78 FAMOUS RACING MEN. 



in politics, and has been an ardent Reformer and a liberal subscriber 

 for the advancement of the cause. When Parliament was about 

 to be dissolved, he was again invited to stand for Pontefract by a 

 numerous deputation; he again hesitated, but finally accepted. Lord 

 Mexborough withdrew, and he was elected without opposition. In 

 person he is tall and finely-formed, full of strength and grace, with 

 delicate hands and feet, his face coarse and with a bad expression, 

 his head set well on his shoulders, and remarkably graceful and even 

 dignified in his actions and manners ; totally without education, he 

 has strong sense, discretion, reserve, and a species of good taste 

 which has prevented, in the height of his fortunes, his behaviour from 

 ever transgressing the bounds of modesty and respect, and he has 

 gradually separated himself from the rabble of bettors and black- 

 guards of whom he was once the most conspicuous, steadily asserted 

 his own independence, and acquired gentility, without even presum- 

 ing towards those whom he had been accustomed to regard with 

 deference. His position is now more anomalous than ever, for a 

 Member of Paliament is a great man, though there appear no reasons 

 why the suffrages of the blackguards of Pontefract should place him 

 in different social relations towards us from those in which we 

 mutually stood before." 



" Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed ! " and there 

 must have been something distinguished and attractive about the 

 ex-prizefighter to have won for him so much commendation from the 

 bitter pen of Charles Greville. In Parliament Mr. Gully acquired 

 the goodwill and respect of all with whom he came in contact, 

 and although he did not take part, properly speaking, in the debates 

 of the House of Commons, he made several very vigorous bye- 

 speeches, notably in the year 1836. On the 17th of May, in that year, 

 in the course of a discussion on the alleged ejectment of peasantry 

 at Carlow on account of votes given by them at the last election, 

 Mr. Hardy, the member for Bradford, made serious allegations of 

 bribery against several members, upon which John Gully raised his 

 burly form and stentorian voice, and denounced Mr. Hardy in no 

 measured terms as having himself been guilty of the same offence. 

 After premising that it was very seldom that he claimed the 

 indulgence of the House, "it was quite impossible," continued 

 the honourable member for Pontefract, "that he could refrain from 

 making a few observations, inasmuch as he had himself in some 

 degree calumniated the hon. and learned gentleman, if what the hon. 

 and learned gentleman said was a fact. He certainly heard Mr. 

 O'Connell accuse the hon. and learned gentleman on one occasion in 

 this House of spending £7,040 by bribing electors in the borough of 

 Pontefract, to the amount of £23 for a single vote. Within the last 

 three days he had received a letter from one of his constituents, in 

 which it was stated that he had a great mind to send to Mr. O'Connell 

 a letter which he had received from the hon. and learned member for 

 Bradford when he was a candidate for Pontefract, stating exactly the 



