In other places,
where rival influences clashed, bribery would decide the day. For in
contested elections, the voting lasted forty days, during which time
the price of votes might rise to L25 or more. Votes might be purchased
with safety, too, for voting was public and any one might learn from
the poll-book how each man had voted. Not infrequently it cost several
thousand pounds to carry such an election.
[Sidenote: "Rotten Boroughs"]
We may summarize these evils by saying that the peasants and artisans
generally were not allowed to vote, and that the methods of election
gave rise to corruption. But this was not all. There was neither rhyme
nor reason to be found in the distribution of representation between
different sections of the country. Old Sarum had once been a prosperous
village and had been accorded representation, but after the village had
disappeared, leaving to view but a lonely hill, no one in England could
have told why two members should still sit for Old Sarum. Nor, for that
matter, could there have been much need of representation in Parliament
for the sea-coast town of Dunwich.
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