TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9987, 17 March 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Beminiscences of Mr Mr Gladstone's Gladstone's first elecFirst tion for Newark in 1832, Election, to which we referred some little time ago, continue/fo occupy a prozninent. place in English papers. Ifc was thought that there were two survivors of the old "Scot and Lot" voters who sent Mr Gladstone to Parliament on that occasion, but it turns out that there* is only one, and he is Sir Edward Armstrong", father of Mr T. Armstrong, of ChrietchuroJi. Mr Ann« strong, senior, is a hale old gentleman of eighty - nine, whose recollections of what has einoe become a famous eleofcion campaign,, were full enough to furnish the Newark Advertiter recently with the materials for a very interesting article. One's first thought on reading it ia that modern elections are very mild affaire. We get interested, perhaps even excited over them, but compared with what happened fifty and sixty years ago they are very tame. When Mr Gladstone became a can* didate for Newark the town was split into rival camps of "Reds" and "Blues." There were rival bands, rival teas, rival dances, and rival free-and-easies at the taverns, which kept open house for weeks, white biasing tar-barrels and broken heads and windows added incident to the contest. Mr Gladstone's father was at that time a slave-owner, having, itr was said, sixteen stypa »t wa engaged in the

slave traffic, and the " Blues"—the LibetiU —made effective use of this fact against the young candidate, by parading in the processions a gang of boys, manacled and chained, and driven by an overseer with a many-thonged whip. The prejudice each, an exhibition roused against Mr Gladstone was not, however, deep enough to prevent him winuiug the seat. Mr Glmxstone himself has Cauvassiug a very vivid recollection of and the events connected with Bribery. his first campaign, which, as we mentioned the other day, he has since declared excited and en* grossed him more than anything in his subsequent political career. In a letter which he wrote to a correspondent who congratulated him on the fiftieth anniversary of ' his entrance into Parliament, Mr Gladstone gave a graphic description of the work entailed by an election cam* paign in the thirties. " A conte3t io those days was," he said, "very lively, We started on a canvass at eight o'clock ia the morning and worked at it for about nine hours, with a great crowd, bands and flags, and innumerable classes of wine aud * beer, all jumbled up together ; then a dinner of thirty or forty with speeches or songs until, say, ten o'clock; thea we always played a rubber of whist and about twelve or one o'clock I got to bed but not to sleep, for never in my life did I undergo any exoitement to be compared with it. My account of the day is faithful except that I have omitted a piiblichouse tour of speaking to " Red " clubs, with which I had to top lip after the dinner and before the whist." There was no Bribery and Oorrup. tion Act to frighten candidates in those days, and it is recorded that at this particular contest Sergeant 'Wilde, the Liberal candidate and Mr Gladstone's opponent, sent each of the householders of the borough a quarter of a pound of tea, which was then sold at 9d the ounce. Mr Armstrong, ' I as a hard-working member of Mr Gladstone's committee, declined the gift. Mr Gladstone seems to have recognised a certain i quality of independence in his erstwhile supporter, for when some years ago he sent a Christmas plum pudding to e&oh jof the surviving " Scot and Lot" voters, he 1 did not offer one to Mr Armstrong, who, h* said, he " knew would not eat it." It ia interesting to note that whereas Mr Gladstone's political opinions have undergone a radical change since his first eleotion, Mr Armstrong has been a staunch Conservative all through, and has taken a prominent part * on~that side in all elections in Newark. There was muoh that was A Link of interest in the Advtrwith User's interview with Mr Old Times. Armstrong, apart from his early connection with Mr • Gladstone. He was eleven years old when George 111. died, and reuiembere the events of his boyhood better than those of last year. He has heard a vivid acoount of Waterloo from an uncle who fought in - the battle, and can repeat to this day the minute and realistic description he so oftenheard of the meeting between Wellington and Blucher. The pressgang terrorised the Lincolnshire coast then, and any able-bodied men that could be seized i were carried off, quite regardless of ' whether they had families depending on them or not. Mr Armstrong's father, a Lincolnshire yeoman, was drawn for foreign service, and had to pay to 'pay £50 for a substitute. At one time there was great; alarm as to a possible invasion by a French force, and on one occasion, when a storm drove a number of vessels close to the land, the cry was raised, "TJie French have come." Before it could be ascertained, that the alarm wa9 unfounded, everybody who could leave the coast was off inland, wives and families paoked into waggons, which also contained all the "*' valuable portable belongings that could be ' collected in a hurry, and the cattle .and other live stock being driven along in front. In &£r Armstrong's young days drunken men were still being sentenced to twelve hours in the stocks, the spinning wheel was in every home, and winters were something like winters, and did not resemble degenerate summers as they do now-a-days. Then a snowstorm lasted a week, and the tracks were lost twelve feet deep, coaches had' to t.„ be dug out and dragged along by dozens o? ' ""• horses, and the unfortunate people who were obliged to travel paid a shilling a mile for being slowly frozen. Flour was 7s 6d per 141bs, salt 4s 6d, siigar 9d per lb, and other things proportionately costly. The good-old times were dear times, and for all our occasional longing for their return it is very doubtful if we should not find them very disagreeable. Pboressor Walters, an A American archaeologist, has Prehistoric lately made a remarkable Rabe. discovery of an ancient battlefield on the Arkansas river. A railway was being built through the Chootaw country, when the work- - men, while making some excavations, came upon tons of human bones ■ and large quantities of rude weapons. } of warfare, On Professor Walters inveeti-, - gating the find he discovered that a tract- of some thirty acres was literally underlaid with human remains, computed to repreeent . j at least 75,000 skeletons. Many of the skulls were pierced with darts or arrow- - heads, one containing no less than thirteen moss-agate arrow points* The remarkable .-' circumstance connected with the discovery was that the remains were buried under two distinofc strata formed in geo*. logical 'periods, and Professor Walters . t estimates from this that it is at least'" 20,000 years since the battle, of which the ' remains are the visible evidence, was fought: . ~; He has formed tbe theory tti&t the engage- ; - ment was one of a long series of encounters between that mysterious race, the moundbuilders of North America, and the Maya* ,_. the latter coming from Central and South _~-" America, and endeavouring to conquer the ,\ northern portion of the continent. Recant ' ; -i discoveries in Central America by another ;. American, Mr Gordon, show that the secret '''< .of the history of the Mayas is still pre- ,-,; served. It is known that the race w&e much older than the Aztecs, and that long before tbe days of the Montezumas the..' Mayas had nearly passed away. They were J--all but extinct when the Spanish exploited America. Mr Gordon tells us that there is a story of a great naturalist who was shown, near the spurs of the Andes, an aged • parrot. " The bird croaked a language that — none could understand, but which the ~ priests considered sacred. The traveller discovered that the bird had been brought from the rains of en empty city that lay deserted in the jungle, and was apparently ;. the sole repository of a language that) ■ had died out with a forgotten race of v ' men." The few relics of the Maya ". libraries, which were burnt by the ? Spanish, are written in a language which no man can read, but the characters are still discernible in carvings on the ruins of the Maya capital, Copan. That city hiMS 7 long been covered with, the forest growth of .-•'= centuries, but the remains of its , stone > ; < : buildinga extend over an area seven miles long and two miles broad. The temple, eight hundred feet square, is a relic of tin* ,-> known history, and its strange carving? are ■ •.';. believed to point to the worship of vice < •■:s having been Carried on. • ' ■ k'k *% M