"PUCK" ON THE ELECTIONS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1949, 3 April 1875, Page 2

"PUCK" ON THE ELECTIONS.

I hear that Bill Davies' people hare been looking for me during the last day or two. They want to make me an offer of something to go in on their side, my quondam friend Red Cap, with the many aliases, having found his price amongst the choice spirits who form Billy Rowe's Committee. Well, let me,.Mr Editor, through your columns tell Mr Davies and his Committee that I don't write for money. I never received any ten pound notes from Dick Kemian, or "any oder man ' with more money than brains to help him to a seat in the Council. Nor did I ever aspire to belong to the Printing Committee for the sole purpose of getting a little patronage and ekinr but the income from a wholesale and retail business in taffy by means of commission on the printer's bills and deductions from the bill poster's account. It's not in my line. I fly around all night on • my Pegasus—an invisible moke of a " useful kind. I hear the chit-chat of the corner, and the more serious confabulations of the " tail," and I have felt inclined; to say to the electors at this time, " Of two evils choose the least." By this neat quotation from a very ancient author, I would be understood to imply (as indeed will be obvious) that neither of the gentlemen (forgive me, Heaven, for the misnomer) are not desirable. .gentlemen. I class them thus. , The > Mayer is a small grocer of limited ability, but honest withal, and with a certain practical knowledge of "what's o'clock.' r Billy Rowe is blessed, like the versatile Jingle, with"the gift©' the gab wery gallopin,' " and that appears to be his. chief and most-to-be-relied-on qualification. But ihe latter gentleman has erred; and though faults, may, when, "communicated more "abundant grow," I wish to speak of Billy's faults, that all men may see the light which he carries before. There is an unwholesome flavor about Billy. (I refer not to sanctimony—that might be odious.) But he is damning himself-by associating with and leaning upon men-props of the rot- , tenest. The double dealing and artful dodges of unprincipled men are not the means by which to secure .public sympathy. And tlion. pratest of thy probity—thou Fool. I believe that the public like honesty, and therefore -I-decline to believe that they are to be influenced by the mad-brained efforts of such an abortion of a man as my little friend Manikin. But, as I said, such a man has been engaged ' with the offer of. dirt-money to help, a man who asks us for our votes, and who seeks to propitiate, us by speaking of honesty. If Mr Rowe will have the honesty and good sense to come before the public without such disgraceful apendages as this Manikin and others of a. kind little superior, he will undoubtedly command attention, but I hope not otherwise. The Mayor came more openly before, the public gaze. But he certainly had need to depend a good deal on himself, for it seems totally beyond belief that such? a surprising mushroom as the Keen 'un could be of use to him. The " two evils " meet to night to address the electors. Then it is for the electors to choose by what each mani, says who is the best, and not be influenced by the contemptible arts of contemptible tools, whose mission on earth appears to be an endeavour to get as low in the social scale as possible; ... : - Puck.