By this time people have got sick of electioneering. It is a great privilege to be an English elector—to feel that the eyes of the world are on you, and that, at any rate, your country expects you to do your duty. But to the candidate an election contest is, at any rate, fraught with instruction. Human nature is undoubtedly a curious combination, and a man who goes in for an election undoubtedly sees a good deal of human nature. I was put up for a Parliamentary borough—I who shudder at the sound of my own voice, and who have come to regard speechmakers with as much aversion as I should the gentleman in black. A borough was for the first time to send a member to Parliament. It had been hawked all over London in vain, and as a _dernier ressort_ the Liberal Association of the borough—a self-elected clique of well-meaning nobodies—had determined to run a highly respectable and well-connected gentleman whose name and merits were alike unknown. Under such circumstances I consented to fight the battle for freedom and independence, as I hold that our best men should be sent to Parliament irrespective of property—that candidates should not be forced on electors, and that unless our Liberal Associations are really representative they may be worked in a way injurious to the country and destructive of its freedom. At my first meeting, like another Cæsar, I came, I saw, I conquered. The chiefs of the Liberal Association had assembled to put me down. I was not put down, and, amidst resounding cheers, I was declared the adopted candidate. The room was crowded with friends. I never shook so many dirty hands in my life. A second meeting, equally successful, confirmed the first, and I at once plunged into the strife. I am not here to write the history of an election, but to tell of my personal experiences, which were certainly amusing. The first result of my candidature led to a visit from an impecunious Scot at my suburban residence, who had read my programme with infinite delight. He came to assure me of his best wishes for my success. He was, unfortunately, not an elector, but he was a Scotchman, as he was sure I was, and sadly in want of a loan, which he was certain, from my Liberal sentiments, I would be the last to refuse to a brother Scot. I had hardly got rid of him before I was called upon by an agent of one of our great Radical societies—a society with which I had something to do in its younger days before it had become great and powerful, but which, like most people when they got up in the world, forgot its humble friends. Ah, thought I, the society is going to give me a little aid to show its appreciation of my ancient service, and I felt pleased accordingly. Not a bit of it. Mr. P. was the collector of the society, and he came to see what he could get out of me, assuring me that almost all the Liberal candidates had responded to his appeal. “Do you think I am going to buy the sanction of your society by a paltry