It was roses, roses all the way. But that was some time ago in the case of Mr. Isaac Hoyle, late Liberal Member for the Heywood Division of Lancashire. He was asked to support Mr. Snape the Liberal Candidate at this election, but he refused to "take any part in sending Mr. Snape to Parliament, charged with duties for which, as I think, his votes show he has no qualification." The receipt of this letter caused the greatest excitement in the Division, and at the Heywood Reform Club Mr. Hoyle's portrait has been smashed to pieces and thrown out of the building. It is stated also that his subscriptions are being returned. Clearly a case of adding Hoyle to the flames of controversy.
Mr. Thomas Milvain, the Conservative who vainly endeavoured to oust Sir Wilfrid Lawson from the Cockermouth Division, was once a great boxer—a heavy-weight champion amongst amateurs, if my memory serves me. In the course of his late contest he addressed a hostile meeting at Dearham. Many questions were put to him. One was, "What weight was ta when thoo was a boxer?" Mr. Milvain's answer was, "I was 13 st. 8 lb. That was twenty-eight years ago, and I have not had the gloves on since." (Laughter and cheers, and a Voice: "Would you like to have them on now?") "I am quite prepared to give any of you a turn, if you want one." (Great laughter and cheers.)
When a Candidate, heckled by enemies, finds
All his efforts to keep the place still vain,
Let him try one resource ere he pulls down the blinds,
And conform to the model of Milvain.
For when politics palled he referred to the years
When his skill as a boxer was lauded;
An allusion to gloves won him laughter and cheers,
Which was more than the "point of his jaw" did.
In a provincial contemporary I find the following startling information, under the heading, "Mothers of Great Men." Schumann's mother was gifted in music; Chopin's mother, like himself, was very delicate; Wordsworth's mother had a character as peculiar as that of her gifted son; Raleigh said that he owed all his politeness of deportment to his mother. There are other statements about other mothers, but those I have quoted may suffice in the meantime. What I want to know is why any reasonable human being should care, or be supposed to care, about these ridiculous scraps of information collected from a rubbish-heap of useless knowledge. Here is another that I cannot leave out: Haydn dedicated one of his most important instrumental compositions to his mother. Amazing.
In the parish of Swaffham Bulbeck (Phœbus, what a name!) there are apparently two bridges. At the adjourned quarterly meeting of the Parish Council the other day, Mr. C. P. Fyson in the chair, "it was reported that Bridge No. 1 required to be re-built.... The Chairman reported Bridge No. 2 required the same treatment, and eventually the whole matter was adjourned"—presumably in the hope that in the interval the bridges would rebuild themselves.