MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT 99 



either the orange and purple rosettes of the 

 Conservatives, or sported the Liberal blue, and 

 all seemed to enter most heartily into the business 

 of the day. Notwithstanding that both the 

 South-Eastern and the Chatham & Dover Com- 

 panies provided good railway service, the wearers 

 of orange colours stuck to their old traditions, 

 and drove their well-appointed four-in-hands, 

 their pairs, or their traps, up to the Conservative 

 house, and there alighted and fraternised in 

 that 'good old style' which looks so well on 

 paper and sounds so well in speeches." * 



The election was on the 25th, and the numbers 

 were : 



Sir John was beaten, therefore, by the narrow 

 difference of 55 votes out of 10,000 electors. 

 The election was throughout most good-humoured. 

 He had in preparation a new edition of 

 Prehistoric Times, and one of the questions which 

 arose for consideration was the origin of bronze. 

 Professor Wibel, in an elaborate memoir, had 

 suggested that the ores used contained both 

 copper and tin, so that when smelted they gave 

 bronze directly. On this subject he consulted 

 Dr. Percy, the great chemist and high authority 

 on metallurgy — vide the extract, above, from 

 Mr. Gladstone's note — and Mr. Vivian, after- 

 wards Lord Swansea, head of one of the greatest 



1 Daily Telegraph, November 20, 1868. 



