The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-04
"Britishero in the New York Sun.


 mind me of those of the olden
 A time, when I was a boy, in the ancient and royal borough" of Ludlow on the border of Wales. It must have been in November 1852, when Lord Derby. being defeated on Disraelfs budget, ap- pealed to the country. Disraeli had been sent to parliament by Shrewbury and was esteemed the representative of that dis satisfaction with which the farmers Of Shropshire regarded the relaxation of protection to native industries. Dizzy s brilliant invective and polished sarcasm inspired the protectionist' party with a hope of tariff reform, which he did not live to see, but which is now bearing fruit after the lapse of noSe than half a century and is just as much burn ing question as it was at the election of which have a. most vivid remembrance. It was Ludlow which first elected a free trader when MT Balfour appealed to the country in 1895.
 Fifty years ago Ludlow sent two mem bers to the house of common, although it is a little town with only 5000 people and had then voting power of less than 800 The voters of those days were made up of burgesses, and according to the reform bill of 1892 only those who paid yearly rent of a sum equal to $10O had the franchise. The candidate for eelction were men of distinguished families, Give and Powlett for the Tories and Salwey for the Whigs. The Hon. R. H. Give was a grandnephew of the great Lord Give. Lord William Powlett, was a son of the first earl of Cleveland, and Colonel Sal- wey was in direct descent from one of Oliver Cromwels generals. The bur gesses for the most part represented the decayed families of the town and regard ed an election as the great opportunity of making a little ready cash. Every burgess, free and Independent" as he was, got money for his vote, and it was considered a most gentlemanly thing to but htat vote. Bribery was no disgrace in those days, and as a full list of the voters and their votes was made public on a printed list immediately after the poll was declared, the honorable mem- bers had an opportunity of seeing if they had actually got their moneys worth, privilege of which the ballot box deprives them in this more enlight- ened age.
 This election in Ludlow just 5S years ago had all the characteristics of the election at Eatonswill in MT. Pickwick's family of every elector. The wives were hattered when they received card "so- liciting your vote and interest" The babies were kissed. The girls were dec- orated with rosettes, and six-pence apiece was given to the boys/to buy alley tors and commoneys. All excisable articles were remarkably cheap at the ''publics," and beer flowed like water at every street corner. Two matters, one Whig and an- other a Tory, supplied free tiles to those who got their heads broken in the strug- gle I got a free Tory hat with the colors of the two candidates tackled on. The Give colors were dark blue and scarlet; Powlett's were rich crimson; salwey's were pale blue and yellow. Every child, every baby in the place, was decorated with the colors of its fathers favorite, and the boys fought like fury for the protection of their rosettes.
 Mr. Give was a quiet and reserved man, but Lord William Powlett was regular 'old sport" He was distin- guished as a patron of the turf, and owned many good horses, among them Tom Whiffler and Promised Land. But unfortunately his lordship was klep- tomaniac, and on one occasion had ..swiped' pair of valuable slippers from a shop in Regent street Conse- ouently the Whig boys when he passed them on the street shouted. "Who stole the slippers?' "I did, boys! But one was green and the other was red; so you see I'm not a common thiefr' Lord William would reply in the best of tenn pers. Of course, it was the duty of us Tory boys to ouch the heads of those Whig fellows" hence the astounding de- mand for free tiles
 Lord William stayed at the Angel hotel. where a man named Masters had recently committed or rather attempted to com init horrible murder at midnight. But his lordship declared that he slept well with good conscience, notwithstanding