In England, in the early thirties, reform was in the air. The blow was struck at the right time, and in 1832--the year of the great Reform Bill--Parliament passed a measure creating in Newfoundland a representative assembly. The island was divided into nine electoral divisions, each of which was to have one or more representatives, according to population. There were, in fact, fifteen members. The first election passed off quietly in the autumn of the same year. Dr. Carson, the father of Home Rule, stood for St. John's, and Mr Justice Prowse has usefully noted that he was defeated. The fickleness and ingratitude of the people were never more dramatically illustrated. "He had been the pioneer of the new movement, had suffered in the people's cause, and yet the public, 'that many-headed monster thing--the mob,' were the first to cast aside their leader in the fight for Home Rule, and to give their votes and support to a new and untried man." It was said, however, that the defeat was due to an electioneering trick, whereby a false report was spread as to the attitude of the veteran in the liberal cause.[36] "The House of Assembly of 1833 was the youngest constituent body in America, but it was not one whit behind any of them in stately parliamentary pageant and grandiloquent language. H.B. (Doyle) in London caricatured it as the 'Bow-wow Parliament' with a big Newfoundland dog in wig and bands as Speaker putting the motion: 'As many as are of that opinion say--bow; of the contrary--wow; the bows have it.'"[37]