Gibbon tells us the world is more ready to honour its destroyers than its saviours. The taunt is too true. When it ceases to be that, the medical profession will receive its due homage and reward. The courage of the medical man is quite equal to that of the hero on the battle-field. His ardour in the pursuit of his vocation is greater, and the good he does, what tongue can adequately tell? in generosity, in readiness to relieve human suffering, where is the equal of the medical man? The more illustrious he is, the more ready he is to give of his time and money to the poor. There is no truer Samaritan than a medical man.
The hospital was over London Bridge, as the tourist who rushes to Brighton is well aware. It stands a lasting monument to the charitable London publisher known as Guy. It covers a considerable extent of ground, and consists of several buildings more or less detached. Little of the original building remains, as, like the British Constitution, it has grown considerably beyond the general design.
Thomas Guy, Alderman of the City of London, and M.P. for Taunton, who made his fortune by a printing contract, by buying sailors’ tickets, and by South Sea speculations, was little aware of what London would become in the Victorian era, or of the enormous amount of suffering and disease that would be reached and alleviated by the hospital of which he was the original founder.
As you enter you have little idea of its extent. On each side are the residences of officers and medical men. Then you go under a porch, where students have their letters addressed them, and look into a spacious quadrangle, lined with wards, which were part of the original building. Further on are newer buildings and museums, fitted up for the use of students, and in every way skilfully planned for the accommodation of patients. On one side is a theatre for surgical operations, a dead-house for post-mortem examinations, and a little green, on which in fine weather patients are permitted to take a little exercise, and to congratulate each other on the fact that this time they have given the old gentleman, who is always drawn with a scythe and an hour-glass, the slip. Further beyond are the gates which admit the enormous mass of out-patients, who, alas! most of them require what not even Guy’s can give them—fresh air, good food, and a little more cash than they can manage to secure by their daily labour. It is rather a melancholy place to visit. Looking up at the long windows all round you, you can’t help thinking what human suffering lies concealed behind them, and misery defying alike the aid of doctor or nurse or chaplain. Science may do, and does do, all it can to make the place healthful. Thoughtful consideration may line the walls with pictures, and make the old wards gay with summer flowers, and the nurse may be the kindest and tenderest of her sex to whom we instinctively turn when in pain, and suffering for relief; but, nevertheless, you feel in a hospital as if you were in a city of the dying and the dead.
Our Sal was at once carried to the accident ward, and taken care of by tender nurses and watchful surgeons. No bones were broken, but she was very much bruised, and the recovery, if she did recover, it was clear would be long and tedious. The chances were very much against her. Drink and evil living had wrecked her stamina in spite of the fine constitution which she had received from her parents and her early country life. Fever set in, and it seemed as if the poor woman would have sunk. She was often delirious, and her mind wandered.
‘There’s something that keeps her back,’ said her attendant guardian. ‘She has either committed some crime she wants to confess, or she has some secret of which she would fain get rid,’ and the physician was right.
CHAPTER XIV.
AN ENCOUNTER.
One morning, shortly after the events described in the previous chapter, all England was startled by the intelligence that the Ministry had been beaten, that the leader of the Liberal Party had resigned, and that the free and independent were to be called on to exercise their privileges by returning members to Parliament likely to serve them well, and to promote the honour of the country, and the best interests of the community at large. I write this last sentence with peculiar pleasure. It sounds nice and pleasant. The fact is, I fear, the free and independent electors, as a rule, take little interest in politics. The working man is, as he has every right to be, suspicious of both parties alike, and especially of his oratorical brother of his own class, who comes to him with a pocket well lined as the result of his professional talk.
Liberal and Conservative clubs and newspapers were much excited. According to them never had there been such tremendous interests at stake. They, the enlightened, were to rally round the altar and the throne, both in danger, said the latter, while the former called on the intelligent manhood of the country to take one more step in the paths of progress and reform, and by that step to secure for ever the triumphs our forefathers had won for us with their blood.
Never were there such tremendous gatherings at Sloville. The Liberal leaders had held an open air meeting, which was the grandest thing of the kind ever known, but it was surpassed by an artfully got up demonstration by the Tories, accompanied by popular sports and cakes and ale. The one drawback to the success of the Liberal Party was that they had been in office for half a dozen years, and had disgusted all their friends, and had given the enemy occasion to blaspheme by their utter inability to pass any good measures, by their irresolute policy on foreign matters, by their extravagant expenditure at home, by their complete abandonment of their old battle-cry of ‘peace, retrenchment, and reform.’ Trade also was bad, and that did not mend matters. People are always discontented when times are bad. That is always the fault of the Government for the time being. It is generally assumed also that they are, to a certain extent, responsible for the weather. There had been a great deal of wet, and that the farmers attributed to the Radical element.
Farmers are naturally averse to Radicals. The Radical naturally thinks the farmers fools, because they are averse to change, and prefer to vote for their landlords to strangers sent down to agitate the country, who did not own an acre of land in it, who resided chiefly in our great cities, and who had little sympathy with agriculturists or agriculture in any shape.
The farmers are not quite such fools as the town radicals are apt to fancy. Most of them had good landlords, and few of them were averse to the Church, and it was pretty clear to the agricultural mind that whilst the big loaf, like the celebrated Pickwick pen, was a boon and a blessing to men, it was a grievous loss to themselves; much more so than was anticipated by the learned, who assured the farmers that it was impossible to flood the market with American wheat under fifty shillings the quarter. At Sloville also the brewers were afraid of the Liberal Party, who seemed much inclined to shut up the public-houses or, at any rate, to worry the trade. They struck up an alliance with the Church, and that alliance between the friends of the Bible and beer threatened serious danger to Liberals at Sloville as well as elsewhere.
It was clear that the battle to be fought was a very severe one; that a good deal of money would have to be spent on both sides; a great many windy orations made, and a good deal of the trickery usual at election time would have to be resorted to. The theory of representative institutions is beautiful. Nothing sounds finer than an appeal to the country. It is a grand thing for the rulers of the people to have to come to them at times, and ask for a renewal of their confidence, and a new lease of political power. It presumes that the public take an interest in public questions, that they are educated and intelligent; that they know their duty, and are prepared to discharge it; that they are above all paltry and personal considerations; that they only care for the public good. It assumes also that the candidates are men of intelligence and patriotism—not merely wealthy nobodies anxious for the social distinction of a seat in Parliament; or barristers in search of office; or aristocratic hangers-on, hoping, by means of Parliamentary influence, to secure an honourable position in one or other of the services: diplomatic, or naval, or military.
For a long time Sloville had rejoiced in an independent Radical as a representative, and yet Sloville was hard up. It is true that he had feathered his own nest by securing for his son a good Government appointment, but that had been no benefit to Sloville. He had also offended his constituents by the paltry way in which he subscribed to the local charities and local amusements. He was believed to be niggardly. It was known that he dealt at the Civil Service Stores. It was clear that no Sloville tradesman would vote for him. He had declined to pay the expenses of local Liberals, and in disgust they had hawked about the borough to anyone who would come down handsomely on their behalf. The managers of the party were in despair. Happily Sir Watkin Strahan offered them his services. He had property in the borough. His family were always good to the poor, and as a racing and betting man he was popular with the sporting fraternity. Sir Watkin was accepted as a matter of course.
A day or two after the dissolution of Parliament had been announced, as Wentworth was breakfasting in his solitary chambers in Clifford’s Inn, slowly reading the morning papers, and meditating out of what material he could make best a leader, he heard a rap at the door. Opening it, a stranger met his view—tall, aristocratic, well dressed, in the prime of life, with the air and appearance of a gentleman.
‘You’re Mr. Wentworth, I believe,’ he said.
‘That’s my name, sir.’
‘I am Sir Watkin Strahan,’ was the reply, as he handed his card to Wentworth.
‘Pray walk in, Sir Watkin.’
Sir Watkin complied with the request.
Taking a chair, and lighting a cigar offered him by Wentworth, who did the same, the stranger continued:
‘I am commissioned to call on you by Mr. Blank,’ naming the proprietor of a morning journal with which Mr. Wentworth was connected. ‘The fact is, we are on the eve of a General Election.’
‘I am perfectly aware of that,’ said Wentworth, smiling.
‘Undoubtedly; and I come to solicit your aid.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘Why, the fact is, I am anxious for a seat in Parliament.’
‘For what purpose: public or private?’
‘Why, Mr. Wentworth, how can you ask? I am a Liberal.’
‘And, then, are all Liberals public spirited, and not averse to feathering their own nest when they have a chance?’
‘Well, you know,’ replied the Baronet, ‘our party always aim at the public good.’
‘Yes; but professions and practice don’t always harmonize. Sometimes private interest draws one way, and public duty points another.’
Sir Watkin coloured. He had consented to fight Sloville in the Liberal interest, but he had made a bargain on the subject with his party, and Wentworth’s casual remark had gone home.
Wentworth continued:
‘In what way can I help you, Sir Watkin?’
‘Mr. Blank tells me that you know something of Sloville.’
‘Very little, indeed. I was there a short while some years ago. That is all. I doubt whether I can do you any good there.’
‘Oh yes, you can. I recollect hearing you speak on the night of the Chartist meeting, and upon my word you spoke out well. There are many who still remember that speech.’
‘Yes; but it did not gain me many friends.’
‘Well, it was talked about for a good while after.’
‘Do you want me to repeat it?’
‘Not exactly, but I am not much of a speaker myself, and I want a clever man like yourself to be by my side, and speak now and then on my behalf. Of course I should be prepared to pay handsomely for such assistance.’
‘I am much obliged for the offer. Of course I feel complimented by it,’ said Wentworth; ‘but I fear that sort of thing is not much in my line. Indeed, I hear so much oratory that I am sick of it, and have come to regard an orator as a personal enemy, who really desires to do me wrong. In the heat of the moment an orator is apt to forget himself, to fling charges against his opponents which he cannot justify, and make promises to the people which he cannot perform. I fear a good deal of humbug goes on when there is much oratory, and that a man who gets into a habit of public speaking later on becomes a humbug himself. At any rate, I know this is true of some of our London popular orators. You may be better in the country. It is to be hoped you are.’
‘As to oratory, we are very badly off. And that is the real reason,’ said Sir Watkin, ‘why I came to you. I am not, as I have said, much of a speaker myself. Whereas my Conservative opponent is a clever barrister, with a tremendous gift of gab.’
‘Yes, that is it. You ought to go to a barrister and take him down with you. So long as a barrister is well paid he is ready to speak on any side.’
‘But there are difficulties which I fear will prevent my doing that. I want a novelty—a newspaper man, in fact. Lawyers have such a professional style of talking. They deceive no one; no one believes them. If a lawyer ever does by accident make a good speech it carries no weight with it. It is expected as a matter of course. If a lawyer can’t talk we don’t think much of him or his law, and then there is another reason.’
‘What is that?’ said Wentworth, lazily puffing his cigar.
‘Lawyers ain’t popular at Sloville with the Radicals. They say that our present law is a disgrace to the country, and that as long as we fill the House with lawyers, we shall never get a proper measure of law reform. In our town the people are very much opposed to lawyers and parsons.’
‘Very wrong of them,’ said Wentworth ironically.
‘Very wrong, indeed,’ replied the Baronet; ‘but we must take people as we find them, and act accordingly. It is no use sending down a lawyer to fight for me. The people would not go to hear him. Their last representative won by the aid of a lawyer, and they won’t stand another.’
‘But, then, in London there are no end of men who pass themselves off as working-men politicians, though it is precious little work they do. I believe they are to be had at a very moderate figure, and they can do the roaring part of the business first-rate. They are always trotted out when the Liberals want to get up a grand demonstration, more especially when the Conservatives are in place and power. Had not you better take one or two of them down with you? They’ll be sure to fetch the rest.’
‘Alas, I’ve tried them,’ said the Baronet, ‘and I found they were of no use. As soon as they had fingered a fiver or two they began to give themselves such airs. I could not get on with them at all, and after all,’ said the speaker, looking down complacently at his well-dressed figure, ‘people prefer a gentleman.’
‘Perhaps so; but real gentlemen are scarce nowadays,’ said Wentworth. ‘Where is the real gentleman now, brave, truthful, unsullied, with hands and heart clean, without fear or reproach? In political life, at any rate, he seems to me almost as extinct as the dodo.’
Wentworth was getting on dangerous ground. He had a faint suspicion that his visitor was not one of this class. The visitor felt it himself, and was getting rather uncomfortable in consequence. He had come on business to hire a speaker, and to pay him for his services, and to be helped in other ways. Fellows who wrote in newspapers had, he knew, many ways of obliging a friend. It was important to him to get into Parliament. If he carried Sloville he conferred a favour on Ministers, who would reward him in due time with a comfortable office, where the pay was heavy and the burden light, and just at that time money was an object to our Baronet, who as a gambler and man of the world managed to get rid of a good deal of it in the course of a year. At any rate he rather liked the look of M.P. after his name, and M.P. he was determined to be. All his life he had lived in excitement, and now he had reached an age when the excitement of politics in lieu of wine or women or horse-racing or gambling had special charms.
‘You see,’ he remarked, ‘we are an old family in the neighbourhood, and we have a certain amount of legitimate influence which will certainly be in my favour.’
He might have added that in the day of rotten boroughs it was as proprietor of Sloville, and as in that capacity a useful servant of the Government, that the first baronet of the family had been adorned with his hereditary rank. A Royal Duke had been guilty of gross misconduct—a slight indiscretion it was termed by his friends. The matter was brought before Parliament, and a vote by no means complimentary to H.R.H.—either as regards morals, or manners, or understanding—would have been carried, had not the Strahan of that day saved the Government by his casting vote. Government was grateful, and so was Strahan—in the sense of further favours to come.
‘Well, that is something,’ said Wentworth; ‘birth and connection are of some account in politics.’
‘I should think so,’ said the Baronet.
‘And the borough is Liberal?’
‘Most decidedly.’
‘And you have a good chance of success?’
‘Yes; if it were not for the publicans, who have great influence, and are bitterly opposed to the Liberals.’
‘Naturally; their craft is in danger. Well, I might run down to one or two of your meetings.’
‘Thanks; I’m much obliged. I thought about having a public meeting next week. There is no time to lose. It is a great thing to be first in the field.’
Just as Wentworth was about to reply, the door opened, and the actress rushed in. Suddenly perceiving that Wentworth had company, she exclaimed:
‘I beg pardon. I thought you were alone.’
‘Never mind, madam,’ said the Baronet; ‘we have just finished what we had to say,’ turning to address the last comer. All at once he faltered, and turned all the colours of the rainbow. Could it be? Yes, it was the poor girl he had brought up to London, and then deserted—left, as he coolly supposed, to perish on the streets, and whom, to his surprise, he had seen radiant on the stage.
A stony and contemptuous stare was the actress’s only reply.
‘Dear me,’ said the Baronet, recovering his self-possession. ‘’Pon my honour, this is an unexpected pleasure;’ but before he had finished his sentence Rose had gone.
‘You’ll excuse me, I am sure,’ said the Baronet, turning round to Wentworth; ‘I believe that young lady and I are old friends. I had lost sight of her for a long while, and to my intense astonishment and gratification I found her acting at Drury Lane. I followed her the other night in a cab in order to overtake her and explain everything; but her coachman was quicker than mine, and I was obliged to give up the chase.’
‘I am sorry you should have had so much trouble, Sir Watkin. That young lady needs no attention from you, nor will she require any explanation.’
‘Well, I am sure I congratulate you, Mr. Wentworth, to have such an acquaintance,’ returned the Baronet ungraciously. ‘Her beauty as a girl quite overcame me, and I was very much tempted to act in a foolish manner to her. We men of the world are apt to do silly things.’
‘Instead,’ said Wentworth, with increasing anger, ‘you preferred to make a fool of her. I found her when you had thrown her off, and abandoned her to the cruel mercies of the world. I saw her in her bitter agony and despair. I saved her from dishonour. For all you cared she might have been on the streets in infamy and rags. She has little to thank you for. I know how she had been deceived. Weeping, she told me the story of her life; but I never knew who was the wrong-doer until this moment. I have an account to settle with him,’ he added angrily.
‘And you find him penitent,’ said the Baronet.
‘Penitent or not, I vowed I would call him to account.’
‘My good sir,’ said the Baronet, ‘how was I to know that the lady was in any danger? I was not even in England at the time. I felt she would soon forget me, as indeed she seems to have done,’ added the speaker sarcastically. ‘Now I come to think of it,’ he continued, ‘I think it is I, indeed, who have reason to complain. You see with what scorn she treated me as she came into the room.’
‘Surely, Sir Watkin cannot wonder at that.’
‘On the contrary, I think it rather hard, after the money I spent on her.’
‘That won’t do, Sir Watkin! You, and such as you, are a disgrace to your class; cruel as wild beasts you spend your lives in pursuit of victims whom you ruin with fair words and foul lies and for foul ends. A time must come when England will no longer tolerate such men in her midst. English women will come to the rescue of their tempted sisters. Society will demand that wealth should not thus be iniquitously squandered in pursuit of vice and selfish gratifications. There is no greater crime a rich man can commit, and yet there is no punishment can reach him. The rich man can always get off, or take himself off. He leaves the seduced to perish of want and infamy, while he is honoured and admired.’
‘Upon my word, Mr. Wentworth, you are using language which I am quite unaccustomed to.’
‘I dare say you are, Sir Watkin; but it is the language of truth and soberness, nevertheless.’
‘Why, one would fancy you were a parson, and availing yourself of the privileges of the cloth,’ said the Baronet with sneer.
‘I was very near being one,’ said Wentworth; ‘and now I recollect that it was then you and I met for the first time. I remember you nearly ran over a poor old woman who was coming to hear me preach.’
‘Upon my word you have a good memory. I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘So good a memory,’ said Wentworth, ‘that for the future I recommend you to keep out of my way.’
‘By all means,’ replied the Baronet; ‘but you ought to hear what I have to say in my defence. I own my conduct was shabby.’
‘It was infamous.’
‘But recollect what a mess I was in.’
‘I will not hear another word,’ said Wentworth. ‘Leave this room, or—’
But there was no occasion to say what he meant to say. Putting on his hat and gathering up his gloves, the Baronet retreated as quickly as he could, looking very different to the finished and self-satisfied appearance of respectability he presented when he first knocked at the door.
‘The scoundrel!’ said Wentworth to himself when alone. ‘He will hear from me further. I have not done with him yet. I’ll meet him at Philippi. I’ll take care that he does not get in for Sloville after all.’
And he kept his word.
CHAPTER XV.
ELECTIONEERING.
The writ for Sloville would be out in a few days. The defeated Liberals were winding up business in Parliament as quickly as possible, in order at once to appeal to the country. The Tadpoles and Tapers were at their wits’ ends for a good cry. Wentworth rushed down to Sloville, invited the electors to hear him, advertised in the local papers, and covered the walls with his posters. He was for the extension of the Franchise to all men of age of sound mind, untainted by crime, and to all women who paid rates and taxes. He advocated the separation of Church and State, arbitration instead of war, reduction of national expenditure, a reform of the House of Lords, free trade in land, and free secular education. He was ready even to give Ireland as much Home Rule as he would give to England or Scotland. At that time the great Liberal leader had not dreamed of anything of the kind.
‘I like that,’ said the Tory candidate to his agent; ‘all the respectable people will vote for me.’
‘Confound the fellow!’ said Sir Watkin, in a rage. ‘I shall have hard work to beat that, and if I did the people would never believe I meant it. I am of an old Whig family, and it is hard to give up one’s principles.’
‘We shall have to finesse a bit,’ said Sir Watkin’s agent and confidential man. ‘Suppose you placard yourself as the working-man’s friend.’
‘Capital!’ said Sir Watkin delightedly.
‘Suppose we send agents to break up all his meetings, so that he can’t be heard.’
‘A capital idea!’
‘Suppose we get the Rev. George Windbag, the leading Dissenting minister in the town, to make a grand speech at our first meeting, to talk of the need of unity and the danger of splitting up the Liberal Party. We can secure the man at once, Sir Watkin, if you will but ask him to dinner at the Hall. There is not a bigger tuft-hunter in the county, and he has immense weight with the respectable shop-keeping class.’
‘Capital!’ repeated the Baronet.
‘And suppose we get one or two Chartists from town. They will be sure to come. Pay them well, and feed them well, and you can do anything with them.’
‘Right you are,’ said the Baronet.
‘And we might get a Socialist or Republican down.’
‘What for?’
‘To divide the Rads.’
‘But I hate them like poison,’ said the Baronet.
‘Never mind,’ said the agent. ‘You need not appear in the matter. Leave them to me. I know how to secure them. This ain’t the first time I’ve been electioneering.’
‘So it seems,’ said the Baronet. ‘All I say is, keep me out of a scrape.’
‘That is not quite so easy as it was. Yet the thing can be done; Parliament, naturally being in favour of returning rich men to Parliament, is never much in earnest in attempting to put down bribery and corruption.’
‘Ah! my father had never much difficulty in securing his seat,’ said the Baronet in a tone of regret.
‘Yes; but he spent a good deal of money, as I have heard.’
‘That was true; but he got it all back again.’
‘Yes, he had an easy life of it. I was looking over Oldmixon, and he thus describes the borough as it was in the good old times. You recollect the town sent two members till the Reform Bill of 1831 robbed us of one?’
‘I have heard my father say so; but read what Oldmixon says.’
‘“Sloville.—This is a large town, containing more than a thousand houses, where the right of election is confined to a corporation of twenty-four individuals, who elect each other. The inhabitants have no share in choosing the members or magistrates, and as all these corporations—possessing exclusive rights of electing Members of Parliament—have some powerful nobleman or opulent commoner who finds it his interest to take the lead and management of their political influence, the election of the members is directed by this patron. The Earl of Fee-Fum, who has a seat at Marbourne, within seven miles of the town, and Watkin Strahan, Esq., of Elm Hall, whose residence and estate are also in the neighbourhood, have first command of this corporation.” At that time the number of votes, according to Oldmixon, was twenty-four.’
‘And now there are a thousand electors on the register. It is a pity we ever had Parliamentary reform.’
‘Sir Watkin, you are a Whig, are you not?’ said the agent.
‘Oh yes, of course I am. That was only my fun.’
‘It would not be fun if the people heard it.’
‘No, perhaps not. But we are talking privately and confidentially.’
‘Of course we are.’
‘But to business. How do matters stand?’
‘It is impossible to be better, or, rather, it would have been impossible. I’ve been nursing the borough a long while, but now the appearance of another Liberal candidate will give the Conservative a chance such as he otherwise would not have had.’
‘Yes, that is pretty clear. But how can we get rid of this Wentworth?’
‘Leave that to me. We can make it pretty hot for him. Just at this time the town is unusually full of roughs, and I know where to lay my hand on them. Brown, the Conservative agent, told me yesterday that he could always get a bigger lot of roughs than the Liberals. “I ain’t quite sure of that,” said I to myself, “as I think this Mr. Wentworth will find out before we are done with him.” Of course, he has got no money?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose he has,’ said Sir Watkin; ‘he is only a newspaper writer. Just like the impudence of his class. They talk about the fourth estate, and think themselves equals to Kings, Lords and Commons. However, we are right as far as the press is concerned. We have only one paper here, and that is ours. The proprietor is hard up. He owes me a lot of money, and he knows on which side his bread is buttered.’
The next day Wentworth came down to hold the first public meeting, and that same day every voter had a bill—and a good many who were not besides—as follows:
to the
Radical and Liberal Electors
of theBOROUGH OF SLOVILLE.
attend the
MEETING AT THE TOWN HALL,
On Thursday Evening,
At 7.45 sharp,
To prevent the Election of the Tory Candidate.
The placard was not in vain. The good seed had been sown on fruitful soil. The chairman, an old gentleman with whom Wentworth was familiar when he was a student, was quite unequal to the occasion, and he gave in at the first sign of a squall.
Let me recommend all Parliamentary candidates, when there is a contested election, to be very particular as to their chairman. An immense deal depends upon him. He ought to have a personal knowledge of all the individuals in the meeting, and an imperturbable good nature. He ought to have an enthusiastic prepossession in favour of his candidate. He ought to have a voice that could be heard above the roaring of any storm. He should have an intuitive faculty at feeling the pulse of the meeting. He should be a master of making an adversary look ridiculous. He should have the physical power to sit out any time in the midst of any row, no matter how noisy the crowd, and how heated the atmosphere. His tact should be great. He should have immense personal influence in the place. Above all, he should never lose his temper or have recourse to threats, unless he has an overwhelming majority on his side.
When Wentworth appeared upon the scene he saw at a glance that his enemies were far more numerous than his friends. His chairman, for instance, had taken no trouble about the meeting. He had not even brought a friend with him, and he and Wentworth had the platform almost entirely to themselves. This was an initial mistake. Learn of me, O candidate, and never attend a public meeting unless you can fill the platform with out-and-out adherents; men who will applaud in season and out; men whose solid front will impose on the ignorant and thoughtless; men whose countenances will express the utmost rapture at your stalest jokes or feeblest witticisms, who will seem absorbed and riveted by your dreariest display of statistics, and who will cheer the louder the more you stumble and get confused. Canning understood how useful aid of that sort was to a speaker when he wrote:
‘Cheer him when his audience flag,
Brother Riley, Brother Bragg;
Cheer him when he hobbles vilely,
Brother Bragg and Brother Riley.’
Again, another secret in the way of successful public meetings is to have beside the chairman, and in front of the audience, a jolly looking fellow always ready to laugh. We English are an imitative people. One laugher on the platform will make many laugh below. Laughter is contagious. One man laughs because he sees another doing so, and in nine cases out of ten at a public meeting if you ask him he can give no better reason. Ladies are all very well in front, if the meeting is harmonious, and they are well dressed and good-looking; but if they are well bred they do not roar out, and if they clap their hands it is in such a graceful feminine manner as to produce no effect like your red-faced jolly fellow, always ready with the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.
A few Radicals, delighted at Mr. Wentworth’s programme, were in the hall at the far end. Unfortunately between them and the platform were the enemy, who had rallied round in consequence of the lying hand-bill, and they were led by a full-necked gamekeeper, who roared like a bull of Bashan all the time Mr. Wentworth was speaking, or rather, attempting to speak. Sir Watkin Strahan’s agent was also present, to watch with complacency the result of his trick. The roughs had an idea that the more noise they made the better, and their number was increased by some of the Free and Independent, who had met the Gent from London, as they termed him, at the railway station, and who had been immensely disgusted, that in reply to their hints as to his ordering a supply of beer, he had intimated that so far as he could judge they had had enough already. That was adding insult to injury, and they resented it accordingly.
At all times the Free and Independent are a thirsty race, particularly at election times. In every beer-shop in the borough Wentworth had thus raised up a host of enemies. In many a borough the election has been fought and won by beer alone; there is no other product of man’s industry, unfortunately, such a power, and the publican is not such a fool as he looks.
‘Who do you vote for?’ said I to one of them at the time of an election contest.
‘For them as I gets the most by,’ was his reply.
Frightened at the aspect of affairs, the aged chairman, with a feeble, trembling voice, told his fellow-townsmen that he had the pleasure of introducing to them Mr. Wentworth, a clever journalist from London, whom some of them knew when he was formerly a preacher in that town, and whom he hoped they would listen to that evening with all the respect and attention the occasion demanded. It was with difficulty and not a little interruption that the chairman could say as much, and then he collapsed, wishing that he had stayed at home in the bosom of his family. The London candidate then came forward, to be assailed with a howl of derision from his foes closely packed in the front, while but a faint cheer from the far end was now and then perceptible as the roar was slightly lulled.
‘Gentlemen, pray give Mr. Wentworth a fair hearing,’ cried the chairman, and again the storm grew and the confusion increased. ‘Order! order!’ said the chairman, screaming at the top of his voice. He might just as well have spoken to the winds or waves. Then he grew angry and began to threaten, and that only made matters worse. Wentworth, erect as a statue and with folded arms, calmly surveyed the scene. It was not a pleasant sight; it suggests to one the truth of the Darwinian origin of the human race. In a crowd men act like monkeys. I remember as a boy sneaking into an election crowd and calling a decent, respectable, white-haired old baronet, who had been the Tory representative of the county for a quarter of a century, and whom every decent body respected, the old Benacre Bull (Benacre being the name of the village in which he lived); and everyone repeated the nickname till the old gentleman had to stop speaking, and I have been ashamed of the thing ever since. Had the individual members of that howling mob met the Baronet in the street as he rode by on his favourite chestnut mare, there was not one of them but would have treated him with every appearance of courtesy and respect. There is something very cowardly in an election mob.
Long did the storm roar and rage as Wentworth stood up, the true friend and earnest champion of his rough and unmannerly audience. The chairman in vain appealed for fair play. That was the last thing to be expected at such a time; in vain he addressed them as gentlemen, or friends, or electors, still the storm raged. However, Wentworth was not a man to be put down, and he resolutely maintained his ground.
‘I am come,’ he said, ‘to put you on your guard, to ask you not to be led away by clap-trap, to tell you that all my life I have been fighting on behalf of the people, to lift up my voice on behalf of Peace, Retrenchment and Reform. You have a serious duty to discharge: to send a member to Parliament to help the good old cause of liberty and freedom and human progress.’ Again his voice was lost in an uproar. ‘You have,’ he continued, ‘rights to be won, a victory to achieve.’ Again there was an uproar. ‘You have three candidates before you, one of them a Tory. What, I ask, have Tories done for you and yours?’—more insane clamour. ‘You know better than I do, they are not the friends but the foes of the people, that it is only as you have triumphed over them that you have become free, that the history of Toryism is a record of resistance to popular rights—’ ‘And precious freedom,’ said a socialist, who darted up from the mob, amidst cheers on every side. ‘You Liberals give us liberty to work and slave and starve. What with the landlords who have robbed us of the land which belongs to the people, and what with the millowners who grind us in their mills, and your priests who make earth a hell, and then bid us think of a better land, what have we to thank our leaders, be they Whig, Tory or Radical, for? We are nothing to society, whose laws are framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to the haristocrat or the rich snob, thereby depriving the larger portion of manhood of its rights and chances.’
This was a new doctrine for Sloville, and it was resented accordingly, and the socialist orator was pulled and hustled out of the hall, amidst increasing cries of order and police. The poor frightened chairman bolted out of the chair, much to the delight of the Tory roughs, and then one of the biggest of them moved a resolution to the effect that Mr. Wentworth was not a fit and proper person to represent the borough, and that he be requested to retire, and without calling for a show of hands, or putting the contrary, declared the resolution carried. At length Mr. Wentworth succeeded in getting him to do so, and the motion was lost. However, it was felt to be a farce to attempt to do any sane business that night, and Mr. Wentworth, as he left the hall, was heard loudly asserting that they would hear from him again, whilst from the far end of the hall there came many who claimed to be his supporters, and who assured him that he had but to continue his meetings and he would be sure to win.
He knew better, he knew that the chief agent in elections was money, that the candidate with longest purse generally wins, and money he was not prepared to spend. So it has ever been, and so it will according to present appearances ever be, and must be so, till paid canvassing be put down by Act of Parliament, and election agents’ fees reduced. There is little likelihood of Parliament doing that. Wealthy men like to get into the House, it confers upon them prestige, a seat in Parliament helps the lawyer to a place, a seat in Parliament gives a naval or a military officer another chance of dipping his hand in John Bull’s purse, or it enables a wealthy ignoramus who has managed either by the blessing of God upon his labours, or with the aid of the devil, to become a millionaire, to obtain admission for his sons and daughters into circles in which they would otherwise have no claim. Everybody who is a somebody is anxious to see only men of wealth in Parliament. You may call it the people’s House if you will, it is only the House of the rich people after all. Now and then one of the people finds his way there as a working man, but he is the exception, not the rule, and too often is but the paid agent of the rich man who defrays his expenses, and expects him, with all his show of independence, to support the party, right or wrong. Nor is he much more independent if he is paid by the working men themselves.
‘What impudence! Serve the fellow right,’ said Sir Watkin Strahan, the swell Liberal candidate, as he talked over the matter with his brother swell, the Tory candidate, in the club-room of Sloville next day. ‘What impudence for a London newspaper man to come down here and upset the town! Things have come to a pretty pass, when such fellows are permitted to interfere into our local matters. At any rate, we may agree to get rid of him as a common enemy.’
And for that purpose they entered into an alliance offensive and defensive. Sloville was to be made too hot for Mr. Wentworth—that was understood in every public-house; there was no need to hint any more.
Once upon a time Sir Godfrey Kneller overheard a British working man devoting, as was the wont of British workmen in his day (they don’t do it now, they know better), the various members of his body to perdition. The courtly painter was shocked and scandalized. ‘What!’ said he, ‘do you think that God Almighty will take the trouble to damn a poor wretch like you? The idea is absurd; it is lords and fine gentlemen he will damn, I assure you.’
So it has been with the British public in the choice of a member of Parliament. It is only lords and fine gentlemen, or at any rate rich ones, who have been held to be worthy of being sent by the people to the House of the people. A time will come when the electors will think differently; when they will feel that a newspaper man is more likely to serve them faithfully; more likely to decide rightly in political matters; more likely to study the best interests of the nation than a fine gentleman, who thinks politics a bore, and who only consents to fight the battle of party on the understanding that, whether he wins or loses, he shall not go without his reward.
CHAPTER XVI.
ELECTIONEERING AGAIN.
Elections fifty years ago, if partly a farce, were at any rate picturesque. For a while, everyone seemed insane—the publican, who reaped a golden harvest; the local drapers, who sold the ribbons which formed the colours of the respective parties; the lively stable-keeper; the crowd of idle loafers who were hired to do little more than cheer one candidate and hoot down the other. The town rolled in wealth, which poured in on all sides, and a good deal of it made its way to the electors’ wives and children. The out-voter from the most distant quarter was hunted up and sent down in coaches chartered for the purpose and paid for by the happy candidate or his friends, and every night there was a row and a fight, and a good deal of bad language. All the while there was a perpetual canvass, and the elector was in danger of bursting, as a feeling of his temporary importance grew and swelled within him.
Some refused to vote, as they flattered themselves, vainly, that they should thus offend neither party. The clergy were specially active; nor were their dissenting brethren—with the exception of the Methodists, at that time very cautious in political matters—much behind.
The nomination day was one of great display, and the day of polling was one of still greater, as hourly there was published a state of the poll, and the rival candidates drove from one polling-place to another to cheer the hearts of their supporters, who were many of them so drunk as scarcely to know for whom they were going to vote.
It was often dangerous work taking up the men to the poll through a crowd of heated roughs, who were placed round the booth to increase the difficulties of the intending electors. Meanwhile, all the town was holiday-making and enjoying the sport. Ladies looked down from the first-floors of every house in the neighbourhood to encourage one party and to cheer on its supporters and friends. Voters came in masses, headed by bands playing and with colours flying. Surely there was excitement enough, and folly enough, displayed on the occasion.
Sloville was agitated from top to bottom. Yet some people are never satisfied. They regretted that the harvest was so brief; that it was all over in a day, and did not last, as it did in the good old times, a fortnight; that there was not so much of locking up doubtful voters as of old, and keeping them stowed away drunk till the election was over.
‘There ain’t a voter in the town but what I can account for,’ said Sir Watkin’s agent to his principal. ‘I have got all their names down in black and white. By-the-bye, Sir Watkin, can you let me have another cheque?’
‘I am sorry to hear that. How much do you want?’
‘Another thousand will do it.’
‘Why, you have had one thousand already.’
‘Never mind,’ said the election agent. ‘What’s the good of having money if you don’t spend it. You’ll be sure to get it all back again. Nobody is so popular as a man who spends his money freely.’
‘That may be; but money is hard to get.’
‘Oh, leave that to me,’ said the agent.
‘Well, I suppose I must. But,’ added the Baronet, ‘at any rate you might send up to London and see what the Reform Club will do.’
‘Of course, we must apply to them. A stranger came down from town last night. He has not shown his face, but I’ve pumped the boots at the “Old Swan,” and I find that he is from the Carlton, and has brought a trunk full of sovereigns with him. The voters must have got an inkling of it, and are in ecstasies, and are now keeping off till the last moment. I believe I spotted the fellow in the disguise of an old woman working in the slums this morning’. I could not see his face because he put up his handkerchief; but I do believe it was no other than Shrouder.’
‘Oh, no: it can’t be him. I am told he is at Birmingham.’
‘You may depend upon it, Sir Watkin, he is here, and we shall have the devil to pay.’
‘Devil take him,’ said the Baronet angrily.
‘I must say that Shrouder is a bit of a scamp, and that he is the man for a dirty job. But I am quite a match for him,’ said the agent proudly. ‘At any rate, I am up to his little games. I am really quite delighted to have him as an opponent, and think it complimentary to the borough that he is come here to work it. The Carlton would not have sent him here had they not felt that they were in a desperate state indeed. Ah,’ continued he excitedly, ‘there is nothing like a well-contested election. I am of the opinion of a noble duke. “After all,” said he, “what greater enjoyment can there be in life than to stand a contested election for Yorkshire, and to win it by one?”’
‘Yes; but I ain’t a duke, and have not got a duke’s wealth.’
‘Never mind,’ said the agent; ‘elections don’t happen every day, and when it is over you can economize.’
‘For the first time in my life. That will be hard work.’
In the meanwhile the Baronet continued his canvass, and his carriage with the family arms, and the servants in the family liveries, were incessantly to be seen. He appealed to the Churchmen as one of themselves, to the Dissenters as their friend and ally in the cause of religious freedom. As a landowner he reminded the farmers that they were all in the same boat, and that legislation that was beneficial to the landlord was equally to the advantage of the tenant and the farm-labourer as well. No one was such an ardent admirer of the manufacturing system which had made us a nation of shopkeepers, and he won the hearts of the manufacturers as he told them that to him they seemed as the very pillars of the State. Somehow or other he seemed in a fair way of success, and when he got into a mess his agent was there to pull him out. Thus, one day he happened to call on a humble shopkeeper, who regarded him with natural distrust.
‘Oh, Sir Watkin,’ said he, ‘I am sure I respect you and your family very much; but before I promise you my vote I’d like to hear what are your principles.’
Sir Watkin was about to give the usual and evasive reply, when his agent pulled him back and opened a broadside:
‘His principles. You ask a gentleman like Sir Watkin his principles; go along with you! Things have come to a pretty pass when a gentleman like Sir Watkin must stop in the road to tell you his principles. Come along, Sir Watkin, don’t be losing precious time here.’ And the small shopkeeper felt that he had done wrong, and promised him his vote accordingly.
‘That was a clever trick of yours,’ said Sir Watkin, laughing; ‘but it would not do a second time.’
‘I don’t know, Sir Watkin; it is well to ride the high horse now and then.’
In another case the Baronet did not get off quite so well. Said an operative at one of his meetings:
‘Why are the mothers and sisters of peers, who have done nothing for the public, to be maintained in luxury and at the public expense, while we are obliged to support our poor relatives from our hard-earned wages or see them sent to the workhouse?’
Happily the Baronet’s supporters made such a noise that the reply was unheard.
But there was a stronger influence at work.
‘What is the chief recommendation of Sir Watkin?’ asked one of Mr. Wentworth’s supporters of a friend of the Baronet’s.
‘Money, to be sure. He’s got it here,’ said the Baronet’s supporter, significantly slapping his pocket.
But the Conservative candidate had money as well. The question was, which had the longest purse.
‘And, then, look at the requisition presented to him,’ continued the Baronet’s friend.
‘Got up by his agent, as a matter of course, who was well paid for his work.’
‘Then look at his committee.’
‘All men who are his tradespeople, or tenants and dependents, or flunkies who want to be invited to the Hall. There has been no independent action in the matter.’
‘You are very green if you expect that in Sloville,’ continued the Baronet’s supporter. ‘If you ask nine men out of ten in the borough who they will vote for, the answer will be, “For them as I gets the most by.”’
It was too true. The Sloville people were as selfish as their representatives. They were like the voters of St. Albans, who, when the traffic on the great North Road was ruined by the railway, lamented that they had nothing to sell but their votes; or like the voters of Stafford, who requested Sheridan to vote against reform, as it was by the sale of votes that they chiefly got their money. They in this resembled the illustrious Samuel Johnson, who, upon his friend Thrale demurring to the expense of a contested election for Southwark, remarked: ‘The expense, if it were more, I should wish him to despise. Money is made for such purposes as this.’
It was an Irish M.P. who, when reproached with selling his country, thanked God that he had got a Government to sell. There were many of the Sloville electors who were of the Irishman’s way of thinking.
‘I suppose there is little chance for me,’ said Wentworth, as he walked home with the Unitarian minister—who had a large chapel, generally empty, but which had been crowded to suffocation to hear him utter his political programme. Wentworth, as the papers say, had received quite an ovation. He had come amongst them as a stranger; he had made them all friends; he was an effective speaker, and his audience were of his side in politics. Unfortunately, it consisted largely of excitable young people who had no votes. They had been told to do their duty: to support neither a half-hearted Liberal nor a thorough-going old Tory, but to rally round the gentleman from London. The Unitarian brother heartily endorsed that appeal. He had known Wentworth when he came to preach as a sapling from college. He had sympathized a good deal with him in his view. He had the Christian charity not to judge too harshly of a man who, it seemed to him, had in a sense gone wrong, but who was a man and a brother still.
‘My dear fellow,’ said he to his guest, as they were seated in his sanctum, ornamented with portraits and darkened with the quartos of the old divines, ‘I fear in politics, as in religion, people do much as they please, lecture them as you will. To listen is one thing, to practise what you hear is another. You are for the separation of Church and State, and I support you; but the respected minister who preaches in your old chapel will preach about Christ’s kingdom being not of this world, and then will go and vote for the Whig Baronet because he belongs to such a respectable family, and all the respectable Dissenters in the town will do the same, and when Christmas comes will receive their reward. Their deacons are very good men, but they will never vote to offend their rich customers. I could get a thousand people to come and hear you, to applaud all your hits, to see all your arguments, to endorse all your opinions, but I could not get ten of them to vote for you—that’s quite another thing. It is all very well to applaud Radical sentiments, so long as business is not interfered with.’
‘But the poorer voters—there are a good many of them in the borough, are there not?’
‘Well, they will do as their betters, and you can’t wonder at it. The Tories and the Liberals give away coal and beef and blankets at Christmas. There are lots of Radicals in the town, but they will not vote for a Radical, however much they may cheer a Radical speech. Their wives wouldn’t let them.’
‘I fear Sloville is in a bad way,’ said Wentworth.
‘Well, it is a fair sample of an English borough. I often grieve over it, nevertheless.’
‘Why not make it better?’
‘Ay, that’s the question. I can see no other road to improvement but to go on talking. Liberal ideas spread and light does come, however slowly. Sometimes I almost feel inclined to ask for a drastic reform.’
‘What is that?’
‘To get the borough disfranchised. It would be very easy to get up a petition for bribery and corruption; it would be easier still to prove it.’
‘And then?’
‘The result would be that I should lose my congregation, and be the most unpopular man in the town.’
‘Why not “dare to be a Daniel”?’
‘Because I am poor and have a large family to keep; because I love peace and quietness; because I am a little older than you, know a little more of country life, and feel inclined to make the best of it what little time I have to live. If we are bound to run amuck at all we disapprove of, life, I fear, would be a burden too heavy to be borne. I may be slow, but, at any rate, I am sure.’
‘So you are, old fellow. You were talking just the same way when I came here to preach—it seems to me ages ago—and a good deal has happened since then.’
‘Just what I was going to say,’ said the clerical brother. ‘Politically we have made great progress. We are on the eve of extension of the franchise and vote by ballot, and whoever we return at Sloville—they are safe. I could have got up a petition against bribery and corruption in the place. I ought, perhaps, you say, to have done so. Well, I should have had to spend hundreds of pounds, which I have not got; and if I had succeeded and got the borough disfranchised, I should never have been able to show my face in the town again.’
‘But you would have had another call,’ said Wentworth, with a touch of sarcasm.
‘Not at my time of life. But that is a digression. You London newspaper men may write about bribery and corruption, and you can do good in that way, more even than if you get into Parliament.’
‘I am of the same opinion,’ said Wentworth; ‘but, tell me, is the borough so very bad?’
‘That it is. I can point you to no end of people who take money and are not ashamed. There are gangs of them who meet in public-houses, with whom each party negotiates, and who turn the scale. To-day they are Liberal, to-morrow they will be Conservative. The men are notorious, but they are useful to both parties. The only remedy for that is extension of the suffrage so as to include all householders, and to make bribery impossible by the increase of the number to be bribed.’
‘I would go a step further,’ said Wentworth. ‘In our great cities few of our working classes have that qualification. This raises a demand for a lodger franchise—that is, a fancy franchise—that will give a great opening for ingenuity and fraud, and will only work well for the lawyers, to whom such a state of things will bring plenty of business. No, we must fall back on manhood suffrage. It is the only real and direct qualification. Give the working man a vote, let him feel that he is part and parcel of the community, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh—not a pariah politically, but a brother man—and he will use his vote for his own advantage, and for that of the rest of the community. ‘But, now I think of it, there is a better plan.’
‘What is that?’ said the parson.
‘A money qualification. I was in Jersey last summer, and I found there were a large number of men who voluntarily paid a certain tax in order that they might get a vote. After all, what is Government but a limited liability company for the governing of the nation? In all limited liabilities every man has a vote, but the man who has a larger share than the others has more votes. I would give the vote to every man who cared enough about it to pay for it, and I think that a revenue might be thus raised for the relief of taxation.’
‘Your scheme is excellent, but it will never take.’
‘I fear so, and that is why I fall back on manhood suffrage.’
‘Yes, I quite believe that, but he must have the ballot.’
‘I fear so, though with the ballot we shall still have a good deal of intimidation and bullying. The rich employer, unless he be more Liberal than many of them, will try still to carry his friend or himself, as the case may be. It seems very degrading, however, for a man to vote by ballot, as if he were ashamed of his opinions. I always think of what the great American statesman said when he was in England on that subject.’
‘And what was that? I never heard of it.’
‘When asked at a dinner-party in London whether the ballot prevailed in his State of Virginia, he replied:
‘“I can scarcely believe in all Virginia we have such a fool as to mention even the vote by ballot, and I do not hesitate to say that the adoption of the ballot would make a nation a set of scoundrels if it did not find them so.”’
‘Rather hard, that, on the ballot, seeing that we shall have it very shortly.’
‘Yes, the demand is a popular one with the Liberals, and they will carry it. There is one measure I should like to see, but I fear there is no chance of its coming yet.’
‘What is that?’
‘Annual Parliaments.’
‘Oh,’ exclaimed the parson, ‘that will never do! As it is, the amount of mischief an election does in a borough like ours in the way of creating drunkenness, and bad feeling, and lying, and swearing, is incalculable.’
‘Yes, but if we had an election once a year it would be quite different. In the first place, an election would be a tamer and much more commonplace an affair than it is now. A man would not care to spend much money on elections if his seat was only good for a year, and all that time he would be on his good behaviour—attending in his place, helping on needful reforms.’