Troy Town,
5 December, 1894.
My Dear Prince,--I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of
western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our
first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post
to inform you that from a convivial point of view the whole
proceedings were in the highest degree successful. And if
Self-Government by the People can provide a success of the kind in
that dull season when people as a rule are saving up for Christmas, I
hardly think our Chairman stretched a point last night when he said,
"This evening will leave its mark on the history of England." Indeed,
some inkling of this must have guided us when we met, a few days
before, and agreed to postpone our usual Tuesday evening
Carol-practice in order to give the New Era a fair start. And I am
told this morning that the near approach of the sacred season had a
sensibly pacific influence upon the counsels of our neighbours at
Treneglos. The parishioners there are mostly dairy-farmers, and
party feeling runs high. But while eggs fetch 2d. apiece (as they
do, towards Christmas) there will always be a disposition to give
even the most unmarketable specimens the benefit of any doubt.
We were at first a good deal annoyed on finding that the Act allowed
Troy but eleven Parish Councillors. We have never had less than
sixty-five on our Regatta Committee, and we had believed Local
Self-Government to be at least as important as a Regatta. We argued
this out at some length last night, and the Chairman--Lawyer Thoms--
admitted that we had reason on our side. But his instructions were
definite, and he could not (as he vivaciously put it) fly in the face
of the Queen and two Houses of Parliament. We saw that his regret
was sincere, and so contented ourselves with handing in seventy-two
nomination papers for the eleven places, just to mark our sense of
the iniquity of the thing.
In another matter we worked round the intention of the Act more
successfully. We have never been able to understand why the Liberal
party in the House of Commons should object to Local Self-Government
taking place in public-houses. The objection implies a distrust of
the people. And it so happens that down here we always take a glass
of grog before inaugurating an era; we should as soon think of
praetermitting this as of launching a ship without cracking a bottle
on her stem. So we asked the Chairman, and finding there was no law
to prevent us, we ordered in half a dozen trays from the "King of
Prussia," across the way. The Vicar, who is a particular man about
his food and drink, pulled out a pocket Vesuvius and a bottle of
methylated spirit, and boiled his kettle in the ante-room.
Well, there we were sitting in the Town Hall, as merry as grigs,
each man with his pipe and glass, and ready for any amount of
Self-Government. And the Chairman stood up and briefly explained the
business of the meeting. He said the Parish Councils Act was the
logical result of Magna Charta, and would have the effect of making
us all citizens of our own parish; and that as the expense of this
would come upon the rates, we should endeavour to use our hardly won
enfranchisement with moderation. "We had met to choose eleven good
men and true to administer the parish business for the coming year,
or to nominate as many good men and true as we pleased. If more than
eleven were nominated"--this was foolishness, for he could see there
was hardly a man in the room that hadn't a nomination paper in his
hand--"he would ask for a show of hands, and any candidate defeated
upon this might demand a poll. He hoped we would vote in no spirit
of sectarian or partisan bitterness, but as impartial citizens
jealous only for the common weal; at the same time he was not in
favour of letting down the Squire, Sir Felix Felix-Williams, too
easily."
So we handed up our nomination papers, and while the Chairman and
overseers were checking them off by the register, Old Pilot James got
upon his legs.
He said that as long as he could remember--man and boy--he had
always practised carols in that very Town Hall upon the first
Tuesday in December. The Vicar--as soon as he had done boiling the
kettle in the next room--would come in and confirm his words.
The practices were held on the first Tuesday in December, and on each
successive Tuesday until St. Thomas's Day, when they had one extra.
If St. Thomas's Day fell on a Tuesday, then the extra practice would
be on Wednesday. He had received no notice of the change.
Thomas Rabling rose and explained that at a meeting held last
Saturday, the singers had agreed to postpone the first practice in
view of Local Self-Government. Mr. James had been present and had
not objected.
George William Oke--a blockmaker, who had never sung a carol or
attended a practice in his life--stood up and said, rather
unnecessarily, that this was the first _he'd_ heard of it.
Old Pilot James, answering Mr. Rabling, admitted that he might have
been present at the meeting on Saturday. But he was deaf, as
everybody knew--and Mr. Rabling no less than the rest--and hadn't
heard a word of what was said. If he had, he should have objected.
But, deaf or not deaf, he still took a delight in singing; and, if
only as a matter of principle, he was going to sing, "_God rest you
merry, gentlemen_," then and there. He was an old man, and they
might turn him out if they liked; but he warned them it would be
brutal, and might lead to a summons.
Well, the Chairman was making a long business of the nomination
papers: so just to pass the time we let the old man sing. It seemed
churlish, too, not to join in the chorus; and by and by the whole
meeting was singing with a will. We sang "_Tidings of Comfort and
Joy_," and "_I saw Three Ships_," and the _Cherry-tree Carol_, and
"_Dives and Lazarus_." We had come to that verse where Dives is
carried off to sit on the serpent's knee, when the Chairman rose and
said that only five of the nomination papers were spoilt, and he
declared sixty-seven ladies and gentlemen to be duly nominated.
We all pricked up our ears at the word "ladies." However, there
turned out to be one lady only; and when the Chairman read out her
name, her husband--a naval pensioner, William Carclew--stood up and
explained that he had only meant it for a joke upon the old woman,
just to give her a start, and he hoped it would go no farther.
This seemed fair and natural enough; but the Chairman said if Mrs.
Carclew wished to withdraw her name she had better do so at once by
word of mouth. So Carclew had to run home and fetch her. While he
was gone we finished "_Dives and Lazarus_."
In five minutes' time back came Carclew, followed by Mrs. Carclew,
who announced--in a rich brogue--that since her man had conspired to
put this fool's trick upon her, why now she would stand, begob!
"Arrah now, people, people, and a gay man he'll look houlding the
babby, while I'm afther superinthendin' the Parush!" So the
Chairman declared her duly nominated. It will surprise me if she
does not head the poll on the 17th.
The Chairman now invited us to interrogate the candidates, if we
wished. By this time we were getting pretty well into the way of
Self-Government, and all enjoying it amazingly. Of course our lady
candidate, Mrs. Carclew, had the first few questions; but these were
mostly jocular and domestic, and I am bound to say the lady gave as
good as was brought. The only sensible question came from Old Pilot
James, who asked if she believed in the ballot. For his part he had
never given a vote for anybody since Forster brought in the ballot in
'seventy-one. He favoured peace and quiet; and he liked to walk up
to the hustings and give his vote, and hear 'em say, "Well done!" or
"You '--' old scoundrel!" as the case might be. He didn't mind being
called "a '--' old scoundrel," provided it was said to him by a
gentleman who weighed his words. Since Forster brought in the ballot
he had always gone to the poll regular. He always took his paper and
wrote opposite the names: "_Shan't say a word. Got my living to get.
Yours obediently, Matthias James_"--and would advise everybody else
to do the same.
After him, Renatus Hansombody, carpenter, rose at the back of the
hall and announced that he had a question to put to the Doctor.
The Doctor, by the way, is one of the most popular of the candidates.
"I should like," said Mr. Hansombody, "to ask the Doctor if he will
kindly explain to the company Clauses 5, 6, and 13 of the new Act?"
The Chairman protested that this would occupy more time than the
meeting had to spare.
"In that case," said Mr. Hansombody, "I will confine myself to a test
question. The Act provides that the Chairman of a Parish Meeting is
to be elected by the Meeting. Now suppose the votes for two
gentlemen are equal. In such a case what would the Doctor advise?
For until you have a Chairman elected, there is no Chairman to give a
casting vote."
The Doctor thought that, since we had long ago elected a Chairman by
acclamation, the question was superfluous.
"And you call him a straightforward man!" Mr. Hansombody exclaimed,
turning round on the Meeting. "What I say is, are we to have
pusillanimity in our first Parish Council? What I say is, that a
gentleman who gives a working man such an answer to such a
question--"
At this point the door opened and a shrill voice asked,
"Is Hansombody here?"
"I am here," said Hansombody, "to expose impostors!"
"Because if so, he must please come home at once. Mrs. Hansombody's
cryin'-out!"
"I always said," remarked Old Pilot James, "that this cussed Act
would scare half the women in the Parish before their time."
"Beggin' your pard'n, Doctor," began his denouncer lamely.
"Not at all, not at all," said the Doctor. "We must keep these
matters altogether outside the sphere of party politics."
(_Loud cheering_.)
"Then I'll have to ask you to step along with me."
The two political opponents picked up their hats, and left the room
together.
The Chairman rose as the door closed behind them. "I think," he
said, "this should be a lesson to us to accept the Act in the spirit
in which it was given. If nobody else wishes to ask a question, I
will now take a show of hands: but I warn you all it'll be a dreary
business."
At this, the first hint of tedium, the company rose, drained their
glasses, and made for the door, leaving the sixty-six remaining
candidates to vote for themselves.
"Well," Mr. Rabling said to me, as we stood in the street; "so far,
this here Parish Meeting might be like any other Parish Meeting in
the Kingdom!"