A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 80

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 80

Next comes the personal canvassing by Squire Mogg, and the purchase of

votes by direct flattery and indirect bribery:--

 

“From house to house Mogg’s well-fed body springs,

Helped by his patriot spirit’s ostrich wings,

With Whisk, and Small, and Snooks, a faithful few

Worth more than all a sultan’s retinue.

They point the path, the missing phrase supply,

Oft prompt a name, and hint with hand or eye,

Back each bold pledge, the fervid speech admire,

And still add fuel to their leader’s fire.”

 

Now as to the bribery. After purchasing a superabundance of everything

he was likely to use (such as a hundredweight of soap), the candidate

plunges into eccentricities recognized on these occasions:--

 

“By ready speech and vow, by flattery soft,

Sometimes by gifts, by promised favours oft,

He prospered well, and many a purchase made,

That helped at once the Cause and quickened Trade.

A stuffed jackdaw upon an upper shelf

Now caught his fancy, now a cup of delf;

He paid three pounds for each. A cat that tore

His fingers cost him ten, a rabbit more.”

 

* * * * *

 

All these oddities, besides fifteen old almanacks, white mice, and

other worthless articles, were secured to enlist suffrages, and

purchased at similarly extravagant rates; a familiar subterfuge for

stultifying the Bribery Act:--

 

“A bishop’s worn-out wig, an infant’s caul,--

Were paid for down, and sent to Harrier Hall.”

 

“The Rights of Women; or, a View of the Hustings with Female Suffrage,

1853.” George Cruikshank, whose hand was turned to the illustration

of nearly every event which occurred in his long career, had produced

election satires like his contemporaries at the beginning of the

century. Later on, we find him turning his somewhat waning vigour

to utilize the agitation for “Female Enfranchisement,” which, as a

branch of “Women’s Rights,” appears to have come before the public

in 1852-3. A fanciful and farcical prospect of the hustings when lady

voters should rule the day presents the rival aspirants pictured as

“The Ladies’ Candidate” and “The Gentlemen’s Candidate.” The latter

is quite left to desolation. “Screw-driver, the Great Political

Economist,” beyond his boardmen, stands alone. Although a placard is

mounted advising the electoral community not to vote for “Ignorant

puppies,” the “Champion of the Fair” seems to have a lively time of it;

Cupid, or his representative, upholds the appeal, “Vote for Darling

and Parliamentary Balls Once a Week;” the committee and supporters

of Sir Charles are ladies, apparelled in the height of the fashions

for 1852. Behind the tigerish candidate for parliamentary honours

is a group of melancholy troubadours, travestied much as Cruikshank

and Thackeray used to depict those worthy guitar-strummers at the

now-obsolete “Beulah Spa.” Great unanimity prevails in the mob; not

only are the newly enfranchised fair ones giving their own votes, they

go farther, and coerce the sterner sex, for all the well-regulated

males are brought forward, under the influence of beauty, to record

their votes for the chosen of the ladies. On the extreme left is

seen one forlorn individual who has evidently lingering doubts of

Sir Charles’s programme, or an inclination to support the political

economist, “Ugly Old Stingy;” but his wife is forcibly arguing him

into an obedient frame of mind. The voters all carry bouquets and wear

extensive favours. “Husband and Wife” voters are arrived first at the

poll; and, following a mounted champion “in armour clad” with a heart

for his device, comes the last section of “Sweetheart Voters,” the

“male things” docilely following the mistresses of their affections.

“The Friends of Sir Charles Darling are Requested to Meet this Evening

at the Assembly Rooms--the Hon. Mrs. Manley in the Chair. Tea and

Coffee at 7 o’clock.” Even Cruikshank’s imagination had not risen to

the elevation of lady candidates for senatorial as well as electoral

honours, or he would doubtless have favoured the public with some

original (pictorial) views on this question.

 

The general election which took place in July, 1857, found two famous

men in the annals of literature contesting for senatorial honours, when

W. M. Thackeray and his friend James Hannay were hopefully canvassing,

on opposite political platforms, two constituencies, the former

for Oxford, the latter for Dumfries, which his father, the Scotch

banker, had unsuccessfully fought in the Conservative interest at the

successive general elections of 1832 and 1835.

 

James Hannay again discovered, in 1857, that the electors of Dumfries

remained consistent to Whig principles. The novelist and essayist was

beaten at the hustings; but he has left something more characteristic

than the average of parliamentary orations in the delightful essay

upon “Electioneering,” contributed to the _Quarterly Review_, with the

writing of which the defeated candidate immediately consoled himself

for his recent disappointment.

 

The canvassing rejoiced Hannay’s enthusiastic temperament. The

varieties of the genus voter are so infinite that his eye for character

was constantly studying original types; he discovered that the work

is hard, and that the qualities a good canvasser must combine are as

various as the dispositions he has to encounter.

 

“He must have unwearied activity, imperturbable good temper,

popular manners, and a wonderful memory. Every person who has

made a trial of electioneering can testify to the exhaustion

and fatigue of the first canvass, the swarm of new faces

seen and flitting through the mind in strange confusion, the

impossibility of distinguishing between the voter who had a

leaning to you, but doubted your fidelity to the Maynooth

Grant, and his next-door neighbour who was coming round to you

against his former prejudice, because of your freedom from

religious bigotry. The mental eye wearies of the kaleidoscope

that has been turning before it for hours. The hand aches with

incessant shaking. The head aches with incessant observation.

You fling yourself wearied at nightfall into an easy chair

in your committee-room, and plunge eagerly into sherry and

soda-water. You could lie down and sleep like a general after

a battle. But your committee is about to meet, as a staring

blue bill on the hotel wall informs the public; and a score of

people have news for you. Tomkins, the hatter, is wavering--a

man who can influence four or five; the enemy have set going a

story that you beat your wife, and you must have a placard out

showing that you are a bachelor. A gang are drinking champagne

at the Blue Boar (one of the enemy’s houses), fellows whose

potations are usually of the poorest kind; your opinion is

wanted on a new squib; the manager of the theatre is below,

waiting to see if you will patronize his theatre with an early

‘bespeak night,’ and whether you will have ‘Black-Eyed Susan,’

or ‘Douglas;’ a deputation of proprietors of donkeys wants to

hear your views on the taxation of French asses’ milk. Who,

under such circumstances, can retain in his memory all the

details of the canvass of the day?”

 

However galling the temporary disappointment experienced by Hannay and

Thackeray respectively, their readers had no reason to regret that, as

the great novelist wrote, philosophically accepting his defeat, “they

were sent back to take their places with their pens and ink at their

desks, and leave their successful opponents to a business which they

understood better.” The test of tact and temper was certainly applied

to the two novelists when competing for seats in the Commons.

 

Thackeray aspired to take the place in Parliament for the city of

Oxford which his friend Neate, at the time Professor of Political

Economy in that university, had lost for an alleged contravention of

the Corrupt Practices Act, thus described by Thackeray at the hustings:

“He was found guilty of twopennyworth of bribery which he never

committed.” This was Thackeray’s ostensible motive for his candidature:

“A Parliament which has swallowed so many camels, strained at that

little gnat, and my friend, your representative, the very best man you

could find to represent you, was turned back, and you were left without

a man. I cannot hope, I never thought, to equal him; I only came

forward at a moment when I felt it necessary that some one professing

his principles, and possessing your confidence, should be ready to step

into the gap which he had made.”

 

The author of the electioneering squib directed for “Young Liberal

Glory” as against “Old Tory Glory” in 1837, was, twenty years later,

found consistently advocating the Liberal principles which had inspired

his early writings in the _Constitutional_. Thackeray appeared as an

advocate of the ballot, was “for having people amused after they had

done their worship on a Sunday;” while, “as for triennial Parliaments,

if the constituents desire them, I am for them.”

 

The following passages from his address enlightened the electors of

Oxford upon Thackeray’s political convictions:--

 

“I would use my best endeavours not merely to enlarge the

constituencies, but to popularize the Government of this

country. With no feeling but that of goodwill towards those

leading aristocratic families who are administering the chief

offices of the State, I believe it could be benefited by the

skill and talent of persons less aristocratic, and that the

country thinks so likewise.... The usefulness of a member of

Parliament is best tested at home; and should you think fit to

elect me as your representative, I promise to use my utmost

endeavour to increase and advance the social happiness, the

knowledge, and the power of the people.”

 

One point in his speech at the hustings, a characteristic allusion to

the paramount influence of the Marlborough dukes, for many generations