THE DIARY OF A CANDIDATE; OR, THE WOES OF MR WOBBLE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LV, Issue 2043, 28 October 1893, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE DIARY OF A CANDIDATE; OR, THE WOES OF MR WOBBLE.

(‘ SCRUTATOR ’ IN THE N.Z. MAIL.)

Jonesville, Monday. What a worry this electioneering is to bo sure. After having been Mayor of Jonesville for three years, after being a member of precious nearly every institution in the place, ono would have thought that i should have been returned unopposed, but no, Jones is out, and Brown is out, and they evidently intend to make things very warm for mo with the electors. However, it’s no use grizzling over the opposition I’ve got—the thing to be done is to jot down the events of each day in my diary. Lot me sue. What have I done to-day i After breakfast I took a walk up town, and dropped into the blacksmith’s. He’s a great Single-taxor, but I was ready for him, having ‘mugged up’ Henry George for some time past, and road O’Regan’s speeches through and through. Agreed with the blacksmith that there ‘ was a great deal more m this Single Tax theory than most people were aware of,’ and hugely delighted him by saying that 1 had noticed that ‘ Single-taxers ’ were, as a rule, men of an unusually high order of intelligence.’ The blacksmith was highly pleased at this, and I think I made a friend of him. Outside his shop, however, I met old McMerino, the squatter, who * bailed me up,’ to use his own expression, about the land question. Had to go alow with McMerino, who reads the Christchurch Press regularly, and looks upon Seddon as the direct descendant of Satan, and so put the matter very guardedly by saying that although I would strongly object to any policy of spoliation, any interference with existing properties; yet, at the same time, I would oppose any more large areas of land being acquired by speculators. McMerino seemed satisfied, as he has about 50,000 acres of the finest land in the Province, and doesn’t want any more. He told his friend, Sliprail, as the pair sat on the fence of the saleyards, that ‘Wobble wasn’t so bad as he had thought—has some very sensible views on the land question—none of that d d Single-tax tommy-rot about him, judging by what he has just told me.’ Unfortunately the blacksmith, who had been standing by, heard the last words, and now seams to doubt the sincerity of what I had told him. Awkward this—must be careful in future, for the blacksmith is a big man in the Knights of Labour, and can control a lot of vot es. Tuesday Night. This afternoon I called on Mrs Quiverfull, the local secretary of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and agreed . with her that a marble statue of Sir John Hall should be erected in the grounds of the Parliamentary buildings. Assured her positively that there was no truth in the report that I had stopped at the same hotel m Wellington as Mr H. S. Fish. On the contrary, I made it clear to her that I looked upon Mr Fish as a mail ; who ought not to he in the House — ‘a i mere mouth-piece of the accursed drink 1 traffic, madam, I assure you.’ Promised to take a hundred copies a week of the Prohibitionist, and to subscribe to the ■ fund for supplying Chinamen with tracts, 1 and evidently made a very good irapres- 1 sion on the lady. Unfortunately, just as 1 was about to leave, one of her eight children entered i I the room and frantically embraced mo ■ round my new light summer pants—ho had been consuming treacle and bread—principally treacle—and he left two long treacly traces, like the marks of a tarry , ■ rope, around my ‘breeks.’ I let out. 1 something that must have sounded like- | a ‘ d a 1 far this evening one of the ; little Quivorfulls came round tamy house ’ with a bundle of tracts headed, ‘ Bias- | phomer. Stop in Time on thy-Hellhound ’! Path,’ and the child left a message that her ‘ma wished Mr SVobble to bo sure and read the tracts right through.’ Felt that I must have left a bad impression after all on Mrs Quiveffull, so went down to the pub for a drink and a , hob-nob with O’Henessey, an old friend,, and one of my staunchest supporters. j He’s rather an expensive acquaintance, , is O'Henessey just now, as he evidently ' expects me to spend ; a lot of money ‘ for | the good of the house,’ and promises he ( will ‘ make- [it” all right ’ on the election j day. Meanwhile he gave me some very j bad whisky out of a white-labelled Usher . bottle, but.l thought it injudicious to ro- . mark that I had seen his wife filling up the, bottle out of a two-gallon, jar in the . bar, and had heard her say that ‘ this , cheap stuff goes down fine with the bush- ' men, Jim.’ Wanted to talk to O'Hennessey in his private parlour, but he in-' ■ sisteo upon me going into the big bar. , ‘Looks better,’ ho said, ‘‘the men will say you’re ‘stuck-up’ if you don’t mix with them.’ ‘Mixed with them’ therefore,’ and 1 spent nearly two times in shouting. Got j on all right with them except one old fellow, who growled out 1 was ‘aadjeo- 1 lived toff’ because I wouldn’t have a t long beer with him, after I had had i tlnee whiskys. When home, slept < badly, and dreamt I saw Mrs Quiveriuil 1 on the platform at one of my opponents’ '• ’mootings. :

Wednesday Night. Got up with a bad headache. Must have been that wretched whisky. Shall ask O’Hennessy to let me have a private bottle in future. Jones, one of my opponents, is a smart man, so. I see by this I morning’s Settlers' Sentinel, He’s got the Sentinel, the rag that isn’t on my side, to re-print an account of the laying of the foundation stone of the new Town Hall. On that occasion Jones nude a speech in > which he sketched the early history of the place, and made out that if it had ‘ not been for his efforts Jonesville would still be a combination' of deseft and > .swamp. The Sentinel, I notice, has a 1 back-handed slap at me in a sentence reI ferring to ‘comparative newcomers asI sinning that the temporary occupation of 1 a position of municipal distinction war--1 rants citizens of manifest political in- ■ capacity putting themselves forward as 1 candidates for such an intelligent and in- • telleotual constituency as Jonesville electorate.’ * Impudence never went further,’ concluded the article. I’ll bo , even with the Sentinel people fur this. , They only got the borough advertising last year on niy casting vote, and I’ll take good care it goes to the Herald office,in future. The Herald, which is a very re spectable paper, I may mention, supports my candidature. Brown is working hard to get the Catholic vote. That’s certain, but there are not many Catholics in the district, and as the Presbyterians and Wesleyans are very strong, I wrote to the iHerald editor to day, asking the editor to make it clear to the electors Mr Wobble the independent candidate, will, wo are glad to hear, tolerate no such disastrous disruption of our glorious system of free, secular, and compulsory education, as is now being advocated by a noisy but insignificant section of the community.’ I sketched out an article for the Herald, but as the editor is his own compositor—with the aid of his two boys—and has to report the local meetings, and keep his own books, and turn the handle of the machine, and take the copies round the township when the ‘ rag ’ is out for the week, he is rather a busy man just now, so I shall go down to-morrow and see that he has got the thing all right. Thursday Night. The Herald article is out, and has created some sensation. Two big Irishmen came round to see me in an awful rage, but I sweetened ’em "by reminding them that I had subscribed to the Home Rule Fund, and taken the, chair at John Grillem’s meeting. I think they’ll be all right, though I noticed they looked suspicious when McSnuffle, the local draper, and secretary of the Orange lodge called and I had to leave them to interview him in the hall. McSnuffle is delighted with the education manifesto and I think I’ve secured him and bis lot. Had rather a warm time of it this afternoon with the Prohibitionist deputation, headed by Longfellow Jones, 'a travelling temperance lecturer, now in, the district. He left me a list of twenty-two questions which 1 Have to answer’ before’ they decide as to whom they will support; Must be very careful, for O’Henneasey swears-he ‘ ain’t agoin’ to stand any ’art - and’arf ’ in the matter; and there’s no gainsaying the fact that ho does control ; a lot of votes at election times.

The'deputation wanted to know if it were true that I had an interest in the Jonesville brewery (that’s a yarn set afloat by that accursed Sentinel), and that I am an advocate of compensation. Having a mortgage on the brewery, I was rather in a corner, but got out of the difficulty by assuring the deputation-that 1 hsi no interest in the brewery, (didn’t toll thern I had a mortgage on it). As to compensation, that was a bit stiff, seeing how I stand with O’Hon nessey. However, I declared strongly I against compensation, said,it was a monstrous thing, couldn’t hear of it, and so on. Must go down-to the pub to-night before the landlord hoars of this, and gets his back up. Shall tell him it’s otdy an election promise, and say that if 1 get into Parliament I can easily go into the wrong lobby—of course, by mistake—when the question comes on. Jones had a good meeting to-night. Hall packed, and I didn’t like the way the people cheered him when he said ‘ be was not one of those men who went about agreeing with every body and touting for votes.’ (A Voice.-— 1 That’s up against your duck house. Wobble.’)' 11 was rather mean of him, too,; to, insinuate that I hid only gone into the Borough Council m order to get a road made up to my .house. However, I’ll piy him out for that. When.my meeting comes on I’ll remind the, people how. Jones induced the ratepayers to have the township lit with some patent oilgas (in which he had an interest), and how 1 tbe'-jhiug was a ghastly 1 failure, the pipes having to fco takenup, and three children being nearly burnt to death through one of the lamps’ bursting when a bmi scramble was going on at the Town Hall. That’ll fix him. , ’ Friday Night.

More deputations to-day. The secretary of the Jonesville brass band cdled for a subscription Offered lam a guinea. He laughed, and said, ‘ Come, Mr Wobble, this ’ wm/'t do. , Why, Mr Jones has put his name for three guineas, and Mr Brown for five. Surely you are not going to let them beat you.’ Subscribed ten pounds on condition that the bandmaster composes a ‘ Wobble Waltz,’ and plays it. outside the hall on the oiubt of my meeting. He had no sooner got

outside the door when two parsons arrived for subscriptions to their Churc i building funds. The were followed by the captain of the local cricket club, who remarked in the course of conversation that the club owed O’Henessey LlO for the supper given to the Bushtown team on their last visit to Jonesville, and that O'Henessey had suggested that * Mr Wobble would be only too glad to help the club out of their troubles.’ Confound O’Hennessey —he’s determined to make me pay stilly tor his support. The footballers came next, and got a couple of guineas subscription, having thought that I should be pleased to hear that I had just been elected a vice-president of the club ! So I was, for 1 know there are a lot of footballers about the place, but when next day I beard that Jones and Brown had also been elected vice-presidents, I felt rather annoyed, and it certainly was un pleasant, when going down town afterwards, 1 saw the football club secretary and the cricket club captain hobnobbing outside the bank, and hoard them discussing the interesting question as to ‘ which was the biggest mug of the three.’ The three meant myself and Jones and Brown.

- Hard at work all day preparing for my 1 meeting to-morrow night. Think it' ought to be a success. Have read over 1 the speeches of Stout, and Seddon, and Rolleston, and the rival manifestoes of the Prohibitionists and the Licensed Victuallers’Association. Also have got a few good local jokes off by heart. O’Hehnessey has arranged to have a lot of men at the back—at ten bob each—to cheer at the right moment, and two of the football forwards have been squared by my son Jack to ‘chuck out’ anybody who persists in any unsoemingly interruptions, A most annoying thing occurred today. Mrs Wobble had carefully worked up a Ladies' Committee in my interest, and the first meeting was held this afternoon, at the Church Schoolroom. After I had addressed the meeting myself, Miss Corkscrew, an elderly spinster of great local reputation as a speaker, and who occupied the chair, spoke for some time. Every thing was going on all right. Miss Corkscrew was expounding the rights and duties of women, and the ladies all seemed interested, whilst I sat on the platform and looked as mild and proper aS possible, when all at once there was a wild shriek from a lady in the audience, then another, followed by the most piercing screams from all parts of the building. The ladies jumped.up on their chairs; or on to the platform, others rushed for the door —the room was a scene of the wildest excitement. What had happened to create all this hullabaloo ? Simply this : Tommy, my youngest boy, who is a ‘ nipper ’ of most mischievous tendencies, had heard me say one night, merely in a jocular way, that ‘ I’d just like to see a cage full of mice let loose in a woman’s political meeting,’ and that ‘ I’d wager it would soon knock all the politics out of their heads.’ The young rascal, it appears, had taken me at my word, and had captured some dozen or so of lively mice; taken them into the room in a cage wrapped up in paper, and when the meeting was in full swing, and Miss Corkscrew in the middle of her speech, he had pulled a string, opened the cage door, and let loose the mice The meeting broke upin the utmost confusion, and to add to my disgust, that wretched Tommy, whom I had seized by the collar and soundly cuffed, sobbed out in the hearing of all the women, * ’Taint my fault, pa, didn’t you tell me to do it;’ Miss Corkscrew was specially furious, and refused to hear any explanation. She sailed out of the room in high disdain. I heard her threaten to dome to my meeting and show mo up. ‘as one who had deliberately inaUl od the women of the colony.’ 1 begin to feel rather anxfous about that meeting, Saturday Night. It is all : over—both my ’meeting jinii my candidature. No more political contests’ for me. Brown and Jones can tight the matter'outHow—l shan’t interfere. There were a lot of people in town all dav, and when I went downtown—and called iii at 0 Hennessey’s—l seemed to bo very popular. Had a’chat with O’Henessey, and -it was astonishing what a lot of men ‘ rolled up ’ at the bar when O’Henessey said, ‘ It’s my turn now,’ and shouted for the crowd. Still, I should have hardly thought there were 40 drinks served, yet that 'is what O’Hennessey said there were, and I had to pay for that number. This electioneering is becoming rather expensive. Tho meeting was to begin at 8 sharp, so went down to the hall about halt-past seven.' ’ The band were there playing what was supposed to bo the ‘ Wobble Waltz.’ It was a dismal production, and certainly not north LXO, The crowd evidently don’t appreciate it, for one fellow cried, ‘ Out it short, Chips,’ (the bandmaster is the local carpenter), and tip us something lively—“ Tar-rar booin-der-ay,” ’ which tho band did, just as tho members;of the local branch of the W.C.T.U. went into the hall, and 1 distinctly hearJ Mrs Quiverfuil remark, ‘ Surely Mr Wobble could have got tho band to play something better than that—a low ballet tune, my dear.’ And then, for Chips to rush up to mo for ‘beer money’ just as I was talking to Longfellow Jones, the travelling temperance lecturer, was most unwise. ‘So like a band.’

The meeting, ah, the meeting—howcan I write of it? To think that I, William Wobble, Esq., J.P., thrice Mayor of Jonesville, should bo hissed,

should be howled at, should be pelted—at the end—with eggs of umnistakeable age and very indifferent odour, is dreadful, yet that is precisely what happened. The interruptions were so many that 1 had to cut the speech short. O'Henessey's men, -who were to keen order, had evidently fortified themselves too freely with the ‘ Bushman’s ’ Brand—at my expense—and made more noise than anyone else, and everything went wrong But when the.questions came on matters became worse. Having declared myself on the 'education question,. the secretary of the Orange Lodge and an Irish gentleman who was nut an Orangeman, got up, and each accused me of having deceived him ; the blacksmith' insisted upon shouting out * land grabber -’ when I said that I could not altogether agree with the Single Taxers, and as a climax Mrs Quiyertull and Miss Corkscrew both ascended the platform and said that they considered my moral character was not such as they looked for in a candidate, and they must therefore recommend the people not to vote for me. This settled it The ladies carded the meeting with them, and after a vote, of confidence had been moved and seconded, an amendment of thanks only was carried by a largo majority.. Tho ladies having then left, egg and Hour throwing was indulged ; in, and several. Windows were broken, for which, of course, 1 shall ’have to pay. I have thought the matter over, and have decided to throw up the fight once and for alii Tlie 'Jbnesville people are a lot of ungrateful hounds, and I wish Jones and Brown joy with them;- And now to write a letter to the editor of the Herald , announcing -that I,have relinquished my candidature, and then to bed.

EXTRACTS FROM THE JONESVILLB PRESS. (From the Janesville Herald, Monday). —Our readers will notice with the deepest regret that Mr William Wobble, the Independent candidate, has decided to retire from the contest. . The vile scurrilities hurled against him by our local contemporary and the abominable behaviour of the larrikin readers of that ‘rag ’ at the meeting on Saturday night have so dis gusted Mr Wobble that he has come to the conclusion which we have recorded above. Another instance of an honourable, intelligent man, of high commercial and social position, being driven out of politics by the disgraceful! Billingsgate of 'a debauched arid degraded, press and of those who support it. : (From the,Bettlers’ Sentinel.) The effect of our articles on the impudent and ridiculous candidature of the so-called 1 independent candidate,’ Mr Facing-Both-Ways Wobble, has been such as to drive that bumptious person out of the field of politics, into which he never should have entered. Day after day and week after week we mercilessly and scathingly exposed his political incapacity and total lack of those qualities for which wo look in onewho aspires to to honour of representing so large,' so intelligent, so important a constituency as Jonesville, and the overwhelming majority by which the amendment was carried on Saturday .night proved conclusively that the public have taken our advice to heart/and have decided agaiinsfc'Mr Wobble. We are sorry for Mr Wpbblc, for we feel that had it not bairn for the servile adulation’of his wretched tool, the-so-called ‘journalist’ who edits that wretched print, the Herald, ho wou'd net have so long persisted in his oarididature, and have thus exposed himself to ridicule and to inevitable disappointment and fai’ure which has overtaken him. v