to look hopeful), "then, so much the worse for you-for you will find me amongst your opponents." And bowing courteously to him she walked on, leaving our friend Mardonnet gazing intently on the pavement, and lifting his hat up, and rubbing his forehead with his hand as though he were perplexed. AN ELECTION OF IDIOTS. "Vote for William Brown!" "Vote for Thomas Robinson!" "Vote for-" the others, whose names are printed in high wide letters, and whose posters form new papering to the walls they hang on, and flutter up a great broad staircase like large rustling leaves. "Vote for John Smith!" is the greeting some yards before the door-way. "Vote for John Smith !" kneels at the feet, humbly, upon the threshold. "Vote for John Smith!" is aimed straight at the eyes' centre, from the vestibule, the landings, the passages, the corners, the hands of people pressing vehemently forward on the floor of the vast light wide hall. There is no inch of space without these black-on-white appeals; there is no baluster without these reiterated names; there is no mite of hand-rail without a card tied round it, beseeching a candidate's claims and case may carry him successfully to the poll. And a sharp clamour of women's voices is in the rooms above, and women's feet and garments are flitting rapidly, and women curtsey as visitors pass by them, and look up with touching tremor and an anxious face. "VOTE for John Smith!" It is an election into the Asylum for Idiots at pleasant Earlswood. Thirty-five poor creatures are to be housed there, either for life or a stated term of years, and as there are, perhaps, four times that number of poor creatures eligible and applying, no wonder competition rages, and mothers and patronesses flush up hotly, or, according to their temperament, turn wan and pale. Are these ladies, who are so anxious about the Election, the distressed widows in precarious health, or the toiling wives with afflicted husbands, whose idiot children are objects for the charity, and whose fates hang on the upshot of the day? Not in the least. Very, very far from it. They have comfortable means and valued homes; they have hearty help-meets and vigorous children most of them; but they leave these, and slip out of all their ties and duties for this bustling day, to come here and push on business for those who have no business-spirit in themselves, and who have not influence or education to make that business-spirit of use, even if it stood the most prominent jewel in their front. There is small chance of a case being admitted, unless one of these electioneering ladies takes it in hand. They come to the polling-room early (it is in the London Tavern on this occasion, and is there generally, at a cost of about £50 out of the funds of the charity). They come armed with laboriously-collected proxies-sued for, written for, called for; refused, withheld for pondering, yielded; not at hand when wanted, and rung for; knocked and asked for, till pertinacity is a sin or virtue, according to interpretation, and the final rendering has an accompaniment of peevishness or shame. They bring with them pen and ink and envelopes and paper; they bring with them a roll of notes and sovereigns, to buy votes with, if it is thought they will be required; they bring sandwiches and biscuits and bright gold wine; and they bring so much hope and kindness and sagacity that they are past all measuring of trouble, and feel that they must be present every jot, if they are to gain their difficult end. They are often attended by the distressed widows and toiling wives. These may be seen by their side submissively, being despatched by them, ever and anon, on errands, which they execute imperfectly, or which are purposely made so simple there could be no mistaking them except by an Earlswoodite himself; and here, in an active mass, seated at tables, writing, bargaining, planning, reckoning, bustling towards the committee-room, swarming up the stairs, the whole are. The best places are filled by the ladies, who ride through the affair as it were on horseback, battling, but battling with shot-proof breast-plates, and gay shoes that never need touch the ground; the dark unserviceable corners are occupied by the poor and shiftless parents, treading their journey on too-real foot, holding out their hands for votes that have been long ago appropriated, but hoping still that some kind souls will pity them, and that somehow their handful of votes may conquer, when it could not if it were multiplied by a score. "Have you any infants?" is the startling question of a pursy gentleman to a thin and jewelled spinster of three score certainly, if not the added ten. The spinster does not redden up, and rise, and shriek out, Chairman ! Chairman! as one might expect, but looks up at her rude questioner with an air exactly suited to his own. "What! you are at that work still," she says, archly. "Ha! ha!" She evidently is obliged to humour the gentleman, and he is humoured, and laughs out a confession of his curious occupation, and then falls back on his rude question again. "Have fants?" you any InThe spinster owns then that she has not. But the pursy gentleman pursues his inquiry, apparently, much farther than he ought. "Have you any Fatherless, then?” he asks, looking straight into the spinster's eyes. And as she screams neither with laughter nor with indignation, the key to his questioning comes, especially when he puts in, quickly, “I will give you Idiots for them, you know. Idiots either for now, or for October. Or," he says, as a bright after-thought, "If you like best, I will give you Alexandras !". there was not much difference between them, "'—as though and, to him at any rate, they were all one. Indeed, this election-day is improvised into a very ready and effectual exchange. "I have two Haverstock Hills!" a clergyman cries, with apparently maniacal exaggeration; till one remembers he means two votes for admission to the asylum there, and that he will give them in change for two for Earlswood. "Has anybody a Governesses?" asks (ungramThen, matically) somebody else-intending merely the same exchange. And the cries, “Let me have some Orphan Workings!" me some Incurables!" "Do get me a Benevo"Change lent!" are heard on every side. "Now then!" is the exclamation of a gentleman-tall, and dark, and dry, and dictatorial "who wants Idiots for the next election? I'll give a hundred then for seventyfive now!" "Um! Tempting!" says a quizzical little woman, under the shadow of the tall man, and under the shadow, too, of her own broad clear placard. "Why, it's-it's twentyfive per cent !" "It is, indeed," urges the dictatorial gentleman, thinking he has a bite. "Will you take it?" "No!" And the quizzical little body and those around her laugh, and the dictatorial gentleman laughs also, and then walks away. "Ah ha!" cries one tall, burly clergyman to another, a few minutes after this, and at the other end of the room, "your work brings you here, does it? Gracious! And are you collecting Idiots, or paying Idiots, which?" There is no answer, but a gay shrug of the shoulders, and an almost audible rattle of the head. All this describes no business, but business is done from time to time notwithstanding, and a flushed lady-hot and nervous, and with her chignon becoming rapidly disordered-❘ bustles in with some that has fallen to her, re 129 joicingly. umphs, returning to her part of her little table, “ "Here are four more " ! she triand holding up some open proxies in exultation. " Quick! and let me give an I. O. U. for assembly, on which those who most frequent them!" For that is a point of honour in the eager it the most rely. The flushed lady, indeed, has scarcely finished the writing she sits herself indignant cry. "There's that woman," she down to, before she breaks out into a little exclaims to the workers with her, "who never gave me the votes she promised! As a matter of principle, she ought not to be allowed in! No one should be admitted until they have paid their debts !" Then the flushed lady turns, with a still troubled air, to a gentleman who accosts her. "Well," he says, cheerfully, how do you stand?" 66 "Oh, dear! I have not a chance at all! But then this is only my first. It isn't likely you know, to-day." "I don't know," says the gentleman, dissentingly; "I think they are going low. you borrow?" Can't "Why, I have!" cries the flushed lady, getting excited again. “But you don't mean to say you think there's a chance?" "It depends,” answers the gentleman, withholding a more definite word. borrow any more?" "Can you "Not one!" replies the lady. an Idiot in the room!" "Can you buy?" "There isn't "Yes; I've nearly £50. But I don't want to spend it unless I am obliged." "Well, if you buy, how many shall you make?" 66 "Why," replies the flushed lady, reckoning polled 750! And if I buy, that will be 200 rapidly, I've polled 800! No, I haven't! I've more; that will make 950. And I've a few in case I didn't want them, and with some that here borrowed, which I haven't marked yet, other people may have polled for me, and with split ones and stray, I daresay I should reach thousand?" a thousand. Now, what do you think of a "I'll go round the room and see," says the gentleman, "and then come back and let you know." He goes; and the flushed lady runs through her figuring again, and mystifies it, and clears it up, and cries, "I didn't mark those proxies, and "I think I will!" and "No, I won't!" did I?" and "No, I didn't!" and "Yes, I did!" knows what she's about. till her flush is so much deepened she scarcely Then, all at once, with an emphasis that is a shock even to mere lookers-on, and amidst an instantaneous silence, a deep bass voice proclaims, "Ladies and Gentlemen, in a quarter of an hour from now the Poll will be closed!" The flushed lady starts and flutters, and looks this way and that way for her absent friend, knowing, with the woman's heart that beats so quickly in her, that on the decision of the next fifteen minutes the welfare or overthrow of her poor protégé depends, and being unable to know that, and keep serenely calm and still, "Run!" she cries, to one of the young folks with her; "find Sir John as quickly as you can! He only said he was going round the room! Pray, find him!" And then, the moment her messenger is hurriedly gone, she thinks she had better leave her place herself. "I will just poll these," she cries. "There can't be any harm in doing that! It must be better to take them in!" So it happens that, when she has consulted aloud with herself, as to whether she shall do this or had best let it alone, and has darted quickly off to do it, the Sir John she wished for comes back exactly in time to find her gone. Being a deliberate gentleman, though, not prone to impetuosity, he stands and stares a minute or two at other matters, and is excellent india-rubber for his flushed friend to aim her vehemence at, when she comes excitedly back. "Well?" she cries, looking to him for the deciding. "How do they go?" "Miss Dutch has polled nearly 2000," is his answer. "1200 might do it, but nothing less than 1700 is sure." 1200-1200," repeats the flushed lady, biting her lips. "I couldn't be 1200, even if I spent all!" "Ladies and Gentlemen," rolls out the big bass voice again, "in five minutes from now the Poll Will Be Closed!" "Oh, pray tell me!" cries the flushed lady, with upraised hands. "Do tell me what I had better do?" Her appeal is so much intensified, the gentleman thinks at last that decision would be well. "If you don't get in now, you know," he says slowly, "you're sure for October." "Yes, yes!" puts in the lady. "Well!" "So don't buy. I have taken the average, and I don't think a thousand's sure. satisfied with to-day, and do no more." Be "Very well!" agrees the lady, inexpressibly relieved. "I will do as you say. It was only a whim of mine, getting in to-day, and it isn't likely, as it's but my first! All right! Very well." So she does not rush off to the registering | room again, but many another worker does ; and in there are five or six committee-gentlemen seated at desks, one for split-votes, some for plumpers, and one to receive the guineas that keep pouring in, and that the ladies who fear for their position turn into votes at once, determined to do all they can to make themselves secure. There is much eagerness in this room; much anxiety. Faces look pinched when they come into it; thin fingers clutch at guineas and open proxies, as if in fear that, otherwise, some hidden dragon would fly out and snatch them from them, and so they will be ready for the reception with a bite and a scratch. There is no coquetry or insinuation here. Tight business, rigid and smileless as a bar of iron, is the occupation; and sharp down into the midst of it comes the third and last announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Poll is Closed!" and the committee-gentlemen rise from their seats, the doors are shut upon them, and in the large room, where all other persons are now assembled, there falls a momentary lull. Some hours must elapse before the result of the poll can be known, and all the people who are here cannot spend that time in listless doing nothing. About half, perhaps, at once briskly walk away; but it is on the other half that interest concentrates, and there is plenty of this for those who can quietly stand by and see. The first thing some of them employ themselves upon is the rapid pulling-down of placards, and the careful rolling-up of those that will serve for use at another election, if the poor cases they commemorate are not happy enough to get in this time. The aspect of the room is quite changed when these placards are down. It falls back now into a decorated apartment. with glass and gilding, and an ornamented ceiling; and ladies open their leathern luncheon-bags, and over their dainty little sandwiches and wine prepare to spend the hours that are before them, and to have a little connected chat. One lady, as she eats and sips, is counting her chickens with a singular disregard to their not being hatched. "Now," she says, to the poor woman beside her (a real mother, but agreeably feasting too), "after I have finished this, I shall not stay, you know; I shall go. But you will stay; and when they open that door,-that one, you must rush in, and get near enough to hear, and directly you hear your name you must run off to the office with an advertisement, or else you will be too late. I will write the advertisement at once. Give 6.-INDIAN GENT DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT CAN HAVE TO DO WITH THE MATTER, FOR HE HAS THE ABOVE NUMBER OF WIVES, SO INSISTS UPON PICKING OUT TWO VIRGINS FOR H. AND P. 2.-THE CHIEF INHABITANT OF THE DISTRICT IS ALSO GREAT PRESENCE OF MIND, RUSHES FORWARD AN 4.-THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY IS TH HAS THE PICK OF THE AND BEING WISE MEN THEY AT ONCE CONCLUDE THEY HAD BETTER RUSH FROM THE PLACE, Once a Week, Aug. 15, 1868.] 11.-HAVING TO MAKE OBSERV THEATRICAL STARS, THEY ARE LONDON, WHEN THEY AT ONCE GO |