ing found a letter at the post office informing represent Northenville in the House of Comme that the Honourable Captain Streatham, mons, and that those present pledged themour opponent, would be down on Tuesday, and selves to do all in their power to secure his meet his electors the same evening. "He return. cannot be away long from town," wrote my informant, "for he is a guardsman, and his colonel, not liking his politics, will throw every possible hindrance in the way of his getting much leave. But I know he will be down on Tuesday, meet the electors, do a little canvassing, and make haste back to town." We also must make haste if we wished to steal a march on him to any purpose.

provoked them. But as they numbered some hundred and fifty votes, as they almost invariably voted the same way, and as, with all their faults, they were not to be bribed, the candidates of every contested election at Northenville made a point of conciliating them, and trying hard to talk them over. At the last election they had all voted with the Carmine

Although the electors of Northenville are not-or were not under the old franchisenumerous, the town itself is a large one, and the population very straggling, One part of the borough is almost exclusively inhabited by a very rough, although by no means a poor, class of men, chiefly employed, either as masters or servants, in the cattle trade. These men are nearly all freeholders, although some Since we had secured the services of ten pub- of tnem own but small plots. Upon the Almslic-houses, I so arranged that we met a certain house question they were fully expected to supnumber of the free and independent at each port the Mauve candidate. But there were of those places of entertainment, thus giving others on which they were not at one with the each publican a fair chance of his share of custom. party which Mr. Mellam represented. They At the house chiefly used by small tradesmen were a rough lot, much given to drinking who do not spend their evenings at home, we met spirits, and not scrupulous how, where, as many as professed our political creed. Their or with what they struck any one who club-room was so full, that we were obliged to adjourn to the bowling green, and there, standing upon an empty chest, Mr. Mellam addressed them. He said he had been asked to stand for their borough by a numerous and influential body of the electors (the deputation that went to him consisted of his own local solicitor; the saddler he employed; the rector of the parish to whom his father had given the living, and three gentle-party, and this made us the more anxious to men who were connexions of his wife's), and that he felt no small pride in being asked to represent the ancient borough of Northenville, with which his family had been connected for the last hundred years and more. To many of those who possessed a franchise it was, continued Mr. Mellam, often a somewhat difficult matter to make oneself fully understood, but by educated gentlemen (a marked emphasis on these words, which were received by a "hear, hear, hear") like those he was now speaking to, who represent the commerce ("hear, hear" again) and the wealth of the place, he was sure his words would be fully understood, and his observations, although perhaps of little value ("no, no"), would meet with that response which all who value this that and the other tint of Mauve would duly appreciate.

One very decided trump card Mr. Mellam played at my suggestion. This was the taking with him two showy London men with handles to their names. Lord Henry Leaver was known to be the brother of the Marquis of Greystake. The fact of the Marquis's brother accompanying Mr. Mellam, showed that the most noble lord was his friend, and Greystake Castle made all its purchases at Northenville; so did Sir George Strayling, who had not long ago come of age, and was about to be married and to settle down on his own property. Each of these gentlemen ad dressed a few words to the various publics of our public-houses. We went the round of them throughout the day, the evening, and part of the night, until we had visited all the ten whose services we had secured. At each of them resolutions were carried to the effect that Mr. Mellam was a fit and proper person to

see what could be done with them before "the other side" had innings. It was, therefore, agreed that they should be seen last, and in the evening, at a public-house which they frequented. In the mean time, Mr. Mellam and his friends ordered dinner to be ready at six o'clock to a minute at the Green Dragon inn, where were our head-quarters.

If anything like strong drinking with parties who have strong heads is expected, there is nothing like a dinner of beefsteaks before the meeting takes place. By my advice Mr. Mellam, with half a dozen of his finest friends, proposed to meet the cattle dealers in a friendly way after dinner. There would be no speechifying. If Mr. A. B. C. and D.-leading men among these dealers-would drop in in a quiet way, we might have a glass of grog together, and talk over matters; and if each would oring all his friends with him, so much the better would we be pleased.

For good canvassing work there is nothing like your real swell. He don't like what he has to go through, but he rides at it as he does at bullfinches in the shires, and his very pluck seems to carry him over. To see Lord Henry Leaver, Sir George Strayling, and the rest of Mr. Mellam's fine friends drink their tumblers of hot rum and water, or hot brandy (brown English) and water, and smoke their long clay pipes, any one would think they must have been brought up to it all their lives. I can take my glass when obliged to do so, but I could not match stomachs with these men, who had probably never tasted the villanous com pounds more than half a dozen times in their lives. The meeting was a decided success;

and our people had the best of the game, for "the other side" had not yet put in an appearance, whereas we were well through a main part of our work.

THE OTHER SIDE.

to the state of Mr. Spavit's funds. One of these was in the form of a catechism, drawn out in one night by Joe Sleeman, the never sober reporter of the Mercury, and paid for with a five pound note. It was the best day's work he had done since he was turned out from the London Diana's Journal, six years before, for getting drunk when he went to report a dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern. This catechism was detestably vulgar and personal. But it served our turn, and was indeed thought to be a masterpiece of wit by many of the electors of the place. Equally in good taste were the

THE candidate opposed to us was the Honourable Captain Streatham, thirty years of age, a captain in the Royal Horse Guards yellow, and a younger son of the Earl of Basement. Of course, Captain Streatham opposed Carmine politics to ours of the Mauve side. He was good fooking, and had the gift of making himself all things to all men. Whether it was when talk-jocose paragraphs put in the Northenville Mering and laughing with his brother officers in the cury, to the effect that The Honourable Capbarrack yard at Knightsbridge, telling the last tain Streatham, accompanied by that wealthy naughty anecdote in the bow window at Whites, and influential local gentleman, Thomas Spavit, chaffing "a cad" as he tooled down the regi- Esq., who was well known to be one of the mental drag to Epsom, or discussing soberly leading authorities of the town on all matters and solemnly the last phase of the ritualists of legal process, had come down to canvass with his very evangelical aunt the Duchess of Northenville, and that it was very uncertain Winterton, Captain Streatham always seemed whether the captain or his devoted friend at home, always at his ease, always on good Tommy, of King-square (the County Court was terms with those around him. He had taken situated in King-square) would be eventually up the Carmine tint of politics, simply because proposed for the honour of representing the his family had always sided with that colour. the town of Northenville in parliament. By His father the Earl was by no means a wealthy these small personalities against poor Tom (a man, and although now a member of the hard working honest fellow, but much overCabinet, was anxious to get the Captain" weighted with a large family in the race for into parliament, in order that he might have a prosperity), our enemy lost several points on chance of some permanent Colonial Governor- the game. The honourable captain when he ship, Consul Generalship, or other regulation heard of it, laughed, and said, that we had reward of those who serve their party with un- scored at least thirty-five off the balls in a deviating fidelity for a sufficient number of years. game of one hundred. The captain had one great fault, he was never free from debt. The Earl had cleared off all his old scores some four or five times, but he invariably returned to the slough of stamped paper. Lord Basement at last was tired of paying for the captain's follies, and resolved to get him into parliament. He paid, therefore, a large sum into the hands of a London firm of parliamentary agents. Once in parliament, three or four years' assiduous attendance and steady voting with his party, would, when joined to Lord Basement's interest, surely get him some good colonial or other appointment. He might then sell his troop in the Horse Guards, turn over a new leaf in the book of life, and perhaps end by turning out a highly meritorious government servant, and an exemplary father of a family.

"The other side" when they got to Northenville, lost no time in setting to work. For two or three days I had been very busy making things pleasant with certain electors. To one I promised a clerkship for his son in the iron works with which Mr. Mellam was connected. To the other I said that if our man was returned, the tide waitership which he wanted for his brother would be a matter of certainty. I had in fact been so busy directing the affairs of our own forces, that I had quite forgotten to watch the enemies' camp, when suddenly we heard that a ball (nominally given by Lady Vance, a sister of Captain Streatham's, who lived in the neighbourhood) would take place on such an evening, at the Crown and Sceptre, and that all the electors of the town would be asked to meet the gentleman who, as repreThis was the gentleman who had been sentative of the Carmine party, coveted the brought to fight the battle against us. The cap-great honour of representing the town of Nortain's electioneering agent was a local man, and thenville in parliament. although he had the advantage of knowing everybody, he had also the disadvantage of being known to every one. In country towns everybody interests themselves in everything that everybody else does, and being fully aware of this, I soon found out that Spavit-Tom Spavit, as he was called-was poor, and that in the County Court of the district his name was as well Lady Vance, who did the honours of the known as that of the Registrar himself. Avail-entertainment, was a handsome, showy, fashioning myself of this knowledge, I at once had able London woman, well up in her work. printed a few placards and handbills, all of In ordinary life she would as soon have which bore some more or less playful allusion | ridden in Rotten-row with her face to the

The ball must have cost the other side a small fortune. It was admirably managed. Invitations were issued to all the electors and their wives, without exception, and special invitations sent even to many of the electioneering staff on our side, myself amongst the number.

horse's tail, as have bowed or spoken to any took from Spavit a small slip of paper, which one-particularly any woman-who was the she first consulted, and then hid away in her shadow of a shade below her in the scale of fashionable life. To her house in Berkeleysquare never, during the London season, came any one that was not cream of the cream. But Lady Vance belonged to, and formed part of the Carmine party. She believed it to be just as much her duty to please the wives and daughters of the free and independent who might be thus induced to support her brother, as it had been the duty of the English guards to face the privations and annoyances of a winter before Sebastopol. And famously she did her duty. Lady Vance, accompanied by some of her fashionable female friends, was from Llanholme Hall, her husband's place. The entertainers seemed determined to make themselves as popular as possible with the entertained, and they succeeded. Our meeting the electors at the different publichouses, had done us harm with the women of the place. Their husbands, fathers, and brothers, were already far too much given to beer and spirits; treating them to more drink had not increased their domestic happiness. But Lady Vance's ball was quite another affair. A woman will go anywhere if it gives her a chance of dressing. And when to this is added the chance of intercourse with a lady who visited royalty itself-the temptation was great indeed. The girls, too, would have noble lords to dance with.

This was one of the moves of the enemy whom I had despised, Tom Spavit, of County Court renown. Another of his moves was the opening of the two or three public-houses in the neighbourhood of the Crown and Sceptre, so that those who came merely to look at the company were offered refreshment "by command of Lady Vance," who was the nominal giver of the ball. It was so managed as to appear the most natural thing in the world. The middle, and lower middle, classes had been asked to dance and sup in the assembly roomcould there be any harm in offering a little refreshment to those of the humbler orders who came to look on? If the entertainment had been given in Sir Charles Vance's park, would not refreshment have been provided for all comers? And if so, why could it not be done

in town?

But this was not all. Spavit had me again. When the ball was on foot, I noticed that Lady Vance went one by one to each of the married women in the room, particularly to all who could not, or would not, dance, and entered into conversation with them. Of course I did not dance: I was there to watch the enemy. With each matron her ladyship spoke to, her words seemed to have the same effect. At first there was respectful awe. To that would gradually succeed intense surprise, and, lastly, great pleasure. What can her ladyship be saying to them? I wondered. Surely she is not slipping a twentypound note into the hands of each Northenville matron? And yet I observed that before speaking to each of these females, Lady Vance

hand. Were these bits of paper cheques? Altogether the affair puzzled me greatly. On one occasion I was talking to a Mrs. Hodgson, whose husband I had been trying in vain for two days to get a promise from in favour of Mr. Mellam. As I talked to Mrs. Hodgson, Lady Vance approached, spoke to her by name, sat down beside her, and actually began asking how her little girl, who had lately been down with the measles, was, and whether that very fine baby boy of hers had cut his double teeth? Poor Mrs. H. was in the seventh heaven. How Lady Vance-the great Lady Vance, whom Mrs. Hodgson had now and again caught a hasty vision of as her ladyship's carriage dashed through Northenville on its way to the railway station-came to know even her name; or how her ladyship came to know that she had six children, and that one had lately had the measles, was more than Mrs. Hodgson could possibly understand. But when Lady Vance, who knew perfectly well that I was the active agent on our side, and looked at me in triumph as she spoke when her ladyship capped all by saying she had at home some medicine which was an infallible remedy for teething, that the recipe had been given her by the Queen's doctor, as being the same now used in the royal nursery; I felt that if Hodgson the absent did not vote for Lady Vance's brother, he would have a bad time of it with the partner of his joys and sorrows. And I was right. The influential tradesman, and all who went with him did vote on the other side, and very much they injured us thereby.

That night, after the ball, as each female citizen took the arm of her husband on her way home, the topic of conversation was the same with every couple, namely the im mense delight each mother had experienced when hearing her children talked of, praised, and prescribed for by a fashionable lady, the wife of a baronet and the daughter of an earl. Lady Vance was a humbug, but she was undoubtedly a very pleasant one, and evidently knew her business as a canvasser. I had the curiosity next day to enquire, and found out that not only to Mrs. Hodgson, but to two or three other mothers of teething children, Lady Vance had sent the medicine she prescribed-probably purchased in Northenville-and not only sent it, but sent it with the neatest little note to each, the paper being headed "Llanholme Court, Northenville," and the envelope bearing a monogram which was the wonder and the admiration of the Hodgson household for many a long day. Nor was the manner of delivering these little medicine bottles a matter left to chance or the post. The biggest of Lady Vance's London footmen, was sent over-much to his disgust-in the break, and himself delivered each note and small parcel with her ladyship's kind regards.

Now, was this bribery? I say it was. Mr.

Hodgson's vote and influence were as decidedly gained over to the Streatham interest by this gift of Captain Streatham's sister as ever was City of London longshore man "influenced"that is the legal word, I believe-by a couple of crisp "I promise to pays" of ten pounds each in value, to plump for the interests of pure religion. And yet how would it be possible to bring before a committee of the House of Commons a bribe of this kind? Would it be punishable under the new bribery act?

It was all Tom Spavit's doing. The slips of paper that I suspected to be cheques or banknotes were merely notes upon each woman whose husband had more influence than most of his fellows. Some of these slips reached me from a pocket-book which Spavit left behind him by mistake at a public-house, and which one of the free and independent opened and examined. The notes ran thus:

Mrs. ROBINS.

there every Monday and Saturday evening, commencing at eight o'clock. The card in the window stated, further, that "a professional gentleman" (as I afterwards discovered, a professional housebreaker) "presides at the pianoforte."

At eight o'clock on a Monday evening, I set out to attend this convivial assembly, in the disguise of a sailor. After passing through a number of dark and dirty streets, I came to one somewhat broader than those I had already traversed; and, shortly before nine, turned into the street in which The Fleece is situated. Dirty-looking people, many of them Irish, were lounging at doors and windows, and men and women, indiscriminately, were indulging in short pipes. On both sides of the road were exhibited signs, announcing that "travellers" could be accommodated with "lodgings" at twopence-halfpenny per night. Here is a sample of these announcements, and of the lodging-houses. A house contain

Husband great influence with High Churchmen. ing, as far as I could judge, eight rooms,

Three children.

Baby (boy) now teething.

Be very civil to her.

A second one ran thus:

Miss HENLEY.

Unmarried; Roman Catholic.

including those on the ground-floor, exhibited
a sign on which tramps and all others whom
it might concern were informed that it was
tenanted by John McGill, who described him-
self as
"licensed lodging-house keeper," and
was licensed for eighty persons. The inscrip-

Brothers, manufacturers; great influence with tion on the signboard ran thus:

Irish.

Can't be too civil.

Praise her religion.

A third:

Mrs. SMITH.

Husband, retired shopkeeper.
Influence all over the town.
Son, grown up, in Australia.

Talk about the colonies.

Praise men who rise by their own exertions. Tom Spavit had thus gained several points in the game, and the captain's chance of being returned to parliament was growing formidable. I went home planning and plotting what I could do to recover ground.

CONVIVIAL THIEVERY.

"John McGill, lisensed lodging-house keeper. Lisensed too acomadate 80 persons. N.B. Travellers acomadated with supereeour lodgings at 24d. a nite."

Bad spelling seemed to be the order of the neighbourhood, for another sign bore the inscription: "Saml. Stivens do live heer,

Sweeps chimbly's cleen,

& nat too deer."

I became aware of my close vicinity to The Fleece a minute or two before I got there, warned by sounds from the room of a very dingy house, a little beyond the residence of Mr. Saml. Stivens, the windows of which were open. In due course I beheld the representation of a heap of wool in the shape of a pyramid with the inscription underneath, "The Fleece." No landlord's name adorns this sign. I must In one of the dirtiest of the many dirty not omit to mention that the street was forstreets in a very well-known city in the merly one of the most aristocratic in the city. West of England, stands a public-house, long In the front wall of one of the corner houses, an known to the police as the resort, after "busi-inserted tablet bore the following antique inscripness" hours, of the most desperate thieves tion: "This is + y + NEWE STREETE +.' that infest the neighbourhood. It is one of On proceeding to the first floor of The Fleece, the worst of its kind, and is appropriately called The Fleece. The street in which it stands is as bad a back slum as any in Whitechapel or St. Giles's, and is approached by a labyrinth of narrow, ill-paved, ill-drained, and ill-lighted lanes and alleys. My humour being to see life in all its varieties, I made the acquaintance of a police officer of many years' standing, and learnt from him, for the first time, the existence of The Fleece. I afterwards saw announced in the window of that house of entertainment for man and beast, that a Select Convivial was held

where the Select Convivial is held, I was closely scrutinised, and mentally criticised, by two shabby genteel individuals stationed on the stairs to notify the approach of an enemy. I entered the room, sat down, and called for a pint of beer. Gambling in various shapes and forms was going on around; there were cards, dice, dominoes, and one or two other "recreations" I had not seen before. The players were men and women of all ages, from seventeen to seventy. A gipsy-looking fellow was shouting The Bay of Biscay with all his might and main.

My entrance, therefore, did not attract so much attention as it might otherwise have done. The vocalist sat with his eyes closed and his face directed to the ceiling. At the end of each verse came the chorus, sung in all keys, but principally inharmonious keys, from the shrill treble of the young woman of eighteen to the basso profundo of the stoutest-lunged, broadest chested man among them:

There-ere-ere she lay
Till-ill-ill nex' day,

In the bay-a-ay o' Biscay, O!

Being determined to make myself as agreeable as possible, I joined lustily in the chorus of one or two well-known songs, which drew from the "president" the flattering remark that "The sailor cove can make a noise;" the "cove" thus flattered being the writer of this strictly true narrative.

"Bray-vo! bray-vo!" cried all the convivialists -excepting, of course, those who were too drunk to say or express anything-at the end of each song, with pleasure beaming from their eyes. The room in which we made festival, had been at some early period of its history the dining-room of some titled family. An earl's coronet surmounting the carved oak mantelpiece attested this. The floor, also, was of oak, but so covered with dirt, filth, and beer, that the present landlord must be as averse to the use of water for outsides as for insides. Two deal benches ran parallel all down the room, and near the fireplace (which contained a roaring fire, coal being cheap in the neighbourhood) stood an old worn-out piano, intended to accompany the convivialists in their attempts at harmony.

a

One could see that the ladies were considered, or, perhaps I ought to say, considered themselves, privileged persons. This was obvious as much from the manner in which they interrupted the male singers as from the severity with which they occasionally criticised their vocal abilities. Occasionally the progress of a song was interrupted for many minutes together by one of the women making a very bad singer's cause her own, and advocating it with an immense power of "gab," to use their own expressive word. The company appeared rather shy of me at first, because I did not smoke; it did not strike me until afterwards that a sailor who neither smokes nor chews is a very rare animal indeed. Being a stranger to everybody in the room, they had, perhaps, some idea that I was not what my disguise intended to convey, but all suspicion was allayed by my "hail, fellow, well met" and "how are you, my hearty" manner, and by the readiness with which I accepted their various propositions to "put my lips to it:" the "it" being one of the quart cups. As I had determined to make myself at home, I did not refuse to "wet my whistle" at their expense. In return I found that I was expected to invite them all in turn to "wet" their whistles at my expense, and, as I generally told them to "drink another drop," or to "finish it," I was declared “ hout-an'-hout slap-up brick!" I was eventually called upon to contribute to the "harmony" of the evening-your regular professional thieves can make use of some very fine words occasionally-by tipping 'em a stave," or, as one young lady with a pair of black (I mean damaged) eyes made the request, to "hollar summat." The "summat" I "hollered," was Annie In different parts of the room groups of Laurie. I detected a strong Scotch accent in tramps of all kinds; thieves, costermongers, one or two persons present, and I knew that it quack doctors; itinerant fish, potato, coal, and would be lauded to the skies by them, however cheese sellers; begging-letter writers and car-execrably sung by me; and I knew equally well riers; gipsies, and many others; were sitting or standing in every conceivable posture, comfortable and uncomfortable. They were dressed in such a variety of costumes as might have supplied the lender of theatrical wardrobes with the nucleus of a stock in trade, and more "varieties" than he would have known what to do with. Some of the "professional" gentle men present sat on the boards and tables which contained their pots of beer, porter, and other intoxicating liquids, and drank them at their leisure and pleasure. The drink most in request was that known as 'half-and-half," or fourpenny," but which they termed "Burton." In the course of the three hours passed in this temple of Apollo, I particularly noticed one man who drank every drop of four imperial quarts of this questionable concoction. About forty men and thirty women were present; many of the latter sitting on the knees of their admirers, and drinking from the same cups-there were no glasses and arguing, wrangling with, and abusing, their neighbours and companions from their luxurious resting-places. Most abominable language was the mode.

that it is one of the most popular songs current with the lower orders. It did one good to hear them all join in the chorus:

An' for bonnie Annie Laurie I would lay me down an' dee. The rattling of cups and the stamping of feet at the conclusion of the song testified to the amount of gratification it had afforded. One or two individuals were very pressing in their requests to me to sing again, but answering "Not twice, thank you," and pleading a cold, I was allowed to subside into silence. After thus entertaining the company, I found that I was entitled and expected to call upon some one else to sing or holler summat." In pursuance of this privilege, I called upon a venerable-looking man sitting in a corner alone. The old fellow appeared so woe-begone that it would have made me happy to have prevailed upon him to take an active part in a little innocent singing. My aged friend, however, said it was not in his power to sing anything, and he was called upon to pay a fine of twopence to the gentleman " who presided at the pianoforte.