is sent up to London from some provincial borough may be himself beyond all possibility of direct purchase. But he has a wife, and he probably has daughters. Perhaps he is a wealthy manufacturer; perhaps he is a successful railway contractor or stockbroker; perhaps he is a rising lawyer; perhaps he is an enriched shopkeeper who has retired from business. The great bulk of the English Liberals, and not a few of the newer Tories, are men who belong to one or other of these classes. These men come up to London, take a town-house for the season, and find themselves, in the House of Commons, brought into association more or less direct with the great peers and other chiefs of their parties. The wives and daughters of course are burning to get into Society. The husband and father has perhaps been driven on by his womankind to seek a place in Parliament, for which he has neither inclination nor capacity, because the said womankind hope, by virtue of his political position, to obtain an entrance into Belgravian drawing-rooms. Many an honest British Philistine beyond the middle age yawns or dozes for hour after hour every night on the back benches of the House of Commons, weary of speeches he does not care to hear, and having no desire whatever to make a speech himself, who would be quietly at home in his obscure and happy bed but for the energy and ambition of his wife and her girls. The poor man is sure to be the victim of a clever minister. Perhaps he has entered Parliament as a Radical and a patriot, pledged to the reform of all abuses, the retrenchment of military and naval expenses, and the keeping down of an arrogant and bloated aristocracy. I have not been in England since great Radicals have themselves become cabinet ministers, and therefore must be understood as speaking now of the days when to be a Radical was to be the follower of men who held no office and had no favors to bestow. Our provincial Radical then went into Parliament with intentions worthy of Andrew Marvel. He would always support Bright with vote and cheer—he would oppose the Whig ministry as firmly as he would oppose the Tory opposition. Keen eyes, however, soon took the measure of our patriot and of our patriot's womankind. Mrs. Member and Misses Member received cards of invitation for Lady Premier's ball; Lady Premier spoke graciously to Mrs. Member, and complimented the good looks of the Misses Member; when the ladies drove in the Park they received a genial and delightful salutation from Lady Premier's carriage. Alas for our poor Member and his political resolutions! A great party debate is impending; the Tory opposition is making a decisive struggle for power; almost all will depend on the course taken by the Radicals, and the leading Radicals are inclined to oppose the government. Only think of it! If poor Member is a stern patriot, and votes against the government, there is an end of all invitations and smiles and gracious words from Lady Premier to his wife and daughters; and what has he for consolation but the approval of his conscience and John Bright, neither of which gives grand balls, and for neither of which therefore do the wife and daughters care one straw? The chances are many to one that the husband and father is conquered, and with him the patriot—that the vote is given to the government, and that Lady Premier administers the reward in the shape of more smiles, salutes and invitations.
It would be hardly possible to exaggerate the amount of quiet corruption which is or used to be effected in this manner. The worst influences of social ambition in the United States are as nothing compared with the strength of such influences in England. Nothing can be done in America for an American woman which could so feed and gratify her ambition as an invitation to the drawing-room of a peeress feeds and gratifies the ambition of a middle-class Englishwoman. I think the wife of a retired tradesman who could resist the temptation of such an invitation is a heroine to be classed with Joan of Arc
