"MY VOTE AND INTEREST."

A COMMUNICATION FROM MR. SIMPLETON SCHEMER, OF DOLTFORD-LODGE,

CROOKSLEY.

CROOKSLEY doesn't return members to Parliament-I wish it did. I'm sure I took pains enough ten years ago to procure for it-all my property being situate there-the privilege which was at that time accorded to other towns of consideration and respectability; for although the population doesn't much exceed three hundred and sixty, I took upon myself to make a return of our numbers to the then Secretary of State, which ought to have prevailed in our favour; for I proved that the population amounted to within a dozen of seven thousand, merely by including the churchyard, which I well might do, as part and parcel of Crooksley itself, and adding the affectionate wives, virtuous husbands, and filial prodigies, now no more, to the estimate of the living inhabitants; also, by anticipating the returns of christenings for a few succeeding years; which was easily done by guessing, on the authority of Blandish (our medical man, with whom I was at that time friendly), what number of children extra the various increasing families within the boundaries of Crooksley were likely to be blessed with.

Not the smallest notice, however, was taken of my memorial; and Crooksley to this hour does not return a single representative. I read an advertisement the other day in our county paper, of some new patent strait-waistcoats; which advertisement was headed thus : "Worthy the attention of the Insane!" Now, if Crooksley had been enfranchised, that is the very heading which might have been affixed to an advertisement for an independent candidate to represent it at the present crisis"Candidate wanted-worthy the attention of the Insane !" for a place more unlucky in its elections, more ill-omened and perverse in all its contests, more predestined to choose the wrong candidate, or more wilfully bent on self-destruction by scorning the advice of its best friends and patrons, I never lived in, since the day I sold my stock and good-will, and retired from the Old Jewry for ever.

To every other place with which I am acquainted entrance is obtained by regular roads; to Crooksley, I verily believe, there is no egress whatever but by cross-roads. I'm thinking of selling Doltford-lodge-cheap.

No

The first contest that ever took place in Crooksley-for it is odd enough, but they never could get up a contested election until I, having retired from business, went to settle there in the enjoyment of concord, harmony, and peace,—the first contest occurred several years ago. It was a struggle-and well do I remember it-for the office of organist. sooner was the place vacant-almost, I might say, before the bellows of the departed holder had lost their last breath of wind-than up started half-a-dozen of the nobs of Crooksley, with Dr. Blandish at their head, and down they came to me at the lodge with a flourishing testimonial to sign—a testimonial in favour of Miss Cramper, as a fit and proper person to fill the post of organist.

Miss Cramper! And who was Miss Cramper, I internally asked myself. But I couldn't answer the question. I knew, in fact, little about her, except that she had lived long in the place, had decent connexions, not over rich, and happened to be a capital musician ; the best organ-player, I must admit, that anybody ever heard in or out of our village. But with this exception she hadn't a single claim, not a pretension that I know of, to the post of organist. She was not asthmatic-she had not nine children, seven of them solely depending upon her for support-nor did she even pretend to have lost her eyesight, or any part thereof," as Knix the lawyer says; for she was ogling Blandish all throughout the interview, as if she looked upon him to be the first-fiddle in Crooksley— Humph!

66

Well ! I confess I didn't like the proceeding; and so, after assuring the requisitionists, in the friendliest manner, that Miss Cramper should certainly have my vote and interest-in the event, I added, more to myself, perhaps, than to them-in the event of no candidate coming forward to oppose her,—what did I do but I brought forward a candidate of my own!

It so happened that I had taken down there with me from the Old Jewry an elderly warehouseman, whom I couldn't well send adrift, and who was of no earthly use to me, either in the house or in the grounds. Now, poor Joggins, besides being bent double, chanced, very luckily, to have eyes like an owl, and there were the strongest hopes of their becoming speedily weaker; so that here at once was a qualification. In addition to that, he had had two sons: one, a waterman, drowned by the usual means, collision with a steamer, was easily elevated into a British seaman dying in defence of his country; and the other, for whom I had obtained a situation in the new police, was, of course, one of the brave devoted guardians of his native land. To crown our good-luck, Joggins had been very fond of playing the flute before wind got so very valuable to him, and really did know something practically of that enchanting instrument, so that his qualifications as an organist were more than indisputable.

Yet, strange to say, his nomination was the signal for violent opposition; and a tremendous conflict ensued. I was determined that Blandish, though backed by the vicar, should not carry everything before him with a high hand, nor become, what, ever since the part I had taken relative to the enfranchisement question, he was striving to be, the dictator of Crooksley. My own influence was not slight, and a powerful party rose up, notwithstanding our adversaries were earliest in the field. The walls were everywhere placarded, families were everywhere divided by circulars. "Vote for Joggins," "Vote for Cramper ;" "Joggins and grey hairs," "Cramper and Musical Accomplishments;" "Joggins the veteran parent of our brave defenders," "Cramper and Female Virtue;" "Joggins and the failure of eyesight." "Cramper and Organic changes:" these were among the changes rung throughout the village, and a mile or two round it, for upwards of three weeks. I called public meetings, at which I took the chair, and personally carried the resolutions; and I started a Crooksley Chronicle, of which I was at once the editor

and all the correspondents. In both capacities I defied our antagonists to prove that their candidate had any one of the qualifications by which ours was so abundantly distinguished. I dared them to prove that there were any brave defenders on the other side; that there existed any ocular weakness; that there was a single grey hair or any symptom of decrepitude: while, on the other hand, I showed triumphantly that the legitimate candidate for the office of organist was a veteran flute-player, utterly and hopelessly incapable of any exertion whatever, and unobjectionable by the excess of his infirmity.

Blandish was so alarmed at the progress we made, that he began to give out in reply that Miss Cramper was considerably more advanced in years than had been insidiously suggested; that her eyesight was anything but vivid; that what seemed to be her own hair might not bear examination; and possibly he would have proceeded to other intimations tending to balance her claims with those of Joggins, had she not stopped him with the declaration that she would rather lose her election, rather retire from the contest, than sanction such gross misrepresentations of fact. Truth, she said, was everything, and it must prevail; her hair was her own, and her eyes piercers, she thanked Heaven.

But notwithstanding this electioneering attack upon his own nominee, I saw that Blandish was on the very best terms with Miss C.; and as the interest he took in her success could not solely be attributed to gratitude for her attendance at all his evening parties, to play his guests into patients, by provoking headaches that demanded draughts and powders in the morning, I issued, the day previously to the poll, a placard containing surely a very inoffensive query, thus-"WHY is Blandish the patron of Miss Cramper ?" The "why" was in very large capitals. Now will it be believed that this, though it asserted nothing disrespectful, and merely put an innocent question, immediately created a very strong sympathy throughout Crooksley in favour of our adversaries, and that the popular feeling was instantly shown in tumultuous cries of "Cramper for ever!" So it happened, however. The result was, that the venerable Joggins had virtually lost his election before the expiration of the first hour of polling. I then, feeling that every vote was wanted, went forward to record my own; when perceiving Blandish (he had a horsewhip in his hand), I turned back with the view of bringing up a batch of electors from a distant part of the village; and on my return all was at an end, and so my vote wasn't wanted; for Joggins, the old idiot, had resigned. I had a disagreeable encounter afterwards with that Blandish, who is, I really think, fonder of carrying a horsewhip than any man I know; but gloriously was I at a subsequent period revenged; for I shammed a long illness, sent off to a neighbouring town for an apothecary, and paid him thirty-seven pounds odd for attendance which I never required, and medicine which I never tasted! Poor Blandish was so irritated, that he fell really ill himself, and took his own mixtures for three weeks.

About a year after this we had another election in Crooksley. The gravediggership became vacant. The Blandish party, who had the churchwardens with them, wanted to get in young Digdum, the son of

the late official; and he would have walked the course sure enough, if I hadn't brought forward little Spick the cross-sweeper to oppose him. Party feeling never ran so high, I think, as on this memorable occasion. Everybody felt the cause to be his own, and put forth his energies as though the issue of the struggle depended upon his exertions. It was like a life-anddeath contest; and you would have thought that the consequence of being beaten was the being buried alive by the victorious candidate. I'm sure that if it had been to keep ourselves out of "apartments furnished" in the churchyard, we Spickites could not have toiled harder. Nor were the Digdumites idle.

On our side we had ranged, besides myself, who acted as chairman 0. the committee, Lawyer Knix (who handsomely volunteered his gratuitous · services at two guineas a day); Fobbs, the landlord of the Crumpet and Spade; Tipson, of the Vicar's Head; (both of them very fond of an opposition, and always ready to further my views in bringing forward a candidate, and in keeping the poll open to the latest moment allowed by law ;) then we had the crack printer of our town, whose charges were very moderate; several of the neighbouring gentry, friends of my own; and one Swarthy Sam, a character who had no fixed abode in Crooksley, nor indeed anywhere else, and had not, therefore, a vote to give-but who kindly took an interest in the contest, and who proved a most valuable agent, for he particularly knew what he was about in a row, could drown by his own unaided lungs the voice of the most stentorian speaker on the other side, and would tear down, I do think, more of the enemy's placards in an hour than they could stick up in a day. On their side, they had the fat churchwarden, and the stately master of the workhouse; the skeleton of a schoolmaster, the parish-lawyer (Knix was independent), and various other paid functionaries or hirelings.

Well, there wasn't one of them that didn't wish himself well out of Crooksley before the contest was over; for we left nothing of their private history unraked, I can tell you. The "Crooksley Chronicle" came again into play, and I wrote letters-in Junius's style-only under the various signatures of Vindex, Justitia, A Spickite, Philo-Spickite, Veritas, An Admirer of Crooksley, Anti-Digdum, &c. &c. We also raised with remarkable success, a cry of "No brick dust, no pigs' bristles!" in conjunction with the cry of "No Digdum." It did not in point of fact mean anything in particular, as far as we were aware, but it vexed the Digdum party amazingly, and made Spick surprisingly popular*.

The best of the fun was that we had forestalled them in taking possession of both public-houses-the Crumpet and Spade, and the Vicar's Head -for our committee-rooms; so that they had only a little bit of a beershop to assemble in. This drove the Digdum party to distraction. They made incredible exertions to get us out of the Vicar's Head; and a deputation came privately to our worthy host's good dame, and offered, if Digdum were returned, to bury her husband for nothing-for poor Tipson

*Our respectable correspondent must have visited the English Opera in his younger days, or else Charles Mathews must have paid a visit to Crooksley. He must also have seen the printed addresses circulated lately in Deptford during a contest for the office of gravedigger, where the proceedings were as outrageous as these that he describes.

was sadly apoplectic! Such were the too-powerful temptations (for so in some instances they proved), such the demoralising practices, to which our depraved and desperate opponents had resort. They went to Clank the blacksmith, and promised, if he would but vote for Digdum, they would see him and all his family buried with pleasure free of charge; but Clank was not to be seduced, for having once had a turn-up with Swarthy Sam in the skittle-ground, he preferred being on the same side with Sam, you see-not caring to fall out-and to say the truth, they were not a few that had similar feelings. Sam was a capital canvasser, and it wasn't everybody that would like to say "No" to him.

At last dawn'd the day, the important day,

"Big with the fate of Digdum or of Spick."

;

Every soul in Crooksley was out of doors; the excitement was intense seventeen pots of beer and best part of a round of beef were consumed at the Crumpet and Spade alone before ten in the morning. Every chaise, fly, and hack in old Wheeler's yard was in requisition. Both parties were particularly well satisfied with the result of the canvass, and assembled at the place of nomination with equal confidence. Our flags bore the several inscriptions of "Spick the opponent of Corruption," "Spick and Span," "Spades are trumps," &c.; theirs had, "No Cross-sweeper," "No Sweeping Changes," "Digdum and the Rites of the Departed," &c. &c. Blandish nominated Digdum, and then I proposed Spick in a neat and appropriate speech.

Well we gained our election—that is, we gained it by a show of hands; but the other party took the mean advantage of demanding a poll. There was instantly a rush of upwards of a dozen on their side, and very near a score on ours. To keep up the advantage we had gained was the thing. Unfortunately some of our safest voters were now drunk, having received eighteen-pence a piece to attend the nomination of candidates; and instead of flocking to the poll, off they went to the Vicar's Head, or the Crumpet and Spade, swearing they wouldn't vote at all unless supplied with pots round; which Fobbs and Tipson very readily drew for them: I having desired those disinterested persons in the morning not to stand very nice about a measure or two of ale, and they promised me they would not, as I was to pay. And this, in fact, I shouldn't have minded; but, unluckily, the worthy electors got so drunk that they absolutely forgot what colours they fought under, and went and voted for the wrong candidate.

This turned the scale against us. What was to be done? I had already got some of the Digdumites away; a tenant of mine, seven miles off, having engaged to "coop" them, that is, to make them "fuddled," and to prevent their return in time. A few more must be pounced upon. Swarthy Sam (that invaluable election-agent) undertook to inveigle them and manage the business. We got a vehicle or two; and partly by cajolery, partly by intimidation, and a display of the enemy's colours, off we carried in an opposite direction to the poll a batch of Digdum's supporters. Away we drove, Sam conducting us, through by-lanes and across ploughed-fields, I may say, so that I hardly knew where I was. Deaf to all remonstrances,