Phineas Redux

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL.

  There was another matter of public interest going on at this timewhich created a great excitement. And this, too, added to theimportance of Phineas Finn, though Phineas was not the hero of thepiece. Mr. Browborough, the late member for Tankerville, was triedfor bribery. It will be remembered that when Phineas contested theborough in the autumn, this gentleman was returned. He was afterwardsunseated, as the result of a petition before the judge, and Phineaswas declared to be the true member. The judge who had so decided hadreported to the Speaker that further inquiry before a commission intothe practices of the late and former elections at Tankerville wouldbe expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of Januaryand February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, andmany who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, beingnew brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough,whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted.That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny'sgreat bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling aboutMr. Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member ofParliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, whowanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom aseat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It couldnot be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slowstep in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one ofthe upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side ofthe House, that such a man should really be punished. When the newlaws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of membersrevolted from the cruelty,--the hearts even of members on the otherside of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battleshould of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusationmight then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practiceimputed. It had been known to all the world,--known as a thing thatwas a matter of course,--that at every election Mr. Browborough hadbought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buyingit,--a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no naturalfollowing in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics,entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such aone recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with moneyin his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money inhis hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it--like a gentleman.Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put downbribery with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against briberywith more fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, asAttorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. Hewas now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Greshamhad at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to thewoolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecution of Mr.Browborough. But it was observed by many that the job was not much tohis taste. The House had been very hot against bribery,--and certainmembers of the existing Government, when the late Bill had beenpassed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignationagainst the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slightundercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of whichonly they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House wasbound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices atelections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of theHouse, as individuals, knew very well what had taken place at theirown elections, and were aware of the cheques which they had drawn.Public-houses had been kept open as a matter of course, and nowhereperhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the boroughfor which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter ofindividual prosecution against one whom they had all known, andwho, as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive,against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, manythought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of puttingold Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made secondnature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Membersof Parliament generally. The recommendation for this prosecution wasmade to the House when Mr. Daubeny was in the first agonies of hisgreat Bill, and he at once resolved to ignore the matter altogether,at any rate for the present. If he was to be driven out of powerthere could be no reason why his Attorney-General should prosecutehis own ally and follower,--a poor, faithful creature, who had neverin his life voted against his party, and who had always been willingto accept as his natural leader any one whom his party might select.But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough mustcertainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,--for there could be nofinal neglecting of the Commissioners' report,--it would be betterthat he should be dealt with by natural friends than by naturalenemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry thematter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take placeat the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir GregoryGrogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and heundertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends,and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there wouldbe the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. Hislawyers thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on,and were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay wouldbe extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would beunconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been justas easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that thebest chance of acquittal lay in postponement.

  And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was toappear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could beno doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr.Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty.When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared inthe newspapers,--when first the facts of this and other elections atTankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common ithad been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,--how clearly the knowledgeof the corruption had been brought home to himself,--there had fora short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three Londonpapers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salientpoints of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a convictionthat now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But thishad died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even onthe part of the most virtuous of the public press, had become nomore than lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculedthe Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogetheran absurdity. The People's Banner, setting at defiance with anadmirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners'report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence againstMr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up bythe malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. Butmen who knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr.Quintus Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these wereboth unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believedto be quite safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of hisprosecutors,--certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent inaffairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a manmay not look over a hedge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, andhad repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it allwas forthcoming,--had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir GregoryGrogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might becondoned.

  Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within thelast two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville.The Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicalsremembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seatagain on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might havebeen returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county theprosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentarycareer had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respectin the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean onthe day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the headverger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a
reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful asa martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney,everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open hiscase, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browboroughwas about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr.Baron Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his youngerdays, and who knew well how things were done. We are all aware howimpassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused ofcrimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all aremen, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, couldnot but have thought of the old days.

  It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should beconducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidenceshould be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over fromTankerville,--miners, colliers, and the like,--having a very goodturn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must beexamined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as whenit was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweepingCommissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of SirGregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphereof our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint ofcorruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on thesubject, and a verdict had gone forth that there should be no morebribery at elections. At the last election at Tankerville, and, as hefeared, at some former elections, there had been manifest bribery. Itwould be for the jury to decide whether Mr. Browborough himself hadbeen so connected with the acts of his agents as to be himself withinthe reach of the law. If it were found that he had brought himselfwithin the reach of the law, the jury would no doubt say so, and insuch case would do great service to the cause of purity; but if Mr.Browborough had not been personally cognisant of what his agentshad done, then the jury would be bound to acquit him. A man was notnecessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because briberyhad been committed, even though the bribery so committed had beensufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he wouldotherwise have enjoyed. Nothing could be clearer than the manner inwhich Sir Gregory explained it all to the jury; nothing more eloquentthan his denunciations against bribery in general; nothing more mildthan his allegations against Mr. Browborough individually.

  In regard to the evidence Sir Gregory, with his two assistants, wentthrough his work manfully. The evidence was given,--not to the samelength as at Tankerville before the Commissioners,--but really tothe same effect. But yet the record of the evidence as given in thenewspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville therehad been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which hadcommunicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavourof the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr.Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for theprosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,--wrath righteouson behalf of injured innocence,--which is so common with gentlemenemployed in the defence of criminals; but bowed and simpered, andnodded at Sir Gregory in a manner that was quite pleasant to behold.Nobody scolded anybody. There was no roaring of barristers, noclenching of fists and kicking up of dust, no threats, no allusionsto witnesses' oaths. A considerable amount of gentle fun was pokedat the witnesses by the defending counsel, but not in a manner togive any pain. Gentlemen who acknowledged to have received seventeenshillings and sixpence for their votes at the last election wereasked how they had invested their money. Allusions were made to theirwives, and a large amount of good-humoured sparring was allowed, inwhich the witnesses thought that they had the best of it. The menof Tankerville long remembered this trial, and hoped anxiously thatthere might soon be another. The only man treated with severity waspoor Phineas Finn, and luckily for himself he was not present. Hisqualifications as member of Parliament for Tankerville were somewhatroughly treated. Each witness there, when he was asked what candidatewould probably be returned for Tankerville at the next election,readily answered that Mr. Browborough would certainly carry the seat.Mr. Browborough sat in the Court throughout it all, and was the heroof the day.

  The judge's summing up was very short, and seemed to have been givenalmost with indolence. The one point on which he insisted was thedifference between such evidence of bribery as would deprive a manof his seat, and that which would make him subject to the criminallaw. By the criminal law a man could not be punished for the actsof another. Punishment must follow a man's own act. If a man wereto instigate another to murder he would be punished, not for themurder, but for the instigation. They were now administering thecriminal law, and they were bound to give their verdict for anacquittal unless they were convinced that the man on his trial hadhimself,--wilfully and wittingly,--been guilty of the crime imputed.He went through the evidence, which was in itself clear against theold sinner, and which had been in no instance validly contradicted,and then left the matter to the jury. The men in the box put theirheads together, and returned a verdict of acquittal without onemoment's delay. Sir Gregory Grogram and his assistants collectedtheir papers together. The judge addressed three or four words almostof compliment to Mr. Browborough, and the affair was over, to themanifest contentment of every one there present. Sir Gregory Grogramwas by no means disappointed, and everybody, on his own side inParliament and on the other, thought that he had done his duty verywell. The clean-sweeping Commissioners, who had been animated withwonderful zeal by the nature and novelty of their work, probably feltthat they had been betrayed, but it may be doubted whether any oneelse was disconcerted by the result of the trial, unless it might besome poor innocents here and there about the country who had beeninduced to believe that bribery and corruption were in truth to bebanished from the purlieus of Westminster.

  Mr. Roby and Mr. Ratler, who filled the same office each for his ownparty, in and out, were both acquainted with each other, and apt todiscuss parliamentary questions in the library and smoking-room ofthe House, where such discussions could be held on most matters."I was very glad that the case went as it did at Durham," said Mr.Ratler.

  "And so am I," said Mr. Roby. "Browborough was always a good fellow."

  "Not a doubt about it; and no good could have come from a conviction.I suppose there has been a little money spent at Tankerville."

  "And at other places one could mention," said Mr. Roby.

  "Of course there has;--and money will be spent again. Nobody dislikesbribery more than I do. The House, of course, dislikes it. But if aman loses his seat, surely that is punishment enough."

  "It's better to have to draw a cheque sometimes than to be out in thecold."

  "Nevertheless, members would prefer that their seats should not costthem so much," continued Mr. Ratler. "But the thing can't be done allat once. That idea of pouncing upon one man and making a victim ofhim is very disagreeable to me. I should have been sorry to have seena verdict against Browborough. You must acknowledge that there was nobitterness in the way in which Grogram did it."

  "We all feel that," said Mr. Roby,--who was, perhaps, by nature alittle more candid than his rival,--"and when the time comes no doubtwe shall return the compliment."

  The matter was discussed in quite a different spirit between twoother politicians. "So Sir Gregory has failed at Durham," said LordCantrip to his friend, Mr. Gresham.

  "I was sure he would."

  "And why?"

  "Ah;--why? How am I to answer such a question? Did you think that Mr.Browborough would be convicted of bribery by a jury?"

  "No, indeed," answered Lord Cantrip.

  "And can you tell me why?"

  "Because there was no earnestness in the matter,--either with theAttorney-General or with any one else."

  "And yet," said Mr. Gresham, "Grogram is a very earnest man when hebelieves in his case. No member of Parliament will ever be punishedfor bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally lookupon bribery as a crime. We are very far from that as yet. I shouldhave thought a conviction to be a great misfortune."

  "Why so?"

  "Because
it would have created ill blood, and our own hands in thismatter are not a bit cleaner than those of our adversaries. Wecan't afford to pull their houses to pieces before we have put ourown in order. The thing will be done; but it must, I fear, be doneslowly,--as is the case with all reforms from within."

  Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and whoconsequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity,felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almosttantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so wellthat bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a oneas Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by noneother than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have beenalmost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would havethought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to theoffence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me somuch," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk.

  "I can't go along with you there."

  "If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!"

  "I don't doubt it for a moment."

  "And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict."

  "Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such asthat,--political and not social in its nature,--a jury is sure tobe guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be thefeeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, andyet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all thosewho have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive."

  "Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas.

  "I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them.They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have beenhad they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in privatelife, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;--and theywill be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are stillcircumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue withno more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himselfat his front door though he happen to be at home."

  "What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?"

  "That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can thinkanything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and thejury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In politicalmatters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than hisneighbours,--and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have foundthat out before to-day."

  With Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas did find some sympathy;--but thenshe would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. Ifhe would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to thetop of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Squareas little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolutionby the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town inreference to himself and herself. But still he went. He never lefther till some promise of returning at some stated time had beenextracted from him. He had even told her of his own scruples and ofher danger,--and they had discussed together that last thunderboltwhich had fallen from the Jove of The People's Banner. But she hadlaughed his caution to scorn. Did she not know herself and her owninnocence? Was she not living in her father's house, and with herfather? Should she quail beneath the stings and venom of such areptile as Quintus Slide? "Oh, Phineas," she said, "let us be braverthan that." He would much prefer to have stayed away,--but still hewent to her. He was conscious of her dangerous love for him. He knewwell that it was not returned. He was aware that it would be best forboth that he should be apart. But yet he could not bring himself towound her by his absence. "I do not see why you should feel it somuch," she said, speaking of the trial at Durham.

  "We were both on our trial,--he and I."

  "Everybody knows that he bribed and that you did not."

  "Yes;--and everybody despises me and pats him on the back. I am sickof the whole thing. There is no honesty in the life we lead."

  "You got your seat at any rate."

  "I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the dirty wretchedplace," said he.

  "Oh, Phineas, do not say that."

  "But I do say it. Of what use is the seat to me? If I could only feelthat any one knew--"

  "Knew what, Phineas?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  "I understand. I know that you have meant to be honest, while thisman has always meant to be dishonest. I know that you have intendedto serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannotexpect that it should all be roses."

  "Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made ofgarlick and dandelions!"