It is possible to read through whole columns of these addresses without finding expressions of opinion upon political questions, or any reflection of what was taking place in public life at the time! Happy candidates! whose political capital was all sugar and plums; and who, haunted by no dread of that old scarecrow of a printed address with a long string of opinions bound to come home to roost, looking out in judgment upon you in faded but still terribly legible printer's ink from every dead wall--at least, had only to get past that rough batch of compliments, "the tempest of rotten eggs, cabbages, onions, and occasional dead cats," at the hustings, and you were a legislator pledged simply to "vote straight!" Fortunately for the candidate the freeholders, who were entitled to vote and could at a pinch put their own price upon their votes, and get it, were not numerous. The poll for the county of Cambridge would, at a General Election, now, I suppose, be about 25,000, but in 1802, at a very warm contest, the poll was only 2,624. In the General Election that year, which was contested in Cambridgeshire, the parish of Great Abington, out of 47 inhabited houses, sent three freeholders to record their votes at Cambridge, and Little Abington, out of 34 inhabited houses, polled four freeholders at the same election. In the old days of "vote and interest" the canvass was regarded as a much more certain criterion than to-day. Thus in 1796 a Hertfordshire candidate issued an address in which he candidly stated, "After a success upon my first Day's Canvass equal to my most sanguine Expectations, I had determined to stand the Poll, but finding myself yesterday less fortunate, I have resolved to decline," &c., &c. One advantage about an old fourteen days' contest was therefore that if a candidate found that he could not secure enough votes he could retire from the contest and "needn't buy any." Before the passing of the Reform Bill, Elections were not only protracted and attended with open bribery, revelry, rowdyism, and popular excitement, but the machinery for arriving at the wish of the constituency was also of a very rough and ready kind. If, for instance, a voter was objected to, the sheriff's assessor, a barrister, was found sitting in a room adjoining the hustings for the pin-rose of hearing and deciding the claim, the objecting and affirming party being allowed to appear before such assessor by counsel. The following incident is, I imagine, almost, if not quite, unique in electioneering annals, and could only have been possible under the protracted contests, and the system of revision of claims which has just been mentioned. It occurred in {97} the Cambs. contested election for 1802, and is thus recorded in the _Cambridge Chronicle_ for that year.