THE FISH FIGHT AT WHITBY 121 



of herrings, codfish, haddocks, halibut and many other 

 sorts. 



A wave of simultaneous thought passed through the 

 crowd, and they had no sooner approached the hustings 

 than away most of them ran and possessed themselves 

 of fish some even filled their pockets with herrings, 

 others took codfish as more formidable weapons, and the 

 business on the hustings had hardly commenced when the 

 Liberal half of the erection was bombarded with herrings. 

 It was a strange and diverting spectacle, and the fun grew 

 fast and furious when Liberal stalwarts among the crowd 

 took to hurling fish at the Conservative side of the 

 hustings. This quickly gave rise to a free fight, and here 

 the men who had armed themselves with codfish fomr* 

 good cause to rejoice in their prudence, for a codfish held 

 by the tail makes a really effective weapon, though some 

 of the combatants reversed this method and, gripping the 

 fish firmly by the gills, slashed their opponents with the 

 tails. There was a considerable amount of laughter and 

 good-humour prevailing while this Homeric battle was 

 waged, but many were in deadly earnest, and it is needless 

 to say that the speeches of the candidates and their 

 friends fell on deaf ears. The formalities were got through 

 as quickly as possible, and the noise of conflict, which had 

 been too fast to last, soon died down ; the crowd dispersed 

 and nothing remained as evidence of the unexampled 

 strife except a litter of fish all over the place. This was 

 quickly gathered up by children and others, and the " fish 

 fight " had passed like the baseless fabric of a vision. 



But the resentment which had inspired it remained, and 

 on polling day Bagnall was returned by a considerable 

 majority, this being, it was said, the only time that a 

 Conservative had ever been elected to represent Whitby. 

 It is needless to add that Sir Harcourt Johnstone had 

 no sort of complicity in the scheme by which " King " 

 Hudson was removed from his path, and it is probable 

 that this was not an electioneering move at all, but a quite 

 independent proceeding on the part of creditors who did 



