VOL. XIV. (2) WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 97 
that city, in which they were entertained in an hotel for a 
fortnight at the cost of the candidate for whom the vote 
was given. So extravagant was the expense that one of 
the leading families of Gloucestershire had to sell a large 
estate to cover the costs of one lost election. 
The wildest scenes in Hogarth’s election pictures were 
equalled by the reality. “I recollect,” said an old man to 
me, referring to a Gloucester contest previous to 1832: 
“T recollect going down Westgate-street after the poll was 
declared. There was a man in the shop that Fletcher has 
now, sawing up broomsticks into threes. As fast as he 
cut off a piece he flung it over his shoulder into the street 
for anybody to fight with, and ¢here was awful work /” 
All boroughs were not however like Gloucester. At 
Old Sarum for example, things went on more respectably. 
The place had gone down until, it was averred, there was 
no house left in it; only one chimney remaining, which 
was kept in repair to prevent the representation from 
lapsing; and the elected member for Old Sarum took the 
oath with his hand on the chimney. The old law was 
that the voter must be the holder of a house “that put up 
a smoke.” The same custom prevailed on the continent ; 
for I remember once asking the Maire of a Commune in 
Belgium as to who had the right to vote, when he replied 
“Every one who has a house that puts up a smoke.” In 
some parts of England votes were made by freeholders 
who boiled a pot; evidently a proof of smoke having been 
put up. These were known as “pot wallopers,” from an 
old word “wallop,” to boil. 
An Englishman of the present day, of course, regards 
the state of the country a century and a quarter ago, just 
as he regards the Britain of the days of Cesar. He is no 
more responsible for the one than for the other. Every- 
where.in Europe society was in a rougher state than it is 
now. Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and other 
H 
