yet in a form of considerable efficiency, by a proposal from Mr.
Hodgkinson, member for Newark, and a local solicitor little known
in the House.(152) He went there to support it, but without an
idea that it could be carried, and anticipating its defeat by a
majority of a hundred. Never have I undergone a stranger emotion
of surprise than when, as I was entering the House, our whip met
me and stated that Disraeli was about to support Hodgkinson's
motion. But so it was, and the proposition was adopted without
disturbance, as if it had been an affair of trivial importance.

How it came about I partially learned at a later date. A cabinet
was held after the fact, which Sir John Lambert, the great
statistician of the day, was summoned to attend. The cabinet had
had no idea that the Hodgkinson amendment was to be accepted; the
acceptance was the sole act of Mr. Disraeli; and when it had been
done the ministers assembled in order to learn from Sir John
Lambert what was the probable addition that it would make to the
constituency.

I do not suppose that in the whole history of the 'mystery-man,'
this proceeding can be surpassed. The tories, having been brought
to accept household suffrage on the faith of the limitation
imposed by personal payment of the rates, found at a moment's
notice that that limitation had been thrown overboard, and that
their leader had given them a bill virtually far larger than any
that Mr. Bright had sought to impose upon them. It was certainly
no business of ours to complain, and they made it no business of
theirs. I imagine that they still relied upon rectification of the
bill by the House of Lords. And the Lords did rectify it largely;
but these rectifications were all rejected when the bill returned
to us, except the minority [representation], which Mr. Disraeli
was strong enough to secure by means of the votes of a body of
liberals who approved it, and which he accepted to humour or
comfort the Lords a little, while he detested it, and made, as
Bright said, the best speech ever delivered against it. So came
about the establishment of an effective household suffrage in the
cities and boroughs of England.

III

(M66) The process effecting this wide extension of political power to
immense classes hitherto without it, was in every respect extraordinary