At all times the Free and Independent are a thirsty race, particularly at election times. In every beer-shop in the borough Wentworth had thus raised up a host of enemies. In many a borough the election has been fought and won by beer alone; there is no other product of man’s industry, unfortunately, such a power, and the publican is not such a fool as he looks.
‘Who do you vote for?’ said I to one of them at the time of an election contest.
‘For them as I gets the most by,’ was his reply.
Frightened at the aspect of affairs, the aged chairman, with a feeble, trembling voice, told his fellow-townsmen that he had the pleasure of introducing to them Mr. Wentworth, a clever journalist from London, whom some of them knew when he was formerly a preacher in that town, and whom he hoped they would listen to that evening with all the respect and attention the occasion demanded. It was with difficulty and not a little interruption that the chairman could say as much, and then he collapsed, wishing that he had stayed at home in the bosom of his family. The London candidate then came forward, to be assailed with a howl of derision from his foes closely packed in the front, while but a faint cheer from the far end was now and then perceptible as the roar was slightly lulled.
‘Gentlemen, pray give Mr. Wentworth a fair hearing,’ cried the chairman, and again the storm grew and the confusion increased. ‘Order! order!’ said the chairman, screaming at the top of his voice. He might just as well have spoken to the winds or waves. Then he grew angry and began to threaten, and that only made matters worse. Wentworth, erect as a statue and with folded arms, calmly surveyed the scene. It was not a pleasant sight; it suggests to one the truth of the Darwinian origin of the human race. In a crowd men act like monkeys. I remember as a boy sneaking into an election crowd and calling a decent, respectable, white-haired old baronet, who had been the Tory representative of the county for a quarter of a century, and whom every decent body respected, the old Benacre Bull (Benacre being the name of the village in which he lived); and everyone repeated the nickname till the old gentleman had to stop speaking, and I have been ashamed of the thing ever since. Had the individual members of that howling mob met the Baronet in the street as he rode by on his favourite chestnut mare, there was not one of them but would have treated him with every appearance of courtesy and respect. There is something very cowardly in an election mob.