cal contests. Neither side could make
any boast of political purity, and indeed neither side seemed to have
the slightest inclination to set up such a claim. The only rivalry was
in the spending of money in unrestricted and shameless bribery and
corruption. The more modern sense of revolt against the whole
principle of bribery was little thought of in those days. There were
men, indeed, on both sides of the political field who would never have
stooped to offer a bribe if left to the impulses of their own honor and
their own conscience. But the ordinary man of the world, and more
especially of the political world, felt that if he himself did not give
the bribe his rival would be certain to give it, and that nobody at his
club or in society would think any the worse of him because it was
understood that he had bought himself into the House of Commons. When
the elections were over the prevalent opinion as to their result was
almost everywhere that the numbers of the Reform party in the House of
Commons would be much greater than it had been in the {154} House so
lately dissolved. When the new Parliament was opened, Lord John
Russell and Mr. Stanley appeared as members of the Cabinet. The new
Parliament was opened by King William on June 21. If William really
enjoyed the consciousness of popularity, as there is every reason to
believe he did, he must have felt a very proud and popular sovereign
that day. His carriage as he drove to the entrance of the House of
Lords was surrounded and followed by an immense crowd, which cheered
itself hoarse in its demonstrations of loyalty. On June 24 Lord John
Russell introduced his second Reform Bill. It is not necessary to go
through the details of the new measure. The second Reform Bill was in
substance very much the same as its predecessor had been, but of course
its principle was debated on the motion of the second reading with as
much heat, although not at such great length, as in the case of the
first Reform Bill a few weeks before. Nothing new came out in this
second argument, and the debate on the second reading, which began on
July 4, occupied only three nights, a fact which made some members of
the Opposition think themselves entitled to the compliments of the
country. The Parliamentary opponents of the Reform Bill were, however,
soon to make it evident that they had more practical and more
perplexing ways of delaying its progress through the House of Commons
than