But before any of these episodes had occurred, Bradlaugh was tolerably well assured of victory. His organisation, then controlled by his staunch supporter Councillor Thomas Adams, who lived to be Mayor of Northampton, was perfect; and he knew his strength as nearly as a candidate ever can who has not already been elected. The combination of his forces with those of Mr Labouchere of course strengthened him; yet such was still the strength of religious animosity that though the joint candidature stood on the footing of a strict division of votes, every elector having two, for the two seats, the Liberal press still encouraged "plumping," and many then, as later, voted for Mr Labouchere who would not vote for Bradlaugh, thus provoking a smaller number of the latter's supporters to "plump" for their man in turn. The result was that the election figures stood:--Labouchere (L.) 4518; Bradlaugh (R.) 3827; Phipps (C.) 3152; Merewether (C.) 2826. No sooner were the results known throughout the country than the Northampton election became a theme of special comment, and of course of special outcry from the defeated party. One journal, the _Sheffield Telegraph_, which about the same time described the Scriptural phrase about the dog and his vomit as a "popular, though somewhat coarse saying," designated Bradlaugh as "the bellowing blasphemer of Northampton." Mr Samuel Morley was hotly assailed, and promptly wrote to the _Record_ a pitiful letter of recantation, which ended:-- "No feeling of pride prevents my saying that I deeply regret the step I took, which was really the work of a moment; and I feel assured that no one who knows me will doubt that I view with intense repugnance the opinions which are held by Mr Bradlaugh on religious and social questions." To which Mr Bradlaugh in his own journal replied that he had had no part whatever in the appeal to Mr Samuel Morley, and that he would have been elected all the same if Mr Morley had done nothing, adding the following:-- "We have no knowledge of the opinions of Mr Morley except that he is reputedly very rich, and therefore exceedingly good; but we must express in turn our intense repugnance to the conduct of Mr Morley, who having accidentally been betrayed into an act of kindness to a fellow-creature, regrets the act when pressure is brought to bear upon him by a pack of cowardly and anonymous bigots, and couples the public expression of his regret with a voluntary insult to one for whom Mr Morley publicly expressed great respect on the only occasion on which the two have yet come publicly in contact." Mr Spurgeon, who had been quite falsely accused of avowing readiness to welcome the devil as a Liberal candidate, had the manliness to declare, while indignantly repudiating that latitudinarian doctrine, that Mr Bradlaugh's claims to be returned to Parliament were not to be measured by his piety or orthodoxy. § 2.