The Project Gutenberg EBook of Secret Service or Recollections of a City Detective, by Andrew Forrester This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Secret Service or Recollections of a City Detective Author: Andrew Forrester Release Date: August 6, 2014 [EBook #46520] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRET SERVICE *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) cover Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. (etext transcriber's note) SECRET SERVICE OR RECOLLECTIONS OF A C I T Y D E T E C T I V E By ANDREW FORRESTER, JUN. AUTHOR OF “THE PRIVATE DETECTIVE” ——— NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED ——— LONDON W A R D A N D L O C K 158 FLEET STREET MDCCCLXIV [All Rights are reserved] LONDON: ROBSON AND LEVEY, PRINTERS, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE. CONTENTS. PAGE My Great Electioneering Trick 1 Mistaken Identity 35 An Unscrupulous Woman 50 The Incendiary Gang 60 A Railway Accident? 108 A Patriotic Barber in Fault 122 A Romance of Social Life 136 The Virtue of an American Passport 171 Who was the Greatest Criminal? 184 A Grand Railway “Plant” 208 An Episode of Criminal Justice 231 The Workhouse Doctor 242 The Missing Will 261 The Duke’s Mystery 270 The Attorney and the Smuggler 280 Swindling according To Act of Parliament289 Matrimonial Espionage 303 SECRET SERVICE OR Recollections of a City Detective Recollections of a City Detective MY GREAT ELECTIONEERING TRICK. ABOUT twelve years ago there was an election anticipated in the Borough of N——. It was a notorious place for bribery, as I, who have been professionally concerned in many elections, perfectly well knew. It was an extraordinary town. It had once been a very flourishing place. A staple trade had been carried on there, and almost nowhere else; but an evil spirit of gentility pervaded its corporation in those days. The genius of two or three well-known men would have taken advantage of the neutral position and prospects of that spot and its neighbourhood to found there a new industry, and give employment to an immense population of skilled artisans. The labour of these people, however, could only be set to work and supplemented by smoke. The mayor and town-council of N——, acting in the supposed interest of its inhabitants, determined they would have no smoky chimneys within their town. An Act of Parliament had been obtained sanctioning such municipal regulations as enabled these wiseacres to keep out the threatened innovation of gold-producing smoke. The new industry had, therefore, to settle down in the neighbourhood beyond municipal control. After this achievement had been successful, the surrounding district went on rapidly increasing in prosperity until it reached its present exalted position in that respect, and the trade of N—— went on diminishing to its present abject or exhausted condition. Meanwhile, also, the stage-coaches, which ran continuously through its streets—for N—— was on the great northern line of turnpike-road—dropping in their course a modicum of wealth for the inhabitants, were themselves put down by the unequal competition of a trunk railway; so that N—— became in course of time what it now is—a clean, shabby, pretentious, and poverty- stricken place. Stagnation amid activity distinguishes it. The grass grows in its High Street and Market-place. The remnant of independent people—that is, people who have a pecuniary independence—show airs, and walk about the neighbourhood under the belief that they are thought to be and are superior beings. The inhabitants who are not in this sense independent are craven, humiliated, impoverished, and corrupt. Yet N—— is a parliamentary borough; and, consequently, its present dilapidated, forlorn position supplies a fine opportunity for adventurous politicians—whether with or without brains, no matter—who have heavy purses, skilful agents, and good machinery at their command. Before I describe the special incidents of the case I am about to lay before the reader, let me supply some further particulars about the electoral conscience of this extraordinary old town. It has three classes of voters, who have been classified by a well-known Conservative electioneering agent (an attorney residing there); and a similar, or rather obverse, classification has no doubt been made by the other side. In the first list or classification are the really true and honest electors, men who would resent as an insult the offered bribe, sterling, worthy fellows, who would resist almost, or perhaps quite, to the death any attempt to coerce them to vote otherwise than as their consciences directed. There is another list or classification of men who are inclined towards Conservatism (as, perhaps, some sardonic reader will suggest, every body in an old place like N—— ought to be); and these men will take half as much from the real supporter of our venerable institutions as they can get from some mushroom pursy adventurer professing ultra-Radical principles, who desires to make a market of his political influence, or is perhaps anxious to satisfy the cravings for distinction of his wife by getting himself as her marital adjunct returned to Parliament, and privileged to wear M.P. after his name. The third list or classification embraces those electors who have no political principles, or character, or conscience whatever. These are fellows who want as much from Conservative as from Radical or from Whig. They are the scum and refuse, or dregs, of political life; and this foul element of the political existence at N—— is by no means the smaller portion of the three classifications. The operator, or agent, as he likes to be called,—although, as police-magistrates and all other people dealing with crime are aware, the title “agent” is complimentary,—knows precisely with what material he has to deal. He “plays his cards,” as he sometimes describes his anxious labours, accordingly; and is only liable to one derangement. It is said that honesty and good faith towards one another is characteristic of thief- life. I have, in a former volume, shown that notion to be a fallacy. Politicians supply an additional proof of the accuracy of my statement. When the operator or agent has—say, two days before the election—made all his arrangements for voting, and feels quite confident that, as the representative of Mr. Heavy Purse, his candidate,—a gentleman who rejoices in a retiring forehead, thick neck, small brain, a little talker and smaller doer, who has no political character, principle, sentiment, or notion whatever,—he has made it all right by virtue of the money already dropped, and the vastly larger amount promised, he goes to sleep in his downy, well-curtained bed at the Dodo, charged to the brim with rosy wine and deep spiritual potations, only to be awakened in the morning by a vigilant subordinate, who informs him that shortly before the witching hour over night there came into N—— a post-chaise or a “trap” with four horses, which did not seem fatigued by the length of their journey, for they had only come from Z——, but were the drawers of a load on the floor of the carriage, which hindered their movement and might have sacrificed their character for speed. The operator or agent knows that some wealthy political speculator has arrived with a good round sum in golden sovereigns. He does not think the affair so cleverly planned as it might have been, and would seem to have been on the first blush, but still he is a little tremulous, because he knows that the problem of success may be most easily resolved by the hand which can ply the largest, or heaviest, golden solvent. He knows that the magic of gold nowhere exercises a more potent influence over the soul than at N——; and he would already feel inclined to give up the contest if he could be sure that the new arrival had a large preponderance of gold over his own man. Notwithstanding the fact that he thinks his candidate a superior man, and one that the constituency, if it could be made honest, would be sure to like; and notwithstanding, also, that he has had the start of three weeks in canvassing, and got the promises of a considerable majority of electors over the comparatively needy Liberal candidate, who has been hitherto opposed to Mr. Heavy Purse,—the third arrival disquiets the operator. One other remarkable fact I discovered in this town. I hope the reader will not be startled by it. I relate it as a truth. I state it as an undeniable proposition. I am open to be convinced if I am wrong; but if I am right it is a thing to be laid before Parliament, as a great argument in favour of something or against something else. Every fact surely leads up to an inference. Every truth has a moral. This fact I commend to all whom it doth concern, and I declare it. It is this: the representation of N—— is usually determined by the brothel-keepers of the town. All the men who ever sat for that borough since the Reform Bill passed have been returned by these despicable human creatures, who derive means of sustaining their own existence out of the most loathsome, although we are told incurable, evil. How do I prove my fact and moral? the reader asks. Thus: when all the really honest electors have been polled, the operators or agents exhaust the comparatively decent section of the bribable part of the town, and the result of the whole gives to the Conservative, it may be, a majority of four, or it may be a majority to the Liberal of four, or it may be five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, or eleven,—according to circumstances. We may suppose this to be late in the day. But there are still from twenty-three to twenty-five of the morally unclean ten-pound householders or burgesses in a particular street of N——, who regularly pay their rates and taxes within the date prescribed for exclusion from the register, and who are, therefore, duly-qualified voters. Neither Liberal nor Conservative will lose an election if he can help it. In the emergency of the time I speak of, the Liberal, finding himself in a minority of four, goes into Stew Street and buys up the twenty-three, four, or five occupiers of these leprosy-distilling houses, and pays any price the occupiers think fit to demand. They are taken up to poll like free, independent, honest, and moral electors. They turn the scale. They return the member. All the rest has been a farce. Printing the addresses of rival candidates, engaging committee-rooms, every thing in the way of machinery or principle, up to the visit of the operator or agent in Stew Street, has been useless. I hate shams. I detest mockeries. Why not leave Stew Street to return the gentleman or blackguard who is to be called M.P. for N——? Apropos to this, or by way of postscript to my moralising, let me inform the reader that a cabinet minister has been returned for N——, and that, beyond all earthly doubt, Stew Street alone, or its voters, and the cabinet minister’s money, returned him to Parliament in the way I have pointed out. Well, as I have told the reader already, I saw the opportunity for getting an engagement, so I went to somebody, who put himself into communication with somebody else—this gentleman, who for the present may be called Mr. Somebodyelse, having made a fortune in trade, and having a wife who had persuaded him that he was a remarkably clever fellow, and that he ought to go into Parliament. Mr. Somebodyelse had no political principles. He had himself always voted, as an elector, just in the way that his largest customer had recommended; which largest customer, as if events happened by chance, had always been a Liberal. Somehow or other, Mrs. Somebodyelse got into her feminine head that her spouse had herein gone on the wrong tack; that it was “not respectable” to be a Liberal; that the “highly genteel thing” was to stand by the Tories; and she therefore determined that, whenever her spouse went into Parliament, he should be a stanch Conservative: to which he, like a fond husband, said, “I will.” This did not much matter to me. Mr. Somebodyelse would do for N—— and for me as well as any other man. I was not careful about political opinions, and therefore made no hesitation about rendering my services to him. It is always desirable to go through the usual forms. Occasionally, forms useless in themselves are made essential by custom. A man who could write was therefore employed to write an Address for our candidate, and one or two fellows were also engaged to “cram” or “coach” him with speeches that he was to re-deliver. They were not very fine speeches. The oratory was, in my opinion, gassy, flowery, nonsensical; or, as the great Mr. Barnum would say, and I shall take the liberty of saying, they were “humbugeous.” We went down from London direct to the borough. The party consisted of myself, my associate (who was the agent), an attorney, and the candidate, whose name, address, and quality I had now ascertained. The reader may now know this gentleman as Mr. Jollefat, a retired tallow- melter or chandler, then residing at Melpomene Lodge, Clapham, and supposed to be a sleeping partner of “the old house” in which he had skimmed the cauldrons of boiling tallow admirably for more than thirty years. On our arrival, we put out the address of our candidate. We started a personal canvass. We did all that was usual except bribe—and the time had hardly come for that—but all that we did only served to discourage every body but me. My associate had told his candidate that he thought a couple of thousand pounds or thereabouts would do, whereas I had told him it would cost five thousand pounds at least, but that he ought to be prepared with seven or eight thousand if he really meant to go in and win. At N—— the candidate got to learn there was no chance for him with two or even three thousand pounds. He was chapfallen, and telegraphed to his wife, who came down in a sumptuous anonymity, which, to our annoyance, had more effect than the simple announcement of her name and her relationship to the candidate would have had. This lady, unlike the wife of Sir Baldpate Belly, under the like circumstances, became presumptuous and impracticable. She said she thought that three thousand “goolden suvrins was a wery enormus sum.” It cost her good man a wery long time to make that ’ere sum of money; and although she did not mind his spending his money like a Briton or a prime-minister, she said she thought three thousand pounds ought to satisfy every body, and if it didn’t, why, she wouldn’t go no further, and they might do as they could. Mrs. Jollefat also said that she liked to see her way sure before she began. If it could not be done for that price certain, why, she’d rather not try it on at all. Three thousand “goolden suvrins,” as she often said, was a wery big sum of money, and it was not to be tossed into the Thames. That is what they would say in London, and she meant it was not to be made ducks and drakes on. I was a little astonished, more especially when my associate boldly told her that, upon his honour, he would do it for the money. Of course I could not there and then contradict him, and in effect say he was a jolly humbug to let in a thrifty woman and her spouse in such a mode, so I held my peace until I got him alone. Then I protested. He replied, “Oh, gammon! make the old boy and girl spend. They won’t do any good with their money if they don’t drop it here; and, after all, rely upon it, I will make them shell out three or five thousand pounds more if it is wanted.” I argued and expostulated; my associate was firm. He said, “We have gone too far into the matter to go back. We shall both of us be ruined in our professions if we run away from the stake. I say, that we must go in and win, and make the old boy pay.” I have heard it said that “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I believe the proverb is familiar to most of my readers. I am going to supply another illustration of it. I was oppressed in conscience about Mr. and Mrs. Jollefat and their purse for the rest of the day. I felt that we must go in and win, or we must not go in at all, but must run away. Then my associate and partner would stick by the candidate, and perhaps really succeed in doing as he said must be done—that was, gladden the hearts of the candidate and his wife by a triumph at the poll, and get the requisite amount of money to pay him for the operation. About the former part of the business I was not at all certain; but if, on the other hand, he failed, which was more likely, could I rid myself from the responsibility by merely withdrawing at the present stage of affairs? I resolved to go on, and make the best use of the little legal knowledge I had obtained, so as to keep out of harm’s way. I was ultimately able to devise what I then thought, and still think, my greatest Electioneering Trick. I took a stroll, in order to collect my thoughts; and after cudgelling my brain for an hour or two, hit upon the following expedient, which I carried out in the manner described. I hastened to London by a midnight train, took a cab from the Euston Station, and knocked up a clever fellow in my own line of business, who was instructed by me, and who acted under my direction to the letter and spirit, so that the ruse was, as the reader will see, entirely successful. As far as I could, of course, I directly superintended the details of my scheme. Residing in the neighbourhood of Soho was a man of considerable ability, who, as I was informed, and have now good reasons for believing, could talk and write with great ease and facility. What his political principles were I do not know, nor did I then care about any more than he did himself. He was ready to accept the engagement which I offered him. For a price he agreed to become a third candidate for the representation of N——. My man—the new candidate—and I, after quitting the lodgings of the former, went to an adjacent hostelry, where, having secured a private room, and called for pens, ink, and paper, cigars, and a bottle of wine, we concocted an address to “the free and independent electors” of the borough we were to humbug. This was taken to a printer, who, for a little more than ordinary pay, got it into type, and printed off five hundred copies within three hours. We next paid a visit to the shop of a well-known clothes-dealer not far off, whose name has a flavour of Hebrew in its orthography, where our candidate got rigged out in admirable style; although at an expense, I think even now, a little extravagant. When thus costumed in the habit of a gentleman, he really looked such; and with the influence of external prosperity, and, I suppose, the magic of twenty sovereigns in his pocket (such a sum as he had not been in the enjoyment of, I fancy, for a very long while), all the traces of want and dissipation left his countenance. He talked with additional volubility, and became so eloquent, that I really thought it a pity he was not the real instead of the sham aspirant for senatorial dignity. I plead guilty to a passing idea which then possessed me, and suggested an odious comparison. I thought he would have fitted the character of M.P. much better than our candidate Mr. Jollefat, whose jackal or provider he really was. I next took our party to a restaurant in Regent Street, where I called for, and paid for, a sumptuous dinner. Over our wine suggestion and plot developed themselves grandly. I became indebted for many valuable hints to my new chum and his clever friend. We smoked, and chatted, and afterwards strolled in St. James’s Park until the time began to arrive for our leaving Town. One other call had to be made at a trunk-maker’s for two or three goodly portmanteaus, which, although expense was not of much importance, I preferred to have second-hand, as I thought shabbiness, or at least a soiled appearance, would look better, as an accessory to the scheme or great trick we had already begun to play out. I should also tell the reader that I promised “the popular candidate” in embryo a bonus of fifty pounds if he played his part skilfully, and kept good faith; but I gave him no security beyond my word (from which I never departed in my life) for the fulfilment of my part of the contract. Neither of us had then, or thereafter, to regret the manner in which it was executed and paid for. The portmanteaus were stocked from an outfitter’s, a hosier’s, a perfumer’s, and other tradesmen. We also purchased a large, heavy, wooden box from a dealer in antiquities. It had huge steel clasps, and a ponderous lock. It looked like a thing designed for the keeping of treasure, and a thing customarily so employed. We filled this box. We then went to the printer’s, where the copies of the placard we had ordered, and of which we had not thought it necessary to see a proof, were all worked off; and it looked, in clear bold type, fascinating to the eye of each of us, but most charming of all it perhaps seemed to the man who embodied most of its unreality. It is astonishing how many excellent devices, and how many grand projects and schemes of lofty usefulness, are marred by inattention to detail, or it may be the want of a single but essential ingredient. This was nearly the case on the present occasion. My Great Electioneering Trick had almost failed from an oversight in its initiation. We had, up to this moment, retained no lawyer or attorney,—a most essential feature of such a plot as that we had engaged in. This omission was discovered by me just in time to be filled up. We heard of an attorney—a low sort of fellow, I believe—who lived in the neighbourhood. I hired him, and sent him down with the other two to the borough of N—— that night. I parted company with my friends at the Euston Station. They proceeded a little more than a hundred miles to the populous town of H —— by railway, and there alighted. From this point the journey was performed in a lumbering post-chaise, as I had desired my party not on any account to arrive at the town of N—— before twelve o’clock at night. I preferred that it should be a little after one in the morning, and I suggested they might as well get up a little sensation on their arrival. This I told them might easily be done, by a pretended anxiety to keep their arrival dark and quiet. My instructions herein were obeyed, as I afterwards ascertained, with unerring exactness. There was, at a very short distance on the outside of the town, a toll-bar, always locked at night, and the keeper of which was not renowned for his vigilance or wakefulness. The party found a trifle of real difficulty in gaining admission to the borough. It was some time before the man at the toll-house, rubbing his eyes, opened his little wicket, and came forth to unlock the gate. As he did so, he was startled by the sight of a vehicle with three persons in it, and heavily laden. The man’s sagacity penetrated, as he thought, the whole secret. He winked, and nodded, and grinned significantly. He saw in one of the party another candidate for the franchise of the free and independent electors; and in the other two his agents. His acute vision dived through the keyhole of that box, and there beheld a weight of gold, which he defined, in conversation next day, as “such a sight as he never saw in his life before even at an election.” My man kept up the delusion well, by throwing two half-crowns to the fellow; and each of his companions tossed a handful of small coin at him, as he closed the gate after them. Away rolled, at a slow pace, the heavily-laden vehicle, the horses throbbing and panting, and the riders chuckling to their hearts’ content. At length the town of N—— was reached. As quietly and mysteriously as possible the vehicle was driven by the strangers, its occupants, up to the hotel of our opponent; and, after ringing the bell, refusing to accept the servants’ answer, and insisting upon awakening the host, my man tried to strike a bargain with the hotel-keeper (putting him under confidence) to let his house as the central committee-room of the “independent candidate.” Boniface was proof against temptation. He had let his house to Mr. Sallow Twitch, the Whig candidate, and he was “not a-going to break his engagement—not he.” He never had done such a thing in his life, and never would. They must go elsewhere, he said; and the interview was closed by the irate landlord sheering off to bed, telling them he didn’t want to have no more to do with them. Next the party went to the hotel where Mr. Jollefat was staying, and in which he held his quarters. A similar interview with Mr. Bung, at that establishment, ended not unlike the conference with Mr. Boniface. At last a solitary medieval-looking policeman was observed torpidly creeping along the Market-place, and for a consideration he undertook, in the first place, to find the best quarters now available, and in the second to keep the arrival of his patrons as quiet and as solemn as death. It was unfortunate, he said, that they had come into the town so late, because the other parties had been in the field so long, and had got the regular start of them. However, there was a tidyish sort of a place, which had always been the head-quarters of a third candidate; and, for his own part, he did not think it much mattered, if the candidate was “a regular gentleman,” which house he put up at. This shrewd policeman thought it would be all the same, if the candidate had about him friends who knew their business. The policeman’s advice was taken in the selection of a central committee-room,—the Green Swan with Two Tails, which, let me confess and regret, was a comparatively humble place for head-quarters. I should have very much preferred the first hotel in the town; and if that had been possible, I would have yielded up the place in which Mr. Jollefat was enthroned. However, as the sequel will show, this matter did not influence the success of the coup. Without further loss of time—that is to say, early next morning—my man went to work. The first person to whom, as the agent of the independent candidate, he paid his addresses, was not the mayor of the town, nor the town-clerk, nor an alderman, nor a town-councillor, but he was—a bill-sticker. There consequently appeared upon the walls an address, which ran as follows: “To the Free and Independent Electors of the Borough of N——. “Gentlemen,—Your borough has too often been the arena of faction fights. You have been regarded as the supporters of Whig and Tory. Your grand historical traditions and your eminent public virtues have not been respected, cared for, understood, or apparently known to your representatives in Parliament, or even those who have hitherto aspired to the most honourable distinction of representing you in the Legislature. “Gentlemen, although a stranger among you, having resided many years abroad, and having but lately returned to my native country; having studied the political institutions of Europe and America, and seen them in practical operation; and having, moreover, read the history of your ancient town, which forms so many brilliant pages in the grand history of our native country; and having had the good fortune to inherit an ample estate,—I have resolved to place my services at the disposal of my country, with a special desire to serve the interests of a free and enlightened constituency, such as that of N——. “Gentlemen, under these circumstances I offer myself as a candidate at the forthcoming election for the representation of your borough; and although I shall immediately do myself the honour of waiting upon you individually, and canvassing each of you at his own fireside, I think it right to lay before you concisely a statement of my political principles. “Gentlemen, I am in favour of the broadest and most comprehensive scheme of reform which political philosophy can devise. If you should do me the honour to return me to Parliament (as I feel confident you will), I shall, by my speeches and votes, support every measure which tends to increase the happiness of the people, by extending the demand for labour, increasing the wages of industry, at the same time adding to the profits of capital, and promoting the comfort of every man, woman, and child throughout her Majesty’s wide dominions. “Gentlemen, I am in favour of other measures of political and social amelioration which benefit all, but injure none, in their comprehensiveness and beneficence, that I find it impossible to properly explain, within the limit of a printed address, but upon which I shall have many opportunities to offer explanations when I meet you face to face in public meeting, in your own houses, and upon the hustings on the day of nomination. “Gentlemen, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Your very faithful and obedient servant, Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps.” The bill-sticker lost no time in placarding the walls of the town; but his functions had been largely anticipated by the disclosures of the toll- bar keeper, Boniface, his boots, Bung, and his ostler. The town was set in a commotion. The Green Swan with Two Tails was crowded in the bar-parlour, in front of the bar, and in every public room it had. Mr. Smith (I mean Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps) received a dozen offers of professional assistance, two or three score of requests for the honour of making his acquaintance, letters innumerable for his autograph, with other delicate and indelicate overtures of good-will and friendship,—all within a few hours. Mr. Fipps, after he had returned to London, and been retransformed into “Smith,” told me it was the “jolliest spree” he had ever been engaged in during his life; and my man told me that the fictitious candidate played his part with the skill of a genius. In the course of the morning a crowd assembled in front of the Swan with Two Tails, and loud huzzas were heard in honour of “the independent” and now “popular candidate.” A speculative printer had, without orders, either in the excess of political zeal, or in reliance upon a careless auditing of accounts, got another placard stuck upon the walls, which read thus: “Fipps for ever!!!” The mob became towards afternoon a little impatient and uproarious, and the candidate had to present himself on the balcony of the hotel, and harangue his admirers. I regret to say, no short-hand writer being present, I cannot give the reader a report of this speech, which I am sorry for, because I have been told it was one of the grandest orations of the kind ever uttered by a pretended or real candidate. However, let that pass. Towards evening a deputation asked permission to wait upon Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps, Esq., to express their admiration of the principles so clearly and exactly enunciated in his address, and so beautifully illustrated and enforced in his most eloquent speech. Their request was granted with the utmost cordiality by that great man, and he supplicated them to do him the honour of dining with him. The hospitality of the Green Swan with Two Tails was, I am told, worthy of a more pretentious establishment; and ample justice was done, as the penny-a-liners say, to the culinary skill of the hostess. Mine host’s vintages were also duly appreciated, or at least I judge so by the items of account which I afterwards saw under the date of this entertainment. It is true that the good things bore familiar names; but that circumstance may rather be ascribed to the English character of the candidate and his admirers, than to the limited capacity or means of the landlord and his better half. Sherry and port and champagne—champagne and port and sherry—seemed to have been mingled in profusion with cigars that, in the aggregate, weighed a few score pounds, and were (I take it from the price they cost me or my principal) the finest that Havannah could produce. At this improvised banquet speeches were of course delivered, toasts were drunk, and songs were sang, until the finale,—a medley of variations from “Rule Brittania,” “God Save the Queen,” and “We won’t go Home till Morning,”—which last chorus embodied a resolution that the patriotic admirers of Fipps did faithfully perform. Out of this party a committee was formed by the sober men; for, let it be observed, Smith—that is, I mean Fipps—kept faith by keeping sober with a constant eye to results; and all now was expected to go on merrily as a marriage-bell. The next day was spent very much as the previous one had been, except that the third and popular candidate, as a matter of form, called upon a number of respectable inhabitants, and went through the rôle of a candidate’s duties, such as shaking hands with one or two loungers in front of the hotel clad in soiled smock-frocks, kissing a few slobbering babies, talking pleasantly to the voters’ wives, and expounding principles to the voters themselves. On this day the attorney of Mr. Twitch sent a note by hand to the attorney of Mr. Jollefat, proposing that these ravens should meet in confidence, and without prejudice, to discuss a matter of importance to both the candidates. Mr. Jollefat’s legal adviser replied by assenting to the conference. They met. Fipps’s candidature was the theme of discussion. Twitch’s attorney said he had telegraphed to Brookes’s, and the Reform, and to Mr. Coppock, but he could learn nothing about Fipps. He was not known to the party, and they thought he must be some adventurer, whose wealth, if it had any other than an imaginary existence at all, must be grossly exaggerated. Mr. Jollefat’s attorney said that he had in like manner inquired at the Carlton, but could learn nothing about their opponent. The Liberal was discouraged; the Conservative did not take the matter to heart. They were agreed that nothing could be done to spoil the new candidate. My man went to a local printer and got some forms printed with counterfoils, much after the manner of tradesmen’s “delivery note-books” or bankers’ cheques, the use of which will immediately be seen. He also contrived to make the acquaintance of a few leaders of the people,— what the French would call “men of action,”—not spouters or loudly boasting partisans. On the evening of the second day after Mr. Fipps’s arrival at N——, my man had a consultation with about half a dozen of the principal of these men, who may be called the heads of gangs of voters; persons who regarded the franchise as a property to be sold in the market, like any other commodity; except that this article called a vote must be purchased by a candidate in retail quantities, in order that he might sell them, as a constituency, in a lump or by wholesale. The result was a compact or understanding, which I have no doubt would have been faithfully kept by the vendors. These men always keep faith with their purchaser, if no other candidate, supposed to have still a heavier weight of metal with which to solve their honesty, should arrive on any subsequent night between the date of the arrangement with them and the day of polling. This part of the business requires to be explained with much precision, or the reader may not perhaps observe the central point or pivot of the Great Electioneering Trick which it is my intention now to explain. My man had occasion to address one of the vendors of the franchise to the following effect. He explained that the law against bribery was rather severe; and Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps, Esq., was a gentleman of extremely delicate sensibilities, whose honourable feelings would recoil from venality; and that if there were no law on the Statute-book or among the precedents for its punishment (which indeed there was), all must be free and above board,—or at least it must be made to appear so to the eyes, not only of policemen, or judges, or Parliamentary Commissioners, or other judicial officers, but also to that most upright, righteous, and wealthy man, the “popular candidate” himself. The agent went on to say that he came down to the town with the gentleman whom he had the honour to serve. He could not have supposed that the state of the borough would have entailed upon him the necessity of doing things which he saw were essential to the success of Mr. Fipps, but yet, being in it, he was determined to go on and secure a triumph for the distinguished and generous-hearted man he represented at that interview. As for money, that did not matter. Mr. Fipps was rich enough in all conscience. Any thing they might have to pay would not hurt him—not a bit of it; but his character must be above reproach at the clubs and in his own eyes. One way out of the difficulty, my man went on to observe, had occurred to him, and he had already resolved to pursue that course, or to withdraw his candidate at once before any money worth mentioning had been spent; because although it was true Mr. Fipps had enough, and more than enough, for every necessity, he did not like squandering it, and losing the object of his ambition also. At this suggestion of the removal of the candidate and his cash-box, the leaders of the people looked somewhat blank or alarmed. They said a man like Mr. Fipps was sure to win if he went the right way about it, and they thought it a pity he should run away after the handsome manner in which he had been treated by all classes. Some further parleying took place, when it was agreed that late at night the several leaders of the people should, one by one, take my man round to the residences of the free and independent electors who were in reality to be bribed, and that that operation should be colourably done in the way arranged. A contract was made with each elector that he should fill the post of flag-bearer, messenger, check-clerk, polling-clerk, or something or other, and should receive 10l. at the close of the election for so doing. He was guaranteed payment of that money to his perfect satisfaction, by a printed form of engagement, or an agreement in law, on a slip of paper, signed by my man with his bold clear autograph, and on the stump counterfoil of which the lured voter wrote his name or made his mark (+). Just by way of a present balm to each hired elector, the sum of 5s. was given him when his engagement was effected. Next day the nomination took place. Mr. Twitch, the Whig candidate, was received with derisive shouts, and a greeting of missiles. Mr. Jollefat fared no better, and in his heart of hearts cursed the borough, with that ambition or folly which had induced him to enter the lists as a candidate; and he stopped at the conclusion that of all the vanities which have marked humanity since the days of Solomon, nothing equalled that of desiring to be the representative in Parliament of such a free and independent constituency as the borough of N——. Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps was the hero of the day. If any thing checked the outpouring of his eloquent tongue, it was the rapid appreciation of his audience, which overtook the completion of his sentences. They cheered, and shouted, and hurrahed, and made every conceivable, and, to the reader, many unconceivable demonstrations of affection for his person, and of admiration for his principles. But for these exuberant manifestations of attachment and devotion, I certainly might give the reader a splendid specimen of what a speech on the hustings may be. The hurrahs and the huzzas broke up Mr. Fipps’s arguments, and the coruscations of his eloquence into fragments. Let it suffice to say, it was a brilliant and a grand speech. On the show of hands being called for, a few were held up for Mr. Twitch, a few more for Mr. Jollefat, and a whole forest of uplifted palms testified their desire to have Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps as the member for N——. The returning officer, of course, declared the choice of the electors, by an open vote, to have fallen upon that honourable gentleman, and a poll was demanded by each of his antagonists. The most important thing to be now effected was an escape from the town. This was not in reality a very easy thing, although to the reader nothing may perhaps appear more easy of accomplishment. By this time every body in the place knew the three conspirators, and neither the “candidate,” nor his two immediate associates, were often left alone during five consecutive minutes. To quit the place by either of the ordinary roads, in the ordinary way, would have been likely to excite suspicion. To have moved off singly, but simultaneously, by three different roads, would have excited less suspicion perhaps, but would have been more damnatory if discovered. To move off other than simultaneously would have been to peril, perhaps, the lives, and certainly to have perilled the chastisement, of one or two who might remain after the flight of one had been ascertained. Detection was, moreover, a thing likely, under any circumstances, to follow rapidly on the retreat. My man had noticed the presence of at least half a dozen strangers in the camp of the enemy. These strangers had a knowing look, and wore a metropolitan aspect. He suspected them of being spies upon us. Mr. Fipps’s antecedents might, for any thing we positively knew to the contrary, have been ascertained, and become known to the Liberal candidate, whose game he was trying to spoil, although that gentleman and his friend might not deem it expedient (if they could not exactly prove the connexion between the party of Fipps and that of Mr. Jollefat) to explode the fiction of the former’s candidature. However, get away they must, and that before the polling of to-morrow, or they would not get away until too late. It was part of my design that the scheme should explode, and that the match should be applied at this exact point of the scheme. We had arranged to keep the poll open for Fipps, notwithstanding his flight. No official notice of the abandonment of his candidature was therefore served upon the returning officer. In fact, although Fipps ran away, Fipps must still be a candidate. Our head lawyer thought that necessary, and also thought it wise to poll one man at least for the runaway. After deliberation, it was arranged between the intended fugitives that morning should be chosen for their flight, and that they should fly in company. After the nomination, high revelry had been kept at the Green Swan with Two Tails. Every section of the community of N—— had its representation there: the lower orders being provided for in rooms, and with refreshments suited to their tastes, while the topsawyers and municipal notabilities who had attached themselves to the popular and winning cause of Fipps, were being entertained in a better room of the house. Fipps himself, and my man and the attorney, being in the company of the latter, carefully guarded against any thing like excess. They were the only prudent people in the lot. This revelry lasted through the night, and until morning. Mine host himself, knocked up by fatigue and potations, retired to an uneasy couch. The hostess had snatched a little rest, and resumed charge of the house while her lord slumbered. As for Mr. Fipps, my man, and the attorney, they contrived to disentangle themselves from their supporters about three in the morning, under strong protestations of anxiety for the welfare of those gentlemen, who were urged, for appearance’ sake and their own health’s sake, to retire home and get a few winks of sleep, and come refreshed in the morning to the poll. By this means the multitude surrounding the candidate, except his two confidants, were got rid of. So far good. About six in the morning, Fipps,—oppressed with an imaginary headache and sense of fatigue; my man, in like condition; and the attorney, in a similar state,—called for soda-water with a dash of brandy, and began, in the presence of the hostess, to bewail their unfitness to go through the labours of the approaching struggle. My man suggested that it might be as well to take a stroll, if they could get out quietly and not have a rabble at their heels. They asked if that were possible. The landlady consented to let them out by a back-door across a meadow which formed part of her lord’s tenancy, where they could strike off into some by-lanes, and get what they so urgently needed—“a breath of fresh air.” This suited admirably. My man had already taken soundings of the roads, and knew that by this means the party could walk or run off a distance of only five miles, and meet an up-train to London at the —— Station at eight o’clock a.m. Not a soul was astir on the outskirts of the town, save here and there a rustic labourer walking to his toil or engaged thereon—rude, unlettered men, without political thought or character, who took no interest in the great struggle at the borough of N——, and who cared to do no more than return the salutation of “Good morning” to the gentlemen wayfarers. The absence of Mr. Fipps and his agent and attorney was soon discovered, and it was at once suspected to have a sinister object. This notion spread like wildfire throughout the whole borough, and a scene of excitement ensued which literally beggars description; nothing has ever equalled it in electioneering development. The Green Swan at one time ran great risk of utter demolition. A few innocent people, suspected of participation in the fraud, were punished by the mob, who must have a victim or two, and who wreaked their vengeance upon suspects in the absence of those real delinquents that by this time were safely proceeding southwards to the great metropolis in the train which they had met. The windows of Mr. Fipps’s hotel were broken. The remonstrances of the landlord were not believed by a large portion of the crowd, although, for that worthy’s reputation, it may be stated a large contingent of the rioters did put faith in his asseverations. The committee-room was broken into and ransacked, and no little glee was excited when the strong-box was discovered. A fitful gleam of savage hope took possession of the discoverers. They thought for a moment they had grasped a treasure, and the prospect of a grand loot cheered their hearts. This discovery also soon got communicated to the crowd outside. There was a demand that the box should be brought out into the Market-place, and its contents distributed fairly amongst them. With much difficulty the ponderous chest was carried down-stairs and into the street. For a while the lock withstood all efforts to break it open; but at length a smith came, with tools that would have almost battered down the gate of a fortress. With this effective aid the hasp was fractured or detached, and the lid of the mysterious box was lifted. To their surprise and astonishment, carefully embedded in sawdust were found—not the sovereigns that were to have compensated the various messengers, flag-bearers, check-clerks, poll-clerks, &c., &c., &c.; but—do not start, gentle reader, in amazement—ten solid lumps of fine Scotch granite, which had been diverted from their legitimate purpose (that of forming part of the roadway in Oxford Street) to the unhallowed desecration of the free and independent electors of N——. Shouts of derision, and anathemas both profound and deep, were uttered; imprecations of the direst were showered on the whilom popular candidate; and it may be accepted as a fact that, if Mr. Fipps, or his attorney, or my man, had fallen into the hands of that enraged crowd, his legal representatives would have been entitled to make a claim on the offices in which he had insured his life. The retreat of Fipps and the discovery were themes of merriment; but perhaps in no part of the borough was the joke or trick so much relished as in the committee-room of Mr. Jollefat, our real candidate. It should be also stated, for the reader’s information—and he is particularly requested to notice—that the general postal delivery from London conveyed to each of the central committee-rooms of Mr. Fipps’s rivals an oblong packet, addressed to each of the remaining candidates by name, and to their agents, and to all others whom it might concern, giving them formal notice that the men whose names were included in lists which were enclosed in the communication (being free and independent electors of N——) had disqualified themselves from voting at the present election, by having accepted offices of emolument, under binding legal contracts with one of the candidates. In consequence of this notice the poor wretches who had entered into the engagements mentioned with my man were unable to sell their votes and consciences to Mr. Twitch, if he had been inclined to buy them; because, if he had bought up the tainted electors, he would thereby have insured a petition against his return, with the certainty that his rival would, by a scrutiny, unseat him. The returning officer received a similar letter and a similar list. The poll being kept open under these circumstances, the general result may be pretty well ascertained by the reader’s imagination; but, for his particular information, I may state that the numbers announced by the returning officer were: Jollefat. . . .209 Twitch. . . . 64 Fipps . . . . 1 The consequence was, that the first-named gentleman was duly returned, and took his seat, and was for a period of several years the unchallenged representative of...