e written
those articles in the "Baslehurst Gazette" which advocated the right
of any constituency to send a Jew to Parliament if it pleased, but
which proved at the same time that any constituency must be wrong to
send any Jew to Parliament, and that the constituency of Baslehurst
would in the present instance be specially wrong to send Mr. Hart to
Parliament. "We have always advocated," said one of these articles,
"the right of absolute freedom of choice for every borough and every
county in the land; but we trust that the day is far distant in
which the electors of England shall cease to look to their nearest
neighbours as their best representatives." There wasn't much in the
argument, but it suited the occasion, and added strength to Rowan's
own cause in the borough. All the stanch Protestants began to feel a
want of good beer. Questions very ill-natured as toward Tappitt were
asked in the newspapers. "Who owns The Spotted Dog at Busby-porcorum;
and who compels the landlord to buy his liquor at Tappitt's brewery?"
There were scores of questions of the same nature, all of which
Tappitt attributed, wrongly, to Luke Rowan. Luke had written that
article about freedom of election, but he had not condescended to
notice the beer at the Spotted Dog.

And there was another quarrel taking place in Baslehurst, on the
score of that election, between persons with whom we are connected
in this story. Mr. Prong had a vote in the borough, and was disposed
to make use of it; and Mrs. Prime, regarding her own position as Mr.
Prong's affianced bride, considered herself at liberty to question
Mr. Prong as to the use which he proposed to make of that vote.
To Mrs. Prime it appeared that anything done in any direction for
the benefit of a Jew was a sin not to be forgiven. To Mr. Prong it
seemed to be as great a sin not to do anything in his power for
the hindrance and vexation of those with whom Dr. Harford and Mr.
Comfort were connected by ties of friendship. Mrs. Prime, who, of
the two, was the more logical, would not disjoin her personal and
her scriptural hatreds. She also hated Dr. Harford; but she hated
the Jews more. She was not disposed to support a Jew in Baslehurst
because Mr. Comfort, in his doctrines, had fallen away from the
purity of his early promise. Her idea was that a just man and a good
Christian could not vote for either of the Baslehurst candidates
under the present unhappy local circumstances;--but that under
no c