bribery, and of the existence of firms
established for the purpose of carrying elections on any
terms—terms, generally, which the M.P. elect had
better not inquire into too closely. Mystery—
nobody knowing anything about anybody.
Members of Parliament applying for mysterious
messengers to carry mysterious sums of money
to obscure inns, where mysterious assistants of
the mysterious messengers pack up the money
in parcels, and hand them over to furtive
surgeons, who come in secret to fetch them away.
Prescriptions, medicine, money, all mixed up
and involved in such a sordid tissue of deceit
and villany, that no man can sift the thing
perfectly, no man unravel altogether so tangled a
mesh, nor walk through the dreary labyrinth
of lies, the clue of which is guarded so carefully
from his grasp.

To report the evidence which the writer
heard given at the Shire Hall on the different
occasions of his attendance there would be
simply to recapitulate what has already
appeared in the different public prints, and an
admirable report of which may be found in the
Gloucestershire Chronicle, the principal local
paper. The province of your Eye-witness seems
rather to note any peculiarities which struck him
during the progress of the case, to give the
impression left on his mind by what he has seen,
and heard, and read, and the conclusion he has
been able to arrive at. These impressions shall
be set down much as he finds them in his notes,
so that this paper may be as much as possible
like a sketch from nature, and may be said, in
some degree, to have been written in the Court
of Gloucester.

The story of a pure election in this ancient
city is quite a hard thing to come at. The
oldest inhabitant, when placed in the witness-
box and desired to ransack his memory, beginning
at 1816, can only say that he thinks before
the Reform Act the bribery was more indirect,
that he thinks the elections of '32, '33, and '35
were comparatively pure. The indirect bribery
before the Reform Act was shown in the
employment of bands, messengers, clerks, and flag-
bearers, and also in swearing in so many special
constables to keep the peace, that finding there
was no peace to keep except their own, they
used to take to fighting with each other in order
to decide what was the best manner of attaining
this desirable object. The money spent on
elections now, is a mere joke to what was disbursed
in those good times. In 1816 the sum of forty
thousand pounds was laid out on an election,
and no wonder when seven hundred special
constables (they might happen to be voters,
perhaps, one or two of them) were sworn in to
keep the peace at five shillings a day. This
oldest inhabitant thinks that the first decidedly
and undisguisedly impure election at Gloucester
was that of '37, when he considers that his side
was bought out of the market, ninety votes
having gone out of their possession in the first
three-quarters of an hour of the poll. This
gentleman, in concluding his evidence, said that
he thought the venality less the fault of those
who took the bribe than of those who offered it,
and that if the candidates on both sides would
agree to give nothing but the necessary expenses
there would be no difficulty in putting down
bribery.

Turning from these comparatively ancient
elections to that with which we are now
concerned, and examining briefly its history as it
comes out before the Gloucester Commission, it
will be found that the tale so elaborately
unfolded is simply this: As the period of the
election of 1859 approaches, the Liberal party
in Gloucester, anxious to secure another member
to their side, in addition to their usual
representative, Mr. Price, despatches a deputation to
London, the members of which have for their
object the discovery of some suitable person
holding Liberal politics and a supporter of the
ballot, who will consent to stand for Gloucester.
The deputation, after paying sundry night visits
to a great political club in Pall-mall, after some
mystery and bandying about from pillar to post,
and callings again, gets at length to be
introduced to a certain Mr. Monk, a son of a former
Bishop of Gloucester, and therefore a likely
man enough to have a chance of election in a
city which was once under his father's pastoral
care. After many pros and cons, and after
much consulting of political friends, Mr. Monk
consents to resign his pretensions to the agricultural
borough of Cricklade, and to come down
to Gloucester and contest the coming election
with Sir Robert Carden, who is represented to
be hugely unpopular in the city. So far all is
plain and tolerably straightforward, but from
this point the obscurity becomes impenetrable
and the intricacy of the web something perfectly
hopeless. From this point everybody is to
manage Mr. Monk's affairs except Mr. Monk.
From this point, so completely is Mr. Monk
superseded by Mr. Moffatt (an ex-M.P.), by
Sir William Hayter (an existing M.P.), by Mr.
Ralli (Mr. Monk's father-in-law), and by many
other persons, that one arrives at last at the
conclusion that Mr. Monk himself must have
passed his time in what Roman Catholics call a
"retreat"—not opening his own letters, and
finding the day to hang quite heavily on his
hands. About this period of affairs, too, a
certain cheque for five hundred pounds (in an
envelope) makes its appearance, whose career it
is quite impossible to follow, though it is as well
to try. First, Mr. Moffatt asks Sir William
Hayter if he knows a responsible person who
will take a cheque for five hundred pounds (in
an envelope) down to Gloucester. Then Sir W.
Hayter asks one Webb (who serves one Gilbert,
who is a parliamentary agent) the same
question; then a new man, a Mr. Parkes, " who is
in the habit of passing Sir W. Hayter's
lodgings," comes upon the carpet, and gets mixed up
with the cheque (and the envelope). To him
enters another man, called Thompson, or Thornton,
who, making application for the cheque
(and envelope), and showing secret credentials,
is entrusted with the same, and all becomes
from that moment an entanglement of Moffatt,