Is Liberal or Illiberal the proper term for such a Candidate?
Think, and judge for yourselves!
DOWN WITH THE INCOME TAX!
EAST WORCESTERSHIRE ELECTION.
Mr. CALTHORPE’S COMMITTEE earnestly request all their friends to refrain from any allusion, much less retort, to the scandalous and malicious production issued by the other side. The party who can thus, for electioneering purposes, malign and insult their neighbours and fellow-townsmen, and what is infinitely worse, their townsmen’s wives and daughters, may be safely left to the contempt of all right-minded men of all parties, which cannot fail to be their natural reward.
Mr. Calthorpe’s Committee Room, Old Bush Inn, Dudley, 17th February, 1859.
EAST WORCESTERSHIRE ELECTION.
February 22nd, 1859. This was considered to be the most severe contest, for a single seat, which had ever taken place in this division of the county. There had not been a contest at all during the last 22 years in this division; and it had become a matter of doubtful speculation as to which party, Tory or Liberal, could carry the day. The Tories had from almost time immemorial held possession of Worcestershire, both East and West, and it required a stout heart and a willing hand to engage in this political strife. The new coming Reform Bill was selected as the battle ground for the Liberals, and the Tories stuck to their old traditions, and relied upon their usual coercion, and their alleged doings for the county in the past. So far as Dudley was concerned, we had to fight under manifold and peculiar conditions, for the “head and front” of the old Tory party had but recently forsaken their old love and “gone over into the camp of the rabble herd,” to help the Radicals in the two last Borough Elections to defeat the hated and intolerable territorial influence; so that the county electors in Dudley, both Liberals and Tories, were all sailing in the same boat against the Tory county influence. Men had to decide upon voting for the pocket or the conscience; and singular indeed was this mixed medley of Tories, Liberals, Conservatives, old Whigs, hot-heated Radicals, and seditious Chartists, hurrying with bated breath to the same Poll. There was much satisfaction felt on this occasion that we had two highly respectable gentlemen as our candidates; the Honourable F. H. W. G. Calthorpe coming forward as the Liberal candidate, whilst the Tory interest was endorsed by the candidature of Mr. John Slaney Pakington, son of Sir John Pakington, a Worcestershire man. The freeholders in Dudley were placed on the horns of a dilemma, by the fact that the Tory, or Badger party as it was called, on this occasion adhered to the traditions of their party, although at two recent Borough elections they had renounced their political opinions, and joined hand and glove with Mr. Sheridan, and the Radicals and Chartists.
The Liberals, the Whigs, and the Liberal Conservatives, energetically espoused the cause of Mr. Calthorpe, and were successful, with the county, in placing him at the head of the poll by a majority of 321 votes.