Barefaced bribery is not a bad thing, in its way. The voter got hard cash, and the candidate provided it; whereas the voter only gets wild promises now, and these always cost the country a good deal, even if they do no good to anybody. Moreover, when the voter could be bought, there was not the same necessity for cramming him with lies. With his pocket full of money and no illusions in his mind, he went gaily to the poll, feeling that it was all a festival at which he was an honoured guest. And in very many places it was very little else. An old friend of the family writes to my mother from Brighton, 6 July 1841, “I was at Shoreham on Saturday. During the heat of the polling the scene was more amusing and lively than what you saw here. Lord Howard (who by the bye had on a shocking raffish dirty white hat) had between thirty to forty men and boys drest in white with pink bands round their bodies with ‘Howard for ever’ on them, shoulders and legs and hats also decorated with pink ribbons, and each with a wand with flag attached. There were also eight with huge flags, and two bands of music similarly drest. They altogether formed a very pretty tableau. Their province was to meet the voters coming up at the bridge, then form in procession and escort them to the polling booths. Sir Charles Burrell’s were in white with orange decorations: Goring’s white with red and ethereal blue. They of course had music, and neither party was idle: so what with four bands of music, a multitude of flags, vociferous cheers, horrid yells and groans, and now and then a shindy, it made as spirited and lively a contest as one would wish to see.” Writing from Reigate on Sunday 13 May 1849, my father says, “I walked over to Bletchingley, a rotten borough and much gone to decay, and there I went to church. With the exception of about twenty well-dressed people, the congregation was composed of hard-featured rough farmers with lots of young girls and urchins belonging apparently to the parish school: the choir was a fiddle, bass-viol and clarionet; and every body and thing looking as uncouth as in the most remote districts.” Bletchingley was one of the rotten boroughs that were disfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832. Till then it had two members. Shoreham had two members until 1885.