'Ten public-houses opening for the Blues
Their floods of moral influence diffuse,
And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds
To nerve the spirits of the valiant Reds.'
By-and-by we read:
'And now the poll begins. The assessors sit
Sublimely sure that what is writ is writ.
The lawyers watch the votes. The skies look down
Unpardonably calm, nor heed the town.'
In how many novels elections figure, I need not say. The name of
political tales is legion, and merely to enumerate them would occupy a
fair amount of space. Who, for example, does not remember the contest
pictured by George Eliot in 'Felix Holt'--that which leads to the riot
in which Felix becomes unintentionally and unfortunately embroiled? 'The
nomination day,' says the novelist, 'was a great epoch of successful
trickery, or, to speak in a more parliamentary manner, of war-stratagem,
on the part of skilful agents.' And she goes on to describe
'the show of hands, and the cheering, the bustling and the pelting,
the roaring and the hissing, the hard hits with small missiles and
the soft hits with small jokes.'
Of the polling day, she writes:
'Every public-house in Treby was lively with changing and numerous
company. Not, of course, that there was any treating; treating
necessarily had stopped, from moral scruples, when once "the writs
were out;" but there was drinking, which did equally well under any
name.'
This was in 1832. In 1840 there was published at Dublin a tale, entitled
'The Election,' in which the author bluntly declared that 'bribery and
perjury are the returning officers.' He was, in truth, a very
'high-toned' writer, for we find him declaiming vigorously against that
which Sterling mentions as one of the canvassing weapons of a
candidate--'the practice of shaking hands with all and every person
whose vote is solicited, whether they be old friends or the acquaintance
of the moment.' There are, we are told, 'cases when such buxom
familiarity is out of place--when it assumes too much the appearance of
vulgar cajolery to be received as a compliment.' Elsewhere we come
across an instructive bit of talk between an Irish maiden lady of a
certain age, and one of the gentlemen who desires her 'vote and
interest.' The lady protests that she does not know the difference
between the Whigs, the Tories, and the Radicals:
'I know two of them are in the history of England, where they gave
trouble enough, whatever they were. But as for the Radicals, it is
a newspaper word that I can't say I'm well acquainted with.'
Whereupon the candidate replies that all he can say for the Whigs is
that
'they are very fair spoken, when it suits their convenience. But
the Radicals are a foul-mouthed race, on all and every occasion,
and are the bitter enemies to Church and State.'
Nevertheless, the contest (of course an Irish one) which forms the main
feature of the tale, ends in the return of Sir Andrew Shrivel, the
Radical, together with Thaddeus O'Sullivan Gaffrey, Esq., representing
the Nationalists.