The (almost really) Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

To the Editor of the “Oxford University Herald.”

Sir,—With your well-known impartiality, you will not, I trust, object to admit a Liberal communication to your columns. The proceedings at the recent election at Woodstock were so remarkable, and reflect so deep a discredit on the Conservative cause, that a sense of honour should compel even a Conservative paper to give publicity to them, if only as a warning to others of that misguided faction.

The following account appeared in the ‘Oxford Chronicle’ of Saturday last, and I am sure the eloquent writer will not object to my quoting it ‘in extenso’:—

“Having been present as a spectator at the Woodstock election during the whole of Tuesday, I should be glad if you would allow me the use of your columns to state one or two significant facts which may be interesting to the public. At the declaration of the result of the poll, the successful candidate, Mr. Barnett, endeavoured in vain to address the crowd. Not a word was audible amidst the hootings and execrations which greeted him. The defeated candidate, Mr. Brodrick, was received with enthusiastic cheering, and listened to in perfect silence. The successful candidate had to be escorted at every appearance in public by twenty or thirty policemen, and even then seemed hardly secure from personal violence. His unsuccessful rival walked without a single person attending him through the middle of the cheering crowd. Throughout the whole time I did not hear one shout for Barnett or one groan for Brodrick. In what sense, Sir, may I ask, is Mr. Barnett to be considered to ‘represent Woodstock?’”

Facts like these, Sir, speak for themselves: but, with your permission, I will offer a few remarks ‘to point the moral and adorn the tale.’ The real origin of the scandal, the true cause of the cowardly conduct of the Conservative majority is not far to seek. What but ducal influence could have so far degraded the spirit of true-born Britons, and banished the cabbage-stalks and dead kittens, the natural weapons of freemen? But enough on this painful theme: let us turn to the account of the actual proceedings.

We are told, Sir, that the successful candidate, Mr. Barnett, “attempted in vain to address the crowid. Not a word was audible amidst the hootings and execrations which greeted him.” I cannot, Sir, tell you in words how refreshing to my ears were those manly voices! Though Tory tricks, aristocratic art, and the brute force of numerical superiority, had turned the day against that noble and enlightened minority, I seemed to hear in those voices the knell of a dying monster, the crashing downfall of the rotten fabric of Conservatism!

Mark, however, the contrast when the defeated candidate, Mr Brodrick, comes forward. He “was received with enthusiastic cheering, and listened to in perfect silence.” I do not, of course, suppose that the Conservative electors were hypocrites enough to join in the enthusiastic cheering; such depths of baseness have not yet, let us hope, been reached, even in degenerate Woodstock. But that he should be “listened to in perfect silence”! Sir, my blood boils within me at the thought. What! That a set of electors, with lungs in their bodies and breath in their lungs, should listen to a political opponent “in perfect silence”! It is too mean, too pitiful for belief: “execrations,” possibly, their vocabulary may have been deficient in, (though even these they might have picked up, with attention, from their Liberal brethren), but surely they might have hooted!

But we have not yet nearly reached the depths of this abyss of infamy. The successful candidate, we are told, “had to be escorted at every appearance in public by twenty or thirty policemen, and even then seemed hardly secure from personal violence.” This is as it should be: else what are fists meant for in ‘Merrie Englande’? Arguments may fail to convince the Conservative blockheads; even hootings and execrations may be unheeded by such crass intellects as theirs: but the ‘one, two,’ delivered from the shoulder, is a mode of reasoning that the dullest cannot ignore—it is a thick skull indeed that is insensible to a brickbat!

And now, Sir, for the contrast—Look on this picture, and on this. “His unsuccessful rival walked without a single person attending him through the middle of the cheering crowd.” Sir, the feats of Van Amburgh pale before this unprecedented display of heroism. His experience of the tender mercies of the gallant Liberal electors towards the Conservative candidate had doubtless prepared him for very different conduct: he felt that he was courting danger—that from that hostile crowd he could scarcely expect to emerge without a torn coat, a black eye or two, and possibly a broken head. And for the first few yards of his perilous march no doubt he moved on with beating heart, with fists clenched, and elbows squared ready for the combat. But he little knew the cowards among whom he went! Not a man dared to lay a finger on him: with bowed heads and bated breath the poltroons sneaked away wherever his manly form was seen. If the indignation of his soul could have found vent in words, might he not in some such sort as this have apostrophised those lily-livered minions?—

“Conservative cravens, where are ye? Brodrick, the son of Brodrick, dares you to the fray. Have ye voices, only to vote with—and are political fights to be waged only in the polling-booth? What is demonstration to a dig in the ribs? Is there any reasoning like rotten eggs? What, not one shout for Barnett? Not one groan for Brodrick! And you call yourselves Englishmen? O tempora, O mores!”

The writer asks, in conclusion, “in what sense is Mr. Barnett to be considered to represent Woodstock?” Let Oxford, Liberal Oxford, make reply. So long as Woodstock is degraded by a voiceless, heartless, Conservative majority, who can neither hoot, pelt, nor even execrate their foes, we must with shame confess that Mr. Barnett only too truly represents them. But if the noble band of Liberals, whose prowess I have here recorded, should ever become the majority—then indeed, to represent so fine a phase of political enthusiasm, no Barnett, no Brodrick, may we not add no English gentleman whatever, can be found fully and really competent!

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,