Northampton was in 1880 one of the most promising Radical constituencies.[2] The Radical element had for {143} many years been very numerous among the population, but unfortunately the majority of the workers had no vote. The Household Suffrage Act of 1868 remedied this state of things to some extent. The work of the Freehold Land Society developed the scope of the remedy. This most practical expression of democratic ideals, by making freeholders of workmen, raised the numbers of the electorate from 6829 in 1874 to 8189 in 1880; of these 2500 had never voted before, and to a man were Radicals. When Mr. Labouchere was introduced as Liberal candidate he at once decided to make common cause with Mr. Bradlaugh, and his manifesto to the electors, published on March 27, was craftily worded so as to appeal with simple directness to those modern sons of St. Crispin, "the communistic cobblers of Northampton." It ran as follows: "Having already sat in Parliament as a Liberal member for Middlesex, it is needless for me to say that I am an opponent of the Imperialism which, under the leadership of the Earl of Beaconsfield, has become the policy of the Conservative Government. This new-fangled political creed consists in swagger abroad and inaction at home. Its results are that we have made ourselves the patrons of one of the vilest governments that ever burdened the earth; that we have joined with the oppressors against the oppressed; that we have acquired a pestiferous and less than worthless land in the Mediterranean; that we have annexed the territory of some harmless Dutch republicans against their will; that we have expended above six millions in catching a savage, who had as much right to his freedom as we have, and that we have butchered Afghans for the crime of defending their country against an unjust invasion.... For my part, I am anxious to see Parliament again controlling the executive, and a majority of members returned who will radically revise the laws regarding land, so as to encourage its tenure by the many instead of its absorption by the few, who will render farmers independent of the caprices of the landlords, who will emancipate {144} the agricultural labourers by securing to them their natural right to vote." He went on to express in strong terms his desire for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England.[3] In a speech which he made on the same day as the publication of his manifesto, in the Wesleyan Chapel, in the Wellingborough Road, he said that he had been asked a little while ago whether he was a member of the Church of England, and he had replied that he had been brought up in the Church of England, and, if he had to register his religion, he should register it as a member of the Church of England. But, if he had been asked what his religion was, he should have said the question was one between his God and his conscience, and it was no business of any