affecting the civil population, elections,
voters and voting afforded as great a contrast compared with the
present as in anything that has gone before. Possibly the ripest stage
of the old wine of political life was during the last ten years of the
old pre-Reform era, just before the new wine began to crack the old
{95} bottles; but though the best glimpses of actual election work
should be deferred to a later chapter, there are some incidents
belonging to the early years of the century which cannot be well passed
over.

At the first glimpse of the old order one is struck with the intensely
personal end of political life, if such a word may be used. What
therefore by courtesy was called an election of a member of Parliament,
was more a question of who a man was than of what opinion he held, if
any.

This was how an election was often managed in the old time, when a man
needed a large fortune to face a contested election:--

"At a very respectable and numerous meeting of the freeholders of the
county [Cambridge] at the Shirehall on Monday last, in pursuance of
advertisement, for the High Sheriff to consider the proper persons to
represent them in Parliament, Sir John Hynde Cotton proposed Charles
Yorke, Esq., brother of the Earl of Hardwicke, and was seconded in a
very elegant speech by William Vachell, Esq. General Adeane was next
nominated by Jeremy Pemberton, Esq., who was seconded by the Rev. Mr.
Jenyns, of Bottisham, and both nominations were carried unanimously."

The address returning thanks for the election was inserted in the same
paper as the above account of the meeting, and the affair was ended!

If a candidate had thoughts of contesting an election he had to
consider not merely whether he held political opinions likely to
command a greater support from the electors than his opponent's, but
whether he could afford to spend as much money upon the contest! It
was not customary to hold meetings in every place as now. County
meetings were the order of the day, but Roystonians were not shut out
of the fray which attended elections. The candidates, or their
friends, came round to secure the vote and interest of the voter; at
the same time giving the latter a ticket for himself and several for
his friends. On going to Cambridge or Hertford, as the case might be,
the holders of the tickets found any of the public-houses of _their
colour_ open to them, and the Royston voter and his friends, or the
villag