“THE ELECTION.
“A POEM IN SEVEN BOOKS.
“Cox represented Aleborough, patriot pure,
On whose tried firmness Europe leant secure,
But, woe to manufactures, land, and stocks!
Europe and Aleborough could not rescue Cox.
At London’s Mansion House, the Poultry’s pride,
Cox in his country’s service din’d and died.
A new election! Glory to the town!
For all there’s profit, and for some renown.
‘The Lion’ opes his hungry jaws, and springs;
And ‘The Black Bear’ seems dancing as he swings.
Before an hour the Patriot Blues are met;
Though Cox is gone, the Cause shall triumph yet,
The sacred cause of right; till it prevails,
The Universe hangs trembling in the scales.
‘The Lion’ for the Blues! our flag’s unfurled,
And Mogg, instead of Cox, shall awe the world.
The big placard, with thunder in its look,
Glares like a page from Destiny’s own book;
The drums and trumpets hired augment their zeal
By strong potations till inspired they reel;
The chaises three, and omnibus immense,
Display ‘the Lion’s’ whole munificence;
And Mogg’s committee-men, a Spartan few,
To save the sinking State would die True Blue.
There Small, who plied dear Mistress Mogg with pills,
Prescribed her husband for a nations’ ills.
But chief of all amid that Senate wise,
Attorney Whisk had heard his country’s cries.“
Meanwhile the “Red” candidate, Frank Vane, has providentially “dropped down from the skies,” primarily for the benefit of the rival attorney Spark:—
“The Reds’ grave Nestor he, a man sedate
As ever filed a bill, or ruled a State.”
A bargain for organizing opposition is arranged between these twain:—
“Ten minutes’ converse fixed the compact’s grounds,
And Frank engaged to pay twelve hundred pounds.”
Next comes the personal canvassing by Squire Mogg, and the purchase of votes by direct flattery and indirect bribery:—
“From house to house Mogg’s well-fed body springs,
Helped by his patriot spirit’s ostrich wings,
With Whisk, and Small, and Snooks, a faithful few
Worth more than all a sultan’s retinue.
They point the path, the missing phrase supply,
Oft prompt a name, and hint with hand or eye,
Back each bold pledge, the fervid speech admire,
And still add fuel to their leader’s fire.”
Now as to the bribery. After purchasing a superabundance of everything he was likely to use (such as a hundredweight of soap), the candidate plunges into eccentricities recognized on these occasions:—
“By ready speech and vow, by flattery soft,
Sometimes by gifts, by promised favours oft,
He prospered well, and many a purchase made,
That helped at once the Cause and quickened Trade.
A stuffed jackdaw upon an upper shelf
Now caught his fancy, now a cup of delf;
He paid three pounds for each. A cat that tore
His fingers cost him ten, a rabbit more.”
All these oddities, besides fifteen old almanacks, white mice, and other worthless articles, were secured to enlist suffrages, and purchased at similarly extravagant rates; a familiar subterfuge for stultifying the Bribery Act:—
“A bishop’s worn-out wig, an infant’s caul,—
Were paid for down, and sent to Harrier Hall.”
“The Rights of Women; or, a View of the Hustings with Female Suffrage, 1853.” George Cruikshank, whose hand was turned to the illustration of nearly every event which occurred in his long career, had produced election satires like his contemporaries at the beginning of the century. Later on, we find him turning his somewhat waning vigour to utilize the agitation for “Female Enfranchisement,” which, as a branch of “Women’s Rights,” appears to have come before the public in 1852-3. A fanciful and farcical prospect of the hustings when lady voters should rule the day presents the rival aspirants pictured as “The Ladies’ Candidate” and “The Gentlemen’s Candidate.” The latter is quite left to desolation. “Screw-driver, the Great Political Economist,” beyond his boardmen, stands alone. Although a placard is mounted advising the electoral community not to vote for “Ignorant puppies,” the “Champion of the Fair” seems to have a lively time of it; Cupid, or his representative, upholds the appeal, “Vote for Darling and Parliamentary Balls Once a Week;” the committee and supporters of Sir Charles are ladies, apparelled in the height of the fashions for 1852. Behind the tigerish candidate for parliamentary honours is a group of melancholy troubadours, travestied much as Cruikshank and Thackeray used to depict those worthy guitar-strummers at the now-obsolete “Beulah Spa.” Great unanimity prevails in the mob; not only are the newly enfranchised fair ones giving their own votes, they go farther, and coerce the sterner sex, for all the well-regulated males are brought forward, under the influence of beauty, to record their votes for the chosen of the ladies. On the extreme left is seen one forlorn individual who has evidently lingering doubts of Sir Charles’s programme, or an inclination to support the political economist, “Ugly Old Stingy;” but his wife is forcibly arguing him into an obedient frame of mind. The voters all carry bouquets and wear extensive favours. “Husband and Wife” voters are arrived first at the poll; and, following a mounted champion “in armour clad” with a heart for his device, comes the last section of “Sweetheart Voters,” the “male things” docilely following the mistresses of their affections. “The Friends of Sir Charles Darling are Requested to Meet this Evening at the Assembly Rooms—the Hon. Mrs. Manley in the Chair. Tea and Coffee at 7 o’clock.” Even Cruikshank’s imagination had not risen to the elevation of lady candidates for senatorial as well as electoral honours, or he would doubtless have favoured the public with some original (pictorial) views on this question.
The general election which took place in July, 1857, found two famous men in the annals of literature contesting for senatorial honours, when W. M. Thackeray and his friend James Hannay were hopefully canvassing, on opposite political platforms, two constituencies, the former for Oxford, the latter for Dumfries, which his father, the Scotch banker, had unsuccessfully fought in the Conservative interest at the successive general elections of 1832 and 1835.
James Hannay again discovered, in 1857, that the electors of Dumfries remained consistent to Whig principles. The novelist and essayist was beaten at the hustings; but he has left something more characteristic than the average of parliamentary orations in the delightful essay upon “Electioneering,” contributed to the Quarterly Review, with the writing of which the defeated candidate immediately consoled himself for his recent disappointment.
The canvassing rejoiced Hannay’s enthusiastic temperament. The varieties of the genus voter are so infinite that his eye for character was constantly studying original types; he discovered that the work is hard, and that the qualities a good canvasser must combine are as various as the dispositions he has to encounter.
“He must have unwearied activity, imperturbable good temper, popular manners, and a wonderful memory. Every person who has made a trial of electioneering can testify to the exhaustion and fatigue of the first canvass, the swarm of new faces seen and flitting through the mind in strange confusion, the impossibility of distinguishing between the voter who had a leaning to you, but doubted your fidelity to the Maynooth Grant, and his next-door neighbour who was coming round to you against his former prejudice, because of your freedom from religious bigotry. The mental eye wearies of the kaleidoscope that has been turning before it for hours. The hand aches with incessant shaking. The head aches with incessant observation. You fling yourself wearied at nightfall into an easy chair in your committee-room, and plunge eagerly into sherry and soda-water. You could lie down and sleep like a general after a battle. But your committee is about to meet, as a staring blue bill on the hotel wall informs the public; and a score of people have news for you. Tomkins, the hatter, is wavering—a man who can influence four or five; the enemy have set going a story that you beat your wife, and you must have a placard out showing that you are a bachelor. A gang are drinking champagne at the Blue Boar (one of the enemy’s houses), fellows whose potations are usually of the poorest kind; your opinion is wanted on a new squib; the manager of the theatre is below, waiting to see if you will patronize his theatre with an early ‘bespeak night,’ and whether you will have ‘Black-Eyed Susan,’ or ‘Douglas;’ a deputation of proprietors of donkeys wants to hear your views on the taxation of French asses’ milk. Who, under such circumstances, can retain in his memory all the details of the canvass of the day?”
However galling the temporary disappointment experienced by Hannay and Thackeray respectively, their readers had no reason to regret that, as the great novelist wrote, philosophically accepting his defeat, “they were sent back to take their places with their pens and ink at their desks, and leave their successful opponents to a business which they understood better.” The test of tact and temper was certainly applied to the two novelists when competing for seats in the Commons.
Thackeray aspired to take the place in Parliament for the city of Oxford which his friend Neate, at the time Professor of Political Economy in that university, had lost for an alleged contravention of the Corrupt Practices Act, thus described by Thackeray at the hustings: “He was found guilty of twopennyworth of bribery which he never committed.” This was Thackeray’s ostensible motive for his candidature: “A Parliament which has swallowed so many camels, strained at that little gnat, and my friend, your representative, the very best man you could find to represent you, was turned back, and you were left without a man. I cannot hope, I never thought, to equal him; I only came forward at a moment when I felt it necessary that some one professing his principles, and possessing your confidence, should be ready to step into the gap which he had made.”
The author of the electioneering squib directed for “Young Liberal Glory” as against “Old Tory Glory” in 1837, was, twenty years later, found consistently advocating the Liberal principles which had inspired his early writings in the Constitutional. Thackeray appeared as an advocate of the ballot, was “for having people amused after they had done their worship on a Sunday;” while, “as for triennial Parliaments, if the constituents desire them, I am for them.”
The following passages from his address enlightened the electors of Oxford upon Thackeray’s political convictions:—
“I would use my best endeavours not merely to enlarge the constituencies, but to popularize the Government of this country. With no feeling but that of goodwill towards those leading aristocratic families who are administering the chief offices of the State, I believe it could be benefited by the skill and talent of persons less aristocratic, and that the country thinks so likewise.... The usefulness of a member of Parliament is best tested at home; and should you think fit to elect me as your representative, I promise to use my utmost endeavour to increase and advance the social happiness, the knowledge, and the power of the people.”
One point in his speech at the hustings, a characteristic allusion to the paramount influence of the Marlborough dukes, for many generations masters of the Oxford elections, was in the true Titmarshian vein, and worthy of the occasion:—“I hear that not long since—in the memory of many now alive—this independent city was patronized by a great university, and that a great duke, who lived not very far from here, at the time of the election used to put on his boots, and ride down and order the freemen of Oxford to elect a member for him.” By a curious coincidence, not altogether reassuring, Thackeray’s reputation at Oxford had somehow failed to reach the majority with whom he was thrown into contact, as one of his committee-men has assured the writer. They mainly asserted that “he could not speak,” to which the candidate retorted “he knew that, but he could write.” Unaccountable as it appears, the fame of his writings had not, in those days, penetrated to any extent this short distance, as the novelist learned by direct and disenchanting experience. He said, in his valedictory remarks, “Perhaps I thought my name was better known than it is.” This illusion, natural in itself, ought to have been dispelled by a former revelation of unsuspected ignorance, which, though unflattering to the author, had, as related by the sufferer, its ludicrous side. Thackeray had betaken himself to Oxford on a previous occasion, with the intention of addressing his lectures on “The English Humorists” to the rising youth at Alma Mater, and, as it was necessary to obtain the licence of the university authorities, he waited upon the chancellor’s resident deputy, who received him blandly.
“Pray, what can I do to serve you, sir?” inquired the functionary. “My name is Thackeray.” “So I see by this card.” “I seek permission to lecture within the precincts.” “Ah! you are a lecturer. What subjects do you undertake—religious or political?” “Neither; I am a literary man.” “Have you written anything?” “Yes; I am the author of ‘Vanity Fair.’” “I presume a Dissenter. Has that anything to do with John Bunyan’s book?” “Not exactly. I have also written ‘Pendennis.’” “Never heard of those works; but no doubt they are proper books.” “I have also contributed to Punch.” “Punch! I have heard of that. Is it not a ribald publication?”
On his reception in Oxford in the character of a canvasser, Thackeray addressed the electors with sturdy independence, beyond electioneering persuasive beguilements:—“You know whether I have acted honestly towards you; and you on the other side will say whether I ever solicited a vote when I knew that vote was promised to my opponent; or whether I have not always said, ‘Sir, keep your word. Here is my hand on it. Let us part good friends.’” Although beaten by the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, Thackeray retained his good humour, energetically enjoining the extension of courtesy to his successful opponent and to the opposition party. A cry of “Bribery” being raised against them, he continued: “Don’t cry out bribery. If you know of it, prove it; but, as I am innocent of bribery myself, I do not choose to fancy that other men are not equally loyal and honest.” He attributed his defeat to the advanced views he avowed—and which, as he asserted, “he would not blink to be made a duke or a marquis to-morrow”—on the question of “allowing a man to have harmless pleasures when he had done his worship on Sundays. I expected to have a hiss, but they have taken a more dangerous shape—the shape of slander. Those gentlemen who will take the trouble to read my books—and I should be glad to have as many of you for subscribers as will come forward—will be able to say whether there is anything in them that should not be read by any one’s children, or my own, or by any Christian man.”
The most characteristic anecdote which has survived of this interesting incident in Thackeray’s experience as an “electioneerer,” exhibits him in a thoroughly John Bull attitude. While looking out of the hotel window, amused at the humours of the scene, in which he was only the second performer, a passing crowd, from hooting, proceeded to rough-handling, and the supporters of Mr. Cardwell, being in the minority against their assailants, would have been badly maltreated, but for Thackeray’s starting up in the greatest possible excitement, and, rushing downstairs, notwithstanding the efforts to detain him of more hardened electioneers, who evidently were of opinion that a trifling correction of the opposite party might be beneficial pour encourager les autres; he was not to be deterred, but, expressing in strong language his opinion of such unmanly behaviour, he hurled himself into the thick of the fray; and, awful spectacle for his party! his tall form—Thackeray, be it remembered, stood upwards of 6ft. 2in.—was next seen towering above the crowd, dealing about him right and left with frantic energy in defence of his opponent’s partisans and in defiance of his own friends.