There are dark curls and light, there are black eyes and blue, So the best of all healths is, 'the Maidens and Wives When a frank-hearted lad to their cottage rides up When the tyrant goes by who has trampled the poor You cannot deceive them; they very well know, And the best of all healths is, 'the Maidens and Wives The following is a list of the later members for Saint Ives, which since the Reform Bill has returned only one member to Parliament: 1833. James Halse. 1835. James Halse. 1837. James Halse (died 1838). 1838. William Tyringham Praed. 1839. William Tyringham Praed. 1846. Lord William Paulet. 1847. Lord William Paulet. 1852. Captain Robert M. Laffan, R.E. 1857. Henry Paul. 'Captain Laffan is an Irish man, He's got no business here; Mr Paul es nothan' at all, He weant lev us have no beer.' 1868. Charles Magniac. (Local rhyme.) 1874. E. G. Davenport (died same year). Charles Praed; unseated on petition, but afterwards 1875. Charles Praed re-elected. 1880. Sir Charles Reed (died same year). Sir John St. Aubyn (for the Saint Ives Division of West Cornwall. Raised to the peerage as Baron St. Levan in 1888). 1888. Thomas Bedford Bolitho (unopposed). In consequence of the Parliamentary Redistribution Bill of 1884, the borough of Saint Ives was extended to include the whole Land's End district, including Penzance. In the year 1874 occurred the memorable election in which Mr. Charles Praed was the Conservative candidate and Sir Francis Lycett the Liberal. Party feeling then ran very high. Mr. Praed having been elected, his opponent lodged a petition against the return, on the ground of bribery and corruption. Among the many persons of distinction in the world of law who came to Saint Ives to attend the inquiry into the alleged malpractices were Messrs. Lush and Hawkins, Q.C., afterwards Justices Lush and Hawkins. Mr. Praed was re-elected in the following year. The judicial examination of witnesses in the inquiry was held at the Town Hall. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SAINT IVES ELECTION OF 1768. IN the year 1768 there was an election of two members of Parliament for the borough of Saint Ives, the candidates being Thomas Durrant, Adam Drummond, James Johnstone, and John Stevens. Ever since Saint Ives became a borough, and especially since the election of 1660, there had been (as will be seen from our chapter on the Members of Parliament) much controversy as to the qualification for a voter in this town. One party claimed that all the inhabitants paying 'scot and lot' were entitled to vote; the other were for confining the privilege to the capital burgesses. This question was, in the year 1702, decided in favour of the larger franchise. The important lawsuit of Johnstone v. Hichens, of which we will now give some interesting particulars, derived from the original documents used at the trial, in 1768, arose out of an attempt by the borough authorities to confine the ratepayers to their own supporters. The issue was raised, according to the roundabout procedure of those times, in the form of a disputed gambling debt, the plaintiff claiming that he had bet the defendant ten pounds that the poor rate of 1767 was not a fair one—that it had proved to be not a fair one in fact, but that the defendant had, nevertheless, refused to pay up. In reply the defendant pleaded that the said rate had proved to be a fair one, and that plaintiff had therefore not won the bet. The question then to be decided was whether such poor rate was fair or not. The following is an abridgment of the brief for the plaintiff Kings Bench. Cornwall to wit. The Plaintiffs Case. The Plt & John Stevens of Lincolns Innfields in the County of Middsex Esq', together with Adam Drummond & Thos Durant |