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?’