It was in vain that I assured him that the seat was open to him, but he did not believe, nor wish to believe it. I several times saw his father at Stella Hall. He thought himself too old. I told him there were fifty gentlemen in the House of Commons, willing to become Prime Minister, and some of them waiting for the appointment, who were fifteen years older than he, and would be disappointed did not the chance come to them. He found this true when he at length entered the House. His objection was that he could not ask his neighbours, among whom he had lived all his days, to elect him. "Suppose they signed an undertaking to vote for you in case you came forward?" That he consented to consider. A requisition signed by 2,178 electors was sent to him. Then another difficulty arose. His son said: "I cannot support my father in the _Chronicle_."* Then I said, "Let me edit it during the election, and no line shall appear commending your father to the electors. But whatever pretensions his adversaries put forth, we will examine." My proposal was agreed to. It was alleged by the rival candidate, that the requisition was signed out of courtesy to a popular townsman, and did not mean that those who signed it had pledged their votes. To this I answered that when Chambers appeared on the Thames, bookmakers said, "Chambers is a Newcastle man, who never sells the honour of his town, but will win if he can." Is it to be true that a Newcastle elector would not only give his promise, but write it, without intending to keep it? Will he be true on the Thames and false on the Tyne? All the requisitionists save a few, whom sickness or misadventure kept from the poll, voted for Joseph Cowen, senior, who was elected by a large majority. * This diffidence of appearing as the advocate of his father was carried to excess. When a local paper made remarks upon his father's knighthood, which ought to have been resented, I set out late one night to Darlington, arriving a little before midnight, and wrote a vindicatory notice, which, by the friendship of Mr. H. K. Spark, was inserted in the _Darlington Times_ that night. It was quoted afterwards in the _Newcastle Chronicle_. The great services to the town of the new member by his arduous chairmanship of the Tyne Commission, would have insured his election, but his majority was no doubt increased by the popularity of his son. This did not escape the comment of local politicians, and Mr. Lowthian Bell said, "How is it, Mr. Cowen, that everybody votes for your father for your sake?" "I suppose it is," was the answer, "that while you have been sitting on winter nights with your feet on the rug by the fireside, I have been addressing pitmen's meetings in colliery villages, and finding my way home late at night in rain and blast; and it happens that they are grateful for it." This was the only time I knew Mr. Cowen to make a self-assertive reply.