Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-11
BRITISH ELECTIONS.
Peculiarities of Canvassing in Lon
don and the Provinces.
CURIOUS METROPOLITAN CUSTOMS.
Contrasts With the Campaign Methods in
the United States.
BATTLE CRIES THAT ARE SOUNDED NOW

LONDON, July 10.-A stranger to Lon
don landing at Charing Cross and walking
eastward to the bank by the way of the
Strand and Fleet street, or from Hyde Park
to the bank along Oxford street, Holborn
and Cheapside, would see little or nothing
on either route to remind him that just now
Great Britain is without Parliament, and
that the general election is in progress. On
these main arteries of traffic there are few
outward indications of the contest. Here
and there on boarding in front of build
ing in course of construction or alteration
there NAV be a candidates electioneering
placard, but that is all
There are no portraits of the leaders of
the political parties strung on network
screens across the streets, as is the case In
American cities when a Presidential election
is in progress. There are no people on the
streets wearing campaign badges or cam
paign uniforms, and no brass bands heading
political demonstrations on their way to
rendezvous The ballot act of 20 years ago
and the corrupt practices act of 1885 have
tended to rob elections of much that was
picturesque and noisy, and have brought
the proceedings at general election down
to much more sober and matter OF fact
level And nowhere has all this change
been more obvious than in London.
Londoners Display Little Interest.
The metropolis is the last place in the
country in which to look for much life and
stir at an election. There is still good
deal of excitement in connection with con-
tested Parliamentary elections, but this is to
be seen to much better advantage in the COM
pact manufacturing towns of the second
rank in the provinces and in some of the
country towns, where the old spirit still
fingers, than in London, in and immedi-
ately around which between 60 and 20 men,
bers of Parliament have to be elected.
Very few of the London candidates live
in the constituencies which they contest,
and in most of the divisions of London
there is no local spirit nor local pride worth
speaking about In London a contested
election is soon over and soon forgotten. In
provincial constituencies like those men
toned, the election itself does not take
much longer than it does in London; but the
work OF pref airing for it occupies a
much longer time than in the
metropolis. When the candidates are
local men, they are longer in the
field than is the case in the London constit-
uencies; the excitement is always more in
tense and more widely shared in the pro-
vincial than in the London constituencies,
and the feelings Of exultation which follow
triumph at the polls or those of depression
and sullenness following defeat last very
much longer in a small and self-contained
constituency than they do in a metropolitan
division, where as a rule people have no
neighbors in the ordinary sense of the word,
and where on the day following the election
everybody goes about his business in the
usual way as though nothing had happened.
Too Many Foresone Conc usions.
One has to get away from the downtown
centers and strike north or south to the
nearer suburbs to get an idea of how gen.
eral election outwardly affects the metro
polls The ESSENTIALLY business parts of
London-the City, the Strand, Holborn,
Oxford street, and Piccadilly-are very lit
tie disturbed by it, mainly for the reason