The enterprise resolves itself into
one somewhat similar to the enterprise of a rich friend of mine who went
to a fancy-dress ball dressed up as a gentleman. Perhaps it means that
there is a practice of personating some individual voter. The canvasser
creeps to the house of his fellow-conspirator carrying a make-up in a
bag. He produces from it a pair of white moustaches and a single
eyeglass, which are sufficient to give the most common-place person a
startling resemblance to the Colonel at No. 80. Or he hurriedly affixes
to his friend that large nose and that bald head which are all that is
essential to an illusion of the presence of Professor Budger. I do not
undertake to unravel these knots. I can only say that when I was a
canvasser I was told by the little card, with every circumstance of
seriousness and authority, that I was not to persuade anybody to
personate a voter: and I can lay my hand upon my heart and affirm that I
never did.
The third injunction on the card was one which seemed to me, if
interpreted exactly and according to its words, to undermine the very
foundations of our politics. It told me that I must not "threaten a
voter with any consequence whatever.
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