As I ought to have mentioned before, I did not think it necessary or expedient in my candidature to hold any public meetings. Speaking broadly, I declared to win with Miss PHILL BURTT on _Canvassing_. It was far otherwise with some of my fellow-candidates. BLACK BOB and his mates (HARRY JORKINS and WILLIAM BROWN) got down from town a young glib-spoken fellow, who made a magnificent speech, with a Gladstone peroration, that was supposed to be worth any number of votes. BLACK BOB (I am told), in proposing a vote of thanks to him, somewhat cruelly called him "a cool, honest and straightforward lecturer." One of these briefless barristers, no doubt. Mrs. LETHAM HAVITT and Mrs. ARBLE MARCH held a joint meeting (not to be confounded with a meat tea) in support of women candidates, addressed by six enthusiastic ladies who pointed out the various fields of energy provided for woman by this new Engine of Reform. The vicar, the squire, and I, alone out of the eight, contented ourselves with no perfervid platform appeals. I should also state that, as the poll grew nearer, my wife became increasingly confident that I should be beaten--"and that, TIMOTHY," she added, "you won't like." I pointed out (and I still think it was a natural thing to do in the circumstances) that the most formidable obstacle in the way of my succeeding was the apparent lack of interest taken in the affair by my family. This made MARIA perfectly furious. I needn't imagine I should bounce her into it that way; truth to tell, I never for one moment did think so. She would go away and stay at our town house with the girls till the whole affair was over--which she did. So, uncheered by wifely counsel or daughterly devotion, I sallied forth on the morning of the 17th to my Committee Rooms, thence to carry on the last stage of this great contest. I plume myself upon the excellence of my arrangements. Everywhere you were bidden (that is you would have been if you had been at Mudford) to "Vote for WINKINS, the Local Candidate." I am free to admit that there was nothing distinctive in this description of myself. We were all local candidates, since we all lived in the village itself. But this appeal to "local" feeling is always an excellent card to play. I know in my own case that I secured five votes at least from men who at the last General Election had voted for our sitting Member because he was the "local candidate." Then I got some boys to carry round a Big Loaf and a Little Loaf, adorned with suitable placards, inciting persons, men and women, married and single, to vote for me. I did this because I never knew of an election yet in which the loaves did not play a prominent part. I was determined to leave no electoral device--legitimate electoral device, of course, I mean--untried.