As I sat down the whole of that great audience—­it numbered more than 2000—­rose in their places shouting “We will! we will!” after which followed a scene of enthusiasm such as I had never seen before, emphasised by cries of “We are free Englishmen,” “Down with the baby-butchers,” “We will put you in, sir,” and so forth.

That meeting gave me my cue, and thenceforward, leaving almost every other topic on one side, I and my workers devoted ourselves to preaching the anti-vaccination doctrines.  We flooded the constituency with tracts headed “What Vaccination does,” “The Law of Useless Infanticide,” “The Vaccine Tyranny,” “Is Vaccination a Fraud?” and so forth, and with horrible pictures of calves stretched out by pulleys, gagged and blindfolded, with their under parts covered by vaccine vesicles.  Also we had photographs of children suffering from the effects of improper or unclean vaccination, which, by means of magic lantern slides, could be thrown life-sized on a screen; indeed, one or two such children themselves were taken round to meetings and their sores exhibited.

The effect of all this was wonderful, for I know of nothing capable of rousing honest but ignorant people to greater rage and enthusiasm than this anti-vaccination cry.  They believe it to be true, or, at least, seeing one or two cases in which it is true, and having never seen a case of smallpox, they suppose that the whole race is being poisoned by wicked doctors for their own gain.  Hence their fierce energy and heartfelt indignation.

Well, it carried me through.  The election was fought not with foils but with rapiers.  Against me were arrayed the entire wealth, rank, and fashion of the city, reinforced by Conservative speakers famous for their parliamentary eloquence, who were sent down to support Sir Thomas Colford.  Nor was this all:  when it was recognised that the fight would be a close one, an eloquent and leading member of the House was sent to intervene in person.  He came and addressed a vast meeting gathered in the biggest building of the city.  Seated among a crowd of workmen on a back bench I was one of his audience.  His speech was excellent, if somewhat too general and academic.  To the “A.V.” agitation, with a curious misapprehension of the state of the case, he devoted one paragraph only.  It ran something like this:—­

“I am told that our opponents, putting aside the great and general issues upon which I have had the honour to address you, attempt to gain support by entering upon a crusade—­to my mind a most pernicious crusade—­against the law of compulsory vaccination.  I am not concerned to defend that law, because practically in the mind of all reasonable men it stands beyond attack.  It is, I am told, suggested that the Act should be amended by freeing from the usual penalties any parent who chooses to advance a plea of conscientious objection against the vaccination of his children.  Such an argument seems to me too puerile, I had almost