Of the city of Oxford, where Oxford University is situated, Matthew Arnold writes: "Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene! And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, or whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us near to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side."
Describing Christ Church College, a writer has said that there is no other College where a man has so great a choice of society, or a man entire freedom in choosing it.
As to the studies required, a greater stress was laid upon a knowledge of the Bible and of the evidences of Christianity than upon cla.s.sical literature; some proficiency was required also, either in mathematics or the science of reasoning. The system of education accommodated itself to the capacity and wants of the students, but the man of talent was at no loss as to a field for his exertions, or a reward for his industry. The honors of the ministry were all within his reach. In the cultivation of taste and general information Oxford afforded every opportunity, but the modern languages were not taught.
An interesting fact is related of young Gladstone when he entered Oxford, as to his studies at the university. He wrote his father that he disliked mathematics, and that he intended to concentrate his time and attention upon the cla.s.sics. This was a great blow to his father, who replied that he did not think a man was a man unless he knew mathematics. The dutiful son yielded to his father"s wishes, abandoned his own plan, and applied himself with energy and success to the study of mathematics. But for this change of study he might not have become the greatest of Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Gladstone"s instructors at Oxford were men of reputation. Rev. Robert Biscoe, whose lectures on Aristotle attracted some of the best men to the university, was his tutor; he attended the lectures of Dr. Burton on Divinity, and of Dr. Pusey on Hebrew, and read cla.s.sics privately with Bishop Wordsworth. He read steadily but not laboriously. Nothing was ever allowed to interfere with his morning"s work. He read for four hours, and then took a walk. Though not averse to company and suppers, yet he always read for two or three hours before bedtime.
Among the undergraduates at Oxford then, who became conspicuous, were Henry Edward Manning, afterwards Cardinal Archbishop; Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury; Sidney Herbert, Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke, and Lord Selborne. "The man who _took_ me most," says a visitor to Oxford in 1829, "was the youngest Gladstone of Liverpool--I am sure a very superior person."
Gladstone"s chosen friends were all steady and industrious men, and many of them were more distinctively religious than is generally found in the life of undergraduates. And his choice of a.s.sociates in this respect was the subject of criticism on the part of a more secularly minded student who wrote, "Gladstone has mixed himself up with the St. Mary Hall and Oriel set, who are really, for the most part, only fit to live with maiden aunts and keep tame rabbits." And the question, Which was right--Gladstone or the student? may be answered by another, Which one became Prime Minister of England?
"Gladstone"s first rooms were in the "old library," near the hall; but for the greater part of his time he occupied the right-hand rooms on the first floor of the first staircase, on the right as the visitor enters Canterbury gate. He was, alike in study and in conduct, a model undergraduate, and the great influence of his character and talents was used with manly resolution against the riotous conduct of the "Tufts,"
whose brutality caused the death of one of their number in 1831. We read this note in the correspondence of a friend: "I heard from Gladstone yesterday; he says that the number of gentlemen commoners has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." Every one who has experienced the hubristic qualities of the Tufted race, and its satellites, will cordially sympathize with this sentiment of an orderly and industrious undergraduate. He was conspicuously moderate in the use of wine. His good example in this respect affected not only his contemporaries but also his successors at the university; men who followed him to Oxford ten years later found it still operative, and declare that undergraduates drank less in the forties, because Gladstone had been courageously abstemious in the thirties."
But there were those who better estimated Gladstone"s worth and looked approvingly upon his course, as "the blameless schoolboy became the blameless undergraduate; diligent, sober, regular alike in study and devotion, giving his whole energies to the duties of the place, and quietly abiding in the religious faith in which he had been trained.
Bishop Charles Wordsworth said that no man of his standing in the university habitually read his Bible more or knew it better. Cardinal Manning described him walking in the university with his "Bible and Prayer-book tucked under his arm." ... He quitted Oxford with a religious belief still untinctured by Catholic theology. But the great change was not far distant, and he had already formed some of the friendships which, in their development were destined to effect so profoundly the course of his religious thought."
In reference to the religious and political opinions and influences prevailing at Oxford, it may be remarked that the atmosphere of Oxford was calculated to strengthen Mr. Gladstone"s conservative views, and did have this effect, and as English statesmen had not then learned to put their trust in the people, the cause of reform found few or no friends at the university, and he was among those hostile to it, and was known for his p.r.o.nounced Tory and High Church opinions.
He belonged to the famous debating society known as the Oxford Union, was a brilliant debater, and in 1831 was its secretary, and later its president. On various occasions he carried, by a majority of one only, a motion that the Wellington Administration was undeserving of the confidence of the country; he defended the results of the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation; he opposed a motion for the removal of Jewish disabilities, and he persuaded 94 students out of 130 to condemn Earl Grey"s Reform Bill as a measure "which threatened not only to change the form of government, but ultimately to break up the very foundation of social order." His last speech at Oxford was in support of his own amendment to a motion for the immediate emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves in the West Indies. On a certain occasion he entertained a party of students from Cambridge, consisting of Sir Francis Doyle, Monckton Milnes, Sunderland, and Arthur H. Hallam, who discussed among them the superiority of Sh.e.l.ley over Byron as a poet. The motion was opposed by one Oxonion, the late Cardinal Manning, but Sh.e.l.ley received 90 votes to 33 for Byron.
One who heard the debate on the Reform Bill says that "it converted Alston, the son of the member in Parliament for Hertford, who immediately on the conclusion of Gladstone"s speech walked across from the Whig to the Tory side of the house, amidst loud acclamations."
Another who was present writes, "Most of the speakers rose, more or less, above their usual level, but when Mr. Gladstone sat down we all of us felt that an epoch in our lives had occurred. It certainly was the finest speech of his that I ever heard." And Bishop Charles Wordsworth writes his experience of Mr. Gladstone at this time, "made me feel no less sure than of my own existence that Gladstone, our then Christ-Church undergraduate, would one day rise to be Prime Minister of England."
In the spring of 1832 Mr. Gladstone quitted Oxford. In summing up results it may be said, in the language of Mr. Russell: "Among the purely intellectual effects produced on Mr. Gladstone by the discipline of Oxford, it is obvious to reckon an almost excessive exactness in the statement of propositions, a habit of rigorous definition, a microscopic care in the choice of words, and a tendency to a.n.a.lyze every sentiment and every phrase, and to distinguish with intense precaution between statements almost exactly similar. From Aristotle and Bishop Butler and Edmund Burke he learned the value of authority, the sacredness of law, the danger of laying rash and inconsiderate hands upon the ark of State.
In the political atmosphere of Oxford he was taught to apply these principles to the civil events of his time, to dread innovation, to respect existing inst.i.tutions, and to regard the Church and the Throne as inseparably a.s.sociated by Divine ordinance."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Gladstone"s London Home]
CHAPTER III
EARLY PARLIAMENTARY EXPERIENCES
It is customary for the sons of gentlemen who graduate at Cambridge and Oxford to spend some time in travel on the continent upon the completion of their university studies. The custom was observed in Mr. Gladstone"s early days even more than at the present. In accordance then with the prevailing usage he went abroad after graduating at Oxford. In the spring of 1832 he started on his travels and spent nearly the whole of the next six months in Italy, "learning the language, studying the art, and revelling in the natural beauties of that glorious land." In the following September, however, he was suddenly recalled to England to enter upon his first Parliamentary campaign.
At Oxford Toryism prevailed, and was of the old-fashioned type, far removed from the utilitarian conservatism of the present day. Charles I was a saint and a martyr, the claims of rank and birth were admitted with a childlike simplicity, the high functions of government were the birthright of the few, and the people had nothing to do with the laws, except to obey them. Mr. Gladstone was a Tory. The political views he held upon leaving Oxford had much to do with his recall from abroad and his running for a seat in the House of Commons. Of these opinions held by him then, and afterwards repudiated, he, in a speech delivered at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford, in December, 1878, says: "I trace in the education of Oxford of my own time one great defect.
Perhaps it was my own fault; but I must admit that I did not learn, when at Oxford, that which I have learned since, viz., to set a due value on the imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty. The temper which, I think, too much prevailed in academic circles, was that liberty was regarded with jealousy and fear, which could not be wholly dispensed with, but which was continually to be watched for fear of excess.... I think that the principle of the Conservative party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the policy of the Liberal party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence. I can only a.s.sure you, gentlemen, that now I am in front of extended popular privileges. I have no fear of those enlargements of the Const.i.tution that seem to be approaching. On the contrary, I hail them with desire. I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful, and good, and glorious charges that our ancestors have handed down to us as a patrimony to our race, than I had in other days when I held other political opinions. I have learnt to set the true value upon human liberty, and in whatever I have changed, there, and there only, has been the explanation of the change."
It was Mr. Gladstone"s Tory principles that led to an invitation from the Duke of Newcastle, whose son, the Earl of Lincoln, afterwards a member of Lord Aberdeen"s Cabinet during the Crimean War, had been his schoolmate at Eton and Oxford, and his intimate friend; to return to England and to contest the representation of Newark in Parliament. In accordance with this summons he hurried home.
Let us review the national situation. It was a time of general alarm and uncertainty, from political unrest, commercial stagnation, and devastating pestilence. "The terrors of the time begat a hundred forms of strange fanaticism; and among men who were not fanatics there was a deep and wide conviction that national judgments were overtaking national sins, and that the only hope of safety for England lay in a return to that practical recognition of religion in the political sphere at the proudest moments of English history. "The beginning and the end of what is the matter with us in these days," wrote Carlyle, "is that we have forgotten G.o.d.""
England was in a condition of great political excitement and expectancy.
One of the greatest battles in Parliamentary history had just been fought and won by the people. The Reform Bill, which admitted large cla.s.ses, hitherto unrepresented, to the right of citizenship, had pa.s.sed, after a long struggle, during which law and order were defied and riots prevailed in various parts of the kingdom.
The King clearly perceiving that the wish of the people could no longer be disregarded with safety, and heedless of the advice of the aristocracy, gave his a.s.sent to the measure. This bill, which became a law June 7, 1832, "transformed the whole of the Electoral arrangements of the United Kingdom." It was demanded that the King be present in the House of Lords to witness the ceremony of the subjugation of his crown and peers, as it was deemed, but the King, feeling he had yielded enough to the popular will, refused. Walpole, in his history, writes: "King and Queen sat sullenly apart in their palace. Peer and country gentleman moodily awaited the ruin of their country and the destruction of their property. Fanaticism still raved at the wickedness of a people; the people, clamoring for work, still succ.u.mbed before the mysterious disease which was continually claiming more and more victims. But the nation cared not for the sullenness of the Court, the forebodings of the landed cla.s.ses, the ravings of the pulpit, or even the mysterious operations of a new plague. The deep gloom that had overshadowed the land had been relieved by one single ray. The victory had been won. The bill had become law."
The first reformed House of Commons, after the pa.s.sage of the terrible Reform Bill, met and was looked upon by some of the friends of Reform with fond hopes and expectations, and by others, the Tories, with fear and apprehension. The poor looked upon the Reform Bill as a measure for their redemption, and the landed proprietors regarded it as the first sign of departed national greatness. Both cla.s.ses were disappointed. It neither revived business nor despoiled owners. The result was a surprise to politicians of both parties. The Reformers did not, as was antic.i.p.ated, carry their extreme measures, and the Tories did not realize the great losses they expected. While the Ministry preserved its power and even obtained some victories in England and Scotland, it sustained serious defeats in Ireland. In England many earnest and popular friends of Reform were defeated in the election, and some counties, among them Bristol, Stamford, Hertford, Norwich and Newark, were p.r.o.nounced against the Ministry.
The Duke of Newcastle, who was one of the chief potentates of the high Tory party, and had lost his control of Newark in 1831, by the election of a Radical, was determined to regain it. He regarded it as his right to be represented in the House of Commons, or that Newark should elect whom he nominated. And he had propounded the memorable political maxim, "Have I not a right to do what I like with my own?" The Duke wanted a capable candidate to help him regain his ascendency. His son, Lord Lincoln, here came to his aid. He had heard the remarkable speech of his friend, Mr. Gladstone, in the Oxford Union, against the Reform Bill, and had written home regarding him, that "a man had uprisen in Israel." At his suggestion the Duke invited the young graduate of Oxford to run as the Tory candidate for a seat in Parliament from Newark. The wisdom of this selection for the accomplishment of the purpose in view, was fully demonstrated.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lobby of the House of Commons]
His personal appearance at this time may be thus described: He was somewhat robust. His youthful face bore none of those deep furrows which have rendered his countenance so remarkable in maturer years. But there was the same broad intellectual forehead, the ma.s.sive nose, the same anxious eyes and the earnest enthusiasm of later years. His look was bright and thoughtful and his bearing attractive. He was handsome and possessed a most intelligent and expressive countenance. Says his biographer, Mr. Russell: "William Ewart Gladstone was now twenty-two years old, with a physical const.i.tution of unequalled vigor, the prospect of ample fortune, great and varied knowledge, and a natural tendency to political theorization, and an inexhaustible copiousness and readiness of speech. In person he was striking and attractive, with strongly marked features, a pale complexion, abundance of dark hair and eyes of piercing l.u.s.tre. People who judged only by his external aspect considered that he was delicate."
Young Gladstone found two opponents contesting with him to represent Newark in Parliament, W.F. Handley and Sergeant Wilde, afterwards Lord Chancellor Truro. The latter was an advanced Liberal and had unsuccessfully contested the borough in 1829 and 1830, and had in consideration of his defeat received from his sympathetic friends a piece of plate inscribed: "By his ardent friends, the Blue electors of the borough, who by their exertions and sufferings in the cause of independence, largely conduced to awaken the attention of the nation to the necessity of Reform in Parliament. Upon this humble token of respect (contributed in the hour of defeat) the Blue electors of Newark inscribe their sense of the splendid ability, unwearied perseverance, and disinterested public spirit displayed by Sergeant Wilde in maintaining the two contests of 1829 and 1830, in order to emanc.i.p.ate the borough from political thraldoms, and restore to its inhabitants the free exercise of their long-lost rights." But Sergeant Wilde was more successful the following year, 1831, when the "Reform fever" was at its height, and defeated the Duke of Newcastle"s nominee and became member of the House of Commons for the borough. These facts made the coming election, which followed the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill, of unusual interest, to those concerned, and the struggle would be of a close and determined character.
Mr. Gladstone entered upon the contest with his experienced, able and popular antagonist, with much against him, for he was young, unknown and untried; but his youth and personal appearance and manly bearing were in his favor, and these, with his eloquence and ready wit, gained for him many friends. His speeches demonstrated that he lacked neither arguments, nor words wherewith to clothe them. He needed, however, to call into requisition all his abilities, for Sergeant Wilde was a powerful antagonist, and had no thought of being displaced by his youthful opponent, "a political stripling," as he called him, without a desperate struggle. But Mr. Gladstone had behind him the ducal influence and the support of the Red Club, so he entered upon the contest with energy and enthusiasm.
The young Tory"s first election address was delivered upon this occasion. It was dated October 9th, 1832, was all such an address should be, and was addressed, "To the worthy and independent electors of the borough of Newark." It began by saying that he was bound in his opinions by no man and no party, but that he deprecated the growing unreasonable and indiscriminating desire for change then so common, but confessed that labor has a right to "receive adequate remuneration." On the question of human slavery, then greatly agitated, he remarked, "We are agreed that both the physical and the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. The question is as to the _order_, and the order only; now Scripture attacks the moral evil _before_ the corporal one, the corporal one _through_ the moral one, and I am content with the order which Scripture has established." He saw insurmountable obstacles against immediate emanc.i.p.ation, one of which was that the negro would exchange the evil now affecting him for greater ones--for a relapse into deeper debas.e.m.e.nt, if not for bloodshed and internal war.
He therefore advocated a system of Christian education, to make the negro slaves fit for emanc.i.p.ation and to prepare them for freedom, Then, he argued, without bloodshed and the violation of property rights, and with unimpaired benefit to the negro, the desirable end might be reached in the utter extinction of slavery.
Of this appropriate address, so important in the light of coming events, we quote two paragraphs in full. In speaking of existing evils and the remedies for them, he observed: "For the mitigation of these evils, we must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of sounder general principles. I mean especially that principle on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the State in our Const.i.tution can be defended; that the duties of governors are strictly and peculiarly religious; and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against our inst.i.tutions; and not by truckling nor by temporizing--not by oppression nor corruption--but by principles they must be met.
"And now, gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm with which you have rallied round your ancient flag, and welcomed the humble representative of those principles whose emblem it is, I trust that neither the lapse of time nor the seductions of prosperity can ever efface it from my memory. To my opponents, my acknowledgments are due for the good humor and kindness with which they have received me; and while I would thank my friends for their jealous and unwearied exertions in my favor, I briefly but emphatically a.s.sure them, that if promises be an adequate foundation of confidence, or experience a reasonable ground of calculation, our victory _is sure_"
The new candidate for Parliamentary honors was "heckled," as it is called, at the hustings, or was interrupted continually while speaking, and questioned by his opponents as to the circ.u.mstances of his candidature, his father"s connection with slavery, and his own views of capital punishment. From his first appearance in Newark, Mr. Gladstone had been subjected to these examinations and he stood the ordeal well and answered prudently. An instance of this is given. A Radical elector, Mr. Gillson, asked the young Tory candidate if he was the Duke of Newcastle"s nominee, and was met by Mr. Gladstone demanding the questioner"s definition of the term "nominee." Mr. Gillson replied that he meant a person sent by the Duke of Newcastle to be pushed down the throats of the voters whether they would or not. But Mr. Gladstone was equal to the occasion, and said according to that definition he was not the nominee of the Duke, but came to Newark by the invitation of the Red Club, than whom none were more respectable and intelligent.
This same Red Club was Conservative, and promised to Mr. Gladstone, the thorough Conservative candidate, 650 votes, the whole number within its ranks. He also received the promise of 240 votes of other electors. This was known before the election, so that the result was confidently predicted. On the 11th of December, 1832, the "nomination" was held and the polling or election was held on the two following days, and Mr.
Gladstone was chosen by a considerable majority, the votes being, Gladstone, 882; Handley, 793; Wilde, 719. Sergeant Wilde was defeated.
During the public discussions before the election Mr. Gladstone was placed at a great disadvantage. There were three candidates to be heard from and his speech was to be the last in order. Sergeant Wilde made a very lengthy speech, which exhausted the patience of his hearers, who had already stood for nearly seven hours, and showed disinclination to listen to another three hours" address, which, from Mr. Gladstone"s talents, they were far from thinking impossible. The Sergeant was condemned for occupying the attention of the electors for such an inordinate length of time, but this did not prevent a scene of outrageous noise and uproar when the Tory candidate rose to speak. The important topic was slavery, but Mr. Gladstone had not proceeded far when the hooting and hissing drowned his voice so that he found it impossible to proceed. When a show of hands was demanded it was declared in favor of Mr. Handley and Sergeant Wilde, but when the election came, it was Mr. Gladstone who triumphed, as has been seen, and who was sent to Parliament as the member from Newark.
In speaking of the manner in which the Parliamentary elections are conducted, an English writer says: "Since 1832, few of those scenes of violence, and even of bloodshed, which formerly distinguished Parliamentary elections in many English boroughs, have been witnessed.
Some of these lawless outbreaks were doubtless due to the unpopularity of the candidates forced upon the electors; but even in the largest towns--where territorial influence had little sway--riots occurred upon which we look back with doubtful amazement. Men holding strong political views have ceased to enforce those views by the aid of brickbats and other dangerous missiles. Yet at the beginning of the present century such arguments were very popular. And to the violence which prevailed was added the most unblushing bribery. Several boroughs, long notorious for extensive bribery, have since been disfranchised. The practice, however, extended to most towns in the kingdom, though it was not always carried on in the same open manner. By a long established custom, a voter at Hull received a donation of two guineas, or four for a plumper. In Liverpool men were openly paid for their votes; and Lord Cochrane stated in the House of Commons that, after his return for Honiton, he sent the town-crier round the borough to tell the voters to go to the chief banker for 10 10s. each. The great enlargement of the const.i.tuencies, secured by the Reform Bill of 1832, did much to put an end to this disgraceful condition of things; but to a wider political enlightenment also, some portion of the credit for such a result must be attributed."
What the friends and foes of the new Tory member for Newark thought of his successful canva.s.s and election, it is interesting to learn. When Mr. Gladstone entered upon the contest the question was frequently put, "Who is Mr. Gladstone?" And it was answered, "He is the son of the friend of Mr. Canning, the great Liverpool merchant. He is, we understand, not more than four or five and twenty, but he has won golden opinions from all sorts of people, and promises to be an ornament to the House of Commons." And a few days after his election he addressed a meeting of the Const.i.tutional Club, at Nottingham, when a Conservative journal made the first prophecy as to his future great political fame, saying: "He will one day be cla.s.sed amongst the most able statesmen in the British Senate." The impression his successful contest made upon the late friends of his school-days may be learned from the following: A short time before the election Arthur Hallam, writing of his friend, "the old _W.E.G._," says: "I shall be very glad if he gets in.... We want such a man as that. In some things he is likely to be obstinate and prejudiced; but he has a fine fund of high, chivalrous Tory sentiment, and a tongue, moreover, to let it loose with." And after the election he exclaims: "And Gladstone has turned out the Sergeant!... What a triumph for him. He has made his reputation by it; all that remains is to keep up to it."
That one of Mr. Gladstone"s Liberal opponents was impressed by his talent and character is shown by the following lines of "descriptive prophecy, perhaps more remarkable for good feeling than for good poetry:"
"Yet on one form, whose ear can ne"er refuse The Muses" tribute, for he lov"d the Muse, (And when the soul the gen"rous virtues raise, A friendly Whig may chant a Tory"s praise,) Full many a fond expectant eye is bent Where Newark"s towers are mirror"d in the Trent.
Perchance ere long to shine in senates first, If manhood echo what his youth rehears"d, Soon Gladstone"s brows will bloom with greener bays Than twine the chaplet of the minstrel"s lays; Nor heed, while poring o"er each graver line, The far, faint music of a flute like mine.
His was no head contentedly which press"d The downy pillow in obedient rest, Where lazy pilots, with their canvas furl"d, Let up the Gades of their mental world; His was no tongue which meanly stoop"d to wear The guise of virtue, while his heart was bare; But all he thought through ev"ry action ran; G.o.d"s n.o.blest work--I"ve known one honest man."
Mr. Gladstone spoke at Newark in company with his friend, the Earl of Lincoln, shortly after his election, when another favorable testimony was given, and his address spoken of as "a manly, eloquent speech, replete with sound const.i.tutional sentiments, high moral feeling, and ability of the most distinguished order."
In commenting upon the result of the election a representative of the press of Newark wrote: "We have been told there was no reaction against the Ministry, no reaction in favor of Conservative principles. The delusion has now vanished, and made room for sober reason and reflection. The shadow satisfies no longer, and the return of Mr.
Gladstone, to the discomfiture of the learned Sergeant and his friends, has restored the town of Newark to the high rank which it formerly held in the estimation of the friends of order and good government. We venture to predict that the losing candidate in this contest has suffered so severely that he will never show his face in Newark on a similar occasion."
But Mr. Gladstone had made bitter political enemies already, who were not at all reconciled to his election, nor pleased with him. That they were not at all slow to express unbecomingly their bitterness against him, because of their unexpected defeat, the following shows from the _Reflector_: "Mr. Gladstone is the son of Gladstone of Liverpool, a person who (we are speaking of the father) had ama.s.sed a large fortune by West India dealings. In other words, a great part of his gold has sprung from the blood of black slaves. Respecting the youth himself--a person fresh from college, and whose mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap as possible--he was utterly unknown. He came recommended by no claim in the world _except the will of the Duke_. The Duke nodded unto Newark, and Newark sent back the man, or rather the boy of his choice. What! Is this to be, now that the Reform Bill has done its work?
Are sixteen hundred men still to bow down to a wooden-headed lord, as the people of Egypt used to do to their beasts, to their reptiles, and their ropes of onions? There must be something wrong--something imperfect. What is it? What is wanting? Why, the Ballot! If there be a doubt of this (and we believe there is a doubt even amongst intelligent men) the tale of Newark must set the question at rest. Sergeant Wilde was met on his entry into the town by almost the whole population. He was greeted everywhere, cheered everywhere. He was received with delight by his friends and with good and earnest wishes for his success by his nominal foes. The voters for Gladstone went up to that candidate"s booth (the slave-driver, as they called him) with Wilde"s colors. People who had before voted for Wilde, on being asked to give their suffrage said, "We cannot, we dare not. We have lost half our business, and shall lose the rest if we go against the Duke. We would do anything in our power for Sergeant Wilde and for the cause, but we cannot starve!" Now what say ye, our merry men, touching the Ballot?"