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SECRET SERVICE
OR
RECOLLECTIONS
OF A
CITY DETECTIVE
BY ANDREW FORRESTER, JUN.
AUTHOR OF "THE PRIVATE DETECTIVE"
NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED
LONDON
WARD AND LOCK
158 FLEET STREET
MDCCCLXIV
[_All Rights are reserved_]
LONDON:
ROBSON AND LEVEY, PRINTERS, GREAT NEW STREET,
FETTER LANE.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MY GREAT ELECTIONEERING TRICK 1
MISTAKEN IDENTITY 35
AN UNSCRUPULOUS WOMAN 50
THE INCENDIARY GANG 60
A RAILWAY ACCIDENT? 108
A PATRIOTIC BARBER IN FAULT 122
A ROMANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE 136
THE VIRTUE OF AN AMERICAN PASSPORT 171
WHO WAS THE GREATEST CRIMINAL? 184
A GRAND RAILWAY "PLANT" 208
AN EPISODE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE 231
THE WORKHOUSE DOCTOR 242
THE MISSING WILL 261
THE DUKE'S MYSTERY 270
THE ATTORNEY AND THE SMUGGLER 280
SWINDLING ACCORDING TO ACT OF PARLIAMENT 289
MATRIMONIAL ESPIONAGE 303
SECRET SERVICE
OR
Recollections of a City Detective
MY GREAT ELECTIONEERING TRICK.
About twelve years ago there was an election anticipated in the Borough
of N----. It was a notorious place for bribery, as I, who have been
professionally concerned in many elections, perfectly well knew. It was
an extraordinary town. It had once been a very flourishing place. A
staple trade had been carried on there, and almost nowhere else; but an
evil spirit of gentility pervaded its corporation in those days.
The genius of two or three well-known men would have taken advantage of
the neutral position and prospects of that spot and its neighbourhood to
found there a new industry, and give employment to an immense population
of skilled artisans. The labour of these people, however, could only be
set to work and supplemented by smoke. The mayor and town-council of
N----, acting in the supposed interest of its inhabitants, determined
they would have no smoky chimneys within their town. An Act of
Parliament had been obtained sanctioning such municipal regulations as
enabled these wiseacres to keep out the threatened innovation of
gold-producing smoke. The new industry had, therefore, to settle down in
the neighbourhood beyond municipal control. After this achievement had
been successful, the surrounding district went on rapidly increasing in
prosperity until it reached its present exalted position in that
respect, and the trade of N---- went on diminishing to its present
abject or exhausted condition. Meanwhile, also, the stage-coaches, which
ran continuously through its streets--for N---- was on the great
northern line of turnpike-road--dropping in their course a modicum of
wealth for the inhabitants, were themselves put down by the unequal
competition of a trunk railway; so that N---- became in course of time
what it now is--a clean, shabby, pretentious, and poverty-stricken
place. Stagnation amid activity distinguishes it. The grass grows in its
High Street and Market-place. The remnant of independent people--that
is, people who have a pecuniary independence--show airs, and walk about
the neighbourhood under the belief that they are thought to be and are
superior beings. The inhabitants who are not in this sense independent
are craven, humiliated, impoverished, and corrupt. Yet N---- is a
parliamentary borough; and, consequently, its present dilapidated,
forlorn position supplies a fine opportunity for adventurous
politicians--whether with or without brains, no matter--who have heavy
purses, skilful agents, and good machinery at their command.
Before I describe the special incidents of the case I am about to lay
before the reader, let me supply some further particulars about the
electoral conscience of this extraordinary old town. It has three
classes of voters, who have been classified by a well-known Conservative
electioneering agent (an attorney residing there); and a similar, or
rather obverse, classification has no doubt been made by the other side.
In the first list or classification are the really true and honest
electors, men who would resent as an insult the offered bribe, sterling,
worthy fellows, who would resist almost, or perhaps quite, to the death
any attempt to coerce them to vote otherwise than as their consciences
directed.
There is another list or classification of men who are inclined towards
Conservatism (as, perhaps, some sardonic reader will suggest, every body
in an old place like N---- ought to be); and these men will take half as
much from the real supporter of our venerable institutions as they can
get from some mushroom pursy adventurer professing ultra-Radical
principles, who desires to make a market of his political influence, or
is perhaps anxious to satisfy the cravings for distinction of his wife
by getting himself as her marital adjunct returned to Parliament, and
privileged to wear M.P. after his name.
The third list or classification embraces those electors who have no
political principles, or character, or conscience whatever. These are
fellows who want as much from Conservative as from Radical or from Whig.
They are the scum and refuse, or dregs, of political life; and this foul
element of the political existence at N---- is by no means the smaller
portion of the three classifications.
The operator, or agent, as he likes to be called,--although, as
police-magistrates and all other people dealing with crime are aware,
the title "agent" is complimentary,--knows precisely with what material
he has to deal. He "plays his cards," as he sometimes describes his
anxious labours, accordingly; and is only liable to one derangement. It
is said that honesty and good faith towards one another is
characteristic of thief-life. I have, in a former volume, shown that
notion to be a fallacy. Politicians supply an additional proof of the
accuracy of my statement.
When the operator or agent has--say, two days before the election--made
all his arrangements for voting, and feels quite confident that, as the
representative of Mr. Heavy Purse, his candidate,--a gentleman who
rejoices in a retiring forehead, thick neck, small brain, a little
talker and smaller doer, who has no political character, principle,
sentiment, or notion whatever,--he has made it all right by virtue of
the money already dropped, and the vastly larger amount promised, he
goes to sleep in his downy, well-curtained bed at the Dodo, charged to
the brim with rosy wine and deep spiritual potations, only to be
awakened in the morning by a vigilant subordinate, who informs him that
shortly before the witching hour over night there came into N---- a
post-chaise or a "trap" with four horses, which did not seem fatigued by
the length of their journey, for they had only come from Z----, but were
the drawers of a load on the floor of the carriage, which hindered
their movement and might have sacrificed their character for speed. The
operator or agent knows that some wealthy political speculator has
arrived with a good round sum in golden sovereigns. He does not think
the affair so cleverly planned as it might have been, and would seem to
have been on the first blush, but still he is a little tremulous,
because he knows that the problem of success may be most easily resolved
by the hand which can ply the largest, or heaviest, golden solvent. He
knows that the magic of gold nowhere exercises a more potent influence
over the soul than at N----; and he would already feel inclined to give
up the contest if he could be sure that the new arrival had a large
preponderance of gold over his own man. Notwithstanding the fact that he
thinks his candidate a superior man, and one that the constituency, if
it could be made honest, would be sure to like; and notwithstanding,
also, that he has had the start of three weeks in canvassing, and got
the promises of a considerable majority of electors over the
comparatively needy Liberal candidate, who has been hitherto opposed to
Mr. Heavy Purse,--the third arrival disquiets the operator.
One other remarkable fact I discovered in this town. I hope the reader
will not be startled by it. I relate it as a truth. I state it as an
undeniable proposition. I am open to be convinced if I am wrong; but if
I am right it is a thing to be laid before Parliament, as a great
argument in favour of something or against something else. Every fact
surely leads up to an inference. Every truth has a moral. This fact I
commend to all whom it doth concern, and I declare it. It is this: the
representation of N---- is usually determined by the brothel-keepers of
the town. All the men who ever sat for that borough since the Reform
Bill passed have been returned by these despicable human creatures, who
derive means of sustaining their own existence out of the most
loathsome, although we are told incurable, evil. How do I prove my fact
and moral? the reader asks. Thus: when all the really honest electors
have been polled, the operators or agents exhaust the comparatively
decent section of the bribable part of the town, and the result of the
whole gives to the Conservative, it may be, a majority of four, or it
may be a majority to the Liberal of four, or it may be five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten, or eleven,--according to circumstances. We may suppose
this to be late in the day. But there are still from twenty-three to
twenty-five of the morally unclean ten-pound householders or burgesses
in a particular street of N----, who regularly pay their rates and taxes
within the date prescribed for exclusion from the register, and who are,
therefore, duly-qualified voters. Neither Liberal nor Conservative will
lose an election if he can help it. In the emergency of the time I speak
of, the Liberal, finding himself in a minority of four, goes into Stew
Street and buys up the twenty-three, four, or five occupiers of these
leprosy-distilling houses, and pays any price the occupiers think fit to
demand. They are taken up to poll like free, independent, honest, and
moral electors. They turn the scale. They return the member. All the
rest has been a farce. Printing the addresses of rival candidates,
engaging committee-rooms, every thing in the way of machinery or
principle, up to the visit of the operator or agent in Stew Street, has
been useless. I hate shams. I detest mockeries. Why not leave Stew
Street to return the gentleman or blackguard who is to be called M.P.
for N----?
Apropos to this, or by way of postscript to my moralising, let me inform
the reader that a cabinet minister has been returned for N----, and
that, beyond all earthly doubt, Stew Street alone, or its voters, and
the cabinet minister's money, returned him to Parliament in the way I
have pointed out.
Well, as I have told the reader already, I saw the opportunity for
getting an engagement, so I went to somebody, who put himself into
communication with somebody else--this gentleman, who for the present
may be called Mr. Somebodyelse, having made a fortune in trade, and
having a wife who had persuaded him that he was a remarkably clever
fellow, and that he ought to go into Parliament.
Mr. Somebodyelse had no political principles. He had himself always
voted, as an elector, just in the way that his largest customer had
recommended; which largest customer, as if events happened by chance,
had always been a Liberal. Somehow or other, Mrs. Somebodyelse got into
her feminine head that her spouse had herein gone on the wrong tack;
that it was "not respectable" to be a Liberal; that the "highly genteel
thing" was to stand by the Tories; and she therefore determined that,
whenever her spouse went into Parliament, he should be a stanch
Conservative: to which he, like a fond husband, said, "I will." This
did not much matter to me. Mr. Somebodyelse would do for N---- and for
me as well as any other man. I was not careful about political opinions,
and therefore made no hesitation about rendering my services to him.
It is always desirable to go through the usual forms. Occasionally,
forms useless in themselves are made essential by custom. A man who
could write was therefore employed to write an Address for our
candidate, and one or two fellows were also engaged to "cram" or "coach"
him with speeches that he was to re-deliver. They were not very fine
speeches. The oratory was, in my opinion, gassy, flowery, nonsensical;
or, as the great Mr. Barnum would say, and I shall take the liberty of
saying, they were "humbugeous."
We went down from London direct to the borough. The party consisted of
myself, my associate (who was the agent), an attorney, and the
candidate, whose name, address, and quality I had now ascertained. The
reader may now know this gentleman as Mr. Jollefat, a retired
tallow-melter or chandler, then residing at Melpomene Lodge, Clapham,
and supposed to be a sleeping partner of "the old house" in which he had
skimmed the cauldrons of boiling tallow admirably for more than thirty
years.
On our arrival, we put out the address of our candidate. We started a
personal canvass. We did all that was usual except bribe--and the time
had hardly come for that--but all that we did only served to discourage
every body but me.
My associate had told his candidate that he thought a couple of
thousand pounds or thereabouts would do, whereas I had told _him_ it
would cost five thousand pounds at least, but that he ought to be
prepared with seven or eight thousand if he really meant to go in and
win. At N---- the candidate got to learn there was no chance for him
with two or even three thousand pounds. He was chapfallen, and
telegraphed to his wife, who came down in a sumptuous anonymity, which,
to our annoyance, had more effect than the simple announcement of her
name and her relationship to the candidate would have had.
This lady, unlike the wife of Sir Baldpate Belly, under the like
circumstances, became presumptuous and impracticable. She said she
thought that three thousand "goolden suvrins was a wery enormus sum." It
cost her good man a wery long time to make that 'ere sum of money; and
although she did not mind his spending his money like a Briton or a
prime-minister, she said she thought three thousand pounds ought to
satisfy every body, and if it didn't, why, she wouldn't go no further,
and they might do as they could.
Mrs. Jollefat also said that she liked to see her way sure before she
began. If it could not be done for that price certain, why, she'd rather
not try it on at all. Three thousand "goolden suvrins," as she often
said, was a wery big sum of money, and it was not to be tossed into the
Thames. That is what they would say in London, and she meant it was not
to be made ducks and drakes on.
I was a little astonished, more especially when my associate boldly told
her that, upon his honour, he would do it for the money. Of course I
could not there and then contradict him, and in effect say he was a
jolly humbug to let in a thrifty woman and her spouse in such a mode, so
I held my peace until I got him alone. Then I protested. He replied,
"Oh, gammon! make the old boy and girl spend. They won't do any good
with their money if they don't drop it here; and, after all, rely upon
it, I will make them shell out three or five thousand pounds more if it
is wanted." I argued and expostulated; my associate was firm. He said,
"We have gone too far into the matter to go back. We shall both of us be
ruined in our professions if we run away from the stake. I say, that we
must go in and win, and make the old boy pay."
I have heard it said that "Necessity is the mother of invention." I
believe the proverb is familiar to most of my readers. I am going to
supply another illustration of it.
I was oppressed in conscience about Mr. and Mrs. Jollefat and their
purse for the rest of the day. I felt that we must go in and win, or we
must not go in at all, but must run away. Then my associate and partner
would stick by the candidate, and perhaps really succeed in doing as he
said must be done--that was, gladden the hearts of the candidate and his
wife by a triumph at the poll, and get the requisite amount of money to
pay him for the operation. About the former part of the business I was
not at all certain; but if, on the other hand, he failed, which was more
likely, could I rid myself from the responsibility by merely withdrawing
at the present stage of affairs? I resolved to go on, and make the best
use of the little legal knowledge I had obtained, so as to keep out of
harm's way. I was ultimately able to devise what I then thought, and
still think, my greatest Electioneering Trick.
I took a stroll, in order to collect my thoughts; and after cudgelling
my brain for an hour or two, hit upon the following expedient, which I
carried out in the manner described.
I hastened to London by a midnight train, took a cab from the Euston
Station, and knocked up a clever fellow in my own line of business, who
was instructed by me, and who acted under my direction to the letter and
spirit, so that the _ruse_ was, as the reader will see, entirely
successful. As far as I could, of course, I directly superintended the
details of my scheme.
Residing in the neighbourhood of Soho was a man of considerable ability,
who, as I was informed, and have now good reasons for believing, could
talk and write with great ease and facility. What his political
principles were I do not know, nor did I then care about any more than
he did himself. He was ready to accept the engagement which I offered
him. For a price he agreed to become a third candidate for the
representation of N----.
My man--the new candidate--and I, after quitting the lodgings of the
former, went to an adjacent hostelry, where, having secured a private
room, and called for pens, ink, and paper, cigars, and a bottle of wine,
we concocted an address to "the free and independent electors" of the
borough we were to humbug. This was taken to a printer, who, for a
little more than ordinary pay, got it into type, and printed off five
hundred copies within three hours.
We next paid a visit to the shop of a well-known clothes-dealer not far
off, whose name has a flavour of Hebrew in its orthography, where our
candidate got rigged out in admirable style; although at an expense, I
think even now, a little extravagant. When thus costumed in the habit of
a gentleman, he really looked such; and with the influence of external
prosperity, and, I suppose, the magic of twenty sovereigns in his pocket
(such a sum as he had not been in the enjoyment of, I fancy, for a very
long while), all the traces of want and dissipation left his
countenance. He talked with additional volubility, and became so
eloquent, that I really thought it a pity he was not the real instead of
the sham aspirant for senatorial dignity.
I plead guilty to a passing idea which then possessed me, and suggested
an odious comparison. I thought he would have fitted the character of
M.P. much better than our candidate Mr. Jollefat, whose jackal or
provider he really was.
I next took our party to a restaurant in Regent Street, where I called
for, and paid for, a sumptuous dinner.
Over our wine suggestion and plot developed themselves grandly. I became
indebted for many valuable hints to my new chum and his clever friend.
We smoked, and chatted, and afterwards strolled in St. James's Park
until the time began to arrive for our leaving Town.
One other call had to be made at a trunk-maker's for two or three goodly
portmanteaus, which, although expense was not of much importance, I
preferred to have second-hand, as I thought shabbiness, or at least a
soiled appearance, would look better, as an accessory to the scheme or
great trick we had already begun to play out.
I should also tell the reader that I promised "the popular candidate" in
embryo a bonus of fifty pounds if he played his part skilfully, and kept
good faith; but I gave him no security beyond my word (from which I
never departed in my life) for the fulfilment of my part of the
contract. Neither of us had then, or thereafter, to regret the manner in
which it was executed and paid for.
The portmanteaus were stocked from an outfitter's, a hosier's, a
perfumer's, and other tradesmen.
We also purchased a large, heavy, wooden box from a dealer in
antiquities. It had huge steel clasps, and a ponderous lock. It looked
like a thing designed for the keeping of treasure, and a thing
customarily so employed. We filled this box.
We then went to the printer's, where the copies of the placard we had
ordered, and of which we had not thought it necessary to see a proof,
were all worked off; and it looked, in clear bold type, fascinating to
the eye of each of us, but most charming of all it perhaps seemed to the
man who embodied most of its unreality.
It is astonishing how many excellent devices, and how many grand
projects and schemes of lofty usefulness, are marred by inattention to
detail, or it may be the want of a single but essential ingredient. This
was nearly the case on the present occasion. My Great Electioneering
Trick had almost failed from an oversight in its initiation. We had, up
to this moment, retained no lawyer or attorney,--a most essential
feature of such a plot as that we had engaged in. This omission was
discovered by me just in time to be filled up. We heard of an
attorney--a low sort of fellow, I believe--who lived in the
neighbourhood. I hired him, and sent him down with the other two to the
borough of N---- that night.
I parted company with my friends at the Euston Station. They proceeded a
little more than a hundred miles to the populous town of H---- by
railway, and there alighted. From this point the journey was performed
in a lumbering post-chaise, as I had desired my party not on any account
to arrive at the town of N---- before twelve o'clock at night. I
preferred that it should be a little after one in the morning, and I
suggested they might as well get up a little sensation on their arrival.
This I told them might easily be done, by a pretended anxiety to keep
their arrival dark and quiet.
My instructions herein were obeyed, as I afterwards ascertained, with
unerring exactness.
There was, at a very short distance on the outside of the town, a
toll-bar, always locked at night, and the keeper of which was not
renowned for his vigilance or wakefulness. The party found a trifle of
real difficulty in gaining admission to the borough. It was some time
before the man at the toll-house, rubbing his eyes, opened his little
wicket, and came forth to unlock the gate. As he did so, he was startled
by the sight of a vehicle with three persons in it, and heavily laden.
The man's sagacity penetrated, as he thought, the whole secret. He
winked, and nodded, and grinned significantly. He saw in one of the
party another candidate for the franchise of the free and independent
electors; and in the other two his agents. His acute vision dived
through the keyhole of that box, and there beheld a weight of gold,
which he defined, in conversation next day, as "such a sight as he never
saw in his life before even at an election." My man kept up the delusion
well, by throwing two half-crowns to the fellow; and each of his
companions tossed a handful of small coin at him, as he closed the gate
after them.
Away rolled, at a slow pace, the heavily-laden vehicle, the horses
throbbing and panting, and the riders chuckling to their hearts'
content.
At length the town of N---- was reached. As quietly and mysteriously as
possible the vehicle was driven by the strangers, its occupants, up to
the hotel of our opponent; and, after ringing the bell, refusing to
accept the servants' answer, and insisting upon awakening the host, my
man tried to strike a bargain with the hotel-keeper (putting him under
confidence) to let his house as the central committee-room of the
"independent candidate." Boniface was proof against temptation. He had
let his house to Mr. Sallow Twitch, the Whig candidate, and he was "not
a-going to break his engagement--not he." He never had done such a thing
in his life, and never would. They must go elsewhere, he said; and the
interview was closed by the irate landlord sheering off to bed, telling
them he didn't want to have no more to do with them.
Next the party went to the hotel where Mr. Jollefat was staying, and in
which he held his quarters. A similar interview with Mr. Bung, at that
establishment, ended not unlike the conference with Mr. Boniface.
At last a solitary medieval-looking policeman was observed torpidly
creeping along the Market-place, and for a consideration he undertook,
in the first place, to find the best quarters now available, and in the
second to keep the arrival of his patrons as quiet and as solemn as
death.
It was unfortunate, he said, that they had come into the town so late,
because the other parties had been in the field so long, and had got the
regular start of them. However, there was a tidyish sort of a place,
which had always been the head-quarters of a third candidate; and, for
his own part, he did not think it much mattered, if the candidate was "a
regular gentleman," which house he put up at. This shrewd policeman
thought it would be all the same, if the candidate had about him friends
who knew their business.
The policeman's advice was taken in the selection of a central
committee-room,--the Green Swan with Two Tails, which, let me confess
and regret, was a comparatively humble place for head-quarters. I
should have very much preferred the first hotel in the town; and if that
had been possible, I would have yielded up the place in which Mr.
Jollefat was enthroned. However, as the sequel will show, this matter
did not influence the success of the _coup_.
Without further loss of time--that is to say, early next morning--my man
went to work. The first person to whom, as the agent of the independent
candidate, he paid his addresses, was not the mayor of the town, nor the
town-clerk, nor an alderman, nor a town-councillor, but he was--a
bill-sticker.
There consequently appeared upon the walls an address, which ran as
follows:
"_To the Free and Independent Electors of the
Borough of N----._
"GENTLEMEN,--Your borough has too often been the arena of faction
fights. You have been regarded as the supporters of Whig and Tory.
Your grand historical traditions and your eminent public virtues
have not been respected, cared for, understood, or apparently known
to your representatives in Parliament, or even those who have
hitherto aspired to the most honourable distinction of representing
you in the Legislature.
"Gentlemen, although a stranger among you, having resided many
years abroad, and having but lately returned to my native country;
having studied the political institutions of Europe and America,
and seen them in practical operation; and having, moreover, read
the history of your ancient town, which forms so many brilliant
pages in the grand history of our native country; and having had
the good fortune to inherit an ample estate,--I have resolved to
place my services at the disposal of my country, with a special
desire to serve the interests of a free and enlightened
constituency, such as that of N----.
"Gentlemen, under these circumstances I offer myself as a candidate
at the forthcoming election for the representation of your borough;
and although I shall immediately do myself the honour of waiting
upon you individually, and canvassing each of you at his own
fireside, I think it right to lay before you concisely a statement
of my political principles.
"Gentlemen, I am in favour of the broadest and most comprehensive
scheme of reform which political philosophy can devise. If you
should do me the honour to return me to Parliament (as I feel
confident you will), I shall, by my speeches and votes, support
every measure which tends to increase the happiness of the people,
by extending the demand for labour, increasing the wages of
industry, at the same time adding to the profits of capital, and
promoting the comfort of every man, woman, and child throughout her
Majesty's wide dominions.
"Gentlemen, I am in favour of other measures of political and
social amelioration which benefit all, but injure none, in their
comprehensiveness and beneficence, that I find it impossible to
properly explain, within the limit of a printed address, but upon
which I shall have many opportunities to offer explanations when I
meet you face to face in public meeting, in your own houses, and
upon the hustings on the day of nomination.
"Gentlemen,
I have the honour to subscribe myself,
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
HORATIO MOUNT-STEPHEN FIPPS."
The bill-sticker lost no time in placarding the walls of the town; but
his functions had been largely anticipated by the disclosures of the
toll-bar keeper, Boniface, his boots, Bung, and his ostler.
The town was set in a commotion. The Green Swan with Two Tails was
crowded in the bar-parlour, in front of the bar, and in every public
room it had. Mr. Smith (I mean Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps) received
a dozen offers of professional assistance, two or three score of
requests for the honour of making his acquaintance, letters innumerable
for his autograph, with other delicate and indelicate overtures of
good-will and friendship,--all within a few hours. Mr. Fipps, after he
had returned to London, and been retransformed into "Smith," told me it
was the "jolliest spree" he had ever been engaged in during his life;
and my man told me that the fictitious candidate played his part with
the skill of a genius.
In the course of the morning a crowd assembled in front of the Swan with
Two Tails, and loud huzzas were heard in honour of "the independent" and
now "popular candidate." A speculative printer had, without orders,
either in the excess of political zeal, or in reliance upon a careless
auditing of accounts, got another placard stuck upon the walls, which
read thus:
"FIPPS FOR EVER!!!"
The mob became towards afternoon a little impatient and uproarious, and
the candidate had to present himself on the balcony of the hotel, and
harangue his admirers. I regret to say, no short-hand writer being
present, I cannot give the reader a report of this speech, which I am
sorry for, because I have been told it was one of the grandest orations
of the kind ever uttered by a pretended or real candidate. However, let
that pass.
Towards evening a deputation asked permission to wait upon Horatio
Mount-Stephen Fipps, Esq., to express their admiration of the principles
so clearly and exactly enunciated in his address, and so beautifully
illustrated and enforced in his most eloquent speech. Their request was
granted with the utmost cordiality by that great man, and he supplicated
them to do him the honour of dining with him.
The hospitality of the Green Swan with Two Tails was, I am told, worthy
of a more pretentious establishment; and ample justice was done, as the
penny-a-liners say, to the culinary skill of the hostess. Mine host's
vintages were also duly appreciated, or at least I judge so by the items
of account which I afterwards saw under the date of this entertainment.
It is true that the good things bore familiar names; but that
circumstance may rather be ascribed to the English character of the
candidate and his admirers, than to the limited capacity or means of the
landlord and his better half. Sherry and port and champagne--champagne
and port and sherry--seemed to have been mingled in profusion with
cigars that, in the aggregate, weighed a few score pounds, and were (I
take it from the price they cost me or my principal) the finest that
Havannah could produce.
At this improvised banquet speeches were of course delivered, toasts
were drunk, and songs were sang, until the _finale_,--a medley of
variations from "Rule Brittania," "God Save the Queen," and "We won't go
Home till Morning,"--which last chorus embodied a resolution that the
patriotic admirers of Fipps did faithfully perform.
Out of this party a committee was formed by the sober men; for, let it
be observed, Smith--that is, I mean Fipps--kept faith by keeping sober
with a constant eye to results; and all now was expected to go on
merrily as a marriage-bell.
The next day was spent very much as the previous one had been, except
that the third and popular candidate, as a matter of form, called upon a
number of respectable inhabitants, and went through the _rôle_ of a
candidate's duties, such as shaking hands with one or two loungers in
front of the hotel clad in soiled smock-frocks, kissing a few slobbering
babies, talking pleasantly to the voters' wives, and expounding
principles to the voters themselves.
On this day the attorney of Mr. Twitch sent a note by hand to the
attorney of Mr. Jollefat, proposing that these ravens should meet in
confidence, and without prejudice, to discuss a matter of importance to
both the candidates. Mr. Jollefat's legal adviser replied by assenting
to the conference. They met. Fipps's candidature was the theme of
discussion. Twitch's attorney said he had telegraphed to Brookes's, and
the Reform, and to Mr. Coppock, but he could learn nothing about Fipps.
He was not known to the party, and they thought he must be some
adventurer, whose wealth, if it had any other than an imaginary
existence at all, must be grossly exaggerated. Mr. Jollefat's attorney
said that he had in like manner inquired at the Carlton, but could learn
nothing about their opponent. The Liberal was discouraged; the
Conservative did not take the matter to heart. They were agreed that
nothing could be done to spoil the new candidate.
My man went to a local printer and got some forms printed with
counterfoils, much after the manner of tradesmen's "delivery note-books"
or bankers' cheques, the use of which will immediately be seen. He also
contrived to make the acquaintance of a few leaders of the people,--what
the French would call "men of action,"--not spouters or loudly boasting
partisans.
On the evening of the second day after Mr. Fipps's arrival at N----, my
man had a consultation with about half a dozen of the principal of these
men, who may be called the heads of gangs of voters; persons who
regarded the franchise as a property to be sold in the market, like any
other commodity; except that this article called a vote must be
purchased by a candidate in retail quantities, in order that he might
sell them, as a constituency, in a lump or by wholesale. The result was
a compact or understanding, which I have no doubt would have been
faithfully kept by the vendors. These men always keep faith with their
purchaser, if no other candidate, supposed to have still a heavier
weight of metal with which to solve their honesty, should arrive on any
subsequent night between the date of the arrangement with them and the
day of polling.
This part of the business requires to be explained with much precision,
or the reader may not perhaps observe the central point or pivot of the
Great Electioneering Trick which it is my intention now to explain.
My man had occasion to address one of the vendors of the franchise to
the following effect. He explained that the law against bribery was
rather severe; and Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps, Esq., was a gentleman of
extremely delicate sensibilities, whose honourable feelings would recoil
from venality; and that if there were no law on the Statute-book or
among the precedents for its punishment (which indeed there was), all
must be free and above board,--or at least it must be made to appear so
to the eyes, not only of policemen, or judges, or Parliamentary
Commissioners, or other judicial officers, but also to that most
upright, righteous, and wealthy man, the "popular candidate" himself.
The agent went on to say that he came down to the town with the
gentleman whom he had the honour to serve. He could not have supposed
that the state of the borough would have entailed upon him the necessity
of doing things which he saw were essential to the success of Mr. Fipps,
but yet, being in it, he was determined to go on and secure a triumph
for the distinguished and generous-hearted man he represented at that
interview. As for money, that did not matter. Mr. Fipps was rich enough
in all conscience. Any thing they might have to pay would not hurt
him--not a bit of it; but his character must be above reproach at the
clubs and in his own eyes. One way out of the difficulty, my man went on
to observe, had occurred to him, and he had already resolved to pursue
that course, or to withdraw his candidate at once before any money worth
mentioning had been spent; because although it was true Mr. Fipps had
enough, and more than enough, for every necessity, he did not like
squandering it, and losing the object of his ambition also. At this
suggestion of the removal of the candidate and his cash-box, the leaders
of the people looked somewhat blank or alarmed. They said a man like Mr.
Fipps was sure to win if he went the right way about it, and they
thought it a pity he should run away after the handsome manner in which
he had been treated by all classes.
Some further parleying took place, when it was agreed that late at night
the several leaders of the people should, one by one, take my man round
to the residences of the free and independent electors who were in
reality to be bribed, and that that operation should be colourably done
in the way arranged.
A contract was made with each elector that he should fill the post of
flag-bearer, messenger, check-clerk, polling-clerk, or something or
other, and should receive 10_l._ at the close of the election for so
doing. He was guaranteed payment of that money to his perfect
satisfaction, by a printed form of engagement, or an agreement in law,
on a slip of paper, signed by my man with his bold clear autograph, and
on the stump counterfoil of which the lured voter wrote his name or made
his mark (+). Just by way of a present balm to each hired elector, the
sum of 5_s._ was given him when his engagement was effected.
Next day the nomination took place. Mr. Twitch, the Whig candidate, was
received with derisive shouts, and a greeting of missiles. Mr. Jollefat
fared no better, and in his heart of hearts cursed the borough, with
that ambition or folly which had induced him to enter the lists as a
candidate; and he stopped at the conclusion that of all the vanities
which have marked humanity since the days of Solomon, nothing equalled
that of desiring to be the representative in Parliament of such a free
and independent constituency as the borough of N----.
Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps was the hero of the day. If any thing
checked the outpouring of his eloquent tongue, it was the rapid
appreciation of his audience, which overtook the completion of his
sentences. They cheered, and shouted, and hurrahed, and made every
conceivable, and, to the reader, many unconceivable demonstrations of
affection for his person, and of admiration for his principles. But for
these exuberant manifestations of attachment and devotion, I certainly
might give the reader a splendid specimen of what a speech on the
hustings may be. The hurrahs and the huzzas broke up Mr. Fipps's
arguments, and the coruscations of his eloquence into fragments. Let it
suffice to say, it was a brilliant and a grand speech.
On the show of hands being called for, a few were held up for Mr.
Twitch, a few more for Mr. Jollefat, and a whole forest of uplifted
palms testified their desire to have Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps as the
member for N----. The returning officer, of course, declared the choice
of the electors, by an open vote, to have fallen upon that honourable
gentleman, and a poll was demanded by each of his antagonists.
The most important thing to be now effected was an escape from the town.
This was not in reality a very easy thing, although to the reader
nothing may perhaps appear more easy of accomplishment. By this time
every body in the place knew the three conspirators, and neither the
"candidate," nor his two immediate associates, were often left alone
during five consecutive minutes. To quit the place by either of the
ordinary roads, in the ordinary way, would have been likely to excite
suspicion. To have moved off singly, but simultaneously, by three
different roads, would have excited less suspicion perhaps, but would
have been more damnatory if discovered. To move off other than
simultaneously would have been to peril, perhaps, the lives, and
certainly to have perilled the chastisement, of one or two who might
remain after the flight of one had been ascertained.
Detection was, moreover, a thing likely, under any circumstances, to
follow rapidly on the retreat. My man had noticed the presence of at
least half a dozen strangers in the camp of the enemy. These strangers
had a knowing look, and wore a metropolitan aspect. He suspected them of
being spies upon us. Mr. Fipps's antecedents might, for any thing we
positively knew to the contrary, have been ascertained, and become known
to the Liberal candidate, whose game he was trying to spoil, although
that gentleman and his friend might not deem it expedient (if they could
not exactly prove the connexion between the party of Fipps and that of
Mr. Jollefat) to explode the fiction of the former's candidature.
However, get away they must, and that before the polling of to-morrow,
or they would not get away until too late.
It was part of my design that the scheme should explode, and that the
match should be applied at this exact point of the scheme.
We had arranged to keep the poll open for Fipps, notwithstanding his
flight. No official notice of the abandonment of his candidature was
therefore served upon the returning officer.
In fact, although Fipps ran away, Fipps must still be a candidate. Our
head lawyer thought that necessary, and also thought it wise to poll one
man at least for the runaway.
After deliberation, it was arranged between the intended fugitives that
morning should be chosen for their flight, and that they should fly in
company. After the nomination, high revelry had been kept at the Green
Swan with Two Tails. Every section of the community of N---- had its
representation there: the lower orders being provided for in rooms, and
with refreshments suited to their tastes, while the topsawyers and
municipal notabilities who had attached themselves to the popular and
winning cause of Fipps, were being entertained in a better room of the
house. Fipps himself, and my man and the attorney, being in the company
of the latter, carefully guarded against any thing like excess. They
were the only prudent people in the lot. This revelry lasted through the
night, and until morning. Mine host himself, knocked up by fatigue and
potations, retired to an uneasy couch. The hostess had snatched a little
rest, and resumed charge of the house while her lord slumbered. As for
Mr. Fipps, my man, and the attorney, they contrived to disentangle
themselves from their supporters about three in the morning, under
strong protestations of anxiety for the welfare of those gentlemen, who
were urged, for appearance' sake and their own health's sake, to retire
home and get a few winks of sleep, and come refreshed in the morning to
the poll. By this means the multitude surrounding the candidate, except
his two confidants, were got rid of. So far good.
About six in the morning, Fipps,--oppressed with an imaginary headache
and sense of fatigue; my man, in like condition; and the attorney, in a
similar state,--called for soda-water with a dash of brandy, and began,
in the presence of the hostess, to bewail their unfitness to go through
the labours of the approaching struggle. My man suggested that it might
be as well to take a stroll, if they could get out quietly and not have
a rabble at their heels. They asked if that were possible. The landlady
consented to let them out by a back-door across a meadow which formed
part of her lord's tenancy, where they could strike off into some
by-lanes, and get what they so urgently needed--"a breath of fresh air."
This suited admirably. My man had already taken soundings of the roads,
and knew that by this means the party could walk or run off a distance
of only five miles, and meet an up-train to London at the ---- Station at
eight o'clock a.m.
Not a soul was astir on the outskirts of the town, save here and there a
rustic labourer walking to his toil or engaged thereon--rude, unlettered
men, without political thought or character, who took no interest in the
great struggle at the borough of N----, and who cared to do no more than
return the salutation of "Good morning" to the gentlemen wayfarers.
The absence of Mr. Fipps and his agent and attorney was soon discovered,
and it was at once suspected to have a sinister object. This notion
spread like wildfire throughout the whole borough, and a scene of
excitement ensued which literally beggars description; nothing has ever
equalled it in electioneering development. The Green Swan at one time
ran great risk of utter demolition. A few innocent people, suspected of
participation in the fraud, were punished by the mob, who must have a
victim or two, and who wreaked their vengeance upon suspects in the
absence of those real delinquents that by this time were safely
proceeding southwards to the great metropolis in the train which they
had met.
The windows of Mr. Fipps's hotel were broken. The remonstrances of the
landlord were not believed by a large portion of the crowd, although,
for that worthy's reputation, it may be stated a large contingent of
the rioters did put faith in his asseverations.
The committee-room was broken into and ransacked, and no little glee was
excited when the strong-box was discovered. A fitful gleam of savage
hope took possession of the discoverers. They thought for a moment they
had grasped a treasure, and the prospect of a grand loot cheered their
hearts. This discovery also soon got communicated to the crowd outside.
There was a demand that the box should be brought out into the
Market-place, and its contents distributed fairly amongst them. With
much difficulty the ponderous chest was carried down-stairs and into the
street. For a while the lock withstood all efforts to break it open; but
at length a smith came, with tools that would have almost battered down
the gate of a fortress. With this effective aid the hasp was fractured
or detached, and the lid of the mysterious box was lifted. To their
surprise and astonishment, carefully embedded in sawdust were found--not
the sovereigns that were to have compensated the various messengers,
flag-bearers, check-clerks, poll-clerks, &c., &c., &c.; but--do not
start, gentle reader, in amazement--ten solid lumps of fine Scotch
granite, which had been diverted from their legitimate purpose (that of
forming part of the roadway in Oxford Street) to the unhallowed
desecration of the free and independent electors of N----. Shouts of
derision, and anathemas both profound and deep, were uttered;
imprecations of the direst were showered on the whilom popular
candidate; and it may be accepted as a fact that, if Mr. Fipps, or his
attorney, or my man, had fallen into the hands of that enraged crowd,
his legal representatives would have been entitled to make a claim on
the offices in which he had insured his life.
The retreat of Fipps and the discovery were themes of merriment; but
perhaps in no part of the borough was the joke or trick so much relished
as in the committee-room of Mr. Jollefat, our real candidate.
It should be also stated, for the reader's information--and he is
particularly requested to notice--that the general postal delivery from
London conveyed to each of the central committee-rooms of Mr. Fipps's
rivals an oblong packet, addressed to each of the remaining candidates
by name, and to their agents, and to all others whom it might concern,
giving them formal notice that the men whose names were included in
lists which were enclosed in the communication (being free and
independent electors of N----) had disqualified themselves from voting
at the present election, by having accepted offices of emolument, under
binding legal contracts with one of the candidates.