262 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



pletely overpowered. All my frieiids on the Liberal 

 side had been rejected. Sir William Houldsworth 

 had beaten Mr. John Slagg ; Mr. James Hutton had 

 beaten Mr. Charles Schwann ; Sir James Fergusson 

 had defeated Mr. Ponsonby Blennerhassett ; Mr. 

 Arthur Balfour had been victorious over Mr. Alfred 

 Hopkinson ; and even that stalwart member of the 

 Liberal party, Jacob Bright, who had held the division 

 next to mine for many years, was turned out by the 

 youngest of the Hamiltons a nice boy, but hitherto 

 unheard of in politics. He is said to have ingratiated 

 himself first with the children, and then with the 

 mothers, and afterwards with the voters, in a district 

 wholly made up of working-men, by teaching the chil- 

 dren how to toboggan on a tea-tray from the top of the 

 stairs. And this brought him in at the head of the poll. 



On the whole, the contest was carried out without 

 much bitterness, but I was obliged to protest on 

 one occasion with regard to a placard which had 

 appeared on the walls of " Royle and Religion," in- 

 timating that Roscoe was an atheist, and I said that 

 the use of the word "religion" for party purposes was 

 altogether improper. To bring down that which was 

 most sacred in the hearts of everyone to the level of a 

 mere electioneering dodge filled me with disgust. I 

 went on to say that in the Liberal programme there 

 were four "F's" Free trade, Free land, Free educa- 

 tion, and Freethought when a voice cried out " and 

 Atheism," to which I remarked that the man who 

 interjected the word " Atheism " wished to help the 

 cause of Toryism by endeavouring to make people 

 believe that everybody who was not a Tory was an 

 atheist. 



In the autumn of 1885 I not only made a series of 

 electioneering addresses, but I spoke on different 



