NOW'S YOUR TIME, GENTLEMEN OF METTLE ! FOR an Alderman
to see a poor relation wasting a " blessed ap- petite" on mutton, for a schoolboy to see a led horse go by with an empty saddle, for a hunting squire" to see a Southerly wind and a 40114 sky on Sunday, would not be provocations so great as that which must be for some folks in the fact that numbers of Parliamentary seats just at present are " unopposed." The statis- tics of the electioneering process have been published, setting forth that tempting and exasperating fact. Such statistics must be open to daily falsification and correction, and in the table published by a contemporary we see more than one obvious error of classifica- tion. But in the main no very important alteration needs be made in the list ; and in that list we note that there are not fewer than 107 places in which Conservatives are unopposed. What an invi- tation to gentlemen of Liberal sentiments and capital at will ! "Electioneering pluck," indeed, is also demanded—that is, the will to spend the capital. We do not mean in " bribery." But the money that used to go to stupid electors needs not be idle in the pocket of candidates, for it can be spent in a much more scientific way—can be, sent to keep company with other capital, in the brisk pockets of men who know how to make it " fructify." A want creates a supply : the suppression of bribery has called forth the want of a class to receive money which burns in the pockets of gentlemen who feel a call to be great, and straight before the one class of recipients expires the other grows up to take its place : manageable electors dwindle into the mere dregs of such a class, but managing lawyers spring forth and spread over the land. Cop- pock is but the archetypal man of that generation—the first great idea realizing the collective perfection of the whole. Coppock, like Israel, is no longer a man but a tribe. Here are 107 constituen- cies, places where gentlemen with Liberal sentiments and purses may go down to " oppose." It matters little, indeed, whether the constituency has made up its mind or not, for it is quite easy to " oppose " in any constituency, without reference to the result. Opposition always circulates money for the benefit of trade. And if there is work for the tribe of Coppock, so also is there corresponding work for the " Tory " correlative of that tribe—the Anti-Coppook. " Tory" is a name still surviving in the profes- sional dialect of these cognate tribes. In the list that we have already mentioned we note eighty constituencies in which Liberals are unopposed. What a shameful neglect of the Anti-Coppoek in- terest does this show in the Carlton ! Barely the two great em- poriums in Pall Mall can furnish candidates to relieve those places from the monotony of an " uncontested " ? There is this further inducement—that to contest a borough not only serves the election- lawyer interest on tie opposing side, but also on the other : if a Coppock candidate suddenly invade Little Peddlington, Anti-Cop- pock will feel that his client gives the most palpable signs of an increased dependency on professional assistance. To think of 187 constituencies wasted to the cognate tribes at a general election!
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