Leaves from an English Solicitors Note Book. no person was visible to eyes which could not penetrate the shadows of the shrubs which sheltered the corners of the well-kept lawn, otherwise Joe Castor's place of concealment might have been violated. The only object which met the view of the belated guests was the form of the loaned donkey, decked out in its gay trappings of much soiled yellow, teth ered to a stake stuck into the very center of an ornamental bed of choice parti-colored ge raniums, off which the misguided beast was making a hasty but hearty supper; the night was dark, the air was still, no sound was audi ble till the enraged local magnate approached the returned prodigal, then, and only then, as the beast lifted its head in meek reproach an unearthly voice was heard to issue from his jaws as he munched a fragment of his stolen supper : " Briggs has sent me back again; he is not such an ass as I am." After that, si lence again reigned, broken only by an excla mation from the local minister : " Well, since the days of Balaam, such a thing has not been known," and a profound, long-sustained big D— burst from the irate lips of the local magnate. Old Joe Castor had played his lit tle joke admirably, his heart was in it, and he did not, in the safe seclusion of the shrubs, miss the rounds of applause which this ex hibition of his powers would, under brighter circumstances, have called forth. The dawn of the polling day disclosed a lively scene. A bevy of 'longshoremen hur rying in and out of Briggs's shop, to whom Briggs inside was paying devoted attention, shaving them as neatly as deft hand and keen razor could accomplish their purpose, while at the door of the well-known shop stood a picture of beauty, the cynosure of all eyes, a most daintily groomed donkey, youthful in
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appearance, gorgeously caparisoned in the blue colors of the Conservative cause. And when the poll opened the first vote recorded was that of Briggs, who dismounted from his gallant steed and polled true blue according to his faith and his colors, followed by the twenty-five votes of twenty-five sturdy 'long shoremen, all true and independent electors of the enlightened borough of Rottenton, and all, to a man, polling true blue. " Nothing succeeds like success," "Well begun is half won." Voters dearly love to be on the win ning side; before noon many doubtful voters attached themselves to the winning colors. And, when the poll closed at four o'clock, a shout of triumph went up from the head quarters of the Conservative candidate as the mayor announced him to be returned by a clear majority of thirty-five votes. And no one, not even the Conservative candidate or his authorized agent, knew where the gaudily caparisoned quadruped came from, or whose were the fair hands that worked the rosettes for his adornment, or who was the charming young lady, closely veiled, who left at the local magnate's house that myste rious envelope containing in notes and newlycoined silver the exact amount of Briggs's overdue rent; (there were always deep mys teries about elections in the old days). I knew; I was not married in those days, and the young lady was not then, as she became soon after, my accredited agent in the eyes of the law. This was my first, my only, experience of the methods of working elections in England before the good old days were stamped out by the stern foot of Lord James of Hereford and his Corrupt Practices Act.
