Vote With Safety for Yourself and Your Own Fireside.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 247, 24 October 1885, Page 4

Vote With Safety for Yourself and Your Own Fireside.

The following is a copy of a circular iisued by the vicar of Plumpton, the Rev.- H. M. Kennedy :—

Cumberland Electors, —Tho man who tells you that the ballot is not secret is a deceiver, a rogue, and a mean sneak. It is a Tory cry. The canvasser who telle tho lie does so because he wants by terror to force you to vote against your own interest and in favour of hie.

Thoso who, by direct or indirect taxation, bear more than their proper share of State expense are those who, by hand or brain, have to work for an honest living. This list includes all the working classes, farmers of their own land or another's, and the members of the various professions. Those specially interested in lob-sided laws are the privileged classes. Tbe list includes the great landed proprietors, a portion of the legal profession, clergymen of the Established Churches, and a vast number of officials who are placed and advanced in the army, navy, and State service, not because of their fitness, but through family influence.

Let those now foroed to sow, but not allowed to reap, make good use next November of the ballot. Place your cross —X— opposite the name of the Liberal candidate, drop the paper into the ballot box, then come away and hold your tongue, and no man living can tell how you have voted. Be not befooled. Sons of toil, do not in politics trust a Tory. No, not if he came to you in an archangel's garb, and on bended knee before God^ high altar swore by the sign of man's redemption that he only meant you well. If you have any cause to fear him, use deception. I advise you in plain terms, of two evils to choose the least. If he must have an answer, tell your master a lie with your tongue, in preference to marking with your pencil a terrible lie against yourself, your family, your class, your country, and your God. The man, who because he is a landlord or an employer, tries to force another and a weaker man's conscience, is a mean fellow, and the pretty littlo ballot box is just the cure for him. Two centuries of gross classlegislation have blunted the feelings and perverted the judgment of many of the aristocracy and several of their monied imitators. These pampered beings havo learned to think that England's manhood must for over contribute to their greed, and England's womanhood to their lust. A Cumberland M.P., named Bentinck, is furious because the editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette" ha 3 brought to light the horrid deeds of rich fiends who pollute the bodies and damn the souls brought in for them by London brothel-house-keepers. One incarnate devil boasts that ho haß up to date violated 2,000 maidens, and another spends £3,000 a year in seducing girls, his allowance being three virgins each fortnight. Men of these western islos I by tho love you bear your wives, by your regard for your daughters, by your duty to your sons ; in the name of home, of country, and of God, come forth every one of you, rush to the hustings, and give us next autumn a Parliament of honest, determined men who will not be trifled with, but who, with your mandate in their hands, and your power behind them, will sweep clean the Houso of Commons, sweep away the House of Tyrants, and give to every citizen of our land, for the first time in its history, fair play and equal laws.

Know and remember, that from the timo of Earl Groy (1883) to tho time of William Gladstone, who would not be an earl, the Tories have tried both tooth and nail, but, thanks to Liberal efforts, tried all in vain, to keep back the tide of necessary reform. No vote, no secret vote, no cheap schools, no cheap papers, no cheap food, no cheap clothes, no protection for sailors' lives, no protection for workmen's limbs, no right to kill field vermin, no right to one's improvement onthefarm, norighttofeedacowon the common, no right to worship God according to conEcieno.. These, let me tell you, are but some of the black list of the Tory party's credentials. The hireling or Belfinterested ' canvasser will deny all this. But when he does, I tell you plainly that the dirtiest devil from the deepest hell could not utter a greater falsehood than is involved in such donial. — I am, your obedient servant, H. M. Kennedy, M.A. Vicar of Plumpton, Cumberland, July, 1885.