to withdraw: where a man’s home was concerned, it was unwise to use military tactics to obtain entrance. And I had heard the window bang. I led the way out through the open front door. It was slammed shut behind us by butler Dawes.
‘So where the hell does that get us, Mr James?’ Captain Thomas demanded fiercely. ‘We have retreated in ignominy!’
As though in answer, a loud whistle came to us from the darkness of the shrubbery on the south side of the house. Then I made out the tone of a shrill, scolding woman. It seemed that Mrs Pickett was not too pleased to have her husband returned after all, at least, not in the state of staggering inebriation in which she had found him, unceremoniously shoved out of the ground floor window when our determination in the hallway had been demonstrated.
‘We had no choice. Mr Fitzgerald gave us his word,’ I said to Captain Thomas. ‘At least, once he knew the servants had thrown Pickett into the shrubbery.’
So we loaded our drunken supporter into one of the traps, along with his wife, and we conducted the two heroes first to the Starand then to the Crown where after a suitably triumphant carousal we ended up with a supper of pickled salmon and broke up the party only at four in the morning.
And so the tone was set.
We matched Job Pickett’s incarceration by locking up the landlord of the Dog and Bacon for a fortnight. Five other voters were confined in similar fashion at Springfield Park until polling day, well provided with food and drink, of course. We kept George Elphick and Robert Parsons in London for two weeks, providing them with new suits, cash and the opportunity to live like fighting cocks, even showing themselves in the private box of the Attorney General at the Italian Opera House. We captured the Deane Park gamekeeper and kept him at the Anchor where he hid from the Blues, most of the time in the chimney, and on polling day itself we took a cattle drover called Stephen Scott, drunk to the point of insensibility, to stay at the Beehive in Denne Road until he came to his senses enough to vote.
It was the only occasion in Horsham electioneering, as I recall, that a licensed beer house was used for the purpose of
sobering
someone!
And so it went on. We served raw brandy in wine glasses and tumblers. Horsham was kept in a state of continual turmoil, a perpetual whirl of excitement and strong drink. Butchers thrust joints of meat into passing baskets, confident they would get paid elsewhere; new hats were provided where old ones had been bashed in; traps were hired to bring in country voters who were given drink, furnished with eatables and sent home again replete. We spent £350 on blue ribbons. Livestock was provided; horses and cattle were used to obtain votes and even mortgages were paid off where a vote could be obtained. Liquor, house repairs, holidays and small sums of money were dispensed, but as polling day grew close the sums rose from £1 or £2, to £5 and £20, often to the same voters who had already been paid but were in need of ‘refreshers’.I was finally called upon to sit in a private room at the Crown with bags of gold as persuaders.
And of course we had one other advantage over Fitzgerald: the Attorney General was in an eminent position for the distribution of official favours to those who had an eye to business. Sir John Jervis proved to be an excellent promiser: a job as postmaster here, a position in the Excise there; many offices were agreed upon.
But as Charlie Feist regularly reported to us as a double agent, openly working for Fitzgerald but secretly being paid by us, the Pinks also were spending freely, bribing widely, threatening effectively so that by the end of May the town was knee-deep in liquor and every form of blandishment, bribe and menace that could apply, was used. The town was up to its armpits in bribery and corruption and alarmingly Charlie Feist was reporting that each day there were only a handful of votes between
‘So where the hell does that get us, Mr James?’ Captain Thomas demanded fiercely. ‘We have retreated in ignominy!’
As though in answer, a loud whistle came to us from the darkness of the shrubbery on the south side of the house. Then I made out the tone of a shrill, scolding woman. It seemed that Mrs Pickett was not too pleased to have her husband returned after all, at least, not in the state of staggering inebriation in which she had found him, unceremoniously shoved out of the ground floor window when our determination in the hallway had been demonstrated.
‘We had no choice. Mr Fitzgerald gave us his word,’ I said to Captain Thomas. ‘At least, once he knew the servants had thrown Pickett into the shrubbery.’
So we loaded our drunken supporter into one of the traps, along with his wife, and we conducted the two heroes first to the Starand then to the Crown where after a suitably triumphant carousal we ended up with a supper of pickled salmon and broke up the party only at four in the morning.
And so the tone was set.
We matched Job Pickett’s incarceration by locking up the landlord of the Dog and Bacon for a fortnight. Five other voters were confined in similar fashion at Springfield Park until polling day, well provided with food and drink, of course. We kept George Elphick and Robert Parsons in London for two weeks, providing them with new suits, cash and the opportunity to live like fighting cocks, even showing themselves in the private box of the Attorney General at the Italian Opera House. We captured the Deane Park gamekeeper and kept him at the Anchor where he hid from the Blues, most of the time in the chimney, and on polling day itself we took a cattle drover called Stephen Scott, drunk to the point of insensibility, to stay at the Beehive in Denne Road until he came to his senses enough to vote.
It was the only occasion in Horsham electioneering, as I recall, that a licensed beer house was used for the purpose of
sobering
someone!
And so it went on. We served raw brandy in wine glasses and tumblers. Horsham was kept in a state of continual turmoil, a perpetual whirl of excitement and strong drink. Butchers thrust joints of meat into passing baskets, confident they would get paid elsewhere; new hats were provided where old ones had been bashed in; traps were hired to bring in country voters who were given drink, furnished with eatables and sent home again replete. We spent £350 on blue ribbons. Livestock was provided; horses and cattle were used to obtain votes and even mortgages were paid off where a vote could be obtained. Liquor, house repairs, holidays and small sums of money were dispensed, but as polling day grew close the sums rose from £1 or £2, to £5 and £20, often to the same voters who had already been paid but were in need of ‘refreshers’.I was finally called upon to sit in a private room at the Crown with bags of gold as persuaders.
And of course we had one other advantage over Fitzgerald: the Attorney General was in an eminent position for the distribution of official favours to those who had an eye to business. Sir John Jervis proved to be an excellent promiser: a job as postmaster here, a position in the Excise there; many offices were agreed upon.
But as Charlie Feist regularly reported to us as a double agent, openly working for Fitzgerald but secretly being paid by us, the Pinks also were spending freely, bribing widely, threatening effectively so that by the end of May the town was knee-deep in liquor and every form of blandishment, bribe and menace that could apply, was used. The town was up to its armpits in bribery and corruption and alarmingly Charlie Feist was reporting that each day there were only a handful of votes between
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