The son of a famous financier was once up for election to a fashionable club, and all his friends in the club attended to support him. In those days the ballot took place at night, and as eleven o’clock approached the club became abnormally full; indeed, members came into the drawing-room, where the election was held, who had not been seen in the club for years. It was, however, soon evident to the proposer and seconder that the crowd of members present had not come to support their candidate. Realizing the situation, they took their stand by the ballot-box, and as each of the strangers stepped up to record his vote, one said to the other: “Here comes another assassin.”
At White’s, blackballing was carried to such an extreme about the year 1833 that the rules had to be altered, and one blackball was no longer allowed to exclude.
At that time the system of rejection had been carried to a ludicrous pitch. “We must pill that man,” a member would say; “it will do him good.” “We really cannot have that fellow,” said another; “I saw him wearing a black tie in the evening.” Sometimes there were personal grudges or family quarrels which kept out candidates for years.
In the early part of the last century, Charles Greville and Lord George Bentinck had some difference about a turf transaction. Greville was anxious for the election of Viscount Brackley, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere; Lord George was equally determined that Viscount Brackley, as Greville’s nominee, should remain outside the club. He never failed to attend the ballot and drop in his black ball.
Lord George was accustomed to take his dinner very late. He usually dined at the club at eleven o’clock, at which hour the ballots also took place. On one occasion, when Lord Brackley was up for election, Greville was delighted to find, as he thought, that Lord George was for once absent. “It’s all right this time,” said he, as the ballot-box was brought to him; “Bentinck’s downstairs at dinner, and I shall get Brackley in at last.” “Will you?” said a voice near him. He had not noticed Lord George sitting beside him on the sofa.
People who ought to know better sometimes exhibit the most lax conduct in lending their aid to the candidature of disagreeable individuals, whom for some reason or other it may suit them to please. On one occasion the members of a certain somewhat exclusive club were much disgusted at the conduct of a newly-elected member. It was eventually discovered that the objectionable individual had been proposed by a prominent political personage, whose candidate could not very well have been rejected. The matter created great irritation, and it was eventually hinted to the proposer that the new member was anything but popular.
“He’s a disagreeable man, I know; but then, you see, it doesn’t matter, for I so seldom use the club,” was the grossly egotistical reply. No wonder the political party of which this individual is considered one of the shining lights has of late years had a hard struggle to hold its own!
One of the most original reasons for putting down a candidate was that given by a somewhat unpopular member of a certain club. An acquaintance, looking through the candidates’ book, observed that a name recently inscribed was that of an individual whom his proposer had always denounced as a regular club bore.
“Why ever did you put him down?” asked the astonished member. “I thought you particularly disliked him.”
“Certainly I do,” was the reply; “and as, above all things, I wish to prevent his getting in here, I thought the best way of insuring his being pilled would be to propose him myself, being well aware that anyone whom I may support will have but a very slight chance of escaping a good many black balls.”