We all went to the window, and gave an immense shout as this paper was placed in the balcony. A mighty load was taken from our minds, at any rate; and, oh! what a thrill there was of anxious expectation as each express arrived; and as the chairman of the committee with fumbling hands took out the paper, and with trembling voice read it to us!

The crowd below, though hostile, did not receive our announcement with any particular demonstration of animosity; for the Pinks had by this time got a board of their own ready, putting matters seemingly on a much more equal footing.

At four the booths were shut for the first day; at five we had another placard, shewing matters still more in our favour; and, lo! presently afterwards, when about sixty of us gentlemen were solacing ourselves with a dinner after the prodigious labours of the day, who should walk into the room but Mr. Britton himself; of whom it certainly may be said, that during the eventful election he was like a bird, and in a vast number of places at once.

We saw at once by the expression of the honourable gentleman's countenance, that the victory was secure. I am a stranger; I live thousands of miles off, on the far shores of the Atlantic, in quiet Passimaquoddy Bay; I pretend to be a philosopher, and to care for neither pink nor green; but upon the announcement of the poll as he gave it to us, I protest I felt as happy as if the victory was my own, or as if my dear aunt in Kentucky had sent me a

hundred-dollar bill.*

Fresh bottles of port were the inevitable consequence of this news; and we had bumper after bumper, and speech after speech; every body congratulating every body else; drinking each other's healths all round with nine times nine; shouting, hurrahing, and slapping each other on the back. Oh, it was a jolly dinner!

After the candidate had partaken of a hasty repast, which he ate rather nervously amidst the din above described, it was agreed that he should address the electors; and forth he went to the balcony, surrounded as usual by his backers.

The mob was in great numbers before the two hotels. The fact is, the inflammatory Bouncer had just been making an harangue from his window, telling the people that he had the most perfect confidence as to his success on the morrow; that his adversaries had polled their last man; that there was a shameful un-English coalition between them; but that, in spite of the coalition, he would infallibly be returned at the head of the poll.

At the idea of the coalition the people, it is hard to say why, were furious; but they seemed to consider it a cowardly thing for the voters of the green way of thinking, to split upon the two green candidates; while, as there was but one pink candidate in the field, it was manifest that the Pinks must only vote for him.

When Mr. Britton appeared before the populace then, they received him with the most horrible yells, howls, and hisses; and seeing that it was quite impossible to get a hearing, he with great good-humour shewed an immense placard, declaring the state of the poll, and then retired.

The placard was fastened as usual in front of the balcony; and the yells were perfectly deafening as we so set up the testimonial of Green triumph and Pink defeat.

The people were in a fury; a dense mass of them were crowding round our inn; and, as the carriage drove up that was to convey Mr. Britton away from us (he had many scores of miles to drive ere night), the mob pressed so fiercely round it, that it

on.

was quite clear a fight would come Where were the policemen? Only three of them were in the town, and very wisely kept their quarters. Those undaunted spirits then, who had an attachment for the green candidate, surrounded him and marched boldly to the carriage; and shouted hurray in defiance of the yells of the mob, as the vehicle drove off!

Then the mob began a vast hustling and pushing; then those who had been drinking port wine felt a great yearning to go and beat the ruffians who were insulting them and their leader. I felt myself the strength and fury of at least six giants; judge, then, with what difficulty I mastered my feelings, and absolutely went back to the Lion again, without destroying a single man!

The gates were left open. The patriots did not as yet dare to pass that invisible barrier, which the law had set before them.

However, they began to wreak vengeance on the obnoxious placard. One fellow tried to pull it down, then they flung mud at it, then stones. Our committee declared themselves in permanence; they sat round the great green table of the room, solemnly occupied in twirling their thumbs. Those gentlemen who still had favours

on

were entreated to remove the same. We did, with a faint show of resistence; vowing at the same time that we were not afraid of the blackguards—not a whit.

The crowd are still swaying and shouting in the place. One unlucky committee-man must go and throw out some halfpence.

Whizz-dash-crash-smash! back came the halfpence in a shower - back through the sacred windows of the committee-room; and we hear the horrid crowd laughing without.

The landlord looks in with a faint smile. "I know it's nothing, gentlemen; but shall I shut the gates, and call in the police ?"

"Mr. Landlord, you must shut the gates on no account; the mob would storm the house, if you did! And as for the policemen, there is no use in having them; there are but three, and they are not enough to protect you." The landlord retires

bowing; and some one jocosely says that Mr. Bouncer ought to be called "the glaziers' friend!"

After the return of the halfpence, the people were quiet for awhile; but some of our people below would rush out and clear the gate; and forth they went, and were with great difficulty brought back again; and the mob rushed in with them, and much fighting ensued. It was considered absolutely necessary to shut the gates; and when closed, the prophesied riot ensued. The people assailed the gates with brickbats; then they broke all the lower windows; then shutters were hastily closed; and, behold! showers of stones smashed the consecrated glaze of the committee-room, and caused the elders to tremble.

The stables and back premises of the Lion lead down to the river by a little lane; and I had, for quiet's sake, taken that path during the latter part of this disturbance, and was thinking of Kentuck, and gazing on the silent water, and watching the cigar-smoke peacefully ascending in a quiet, blue, evening air. And yet we were only thirty yards from the seat of war! An ostler was whistling and rubbing his steed down with straw; a pretty girl in curl-papers was gazing at the ostler, at the sunmer evening, at three sailors in a ship on the river who were turning a capstan and singing monotonously. Two or three hens were picking and clucking about near the stable-stuff'; and the only noise of the election that one heard in that quiet alley proceeded from three very ragged boys of about four years old, who were each shouting the name of a candidate, and rolling over and over in the dirt-heaps.

The cigar concluded, I meet the pallid landlord with a very frightened waiter trotting after him, and hear the most demoniac and fierce shouts at the gate. The mob are storming it-us. Ah! why did I leave my peaceful Passimaquoddy, to perish under the foul hands of old country patriots?

"Now's the time to call the police, sir!" says the landlord. "I can't stand by and see my property knocked about in this here sort of way!"

"If you can get enough of them, certainly call them," said I; and only

mention this speech, because on it hinges a very characteristical and landlordical answer.

"John!" says he, turning round to the waiter, "go and bring a hundred policemen-not one less than a hundred !"

John went off as if in obedienceas he would have gone off with an unlimited order for beer, but no policemen ever came,-far from it; while one of our committee-room, in mortal fright, appealed to the mayor of the town, who presided the Pink committee at the Bull. That magistrate took the green-and-white committee-man by the collar, and vowed he would send him to prison if he did not instantly quit the room.

Such are Pinks! Dressed in a little brief authority, these rascals play such fantastical tricks as make one quite angry.

Entering the house, thus besieged, I found a dear, pretty chambermaid, cowering in one of the dark passages -a sweet, simple, smiling, northcountry girl-who told me on the first day of my arrival (à propos of some compliments that my dear aunt may rest assured never passed the bounds of strictest decorum)-who told me that she was not the pretty chambermaid, and straightway pointed to a great red-cheeked wench as her beau idéal.

After leaving the chambermaid (I only introduced her to tell the above little anecdote of her, which is, as I fancy, a curious one), I entered the lobby; and there in the first place was a tipsy Londoner, with a voice much like Paul Bedford's. He was shouting frightfully, and swearing that he would annihilate the mob. He seized me, and said he saw me in the crowd, and that it was clear I was very much intoxicated; by which speech the learned can judge of his own condition.

Besides the bawling Cockney, there was a bawling Irishman, who wanted to know hwy the dooors were no flung open; hwy the landlard dared to interrupt commercial men, and prevent them from perfarming their business as they would desire. "Landlard!" says he, "fling open the geets this instant!" But the landlord didn't; or what would the committee have done, if he had?

There were the major part of them,

I am sorry to say, sneaking about the lobby; the committee-room was a desert. Lighted by one solitary candle, that served to shew innumerable ghastly pieces of paper pasted over the broken windows-the diaculum plaster for the wounds inflicted by the people.

The only persons who seemed at all at their ease amidst this din of war, were a dozen inn-servants, who were devouring a huge salmon in a back-parlour; and Mr. Thompson, the worthy member,-that honourable gentleman was quietly taking tea in his bed-room, and did me the honour to invite me to take a cup of his bohea; and, as we sat together somewhat incautiously at the window, whizz! there came a stone about an inch over our heads, cutting through the glass like a bullet. I am having it polished and set in a brooch, and shall beg my dear aunt to accept it as a memorial of this famous election.

Shall I tell you how we beat the atrocious Pinks on the second day's poll as on the first? Shall I describe how in Stuffington market-place the high-sheriff declared Lord George Cramley and Mr. Francis Britton to be duly elected as knights of the shire?

How Bouncer made a speech satisfactorily accounting for his failure! Fancy all this, and the banners, and the trumpets, and the feasting. Fancy likewise some policemen this time. What a comfort it was to see a couple of score of those cut-throats march into the town by two and two, and know that they were at hand if need were!

Apprehending some disturbance were a chairing to take place, the knights of the shire were made to ride round the town, girt with swords and guarded by a host of their retainers. And it was a fine thing to sce my friend, Captain X- walking to the tune of the "Conquering Hero!" Meanwhile the rain fell in torrents, but the knights of the shire pretended never to mind it; and they were wet through, but still they bowed and bowed; and, finally, having changed their clothes, grand dinners took place every where, champagne banged about, loyal toasts were delivered, and, lo! here is Napoleon Putnam Wiggins, at the George Hotel in York city, chronicling the great deeds which have been done at the What-d'ye-callem Election.

VOL. XXIV. NO. CXLII.

FF