and postpone the
question. On Saturday he again 'rushed hither and thither' all day;
spoke to 2,000 people for nearly two hours, was 'heckled' for another
hour in stifling heat, and had not 'the slightest sensation of fatigue,'
except a trifling headache for less than an hour. He was 'surprised at
his own strength,' feeling the work less than he had felt the
corresponding work at Harwich in 1865.

The struggle lasted till August 5, the day of polling. Fitzjames had to
go through the usual experience of a candidate for a large constituency:
speaking often six times a day in the open air; addressing crowded
meetings at night; becoming involved in a variety of disputes, more or
less heated and personal in their nature; and seeing from the inside the
true nature of the process by which we manufacture legislators. It was
the second election in Dundee affected by Disraeli's extension of the
suffrage, and, I believe, the first election in the country which took
place under the provisions of the Ballot Act. The work was hard and
exciting, especially for a novice who had still to learn the art of
speaking to large public meetings; but it was such work as many eager
politicians would have enjoyed without reserve. To Fitzjames it was a
practical lesson in politics, to which he submitted with a kind of
rueful resignation, and from which he emerged with intensified dislike
of the whole system concerned.

Dundee was a safe Liberal seat; the working classes under the new system
had an overwhelming majority; and no Tory candidate had ventured to
offer himself.[166] Fitzjames was virtually the Government candidate.
One of his opponents, Mr. Yeaman, had been provost of Dundee, but his
fame does not appear to have spread beyond his native town. While
Fitzjames was lingering at Dorchester another candidate had come
forward, Mr. Edward Jenkins, known as the author of 'Ginx's Baby.' This
very clever little book, which had appeared a couple of years
previously, had struck the fancy of the public, and run through a great
number of editions. It reflected precisely the school of opinion which
Fitzjames most cordially despised. The morality was that of Dickens's
'Christmas Carol,' and the political aim that of sentimental socialism.
Thus, though all three candidates promised to support Mr. Gladstone's
Government, one of Fitzjames's rivals represented the stolid
middle-class prejudices, and a second the unctuous philanthropic
enthusiasm, which