One morning, shortly after the events described in the previous chapter, all England was startled by the intelligence that the Ministry had been beaten, that the leader of the Liberal Party had resigned, and that the free and independent were to be called on to exercise their privileges by returning members to Parliament likely to serve them well, and to promote the honour of the country, and the best interests of the community at large. I write this last sentence with peculiar pleasure. It sounds nice and pleasant. The fact is, I fear, the free and independent electors, as a rule, take little interest in politics. The working man is, as he has every right to be, suspicious of both parties alike, and especially of his oratorical brother of his own class, who comes to him with a pocket well lined as the result of his professional talk. Liberal and Conservative clubs and newspapers were much excited. According to them never had there been such tremendous interests at stake. They, the enlightened, were to rally round the altar and the throne, both in danger, said the latter, while the former called on the intelligent manhood of the country to take one more step in the paths of progress and reform, and by that step to secure for ever the triumphs our forefathers had won for us with their blood. Never were there such tremendous gatherings at Sloville. The Liberal leaders had held an open air meeting, which was the grandest thing of the kind ever known, but it was surpassed by an artfully got up demonstration by the Tories, accompanied by popular sports and cakes and ale. The one drawback to the success of the Liberal Party was that they had been in office for half a dozen years, and had disgusted all their friends, and had given the enemy occasion to blaspheme by their utter inability to pass any good measures, by their irresolute policy on foreign matters, by their extravagant expenditure at home, by their complete abandonment of their old battle-cry of ‘peace, retrenchment, and reform.’ Trade also was bad, and that did not mend matters. People are always discontented when times are bad. That is always the fault of the Government for the time being. It is generally assumed also that they are, to a certain extent, responsible for the weather. There had been a great deal of wet, and that the farmers attributed to the Radical element. Farmers are naturally averse to Radicals. The Radical naturally thinks the farmers fools, because they are averse to change, and prefer to vote for their landlords to strangers sent down to agitate the country, who did not own an acre of land in it, who resided chiefly in our great cities, and who had little sympathy with agriculturists or agriculture in any shape.