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

ELECTION HUMOURS.

The Daily News contains an amusing article under tne
heading " Country Election Humours." " Voters," it
says, "will turn stupid if much pressed, and sometimes
they will leave town, or stick in the house and not come
out till the books are closed. One old man, who had
never been quite staunch, was once looked up by the
Blues at five o'clock on the polling morning. ' You
needn't come nigh me,' he said ; `the Yellows were here
an hour ago, and I'll get up for none of you ;' and so he
kept his bed all day. We remember another who had
been dozed through his beer, and then put away
peacefully to bed. His shoes, coat, waistcoat,
and hat were also removed from the chair, as a
precaution, in case he did awake too soon. As good luck
would have it, he awoke about twenty minutes to four,
instantly realised the situation, and, rising from bed, just
as he was, in his trousers, shirt, and stockings, ran down
stairs and into the street, amid loud cheers, and just got
polled off in time. His friends and the committee had
been looking for him everywhere, and thought that the
other side had taken him out of town for the benefit of the

air, although they had guarded all the approaches night
and day, and looked into every suspicious cab. In one
borough bottling rose into a science, and it is among the tra-
ditions of its head inn that forty men were once kept
there in bed, or (as they put it) out, for fear that the
other party should secure and tamper with them. That
borough knew its value to a nicety. It always returned
one member for purity's sake, and if the second member
would not pay the regulation price per head, bah parties
understood each other's views so well on the currency
question through their mutual solicitors, that a third was
brought down to ruin him, and beat him if he did not con-
sent to pay. In some boroughs the electors got pay
from both parties. A well-known money-lender used
to tell plaintively how he invited eighty doubtful
electors to an early breakfast, and that they found
a twenty-pound note under each of their plates. They
took the notes and enjoyed their breakfasts very much,
but when they departed, after cheerfully grasping his
hands, it was not to the poll, but to a second breakfast at
their host's opponents, who gave them a pony,' and
secured their ultimate support. The modes of paying
by the Man in the Moon' and the Good and safe
man ' hare all been told. At one of the university
towns the members got a daring spirit—a second year
man, and afterwards a very distinguished Indian
officer—out of one of the colleges, to hold the sack,
and he was such an able financier that he won
the election. When the petition was tried before the
House of Commons committee, the college tutor, finding
that matters were becoming hot, gave him an exeat. Ile
took a cruise in a yacht till all was over, and the com-
mittee failing to discover the missing link, upheld the
mayor's return. An M.A. was also very much implicated,
and the opposite party having searched high and low to
find him, it transpired afterwards that he had been looking
on disguised in the very committee-room where he had
been daily inquired after with much affection, and when
all was over he returned to the place and wrote a very
lofty letter, saying he was surprised at the remarks
which had been made upon his absence at the call of duty,
and that he was there to meet his assailant,' and with
that flash of safe valour a most interesting crisis ended.
Some quaint old fellows hang on the skirts of elections.
They seem to live for nothing else, and annual Parliaments
would be meat and drink to them. One of these was so
?staunch to his colours; and some old common rights, that
when he was buried a bunch of yellow gorse, plucked from
there, was thrown, like an immortelle, on his coffin. In
another borough the Blues were so proud of the Liberal
cause, that one desired to be buried by the paved
footpath through the churchyard, so that the voters might
pass his grave when they went to poll in the porch. A
veteran miner sported an immense blue hat. Under its
shadow he had drunk oceans to the health of the cause,
but once when a mean candidate came who
wouldn't even ' give a poor fellow his beer,'
his feelings were so outraged that, at dead of
night, he marshalled a small procession of sympathisers,
dug a hole, buried his hat, and abjured the
cause for ever. Some voters never will be on the losing
side if possible, and watch the temperament of the
candidates, and other indications of the political
barometer, up to the eleventh hour, for guidance. A
veteran of this sort, as usual, refused to promise his vote
in a county. A day or two before the nomination he
came and voluntarily pledged himself to plump for the
Liberal. I won't vote for t'other men,' he said, they're
bate (beat). One of them's been to me and given me such
a blowing up for not promising—he's bate, I know it,' and
the old political weather puppet was right at four p.m.
Votes are often lost through nervousness. Men won't
take cards, or they fling them down and can't refer to
them. Some of them tremble like aspens when they are
asked the question, and perhaps give the wrong name,
and down go the fatal marks before they can recover
themselves. At the Chelsea election one deaf man put
down his card and shouted 'Freake and Hoare,' in a
stentorian voice, and then came, ' Oh, no—stop ; Dilke
and Hoare,' in a still louder key, and only just in time.
Some voters, again, never care to get the candidate's
name into their head—they all name the Premier of the
day, and refuse to amend ;' and for some time after the
late Earl of Carlisle had joined the peerage, a West
Riding yellow would always declare for Morpeth, and
nowt else.' Richard Cobden' was also honoured after
this persistent fashion.' Such are termed the freaks of
elections. There always will be some spirit thrown into
them ; and all 's well that ends well."

THE JARROW MURDER. —The coroner's jury in
the case of the Jarrow murder have returned a verdict
against Patrick Convery, and he will be sent to the assizes
on the capital charge.

AN IRrsH BULL—One of the two Liberals
returned for an Irish constituency thus congratulated a
large meeting of his supporters :—" The Liberal triumph
is complete ; so complete that I cannot help remarking
the absence of gentlemen of the county. I cannot see one of
their faceS in the court-house."

THE "NDAY EVENINGS FOIL THE PEOPLE.
At a numerously attended meeting of subscribers to the
defence fund, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, it was
resolved to present Mr. J. Baxter Langley with a con-
gratulatory address on his able and successful defence of
the case in the Court of Common Pleas.

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.—During the week ending
Saturday, November 28, there were 1,561 deaths regis-
tered, excelling by 54 those of the previous week. The
annual rates of mortality in fourteen of the principal

towns per thousand of the population were as follows :
Bristol, 23 ; Birmingham and Dublin, 24 ; London, 26 ;
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 27 ; Sheffield, 29 ; Liverpool and
Hull, 31 ; Salford and Bradford, 32 ; Edinburgh and
Manchester, 34 ; Glasgow, 35 ; Leeds, 36.
"ALL THE YEAR ROUND."—The first number 01
the new series of All the Year Round is published,
accompanied by the following notice :—" A very unjusti-
fiable paragraph has appeared in some newspapers, to the
effect that I have relinquished the editorship of this publi-
cation. It is not only unjustifiable because it is wholly
untrue, but because it must be either wilfully or
negligently untrue, if any respect be due to the explicit
terms of my repeatedly-published announcement of the
present new series under my own hand.—CHARLES
DICKENS."

A FRIENDLY CA ITTION.—The banquets to Reverdy
Johnson in England have lately been far too numerous to
chronicle. We fear the effects of these constantly recur-
ring banquets upon Mr. Johnson's health. The English
are tremendous eaters and enormous drinkers at their
" banquets." The solid, sanguinary meats and strong,
heavy liquors are such as no American constitution can
long stand ; and, though we have no doubt Mr. Johnson
is willing to suffer and undergo a great deal forhis country,
yet there are limits beyond which patriotic endurance
should not be tested.—New York, Times.

We have to announce the death of Lieutenant-
Colonel 'William Bruce, K.H., a Peninsula and Waterloo
veteran officer. He entered the 79th Regiment at an early
age, with which he served in the Peninsula from 1812 to
the end of the war in 1814: and was present at the battles
of the Pyrenees on the 28th, 29th, and 30th July, the
blockade of Pa,mpeluna, battles of the Nivelle and the
Nive (10th to 13th December), investment of Bayonne,
and battle of Toulouse. He served also the campaign of
1815, and was present at Waterloo, where he was severely
wounded. He was made a Knight of the Royal nano.
verian Guelphic Order in 1837. He left the 79th Regiment
for the 48th Foot, from which he retired in November,
1841.

AN IRISH VOTER. —A ludicrous episode is re-
ported to have occurred during the polling for the county
of Cork on Friday. A simple voter from Carbery, who
was not accustomed to the exercise of the franchise, and
did not understand how to go about it, was prompted by
his ardent attachment for Mr. Downing to go into
Bandon to vote for him. A person standing in the booth
which he entered asked him, by way of joke, to vote for
Barry and Boyle, judging from his emphatic observations
that it was one of the last acts be would think of com-
mitting. The farmer got enraged at the proposal, and
while the usual question was put "For whom did he vote ?''
he kept repeating in petulant tones, " Barry and Boyle,
indeed !" The poll clerk recorded it as a vote for those
gentlemen, and when the excited elector discovered he had
voted the wrong way and could not amend the error, he
gave uproarious expression to his disappointment, and
finally, as the story runs, knockei down thu practical
ktA• who cAltrappc.cl.l44.l,

Constituency.

ABINGDON
ANDOVER
AYLESBURY

ASEITON-UNDER-LYNE.
ANGLESEA.
BRECONSHIRE
BARNSTAPLE

BRIDONORTII
BA.NBURY
BATH

BEDFORD

BERWICK

BEVERLEY,

BEWDLEY
BIRKENHEAD
BIRMINGHAM

BLACKBURN

BODMIN
BOLTON

. TON

BRADFORD

BRIDGWATER ..

BRIGHTON

BRISTOL

BITCKING 11AM
Bu RNLEY
BultY
B'JRY ST. EDNUNDS

BEDFORDSHIRE

BEIDPORT
BEA 1-MARIS
B RECO NI
Bu CKINGHAMSIIIRE

BERKSHIRE .

CUMBERLAND, EAST

CUMBERLAND, WEST

CAMBRIDGE .

CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

CANTERBURY

CARDIFF ...
CARLISLE .

CARMARTHEN
CARMARTHENSHIRE

CARNARVON
CA RNARVONSHIRE
CHESHIRE, MID

CIIATIIA3f

CHELTENHAM
CHESTER

CHICHESTER
CHIPPENHAM .
CIRENCESTER
CLITHEROE
COVENTRY

CALVE
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERS,

CARDIGAN
CARDIGANSHIRE
CHELSEA

CHRISTCHURCH .
COCKERMOUTH
COLCHESTER

CRICKLADE

CORNWALL, EAST

CORNWALL, WEST

CHESHIRE, EAST

CHESIIIItE, WEST

DENBIGH
DENBIGHSHIRE

DEVONPORT

DARLINGTON
DERBY

DEVIZES
DEWSBURY
DOVER

DROLTWICH
DURHAM. -

DURHA.3I, NORTH .

DURHAM", SOUTH

D MICH ESTER
DUD LEY
DERBYSHIRE, SOUTH

DERBYSHIRE, EAST ..

rERBYStuRr., NORTH

DEVON, SOUTH

DEVON, NdRTII

DEVON, EAST

DORSETSIIIRE ....

EVESHAM
EXETER .

ESSEX, SOUTH

ESSEX, WEST

ESSEX, NORTH-EAST

EYE
FINSBURY

FROME
FLINT
FALMOUTH

FLINTSHIRE
GLAMOROANSHIRE

GATESHEAD ....
GLOUCESTER ....

GRAVESEND
GREAT GRIMSBY
GREENWICH

GUILDFORD ...
GRANTHAM ...

GLOUCESTER, EAST .

GLOUCESTER, WEST

HANTS, SOUTH

HERTFORDSIIIRZ ....

HACKNEY

HALIFAX....

HASTINGS

HELSTON
H ERTFORD
HEREFORD

HEREFORDSHIRE

HULL

HYTITE
HANTS, NORTH

HARWICH
HUNTINGDON
HARTLEPOOL
HAVERFOREW/ ST
Hogsium

HUNTINGDONSIURE

HITDDERiFIELD
IPSWICH

ISLE OF WIGHT
KENT, WEST

KENT, MID

KENT, EAST

KING'S LYNN

KIDDERMINSTER
K N A RESBOROUG 11
ENDAL
LAMBETH

LEEDS

LEICESTER

LEICESTER, NORTH .

LEICESTER, SJIITH

LANCASHIRE. S.W. ..

LANCASHIRE, 5.E.....

LEOMINSTER
LUDLOW
LONDON CITY

LONDON UNIVERSITY
LirMINOTON
LAUNCESTON
LINCOLN

LINCOLNSHIRE, NORTE

LINCOLN. MID

LINCOLN, SOUTH

LISKZARD
LEWES ... ,

LICHFIELD,
LivEarooL

LAxcAanntz, NORTH .

LANCASTURE. N.E.

MONTGOMERYSHIRE
MALLON
MARLow
MIDHURST
MACCLESFIELD

MAIDSTONE

MA.LmEsnuRY
MANCHESTER

MARYLEBONZ

MERTHYR TYDVIL

MONMOUTH
MALTON
MA.RLBOROUon

M ERTONET HSHIRE .
MIDDLESBOROUGiI
IsioNraomEßY

MORPETH
MONMOUTHSHIRE

MIDDLESEX

NORFOLK, SOUTH ....

NEWARK

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

NEWCASTLE-UNDR-LYM,

NORTHALLERTON
NORTHAMPTON .

Nonwlc II

NOTTINGHAM

NEWPORT, I. OT WIWI?
NORFOLK, NORT II

NORFOLK, WEST

NORTHAMPTON, NORTH

NORTHAMPTON", SOUTII

NOTTS, NORTH

NOTTS, SOUTH ...

NORTHUMBERLAND, N.

NORTHUMBERLAND, 8..

OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

OXFORDSII IRE