Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 2 [of 3]

by J. Ewing Ritchie

‘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.