great majority of the assemblage. After the nomination, Mr. Godson, M.P., addressed a crowd from a window of the hotel. He denounced all the League deputation as paid to agitate the free-trade question. He heaped slanders upon the manufacturers of the north of England, and declared that in the best of times the cotton spinners and millowners had never paid wages sufficient to buy good wheaten bread for their workmen. He did not show how this, if it were true, could justify a law to make bread dear, whilst there was no law to raise the wages of the workmen.
On Thursday, the election terminated in the return of the nominee of the old castle influence. " No one expected anything else," said the Morning Chronicle, "and there is, consequently, no disappointment experienced. The League came here merely to disseminate the principles of free trade, and not to win the election. That they knew they could not do, but they also well know that had they the ballot they would have won. There is not a man, woman, or child in Dudley, having arrived at the use of reason, and uninfluenced by the terror of their superiors, who would not vote for cheap bread, and plenty of it. At present, however, the greater part of the people have no will, and were obliged to vote as they were compelled."
FINAL CLOSE OF THE POLL:—
| Mr. Rawson | 175 |
| Mr. Benbow | 388 |
| ——— | |
| Monopolist majority | 213 |
Amongst the few who had been candidates—not so much for the "honour," such as it is—an honour shared by such men as Sibthorp and Ferrand—of securing for themselves a seat in parliament, as for the opportunity of making emphatic declarations of principle, and of paving the way
