00 pounds; the amount awarded by the jury was 873 pounds.

"The opposition thus made, whether feigned or real, it was always
advisable to remove; and the money paid for this purpose, though
ostensibly in the purchase of the ground, has been on many occasions
immense. Sums of 35,000, 40,000, 50,000, 100,000, and 120,000 pounds,
have thus been paid; while various ingenious plans have been adopted of
removing the opposition of influential men. An honourable member is said
to have received 30,000 pounds to withdraw his opposition to a Bill
before the House; and 'not far off the celebrated year 1845, a lady of
title, so gossip talks, asked a certain nobleman to support a certain
Bill, stating that, if he did, she had the authority of the secretary of
a great company to inform him that fifty shares in a certain railway,
then at a considerable premium, would be at his disposal.'

"One pleasing circumstance, however, highly honourable to the gentleman
concerned, must not be omitted. The late Mr. Labouchere had made an
agreement with the Eastern Counties Company for a passage through his
estate near Chelmsford, for the price of 35,000 pounds; his son and
successor, the Right Honourable Henry Labouchere, finding that the
property was not deteriorated to the anticipated extent, voluntarily
returned 15,000 pounds.

"The practice of buying off opposition has not been confined to the
proprietors of land. We learn from one of the Parliamentary Reports that
in a certain district a pen-and-ink warfare between two rival companies
ran so high, and was, at least on one side, rewarded with such success,
that the friends of the older of the two projected lines thought it
expedient to enter into treaty with their literary opponent, and its
editor very soon retired on a fortune. It is also asserted, on good
authority, that, in a midland county, the facts and arguments of an
editor were wielded with such vigour that the opposing company found it
necessary to adopt extraordinary means on the occasion. Bribes were
offered, but refused; an opposition paper was started, but its conductors
quailed before the energy of their opponent, and it produced little
effect; every scheme that ingenuity could devise, and money carry out,
was attempted, but they successively and utterly failed. At length a
Director hit on a truly Machiavellian plan--he was introduced to the
proprietor of the journal, whom he cautiously informed that he wished to
risk a