BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION 131 



roads, along which in one direction went the Exeter 

 mails, while at right angles goes the road between 

 Southampton, Winchester, Newbury, Didcot, and 

 Oxford, little used now, but once an important route. 

 AVhitchurch, in the gay old times when few men had 

 votes but every voter had his price, used to send two 

 members to Parliament. Horrid Reform and Bribery 

 Acts which, together with the extension of the 

 franchise and the adoption of secret voting, have 

 brought about the disfranchising of rotten boroughs 

 and the decay of such home industries as electoral 

 corruption, personation, and the like, have taken 

 away much of the prosperity of the town, which, like 

 Andover, used to live royally from one election to 

 another on the venality of the ' free and independent.' 

 But the last visit of the ' Man in the Moon ' was paid 

 to Whitchurch very many years ago, and not even 

 the oldest inhabitant can recollect the days when 

 cash was given for votes and the electors, gloriously 

 and incapably drunk, were herded together to plump 

 for the candidate with the longest purse. 



AVhen it is said that Whitchurch is a tiny town of 

 very steep, narrow, and crooked streets, that it still 

 boasts some vestiges of its old silk industry, and that 

 it is a ' Borough by prescription,' all its salient points 

 have been exhausted. Reform has not only reformed 

 away the Parliamentary representation of the town, 

 but has also swept away the municipal authority. 

 Mayor and bailiff are both elected every year, but 

 the offices carry no power nowadays. 



Leaving Whitchurch, the road presently comes to 

 the village of Hurstbourne Priors, which stands in a 



