Crying for the Light Volume Ii Part 7

'We shall have to _finesse_ a bit,' said Sir Watkin's agent and confidential man. 'Suppose you placard yourself as the working-man's friend.'

'Capital!' said Sir Watkin delightedly.

'Suppose we send agents to break up all his meetings, so that he can't be heard.'

'A capital idea!'

'Suppose we get the Rev. George Windbag, the leading Dissenting minister in the town, to make a grand speech at our first meeting, to talk of the need of unity and the danger of splitting up the Liberal Party. We can secure the man at once, Sir Watkin, if you will but ask him to dinner at the Hall. There is not a bigger tuft-hunter in the county, and he has immense weight with the respectable shop-keeping cla.s.s.'

'Capital!' repeated the Baronet.

'And suppose we get one or two Chartists from town. They will be sure to come. Pay them well, and feed them well, and you can do anything with them.'

'Right you are,' said the Baronet.

'And we might get a Socialist or Republican down.'

'What for?'

'To divide the Rads.'

'But I hate them like poison,' said the Baronet.

'Never mind,' said the agent. 'You need not appear in the matter. Leave them to me. I know how to secure them. This ain't the first time I've been electioneering.'

'So it seems,' said the Baronet. 'All I say is, keep me out of a sc.r.a.pe.'

'That is not quite so easy as it was. Yet the thing can be done; Parliament, naturally being in favour of returning rich men to Parliament, is never much in earnest in attempting to put down bribery and corruption.'

'Ah! my father had never much difficulty in securing his seat,' said the Baronet in a tone of regret.

'Yes; but he spent a good deal of money, as I have heard.'

'That was true; but he got it all back again.'

'Yes, he had an easy life of it. I was looking over Oldmixon, and he thus describes the borough as it was in the good old times. You recollect the town sent two members till the Reform Bill of 1831 robbed us of one?'

'I have heard my father say so; but read what Oldmixon says.'

'"SLOVILLE.-This is a large town, containing more than a thousand houses, where the right of election is confined to a corporation of twenty-four individuals, who elect each other. The inhabitants have no share in choosing the members or magistrates, and as all these corporations-possessing exclusive rights of electing Members of Parliament-have some powerful n.o.bleman or opulent commoner who finds it his interest to take the lead and management of their political influence, the election of the members is directed by this patron. The Earl of Fee-Fum, who has a seat at Marbourne, within seven miles of the town, and Watkin Strahan, Esq., of Elm Hall, whose residence and estate are also in the neighbourhood, have first command of this corporation."

At that time the number of votes, according to Oldmixon, was twenty-four.'

'And now there are a thousand electors on the register. It is a pity we ever had Parliamentary reform.'

'Sir Watkin, you are a Whig, are you not?' said the agent.

'Oh yes, of course I am. That was only my fun.'

'It would not be fun if the people heard it.'

'No, perhaps not. But we are talking privately and confidentially.'

'Of course we are.'

'But to business. How do matters stand?'

'It is impossible to be better, or, rather, it would have been impossible. I've been nursing the borough a long while, but now the appearance of another Liberal candidate will give the Conservative a chance such as he otherwise would not have had.'

'Yes, that is pretty clear. But how can we get rid of this Wentworth?'

'Leave that to me. We can make it pretty hot for him. Just at this time the town is unusually full of roughs, and I know where to lay my hand on them. Brown, the Conservative agent, told me yesterday that he could always get a bigger lot of roughs than the Liberals. "I ain't quite sure of that," said I to myself, "as I think this Mr. Wentworth will find out before we are done with him." Of course, he has got no money?'

'Well, I don't suppose he has,' said Sir Watkin; 'he is only a newspaper writer. Just like the impudence of his cla.s.s. They talk about the fourth estate, and think themselves equals to Kings, Lords and Commons.

However, we are right as far as the press is concerned. We have only one paper here, and that is ours. The proprietor is hard up. He owes me a lot of money, and he knows on which side his bread is b.u.t.tered.'

The next day Wentworth came down to hold the first public meeting, and that same day every voter had a bill-and a good many who were not besides-as follows:

TO THE RADICAL AND LIBERAL ELECTORS OF THE

BOROUGH OF SLOVILLE.

ATTEND THE

MEETING AT THE TOWN HALL,

ON THURSDAY EVENING, At 7.45 sharp, To prevent the Election of the Tory Candidate.

The placard was not in vain. The good seed had been sown on fruitful soil. The chairman, an old gentleman with whom Wentworth was familiar when he was a student, was quite unequal to the occasion, and he gave in at the first sign of a squall.

Let me recommend all Parliamentary candidates, when there is a contested election, to be very particular as to their chairman. An immense deal depends upon him. He ought to have a personal knowledge of all the individuals in the meeting, and an imperturbable good nature. He ought to have an enthusiastic prepossession in favour of his candidate. He ought to have a voice that could be heard above the roaring of any storm.

He should have an intuitive faculty at feeling the pulse of the meeting.

He should be a master of making an adversary look ridiculous. He should have the physical power to sit out any time in the midst of any row, no matter how noisy the crowd, and how heated the atmosphere. His tact should be great. He should have immense personal influence in the place.

Above all, he should never lose his temper or have recourse to threats, unless he has an overwhelming majority on his side.

When Wentworth appeared upon the scene he saw at a glance that his enemies were far more numerous than his friends. His chairman, for instance, had taken no trouble about the meeting. He had not even brought a friend with him, and he and Wentworth had the platform almost entirely to themselves. This was an initial mistake. Learn of me, O candidate, and never attend a public meeting unless you can fill the platform with out-and-out adherents; men who will applaud in season and out; men whose solid front will impose on the ignorant and thoughtless; men whose countenances will express the utmost rapture at your stalest jokes or feeblest witticisms, who will seem absorbed and riveted by your dreariest display of statistics, and who will cheer the louder the more you stumble and get confused. Canning understood how useful aid of that sort was to a speaker when he wrote:

'Cheer him when his audience flag, Brother Riley, Brother Bragg; Cheer him when he hobbles vilely, Brother Bragg and Brother Riley.'

Again, another secret in the way of successful public meetings is to have beside the chairman, and in front of the audience, a jolly looking fellow always ready to laugh. We English are an imitative people. One laugher on the platform will make many laugh below. Laughter is contagious. One man laughs because he sees another doing so, and in nine cases out of ten at a public meeting if you ask him he can give no better reason. Ladies are all very well in front, if the meeting is harmonious, and they are well dressed and good-looking; but if they are well bred they do not roar out, and if they clap their hands it is in such a graceful feminine manner as to produce no effect like your red-faced jolly fellow, always ready with the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.

A few Radicals, delighted at Mr. Wentworth's programme, were in the hall at the far end. Unfortunately between them and the platform were the enemy, who had rallied round in consequence of the lying hand-bill, and they were led by a full-necked gamekeeper, who roared like a bull of Bashan all the time Mr. Wentworth was speaking, or rather, attempting to speak. Sir Watkin Strahan's agent was also present, to watch with complacency the result of his trick. The roughs had an idea that the more noise they made the better, and their number was increased by some of the Free and Independent, who had met the Gent from London, as they termed him, at the railway station, and who had been immensely disgusted, that in reply to their hints as to his ordering a supply of beer, he had intimated that so far as he could judge they had had enough already.

That was adding insult to injury, and they resented it accordingly.

At all times the Free and Independent are a thirsty race, particularly at election times. In every beer-shop in the borough Wentworth had thus raised up a host of enemies. In many a borough the election has been fought and won by beer alone; there is no other product of man's industry, unfortunately, such a power, and the publican is not such a fool as he looks.

'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.