In the same speech the case of New Romney was described—"the worst of all" the Cinque Ports, where the number of freemen, twenty-one at the passing of the Reform Act (of 1832), had fallen to eight—
"the only town in England in which six gentlemen elected themselves to every office, appointed themselves magistrates, let the whole of the valuable town properties exclusively to themselves, audited their own accounts, and never showed a balance sheet."
A cartoon in one of the comic papers displayed one selfsame and highly
complacent person, first as "Our Grocer," then as "Our Mayor," then as
"The Gentleman who elects our Mayor," "The Gentleman who disposes of our
Public Trusts," "The Gentleman who benefits by our Public Trusts, "and
"The Committee appointed annually to look into the Accounts of the
Gentleman who disposes of our Public Trusts."
Another of Sir Charles's topics in 1875 was the working of the Ballot Act. 'A dull speech on a dull subject,' it secured, however, the appointment of a Committee to inquire whether secrecy of voting was not menaced by the form in which ballot papers were issued. But the main object of his activity in the field of electoral reform was redistribution, and this object was the hardest to attain, because more than 400 members of the House sat for constituencies not numerically entitled to representation. The over-represented had a majority of two-thirds in Parliament, and this was a tremendous vested interest to assail. Still, the whole Liberal party was now committed to the support of his principle.
The same general support was given to his Bill 'known as the Allotments Extension Bill, to provide for the letting to cottagers of lands held for the benefit of the poor'—a scheme originally proposed by Mill.
'My Parliamentary Session of 1875 was my most successful.
'My motion on Ballot Act,
" " " Unreformed Boroughs,
" " " Redistribution,
" Bill " Allotments,
were all four great successes, and so spoken of in all the papers. On
the first I got my way. On the second I prepared it for next year, and
on the third and fourth I got the support of the whole Liberal party
and most of the Press.'
There are a good many pleasant stories of what seems to have been a very easy-going Session of Parliament:
'At this time Plimsoll's name was in every mouth, and the only formidable opposition in the House was that which he offered to the Government in the sailors' name. Old Adderley, afterwards Lord Norton, who was at the Board of Trade, assured me, in his solid hatred of the man, that when Plimsoll told the House of Commons that he had stopped a fearful shipwreck by taking a telegram to the Board of Trade at 3 a.m., and ringing for the porter and sending it then and there to the President's house, Plimsoll had neglected to state that this telegram had reached him at five o'clock in the afternoon, and had been kept back by him till the middle of the night for the production of a sensation….
'The other hero of the Session was Major O'Gorman, a hero of four-and- twenty stone, who on two occasions at least made the House laugh as they never laughed before, nor have laughed since. We used at first to lose him at a quarter to twelve each night, as he had to get to the Charing Cross Hotel, where he lived on the fourth storey, before the lift had gone up for the last time. But later in the Session we managed to keep him till 1.15, for he made the brilliant discovery that the luggage lift, which just suited him, was available till 1.30.