Again, another secret in the way of successful public meetings is to have beside the chairman, and in front of the audience, a jolly looking fellow always ready to laugh. We English are an imitative people. One laugher on the platform will make many laugh below. Laughter is contagious. One man laughs because he sees another doing so, and in nine cases out of ten at a public meeting if you ask him he can give no better reason. Ladies are all very well in front, if the meeting is harmonious, and they are well dressed and good-looking; but if they are well bred they do not roar out, and if they clap their hands it is in such a graceful feminine manner as to produce no effect like your red-faced jolly fellow, always ready with the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind. A few Radicals, delighted at Mr. Wentworth’s programme, were in the hall at the far end. Unfortunately between them and the platform were the enemy, who had rallied round in consequence of the lying hand-bill, and they were led by a full-necked gamekeeper, who roared like a bull of Bashan all the time Mr. Wentworth was speaking, or rather, attempting to speak. Sir Watkin Strahan’s agent was also present, to watch with complacency the result of his trick. The roughs had an idea that the more noise they made the better, and their number was increased by some of the Free and Independent, who had met the Gent from London, as they termed him, at the railway station, and who had been immensely disgusted, that in reply to their hints as to his ordering a supply of beer, he had intimated that so far as he could judge they had had enough already. That was adding insult to injury, and they resented it accordingly. At all times the Free and Independent are a thirsty race, particularly at election times. In every beer-shop in the borough Wentworth had thus raised up a host of enemies. In many a borough the election has been fought and won by beer alone; there is no other product of man’s industry, unfortunately, such a power, and the publican is not such a fool as he looks. ‘Who do you vote for?’ said I to one of them at the time of an election contest. ‘For them as I gets the most by,’ was his reply. Frightened at the aspect of affairs, the aged chairman, with a feeble, trembling voice, told his fellow-townsmen that he had the pleasure of introducing to them Mr. Wentworth, a clever journalist from London, whom some of them knew when he was formerly a preacher in that town, and whom he hoped they would listen to that evening with all the respect and attention the occasion demanded. It was with difficulty and not a little interruption that the chairman could say as much, and then he collapsed, wishing that he had stayed at home in the bosom of his family. The London candidate then came forward, to be assailed with a howl of derision from his foes closely packed in the front, while but a faint cheer from the far end was now and then perceptible as the roar was slightly lulled.