After a short pause she replied, “Well, I think he used to be ginger, but he's very bald now." But children apart, it would be an excellent thing if a representative symposium could be convened to settle upon distinctive colors for the various political parties in the State, although I am convinced that no decision would be arrived at (or adhered to) without a great deal of heart-burning-so conservative is the country at large in certain respects. As it is, those who do a large amount of speaking during election time are under the constant danger of sailing under false colors. One passes from a platform where "true blue" is synonymous with a Unionist, only to find that rosette filched from us the following evening and a pink and white emblem substituted for it; on the next night we are tricked out in scarlet, or it may be in purple and orange ("Purple for the King, Orange for the Faith"), or other delights. It ought not, however, to be difficult to ascertain which are the oldest or the most convenient political colors, and to advise Liberals and Tories to wear them; leaving the later organizations, such as the Nationalist and Labor parties, to make a distinctive choice of uniform for those who serve in their ranks.

But I must return to the canvasser for a moment, if only to recount the sad interview between a certain noble lady in the South of England and one of her tenants' wives. Her ladyship was most anxious that Gaffer Hodge should vote for her son, but learned from his wife that he had already promised his vote to the opposition candidate-for a consideration. On hearing this the lady of the manor, scenting bribery within her gates, demanded to know what form this corruption had taken, but the faithful wife kept her secret well. Then, changing her tactics, some golden coins appeared in the canvasser's palm: "I

will give you these," said she, “if you will tell me what induced your husband to vote against my son." The good dame took the money and replied, "I promised him a warm winter coat; and your ladyship's kind present will more than pay for it."

I often wonder whether the intervention of canvassers really makes much difference to the vote which a man intends to give; of course the minds of the undecided and perplexed are sometimes confirmed by a welltimed visit from an expert, but I doubt whether fixed intentions are often changed thereby. Certainly the resolve of one Irish elector last winter remained adamant under the strain of severe trial. He had determined to vote for an O'Brienite against the Nationalist candidate, and every sort of pressure was put upon him to make him reconsider his decision. At last his wife, almost in tears, assured him on the morning of the poll that, if he carried out his intention, she had high ecclesiastical authority for warning him that he would be turned into a rat. The elector, not believing for a moment that the parish priest had been to canvass, nor that he had said anything so ridiculous, rejoined: "Ye may tell his Riverence that, whatever his spiritual power, he has no zoological influence over me"; then he left the house to record his vote. But he turned back, and called to his wife: "Biddy, ye'd better kill the cat just in case."

It will be noticed that, in nearly every case where canvassers and electors are engaged in controversy, the latter generally come off best. It was therefore, with a feeling of some satisfaction that I heard one candidate tell the story of a visit which he paid in order to solicit a vote. He had been warned on no account to see that elector's wife, who was a regular Fury at election time, but to insist on an interview with

he proceeded to the house and knocked. Nobody answered; then he rang the bell, then shouted. At last a window on the first floor was flung open in a passion, and he beheld the half-dressed form of a dishevelled and gray-bearded female, who screamed at him, "Who the devil are you?" Calmly he replied, "Madam, I am the barber; don't you want me?"-and passed on.

At the outset of this paper I wrote that I believed the election was, at any rate in certain parts of England, rather more bitterly contested than of yore. A good many meetings were broken up by rowdies, some were carried on under something like a state of siege from without, and others were enlivened by flights of sparrows, or a plague of rats, each bedizened with party colors, let loose within the schoolroom. Most candidates remain comparatively unmoved by such demonstrations as these, which seldom have any significance of personal hostility, and find their compensations elsewhere. One man told me that he was greatly heartened by a surprise ovation which he received on entering the principal street of the chief town in his constituency on the eve of the poll. He was late for a midday meeting, and was driving very fast in his motor car down the street. Suddenly he espied a funeral coming towards him, and therefore put on all his brakes, bringing the car to a sudden standstill. The cortège advanced, the hearse passed him, and the mourners on foot approached. My friend was bare-headed, and easily recognizable; what was his surprise when one and all of them began to wave and shout "Good old Z.; good luck to-morrow," and proceeded on their way. Such is election fever at its height; it detaches men from every other preoccupation, as a certain postscript to a letter, written to a candidate by a broken-hearted widower,

whose wife was to be buried on polling day, shows; it ran: "If you get in tomorrow, I shall be the happiest man in the three Kingdoms." My sequence of thought will perhaps be obvious if I mention here, before passing on to the subject of meetings, the case of the gentleman at Exeter who was convinced that Mr. St. Maur would be returned to Parliament, giving as his reason for the faith that was in him the fact that he was an undertaker, and had buried fifteen more Conservatives than Liberals since the New Year. That was in a part of the country where the dead do not attend the poll, as they have the inconvenient habit of doing (by proxy) in some constituencies within our knowledge; but it was not very far from a certain registration court where a vote was disputed on account of the demise of an elector who, however, turned up to claim his privilege, mentioning incidentally that he was the corpse in question! The foregoing anecdotes show that there is a macabre side to electioneering, as well as a merry one, little as one might have been inclined to think so.

The main source of entertainment during our political campaigns is still the public meeting, large or small, where the candidate has every opportunity of showing his mettle. If he is a man of capacity or experience, he is seldom silenced unless his audience is wholly hostile, which is rarely the case. The "voice" is generally to be heard; it may be a help or a hindrance, as chance dictates, but eloquence and relevant stories can generally command both attention and applause. Personally, I did not hear many good anecdotes told in the course of the election speeches, but perhaps that was my misfortune. One of the best was à propos to the speaker's wish that Mr. Asquith would clear his party of the imputation of being synonymous with the

Labor party and the Socialists; the orator was "reminded" (this is the classic way of introducing an illustration) of Andrew Kirkaldy, the golfer of renown, who was asked in the luncheon interval between two important matches whether he would care to wash his hands. "Na, na," he replied, according to the story, "that wad spoil ma grip." But, before we pass to dialogues with the "voice," let us confer temporary immortality upon an episode connected with the name of Mr. F. E. Smith. It is reported that, at one meeting, he closed an eloquent speech with a peroration suggested by the season of the year: "As I came to this great gathering I heard the church bells ringing, and they seemed to give me a message for you. 'Ring out the old, ring in the new,'"-an apposite quotation which was cheered to the echo. So popular became the phrase that it was soon in everybody's mouth, and passed into current use; but with a most unfortunate result for him who had first uttered it. A few nights afterwards, in another northern constituency, a local politician closed his observations to an election crowd with the words: "As I came to this great meeting, I heard bells ringing from the old church tower, &c.," and the famous phrase made its telling effect. The speaker concluded, and the meeting waited for the arrival of the orator of the evening, Mr. F. E. Smith, the patentee of this piece of applied poetry. His speech was an uninterrupted success until the very end, when the image of Lord Tennyson crossed his mind. "As I was driving into the town just now, your church bells pealed out, and seemed to give meThe rest was drowned in delighted laughter and friendly cheers: "We've had that message once already tonight," cried the voice above the din which prevented the repetition of the suggested meaning of the music.

Finally, let me try to make good my theory that political gatherings without the "voice" would be drab affairs indeed. Remember, the "voice" artist is not a heckler; his qualities are of quite a different order. The heckler appears at your meeting, primed to the larynx with puzzling questions, or with interruptions of a more or less brainy character. Such an one it was who goaded the G.O.M. to his famous retort, which was heavily criticized at the time. Said the heckler, at the end of his long catechism, "Am I to understand?" "You?-under

stand?" thundered Mr. Gladstone, as he sprang from his chair to the table, "I am responsible for the understanding that the Almighty has put into this skull of mine, but I am not responsible for the understanding that may be in that skull of yours." It will be remarked that the veteran Prime Minister did not suffer hecklers gladly. But our friend "the voice" is a breezier feature altogether. What Redmond cadet and Mr. Macveagh supply to the House of Commons, the "voice" purveys to the public meeting; his is no sustained effort, it is "hit or miss" every time. If he hits, he is the popular hero of an hour; if he misses, he becomes the village "butt" for a much longer period.

The Constitutional question was perhaps his happiest hunting-ground in last December, though he occasionally met his match. To one peer, who was explaining somewhat sharply that he was taking part in this campaign because he was "the lord of the manor," the voice retorted "then you ought to have the manners of a lord." And there was another peer, anxious to prove to his audience that he was descended from some civic dignitary who held office in the City of London centuries ago; he began, "You have all heard, I suppose, of Dick Whittington -thrice Lord Mayor of London (loud

cheers); well, I am not descended from him, but-" "From his cat," piped out the voice at the back of the hall, and the ensuing tumult of laughter denied us the pleasure of learning what post his ancestor had occupied. Such are the victories of the "voice"; let me now instance one or two of its.defeats. I heard of one charming young peer, just starting in public life north of the Tweed, who was being rather roughly handled at a meeting, until a voice yelled at him, "Where did you get your

-title from?" To which he quietly rejoined, "From the same place that you got your face; from my father," and the meeting cheered this personal score, which immediately secured him a friendly hearing to the end of his speech. And another colleague of mine relates his perpetual gratitude for the help rendered by an unknown presence in the crowd; my friend was dilating upon the iniquities of the present Government in respect of their treatment of the licensed victualler:

"In life he is harassed by restrictions and duties; his trade is crippled, he is taxed almost out of existence; and when, finally, he dies-what do they do then?"

"Bury the bloke," cried the voice. "Right," said the speaker; "that is the first and only time they treat him like other men."

Such are the vicissitudes, now of gaiety and now of humiliation, through which I suppose we all pass on our pilgrimage to the House of Commons, if The Nineteenth Century and After.

we are fortunate at the polls; lucky enough, indeed, if we can appreciate the humors and discount the failures as they cross our path. Then follows the far easier task of thanking our supporters, and doing the best we can to bury the hatchet with our enemies. "Now is the moment to be generous to those who have worked against us," cried a victorious candidate in the market-place, after the declaration of his election result; and on the morrow he received a letter from a lady opponent who said that she had heard of his benevolent intentions, and invited him, therefore, to subscribe to her fund for a new set of false teeth! This was embarrassing enough, but I declare I am almost more sorry for the new M.P. who was congratulated by a confidential and enthusiastic worker in a very poor constituency, as follows: "We are so glad to have you for our member; it will all be so different now. Mr. X., your predecessor, was too much of a gentleman for us." Poor man, he could only promise that he would never give his constituents reason to complain in that direction again.

Here let us leave the candidates, conquerors and fallen, for the present, to enjoy the labors or the leisure which Fortune has dealt out to them. Enough has been said to show that the lighter side of an election campaign has not yet wholly disappeared from our ken; but I doubt whether it will stand the strain of two General Elections every year. We must wait and

see.

Ian Malcolm.

7. Who moved even more delicately than the White Rabbit, and why? Answer: Porters, for their tread is velvet..

8. In what respect did the Baker resemble the Fat Boy in "Pickwick"? Answer: In inability to wink.

9. Who, by what transposition of a popular maxim, might have consoled the cook for the gardener's mistake? Answer: The Ghost. Onions are a weakness.

10. What kind of an animal might Alice, who heard the Gnat talk long before she set eyes on it, have fairly imagined it to be? Answer: A manlike ape.

11. Had the mouse possessed the talent of a dramatist, what might it have made of the Norman Conquest? Answer: A whiz.

12. Whose lung capacity was inferior to the Knight Mayor's own? Answer: The author's own.