The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-11 00:00:00

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NOTION.,

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A SECOND EDITION of the EXPRESS,

CONTAINING
The Latest Foreign Telegrams; the Latest City;
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and General Intelligence,

IS PUBLISHED

EVERY EVENING.

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11.

CANVASSING.

To canvass is to endeavour to win men over to
•
your interests and your hopes. A good canvasser
is the diplomat of private life, and must be im-
perturbable, energetic, and bland. He " skates
" upon thin roe" from early morn to dewy eve,
avoiding dangerous subjects, withholding his opi-
nion upon .equivocal ones, and gently estimating
the voter's wealmeesee and strength. A canvass
is like nothing so much as chasing a hat in the
street on a windy day. -If you go too fast you are
apt to trip yourself up over the object of your
chase; if too slow, it bounds away from you alto-
gether; if too violent, you crush it ; if too hesi-
tating, it evade' your grasp, and dances gaily
away late a Will-o'-the-Wisp; and it is only by
tempering ardour with discretion that you come
gradually up with the thing of uncertain move-
ment, and by a dexterous swoop make it
your own. Canvassing is at this time the
avocation either in prospect or in daily
practice of some thousands of gentlemen who
bring to it experience acquired in other walks of
life. Its professors vary in ability as much as
members of the church or bar, and the candidate
who trusta mainly to the representations of his
paid agents as to his prospects of emcees is in a
fair way of being hoodwinked and cajoled. That
the wish is father to the thought, and that all is
fair in love, war, and electioneering, are axioms
which never have fuller weight than in such times
as these; and the tremendous gap between disso-
lution and election gives unusual significance to
both in the canvass preceding this particular
election. In counties and boroughs in which it
has been already actively commenced, those
really interested have a work before them which
might well blench the bravest cheek. There are
such things at this moment as a house to
house canvas, of ten thousand electors, in
which the candidates are verifying the truth
of their agent's reports by themselves calling upon
each elector in turn. Your paid canvasser is, as a
rule, prone to take • sanguine view of hie own
efficiency. He sometimes reports men as " safe "
who have given him equivocal answers, and only
thinks a refusal significant when the door is
slammed in his face. The weak voter who does
not like .saying no, the corrupt voter who waits
on the chance of something profitable turning up,
the undecided voter who believes most in the
principles hehears last, and the voter whose interests
are indirectly involved in the success of one of the
candidatee, are all rocks in your canvasser's way.
He takes hesitation for consent, sly reticence for
manly reserve, weakness of character for the habit
of reflection, and a selfish motive for a conscien-
tious weighing of political principles. Such a
canvasser is anxious above all things to
make a good return to his employers,
and to ao this he is often tempted to
put down doubtful debts as money pay-
ments and to give a fictitious and abnormal
value to things not precious in themselves. In
this case the candidate whose canvass has com-
menced must be either duped or overworked. No
man in his senses would commence electioneering
as early as this if he could help it. The time
between sowing the seed and reaping the fruit is
perilously long. The chances of foul weather and
of disturbing influences are proportionately great,
and no one who can help it will leave his snug
retirement for the turmoil of the election field and
the beat and worry of canvassing for many a week

to come. All over the country and the Continent
are gentlemen, es-senators, and of who tisk%
up the paper each morning with a n _
who
the
the news will come upon them MLA, ohs . oon-
teat is imminent. The words" ElectionAntelligence,"
throw them into a parOxyam of new Odd, and
as each day's respite makes their position more se-
cure, they keep quiet advisedly, and avoid their
constituents until compelled, by the lapse of time
or the appearance of a rival, to emerge from
their retirement. Such obecurity is very
sweet. It is pleasant to read of addressee and
committees, and platform speeches, and canvass-
ing, while you are stretched full length upon the
sands, lounging gaily through a mountain country.
or disporting yourself at a distant country house.
It is pleasant to realise the fuss, and heat, and
bother your parliamentary neighbours are going
through for that which you hope to secure by so
much less expenditure of brain and muscle ; and it
is pleasant to think that your constituency
love you too well to require your pre-
sence until it is essential for the in-
terests of the party that you should
buckle on your armour for the fight. You
wait and watch—not confidently, but hopefully,—
and Sou bear of the exertions of the candidates
for other boroughs or counties than your own
with a feeling of gentle pity not unmixed with
self-complacency. But all this is changed if a
contest is forced upon you. The " quiet" boroughs
told counties are getting rarer and rarer, and the
gentlemen enjoying a complete holiday are in a
minority. Then comes the question—if the fray
has commenced at all, how can it be made most
deadly and decisive P Half measures are impossible
if your rivals are already at work. Canvassing,
speaking, advising, instructing; guarding that
frail outpost, strengthening this weak plsoe, pour-
ing forces into the enemy's country and carrying
off his spoils, working night and day, study-
ing questions about which you care little
that you may expound them to people who
do not care for them at all, allowing yourself to
be button-holed by the local bore, putting
yourself in a position in which everybody
may take liberties with you, and in which
your temper muat be invariably mild—
such is the candidate's ordinary lot in can-
vassing. In the larger boroughs and in counties,
a personal call upon every voter is declared im-
possible, and he is supposed to do that wholesale
which his lieutenants have performed in a retail
way. His platform speeches, his appearance 3 at
dinners, his presence in the streets are all de-
signed to supplement the more minute personal
exertions already made. This is the rule. But
those who remember the election at Eatanswill
will readily recal the social acts by which Mr.
Smarm. 81.1.711KNY won the suffrages of the
electors. The kissing the children and
the shaking the hands, went as far as
the presentation of parasols to the female
politicians of that excited little town.
The example is being bettered in some large con-
stituencies now. The candidates themselves are
going the rounds of thousands of electors, and
talking polities with each personally at the rate of
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty a day.
Fancy a Metropolitan member attempting this ;
fancy a map of Marylebone or the Tower Hamlets
at the time of the election, the tracks which even
the most energetic candidate had been unable to
explore, marked clearly on its face. Yet this is
being attempted in places the very aim and num-
bers of which preclude the possibility of its being
done thoroughly, "If you want a thing well
" done do it yourself," is a role which has led
many a man to success in the ordinary walks of
life. That it should be carried into electioneering
to a far greater extent than formerly shows that
the new electors are credited with a liking for
direct personal communication, and this discovery
may have in the long run a not inconsiderable in-
finence over the relations of employer and em-
ployed.
—__

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 11, 1868.

its parents the City Corporation. Portland-
market, in Churoh-street, Marylebone, has only
been a little more as a. loFakent:a.l:
=TOY. 011070winglitVilikiniketififfithM
may call tiottmghfare ikiirkets. In AM orowdmi
districts the chief thonmShfares hays long boom
the chief Marks's, and allsoreclikk 2tittenhans-
court-road; the Edgware-road, Wliiteskapel, add
the New Cut are still the principal market-places
in their respective district'. The now market at
King's-cross has the advantage of being at tho
junction of several important lines of railway, and
will start as a substitute for that once notorious
neighbourhood—the " Brill," of Somor's-town,
which has been swept away by the now Midland
station.

)1:1 fltipl/4
Isere I oil to the pervioe of the chnrch—to the
leicice, national thermion. heal diipeaos,
Itrothcrl I lent rebellion. existing for the
'4kintirdosis tie, .c. Sir Roundellvti o
isving elatij into dress. The pro ' . ich ' •
atm made lot the 'goal church in Irchtsd. oul
he thinks, . be BLOW* to remain in thota miriade an
places where its egdoiments are not diepropostkients
the wants of • rorident pmteatant populatirm." The
only objection to luch a plan is that it is impracticable.

'ape Court.

PENSION WALLIS, LUCERNE, Strom 9.

A POWERFUL weekly review, which has not
always been free from the guilt of abusing its
power, once published the following sentences
Tremendous evils would be involved in an
" attempt to increase, in any considerable de-
" gm*, the severity of conventional morality, con-
" eidered as a penal code. It would involve
" nothing less than the dissolution of almost
" every social relation ; for if wo did not take the
" average comfort of society as the standard by
" which the enforcement of social penalties is to
" be regulated, no other standard could be found,
" except that of ideal goodness. . . . Social
" penalties are indispensable [however] for the
" comparatively humble purpose of maintaining
" social decency and comfort." These are only
a few out of a thousand of passages, in which the
same key-note is struck in the same powerful re-
view. If the memory of the Saturday is weak we
can help it. But, now, observe. After spending,
through a course of years, about as much
energy as would suffice to found an empire in
spitting in the face of what it calls " ideal good-
" nese," this powerful review—when its cue is to
disgrace Mr. thantrroies, apropos of the
FIRLEN case—repudiates its own alterna-
tive, namely, the standard for ordinary pur-
poses of " social decency and comfort." It is
always the way. Never trust a slasher. His
moral code is too sweetly simple. The " gutter "
diatribe is now placarded on the dead walls by
realons Tory hands, and for this purpose it Was
evidently written.

Tim concluding sentence of the Emperor NAPO-
LEON'S short reply to the people of Troyes has a
striking similitude to the celebrated one—" Put
" your trust in GOD and keep your powder dry."
The EMPEROR says—" Have trust ha the future,
" and don't forget that GOD protects France."
We know it is an imperial maxim that " GOD fights
"on the side of the strong battalions."
Nothing, say's the EMPEROR, " threatens
" aujourd'hui the peace of Europe," but the Paris
critics say the word " aujourd'hui," so used has
not force enough to meet the situation. They
think it means only " just at present," and is
worth far less than some explicit assurance that
the EMPEROR is now satisfied with the state of
things in Europe which he formerly declared
France could not permit to continue.

The Queen, Prinoese Louise, Prinoeee Beatrice,
•and Prince Leopold, attended by the Marehioness of Ely,
MajorDeneral Sir Thomas and the Iron. Lady Biddulph,
Mims Bauer, Sir William Jenner, Colonel Ponsonby, and
Mr. Duckworth, arrived at Lucerne, at 10.30 on Friday
morning, and drove immediately to the Pension Wallis,
which has been prepared for her Majesty's reception.
The Queen was mach fatigued by the journey and great
heat, but has been able to drive out in the neighbeurhor,d
FiIWO her arrival. The other members of the royal family
have also taken drives.

F' .
,;:. .
y.

This day the Queen and the Royal Family, with the
I adios and Gentlemen in Waiting, attended div Inc set
vice in the House.
The Rev. R. Duckworth officiated.