de the pale of party. After
long and careful study, science and the medical profession have given
a verdict in its favour, a verdict which has now been confirmed by the
experience of generations. Here I leave the question, and, turning once
more before I sit down to those great and general issues of which I
have already spoken, I would again impress upon this vast audience, and
through it upon the constituency at large," etc., etc., etc.

Within a year it was my lot to listen to an eminent leader of that
distinguished member (with the distinguished member's tacit consent)
pressing upon an astonished House of Commons the need of yielding to
the clamour of the anti-vaccinationists, and of inserting into the Bill,
framed upon the report of a Royal Commission, a clause forbidding the
prosecution of parents or guardians willing to assert before a bench of
magistrates that they objected to vaccination on conscientious grounds.

The appeal was not in vain; the Bill passed in its amended form; and
within twenty years I lived to see its fruits.

At length came the polling day. After this lapse of time I remember
little of its details. I, as became a Democratic candidate, walked
from polling-station to polling-station, while my opponent, as became
a wealthy banker, drove about the city in a carriage and four. At eight
o'clock the ballot-boxes were sealed up and conveyed to the town-hall,
where the counting commenced in the presence of the Mayor, the
candidates, their agents, and the necessary officers and assistants.
Box after box was opened and the papers counted out into separate heaps,
those for Colford into one pile, those for Therne into another, the
spoiled votes being kept by themselves.

The counting began about half-past nine, and up to a quarter to twelve
nobody could form an idea as to the ultimate result, although at that
time the Conservative candidate appeared to be about five and thirty
votes ahead. Then the last ballot-box was opened; it came from a poor
quarter of the city, a ward in which I had many supporters.

Sir Thomas Colford and I, with our little knots of agents and
sub-agents, placed ourselves one on each side of the table, waiting in
respectful silence while the clerk dealt out the papers, as a player
deals out cards. It was an anxious moment, as any one who has gone
through a closely-contested parliamentary election can testify. For ten
days or more the strain had been great, but, curiously enough,