As a result of this state of affairs the great industrial towns, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and others, with their hundreds of thousands of people, did not send a single member to Parliament, while places with only a handful of voters were duly represented, and even places with no voters at all sent members to Parliament. Land-holding lords nominated and elected those, generally selecting the younger sons of noble families, and thus a large number of the "representatives of the people" really represented no one but the gentry to whom they owed their places. "Rotten" boroughs these were justly called, but they were retained by the stolid conservatism with which the genuine Briton clings to things and conditions of the past. The peculiar state of affairs was picturesquely pointed out by Lord John Russell in a speech in 1831. "A stranger," he said, "who was told that this country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, and more civilized and enlightened than any country was before it--that it is a country which prides itself upon its freedom, and which once in seven years elects representatives from its population to act as the guardians and preservers of that freedom--would be anxious and curious to see how that representation is formed, and how the people choose their representatives. [Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING. T. HALL CAINE. A. CONON DOYLE. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. GEORGE DU MAURIER. JAMES M. BARRIE. WILLIAM BLACK. WALTER BESANT. GEORGE MACDONALD. POPULAR WRITERS OF FICTION.] [Illustration: JUSTIN McCARTHY. JAMES BRYCE. JOHN MORLEY. A. J. BALFOUR. ENGLISH STATESMEN IN LITERATURE.] [=The Case Presented by Lord John Russell=] "Such a person would be very much astonished if he were taken to a ruined mound and told that that mound sent two representatives to Parliament; if he were taken to a stone wall and told that these niches in it sent two representatives to Parliament; if he were taken to a park, where no houses were to be seen, and told that that park sent two representatives to Parliament. But he would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent towns, full of enterprise and industry and intelligence, containing vast magazines of every species of manufacture, and were then told that these towns sent no representatives to Parliament.