corner, it transpired that it was 50 acres, and growing peas. For
comparison there is a story of a Devonshire farmer who said he had
been very busy one winter making four fields into one. "Then you've
got a big field," said a friend. "Yes," was the reply; "it's just four
acres."

When the farm labourer was enfranchised in 1885 he became an important
member of the electorate. Candidates and canvassers alike had a much
more strenuous time than ever before, the former were constrained to
hold meetings in every village, and the latter were obliged to visit
nearly every cottage. The late Sir Richard Temple after a
distinguished career in India, became Conservative candidate for our
division. The doctrine of "three acres and a cow," in opposition to
every tenet of rural economy, as well as the division of the land
among the labourers, were at the time paraded by theorists and paid
agitators, as bribes to purchase the votes of the new electors, and as
ensuring the salvation of the rural population, which was then
beginning to suffer from unemployment, resulting from the destruction
of corn-growing by foreign competition.

The more credulous of the labourers were excited and unsettled by the
alluring prospect of independence thus held out to them, and it was
reported that some went so far as to survey the fields around their
villages and select the plots they proposed to cultivate, and that
others took baskets to the poll in which to bring home the
all-powerful magic of the mysterious vote! Among the new voters in a
neighbouring village, a man of very decided views found it puzzling to
decide by which candidate they were most nearly represented, and,
determined to make no mistake at the poll, he consulted a
fellow-labourer, inquiring: "Which way be the big uns a-going, because