Through the anxious year of 1868 Mr. Welwyn-Baker sat firm as a
rock; an endeavour to unseat him ended amid contemptuous laughter.
In 1874 the high-tide of Toryism caused only a slight increase of
congratulatory gurgling in the Polterham backwater; the triumphant
party hardly cared to notice that a Liberal candidate had scored an
unprecedented proportion of votes. Welwyn-Baker sat on, stolidly
oblivious of the change that was affecting his constituency, denying
indeed the possibility of mutation in human things. Yet even now the
Literary Institute was passing into the hands of people who aimed at
making it something more than a place where retired tradesmen could
play draughts and doze over _Good Words_; already had offensive
volumes found harbourage on the shelves, and revolutionary
periodicals been introduced into the reading-room. From time to time
the _Mercury_ uttered a note of warning, of protest, but with no
echo from the respectable middle-class abodes where Polterham
Conservatism dozed in self-satisfaction. It needed another five
years of Liberal activity throughout the borough to awaken the good
people whose influence had seemed unassailable, and to set them
uttering sleepy snorts of indignation But the _Mercury_ had a new
editor, a man who was determined to gain journalistic credit by
making a good fight in a desperate cause.
Pages:
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61