the late and former elections at Tankerville would
be expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of January
and February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, and
many who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, being
new brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough,
whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted.
That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny's
great bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling about
Mr. Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member of
Parliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, who
wanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom a
seat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It could
not be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slow
step in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one of
the upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side of
the House, that such a man should really be punished. When the new
laws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of members
revolted from the cruelty,--the hearts even of members on the other
side of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battle
should of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusation
might then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practice
imputed. It had been known to all the world,--known as a thing that
was a matter of course,--that at every election Mr. Browborough had
bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying
it,--a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural
following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics,
entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a
one recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money
in his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in
his hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it--like a gentleman.
Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put down
bribery with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against bribery
with more fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, as
Attorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. He
was now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Gresham
had at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to the
woolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecuti