The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-18 00:00:00

its door, you naturally hesitate—Ought you to knock
single or double ? You knock double and summon
two footmen to the door. The scowl of the one to whom
you give your missive, and the gibes of the other who
sees him receive it, will for ever deter you from
knocking twice when on such en embassy again. At
the next house you ring the bell. After a protracted
interval, you are answered from the area by a mul-
lion, who gently hints to you that she " wishes people
wouldn't come bothering with them there cireniars."
It is evident this will never do. You try sending
round by a couple of boys. One of them, who is
honest, gets kicked down the steps of the first house
he raps at; the other you discover to have
put your letters down the gutter grating,
and to have vent his morning in a game of marbles
round the corners. You make up your mind that
there is nothing for it but the postman, and thede-
frsytnent of the postage by yourself.
Well, in the course of a fortnight, you receive per-
haps 40 replies to your 4,000 letters ; 20 are unfa-
vourable, 10 promise you proxies conditionally, and
the other 10 promise them specifically. It is evident
your attempts have been attended with very slight
emcees. Yon are greatly disheartened, but, remem-
bering the kindness of the bland secretary, you
resolve on calling and asking his advice. He
assures you that there is not the least ground
for alarm. He has heard the c Ise spoken of
by several governors u a highly interesting
one. You have only to go on to " make the
case known." Have you canvassed the governors of
any of the other asylums ? It occurs to you to ask
what good that would do : and then you learn for
the first time that these, like other commercial bodies,
have a system of " exchange." A. desires to get a boy
into one school, B. wishes to get a girl into another.
A. knows fifty governors of 13.'s school, and B. has
influence with seventy-five governors of A.'s. It happens
probably that fewer votes are required to ensure
success in the girls' school than in the boys'.
The seventy-five votes in the one are conse-
quently about equal iu value to the fifty votes in the
other. A. and B. accordingly exchange proxies.
Sometimes it happens that " the coase of exchange"
varies. There is a run upon the one school, whilst
there are few candidates for the other. In this
event, the exchange is effected with this addition,
that (as the case may be) A. or B. "receives the:dif-
ference."
Your eyes begin to open. You see that there is a
vast deal more in getting a child in than merely can-
vassing the governors. " Have you got any, of our next
half-year's votes?' inquires the society. You inquire
also the meaning of this, and find that it is expressed
in some such rule as the following:—
That say person desirous of promoting the success of a
candidate at one election by a contribution to the charity, and
wishing to anticipate hie interest at the following election,
shall be allowed to take the votes to which he would be en-
titled on the two occasions at one time.
Yon have got no such votes, but you see immedi-
ately the effect of the regulation. It seta at defiance
every calculation as to how many votes a child may
require to ensure success. The power it gives to the
committee and the officers is also great. They alone
know who exercised second votes at the last election ;
whilst you, in ignorance of these particulars, may
have been canvassing hundreds in the lists they sold
you, who have no remaining votes at all. In fact,
you have been working blindfold, and yon find your-
self, at this period of the business, 301. and all your
trouble worse than when you began, lees the promise
of a dozen proxies and the secretary's assurances of
unqualified success.
The probabilities are that, at this stage, you aban-
don the matter in disgust. But we will suppose that
you determine to go on and to get your child in at all
hazards. The day of election comes. You find your-
self, as is sure to be the case, with a very insufficient
number of votes. You consult the secretary again.
lie cannot, he says, find much time to speak to you.
He regrets your position. He feels certain that
you cannot " have made the case sufficiently
known" (which means, in reality, that you have
not sufficiently advertised the asylum. He hints that
the only chance left is "to bay or to barrow." What
is meant by buy ? The secretary's explanation is that
you must pay down a certain sum of money to the
asylum, for which you will receive a corresponding
number of proxies. Other people say this word
" buy " is susceptible of a different interpretation.
The secretary never heard of such a thing; but
nevertheless in certain of the asylums there is such a
rule as the following, which undoubtedly appears to
apply to something more than is expressed :
That if at any time it shall be proved that the admission
of a child has been procured by false representations, fraud,
or by payment of money in any way, except directly to Me
officers of Me corporation, such admiesien shall be declared
void.
The word "borrow" has much the same meaning
as " buy," only that with borrowing is associated the
agreeable idea of future, as contradistinguished from
immediate, payment. Some one, situated like yourself,
has got a number of votes: a number, however, in-
sufficient to secure success. He accordingly lends
you his votes upon your I 0 U, to pay him the same
or a greater or less number (according to the
" course of exchange ") at the next election. In oases
of close contests votes may be disposed of to great
advantage in this way. To be sure these votes are
registered for ;candidates to whom the subscribers
never intended they should be given ; but " the sub-
scribers "—what do they know about it ?
In any state of life a man who once gets into debt
finds it no easy matter to get out again. It is the
same in these cases. The " borrowers " only be-
come more inextricably embarrassed at each half-
yearly election. All this tends very greatly to the
benefit of the asylum. Sooner or later you will have to
" buy " votes for them, in order to pay off those you
have borrowed.
One proxy-hunter we did know who released him-
self from his embarrassments. It was that celebrated
and popular divine, the 'Rev. Dr. Smooth." The way
he did it was clever, and may afford a hint
to others. " Dr. Smooths' candidate at a
certain election was subjected to a severe
opposition. To get him in. the tsverend doctor
borrowed votes till he was blue. At the next elec-
tion they were to be paid off. In the interval he
preached two of his most touching sermons to "_is
congregation, and made collections in aid of the
" charity," but though the amount received at the
doors was large, the votes he obtained on account of
the guineas were only half as many as the doctor
wanted. If you had been present on the day his
I 0 U fell due, you would have seen " Dr. Smooth"
very busy indeed. He was collecting votes right
and left for " one of the most interesting and
affecting cases ever brought under the notice
of the asylum." Father drowned, mother burnt
in her b 4 leaving seventeen orphans, most
of them twins and the youngest in arms, utterly des-
titute even of a crust! One old lady, really
a kind-hearted person, half cried her eyes out when
she was told of it, and offered to take the family some
flannel. " Dr. Smooth" would not hear of that. He
could not think of harrowing up the feelings of any
member of his congregation by exposing to their view
such a scene of sorrow. Besides, one of them had
typhus. He only asked for proxies. Votes came in
rapidly, but, alas ! "Dr. Smooth" said, in by no means
sufficient numbers to get the child elected. In sorrow
he employed them in paying off his old score. To all
subsequent inquiries for the unhappy child the worthy
divine replied that " he had happily been the instru-
ment of providing for it in another way." There
were persons who hinted that the child bad no real
existence at all ; but they were clearly scandal-
mongerr,and calumniators of "that dear Dr. Smooth."
To the widowed mother and the orphan's friend
we conclude by addressing a word of caution. Pause,
consider well, before you enter upon an Orphan
Society's election. If you have money to spare,good—
(though, perhaps, that would be more advantageously
spent in other good ways) ; if you have interest with
a managing member of the committee,better—(he can
do something tor you); if you have in the bland secre-
tary a private friend of whose fidelity you are well
assured, beet of all (your success, we should say,
was certain). But if you have neither of these,
trust not to the excellence of your claim ;
rely not upon the power of your appeal;
believe not that the strongest case that ever was pre-
sented will weigh in the scale against jobbery and
trick. Few people ever entered into the fire of these
contests and came out unscathed. Hope not that you
will be an exception. You may. do the work of ad-
vertising the asylum under the impression that you
are aiding the fatherless; you may spend your time
and your money in bringing that institution under
public notice, believing that you are making known
an orphan's pitiable tale; but after a vain and profit-
less competition against wealth and influence, and
power and chicanery, the result will assuredly only
be that you will share that bitter disappointment,