BACK-STAIRS INFLUENCE.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 333, 25 April 1885, Page 18

BACK -STAIRS INFLUENCE.

Back-stairs influence in politics and court intrigues has long been a typical phrase, as general as the thing is universal. People who slip in and out unseen, who pull the hidden wires and make the puppets dance to their will, who lay out the ground in twists and turns, to which they alone have the clue, then lead by the nose those who see only one straight line, and fancy that they keep to it — these people have been in existence ever since the beginning. No page of history would be truly written which should leave out of the record the hidden action of this wire-puller, the misleading voice of that ventriloquist, the step and the hand of him who came up the back stairs and undid in the night the work of the day. What history does in great things, society repeats in small, and private life in smaller still ; and the back stairs which lead to a king's chamber have their analogues in the secret influences which gain a post for one and an invitation for another, .as in the unacknowledged friendships, intimacies, and relations which obtain in certain houses where there is a concealed life as well as an open history, an underground surrent as well as a surface flow. No one will ever know how that handsome lad obtained his appointment in the Civil Service. He had not a friend nor an acquaintance among the authorities, yet he got his desire over the heads of many who seemed to have better chances and stronger claims, and who suddenly found themselves distanced by the young fellow who dropped from the clouds over their heads. How that was done was a marvel at the time, and has remained a mystery ever since ; but it was by a bit of secret influence which went through many stages before it reached the final issue. And how came that coveted invitation ? That also was by agencies hidden and unknown—a friend who went up the back stairs to the room where the cards were beingwritten, and whispered that one name — just that one ! — with the result desired. Sometimes a man takes this undesignated place, and is the jackal to the lion. All sorts of queer transactions go on under the manipulation of this ame dumnee — this Jidns achates of a base kind. From heavy I O U's and ruinous post obits given to the money-lenders unknown to the authorities, to perilous letters to fair women carried by hand delivered by stealth ; from political secrets wormed oiit of One who Knows for the use of an opponent whose pay he receives, to private gossip coaxed from a fluent confidant to serve the turn of a disappointed lovor, a discarded admirer, or an unfriendly rival; from the hood- winking of an intending purchaser to the clever mystification of a self-constituted cross examiner, this man of the back-stairs is the willing agent. No young spendthrift — no fast° liver — can do without him ; and he is as integral to the situation of debt and dishonour as is vulture to the carcase. "When the constable has been outrun and discretion has been violated, then he comes stealing up the backstairs with his remedies and disguises, which tide over the bad moment with more or less success, and maybe float the leaking ship for yet a little spell longer. Doctors and lawyers are famous mediums or back-stairs influence ; indeed they are in themselves that influence. And who knows what private influence is not brought to bear on the lawyer who, in his turn, secretly influences the testator ? How many wills have been made which embodied a whisper, gave force to suggestion, crystallised a lilting, fulfilled a promise, paid off a grudge, avenged an affront — none of which affected him who willed, but only him who influenced ! Are we children to think that every man's last will and testament represents his own unbiassed mind ? Does it not rather give effect to the sentiments and feelings of the family lawyer — at least in those clauses which favour A. or cold-shoulder B. ? The family lawyer, like the family doctor, steals up the back-stairs unseen of the household at large ; and the thing he has undertaken to do is done in tke silence and secrecy of that little room where no one knows what passes in the dark. Back-stairs influence again floats many a commercial scheme that will not hold water when put to it. No matter if the shareholders lose all they possess ; the promoters gain — the Board has its guineas for sitting on the addled eggs ; the secretary has his salary ; the the lawyer his fees; there are champagne luncheons and " free drinks" all round; and the staff has a good time generally, till the | bubble hursts and the Bankruptcy Court does the rest. Back-stairs influence too pushes on many a parliamentary bill, and things which are said to express the will of the people express nothing but the self-interest of a few unseen wire-pullers, who go up and down the back-stairs of influential members and engage their votes in the way desired. The backstairs influence of the boudoir again, impresses and converts in the editor's office and at the critic's desk. No man alive can trace those subtle ramifications — can count the airy footsteps which steal up and down those private stairs — can trace the line where or the moment when. But it exists ! as the back-stairs influence exists all through.