" With dissolution of
Parliament m view, not a day should be lost in establishing this
centre of intellectual life for right-thinking inhabitants. It was a
strange thing, a very strange thing indeed, that interlopers should
have been permitted to oust the wealth and reputability of Polterham
from an Institute which ought to have been one of the bulwarks of
Conservatism. Laxity in the original constitution, and a spirit of
supine confidence, had led to this sad result. It seemed impossible
that Polterham could ever fall from its honourable position among
the Conservative strongholds of the country; but the times were
corrupt, a revolutionary miasma was spreading to every corner of the
land. Polterham must no longer repose in the security of conscious
virtue, for if it _did_ happen that, at the coming election, the
unprincipled multitude even came near to achieving a triumph, oh
what a fall were there!
Thus spoke the _Mercury_. And in the same week Mr. Mumbray's vacant
house was secured by a provisional committee on behalf of the
Polterham Constitutional Literary Society.
The fine old crusted party had some reason for their alarm. Since
Polterham was a borough it had returned a Tory Member as a matter of
course. Political organization was quite unknown to the supporters
of Mr. Welwyn-Baker; such trouble had never seemed necessary.
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