Old Time Elections.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 191, 12 February 1887, Page 4

Old Time Elections.

Lord John Russell said in his famous Reform speech that the cost of an uncontested Yorkshire election before 1830 averaged £150,000 ; and it was estimated that in the battle of 1817 the three parties had expended upwards of half a million, Everything was hhed, from the mourning coachev to the market carts •; even hearses carried the living in place of the aead ; and all th<* eeats in the through stage-coaches were booked by contract for a term. As the nomination day drew near, and the contest grew more critical, it must have beet* delightful to admirers of our institutions to witness the exuberant enthusiasm. Altos weeks of hard drinking and hot debate the minds of the voters were warmed up t<* fever pitch. In the generous excitement, it must be confessed that breaches of the peace were not infrequent ; but that was only anticipating the ideal of our own timee, which demands deep political conviction before all things. There would otten be a fierce free fight before the hustings, when, what with the beer and the bludgeons, the brickbats and r>he braes bands, there would be breaking of heads and shivering of window panes. Those outbreaks of popular sentiment, werepunctiliously disavowed from either side of the hustings ; and yet there was something to be said for them. For if platform oratory went for anything, they were all in favour of tiied politicians who had been trained to stand fire. The hero of half a hundred tights who had justified the confidence of his party could address himself collectively to the reporters, if not to the mob ; while the novice with little nerve for his new vocation, stammered, hentat od, and lost bis head under volley of mud, eggs, and promiscuous miepiles. The scene at the show of hands at the termination was exciting, but there whs sure to be a veritably dramatic denouement at the declaration of the poll.. Then the pent-up feelings of the contending factions found vent, and the seething and shouting marketplace became a political pandemonium. If the successful candidate chanced to be the unpopular one, he would! prudently have retained a body-guard of pugilists, or surrounded himself with. a sturdy volunteer corps of friendly farmers and yeomen ; while ranged on the other side would be the gangs of roughp, primed in the public-houees and paid for the day, who were usually the friends of progress, peace, retrenchment, and purity. Veterans v"ith nerves of iron, and ambitious lawyers with foreheads of brass, might delight in tho*o great gladiatori <1 performances, and like them the better for the dash of danger. We believe that Brougham positively revelled in the battles he fought in Yoi k? hi r e. . . . All that fun, frolic, fighting, and eecrot financing will soon be but the melancholy memories of a half-for-gotten past. Now thes exoitemtnt fa decentralised, vi polling places have been multiplied ; if drouthy eouls get dry over discuenionH, they must quench their thirst at thbir own expeuee ; the bars and tap-roomu are dull and deserted ; the industrious unemployed seek occupation in vain ; the very candidates must practise temperance in the hotels that are at headquarters, and look carefully to the totals of the bills ; oven their lawyers can only charge extraordinary trouble at ordinary rates, in the certainty that the accounts v/iil b,e jealously scrutinised ; while the nomination is by passionless signing of papors, and the "declaration," which was formerly so dramatic, is foredoomed to be dull 48 ditch water. Sad, indeed, from the romantic point, of view, are the changes from the times wbeu hostile voters wore ravished from their families and pent on cruises to sea ; when the inncellars became places of temporary sequestration for the intoxicated ; whon linch-pine were tampered with and coaches upset to contract ; and when the maimed and wounded, after the close of an agitating poll, filled half the beds in the local hospitals and inj" firmaries.— "Saturday Review."