ELECTIONEERING STORIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2474, 9 March 1893, Page 3

ELECTIONEERING STORIES.

A lady who was working for Lord Curzon at the recent election tells a good story. She approached a farm laborer in the sweetest tone possible, with the words, " Yovi will vote for Lord Curzon, will you not V and met with the reply, " No, marm, I wont. Folks tell me Vs got a Bill in Parliament to make every man marry his wife's sister, and my wife's sister would make just the worst wife in our village. The Liberal canvassers, in the course of their peregrinations in Govan the other day, struck a house where they thought they were likely to secure a vote. On the wall hung a picture of the Pope, but they discovered at the back of it also a portrait of William of immortal memory. The woman of the house, noticing their wonderment at the catholicity of taste for art voluntarily explained— " I don't think you'll get my husband's vote, for he's an Orangeman, although lam a Catholic. He's one of the best men that ever lived except on the 12th of July, when he takes down the picture of the Pope and smashes it to pieces. Then 1 take down King Billy and pawn him, and buy a new Pope, and at the first pay he •' lifts ' King Billy, and both hang there again till the 12th of July." Sir H. M. Mersey-Thompson, the Union's candidate for the Handsworth Division, tells a good story of his electioneering experiences in Yorkshire when he was a Liberal candidate for one of the county constituencies. Among the electors was a man, who, as a wellknown poacher, was reputed to possess an extraordinary collection of gameensnaring implements, but who never allowed strangers the privilege of seeing them. Sir Henry and some of his reporters thought they might get a glimpse of the poacher's tools if they went to his house during his absence, ostensibly to canvass. The poacher, however, had a stalwart Yorkshire wife who acted aa an impregnable sentinel, and in her husband's absence allowed no one to enter the house. Finding their entrance thus baulked, the candidate and his friends informed the housewife that their business really waß to find which way her husband intended to vote. Addressing the candidate the woman replied, " Well, 1 heard him say as he had had more hares off your land, Sir Henry, than any man, and therefore he thought he could give you his vote in return."