and seventy-nine votes, and Mr. Wells, who
only scored four hundred and one. The
borough was absolutely deluged with
corrupt money. Mr. Wells, who had been
defeated in the first election in 1857, had
to pay nine hundred and seventy-three
pounds for the privilege of being twice
defeated and of once petitioning; but it
appears that this gentleman was not privy
to any illegal proceedings of his agents.
Major Edwards, whose agent returned his
expenses to the auditor as amounting to four
hundred and twenty-two pounds three
shillings and a penny, expended, in point of fact,
the comfortable little amount of two thousand
seven hundred and eighty-five pounds
and some odd shillings for the August
election alone, that being his first appearance
in the character of Jupiter to the Beverley
Danaë. For a beginner there was singularly
little embarrassment or hesitation in
Major Edwards's way of setting to work.
Mr. Cronhelm, the cashier and manager of
the candidate's business in Halifax, arrived
one day quite openly in Beverley. Before
his departure from home, some kind soul
had furnished this gentleman with two
thousand pounds, and of this he brought
five hundred pounds with him to Beverley.
Sharp and decisive, a man of business, and
a hater of shilly-shally, Mr. Cronhelm
went straight to the point. He had, it
appears, the advantage of an acquaintance
with one Mr. Champney, a leading
Beverley solicitor, and before commencing
operations sought that astute person's
advice. "Now, I must put a very plain
question to you," says Mr. Cronhelm
to his friend. " I am a stranger in Beverley, and
am ignorant of the inhabitants and of their
mode of proceeding, in the elections and
everything. Now will you tell me candidly,
as a friend, and as a friend of Sir Henry
Edwards, whether you think it possible for
Major Edwards to carry this election without
bribery?" The reply was not to be
mistaken, although Mr. Champney might
as well have said "no" at once. "I am
afraid not, I think not," was the form in
which he preferred to express his opinion
of the probability of honest voting in
Beverley. It was enough, however, for
Mr. Cronhelm. "Well," he said, "if that
is the case, I am prepared with money
power to any extent; will you put me in
communication with the gentleman who
really has the management of the bribery?"
It is scarcely necessary to add that the
individual in question, who happened to be
a cowkeeper, was promptly sent for, and
that Major Edwards's two thousand pounds
speedily irrigated the thirsty constituency.
The exact details of the expenditure could
not be arrived at, even by the insinuating
questions of the Commissioners. Actuated
by a wise discretion, and not without
suggestions from party managers in London,
the head bribers in Beverley carefully
destroyed all books, memoranda, or other
documents of a compromising nature, as
soon as it became evident that the Royal
Commission would issue. The two
thousand seven hundred and odd pounds which
we have mentioned as having been Major
Edwards's expenditure will no doubt appear
a very large sum; but even that amount is
but an incomplete total of the moneys
really expended, inasmuch as from the
autumn of '57 up to the general election of
1859 remittances of money were forwarded
regularly from Halifax to the Major's local
election agent, one Wreghitt, a linendraper,
in Beverley.

Mr. Wreghitt's accounts of the expenditure
of these moneys would have been
interesting, but in face of the expected
Commission, and acting under the same advice,
this political draper followed the example
of his brother bribers. In March of last
year he destroyed all the books and papers
relating to his bribery transactions, which
extended over a period of twelve years,
from the election in 1857 to 1869, and it
was only by searching and persevering
inquiry that the Commissioners were enabled
to trace out the course of action by which
Mr. Wreghitt succeeded in buying the
constituency of Beverley literally by wholesale.

There are, in and about Beverley, some
twelve hundred acres of land, valued at
over four thousand pounds a year, and
known as the Beverley pastures. The
management of these lands is, by act of
parliament, vested in a body of twelve
pasture-masters, who must be freemen of
the borough, and the electoral body by
whom they are chosen consists of freemen,
resident within the ancient limits of the
borough, and placed on what is called
the pasture-freemen's roll. In addition to the
patronage exercised by the pasture-masters,
they have the disposal, under the will of a
Mr. Robert Walker, of a fund producing
an annual income of about ninety pounds.
This money was left to be distributed
among such poor freemen, their widows
and children, "as may require the same by
reason of any losses they may have
sustained by death of their horses, sheep, or
pigs, or in order to enable them to purchase
stock, or carts, or other necessary things of
the like nature, or otherwise to help them