e voter, often did not return till after several days'
jollification, and other accompaniments of an election in the good old
times, when beer and wine flowed like a fountain!

The old style of election address was a very different thing from the
political catechism which the unfortunate candidate has to put himself
through in these days.

"If I should be so happy as to succeed in this the highest object of my
ambition, I will faithfully discharge the important duties of the great
trust reposed in me, by promoting to the utmost of my power your
Welfare and Prosperity. I am, &c."

{96}

Such was the sum and substance of nearly all the election addresses in
the pre-Reform Bill period. As easy as applying for a situation as a
butler or confidential clerk was obtaining a seat in Parliament, given
plenty of money and a few backers.

It is possible to read through whole columns of these addresses without
finding expressions of opinion upon political questions, or any
reflection of what was taking place in public life at the time! Happy
candidates! whose political capital was all sugar and plums; and who,
haunted by no dread of that old scarecrow of a printed address with a
long string of opinions bound to come home to roost, looking out in
judgment upon you in faded but still terribly legible printer's ink
from every dead wall--at least, had only to get past that rough batch
of compliments, "the tempest of rotten eggs, cabbages, onions, and
occasional dead cats," at the hustings, and you were a legislator
pledged simply to "vote straight!"

Fortunately for the candidate the freeholders, who were entitled to
vote and could at a pinch put their own price upon their votes, and get
it, were not numerous. The poll for the county of Cambridge would, at
a General Election, now, I suppose, be about 25,000, but in 1802, at a
very warm contest, the poll was only 2,624. In the General Election
that year, which was contested in Cambridgeshire, the parish of Great
Abington, out of 47 inhabited houses, sent three freeholders to record
their votes at Cambridge, and Little Abington, out of 34 inhabited
houses, polled four freeholders at the same election.

In the old days of "vote and interest" the canvass was regarded as a
much more certain criterion than to-day. Thus in 1796 a Hertfordshire
candidate issued an address in which he candidly stated, "After a
success upon my first Day's Canvass equal to my most sanguine
Expectat