22 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



ing for the County and Borough went on simultaneously, 

 the town being crowded from morning till night with 

 many hundreds of voters, with their friends, all of these 

 folk eating and drinking either at the candidates' or 

 some one else's expense, the cost to each candidate 

 being enormous. 



It will be noticed that I alluded just now to the old 

 franchise. The Borough, as well as the Hundreds, 

 voted under the most ancient of all the franchises, 

 viz., as " Potwallers " or " Potwallopers." A '' Potwaller " 

 was a man who boiled his own pot on his own hearth, 

 but who was not in receipt of parish relief. This was 

 even more than household suffrage, and nearly approached 

 universal suffrage, as two families might occupy one 

 house ; but if it were divided in occupation, and each 

 head of the family boiled his own pot, he was a voter. 

 This franchise was considered as old as Alfred the Great, 

 and was looked upon as a great privilege ; and my 

 father, who was a freeholder, a renter, and a householder, 

 always registered for many years after, up to the time 

 of his death, on the old franchise. At the passing of 

 the Reform Bill this franchise, with others — such as those 

 enjoyed by freemen and freeholders, whether resident 

 or not — was retained, and I think there are still two 

 or three people living who are registered under it. The 

 late Lord Beaconsfield always cons'dered the great 

 Reform Bill of 1832 as a disfranchising Bill, and, 

 although he kept his counsels well, he gave effect to 

 his opinions by passing his Household Suffrage Bill 

 in 1 868, afterwards extended to the counties by the 

 joint efforts of Mr. Gladstone and Sir Stafford North- 



