they know it.' Then he ended
by alluding to the rumours of yesterday. 'I scorn,' said he, 'to say
anything against the personal character of a political opponent, which
I am not in a position to prove. I make no allusion, and have made no
allusion, to reports which were circulated yesterday about him, and
which I believe were originated in the City. They may be false or they
may be true. As I know nothing of the matter, I prefer to regard them
as false, and I recommend you to do the same. But I declared to you
long before these reports were in men's mouths, that Mr Melmotte was
not entitled by his character to represent you in parliament, and I
repeat that assertion. A great British merchant, indeed! How long, do
you think, should a man be known in this city before that title be
accorded to him? Who knew aught of this man two years since,--unless,
indeed, it be some one who had burnt his wings in trafficking with him
in some continental city? Ask the character of this great British
merchant in Hamburg and Vienna; ask it in Paris;--ask those whose
business here has connected them with the assurance companies of
foreign countries, and you will be told whether this is a fit man to
represent Westminster in the British parliament!' There was much more
yet; but such was the tone of the speech which Mr Alf made with the
object of inducing the electors to vote for himself.

At two or three o'clock in the day, nobody knew how the matter was
going. It was supposed that the working-classes were in favour of
Melmotte, partly from their love of a man who spends a great deal of
money, partly from the belief that he was being ill-used,--partly, no
doubt, from that occult sympathy which is felt for crime, when the
crime committed is injurious to the upper classes. Masses of men will
almost feel that a certain amount of injustice ought to be inflicted
on their betters, so as to make things even, and will persuade
themselves that a criminal should be declared to be innocent, because
the crime committed has had a tendency to oppress the rich and pull
down the mighty from their seats. Some few years since, the basest
calumnies that were ever published in this country, uttered by one of
the basest men that ever disgraced the country, levelled, for the most
part, at men of whose characters and services the country was proud,
were received with a certain amount of sympathy by men not themselves
dishonest, because they who were thus slandered