As we sat at table he, in his eighty-first year, recalled, as if it had
happened the day before, an incident that befell when he was eighteen
months old. Prowling about the nursery on all-fours, there suddenly
flashed upon him consciousness of the existence of his nurse, as she
towered above him. He remembered her voice and the very pattern of the
frock she wore. This was his earliest recollection, his first clear
consciousness of existence. His memory of Canning when he stood for
Liverpool in 1812 was perfectly clear; indeed, he was then nearly three
years old, and took an intelligent interest in public affairs.
Of later date was his recollection of Parliamentary Elections, and the
strange processes by which in the good old days they were accomplished.
The poll at Liverpool was kept open sometimes for weeks, and the custom
was for voters to be shut up in pens ten at a time. At the proper moment
they were led out of these inclosures and conducted to the
polling-booths, where they recorded their votes. These musters were
called "tallies," and the reckoning up of them was a matter watched with
breathless interest in the constituency.