The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-02 00:00:00

COIINTRT ELEt7r.ION HUMOUR&

" Hear, hear ! lend sheers, sad a man pat 0.t."
That is the short, sharp, and decisive way in which
we manage our political meeting" sad report
them. They are all men of action in our parts;
no half-hearted fighters when stern election work
has to be done. It doesn't strike them that it is
essentially genteel to be conservative, and that
then:fon, you should affect to speakfurther
change " with an elegant shudder. Our north
soentrywen read hard at politics, and they talk of
an election, three months or more before it (tomes
off, for eta 'sal hours each evening. These discus-
s:ons are not of the quietest order. The air crackles
all round you with the names of " Gladstone,"
" Lowe," and "What did Dizzy say ?"
and when we see a band with fingers rather bent
rise gradually to its full reach love the level of
the crowd, we know of a surety that the owner is
'peaking in italic*, and that his words are
" levell ng up." Polities are at once their delight
and refreshment, and an election is their carnival
A crowd of this kind is harder for a candidate to
face than a metropolitan one, as they know each
other as well as the hounds in a pack, and have
therefore more confidence when " an old standard"
opens and they go to the cry.
When that happy election meson does arrive,there
is not a Shred of the candidate's opinions and ante-
cedents that they donot overhaul; but they are very
amenable to gentle influence. Once a gentleman
would not trust to his own persuasive powers,
and sent for hie wife to canvass, The other can-
didate was not to be done that way, and having a
wife still prettier in his own eyes, he determined to
over-tramp. It transpired by what train
wife No. 2 was to arrive, and away went
two or three hundred of our Mends all the
way to the station. They took the horses out of the
carriage, and dragged her all the way back ; and
one of them, when she stood up and bowed, held
a candle as near her as he thought polite, to prove
that her looks had not been overstated, and that
she was fit, like " another Helen," to " fire
Troy." It is at night meetings that the " old
guard" come oat so well. They have no idea of
Conservative Working Men's" gatherings, by
lieket entrance, as at St. James's-hall, ' carriages
to take up at half-past ten o'clock," and still less
of a Conservative Working Men's banquet, whernthe
mate are full of gentlemen in patent leathers and
white waistcoats, and where, if any one but the
show working men of the piece gets up to speak, he
is once for all pulled back by the coat-tails into his
chair by ardent stewairds, or has his voice drowned
by a big drum.
A quiet sit and a smoke at their clubs is their
delight, and if the popular candidate looks
in and has the sense to say, as we have heard
him, " lam not going to get on to the platform
and make a speech, but I'll come down there
and smoke a pipe with you," the crack goes on
cheerily enough. Ventriloquists will come there,
and imitate the candidate and his mode of
speaking to the life on the ceiling or up the chim-
ney, and if he can't join in the laugh at his ex-
pense be is not worth hearing.
The preliminary public meetings are the great
fun after all. If a speaker has a sore point, they
are sure to put their finger on it. A saddler was
owe very talkative, but the adjuration of " Sit
down, bellyband," hit him under the fifth rib, and
be. voice was heard in the land no more. A most
respectable keeper of a china warehouse and
pottery shop was dropped on with a similar
shot, of " Sit down, jam-pot," about the
commonest description of artie.^ he sold ; and
an obnoxious grocer could not rise against—
Nowt currants, who tauld thee to speak ? "
There is no reply to that sort of hit, when the
whole company laughed, just as the wrestlers
Chapman, Longmire, and Jackson could never
meet Mossopp's of Egr.emont's peculiar jerk off
the breast. The most inveterate bore succumbs.
One man, from his euerffetie habits, had acquired
the name of " Pushy, and was always putting
questions, but be could not bear being publicly
admonished by that name when he had been more
than usual inquisitive, and bid to " hod thee
*latter" as well. Sometimes in Yorkshire the
colloquies take a sporting turn. A voice in the
centre of the room will offer to back the colonel
for " a pony," and if anyone, like Mr. Merry, has
a Derby or St. Leger colt, ha is exhorted to tell
all about Lim and his chat), s. Thy latter gentle-
man always says that he hopes to win the Derby
for the honour c f Falkirk boroughs, and when
they asked bin about " abolishing the law of
primogeniture; he put. as a soi of special demur-
rer, that it was a wise child that knew its own
Path( r.

It is a very severe thing for a candidate if he is
known to entertain a taste for any particular
animal. Mr. Garth, late M.P., had to undergo
the most searching cross-examination about the
points of pointers from double noses to sterns,
when he was first a eandid.ete fur Cuildford.
Another member in the north, whose hours of
idleness wen• spent among his hens, appeansi for
several occasions before his constituents, an•l to
the old of his life had no opp,rtimity of enplain-
lag Lis political sentiments. lie weavers nem kel
1,-1.1 lc ng before he opened his mouth, and assailed
him with a volley of questions onicitting hens, mid
piffle; s, end e;•r sepplies, when all their minds
ought. like the Laird of Cockpec's, to Irene
ban " T.lr•rt vp wi ietEcirei of
views thereon. When Le did begin to
speak there was such a clucking chorus and Buell
crowing that he soon bowed before it and retired,
leasing "thy little egg" with the reporters. A
prfect barn-door and forest chorus no man can
stand; hut perhaps it is worse if a tormenter only
" does the donkey," or crows like chanticleer with
crud precision, just at the most inspired paasages
of a discourse. Ilerr van Joel was nothing to
some of the Yorkshire cock imitators. Poor George,
of Doncaster, who did all his business, wet or fine,
without a wet, over miles of country with news-
papers, was a great artiste, and completely dislo-
cated one meeting by it; but none can crow like
Mr. Tom Collins, whom Boston has just restore•'
to the Commons, where his lusty note has so often
cheered the hearts of " the country party."
Mr. Malcolm deserves well of Mr. Disraeli for
shielding such a favourite under his gigantic
wing. Salentine barking has been very effective
during the last few weeks at a town in the north.
A noted maker of dog biscuits announced him-
self as " the dauntless democrat," and held
meetings, supported, not by working men, but by
" the old guard," who could do nothing to help him.
Alas it was in vain for him to grapple with social
and political problems, for the more he unravelled
them, the more his audience barked. Then he
had ticket meetings, and filled them with his
bakers. If an opponent barked, he noted him by
name, and if admonition failed, out he went
with gentle violence. However, it was of no avail ;
the excluded pack of nearly two hundred couple
waited for him at the door, and when " clog
biscuits" was viewed away after the meeting, they
gave him such a fast thing of about three hundred
yards, that Lis thirst for candidature in future will
be. slaked.

Free fights ere of course very common, and a
midland paper once hit off the matter in
a few words. " After a long discussion upon the
Irish church and its prospects, they fought for
half en hour." It was less general on another
occasion, when a " dauntless democrat " was
reported as having been " engaged (owing to an
inability to agree on the Irish church question) in
single combat for several minutes with a highly
respected member of the constitutional cause.
"
In spite of " the great conservative reaction,"
the members of that party are fonder of fighting
in the bush, and like packed meetings m the
towns. When it is a county matter, and their
friends can come in their top boots, they have
such an overwhelming weight of boot and
want breadth, that they can always hold their
own in a room or street. The farmers, young and
old, hit out tremendously for Church and State as
well ill for malt and corn, and they are gene-
rally too many for the townspeople, It Hawitik
the border own quite overpowered the weavers,
and it was that the original Dandy Dintried
Gould take up ,rwo of " the weaver bodtes " in
his brawny arms, mock their heads together, and
than drop then, ktuillPd. for another pair. Ex-
tempore orators, oat kW wiadows, 4a not lore will