AN APOLOGY.
[To THR EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
you kindly allow me the space to apologise to " Scrutator " and also to yourself for having rashly and with. out reference to tiles of newspapers (which is a hard thing to manage) trusted to memory about elections of nearly thirty years ago P I did not expect to be able to prove by any his- torical work what I thought I distinctly recollected, but I find on reference to "Bright's History of England" (edition 1888, period 1837.80, chapter ix., on Lord Russell's Ministry, November, 1865), almost the first words alluded to Mr. Gla,dstone's defeat at Oxford University, and election in Lancashire. In those years I resided within a few miles of St. Helens, and was able to devote several entire days in canvassing for the Liberal candidates in 1861, which must have been a by-election, and for Mr. Gladstone, for whom every Liberal voter of that period plumped, in 1865. It was a very arduous task in a county election a generation ago, under the Chandoe Clauses of the first Reform Bill, to canvaee the scattered fifty-pound tenants- at-will, and to collect your men at an early hour on the polling-day, and to carry them in carriages to the county town to vote openly at the hustings. One might have con- fidence in recollecting all the details of two such experiences, and I hope that you and your correspondent will kindly for- give me for mixing up the dates in my head.—I am, Sir, &o.,
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