ong after he has gone
bankrupt. We don't require no strangers: the people in this borough
has always managed their own affairs, and by the help of Providence
they'll go on in the good old way in spite of any swell that comes
a-sniffin' and a-smellin' and a-pryin' and a-askin' for accounts about
this and that and the other; and I tell the gentleman plain, the
sooner this council sees his back the better they'll be pleased; so,
if he's not too thick in the skin, let him take a friendly hint and
take himself off." A withering onslaught like this is received with
tumultuous applause, and other speakers follow suit. It is seldom that
a man has nerve enough to stand such brutality from his hoggish
assailants, and the ring of jobbers are too often left to work their
will unchecked. Are such people fit for political power? Ask the
wretched rich man who indirectly buys the seat, and hear his record of
dull misery if he is inclined to be confidential. He does not like to
leave Parliament, and yet he knows he is merely a mark for the
licensed pickpocket; he is not regarded as a politician--he is a donor
of sundry subscriptions, and nothing more. The men in manufacturing
centres will return a poor politician and pay his expenses; but the
people in some quiet towns have about as much sentiment or loyalty as
they have knowledge; and they treat their member of Parliament as a
gentleman whose function it is to be bled, and bled copiously. A sorry
sight it is!

One very remarkable thing in these homes of quietness is the
marvellous power possessed by drink-sellers. These gentry form the
main links in a very tough chain, and they hang together with touching
fidelity; their houses are turned into scandal-shops, and they prosper
so long as they are ready to cringe with due self-abasement before the
magistrates. No refined gentleman who keeps himself to his own class
and refrains from meddling with politics could ever by any chance
imagine the airs of broad-blown impudence which are sometimes assumed
by ignorant and stupid boors who have been endowed with a license; and
assuredly no one would guess the extent of their political power
unless he had something to do with election business. The landlord of
fiction hardly exists in the quiet towns; there is seldom a smiling,
suave, and fawning Boniface to be seen; the influential drink-seller
is often an insolent familiar harpy who will speak of his own member
of Parliament as "Old Tom," and wh