The Story of the House of Cassell
Not Lord Brougham alone, but all the public men who were concerned for progressive politics, had learned in the 'fifties to look upon Cassell as a friend and ally. Cobden has already been included in the list of his supporters in the Temperance campaign. A letter of this later period indicates the far wider scope that Cassell's interests and activities had now assumed:
"My dear Sir,—I am much obliged by your kind letter. It will give me great pleasure to meet you when in town. At present, however, I am tempted by the state of my health (which, however, is improving) to profit by the congé given me by the electors of Huddersfield and take a little rural rest and quietness. By the way, too much has been made of my defeat there. My good friends made a mistake in launching me. A strong local man was already in possession of the field, and the contest turned less on popular politics than on social influence, and the jealousies and rivalries of parties which formerly acted together. The place was too small for carrying an election by the influence of the Mayors. Nearly all the beershops and public-houses went against me. So did the Catholics, and all the Tories—the Catholics on the pretence that I was brought out by the Evangelical Dissenters. But the fact is I was too late, and had no chance from the first, and, truth to say, was not a good candidate for any new constituency—I mean where I had not had previous opportunities of taking root.
"All my difficulty has arisen from the blunder of my own zealous friends in electing me, whilst I was a thousand miles away, for the West Riding, as well as Stockport, and then bullying me against my will to give up my snug borough where I had a safe seat for life and taking the largest county constituency, well knowing I should not continue to hold it after Free Trade was settled. If I had been allowed to remain at Stockport my root-hold would have been so firm that no passing party breeze could have disturbed me. However, it suits me, on domestic and personal grounds, to be out of the House for the present.
"There is, I think, a tendency to Toryism in the country just now, owing to our long-continued prosperity. Politics are really very much a 'matter of victuals,' and people have always40
