A Parliamentary borough Gatton remained until 1832, when the first Reform Act swept away the representation of it, together with that of many another "rotten borough." Rightly had Cobbett termed it "a very rascally spot of earth," for certainly from 1541, when Sir Roger Copley owned the property and was the sole elector of the place, the election was a scandalous farce, and never at any time did the "burgesses" exceed twenty. They were always tenants of the lord of the manor and the mere marionettes that danced to his will. Gatton, returning its two members to Parliament, as of old, was early in the nineteenth century purchased by Mark Wood, Esq., who was soon after created a Baronet. It was then recorded that in this borough there were six houses and only one freeholder: Sir Mark Wood himself. The other five houses he let by the week; and thus, paying the taxes, he was the only elector of the two representatives. At the election, he and his son Mark were the candidates, and the father duly elected himself and his son! Scandalous, no doubt; but those members must have represented the constituency better than could those of a larger electorate. The landowner who possessed such a pocket-borough as this, and could send whomsoever he liked to Parliament, to vote as he wished, was, of course, a very important personage. His opposition was a serious matter to Governments; his support of the highest value, both politically and in a pecuniary sense; and thus place, honours, riches, could be, and were, secured. The manor of Gatton actually, in the cynical recognition of these things, was valued at twice its worth without that Parliamentary representation, and Lord Monson, who purchased the property in 1830, gave as much as £100,000 for it, solely as an investment in jobbery and corruption, by which he hoped, in the course of shrewd political wire-pulling, to obtain a cent per cent return. [Illustration: GATTON HALL AND "TOWN HALL."] He was a humorist of a cynical turn who built in front of the great mansion in midst of the park a "Town Hall" for the non-existent town, and inscribed on the urn which stands by this freakish, temple-like structure the motto, satirical in this setting, "_Salus populi suprema lex esto_," together with other sardonic Latin, to the effect that no votes sullied by bribery should be given. Less than two years after Lord Monson's purchase of the estate, Reform had destroyed the value of Gatton Park, for it was disfranchised. We can only wonder that he did not claim compensation for the abolition of his "vested interests." [Sidenote: MUSTARD]