AN AUDACIOUS PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1200, 27 February 1885, Page 3

AN AUDACIOUS PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE.

Only a young man who had immen e physical strength, as well as a persona) fearlessness and hardihood, could have fought, tbe battle of Bernal Osborne’s second Middlesex election, or could hive passed ihordeal described so amusingly l y himself at Waterford. “ I am,” he said to a friend shortly after he ha t been victorio ;s at the ia ter of those p aces, “slowly recovering from the success of an Irish election. Most, men with half of Osborne’s experience, would, long before this, have registered a resolve to retire intopr vate life. But what would have ciscouraged and deterred others only served to stimulate Osborne. Angry crowds, surgia befoie platforms and accentuating their anger with missiles hurled at the speakers’ beads, the waving of bludgeons, the smashing of windows, tne howls of iiiiuriated elec ors, accusations, calutn nies, abuse of every kind were to Osbo* pait of tho fun ui the husiness, into uhi hj he entered with a laugh aud a. jest. Upon one occasion at Waterford, one of his enemies -..in tho mob beiow find a pistol, i io' one was not daunted for an instant. “ If,” he exclaimed, “ my good frion-i you would only have the goodness to go off, like your pistol, I should be for ever indebted to you.” Upon the same occasion he would ceitainly have been lynched if he hid not succeeded in getting out of aseconn floor window, and so effecting an entrance to a draper’s shop, where he passed the night stowed away in a bundle of blankets. The town itself was wrecked. Osborne bad shown no sign of flinching throughout. He was equally impervious to alarm when plunged in the mMsc of contests which, less tempestuous an t perilous, were sutfl oi-ntly trying to the nerves at l.iskeard aim Nottingham. His extract dinary animal spirits, therefore, rested upon a strong basis of rare personal courage and in the ■ui acity of hia manner there was nothing that went beyond or had not its exact counterpart in defiant daring of his nature. A temperament and attributes of iheir sun are sure to command ascendance and to secure recognition. He always used to be neatly, appropriately, ami faultlessly dressed and was not tolerant of those who fell into loss carele-s habits. He had not been in Parliament an hour before he disclosed his characteristic audacity and a disregard so disdainful of all self-repressionthat h- must begin undertaking to enforce the rules of the house 1 Descrying a college friend, not then a member, who was occupying by the speaker’s leave a seat under the gallery, he came aud sat next him and joyously used his privilege by putting on his hat, as a member is entitled to do. Present ly a gentleman, less prim and spruce, came and took his place close to Osborne, putting on, as the newly-elected member for Wycombe, had done, his hat—a hat as remarkable fruits shabbiness as Osborne's was for its brilliancy and military smartness. Osborne was so new to Parliament as to be shocked at the sight of this ill-brushed and ill con dilioned article of head gea' - , not imagining that so remarkable an offender in the matter of apparel could bo ready a member of Parliament, he actually put himself to the test. “Pray, sir,” he said, severely looking at him, “are you a member?”— Fortnightly Review .